While we are enjoined to provide for the general welfare by the Constitution, a basic income is a difficult fit for our Classical Liberal orientation. While the Keynesian practice of manipulating aggregate demand is now accepted by all, the theoretical implications of that practice are all too often interpreted as somehow Marxist. As a market intervention the practice is excepted by Classical Liberalism but there is no question of property and ownership involved. It is not Marxist. Further, manipulating aggregate demand by borrowing has some fairly obscure origins in the work of Alexander Hamilton who is not remotely Marxist.
Confronted by creative/destruction we have in this country evolved a safety net for our high wire economic free-for-all. This program environment, funded by grants and legislative appropriations of elective nature, periodic windfalls, and adjustments to working conditions are how we deal with innovation in the workplace.
Does AI require a different approach? Is it a different phenomenon?
The answer is yes and no. The AI revolution both raises and lowers the bar to full economic participation, to meaning. Although one no longer needs to be a theoretical physicist to be a player in western civilization, one does require the intelligence, paradigms, and database to understand what AI is doing. Below that threshold capability, AI deselects to the point of dispossession. Above that threshold, it empowers, engendering a massive polarization in society.
Logically it should result in a closed AI driven machine economy using human directive intelligence. Access to that economy will mean empowerment beyond imagination, especially if it takes the form of human scale shops and bespoke production. Without that access one is reduced to a flesh market segment as aggregate demand per se. That is the problem of basic income defined: how do we facilitate the transition to a sophisticated, renewable, sustainable economy while not feeding the rough beasts of ennui and nihilism. In that analysis of self-defense of meaningful social existence are a huge number of philosophical questions that must be answered.
Basic income is not a matter just of ballots but of funding and structure. As AI dislocates, the question will be before us constantly.
As to funding, AI is no more than a mechanical working animal and as such subject to licensing and regulation by precedent and legal theory. That needs to be the source of the funds for the elective appropriations of a program environment and it needs to be a global phenomenon in order to create a level playing field.
What of the nature of this program environment?
I can see no better solution to technological dislocation than continuing education, sophisticated vocational training, and access to various forms of venture capital. Participation is a matter of talent, AI empowerment, and venue.
Basic income could be used with those fully participating as a powerful tool for managing aggregate demand and growth but it lacks appeal as a direct address of creative/destruction and is ridiculous as wealth redistribution. Raiding other people's bank accounts is absolutely a bad practice.
Do Well and Be Well.
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