A Guaranteed Annual Income

I have been thinking and reading about the implications of the coming robot revolution ever since I wrote my first post about it. The essence of that post is that artificial intelligence (AI) and robots have been steadily increasing in computational ability and they are about to put almost everyone out of work. In fact, some observers suggest that this is already happening: this is why the unemployment rate has stayed so stubbornly high in the last few years. There are economists who forecast 50 to 75 percent unemployment twenty years from now. What would this mean? How would people live without jobs?

Economist Paul Krugman wrote a column last summer called “Sympathy for the Luddites,” in which he suggests a basic income for everyone is the only solution.

This fall, activists in Switzerland collected enough signatures to bring a referendum to the ballot that calls for a minimum income for every citizen in the country. When the group brought the petitions to Parliament, they also brought a truck filled with 8 million coins, one for every Swiss citizen. If enacted, the measure would guarantee an income of about $2800 per month per citizen, regardless of any other income.

Business Insider published an interview with Daniel Straub, one of the people who initiated the Swiss referendum, and Straub linked the concept of a minimum income to the future of robots:

BI: Why choose a minimum income rather than, say, a higher minimum wage?
DS: A minimum wage reduces freedom — because it is an additional rule. It tries to fix a system that has been outdated for a while. It is time to partly disconnect human labor and income. We are living in a time where machines do a lot of the manual labor — that is great — we should be celebrating.

I agree with Straub that we should celebrate this—I imagine our robot future in a very positive way—but of course there are many dystopian views. I guess that’s not surprising in our culture, where the movie industry constantly pumps out films portraying a bleak future where the machines rule, the earth is devastated, and humankind fights for survival.

Three Stooges History Lesson

I recently watched “Cash and Carry,” a Three Stooges film from 1937, and was surprised by its political message. The Stooges live in a city dump (which alone makes this short worth watching—the trash is almost all tin cans with a few tires and some broken wagon wheels). After an absence they return home to find a teen-age girl and her little brother, who has one leg in a brace, living in the Stooges’ shack at the back of the dump.

The Stooges dig around in the trash and find money in a tin can. When they find out it’s what the girl has been saving for the boy’s leg operation, the Stooges say they’ll put it in a safer place—a bank—and the boy asks “But will they give it back to us?” Curly replies, “Oh sure, they didn’t used to but now they do.” This is clearly a reference to the bank runs of the early 1930’s before the FDIC was created by Franklin Roosevelt’s administration. At that time if a bank run happened and the bank closed you lost whatever money you had deposited (hence the panic that caused bank runs).

When the Stooges go to a bank they discover it would take 100 years to “grow” the money from the $62 they have to the $500 needed for the operation, so as they leave a couple of con men grab them and promise they will take them to a place where treasure is buried.

They’re dropped off at a nice home and the Stooges proceed to tear it up. When they’re digging in the basement they end up breaking into the U.S. Treasury vault. They’re caught as they attempt to leave with gold bars and bags of bills. The last scene shows the Stooges and the girl and her brother in the Oval Office with President Roosevelt. The President says he will make sure the boy gets his operation and will extend executive clemency to the Stooges. Of course Curly misunderstands and says “No way!” so Moe bops him on the head and explains that means they’re free. Curly turns toward FDR and says, “Gee Mr. President, you’re a swell guy!” and Moe adds, “You said it,” as all three look gratefully towards the president.

People today take the protections provided by the federal government so for granted. That’s why it’s easy for conservatives to make the argument that federal regulations hurt the economy. The Three Stooges provide a pleasant history lesson.