Standing as I am on the firm and ancient ground of Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall and their brilliant heirs, John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter, the view is crystal clear. We are in midst of a monumental change in our socioeconomic terms of existence. That change must absolutely be dealt with if our or any rational economic system is to survive in recognizable form.
This is not commensurable with any technological change that has happened previously so I do not want to hear about how we adjusted to the IBM 360. How many bank clerks do you know? We didn't adjust. We just swept the damage under the rug and this, AI and physical AI, is orders of magnitude more destructive. Schumpeter, in his grand construct of creative destruction, did not I assure you mean to imply that for every job lost a new job would be created favoring the same talents. Reality is messier than that.
I do not favor a UBI because we are entitled to it. Yes, it's a logical necessity if civilization is to survive but that's hardly an entitlement. I favor a UBI because I favor capitalism and in order to keep out of the degenerate spiral of automation destroying jobs and crippling aggregate demand we must create and rationally fund it.
Read back through a few blogs and you will see a rational fix of a situation that rapidly dangerously developing. For your inspection...
Do Well and Be Well
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