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USBIG NewsFlash Vol. 15, No. 72, March-April 2014

By Karl Widerquist  Posted by Scott Baker (about the submitter)       (Page 12 of 29 pages) Become a premium member to see this article and all articles as one long page.   No comments

Publication information for the issue: James J. Hughes, (editor) " Technological Unemployment and the Basic Income Guarantee": special issue of the Journal of Evolution and Technology (Volume 24 Issue 1), March 7, 2014. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/jet201403

 

This issue contains the following articles:

 

James J. Hughes "[Introduction] Are Technological Unemployment and a Basic Income Guarantee Inevitable or Desirable?" Journal of Evolution and Technology 24 Issue 1, February 2014, pages 1-4. http://jetpress.org/v24/hughes1.htm

 

Mark Walker, "BIG and Technological Unemployment: Chicken Little Versus the Economists," Journal of Evolution and Technology 24 Issue 1, February 2014, pages 5-25. http://jetpress.org/v24/walker.htm

ABSTRACT: The paper rehearses arguments for and against the prediction of massive technological unemployment. The main argument in favor is that robots are entering a large number of industries, making more expensive human labor redundant. The main argument against the prediction is that for two hundred years we have seen a massive increase in productivity with no long term structural unemployment caused by automation. The paper attempts to move past this argumentative impasse by asking what humans contribute to the supply side of the economy. Historically, humans have contributed muscle and brains to production but we are now being outcompeted by machinery, in both areas, in many jobs. It is argued that this supports the conjecture that massive unemployment is a likely result. It is also argued that a basic income guarantee is a minimal remedial measure to mitigate the worst effects of technological unemployment.

 

Gary E. Marchant, Yvonne A. Stevens and James M. Hennessy, "Technology, Unemployment & Policy Options: Navigating the Transition to a Better World," Journal of Evolution and Technology 24 Issue 1, February 2014, pages 26-44. http://jetpress.org/v24/marchant.htm

ABSTRACT: There is growing concern that emerging technologies such as computers, robotics and artificial intelligence are displacing human jobs, creating an epidemic of "technological unemployment."   While this projection has yet to be confirmed, if true it will have major economic and social repercussions for our future.   It is therefore appropriate to begin identifying policy options to address this potential problem.   This article offers an economic and social framework for addressing this problem, and then provides an inventory of possible policy options organized into the following six categories: (a) slowing innovation and change; (b) sharing work; (c) making new work; (d) redistribution; (e) education; and (f) fostering a new social contract.

 

James J. Hughes, "A Strategic Opening for a Basic Income Guarantee: in the Global Crisis Being Created by AI, Robots, Desktop Manufacturing and BioMedicine," Journal of Evolution and Technology 24, Issue 1. February 2014, pages 45-61. http://jetpress.org/v24/hughes2.htm

ABSTRACT: Robotics and artificial intelligence are beginning to fundamentally change the relative profitability and productivity of investments in capital versus human labor, creating technological unemployment at all levels of the workforce, from the North to the developing world. As robotics and expert systems become cheaper and more capable the percentage of the population that can find employment will also fall, stressing economies already trying to curtail "entitlements" and adopt austerity. Two additional technology-driven trends will exacerbate the structural unemployment crisis in the coming decades, desktop manufacturing and anti-aging medicine. Desktop manufacturing threatens to disintermediate the half of all workers involved in translating ideas into products in the hands of consumers, while anti-aging therapies will increase the old age dependency ratio of retirees to tax-paying workers. Policies that are being proposed to protect or create employment will have only a temporary moderating effect on job loss. Over time these policies, which will impose raise costs, lower the quality of goods and services, and lower competitiveness, will become fiscally impossible and lose political support. In order to enjoy the benefits of technological innovation and longer, healthier lives we will need to combine policies that control the pace of replacing paid human labor with a universal basic income guarantee (BIG) provided through taxation and the public ownership of wealth.   The intensifying debate over the reform of "entitlements" will be the strategic opening for a campaign for BIG to replace disability and unemployment insurance, Social Security, and other elements of the welfare state.

 

Jamie Bronstein, "A History of the BIG Idea: Winstanley, Paine, Skidmore and Bellamy," Journal of Evolution and Technology 24, Issue 1. February 2014 , pages 62-69. http://jetpress.org/v24/bronstein.htm

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Scott Baker is a Managing Editor & The Economics Editor at Opednews, and a former blogger for Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Global Economic Intersection.

His anthology of updated Opednews articles "America is Not Broke" was published by Tayen Lane Publishing (March, 2015) and may be found here:
http://www.americaisnotbroke.net/

Scott is a former and current President of Common Ground-NY (http://commongroundnyc.org/), a Geoist/Georgist activist group. He has written dozens of (more...)
 

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