Articolo aggiornato il 7/3/2014. Article updated on 3/7/2014.

It is becoming more and more obvious that automation, robots, mechanization, and other forms of productivity increases will warrant a change in our economic system. Though outsourcing and people lacking adequate skills for certain jobs is also part of the reason, technological unemployment, eventually leading to structural unemployment, is not given much attention and will become more of an issue as we move into the future. If we don’t prepare for it and allow the issue to grow while trying to preserve the obsolete model, there will be systemic collapse. We can either do this the easier way or the hard way. We can smoothly transition and the issues will be minimized, or we can continue with business as usual and things will surely get worse before they get better.

There are plenty of reasons people are replaced with machines and robots as they become cheaper and better than the person. A robot does not get tired, can work 24/7, can be much cheaper than hiring and training someone, can cause the lowering of prices of the good or service, they don’t show up late, don’t need vacations or bathroom breaks, can make less errors, don’t show up late, don’t quit,  don’t complain or argue, are more precise thus minimizing waste or material, increase productivity, don’t misbehave, bad customer service is a non-issue, and don’t goof off, etc.

The only real way to change the system in a general sense is to find ways to shorten the mandatory 40 hour workweek in an affordable way to both small business owners and employees. A basic income guarantee combined with a shorter mandatory workweek could do this combined with tax breaks for small business owners, so they would be encouraged to hire more people. A basic income guarantee or unconditional basic income of $10,000 to $12,000 or beyond (depending on the cost of living) for all citizens is the way to go, but raising it slightly more might be necessary. It could be funded through gradually replacing our broken welfare system where much of the money is wasted on admin costs. Also by making our government institutions more efficient to make them cheaper and more effective, and it would reduce crime, thus reducing prison costs. Automation of certain government jobs would also save tax money which could also be diverted to the BIG, like how they are automating the military and want to automate construction. It would also give more people incentive to work than our current welfare system in the USA since you don’t get it taken away if you get a job and don’t risk not being able to get it back. It is also better than our welfare system in the sense that you don’t have to worry about all the complicated rules and big brother getting in your way, and if you quit or lose your job for whatever reason, you don’t really have to worry much about homelessness, which helps balance the power between employer and employee (having some workplace democracies would help too in our society). It could perhaps even be vouchered on card to an extent, similar to food stamps or SNAP. Maybe $8,000 can be vouchered while $2,000 isn’t depending on how much rent costs, in order to give some additional freedom to the person. Ending the war on drugs to a degree can also help fund it, as well as less wasteful military spending. Tax increases on the wealthy may not be necessary in the short term. A person could work 20 hours a week on a minimum wage job (Oregon minimum wage of $9.10/hr, for example) and make slightly more with that income combined with a basic income guarantee than they would if they worked 40 hours a week without one. It would make many programs, such as homeless shelters obsolete, and more people would choose to do part time work (1 part time job instead of more than one) since it would be more affordable (one day it would become the standard work week), and raising minimum wage would not be an issue. The EU is currently in the process of petitioning for the BIG, though it may not pass this time around. It isn’t a perfect system, but better than our existing system.

We may also need to change our healthcare system to replace medicare with a universal healthcare option while leaving the private healthcare companies intact; otherwise the BIG alone wouldn’t be enough to cover the cost for those with medical issues who have to pay insurance in a private manner and may not have a job. Combining the healthcare system in such a way along with preventative healthcare, people would have the advantages of choice, universal access, but also the universal option would be much cheaper since many would still choose to get their insurance from a company, either because they are happy with what they got and don’t want to risk getting something worse, or simply because they mistrust government. Maybe a manageable constitutional electronic direct democracy would be the way to go in the future to reduce government corruption and admin costs and make it more for the people.

As automation increases, we would continue to raise the basic income guarantee or a stimpent for each citizen while shortening work weeks. As Marshall Brain puts it, we could distribute the wealth and also gradually shorten work weeks, similar to how we changed our system during the great depression where the 40 hour work week became standard in the USA and when social security and retirement in the USA came into being. Increasing the basic income guarantee too much may disincentivize people from working through employment, so you would try to raise it to correspond with the decrease in demand of human workers per capita. Maybe one day far enough into the future, you would have a world similar to Star Trek in the sense that the number of volunteers would exceed the number of positions available, even if each worked only 2 or 3 hours a day, and with all our basic needs supplied to us as well as most luxuries and people owning nano-fabricators as well as nanobots that can self replicate, we would have close to unlimited free time. The motivation for working for those who want something to do would just be because they want to find meaning, not because they need to be a wage slave or corporate slave, and the dehumanization and objectification that is so common within our system as the term ‘human capital’ or ‘civil servant’ makes apparent would be drastically reduced. Maybe we would tax the robots in order to put money into people’s pockets so they can have the purchasing power to buy the stuff that robots produce. We would likely have to find ways to change the tax code too, of course automation in government would reduce taxes too, perhaps. But at this point, our idea of economic growth would have to become obsolete since big corporations run by robots would have a difficult time growing unless demand increased; of course corporate owners can trade among themselves as well if demand in one company increases at the expense of another. But the fact is that growth cannot continue forever assuming we are stuck on this planet for a much longer time and it isn’t sustainable, which would collapse the system as well. Also, factories may become obsolete to a large degree when people have advanced 3D printers, or better yet nano-fabricators. 4D printing (self adapting structures created by 3D printers) along with the other tech mentioned would make the profit motive pretty much obsolete.

We cannot be sure what the specifics of economic change will be, but it is at least obvious we will need to have some form of a BIG and shorter mandatory workweeks to employ more people in the short term to reduce social unrest and keep the system going, and also with more free time means more freedom, so those who want to work more can always volunteer, do yard work, do hobbies, write articles and freeware, help out in a community, or some jobs would offer overtime, or they can spend time with other responsibilities that are neglected, like being there for loved ones, exercise, research, creativity, hygiene, or keeping the place clean, but we will one day have robots and new methods on a much wider scale that currently exists to make these chores faster and easier and perhaps even have nanobots in our bodies to keep us healthy and live longer, if the individual chooses to want these things.

Gary D.