universal basic income

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Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy by Andrew Yang

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Amazon Web Services, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, basic income, benefit corporation, Bernie Sanders, blockchain, blue-collar work, call centre, centre right, clean water, contact tracing, coronavirus, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, data is the new oil, data science, deepfake, disinformation, Donald Trump, facts on the ground, fake news, forensic accounting, future of work, George Floyd, gig economy, global pandemic, income inequality, independent contractor, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Kevin Roose, labor-force participation, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, medical bankruptcy, new economy, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, pez dispenser, QAnon, recommendation engine, risk tolerance, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, Sam Altman, Saturday Night Live, shareholder value, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, single-payer health, Snapchat, social distancing, SoftBank, surveillance capitalism, systematic bias, tech billionaire, TED Talk, The Day the Music Died, the long tail, TikTok, universal basic income, winner-take-all economy, working poor

They believed that the movement needed a figurehead, and they wanted me to avoid being seen as simply a one-issue candidate. Over time I’ve learned that they were right. People don’t listen to ideas. People listen to other people. We tested the appeal of universal basic income through a polling firm. We tried out different names for it: “universal basic income,” “Social Security for all,” “prosperity dividend,” “income for all.” We found that every term tested around the same level for self-described Democrats; around 30 percent of people liked “universal basic income,” with minor variation. But one name stuck out as getting the same appeal among self-described conservatives: “freedom dividend.” That’s what we went with; the data had spoken.

Isn’t it time for an upgrade? I am going to suggest some measures that would at least help us get a read on the depth of our problems and start moving our communities forward. UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME Okay, this one may seem a little familiar to those who read my last book or supported my presidential campaign. Making the economy work for us starts with implementing a universal basic income. Universal basic income is a policy where everyone in a society gets a certain amount of money to meet their basic needs. During my campaign, I championed UBI as the freedom dividend, which would have meant $1,000 a month for every American adult.

I hope this book will inspire the same kind of deep reflection in you as my experiences over the past few years inspired in me. My last book, The War on Normal People, was about the ongoing dehumanization of our economy and the need to adopt universal basic income (UBI) and how it offers us the best chance to evolve to the next stage of capitalism. That is probably how you first heard about me: as the 2020 presidential candidate who wanted to give everyone money. The War on Normal People had a powerful but narrow goal: to address the crisis in our economy by promoting universal basic income. That book was published in the spring of 2018, just as I was beginning to campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination. Three and a half years later, I still have the same vision and concerns.


pages: 307 words: 82,680

A Pelican Introduction: Basic Income by Guy Standing

"World Economic Forum" Davos, anti-fragile, bank run, basic income, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Black Lives Matter, Black Swan, Boris Johnson, British Empire, carbon tax, centre right, collective bargaining, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, declining real wages, degrowth, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial intermediation, full employment, future of work, gig economy, Gunnar Myrdal, housing crisis, hydraulic fracturing, income inequality, independent contractor, intangible asset, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, job satisfaction, Joi Ito, labour market flexibility, land value tax, libertarian paternalism, low skilled workers, lump of labour, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, mass incarceration, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, nudge theory, offshore financial centre, open economy, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, precariat, quantitative easing, randomized controlled trial, rent control, rent-seeking, Salesforce, Sam Altman, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, Stephen Hawking, The Future of Employment, universal basic income, Wolfgang Streeck, women in the workforce, working poor, Y Combinator, Zipcar

Auckland, New Zealand: Public Interest Publishing. 22. A. Stern (2016), Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream. New York: PublicAffairs. 23. C. Holtz (2016), ‘The Panama Papers prove it: America can afford a universal basic income’, Guardian, 8 April. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/07/panama-papers-taxes-universal-basic-income-public-services. 24. J. S. Henry (2012), The Price of Offshore Revisited. Chesham, UK: Tax Justice Network. 25. G. Mankiw (2016), ‘A quick note on a universal basic income’, Greg Mankiw’s Blog, 12 July. http://gregmankiw.blogspot.ch/2016/07/a-quick-note-on-universal-basic-income.html 26.

Colchester: Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, June. https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/research/publications/working-papers/euromod/em5-16. 17. A. Painter and C. Thoung (2015), Creative Citizen, Creative State – The Principled and Pragmatic Case for a Universal Basic Income. London: Royal Society of Arts. 18. A. Painter (2015), ‘In support of a universal basic income – Introducing the RSA basic income model’, Royal Society of Arts blog, 16 December. 19. Reed and Lansley, Universal Basic Income. 20. J. Birch (2012), ‘The problem of rent: Why Beveridge failed to tackle the cost of housing’, Guardian, 22 November. 21. G. Morgan and S. Guthrie (2011), The Big Kahuna: Turning Tax and Welfare in New Zealand on Its Head.

In September 2016, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the UK’s umbrella union body, voted in favour of the following motion endorsing the principles of basic income: Congress notes the growing popularity of the idea of a ‘Universal Basic Income’ with a variety of models being discussed here and around the world. Congress believes that the TUC should acknowledge Universal Basic Income and argue for a progressive system that would be easier to administer, easier for people to navigate, paid individually and that is complementary to comprehensive public services and childcare provision. The transition from our current system to any new system that incorporates these principles should always leave people with lower incomes better off.


pages: 177 words: 38,221

Financing Basic Income: Addressing the Cost Objection by Richard Pereira

banks create money, basic income, behavioural economics, carbon credits, carbon tax, income inequality, job automation, Lyft, new economy, offshore financial centre, Paul Buchheit, quantitative easing, sovereign wealth fund, Tobin tax, transfer pricing, uber lyft, universal basic income, unpaid internship, Wall-E

In his chapter Pereira contends that if we first address tax leakages, such as tax evasion and avoidance through tax havens and numerous tax shelters, personal income taxes do not have to be raised to provide a universal basic income. A personal tax cut could be implemented along with introduction of basic income Pereira claims, as savings from programme redundancies are so significant, combined with addressing tax leakage. Other proposals may focus on increasing corporate income taxation rates, which have been reduced in many countries by substantial amounts in recent decades, as a financing measure. Large-scale government subsidies and tax exemptions for corporate enterprises (corporate welfare) are also often targeted as being better redirected to a universal basic income. Some proposals focus on value-added taxes (VAT) or consumption taxes to raise most or all of the additional revenue that may be needed to finance a basic income.

A Canadian case study is used to demonstrate that the cost savings of implementing basic income are often greatly underestimated or neglected, and that personal income taxes do not need to be raised. Personal income taxes could be reduced while implementing a decent basic income. Keywords Universal basic income Cost Savings Public finance Demogrant Negative income tax (NIT) INTRODUCTION This study demonstrates that a universal basic income (UBI) or guaranteed income at a level sufficient to cover essential needs (at the official poverty line or higher) is affordable. It provides a response to a popular objection by R. Pereira (*) University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK © The Author(s) 2017 R.

They and many others leave a legacy and path towards transformative change in the fields of health care, ecological understanding, care work, economics and the foundation of basic income, or guaranteed income. vii CONTENTS 1 Introduction: Financing Approaches to Basic Income Richard Pereira 1 Part 1 Foundations for a Basic Income Guarantee 2 The Cost of Universal Basic Income: Public Savings and Programme Redundancy Exceed Cost Richard Pereira 9 Part 2 Cost Feasibility of Basic Income in Europe 3 Financing Basic Income in Switzerland, and an Overview of the 2016 Referendum Debates Albert Jörimann 49 Part 3 Building Up BIG 4 Total Economic Rents of Australia as a Source for Basic Income Gary Flomenhoft 77 ix x CONTENTS 5 Conclusion Richard Pereira 101 Appendix 1 107 Appendix 2 109 Index 113 LIST Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 OF FIGURES Economic rent from oil extraction Total Australian land prices 1989–2014 80 86 xi LIST Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 Table 3.4 Table 3.5 Table 3.6 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 OF TABLES Gross cost of the basic income in Switzerland (2012) Earned income/month with BI at CHF 2,500/month and clearing payment scale Income classes in Switzerland (2010) Clearing payment Social insurances, total expenses and part of expenses creditable to the BI account Hypothetical model for additional income tax for incomes above CHF 30,000 per year Total resource rents of Australia Economic rent minus existing revenue 51 54 55 56 57 63 84 96 xiii CHAPTER 1 Introduction: Financing Approaches to Basic Income Richard Pereira Abstract The different ways in which basic income can be financed are set out in this chapter as a guide to reading the book.


Basic Income And The Left by henningmeyer

basic income, Bernie Sanders, carbon tax, centre right, eurozone crisis, income inequality, Jeremy Corbyn, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, labour market flexibility, land value tax, means of production, mini-job, moral hazard, precariat, quantitative easing, Silicon Valley, technological determinism, the market place, Tobin tax, universal basic income

Basic Income And Social Democracy 4. Why Basic Income Can Never Be A Progressive Solution - A Response To Van Parijs 5. The Euro-Dividend 6. Basic Income Pilots: A Better Option Than Quantitative Easing 7. Why The Universal Basic Income Is Not The Best Public Intervention To Reduce Poverty Or Income Inequality 8. The Worldwide March To Basic Income: Thank You Switzerland! 9. Universal Basic Income: A Disarmingly Simple Idea – And Fad 10. Unconditional Basic Income Is A Dead End 11. Basic Income Is A Tonic Catalyser: A Response To Anke Hassel 12. Basic Income And Institutional Transformation 13. No Need For Basic Income: Five Policies To Deal With The Threat Of Technological Unemployment 14.

An alternative approach is needed desperately. A pilot scheme would give policymakers a wonderful opportunity to see if it would work. It is not as if feeding the bankers has done more than restore bankers’ bonuses to disgusting heights. 7 WHY THE UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME IS NOT THE BEST PUBLIC INTERVENTION TO REDUCE POVERTY OR INCOME INEQUALITY BY VICENTE NAVARRO (24 MAY 2016) There is no uniform interpretation of Universal Basic Income (UBI). The simplest definition may be that UBI is a public program in which the state (at any level—national, regional, or local) transfers to everyone the same amount of money (usually similar to the level of income that defines a country’s poverty line).

For both these reasons, the Swiss citizens who 58 59 devoted a tremendous amount of time, energy and imagination to the yes campaign deserve the warm gratitude not only of the basic income movement worldwide, but of all those fighting for a free society 9 and a sane economy. UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME: A DISARMINGLY SIMPLE IDEA – AND FAD BY ROBIN WILSON (9 JUNE 2016) Universal basic income is a disarmingly simple idea based on a disarmingly simple premise. The digital revolution threatens massive technological unem‐ ployment; ergo, every citizen should be paid a basic income regardless. Like all simple ideas, however, things get more complicated on closer scrutiny.


Universal Basic Income and the Reshaping of Democracy: Towards a Citizens’ Stipend in a New Political Order by Burkhard Wehner

basic income, business cycle, full employment, universal basic income

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE Burkhard Wehner Universal Basic Income and the Reshaping of Democracy Towards a Citizens’ Stipend in a New Political Order SpringerBriefs in Political Science More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8871 Burkhard Wehner Universal Basic Income and the Reshaping of Democracy Towards a Citizens’ Stipend in a New Political Order 123 Burkhard Wehner Horst, Germany ISSN 2191-5466 ISSN 2191-5474 (electronic) SpringerBriefs in Political Science ISBN 978-3-030-05827-2 ISBN 978-3-030-05828-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05828-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964044 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright.

. . . . . . 9.1 Two Basic Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2 Formation of Consciousness . . . . . . . 9.3 The Political Detour as a Shortcut . . . 9.4 The Future of Basic Income Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 57 59 59 61 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 1 Introduction The discussion of universal basic income has come to a deadlock. So far, the questions whether, when, where, and how a universal basic income could eventually be put into political practice have played a minor role in this discussion. However, these questions belong not at the end, but at the beginning of the debate. This line of inquiry brings the political logic of basic income into focus.

In the light of this logic, the institutions and rules of conventional democracy are shown to be insuperable barriers to universal basic income—barriers not only to concrete political implementation, but also to large-scale and nationwide basic income experiments. In the context of present democracies, basic income would neither find sufficient support with voters, nor could it be implemented with the exceptional foresight and competence necessary for such a project. This book outlines alternative political institutions, rules, and strategies that could eventually make universal basic income politically viable. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 B.


pages: 95 words: 6,448

Mending the Net: Toward Universal Basic Incomes by Chris Oestereich

Abraham Maslow, basic income, en.wikipedia.org, future of work, Future Shock, Overton Window, profit motive, rent-seeking, The Future of Employment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, universal basic income

Mending the Net Toward Universal Basic Incomes Chris Oestereich Mending the Net: Toward Universal Basic Incomes by Chris Oestereich Copyright © 2016 by The Wicked Problems Collaborative LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the publisher or author(s). The authors and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions.

If I want to spend all my time helping others, but no one is willing to pay me enough to cover my needs, I’d better have deep enough pockets to live off of. But what if we had a different system, one in which our primary needs were taken care of? What might that system look like? A universal basic income program, that would help everyone take care of their needs, is one possible answer to that question. Can it help? Given a monthly payment that set a moderate income floor, but didn’t remove the support provided by other safety net programs (things like Medicare, SNAP, and WIC), the question about universal basic incomes is not whether they would help those who are struggling to make ends meet (they would), but whether they might create any undesirable macroeconomic effects like runaway inflation, so that’s something I think we should take great care in thinking through.

Is it a perfect cure-all? Universal basic incomes appear to have a lot to offer in improving the way that society functions, but we shouldn't expect them to fix our every economic woe. It may seem obvious, or even ridiculous, to state that, but in proposing an idea that would be a significant departure from the way our economy currently functions, it’s incumbent on agitators to be honest about what they believe the changes could and could not achieve, as well as about any potential downsides those changes might foster. With that in mind, I believe that universal basic incomes would help deliver more broadly just economic outcomes, in which suffering due to financial shortcomings could be greatly reduced.


pages: 173 words: 53,564

Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn by Chris Hughes

"World Economic Forum" Davos, basic income, Donald Trump, effective altruism, Elon Musk, end world poverty, full employment, future of journalism, gig economy, high net worth, hockey-stick growth, income inequality, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, job automation, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, Lyft, M-Pesa, Mark Zuckerberg, meta-analysis, new economy, oil rush, payday loans, Peter Singer: altruism, Potemkin village, precariat, randomized controlled trial, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, side hustle, side project, Silicon Valley, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, traveling salesman, trickle-down economics, uber lyft, universal basic income, winner-take-all economy, working poor, working-age population, zero-sum game

“Basic Income: The World’s Simplest Plan to End Poverty, Explained.” Vox, April 25, 2016. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-basic-income/. ———. “A New Study Debunks One of the Biggest Arguments against Basic Income.” Vox, September 20, 2017. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/20/16256240/mexico-cash-transfer-inflation-basic-income. ———. “Study: A Universal Basic Income Would Grow the Economy.” Vox, August 30, 2017. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/30/16220134/universal-basic-income-roosevelt-institute-economic-growth. Maxfield, Michelle. “The Effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit on Child Achievement and Long-Term Educational Attainment.”

Accessed November 9, 2017. https://www.newamerica.org/open-markets/understanding-monopoly/monopoly-and-inequality/. Nikiforos, Michalis, Marshall Steinbaum, and Gennaro Zezza. “Modeling the Macroeconomic Effects of a Universal Basic Income.” Roosevelt Institute, August 2017. http://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Modeling-the-Macroeconomic-Effects-of-a-Universal-Basic-Income.pdf. Nixon, Richard. “Address to the Nation on Domestic Programs.” Speech, August 8, 1969. Accessed at American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2191. O’Donovan, Caroline, and Jeremy Singer-Vine.

Forbes, May 25, 2015. https://www.forbes.com/sites/elainepofeldt/2015/05/25/shocker-40-of-workers-now-have-contingent-jobs-says-u-s-government/#3125467714be. Poo, Ai-jen. The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America. New Press, 2016. Price, Anne. “Universal Basic Income: Reclaiming Our Time for Racial Justice.” Medium, October 31, 2017. https://medium.com/@InsightCCED/universal-basic-income-reclaiming-our-time-for-racial-justice-45de349ea06f. Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster, 2001. Rachidi, Angela. “America’s Work Problem: How Addressing the Reasons People Don’t Work Can Reduce Poverty.”


Battling Eight Giants: Basic Income Now by Guy Standing

basic income, Bernie Sanders, carbon tax, centre right, collective bargaining, decarbonisation, degrowth, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Extinction Rebellion, full employment, future of work, Gini coefficient, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), job automation, labour market flexibility, Lao Tzu, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, open economy, pension reform, precariat, quantitative easing, rent control, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, universal basic income, Y Combinator

A Report for the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, London: Progressive Economy Forum, May 2019. 14 A. Percy, ‘Forget the Universal Basic Income – Here’s an Idea That Would Truly Transform Our Society’, Left Foot Forward, 15 October 2018. 15 See, for instance, Percy, ‘Forget the Universal Basic Income’. 16 Cited in A. Grant, ‘Universal Basic Income Is Attempt to “Euthanise the Working Class as a Concept”’, The Herald (Scotland), 17 August 2018. 17 For a review of evidence gathered in over 30 years of research and the conduct of pilots in many places, see Standing, Basic Income. 18 A. Coote with E. Yazici, Universal Basic Income: A Union Perspective (New Economics Foundation and Public Services International, 130 Notes April 2019), p. 37.

If one household received it, and the next-door neighbour did not, similar pressures would arise. 15 The Indian pilots included a post-final evaluation survey, to see what happened once the receipt of basic income stopped, and a legacy survey conducted three years afterwards, primarily to see what recidivism had occurred and what changes were sustained or continued to grow. 16 M. Brown, ‘Universal Basic Income: Sheffield Is Largest UK City Yet to Support Trial’, Inverse, 12 June 2019; H. Gold, ‘Sheffield Council Backs Universal Basic Income Trial’, The Guardian, 12 June 2019. 17 The Scottish part of the Institute for Public Policy Research has attacked the proposal for a basic income in Scotland, claiming it would not reduce child poverty, to which RSA Scotland has responded robustly.

In Appendix C 113 effect, their taxes would pay for others to benefit and, as with housing and food, the implied targeting might create resentment. A model of modest fares plus subsidies would ultimately be fairer, especially if there were a basic income. So much for the limitations of what is actually proposed under UBS. But the proponents go further in provocatively presenting UBS as preferable to ‘UBI’ (Universal Basic Income).15 Before considering this claim, I want to make clear that sensible advocates of basic income do not or should not use the word ‘universal’, because in practice some people would not be entitled to it – non-resident citizens and shortterm or undocumented migrants. Presumably something similar would apply with UBS.


pages: 477 words: 75,408

The Economic Singularity: Artificial Intelligence and the Death of Capitalism by Calum Chace

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, AI winter, Airbnb, AlphaGo, Alvin Toffler, Amazon Robotics, Andy Rubin, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, basic income, Baxter: Rethink Robotics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, bread and circuses, call centre, Chris Urmson, congestion charging, credit crunch, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, digital divide, Douglas Engelbart, Dr. Strangelove, driverless car, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, Fairchild Semiconductor, Flynn Effect, full employment, future of work, Future Shock, gender pay gap, Geoffrey Hinton, gig economy, Google Glasses, Google X / Alphabet X, Hans Moravec, Herman Kahn, hype cycle, ImageNet competition, income inequality, industrial robot, Internet of things, invention of the telephone, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John von Neumann, Kevin Kelly, Kiva Systems, knowledge worker, lifelogging, lump of labour, Lyft, machine translation, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, McJob, means of production, Milgram experiment, Narrative Science, natural language processing, Neil Armstrong, new economy, Nick Bostrom, Occupy movement, Oculus Rift, OpenAI, PageRank, pattern recognition, post scarcity, post-industrial society, post-work, precariat, prediction markets, QWERTY keyboard, railway mania, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, RFID, Rodney Brooks, Sam Altman, Satoshi Nakamoto, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, SoftBank, software is eating the world, speech recognition, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, TaskRabbit, technological singularity, TED Talk, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, Thomas Malthus, transaction costs, Two Sigma, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, Vernor Vinge, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, working-age population, Y Combinator, young professional

Articulate, well-connected and forceful middle class professionals will be standing alongside professional drivers and factory workers, demanding that the state do something to protect them and their families. Universal Basic Income If and when societies reach the point where we have to admit that a significant proportion of the population will never work again – through no fault of their own – a mechanism will have to be found to keep those people alive. And not just scraping by on the poverty line: they will have to be provided with an income which allows at least the possibility of a decent life by the standards of the societies they live in. The answer is well-known, and fairly obvious: a universal basic income (UBI), available to all without condition; a living wage which is paid to all citizens simply because they are citizens.

[ccxcii] http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/23/investing/facebook-walmart-market-value/ [ccxciii] http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/16/robots-buy-cars/ [ccxciv] http://thegreatdepressioncauses.com/unemployment/ [ccxcv] http://www.statista.com/statistics/268830/unemployment-rate-in-eu-countries/ [ccxcvi] http://www.statista.com/statistics/266228/youth-unemployment-rate-in-eu-countries/ [ccxcvii] http://www.scottsantens.com/ [ccxcviii] http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/01/27/a-universal-basic-income-conservative-progressive-and-libertarian-perspectives-part-3-of-a-series/ [ccxcix] https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/wiki/index#wiki_that.27s_all_very_well.2C_but_where.27s_the_evidence.3F [ccc] https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/wiki/studies [ccci] http://basicincome.org.uk/2013/08/health-forget-mincome-poverty/ [cccii] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-basic-income/?utm_content=buffer71a7e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=buffer [ccciii] http://www.fastcoexist.com/3052595/how-finlands-exciting-basic-income-experiment-will-work-and-what-we-can-learn-from-it [ccciv] http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-basic-income-20151227-story.html [cccv] http://www.vox.com/2016/1/28/10860830/y-combinator-basic-income [cccvi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States#References [cccvii] http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/03/09/support-for-gay-marriage-hits-all-time-high-wsjnbc-news-poll/ [cccviii] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/06/majority-of-americans-wan_n_198196.html [cccix] http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2013/08/washingtons-pot-law-wont-get-federal-challenge/ [cccx] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35525566 [cccxi] https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7#.3yezsngej [cccxii] http://streamhistory.com/die-rich-die-disgraced-andrew-carnegies-philosophy-of-wealth/ [cccxiii] http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/12/05/how-i-know-higher-taxes-would-be-good-for-the-economy/#5b0c080b3ec1 [cccxiv] http://taxfoundation.org/article/what-evidence-taxes-and-growth [cccxv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve [cccxvi] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26875420 [cccxvii] A minor character in Shakespeare’s Henry VI called Dick the Butcher has the memorable line, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

Our strategies for the future should be not about finding new salary jobs, but rather about removing the need for them, and about setting up a better and more advanced social structure. This is where looking at the challenges involved and the path to a successful alternative, as Chace does in chapter 5, is essential. Where ideas such as a universal basic income (UBI) are concerned, it is useful to keep in mind that the world is not the US. Even if there is some initial antipathy in the US, because of associations between UBI and what might naively be labeled as 'socialist' thinking, the US will not wish to be left behind if other nations successfully implement the change.


pages: 242 words: 73,728

Give People Money by Annie Lowrey

Abraham Maslow, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, airport security, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, carbon tax, clean water, collective bargaining, computer age, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, deindustrialization, desegregation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, ending welfare as we know it, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, full employment, gender pay gap, gentrification, gig economy, Google Earth, Home mortgage interest deduction, income inequality, indoor plumbing, information asymmetry, Jaron Lanier, jitney, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kickstarter, Kodak vs Instagram, labor-force participation, late capitalism, Lyft, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, mass incarceration, McMansion, Menlo Park, mobile money, Modern Monetary Theory, mortgage tax deduction, multilevel marketing, new economy, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, Peter Thiel, post scarcity, post-work, Potemkin village, precariat, public intellectual, randomized controlled trial, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Bork, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, Sam Altman, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, Steve Jobs, TaskRabbit, tech billionaire, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, theory of mind, total factor productivity, Turing test, two tier labour market, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, War on Poverty, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, women in the workforce, working poor, World Values Survey, Y Combinator

hospitals have already started to use IBM’s Watson technology: Ike Swetlitz and Casey Ross, “A New Advertising Tack for Hospitals: IBM’s Watson Supercomputer Is in the House,” STAT, Sept. 6, 2017. “Machines, the argument goes”: Ugo Gentilini and Ruslan Yemtsov, “Being Open-Minded About Universal Basic Income,” Let’s Talk Development (blog), World Bank, Jan. 6, 2017, http://blogs.worldbank.org/​developmenttalk/​being-open-minded-about-universal-basic-income. “social vaccine of the twenty-first century”: Scott Santens, “Universal Basic Income as the Social Vaccine of the 21st Century,” Medium, Feb. 5, 2015, https://medium.com/​basic-income/​universal-basic-income-as-the-social-vaccine-of-the-21st-century-d66dff39073. “a twenty-first-century economic right”: Guy Standing, “Basic Income: A 21st Century Economic Right,” 2004, https://www.guystanding.com/​files/​documents/​CDHE_Standing.pdf.

Elon Musk: Kathleen Davis, “Elon Musk Says Automation Will Make a Universal Basic Income Necessary Soon,” Fast Company, Feb. 13, 2017. are starting…in Germany: “Geschichten: Was wäre, wenn du plötzlich Grundeinkommen hättest?,” Mein Grundeinkommen, https://www.mein-grundeinkommen.de/​projekt/​geschichten. the Netherlands: Sjir Hoeijmakers, telephone interview by author, Oct. 16, 2017. Finland: Antti Jauhiainen and Joona-Hermanni Mäkinen, “Why Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Isn’t Working,” New York Times, July 20, 2017. Canada: Ashifa Kassam, “Ontario Plans to Launch Universal Basic Income Trial Run This Summer,” Guardian, Apr. 24, 2017.

a minimum of 90 cents on the dollar: Robert Greenstein, “Romney’s Charge That Most Federal Low-Income Spending Goes for ‘Overhead’ and ‘Bureaucrats’ Is False” (Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Jan. 23, 2012), https://www.cbpp.org/​research/​romneys-charge-that-most-federal-low-income-spending-goes-for-overhead-and-bureaucrats-is. raise about $1,582 per person: Ed Dolan, “Could We Afford a Universal Basic Income? (Part 2 of a Series),” EconoMonitor (blog), Jan. 13, 2014. end “many of the current 126 welfare programs”: Andy Stern, Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream (New York: PublicAffairs, 2016), ebook. “A single parent would”: Daniel Hemel, “Bringing the Basic Income Back to Earth,” New Rambler, Sept. 19, 2016, http://newramblerreview.com/​book-reviews/​economics/​bringing-the-basic-income-back-to-earth.


pages: 424 words: 119,679

It's Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear by Gregg Easterbrook

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air freight, Alan Greenspan, Apollo 11, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Boeing 747, Branko Milanovic, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, clean tech, clean water, coronavirus, Crossrail, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, Exxon Valdez, factory automation, failed state, fake news, full employment, Gini coefficient, Google Earth, Home mortgage interest deduction, hydraulic fracturing, Hyperloop, illegal immigration, impulse control, income inequality, independent contractor, Indoor air pollution, interchangeable parts, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, longitudinal study, Lyft, mandatory minimum, manufacturing employment, Mikhail Gorbachev, minimum wage unemployment, Modern Monetary Theory, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, Paul Samuelson, peak oil, plant based meat, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, post scarcity, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, short selling, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Slavoj Žižek, South China Sea, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, supervolcano, The Chicago School, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, There's no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home - Ken Olsen, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, uber lyft, universal basic income, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now, WikiLeaks, working poor, Works Progress Administration

Once eligibility is obtained, few return to work; their fear of being tossed out of the program is an incentive to remain in dependency. Universal Basic Income would replace all public assistance with a cash grant to adults regardless of whether working or not, whether healthy or not. Most proposals involve a grant of $1,000 a month—about what federal disability programs pay, but without the strings attached. Every adult would receive Universal Basic Income, not just the head of household or primary wage-earner. Demonstration programs for Universal Basic Income concepts are in progress in Canada, Finland, and Kenya. Universal Basic Income could offer multiple advantages over current structures.

The government debt situations of Western nations make Universal Basic Income unaffordable right now. This is another reason why national debts must be addressed—to clear the financial decks for some kind of universal income in the near future. Today’s entitlement distributions paper over problems, while today’s pension programs postpone wrenching decisions; replacing both with Universal Basic Income, while eliminating rules, bureaucracies, and officialdom, could put Western society on a sounder footing for generations to come. As an ideal, Universal Basic Income is superior to contemporary programs: universal income might solve social problems, rather than slow the rate at which they increase.

But big new expenses may be unavoidable, and not for senior citizens, who are already the most subsidized segment of US society and of many European societies. The reason to reduce today’s existing national debts is that, in the near future, all roads may lead to some version of Universal Basic Income. A coming chapter will address this concept. For the moment, what matters is that near-future economic growth and near-future social justice both may turn on some form of income guarantee, especially for those poorly educated men and women whose labor value can only go down. A Universal Basic Income might make the United States and some European nations freer and more fair places to live. But this reform won’t be cheap—the first step must be to slay the debt monster that already exists.


pages: 300 words: 76,638

The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future by Andrew Yang

3D printing, Airbnb, assortative mating, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Ben Horowitz, Bernie Sanders, call centre, corporate governance, cryptocurrency, data science, David Brooks, DeepMind, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial engineering, full employment, future of work, global reserve currency, income inequality, Internet of things, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Khan Academy, labor-force participation, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, meritocracy, Narrative Science, new economy, passive income, performance metric, post-work, quantitative easing, reserve currency, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, robo advisor, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, Sam Altman, San Francisco homelessness, self-driving car, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, single-payer health, Stephen Hawking, Steve Ballmer, supercomputer in your pocket, tech worker, technoutopianism, telemarketer, The future is already here, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, traumatic brain injury, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, unemployed young men, universal basic income, urban renewal, warehouse robotics, white flight, winner-take-all economy, Y Combinator

Bill Gates, January 2017: “A problem of excess [automation] forces us to look at the individuals affected and take those extra resources and make sure they’re directed to them in terms of re-education and income policies…” (Gates later suggested taxing robots.) Elon Musk, February, 2017: “I think we’ll end up doing universal basic income… It’s going to be necessary… There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better. I want to be clear. These are not things I wish will happen; these are things I think probably will happen.” Mark Zuckerberg, May 2017: “We should explore… universal basic income so that everyone has a cushion to try new ideas.” My mom, September 2017: “If you think it’s a good idea, Andy, I’m sure it’s a good idea.” You may be thinking, This will never happen.

Out of 193 countries, 160 already have a VAT or goods and services tax, including all developed countries except the United States. The average VAT in Europe is 20 percent. It is well developed and its efficacy has been established. If we adopted a VAT at half the average European level, we could pay for a universal basic income for all American adults. A VAT would result in slightly higher prices. But technological advancement would continue to drive down the cost of most things. And with the backdrop of a universal basic income of $12,000, the only way a VAT of 10 percent makes you worse off is if you consume more than $120,000 in goods and services per year, which means you’re doing fine and are likely at the top of the income distribution.

Inflation has been low for years, in part because technology and globalization have been reducing the costs of many things. Even the printing of $4 trillion in monetary easing after the financial crisis didn’t cause meaningful inflation. If the universal basic income were paid for through a VAT as proposed above, we wouldn’t be increasing the money supply, so inflation wouldn’t be expected based on the amount of money floating around. A universal basic income at the level of the Freedom Dividend would likely result in some inflation as vendors take advantage of the new buying power of the public to raise some prices, but costs would continue to decline for many things because technology would continue to lower the underlying cost of their production.


pages: 308 words: 85,880

How to Fix the Future: Staying Human in the Digital Age by Andrew Keen

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, Ada Lovelace, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, AlphaGo, Andrew Keen, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Swan, blockchain, Brewster Kahle, British Empire, carbon tax, Charles Babbage, computer age, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, data is the new oil, death from overwork, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, Didi Chuxing, digital capitalism, digital map, digital rights, disinformation, don't be evil, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, fake news, Filter Bubble, Firefox, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, gig economy, global village, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, Internet Archive, Internet of things, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, job automation, Joi Ito, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, Menlo Park, Mitch Kapor, move fast and break things, Network effects, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Norbert Wiener, OpenAI, Parag Khanna, peer-to-peer, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, post-truth, postindustrial economy, precariat, Ralph Nader, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rutger Bregman, Salesforce, Sam Altman, Sand Hill Road, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart cities, Snapchat, social graph, software is eating the world, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, subscription business, surveillance capitalism, Susan Wojcicki, tech baron, tech billionaire, tech worker, technological determinism, technoutopianism, The Future of Employment, the High Line, the new new thing, Thomas L Friedman, Tim Cook: Apple, Travis Kalanick, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, WikiLeaks, winner-take-all economy, Y Combinator, Yogi Berra, Zipcar

The old left, in particular, he tells me, is intellectually bankrupt, which may explain why many traditional socialists, particularly in the labor unions, haven’t embraced the universal basic income idea. The case for a universal basic income is also shared by many technologists and entrepreneurs, who see it as an essential feature—perhaps even the central social security pillar—of tomorrow’s networked society. Robin Chase, the former CEO of both Zipcar and Buzzcar and a leading evangelist for the sharing economy, tells me that universal basic income represents a kind of investment that will allow us to “tap into people’s talents.” There will, she promises me, be a “huge uptick in happiness, creativity, and productivity” after its introduction.

It never went away completely, of course. In the nineteenth century, a youthful Karl Marx kept it alive. Today, however, rather than Utopia or communism, it now goes under the name of “universal basic income.” This is the idea that, in our age of rising technological unemployment and inequality, the government will give all its citizens—rich and poor, young and old, male and female alike—a living wage whether or not they have a job. “Money for Nothing” one headline about universal basic income thus says.4 “Sighing for Paradise to Come” declares another about the future as a cornucopia of “technological abundance in which paid work is optional and no one goes without.”5 Paradise or not, everyone today, it seems, both inside and outside Silicon Valley, is talking about universal basic income as the fix to the looming joblessness crisis of our smart machine age in which we will all become members of what Yuval Noah Harari calls the “useless class.”6 Its many proponents include libertarian technologists like the Y Combinator CEO Sam Altman, who is funding a trial in Oakland around it, as well as more traditional progressives such as the American labor organizer Andy Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union, who has written a book in favor of its implementation in the United States.7 Local and national governments all over the globe—from Canada and Finland to Brazil, Holland, and Switzerland—are experimenting with referendums or pilot projects to reinvent the social security systems of the industrial age.

Originally from Utrecht, the Dutch city that is pioneering a 2017 scheme to pay its residents an unconditional monthly stipend, Bregman is the author of the aptly named Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World,10 a bestselling polemic in favor of universal basic income, which has been translated into twenty languages. As we sit in a café outside Amsterdam Central Station on an unseasonably warm April afternoon, the youthful Bregman lays out the case for a universal basic income. Reiterating the core message in his book, that we need, in his words, to “control the future,” Bregman—like Daniel Straub—celebrates the disappearance of what he calls “bullshit jobs” that dumb us down and drain us of our humanity.


Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy by Philippe van Parijs, Yannick Vanderborght

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, carbon tax, centre right, collective bargaining, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, declining real wages, degrowth, diversified portfolio, Edward Snowden, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, full employment, future of work, George Akerlof, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, income per capita, informal economy, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kickstarter, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, minimum wage unemployment, Money creation, open borders, Paul Samuelson, pension reform, Post-Keynesian economics, precariat, price mechanism, profit motive, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, Rutger Bregman, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, selection bias, sharing economy, sovereign wealth fund, systematic bias, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Tobin tax, universal basic income, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty, working poor

This income should be enough to meet the basic needs of everyÂ�one.”102 In the United States, the Green Party has consistently included basic income in its electoral platforms. Thus, the economic program Â�adopted in June 2004 at its Milwaukee convention called unambiguously for the introduction of a “universal basic income.” It included a Â�whole paragraph on the topic, still unchanged in the party’s 2014 platform: “We call for a universal basic income (sometimes called a guaranteed income, negative income tax, citizen’s income, or citizen dividend). This would go to every Â� adult regardless of health, employment, or marital status, in order to minimize government bureaucracy and intrusiveness into Â�people’s lives.

., Real Libertarianism Assessed: PoÂ�litiÂ�cal Theory Â�after Van Parijs, 161–171. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Stern, Andy. 2016. Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream. New York: Public Affairs. Stigler, George. 1946. “The Economics of Minimum Wage Legislation.” American Economic Review 36: 358–365. Stiglitz, Joseph. 2012. The Price of InÂ�equality. New York: Columbia University Press. St John, Susan. 2016. “Can Older Citizens Lead the Way to a Universal Basic Income?” In Jennifer Mays, Greg Marston, and John Tomlinson, eds., Basic Income in Australia and New Zealand: Perspectives from the Neoliberal Frontier, 95–114.

35 Even when the probabilities of prob� lems occurring are relatively low, the prospect of triggering off a spiral of debt is likely to be perceived as a major threat by people � who are ill-�equipped to know, understand, and a fortiori appeal to rules that can often be changing and opaque. By contrast, with a universal basic income, people � can take jobs or create their own jobs with less fear. This advantage of universality as regards access to employment is strongly reinforced by the effect of a feature closely associated with it, which provides a third reason to �favor universality: the fact that any earnings �people do produce go to increase their net incomes.


pages: 121 words: 36,908

Four Futures: Life After Capitalism by Peter Frase

Aaron Swartz, Airbnb, Anthropocene, basic income, bitcoin, business cycle, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, congestion pricing, cryptocurrency, deindustrialization, do what you love, Dogecoin, Donald Shoup, Edward Snowden, emotional labour, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ferguson, Missouri, fixed income, full employment, future of work, green new deal, Herbert Marcuse, high net worth, high-speed rail, income inequality, industrial robot, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), iterative process, Jevons paradox, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Kim Stanley Robinson, litecoin, mass incarceration, means of production, military-industrial complex, Occupy movement, pattern recognition, peak oil, plutocrats, post-work, postindustrial economy, price mechanism, private military company, Ray Kurzweil, Robert Gordon, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, smart meter, TaskRabbit, technoutopianism, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, Thomas Malthus, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, Wall-E, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We are the 99%, Wolfgang Streeck

So in theory, this is one possible long-term trajectory of a world based on intellectual property rents rather than on physical commodity production using human labor. What Gorz is talking about is something like the universal basic income, which was discussed in the last chapter. Which means that one long-run trajectory of rentism is to turn into communism. But here the class of rentier-capitalists will confront a collective action problem. In principle, it would be possible to sustain the system by taxing the profits of profitable firms and redistributing the money back to consumers—possibly as the universal basic income, but possibly in return for performing some kind of meaningless make-work. But even if redistribution is desirable from the standpoint of the class as a whole, any individual company or rich person will be tempted to free-ride on the payments of others and will therefore resist efforts to impose a redistributive tax.

For consumer goods at least, people can produce whatever they want, for themselves. However, the resource-constrained future still faces the problem of managing consumption. That is, we need some way of allocating the scarce inputs that feed the replicator. Here the universal basic income, introduced in Chapter 1, could be useful once again. In the context we are describing in this chapter, universal basic income plays a quite different function than wages in capitalism. And it will work to ration and plan out consumption through the mechanism of the market. This might seem an odd thing to say, in a chapter titled “Socialism.” And there are some socialists who see the market as inherently incompatible with a desirable post-capitalism.

Brynjolfsson and McAfee are perhaps the best-known prophets of rapid automation, but their work fits into an exploding genre. Software entrepreneur Martin Ford, for example, explores similar terrain in his 2015 work Rise of the Robots.8 He relies on much of the same literature and reaches many of the same conclusions about the pace of automation. His conclusions are somewhat more radical—a guaranteed universal basic income, which will be discussed later in this book, occupies a place of prominence; much of the rival literature, by contrast, offers little more than bromides about education. That many people are writing about rapid and socially dislocating automation doesn’t mean that it’s an imminent reality.


pages: 322 words: 84,580

The Economics of Belonging: A Radical Plan to Win Back the Left Behind and Achieve Prosperity for All by Martin Sandbu

air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, autonomous vehicles, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, collective bargaining, company town, debt deflation, deindustrialization, deskilling, Diane Coyle, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, financial intermediation, full employment, future of work, gig economy, Gini coefficient, green new deal, hiring and firing, income inequality, income per capita, industrial robot, intangible asset, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, liquidity trap, longitudinal study, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Martin Wolf, meta-analysis, mini-job, Money creation, mortgage debt, new economy, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, pattern recognition, pink-collar, precariat, public intellectual, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, Richard Florida, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, social intelligence, TaskRabbit, total factor productivity, universal basic income, very high income, winner-take-all economy, working poor

Similarly, a study by France’s official economic analysis bureau found that a “carbon cheque” that is differentiated by type of region (whether rural or urban) can be designed so that it makes virtually everyone in the bottom half of the income distribution better off even after paying higher carbon taxes on fuel and energy.30 It will not escape readers that a carbon fee and dividend, almost by accident, encompasses a universal basic income/negative income tax. While not motivated by any of the arguments for basic income I discussed in chapter 7, an ambitious carbon tax of 2–3 per cent of national income can still serve those objectives to a significant degree (and less money would have to be found elsewhere for a full-fledged universal basic income/negative income tax). A similarly beneficial coincidence can be found in the other two tax reforms proposed here. A net wealth tax works to improve productivity and help the asset-poor even as it raises substantial resources to pay for other policies to help the left behind (including cutting other taxes).

The high-pressure macroeconomic policy advocated in chapter 8 would do just that, by ensuring that the tap of aggregate demand stimulus was not turned off before the effect was felt in left-behind regions. Universal basic income, as recommended in chapter 7, would support local aggregate demand as well, thereby making it more viable to maintain an attractive range of services locally. This is illustrated by the unique basic income–like system of Alaska’s “permanent dividend” from oil revenues, which seems to boost not just retail and leisure services but health and personal care services as well. Universal basic income and the other “empowerment” polices from chapter 7 would also increase the share of value creation retained in the local community rather than transferred to investors or suppliers elsewhere, thereby supporting local demand indirectly as well.

See also Britain United Kingdom Independence Party, 46 United States: corporate taxes in, 178–79, 264n18; employment gains in, 78; employment problems in, 64, 77; health declines in, 36, 194; job training programmes in, 109; lessons of 1930s for, 3–4, 10–12, 229; minimum wage in, 103–4; net wealth taxes in, 262n7; regional economic decline in, 192; relative regional prosperities in, 189, 190; response to global financial crisis in, 133–34, 144–45; in Roosevelt years, 3, 11; social order upset in, 7; union busting in, 57; voter behaviour in, 15, 16, 41, 45; xenophobia in, 11 universal basic income (UBI)/negative income tax (NIT), 115–16, 118–20, 186, 202–3, 234–35, 271n1 usurpation narratives, 18, 21–22, 26, 82, 90 wages: compression of, 100–103, 105, 121; immigration’s effect on, 83, 215, 250n17; investment in technology encouraged by compression of, 98–104; labour productivity in relation to, 98–105; suppression of, 117–18; union declines linked to, 55–56, 57, 121; universal basic income and, 114–16; welfare supplementation of, 117–18 Warren, Elizabeth, 173–75, 262n7 wealth concentration, 30, 153–54, 169, 170, 175–76.


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Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Thomas Ramge

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Air France Flight 447, Airbnb, Alvin Roth, Apollo 11, Atul Gawande, augmented reality, banking crisis, basic income, Bayesian statistics, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, bitcoin, blockchain, book value, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, centralized clearinghouse, Checklist Manifesto, cloud computing, cognitive bias, cognitive load, conceptual framework, creative destruction, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, Didi Chuxing, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, Evgeny Morozov, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fundamental attribution error, George Akerlof, gig economy, Google Glasses, Higgs boson, information asymmetry, interchangeable parts, invention of the telegraph, inventory management, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job satisfaction, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, land reform, Large Hadron Collider, lone genius, low cost airline, low interest rates, Marc Andreessen, market bubble, market design, market fundamentalism, means of production, meta-analysis, Moneyball by Michael Lewis explains big data, multi-sided market, natural language processing, Neil Armstrong, Network effects, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, offshore financial centre, Parag Khanna, payday loans, peer-to-peer lending, Peter Thiel, Ponzi scheme, prediction markets, price anchoring, price mechanism, purchasing power parity, radical decentralization, random walk, recommendation engine, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robinhood: mobile stock trading app, Sam Altman, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, smart grid, smart meter, Snapchat, statistical model, Steve Jobs, subprime mortgage crisis, Suez canal 1869, tacit knowledge, technoutopianism, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, transaction costs, universal basic income, vertical integration, William Langewiesche, Y Combinator

And it is participatory, because its goal is not only to provide people with some of their basic needs but to enable them to rejoin the workforce at less than full time. The idea of a universal basic income has been circulating among economists and progressive politicians ever since the late eighteenth century, when Thomas Paine proposed a basic income for everyone above fifty. In the middle of the twentieth century, radical pro-market economist and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman suggested a negative income tax that had many of the distributive qualities of a universal basic income but would have been somewhat more complex to administer. In 1972, Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern openly advocated for a universal basic income. He was attacked by incumbent president Richard Nixon and ultimately had to withdraw his plan, but Nixon then proposed his own family-assistance program that would have been close to being a UBI for a large segment of society if it had not died in the Senate.

See Cybersyn Systemized Intelligence Lab, 115 Taj Mahal, 21 talent management, internal, 126–129 tax credits, 200–202, 218 taxes, 197–202 capital gains, 187 data, 199–200, 203, 218 negative income, 190 nominal rate, 198 progressive consumption, 198 robo, 186–187 wealth, 187 Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 89, 95–96 Taylorism, 89, 95–96, 112 telecommunications industry, 162–163 Tesla, 78, 110, 120, 169, 189 thalidomide, 42 thick markets, 2, 82–83, 164, 213 Thiel, Peter, 203 time firm reorganization and, 112–113 meaningful use of, 221–222 Tinder, 83, 163 µ Torrent, 122 TransferWise, 135 transparency, 172, 173, 178 Trump, Donald, 186, 203 Trunk Club, 211 T-shaped skill set, 118 Tversky, Amos, 102 Twitter, 163 Uber, 163, 182 UBI. See universal basic income UniCredit bank, 136 Unilever, 75 United Kingdom, 134, 147, 164 United States banking crisis in, 134, 135 capital share of, 185 corporate taxes in, 197–198 health care sector in, 213 labor market of, 184, 185, 186, 195 market concentration in, 164 stock market investment options in, 143 subprime mortgage crisis in (see subprime mortgage crisis) universal basic income proposed in, 190, 191 universal basic income (UBI), 189–193, 205–206 University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, 36 Upstart, 151 Upwork, 3 used car market, 40 venture capital (VC) firms, 141, 142–143, 216 Vocatus, 55 Volkswagen, 182 Volvo, 182 Wall Street Journal, 203 Walmart, 28, 52 Walt Disney Company, 69 Watson (machine learning system), 109, 111, 113–114, 115, 117, 163, 183 Watt, James, 111, 113 wealth tax, 187 Webvan, 112 WeChat, 147, 163 Wedgwood, Josiah, 94 welfare reducing transactions, 73 Wenger, Albert, 156, 189 Wenig, Devin, 1–2, 209 Wharton School, 36 Which?

THESE DISTRIBUTIVE AND PARTICIPATORY MEASURES are relatively conventional. All are adaptations of policies that already exist in many advanced economies around the world. They are not without merit but do come with drawbacks. There is a far more radical alternative measure being put forward, in the form of universal basic income. UBI, as it is affectionately called by its proponents, has garnered surprising support, particularly among leading figures in the high-tech sector. “Superangel” investor Marc Andreessen, the coauthor of Mosaic, one of the first widely used Web browsers, is in favor of it. And so are New York–based Albert Wenger, another highly successful venture capitalist; start-up incubator impresario Sam Altman; and Elon Musk, the brash but congenial cofounder of PayPal and CEO of Tesla.


pages: 236 words: 77,546

The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice by Fredrik Deboer

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, anti-communist, assortative mating, basic income, Bernie Sanders, collective bargaining, deindustrialization, desegregation, Donald Trump, fiat currency, Flynn Effect, full employment, gentrification, Great Leap Forward, helicopter parent, income inequality, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, longitudinal study, meta-analysis, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, Own Your Own Home, phenotype, positional goods, profit motive, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, Richard Florida, school choice, Scientific racism, selection bias, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, Steven Pinker, survivorship bias, trade route, twin studies, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, winner-take-all economy, young professional, zero-sum game

See labor and teacher unions teachers “blame the teachers first” thinking and education reform movement low pay and low prestige merit pay qualified applicant pool teacher attrition tourist teachers technical education Tennessee Voluntary Pre-kindergarten program test prep industry “Texas miracle” Three Laws of Behavioral Genetics Time Machine, The (Wells) time-to-graduate Tocqueville, Alexis de tourist teachers tracking and blank-slate philosophy of education dark side of and school choice and school quality school reformers on vocational tracks trade employment Triple Package, The (Chua) Trump, Donald Turkheimer, Eric tutoring Twilight of the Elites (Hayes) twin and adoption studies criticism and skepticism of fraternal versus identical (monozygotic) twins Minnesota Twin Registry UBI (universal basic income) unemployment and advanced degree premium college unemployment premium and elite high schools and labor force participation rate and universal basic income universal basic income (UBI) universal childcare University of Rhode Island (URI) untalented students untalented teachers veil of ignorance definition of and equality of opportunity and meritocracy vocational education voting rights wage gaps Waiting for Superman (documentary) war Afghanistan war anti-war movements Iraq War World War I World War II Warren, Elizabeth Watanabe-Rose, Mari Watson, John B.

For a long time, American leftists defined themselves in passionate but vague anti-capitalist terms. Debates have sprung up in recent years about a defined policy platform, but they demonstrate the degree to which the leftist vision for society remains unsettled. Few debates better exemplify this than that between proponents of a universal basic income (UBI) and proponents of a jobs guarantee (JG). There are many flavors of UBI, with many different names and important nuances to policy. But the concept of the UBI (or guaranteed minimum income among other assorted terms) is simple: the government sends a check to every adult, with the funding sufficient to raise everyone above the poverty line.

The conservative complaint about this should be obvious: if people aren’t forced to work by the need to avoid poverty, they’ll live lives of indolence and aimlessness! I have never found this remotely compelling. Yes, there would surely be people who would do nothing particularly productive with their time under a universal basic income. The moral calculus should still be simple: the elimination of poverty and all its attendant ills would be worth some “freeloaders.” Note too that one of the basic assumptions of a UBI is that work, in and of itself, is not an inherently good thing; in fact, because work is unpleasant—because most people would prefer not to do the kind of boring, physically demanding, or otherwise unattractive work that low-wage workers often do—freeing people from work is an inherent good.


pages: 428 words: 126,013

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari

Adam Curtis, autism spectrum disorder, basic income, Berlin Wall, call centre, capitalist realism, correlation does not imply causation, Donald Trump, gig economy, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, John Snow's cholera map, Joi Ito, longitudinal study, meta-analysis, Naomi Klein, Occupy movement, open borders, placebo effect, precariat, publication bias, randomized controlled trial, Rat Park, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Stephen Fry, sugar pill, TED Talk, the scientific method, The Spirit Level, Tipper Gore, twin studies, universal basic income, urban planning, zero-sum game

., “The prevalence and distribution of major depression in a national community sample: the National Comorbidity Survey,” Am Psych Assoc 151, no. 7 (July 1994): 979–986. here are some of the key effects Evelyn discovered Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-hour Workweek (Netherlands: Correspondent Press, 2016), 63–4. He is the leading European champion of the idea of a universal basic income. https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/07/06/18652754.php, as accessed December 12, 2016. Behavioral problems like ADHD and childhood depression fell by 40 percent E. Jane Costello et al., “Relationships Between Poverty and Psychopathology: A Natural Experiment,” JAMA 290, no. 15 (2003): 2023–2029.

See childhood trauma emotions, medicalization of chemical imbalance model of depression as product of, here mental health concept as, here The Emperor’s New Drugs (Kirsch), here endogenous model of depression conflicting expert opinions on, here vs. reactive theory, here, here, here research undermining, here, here impact of, here, here See also chemical imbalance model of depression environmental causes of depression and bio-psycho-social model, here Brown and Harris study of, here, here, here genetic susceptibility to, here opposing effect of “stabilizers,” here psychological effects on depressed persons, here envy culture of, in modern world, here, here overcoming, through “sympathetic joy” meditation, here Everington, Sam background of, here and development of non-drug treatments for depression, here holistic approach to diagnosis and treatment, here, here on social prescribing, here exercise, and reduction of depression, here Felitti, Vincent on chemical-imbalance model of depression, here research on childhood trauma and depression, here research on childhood trauma and obesity, here research on repression of childhood trauma, health effects of, here feminism, on unhappiness of 1950s housewives, here First Nations/Native American groups, disconnection from hopeful future as one cause of depression in, here, here, here flow states, in intrinsically vs. extrinsically motivated activities, here Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and drug testing records, here, here food poisoning, author’s experience of, here, here Ford, Brett, here, here Forget, Evelyn analysis of Canadian universal basic income experiment, here background of, here Freudian psychology, and reactive theory of depression, here, here friends, as “stabilizer” against depression, here Frumkin, Howard, here future hopeful/secure, psychological protection provided by, here, here invisibility of, to depressed persons, here, here future, hopeful/secure, disconnection from as cause of depression, here, here in modern workers, here in Native American/First Nations groups, here, here, here future, restoring, here cooperatives and, here universal basic income and, here See also universal basic income Gartner, Taina, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here gay marriage, movement to legalize, here gay people and AIDS, self-blame for, here and Berlin Kotti neighborhood protest, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and health effects of shame, here poor treatment in Amish communities, here genetic causes of depression, here, here as assumed cause of author’s depression, here as environment-dependent risk factor, here research on, here Gilbert, Paul, here GlaxoSmithKline, here globalized economy, universal basic income as solution to insecurity created by, here, here Gore, Tipper, here Greenberg, Gary, here grief of Cacciatore, after stillborn baby, here cultural misunderstanding of, here, here, here depression as form of, here, here doctors’ categorization of as depression, here as necessary, here, here “grief exception,” in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), here Griffith, Roland career of, here experience with meditation, here, here research on effects of psychedelic drugs, here and similarity between meditation and psychedelic drug experience, here, here, here See also psychedelic drugs, spiritual experiences caused by Hamann, Uli, here Hamilton scale, here happiness effectiveness of conscious effort to attain, here individual vs. group concept of, here Harris, Tirril impact of research by, here, here study on environmental causes of depression, here, here Haygarth, John, here, here, here, here Healy, David, here, here heart rate, increase in, with increased loneliness, here Heerwagen, Judith, here Hopkins, Katie, here housewives of 1950s, feminist views on unhappiness of, here 5-HTT gene, and depression, here Hudderites, low levels of loneliness in, here human needs, unmet as cause of depression, here materialism and, here misrepresentation as individual responsibility, here, here pain of, as message about needed changes in society, here See also tribe, human need for connection to identity, continuity of, depressed persons’ inability to cognize, here Imipramine, here immune system, effects of loneliness on, here individualism, and chemical imbalance model of depression, here inequality within cultures, as cause of depression, here Internet and social media addiction to, here, here and human need for connection to tribe, here as ineffective substitute for real social connection, here and self-absorbed envy, here, here treatment center for Internet addiction, here, here Western obsession with, here Ioannidis, John, here Ipronid, here I-Want-Golden-Things Rule, here Johnstone, Lucy, here Kaiser Permanente, here, here, here Kaltnborn, Sandy, here, here, here, here, here Kaltnhorn, Uli, here, here, here, here, here Kasser, Tim on advertising’s power to create materialistic desires, here childhood of, here, here and consumer values, experiment in changing, here on intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivations, here nonmaterialistic lifestyle adopted by, here personal realization about link between materialism and depression, here research on link between materialism and depression, here, here research on materialism’s destructive effects, here Kavlak, Mehmet, here, here, here, here, here Kirmayer, Laurence, here Kirsch, Irving credentials of, here experience with prescribing antidepressants, here opposition to research conclusions of, here research on origin of serotonin theory of depression, here research on placebo effect, here review of antidepressant drug testing, here, here, here on side effects of antidepressants, here Kohlenberg, Robert, here Kotti neighborhood (Berlin) experience of residents in, here history of, here poverty and crime in, here rising rents in, here, here tensions between groups in, here, here, here, here Kotti neighborhood protest, here, here accomplishment of rent-freeze goals, here attention attracted by, here, here, here bonding of residents during, here, here, here, here, here, here camp blocking street, here, here and connection to other people as treatment for depression, here, here, here, here demands of, here and expanded sense of “home,” here, here expansion to city-wide referendum effort, here guarding of camp, here marches, here origins of, here perseverance of, here police efforts to shut down, here, here strain on protesters, here and Tuncai (homeless man), adoption of, here and Tuncai, freeing from psychiatric facility, here Kramer, Peter critiques of drug testing for antidepressants, here on effectiveness of antidepressants, here on longterm use of antidepressants, unknown effects of, here Lancet, here Layard, Richard, here Lear, Jonathan, here Lewis, Marc background of, here on neuroplasticity, here, here on stigma attached to depression, here life events, negative, as cause of depression impact of research on, here, here research on, here See also environmental causes of depression lifestyle changes, as antidepressant, here Listening to Prozac (Kramer), here LSD.

See childhood trauma emotions, medicalization of chemical imbalance model of depression as product of, here mental health concept as, here The Emperor’s New Drugs (Kirsch), here endogenous model of depression conflicting expert opinions on, here vs. reactive theory, here, here, here research undermining, here, here impact of, here, here See also chemical imbalance model of depression environmental causes of depression and bio-psycho-social model, here Brown and Harris study of, here, here, here genetic susceptibility to, here opposing effect of “stabilizers,” here psychological effects on depressed persons, here envy culture of, in modern world, here, here overcoming, through “sympathetic joy” meditation, here Everington, Sam background of, here and development of non-drug treatments for depression, here holistic approach to diagnosis and treatment, here, here on social prescribing, here exercise, and reduction of depression, here Felitti, Vincent on chemical-imbalance model of depression, here research on childhood trauma and depression, here research on childhood trauma and obesity, here research on repression of childhood trauma, health effects of, here feminism, on unhappiness of 1950s housewives, here First Nations/Native American groups, disconnection from hopeful future as one cause of depression in, here, here, here flow states, in intrinsically vs. extrinsically motivated activities, here Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and drug testing records, here, here food poisoning, author’s experience of, here, here Ford, Brett, here, here Forget, Evelyn analysis of Canadian universal basic income experiment, here background of, here Freudian psychology, and reactive theory of depression, here, here friends, as “stabilizer” against depression, here Frumkin, Howard, here future hopeful/secure, psychological protection provided by, here, here invisibility of, to depressed persons, here, here future, hopeful/secure, disconnection from as cause of depression, here, here in modern workers, here in Native American/First Nations groups, here, here, here future, restoring, here cooperatives and, here universal basic income and, here See also universal basic income Gartner, Taina, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here gay marriage, movement to legalize, here gay people and AIDS, self-blame for, here and Berlin Kotti neighborhood protest, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and health effects of shame, here poor treatment in Amish communities, here genetic causes of depression, here, here as assumed cause of author’s depression, here as environment-dependent risk factor, here research on, here Gilbert, Paul, here GlaxoSmithKline, here globalized economy, universal basic income as solution to insecurity created by, here, here Gore, Tipper, here Greenberg, Gary, here grief of Cacciatore, after stillborn baby, here cultural misunderstanding of, here, here, here depression as form of, here, here doctors’ categorization of as depression, here as necessary, here, here “grief exception,” in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), here Griffith, Roland career of, here experience with meditation, here, here research on effects of psychedelic drugs, here and similarity between meditation and psychedelic drug experience, here, here, here See also psychedelic drugs, spiritual experiences caused by Hamann, Uli, here Hamilton scale, here happiness effectiveness of conscious effort to attain, here individual vs. group concept of, here Harris, Tirril impact of research by, here, here study on environmental causes of depression, here, here Haygarth, John, here, here, here, here Healy, David, here, here heart rate, increase in, with increased loneliness, here Heerwagen, Judith, here Hopkins, Katie, here housewives of 1950s, feminist views on unhappiness of, here 5-HTT gene, and depression, here Hudderites, low levels of loneliness in, here human needs, unmet as cause of depression, here materialism and, here misrepresentation as individual responsibility, here, here pain of, as message about needed changes in society, here See also tribe, human need for connection to identity, continuity of, depressed persons’ inability to cognize, here Imipramine, here immune system, effects of loneliness on, here individualism, and chemical imbalance model of depression, here inequality within cultures, as cause of depression, here Internet and social media addiction to, here, here and human need for connection to tribe, here as ineffective substitute for real social connection, here and self-absorbed envy, here, here treatment center for Internet addiction, here, here Western obsession with, here Ioannidis, John, here Ipronid, here I-Want-Golden-Things Rule, here Johnstone, Lucy, here Kaiser Permanente, here, here, here Kaltnborn, Sandy, here, here, here, here, here Kaltnhorn, Uli, here, here, here, here, here Kasser, Tim on advertising’s power to create materialistic desires, here childhood of, here, here and consumer values, experiment in changing, here on intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivations, here nonmaterialistic lifestyle adopted by, here personal realization about link between materialism and depression, here research on link between materialism and depression, here, here research on materialism’s destructive effects, here Kavlak, Mehmet, here, here, here, here, here Kirmayer, Laurence, here Kirsch, Irving credentials of, here experience with prescribing antidepressants, here opposition to research conclusions of, here research on origin of serotonin theory of depression, here research on placebo effect, here review of antidepressant drug testing, here, here, here on side effects of antidepressants, here Kohlenberg, Robert, here Kotti neighborhood (Berlin) experience of residents in, here history of, here poverty and crime in, here rising rents in, here, here tensions between groups in, here, here, here, here Kotti neighborhood protest, here, here accomplishment of rent-freeze goals, here attention attracted by, here, here, here bonding of residents during, here, here, here, here, here, here camp blocking street, here, here and connection to other people as treatment for depression, here, here, here, here demands of, here and expanded sense of “home,” here, here expansion to city-wide referendum effort, here guarding of camp, here marches, here origins of, here perseverance of, here police efforts to shut down, here, here strain on protesters, here and Tuncai (homeless man), adoption of, here and Tuncai, freeing from psychiatric facility, here Kramer, Peter critiques of drug testing for antidepressants, here on effectiveness of antidepressants, here on longterm use of antidepressants, unknown effects of, here Lancet, here Layard, Richard, here Lear, Jonathan, here Lewis, Marc background of, here on neuroplasticity, here, here on stigma attached to depression, here life events, negative, as cause of depression impact of research on, here, here research on, here See also environmental causes of depression lifestyle changes, as antidepressant, here Listening to Prozac (Kramer), here LSD.


pages: 235 words: 62,862

Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-Hour Workweek by Rutger Bregman

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, Bartolomé de las Casas, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Branko Milanovic, cognitive dissonance, computer age, conceptual framework, credit crunch, David Graeber, Diane Coyle, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ford Model T, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, full employment, George Gilder, George Santayana, happiness index / gross national happiness, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, income inequality, invention of gunpowder, James Watt: steam engine, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, low skilled workers, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, microcredit, minimum wage unemployment, Mont Pelerin Society, Nathan Meyer Rothschild: antibiotics, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, Paul Samuelson, Peter Thiel, post-industrial society, precariat, public intellectual, radical decentralization, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, Ray Kurzweil, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, Second Machine Age, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Skype, stem cell, Steven Pinker, TED Talk, telemarketer, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, wage slave, War on Poverty, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, wikimedia commons, women in the workforce, working poor, World Values Survey

In Chapter 3, I laid out the arguments in favor of universal basic income. This is a conviction in which I have invested a lot over the past few years. The first article I wrote on the topic garnered nearly a million views and was picked up by The Washington Post. I gave lectures about universal basic income and made a case for it on Dutch television. Enthusiastic emails poured in. Not long ago, I even heard someone refer to me as “Mr. Basic Income.” Slowly but surely, my opinion has come to define my personal and professional identity. I do earnestly believe that a universal basic income is an idea whose time has come.

According to a poll conducted by Harris in 1969. Mike Alberti and Kevin C. Brown, “Guaranteed Income’s Moment in the Sun,” Remapping Debate. http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/guaranteed-income’s-moment-sun 48. Matt Bruenig, “How a Universal Basic Income Would Affect Poverty,” Demos (October 3, 2013). http://www.demos.org/blog/10/3/13/how-universal-basic-income-would-affect-poverty 49. Linda J. Bilmes, “The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan: How Wartime Spending Decisions Will Constrain Future National Security Budgets,” Faculty Research Working Paper Series (March 2013). https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?

Turned right way out we suddenly see fundamentally new ways forward. If we can get enough people to read this book, the world will start to become a better place.” – Richard Wilkinson, co-author of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better “Rutger Bregman makes a compelling case for Universal Basic Income with a wealth of data and rooted in a keen understanding of the political and intellectual history of capitalism. He shows the many ways in which human progress has turned a Utopia into a Eutopia – a positive future that we can achieve with the right policies.” – Albert Wenger, entrepreneur and partner at Union Square Ventures, early backers of Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Etsy, and Kickstarter “Learning from history and from up-to-date social science can shatter crippling illusions.


pages: 586 words: 186,548

Architects of Intelligence by Martin Ford

3D printing, agricultural Revolution, AI winter, algorithmic bias, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, Apple II, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, backpropagation, barriers to entry, basic income, Baxter: Rethink Robotics, Bayesian statistics, Big Tech, bitcoin, Boeing 747, Boston Dynamics, business intelligence, business process, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, cloud computing, cognitive bias, Colonization of Mars, computer vision, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, correlation does not imply causation, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, DARPA: Urban Challenge, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, deskilling, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Douglas Hofstadter, driverless car, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ernest Rutherford, fake news, Fellow of the Royal Society, Flash crash, future of work, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, gig economy, Google X / Alphabet X, Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hans Moravec, Hans Rosling, hype cycle, ImageNet competition, income inequality, industrial research laboratory, industrial robot, information retrieval, job automation, John von Neumann, Large Hadron Collider, Law of Accelerating Returns, life extension, Loebner Prize, machine translation, Mark Zuckerberg, Mars Rover, means of production, Mitch Kapor, Mustafa Suleyman, natural language processing, new economy, Nick Bostrom, OpenAI, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, optical character recognition, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, phenotype, Productivity paradox, radical life extension, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, Robert Gordon, Rodney Brooks, Sam Altman, self-driving car, seminal paper, sensor fusion, sentiment analysis, Silicon Valley, smart cities, social intelligence, sparse data, speech recognition, statistical model, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, strong AI, superintelligent machines, synthetic biology, systems thinking, Ted Kaczynski, TED Talk, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, theory of mind, Thomas Bayes, Travis Kalanick, Turing test, universal basic income, Wall-E, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, women in the workforce, working-age population, workplace surveillance , zero-sum game, Zipcar

A taxi ride is going to be cheap because it can be driven by the AI system, but a restaurant where an actual person serves you or an actual human cook creates something, is going to be more expensive. MARTIN FORD: That does presume that everyone’s got a skill or talent that’s marketable, which I’m not sure is true. What do you think of the idea of a universal basic income as a way to adapt to these changes? YANN LECUN: I’m not an economist, so I don’t have an informed opinion on this, but every economist I talked to seemed against the idea of a universal basic income. They all agree with the fact that as a result of increased inequality brought about by technological progress, some measures have to be taken by governments to compensate. All of them believe this has to do with fiscal policy in the form of taxing, and wealth and income redistribution.

If we can educate people to reskill even as their jobs are displaced by technology, then we have a much better chance of making sure that this next wave of wealth creation ends up being distributed in a more equitable way. A lot of the hype about evil AI killer robots distracts leaders from the much harder, but much more important conversation about what we do about jobs. MARTIN FORD: What do you think of a universal basic income as part of a solution to that problem? ANDREW NG: I don’t support a universal basic income, but I do think a conditional basic income is a much better idea. There’s a lot about the dignity of work and I actually favor a conditional basic income in which unemployed individuals can be paid to study. This would increase the odds that someone that’s unemployed will gain the skills they need to re-enter the workforce and contribute back to the tax base that is paying for the conditional basic income.

We’re going be able to provide a very high quality of living that’s beyond what we consider a high standard of living today for everyone, for all of the human population, as we get to the 2030s. I made a prediction at TED that we will have universal basic income, which won’t actually need to be that much to provide a very high standard of living, as we get into the 2030s. MARTIN FORD: So, you’re a proponent of a basic income, eventually? You agree that there won’t be a job for everyone, or maybe everyone won’t need a job, and that there’ll be some other source of income for people, like a universal basic income? RAY KURZWEIL: We assume that a job is a road to happiness. I think the key issue will be purpose and meaning.


Work in the Future The Automation Revolution-Palgrave MacMillan (2019) by Robert Skidelsky Nan Craig

3D printing, Airbnb, algorithmic trading, AlphaGo, Alvin Toffler, Amazon Web Services, anti-work, antiwork, artificial general intelligence, asset light, autonomous vehicles, basic income, behavioural economics, business cycle, cloud computing, collective bargaining, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, data is the new oil, data science, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, Demis Hassabis, deskilling, disintermediation, do what you love, Donald Trump, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, feminist movement, Ford Model T, Frederick Winslow Taylor, future of work, Future Shock, general purpose technology, gig economy, global supply chain, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, Internet of things, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, job automation, job polarisation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, Loebner Prize, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, moral panic, Network effects, new economy, Nick Bostrom, off grid, pattern recognition, post-work, Ronald Coase, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, SoftBank, Steve Jobs, strong AI, tacit knowledge, technological determinism, technoutopianism, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, the market place, The Nature of the Firm, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Turing test, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, wealth creators, working poor

The opposing view is that full-time paid work is an encumbrance forced on us by necessity (or by an unfair economic system), and that most people would find their lives more fulfilling and richer if they could reduce paid work as much as possible. This division crosses the political spectrum, but in the debate around automation it is often expressed as either enthusiasm or dismay at the idea of a Universal Basic Income. A Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a non-means-tested payment made to everyone, independent of employment status or qualification for other social benefits. People who think that a UBI would be disastrous tend to reference the effects of long-term or mass unemployment, and the sense of hopelessness and inactivity induced by sudden compulsory redundancy.

What if we instead started our policy discussions with the assumption that a lot of jobs are not necessary, and that the people who have those jobs know they are not necessary and are simply 16 Policy for the Future of Work 171 not in a position that they feel they can speak about such matters because the alternative would be to be thrown on the tender mercies of the unemployment system? This is why I think the plague of bullshit jobs, and the misery it causes, is one of the best arguments we could make for universal basic income. One of the odd things about universal basic income is that it’s backed by such a broad spectrum of economic and political thinkers, from Martin Luther King to Milton Friedman, but this is partly because different advocates are actually advocating quite different things. One might say there’s three broad versions of basic income.

David Graeber argues that the future of technological unemployment predicted by J.M. Keynes has in fact come to pass—but that we have compensated for the lack of work by creating millions of make-work jobs with little purpose. He recommends giving people the means to leave pointless jobs by severing livelihood from work through a universal basic income. Rachel Kay takes a different tack, discussing the argument for reducing working hours. Workers in the UK work longer hours than in other European countries; looking at Germany, France and the Netherlands as examples, she makes recommendations on how the UK could move in the same direction.


pages: 492 words: 118,882

The Blockchain Alternative: Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy and Economic Theory by Kariappa Bheemaiah

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accounting loophole / creative accounting, Ada Lovelace, Adam Curtis, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, algorithmic trading, asset allocation, autonomous vehicles, balance sheet recession, bank run, banks create money, Basel III, basic income, behavioural economics, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, business process, call centre, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cashless society, cellular automata, central bank independence, Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon: information theory, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, complexity theory, constrained optimization, corporate governance, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, cross-border payments, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, David Graeber, deep learning, deskilling, Diane Coyle, discrete time, disruptive innovation, distributed ledger, diversification, double entry bookkeeping, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, Flash crash, floating exchange rates, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, George Akerlof, Glass-Steagall Act, Higgs boson, illegal immigration, income inequality, income per capita, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, interest rate derivative, inventory management, invisible hand, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, large denomination, Large Hadron Collider, Lewis Mumford, liquidity trap, London Whale, low interest rates, low skilled workers, M-Pesa, machine readable, Marc Andreessen, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Michael Milken, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, mortgage debt, natural language processing, Network effects, new economy, Nikolai Kondratiev, offshore financial centre, packet switching, Pareto efficiency, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer lending, Ponzi scheme, power law, precariat, pre–internet, price mechanism, price stability, private sector deleveraging, profit maximization, QR code, quantitative easing, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, Ray Kurzweil, Real Time Gross Settlement, rent control, rent-seeking, robo advisor, Satoshi Nakamoto, Satyajit Das, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, seigniorage, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart contracts, software as a service, software is eating the world, speech recognition, statistical model, Stephen Hawking, Stuart Kauffman, supply-chain management, technology bubble, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The Great Moderation, the market place, The Nature of the Firm, the payments system, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transaction costs, Turing machine, Turing test, universal basic income, Vitalik Buterin, Von Neumann architecture, Washington Consensus

Thus, as the definition of capitalism begins to involve the democratic state to a greater degree, we should also use this opportunity to see how we can address the problems of technological unemployment, education, productivity changes, inequality, and ageism. One solution pathway could lie with helicopter money and universal basic income. Helicopter Drops and Universal Basic Income Refresh your memory and think about the last time you heard these “keywords ”: technological unemployment, income inequality, stagnant wages, poverty, regulatory gridlock. If you are a regular follower of the news, then the chances are that you may have heard these terms almost on a weekly basis.

The book is a general read but offers readers a look into how key persons are thinking about the Blockchain, while offering a dictionary of whom to follow in this space. Chapter 3 Following is a list of literature resources for learning about Universal Basic Income (UBI): “ The Simple Analytics of Helicopter Money: Why It Works – Always” (2014), Willem H. Buiter The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (2011), Guy Standing Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work (2015), Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream (2016), Andy Stern Index A Aadhaar program Agent Based Computational Economics (ABCE) models complexity economists developments El Farol problem and minority games Kim-Markowitz Portfolio Insurers Model Santa Fe artificial stock market model Agent based modelling (ABM) aggregate behavioural trends axiomatisation, linearization and generalization black-boxing bottom-up approach challenge computational modelling paradigm conceptualizing, individual agents EBM enacting agent interaction environmental factors environment creation individual agent parameters and modelling decisions simulation designing specifying agent behaviour Alaska Anti-Money Laundering (AML) ARPANet Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) Atlantic model Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) Autor-Levy-Murnane (ALM) B Bandits’ Club BankID system Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) Bitnation Blockchain ARPANet break down points decentralized communication emails fiat currency functions Jiggery Pokery accounts malware protocols Satoshi skeleton keys smart contract TCP/IP protocol technological and financial innovation trade finance Blockchain-based regulatory framework (BRF) BlockVerify C Capitalism ALM hypotheses and SBTC Blockchain and CoCo canonical model cashlessenvironment See(Multiple currencies) categories classification definition of de-skilling process economic hypothesis education and training levels EMN fiat currency CBDC commercial banks debt-based money digital cash digital monetary framework fractional banking system framework ideas and methods non-bank private sector sovereign digital currency transition fiscal policy cashless environment central bank concept of control spending definition of exogenous and endogenous function fractional banking system Kelton, Stephanie near-zero interest rates policy instrument QE and QQE tendency ultra-low inflation helicopter drops business insider ceteris paribus Chatbots Chicago Plan comparative charts fractional banking keywords technology UBI higher-skilled workers ICT technology industry categories Jiggery Pokery accounts advantages bias information Blockchain CFTC digital environment Enron scandal limitations private/self-regulation public function regulatory framework tech-led firms lending and payments CAMELS evaluation consumers and SMEs cryptographic laws fundamental limitations governments ILP KYB process lending sector mobile banking payments industry regulatory pressures rehypothecation ripple protocol sectors share leveraging effect technology marketing money cashless system crime and taxation economy IRS money Seigniorage tax evasion markets and regulation market structure multiple currency mechanisms occupational categories ONET database policies economic landscape financialization monetary and fiscal policy money creation methods The Chicago Plan transformation probabilities regulation routine and non-routine routinization hypothesis Sarbanes-Oxley Act SBTC scalability issue skill-biased employment skills and technological advancement skills downgrading process trades See(Trade finance) UBI Alaska deployment Mincome, Canada Namibia Cashless system Cellular automata (CA) Central bank digital currency (CBDC) Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) Chicago Plan Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS) Collateralised Debt Obligations (CDOs) Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs) Complexity economics agent challenges consequential decisions deterministic and axiomatized models dynamics education emergence exogenous and endogenous changes feedback loops information affects agents macroeconoic movements network science non-linearity path dependence power laws self-adapting individual agents technology andinvention See(Technology and invention) Walrasian approach Computing Congressional Research Service (CRS) Constant absolute risk aversion (CARA) Contingent convertible (CoCo) Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) CredyCo Cryptid Cryptographic law Currency mechanisms Current Account Switching System (CASS) D Data analysis techniques Debt and money broad and base money China’s productivity credit economic pressures export-led growth fractional banking See also((Fractional Reserve banking) GDP growth households junk bonds long-lasting effects private and public sectors problems pubilc and private level reaganomics real estate industry ripple effects security and ownership societal level UK DigID Digital trade documents (DOCS) Dodd-Frank Act Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model E EBM SeeEquation based modelling (EBM) Economic entropy vs. economic equilibrium assemblages and adaptations complexity economics complexity theory DSGE based models EMH human uncertainty principle’ LHC machine-like system operating neuroscience findings reflexivity RET risk assessment scientific method technology and economy Economic flexibility Efficient markets hypothesis (EMH) eID system Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC) Elliptical curve cryptography (ECC) EMH SeeEfficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) Equation based modelling (EBM) Equilibrium business-cycle models Equilibrium economic models contract theory contact incompleteness efficiency wages explicit contracts implicit contracts intellectual framework labor market flexibility menu cost risk sharing DSGE models Federal Reserve system implicit contracts macroeconomic models of business cycle NK models non-optimizing households principles RBC models RET ‘rigidity’ of wage and price change SIGE steady state equilibrium, economy structure Taylor rule FRB/US model Keynesian macroeconomic theory RBC models Romer’s analysis tests statistical models Estonian government European Migration Network (EMN) Exogenous and endogenous function Explicit contracts F Feedback loop Fiat currency CBDC commercial banks debt-based money digital cash digital monetary framework framework ideas and methods non-bank private sector sovereign digital currency transition Financialization de facto definition of eastern economic association enemy of my enemy is my friend FT slogans Palley, Thomas I.

It also investigates if these changes could offer sovereign states a new way to produce money and looks at alternatives other than inflation and interest rates to govern monetary policy. Finally, it reviews different scenarios of how this new structure can be used to implement innovative policies, such as overt money finance and universal basic income, which could help address issues such as income inequality and technological unemployment that currently threaten most economies. While the purpose of the book it to shed more light on the implications of the widespread use of Blockchain technology, the growing diversity within the currency space cannot be fully excluded from the discussion.


pages: 561 words: 157,589

WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us by Tim O'Reilly

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", 4chan, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, AlphaGo, Alvin Roth, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Robotics, Amazon Web Services, AOL-Time Warner, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, Bill Joy: nanobots, bitcoin, Blitzscaling, blockchain, book value, Bretton Woods, Brewster Kahle, British Empire, business process, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, carbon tax, Carl Icahn, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, computer vision, congestion pricing, corporate governance, corporate raider, creative destruction, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, Danny Hillis, data acquisition, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, Dennis Ritchie, deskilling, DevOps, Didi Chuxing, digital capitalism, disinformation, do well by doing good, Donald Davies, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, Filter Bubble, Firefox, Flash crash, Free Software Foundation, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, George Akerlof, gig economy, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, Goodhart's law, Google Glasses, Gordon Gekko, gravity well, greed is good, Greyball, Guido van Rossum, High speed trading, hiring and firing, Home mortgage interest deduction, Hyperloop, income inequality, independent contractor, index fund, informal economy, information asymmetry, Internet Archive, Internet of things, invention of movable type, invisible hand, iterative process, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, jitney, job automation, job satisfaction, John Bogle, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), Kaizen: continuous improvement, Ken Thompson, Kevin Kelly, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, Kim Stanley Robinson, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, Lao Tzu, Larry Ellison, Larry Wall, Lean Startup, Leonard Kleinrock, Lyft, machine readable, machine translation, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, McMansion, microbiome, microservices, minimum viable product, mortgage tax deduction, move fast and break things, Network effects, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, obamacare, Oculus Rift, OpenAI, OSI model, Overton Window, packet switching, PageRank, pattern recognition, Paul Buchheit, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer model, Ponzi scheme, post-truth, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, randomized controlled trial, RFC: Request For Comment, Richard Feynman, Richard Stallman, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Robert Metcalfe, Ronald Coase, Rutger Bregman, Salesforce, Sam Altman, school choice, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, SETI@home, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, skunkworks, Skype, smart contracts, Snapchat, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, social web, software as a service, software patent, spectrum auction, speech recognition, Stephen Hawking, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, stock buybacks, strong AI, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, telepresence, the built environment, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, the map is not the territory, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Davenport, Tony Fadell, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transcontinental railway, transportation-network company, Travis Kalanick, trickle-down economics, two-pizza team, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, ubercab, universal basic income, US Airways Flight 1549, VA Linux, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We are the 99%, web application, Whole Earth Catalog, winner-take-all economy, women in the workforce, Y Combinator, yellow journalism, zero-sum game, Zipcar

Putnam’s Sons, 1895), Project Gutenberg ebook edition retrieved April 4, 2017, http://www.gutenberg. org/files/31271/31271-h/31271-h.htm #link2H_4_0029. 305 Paul Ryan in 2014: Noah Gordon, “The Conservative Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income,” Atlantic, August 6, 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-arent-reformicons-pushing-a-guaranteed-basic-income/375600/. 305 arguments against UBI: Charles Murray and Andrews Stern (For), Jared Bernstein and Jason Furman (Against), “Universal Basic Income Is the Safety Net of the Future,” Intelligence Squared Debates, March 22, 2017, http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/universal-basic-income-safety-net-future. The audience was persuaded 41% to 4% against the motion. 307 Bill Gates proposed a “robot tax”: Kevin J. Delaney, “The Robot That Takes Your Job Should Pay Taxes, Says Bill Gates,” Quartz, February 17, 2017, https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/. 307 only $2,400 per person: Ed Dolan, “Could We Afford a Universal Basic Income?,” EconoMonitor, January 13, 2014, revised June 25, 2014, http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/01/13/could-we-afford-a-universal-basic-income/. 307 would cost only $175 billion: Matt Bruenig and Elizabeth Stoker, “How to Cut the Poverty Rate in Half (It’s Easy),” The Atlantic, October 29, 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/how-to-cut-the-poverty-rate-in-half-its-easy/280971/. 307 “I am confident”: “The Future of Work and the Proposal for a Universal Basic Income: A Discussion with Andy Stern, Natalie Foster, and Sam Altman,” held at Bloomberg Beta in San Francisco on June 27, 2016, https://raisingthefloor.splashthat.com. 309 Anne-Marie Slaughter: Anne-Marie Slaughter, Unfinished Business (New York: Random House, 2015). 309 “patterns of consumption”: Anne-Marie Slaughter, “How the Future of Work May Make Many of Us Happier,” Huffington Post, retrieved April 4, 2017, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne marie-slaughter/future-of-work-happier _b_6453594.html. 309 “support the families they are caring for”: Anne-Marie Slaughter, in conversation with Tim O’Reilly and Lauren Smiley, “Flexibility Needed: Not Just for On Demand Workers,” Next:Economy Summit, San Francisco, October 10–11, 2015.

,” EconoMonitor, January 13, 2014, revised June 25, 2014, http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/01/13/could-we-afford-a-universal-basic-income/. 307 would cost only $175 billion: Matt Bruenig and Elizabeth Stoker, “How to Cut the Poverty Rate in Half (It’s Easy),” The Atlantic, October 29, 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/how-to-cut-the-poverty-rate-in-half-its-easy/280971/. 307 “I am confident”: “The Future of Work and the Proposal for a Universal Basic Income: A Discussion with Andy Stern, Natalie Foster, and Sam Altman,” held at Bloomberg Beta in San Francisco on June 27, 2016, https://raisingthefloor.splashthat.com. 309 Anne-Marie Slaughter: Anne-Marie Slaughter, Unfinished Business (New York: Random House, 2015). 309 “patterns of consumption”: Anne-Marie Slaughter, “How the Future of Work May Make Many of Us Happier,” Huffington Post, retrieved April 4, 2017, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne marie-slaughter/future-of-work-happier _b_6453594.html. 309 “support the families they are caring for”: Anne-Marie Slaughter, in conversation with Tim O’Reilly and Lauren Smiley, “Flexibility Needed: Not Just for On Demand Workers,” Next:Economy Summit, San Francisco, October 10–11, 2015.

I was thinking about the Overton Window in November 2016 after attending the Summit on Technology and Opportunity, hosted by the White House, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. I had done a lunchtime debate with Martin Ford, author of the bestselling book The Rise of the Robots, which makes the case that artificial intelligence will take over more and more human jobs, including knowledge work. Martin argues for universal basic income as the solution—making sure that every person receives a basic cash grant sufficient to meet the essentials of life. I was positioned as the techno-optimist in the debate, because I have argued that eliminating human jobs is a choice, not a necessity. When we focus on what needs doing, and what might be possible when humans are augmented by new technology, it is clear that there is plenty of work to go around for both humans and machines.


Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World by Branko Milanovic

affirmative action, Asian financial crisis, assortative mating, barriers to entry, basic income, Berlin Wall, bilateral investment treaty, Black Swan, Branko Milanovic, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carried interest, colonial rule, corporate governance, creative destruction, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, ghettoisation, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, global value chain, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, household responsibility system, income inequality, income per capita, invention of the wheel, invisible hand, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, Lyft, means of production, new economy, offshore financial centre, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, post-materialism, purchasing power parity, remote working, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Solow, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, special economic zone, Tax Reform Act of 1986, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, uber lyft, universal basic income, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, working-age population, Xiaogang Anhui farmers

We like to scare ourselves with thoughts of the exhaustion of natural resources, limits to growth, and replacement of people by robots. It may be fun, or perhaps it makes us feel virtuous for not being naïve and anticipating the worst, but history teaches us that the world of robotic workers is not something we should rationally fear. 5.3b Problems with Universal Basic Income Reaction to such fears of massive unemployment has given sudden prominence to the concept of universal basic income (UBI).29 The UBI has four features: it is universal, that is, it would provide an income to each citizen; it is unconditional, that is, it is given to everyone with no requirements; it is disbursed in cash; and it is an income source, that is, a constant flow rather than a one-off grant.

In addition, for those who fall between the cracks and still have no acceptable income despite these social insurance programs, the system introduces social assistance benefits that are means-tested and whose objective, unlike social insurance, is straightforward poverty prevention. The philosophy underlying the welfare state would be overhauled by introduction of a system of universal basic income. UBI does not insure against risks; it completely ignores them. It distributes money to everyone equally, though money received by well-off individuals is later clawed back through taxation. This is not necessarily a dispositive argument against UBI. The philosophy on which a welfare system is based can, and perhaps should, be changed.

See also Rich; Upper class Ellul, Jacques, 208–209 Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), to deconcentrate capital ownership, 48 The End of History and the Last Man (Fukuyama), 70 Engels, Friedrich, 1, 2, 3, 114, 224 Entrepreneurship, 25 Entry costs, rich and, 33–34 Equilibrium corruption, 121 Escaping Poverty (Vries), 115 Ethical imperialism, 126 Ethical vs. legal, 182 Ethics of ruling class, 66 Europe, performance of socialist vs. capitalist economies in, 84–85 Export pessimism, 149–150 Extractive institutions, 73 Fallacy: of the lump of labor doctrine, 198–199; of lump of raw materials and energy, 200–201; that human needs are limited, 199 Family, decreased usefulness of, 187–190 Fascism, explaining rise of, 70–72 Feldstein, Martin, 33 Ferguson, Niall, 72 Financial assets, rich and rate of return on, 32–33 Financial centers, corruption and global, 169–170 Financial deregulation, 183 Financial settlements, amorality and, 183–184 Finland, universal basic income in, 202 First Congress of the Peoples of the East, 223 Fischer, Fritz, 72 Fisher, Irving, 48 Fixed investment in China, 89–90 France: inherited wealth in, 62; minority support for globalization in, 9; share of capital as percent of national income in, 15 Frank, André Gunder, 148 Fraser, Nancy, 195 Freeman, Richard, 144, 198 Freund, Caroline, 50, 161–163 Fu, Zhe, 102 Fukuyama, Francis, 68, 70, 115, 120 Functional distribution of income, 233 Funding of political parties and campaigns, control of political process by rich and, 57–58 Future, inability to visualize, 197–201 GDP per capita: for China and India, 8, 211, 212; in countries with political capitalism, 97; decline in global inequality and, 213; growth rate in China, Vietnam, and United States, 86; household net wealth and, 27, 30, 31; in socialist vs. capitalist economies in Europe in 1950, 83–84; universal basic income and, 203 Gender, ruling class and, 66 Geopolitical changes, global inequality and, 211–214 Germany: cracking down on tax evasion in, 173; inequality in income from capital and labor in, 26–27, 29; limits of tax-and-transfer redistribution in, 44–45; migration and, 137, 242n47; share of global GDP, 9, 10; subcitizenship in, 136 Gernet, Jacques, 105–106, 115 Ghettoization, of migrants, 146–147 Gig economy, 190, 192, 194 Gilens, Martin, 56 Gini coefficients, 6, 27, 231, 241–242n40 Gini points, 6, 7, 239n22, 240n30 Gintis, Herbert, 209–211 Giving Pledge, 242n44 Global attractiveness of political capitalism, 112–113; Chinese “export” of political capitalism and, 118–128 Global capitalism, future of, 176–218; amorality of hypercommercialized capitalism, 176–187; atomization and commodification, 187–197; fear of technological progress and, 197–205; global inequality and geopolitical changes, 211–214; leading toward people’s capitalism and egalitarian capitalism, 215–218; political capitalism vs. liberal capitalism, 207–211; war and peace, 205–207 Global capitalism, globalization and, 153–155 Global GDP: China’s share of, 9, 10; Germany’s share of, 9, 10; India’s share of, 9, 10; United States’ share of, 9, 10 Global inequality, 6–9; decline in, 257n36; geopolitical changes and, 211–214; history of income inequality, 6–9; measurement of, 231–233 Global Inequality (Milanovic), 102 Globalization: capitalism and, 3; eras of, 150–155; facilitating worldwide corruption, 107; inequality in liberal meritocratic capitalism and, 22; malaise in the West about, 9–10; scenarios for evolution of, 209–211; support for in Asia, 9; tax havens and, 44; welfare state and, 50–55, 155–159; welfare state in era of, 50–55; worldwide corruption and, 159–175.


pages: 346 words: 97,330

Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley From Building a New Global Underclass by Mary L. Gray, Siddharth Suri

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Apollo 13, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, Big Tech, big-box store, bitcoin, blue-collar work, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cloud computing, cognitive load, collaborative consumption, collective bargaining, computer vision, corporate social responsibility, cotton gin, crowdsourcing, data is the new oil, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, deskilling, digital divide, do well by doing good, do what you love, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, employer provided health coverage, en.wikipedia.org, equal pay for equal work, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, financial independence, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, fulfillment center, future of work, gig economy, glass ceiling, global supply chain, hiring and firing, ImageNet competition, independent contractor, industrial robot, informal economy, information asymmetry, Jeff Bezos, job automation, knowledge economy, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, machine translation, market friction, Mars Rover, natural language processing, new economy, operational security, passive income, pattern recognition, post-materialism, post-work, power law, race to the bottom, Rana Plaza, recommendation engine, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Coase, scientific management, search costs, Second Machine Age, sentiment analysis, sharing economy, Shoshana Zuboff, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, software as a service, speech recognition, spinning jenny, Stephen Hawking, TED Talk, The Future of Employment, The Nature of the Firm, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, two-sided market, union organizing, universal basic income, Vilfredo Pareto, Wayback Machine, women in the workforce, work culture , Works Progress Administration, Y Combinator, Yochai Benkler

National Domestic Workers Alliance website, accessed June 21, 2018, https://www.domesticworkers.org/. [back] 14. Andy Stern and Lee Kravitz, Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream (New York: PublicAffairs, 2016); Alyssa Battistoni, “The False Promise of Universal Basic Income,” Dissent, Spring 2017, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/false-promise-universal-basic-income-andy-stern-ruger-bregman; Rana Foroohar, “We’re About to Live in a World of Economic Hunger Games,” Time, July 19, 2016, http://time.com/4412410/andy-stern-universal-basic-income/; Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, reprint (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017).

“AutoMan: A Platform for Integrating Human-Based and Digital Computation.” Communications of the ACM 59, no. 6 (June 2016): 102–109. https://doi.org/10.1145/2927928. Basi, J. K. Tina. Women, Identity and India’s Call Centre Industry. London: Routledge, 2009. Battistoni, Alyssa. “The False Promise of Universal Basic Income.” Dissent, Spring 2017. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/false-promise-universal-basic-income-andy-stern-ruger-bregman. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2016. Washington, DC: Federal Reserve Board, May 2017. https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications.htm. Boudreau, Kevin J., Patrick Gaule, Karim R.

Beyond that baseline, education is now part of “on-the-job” training and just as necessary for those hiring on-demand workers as the workers themselves. Safety Net Part B: Retainer base wage for all working adults Some, like longtime union leader Andy Stern, of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), argue that the time has come to turn to a universal basic income, or UBI.14 This is not a new idea. It came into vogue with other Enlightenment ideals, like democracy. Early arguments for a basic income go like this: If citizens receive a basic income, the state can get out of the paternalistic business of managing the welfare state. It would no longer be in the role of deciding who deserves support or administering a system of doling out resources through a moral lens of who deserves help and what kind of help (cheese blocks vs. apples) would be most appropriate.


pages: 357 words: 95,986

Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work by Nick Srnicek, Alex Williams

3D printing, additive manufacturing, air freight, algorithmic trading, anti-work, antiwork, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, basic income, battle of ideas, blockchain, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, capitalist realism, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, centre right, collective bargaining, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, decarbonisation, deep learning, deindustrialization, deskilling, Doha Development Round, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, Evgeny Morozov, Ferguson, Missouri, financial independence, food miles, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, future of work, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, housing crisis, housing justice, income inequality, industrial robot, informal economy, intermodal, Internet Archive, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, late capitalism, liberation theology, Live Aid, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market design, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, mass incarceration, means of production, megaproject, minimum wage unemployment, Modern Monetary Theory, Mont Pelerin Society, Murray Bookchin, neoliberal agenda, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Overton Window, patent troll, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, post scarcity, post-Fordism, post-work, postnationalism / post nation state, precariat, precautionary principle, price stability, profit motive, public intellectual, quantitative easing, reshoring, Richard Florida, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, Slavoj Žižek, social web, stakhanovite, Steve Jobs, surplus humans, synthetic biology, tacit knowledge, technological determinism, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, the long tail, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, wages for housework, warehouse automation, We are all Keynesians now, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population

This is not a simple, marginal reform, but an entirely new hegemonic formation to compete against the neoliberal and social democratic options. The demand for full automation amplifies the possibility of reducing the working week and heightens the need for a universal basic income. A reduction in the working week helps produce a sustainable economy and leverage class power. And a universal basic income amplifies the potential to reduce the working week and expand class power. It would also accelerate the project of full automation: as worker power rose and as the labour market tightened, the marginal cost of labour would increase as companies turned towards machinery in order to expand.137 These goals resonate with each other, magnifying their combined power.

By directing the left towards a post-work future, not only will significant gains be aimed for – such as the reduction of drudgery and poverty – but political power will be built in the process. In the end, we believe a post-work society is not only achievable, given the material conditions, but also viable and desirable.6 This chapter charts a way forward: building a post-work society on the basis of fully automating the economy, reducing the working week, implementing a universal basic income, and achieving a cultural shift in the understanding of work. FULL AUTOMATION Our first demand is for a fully automated economy. Using the latest technological developments, such an economy would aim to liberate humanity from the drudgery of work while simultaneously producing increasing amounts of wealth.

As Paul Mattick puts it, ‘the leisure of the starving, or the needy, is no leisure at all but a relentless activity aimed at staying alive or improving their situation’.90 The underemployed, for instance, have plenty of free time but lack the means to enjoy it. Underemployed, it turns out, is really just a euphemism for under-waged. This is why an essential demand in a post-work society is for a universal basic income (UBI), giving every citizen a liveable amount of money without any means-testing.91 It is an idea that has periodically popped up throughout history.92 In the early 1940s, a version of it was advanced as an alternative to the Beveridge Report that eventually shaped the UK welfare state.93 In a now largely forgotten period during the 1960s and 1970s, the basic income was central to proposals for US welfare reform.


pages: 385 words: 123,168

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber

1960s counterculture, active measures, antiwork, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Black Lives Matter, Bretton Woods, Buckminster Fuller, business logic, call centre, classic study, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, data science, David Graeber, do what you love, Donald Trump, emotional labour, equal pay for equal work, full employment, functional programming, global supply chain, High speed trading, hiring and firing, imposter syndrome, independent contractor, informal economy, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, knowledge worker, moral panic, Post-Keynesian economics, post-work, precariat, Rutger Bregman, scientific management, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, single-payer health, software as a service, telemarketer, The Future of Employment, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Travis Kalanick, universal basic income, unpaid internship, wage slave, wages for housework, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional, éminence grise

search the text until they find something that looks like a policy suggestion, and then act as if that is what the book is basically about. So if I were to suggest that a mass reduction of working hours or a policy of universal basic income might go far in solving the problems described here, the likely response will be to see this as a book about reducing working hours or about universal basic income, and to treat it as if it stands and falls on the workability of that policy—or even, the ease by which it could be implemented. That would be deceptive. This is not a book about a particular solution. It’s a book about a problem—one that most people don’t even acknowledge exists.

On How the Political Culture under Managerial Feudalism Comes to Be Maintained by a Balance of Resentments | How the Current Crisis over Robotization Relates to the Larger Problem of Bullshit Jobs | On the Political Ramifications of Bullshitization and Consequent Decline of Productivity in the Caring Sector as It Relates to the Possibility of a Revolt of the Caring Classes | On Universal Basic Income as an Example of a Program That Might Begin to Detach Work from Compensation and Put an End to the Dilemmas Described in This Book Acknowledgments About the Author Notes Bibliography To anyone who would rather be doing something useful with themselves. Preface: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs In the spring of 2013, I unwittingly set off a very minor international sensation.

Years later, with Occupy Wall Street, which might be considered the first great rising of the caring classes, I watched those same “progressive” professional-managerials first attempt to co-opt the movement for the Democratic Party, then, when that proved impossible, sit idly by or even collude while a peaceful movement was suppressed by military force. on universal basic income as an example of a program that might begin to detach work from compensation and put an end to the dilemmas described in this book I don’t usually like putting policy recommendations in my books. One reason for this is that it has been my experience that if an author is critical of existing social arrangements, reviewers will often respond by effectively asking “so what are you proposing to do about it, then?”


pages: 393 words: 91,257

The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class by Joel Kotkin

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", "World Economic Forum" Davos, Admiral Zheng, Alvin Toffler, Andy Kessler, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bread and circuses, Brexit referendum, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon credits, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, clean water, company town, content marketing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, data science, deindustrialization, demographic transition, deplatforming, don't be evil, Donald Trump, driverless car, edge city, Elon Musk, European colonialism, Evgeny Morozov, financial independence, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Future Shock, gentrification, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Google bus, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, guest worker program, Hans Rosling, Herbert Marcuse, housing crisis, income inequality, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, job polarisation, job satisfaction, Joseph Schumpeter, land reform, liberal capitalism, life extension, low skilled workers, Lyft, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, megacity, Michael Shellenberger, Nate Silver, new economy, New Urbanism, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, Occupy movement, Parag Khanna, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, post-industrial society, post-work, postindustrial economy, postnationalism / post nation state, precariat, profit motive, public intellectual, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, rent control, Richard Florida, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Salesforce, Sam Altman, San Francisco homelessness, Satyajit Das, sharing economy, Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, smart cities, Social Justice Warrior, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, superstar cities, technological determinism, Ted Nordhaus, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, trade route, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, unpaid internship, upwardly mobile, Virgin Galactic, We are the 99%, Wolfgang Streeck, women in the workforce, work culture , working-age population, Y Combinator

Medium, February 26, 2016, https://medium.com/@ferenstein/a-lot-of-billionaires-are-giving-to-democrats-here-s-a-look-at-their-agenda-b5038c2ecb34. 13 Todd Haselton, “Mark Zuckerberg joins Silicon Valley bigwigs in calling for government to give everybody free money,” Yahoo, May 25, 2017, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-joins-silicon-valley-202800717.html; Patrick Gillespie, “Mark Zuckerberg supports universal basic income. What is it?” CNN, May 6, 2017, https://money.cnn.com/2017/05/26/news/economy/mark-zuckerberg-universal-basic-income/index.html; Chris Weller, “Elon Musk doubles down on universal basic income: ‘It’s going to be necessary,’” Business Insider, February 13, 2017, https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-universal-basic-income-2017-2; Patrick Caughill, “Another Silicon Valley Exec Joins the Ranks of Universal Basic Income Supporters,” Futurism, September 8, 2017, https://futurism.com/another-silicon-valley-exec-joins-the-ranks-of-universal-basic-income-supporters; Sam Altman, “Moving Forward on Basic Income,” Y Combinator, May 31, 2016, https://blog.ycombinator.com/moving-forward-on-basic-income/; Diane Francis, “The Beginning of the End of Work,” American Interest, March 19, 2018, https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/03/19/beginning-end-work/. 14 “The YIMBY Guide to Bullying and Its Results: SB 827 Goes Down in Committee,” City Watch LA, April 19, 2018, https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/los-angeles/15298-the-yimby-guide-to-bullying-and-its-results-sb-827-goes-down-in-committee; John Mirisch, “Tech Oligarchs and the California Housing Crisis,” California Political Review, April 15, 2018, http://www.capoliticalreview.com/top-stories/tech-Oligarchs-and-the-california-housing-crisis/; Joel Kotkin, “Giving Common Sense a Chance in California,” City Journal, April 26, 2018, https://www.city-journal.org/html/giving-common-sense-chance-california-15868.html. 15 Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, trans.

Wall Street Journal, October 3, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ben-franklin-who-1538608727; Colleen Flaherty, “The Vanishing History Major,” Inside Higher Ed, November 27, 2018, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/11/27/new-analysis-history-major-data-says-ield-new-low-can-it-be-saved. 32 Henri Pirenne, Mohammed and Charlemagne (Cleveland: Meridian, 1957), 118; Roderick Seidenberg, Post-historic Man: An Inquiry (New York: Viking, 1974), 179. 33 Glenn Harlan Reynolds, “Robert Zubrin makes ‘The Case for Space,’” USA Today, May 7, 2019, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/05/07/spacex-blue-origin-virgin-galactic-robert-zubrin-case-space-column/1119446001/. 34 David Pilling, Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival (New York: Penguin, 2014), 119, 177–79; Karel van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation (New York: Knopf, 1989), 2–3. 35 Andy Kessler, “Zuckerberg’s Opiate for the Masses,” Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/zuckerbergs-opiate-for-the-masses-1497821885. 36 Catherine Clifford, “About half of Americans support giving residents up to $2000 a month when robots take their jobs,” CNBC, December 19, 2016, https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/19/about-half-of-americans-support-giving-residents-up-to-2000-a-month-when-robots-take-our-jobs.html. 37 Patrick Hoare, “European Social Survey (ESS) reveal findings about attitudes toward Universal Basic Income across Europe,” Basic Income, January 20, 2018, https://basicincome.org/news/2018/01/europe-european-social-survey-ess-reveal-findings-attitudes-toward-universal-basic-income-across-europe/; Andrew Russell, “What Do Canadians think of basic income? It will reduce poverty but could raise taxes,” Global News, June 7, 2017, https://globalnews. ca/news/3509763/what-do-canadians-think-of-basic-income-it-will-reduce-poverty-but-could-raise-taxes/. 38 Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the 16th Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974), 357.

Japan will not conquer the world, one observer suggests, but it could settle into being something like an Asian Switzerland with a rapidly aging but comfortable population.34 Similarly, the neo-feudal order would replace a focus on upward mobility and family with a desire for a comfortable, subsidized life, indulging in the digital mind-sinks that keep the masses in their metaphorical basements.35 Already, roughly half of all Americans support the idea of a guaranteed basic income of about $2,000 a month if robots put them out of work.36 A universal basic income enjoys even stronger support in most European countries, particularly among younger people.37 To slow or reverse neo-feudalism, with its constraints on upward mobility and creation of more dependency, requires awakening the political will of the Third Estate to resist it. “Happy the nation whose people have not forgotten how to rebel,” wrote the British historian R.


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Bezonomics: How Amazon Is Changing Our Lives and What the World's Best Companies Are Learning From It by Brian Dumaine

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, AI winter, Airbnb, Amazon Robotics, Amazon Web Services, Atul Gawande, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Black Swan, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, carbon tax, Carl Icahn, Chris Urmson, cloud computing, corporate raider, creative destruction, Danny Hillis, data science, deep learning, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, Fairchild Semiconductor, fake news, fulfillment center, future of work, gig economy, Glass-Steagall Act, Google Glasses, Google X / Alphabet X, income inequality, independent contractor, industrial robot, Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, Kevin Roose, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, military-industrial complex, money market fund, natural language processing, no-fly zone, Ocado, pets.com, plutocrats, race to the bottom, ride hailing / ride sharing, Salesforce, Sand Hill Road, self-driving car, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Snapchat, speech recognition, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, supply-chain management, TED Talk, Tim Cook: Apple, too big to fail, Travis Kalanick, two-pizza team, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, wealth creators, web application, Whole Earth Catalog, work culture

Amazon is a master of robotics, and although the company has created more than 650,000 jobs from its inception to 2019, it’s about to unleash a wave of automation that—when copied by others—will roil our labor markets to the point where governments will need to take seriously the idea of a universal basic income. At the same time, as more companies pursue their own Bezonomics business model, life will become even more digitized, ushering in a world where, instead of visiting malls or small neighborhood stores where we can interact with friends and neighbors, we’ll sit in isolation in the glow of a screen and do our shopping with a click of the buy button.

For most people, the pink-slip-bearing robots haven’t arrived yet. But all signs point to the fact that they’re coming, except for those who exist in certain insulated professions—often ones that are high-touch or have an emotional component. Some of the dispossessed will find new jobs, others will survive on a universal basic income provided by their government, and others still will turn to the gig economy, trying to eke out a living any way they can. One way to do this, of course, is to start a business that sells stuff on Amazon. That, however, would mean having to compete directly with Amazon’s relentless AI flywheel.

Of course, Sanders and Bezos’s tussle aside, the long-term worry for Amazon’s lower-rung workers is not that their compensation will dip below that which is sufficient for a comfortable middle-class lifestyle (even at $15 an hour, which works out to $31,000 a year, that goal remains elusive), but that their jobs may be automated out of existence. On this topic, Bezos is a techno-optimist. He believes that the economy will provide jobs for those displaced by automation and AI. That said, from time to time he has pondered the need for a universal basic income (UBI) to make up for lost jobs. In essence, with a UBI the federal government steps in and pays every American a basic wage to make up for the disruption that technology is about to wreak on the job market. Bezos, who has libertarian leanings, hasn’t made up his mind yet on a UBI. In general, he is a social progressive who is not politically outspoken and has limited his public advocacy.


The New Class War: Saving Democracy From the Metropolitan Elite by Michael Lind

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, anti-communist, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Cambridge Analytica, capital controls, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, collective bargaining, commoditize, corporate governance, cotton gin, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, disinformation, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, export processing zone, fake news, future of work, gentrification, global supply chain, guest worker program, Haight Ashbury, illegal immigration, immigration reform, independent contractor, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, knowledge economy, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal world order, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, means of production, Michael Milken, moral panic, Nate Silver, new economy, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open borders, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, purchasing power parity, Ralph Nader, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Silicon Valley, SoftBank, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Timothy McVeigh, trade liberalization, union organizing, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, WikiLeaks, Wolfgang Streeck, working poor

Somewhat bolder proposals to help the working class, which also avoid any heretical questioning of the labor market effects of deunionization, offshoring, and mass immigration, include more redistribution of income in the form of cash transfers or tax breaks and more opportunities for working-class citizens to start their own businesses. Redistributionist proposals range from expanding tax subsidies to wage earners, like America’s earned income tax credit (EITC), to the old but periodically revived idea of a universal basic income (UBI), which would allow all citizens to live at a minimally adequate level without working. While some minor forms of enhanced redistribution to mollify discontented voters will undoubtedly be tried in many Western countries, proposals for massive cash transfers are doomed for a number of reasons.

A “robot tax” has been endorsed by French socialist Benoît Hamon and American capitalist Bill Gates, to fund a UBI as a solution to the as-yet-nonexistent problem of mass technological unemployment. But if robots were cheap and common enough to cause mass unemployment, the commoditized robot industry might not generate enough profit to support a massively expanded welfare state; you might as well try to pay for a universal basic income with a microwave oven tax. If, on the other hand, robots were scarce and selling for a premium, technological unemployment would not be a problem—and the robot tax perversely would encourage the substitution of low-wage workers for advanced machines, putting the Industrial Revolution into reverse.

Peters, “The Rise of Finance and the Decline of Organized Labor in the Advanced Capitalist Countries,” New Political Economy 16, no. 1, p. 93, cited in Sayer, Why We Can’t Afford the Rich, pp. 187–88. 7. Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti, “Why Do Cities Matter? Local Growth and Aggregate Growth,” Chicago Unbound: Kreisman Working Paper Series in Housing Law and Policy, 2015. 8. Shirin Ghaffary, “Many in Silicon Valley Support Universal Basic Income. Now the California Democratic Party Does, Too,” Vox, March 8, 2018; Candice Norwood, “Silicon Valley Is Helping Cities Test a Radical Anti-Poverty Idea,” Governing, July 16, 2018. 9. Barry C. Lynn, Cornered: The New Monopoly and the Economics of Destruction (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2010); Lina M.


India's Long Road by Vijay Joshi

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, barriers to entry, Basel III, basic income, blue-collar work, book value, Bretton Woods, business climate, capital controls, carbon tax, central bank independence, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, colonial rule, congestion charging, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, creative destruction, crony capitalism, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Doha Development Round, eurozone crisis, facts on the ground, failed state, financial intermediation, financial repression, first-past-the-post, floating exchange rates, foreign exchange controls, full employment, germ theory of disease, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, global value chain, hiring and firing, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, Induced demand, inflation targeting, invisible hand, land reform, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, Martin Wolf, means of production, microcredit, moral hazard, obamacare, Pareto efficiency, price elasticity of demand, price mechanism, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, profit motive, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, rent-seeking, reserve currency, rising living standards, school choice, school vouchers, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, smart cities, South China Sea, special drawing rights, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, universal basic income, urban sprawl, vertical integration, working-age population

Note also that with growth of national income over time, the absolute real amounts of resources available for redistribution would rise for any given percentage of GDP earmarked for the purpose (or a given amount S a f e t y N e t s a n d S o ci a l P r o t e c t i o n [ 213 ] 214 of redistribution could be done with a smaller percentage of GDP). So in a few years, the resources required to pay for a universal basic income set at a fixed absolute real level of income would fall to well below 3.5 per cent of GDP (or the universal basic income transfer could be increased at the given share of 3.5 per cent of GDP to eliminate any residual poverty that remains after the implementation of the scheme).33 Needless to say, a basic income scheme would face some challenging difficulties.

It takes a cool and critical look at the role of the state and the private sector in providing these essential services. Chapter 10 is about inclusion via ‘social protection’ and income redistribution. In India, this takes place primarily through price subsidies. In contrast, the chapter advocates achieving egalitarian aims, including a universal ‘basic income’, by the use of cash transfers. The existing methods of reaching the poor are shown to be ineffective and costly. There is, in addition, an analysis of how enhanced cash transfers could be financed with relative ease if the existing dysfunctional price subsidies were eliminated. Part IV moves on to the political economy of Indian development.

My view is that any such effort would be politically very contentious and S a f e t y N e t s a n d S o ci a l P r o t e c t i o n [ 211 ] 212 divisive. A universal transfer would be preferable if it were fiscally possible because it would arouse much less resistance. The Appendix to this chapter estimates the cost of universal ‘basic income’ provision, taking account of the realistic constraints identified above. The scheme envisaged therein would raise the average income of poor people to the poverty line by making the requisite uniform and universal cash transfer. The Appendix shows that at 2014/​15 prices, this would involve making a cash transfer of about Rs. 17,500 a year per household (i.e. around Rs. 1450 per month per household) which, if it covered all households, would cost 3.5 per cent of GDP annually.


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Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition That Is Shaping the Next Economy by Nathan Schneider

1960s counterculture, Aaron Swartz, Adam Curtis, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, altcoin, Amazon Mechanical Turk, antiwork, back-to-the-land, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, Brewster Kahle, Burning Man, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Clayton Christensen, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, commons-based peer production, Community Supported Agriculture, corporate governance, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, Debian, degrowth, disruptive innovation, do-ocracy, Donald Knuth, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, emotional labour, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Evgeny Morozov, Fairphone, Food sovereignty, four colour theorem, future of work, Gabriella Coleman, gentrification, gig economy, Google bus, holacracy, hydraulic fracturing, initial coin offering, intentional community, Internet Archive, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, jimmy wales, John Perry Barlow, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Julian Assange, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, low interest rates, Lyft, M-Pesa, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, means of production, Money creation, multi-sided market, Murray Bookchin, new economy, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Pier Paolo Pasolini, post-work, precariat, premature optimization, pre–internet, profit motive, race to the bottom, Richard Florida, Richard Stallman, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rutger Bregman, Salesforce, Sam Altman, Satoshi Nakamoto, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Slavoj Žižek, smart contracts, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stewart Brand, surveillance capitalism, tech worker, TED Talk, transaction costs, Turing test, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, underbanked, undersea cable, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, Vanguard fund, Vitalik Buterin, W. E. B. Du Bois, white flight, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, working poor, workplace surveillance , Y Combinator, Y2K, Zipcar

“Tell me something that you think robots cannot do, and I will tell you a time frame in which they can actually do it,” claims Federico Pistono, a young Italian who spoke there. Among other accomplishments, Pistono had written a book called Robots Will Steal Your Job, but That’s OK. At the Singularity meeting, he was the chief proponent of universal basic income, an idea that at the time still seemed novel. He cited recent basic-income experiments in India that showed promise for combating poverty among people the tech economy has left behind. Diamandis later reported having been “amazed” by the potential.12 That year, also, celebrity investor Marc Andreessen told New York magazine that he considered basic income “a very interesting idea,” and Sam Altman of the elite startup accelerator Y Combinator called its implementation an “obvious conclusion.”13 Those were just the early salvos.

Diamandis later reported having been “amazed” by the potential.12 That year, also, celebrity investor Marc Andreessen told New York magazine that he considered basic income “a very interesting idea,” and Sam Altman of the elite startup accelerator Y Combinator called its implementation an “obvious conclusion.”13 Those were just the early salvos. What people generally mean by universal basic income is the idea of giving everyone enough money to provide for the necessities of life. Imagine, say, a $20,000 check every year for every US citizen. The idea appeals to hopeful longings for a humane, egalitarian sort of commonwealth—a recognition that people, including those who are currently poor, will know better than any top-down welfare program what to spend the money on.

Instead, it grows through what Grace Lee Boggs called “critical connections”—bridging generations, forging bonds too strong for profiteers to break. It requires people who know their own strengths. A lot of those who have been drawn into the co-op movement in recent years hope it can be something like universal basic income—a drastic, radical fix that changes everything. They try to create co-ops for the hardest of problems, using the most untested of means, building their dreams out of policy proposals and foundation grants and panels at conferences. I watch the news of these developments closely. But some of the most remarkable things are happening more quietly, making use of latent resources already in our midst.


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Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America by Alissa Quart

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Alvin Toffler, antiwork, Automated Insights, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, business intelligence, do what you love, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, East Village, Elon Musk, emotional labour, full employment, future of work, gentrification, gig economy, glass ceiling, haute couture, income inequality, independent contractor, information security, Jaron Lanier, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, late capitalism, Lyft, minimum wage unemployment, moral panic, new economy, nuclear winter, obamacare, peak TV, Ponzi scheme, post-work, precariat, price mechanism, rent control, rent stabilization, ride hailing / ride sharing, school choice, sharing economy, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, stop buying avocado toast, surplus humans, TaskRabbit, tech worker, TED Talk, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, wages for housework, WeWork, women in the workforce, work culture , working poor

up from $691 billion in 2012: Deborah Bach, “Study Reveals Surprising Truths about Caregivers,” UWNews, June 16, 2015, https://www.washington.edu/news/2015/06/16/study-reveals-surprising-truths-about-caregivers/. The Ottawa Citizen kvelled: Madeline Ashby, “Ashby: Let’s Talk about Canadian Values (Values Like a Universal Basic Income),” Ottawa Citizen, November 15, 2016, http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/ashby-lets-talk-about-canadian-values-values-like-a-universal-basic-income. feminist theorist Kathi Weeks: Kathi Weeks, The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011). “no longer socially necessary”: James Livingston, No More Work: Why Full Employment Is a Bad Idea (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016).

The third strand asserts that the advent of robots is both inevitable and overstated; automation may have to be addressed, according to this strand of thought, but not with great urgency. The fourth strand is certain that robots are ferociously coming for our jobs, but that there’s an excellent solution for the resulting disruption, one whose intellectual trendiness and utopian excess often make people roll their eyes: universal basic income. I subscribe to the first line of thought, which highlights what robots may bring. Some of the concerns voiced by this strand are minor and some are immense. The Middle Precariat people I met who would soon be affected by the rise of the robots were similar to the trucker Finn Murphy, the author of the memoir The Long Haul.

This third camp holds that robots are not such a big deal, but that we should also try to do something about their incursion. As Ford put it to me, we will have to learn how to address any underemployment that results from their mechanical rivalry. And then there is the fourth camp that I mentioned earlier—they definitely fear the march of the robots, but think that everything may be okay if we embrace universal basic income, or UBI (or the more catchy-sounding BIG, for basic income guarantee). This fourth group includes people like UBI “ambassador” Scott Santens, an author and advocate who often writes in support of these initiatives. One reason why UBI is so necessary, Santens told me with an enthusiasm that veered between that of a zealot and a bubbly partygoer, is to protect us from the inevitability of a robot workforce.


pages: 307 words: 88,180

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee

"World Economic Forum" Davos, AI winter, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, algorithmic bias, algorithmic trading, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, artificial general intelligence, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, bike sharing, business cycle, Cambridge Analytica, cloud computing, commoditize, computer vision, corporate social responsibility, cotton gin, creative destruction, crony capitalism, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, Didi Chuxing, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, full employment, future of work, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, gig economy, Google Chrome, Hans Moravec, happiness index / gross national happiness, high-speed rail, if you build it, they will come, ImageNet competition, impact investing, income inequality, informal economy, Internet of things, invention of the telegraph, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Lean Startup, low skilled workers, Lyft, machine translation, mandatory minimum, Mark Zuckerberg, Menlo Park, minimum viable product, natural language processing, Neil Armstrong, new economy, Nick Bostrom, OpenAI, pattern recognition, pirate software, profit maximization, QR code, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, Robert Mercer, Rodney Brooks, Rubik’s Cube, Sam Altman, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sentiment analysis, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, SoftBank, Solyndra, special economic zone, speech recognition, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, strong AI, TED Talk, The Future of Employment, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban planning, vertical integration, Vision Fund, warehouse robotics, Y Combinator

More creative versions of these programs could correct for this, and I encourage companies and governments to continue experimenting with them. But I fear this kind of approach will be far from sufficient to address the long-term pressures that AI will bring to the labor market. For that, we may have to adopt more radical redistributive measures. THE BASICS OF UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME Currently, the most popular of these methods of redistribution is, as mentioned earlier, the universal basic income (UBI). At its core, the idea is simple: every citizen (or every adult) in a country receives a regular income stipend from the government—no strings attached. A UBI would differ from traditional welfare or unemployment benefits in that it would be given to everyone and would not be subject to time limits, job-search requirements, or any constraints in how it could be spent.

., competition between digital world dominance of, 2, 11–12, 18 economic stratification in, 150 education experiments in, 229 Fermi’s move to, 85 global economic inequality and, 168–70 government’s hands-off approach, 18, 229 great decoupling and, 150, 202 inequality within, 170–72, 199–200 inheritance of technological skillsets in, 33 jobs at risk of automation in, 157–60, 164 mobile payments in, compared to China, 75–77 privacy protection in, 125 self-driving cars in, 133 spending on research vs. Google, 92–93 traffic accidents in, 101 universal basic income and, 207 universal basic income (UBI), 201, 206–10, 218, 220, 222, 225 University of Modena, 191–92 University of Science and Technology of China, 81–82 “useless class,” 172, 230 utopians vs. dystopians, 140–44 V value alignment problem, 142 venture capital (VC) industry AI world order and, 20 American, 70 Chinese, 3–4, 11, 40, 47–48, 51–54, 58, 64–65, 88, 97–99 competition between companies and, 15 creation of, and AI revolution, 153–55 Lee and, ix, xi, 3, 52 new venture ecosystem, 216–17 VIPKid, 123–24 volunteerism, 218–20, 221, 229 W Wadhwa, Vivek, 165 wage suppression, 165 Wall Street, 35 Walsh, Frank, 173 Wang Xing as the Cloner, 22–24, 25–26 Facebook and Twitter copied by, 22, 23, 24, 31, 32–33, 42 Meituan, founding of, 45–49 Meituan Dianping, 49, 69, 70, 78 Ware, Bronnie, 186–87, 195 War of a Thousand Groupons, 45–49 Waymo, 92, 131, 135 weak features vs. strong features, 110–11, 113, 191 wealth and class inequality, 19–20, 144, 145–47, 150–51, 154, 170–72, 199–200.

But in choosing different policies, we can reward different behaviors and start to nudge our culture in different directions. We can choose a purely technocratic approach—one that sees each of us as a set of financial and material needs to be satisfied—and simply transfer enough cash to all people so that they don’t starve or go homeless. In fact, this notion of universal basic income seems to be becoming more and more popular these days. But in making that choice I believe we would both devalue our own humanity and miss out on an unparalleled opportunity. Instead, I want to lay out proposals for how we can use the economic bounty created by AI to double-down on what makes us human.


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Rewriting the Rules of the European Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity by Joseph E. Stiglitz

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accelerated depreciation, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Basel III, basic income, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, bilateral investment treaty, business cycle, business process, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate raider, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, deindustrialization, discovery of DNA, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, financial intermediation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gender pay gap, George Akerlof, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, hiring and firing, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, independent contractor, inflation targeting, informal economy, information asymmetry, intangible asset, investor state dispute settlement, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market fundamentalism, mini-job, moral hazard, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, open economy, Paris climate accords, patent troll, pension reform, price mechanism, price stability, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, TaskRabbit, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transaction costs, transfer pricing, trickle-down economics, tulip mania, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, vertical integration, zero-sum game

The origins of the social protection and risk-sharing aspects of the welfare state are, however, also ethical, based on solidarity and social justice and built around a shared responsibility for fellow human beings. This chapter discusses three key social protection programs: health, pensions, and disability and long-term care. We then explain why governments should provide universal coverage and discuss the pros and cons of a universal basic income program. HEALTH CARE European countries have universal health care systems, which they should not take for granted, that offer treatment and preventive care, often of excellent quality. European governments often provide health care directly. In other cases, the services are provided through private establishments but are paid for by the government.

More generally, how much government pays those who teach children and take care of the elderly and the sick reflects our values: if we value our children, our aged, and our sick, we should pay those who care for them well. If taxation is reformed, which we have advocated in this book, the necessary funds will be available. FROM SOCIAL ASSISTANCE TO A UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME? Social protection systems should be universal and designed to protect all citizens in Europe. While social insurance covers the majority of people, social assistance programs (that is, transfers unrelated to any prior contributions) support, for instance, those without formal employment and therefore the ability to contribute, as well as those with special needs or disabilities.

But such targeting is expensive, excludes many vulnerable people, and introduces distortions into the economy (since some people change behavior to achieve eligibility). Moreover, it has long been a maxim that “means-tested programs are mean.” There is a tendency to starve programs that are extended only to a small part of the population. Recently, proposals for a universal basic income (UBI) have achieved considerable attention. Their advocates hold that a single program could replace the multiplicity of programs aimed at different groups and at different needs, such as social assistance, unemployment support, and housing. Proponents champion the simplicity of the scheme and the “dignity that it confers, an income that one receives simply as a right of citizenship.”13 The net redistributive impacts of UBI vary depending on the benefit level and financing source.


pages: 374 words: 111,284

The AI Economy: Work, Wealth and Welfare in the Robot Age by Roger Bootle

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, agricultural Revolution, AI winter, Albert Einstein, AlphaGo, Alvin Toffler, anti-work, antiwork, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Bernie Sanders, Bletchley Park, blockchain, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carl Icahn, Chris Urmson, computer age, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, conceptual framework, corporate governance, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, Demis Hassabis, deskilling, Dr. Strangelove, driverless car, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, facts on the ground, fake news, financial intermediation, full employment, future of work, Future Shock, general purpose technology, Great Leap Forward, Hans Moravec, income inequality, income per capita, industrial robot, Internet of things, invention of the wheel, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, job satisfaction, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, license plate recognition, low interest rates, machine translation, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, mega-rich, natural language processing, Network effects, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Ocado, Paul Samuelson, Peter Thiel, Phillips curve, positional goods, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Rutger Bregman, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Simon Kuznets, Skype, social intelligence, spinning jenny, Stanislav Petrov, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, synthetic biology, technological singularity, The Future of Employment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, trade route, universal basic income, US Airways Flight 1549, Vernor Vinge, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, wealth creators, winner-take-all economy, world market for maybe five computers, Y2K, Yogi Berra

Accordingly, there is a groundswell of support for a truly radical approach to income redistribution, which seems comparatively easy, appropriate to the problem at hand and politically feasible, namely the introduction of some form of basic or universal income. The idea has resonance without the possible effects of robots and AI. But, as the ensuing detailed discussion should make clear, it seems to have particular relevance to a world undergoing the robot and AI shock. A universal basic income (UBI) The idea of a guaranteed minimum income, or GMI, often referred to as a universal basic income (UBI), which is the nomenclature that I will use here, comes in many variants.6 In its purest form a UBI is the grant of a regular income at a single fixed level per individual (or per household), regardless of circumstances, financial or otherwise, and without the need to fulfill any conditions, save being a citizen of the country in question, or having been a resident there for so many years.

On the face of it, it does seem plausible that the increased employment of robots and AI will lead to increased inequality of incomes between workers. (I discuss this issue in Chapter 6.) Equally, in the first instance, without any deliberate policy action by government to spread the benefits accruing from the employment of robots and AI (perhaps through the imposition of a robot tax whose revenues are used to fund a universal basic income, which I discuss in Chapters 7 and 9), the impact will probably also be to boost profits at the expense of wages. But even if one of these two things does happen, or even both, we cannot blithely assume that they will inevitably lead to deficient demand. For a start, if the robot and AI revolution is as profound as its enthusiasts allege, then society as a whole will be radically changed.

Indeed, as we prepare for the AI economy, the state potentially needs to be at the center of three major policy issues: • The regulation and possible taxation of robots and AI. • Radical reform of the education system to prepare people for both work and leisure in the Robot Age. • The possible redistribution of income including, perhaps, through the introduction of a universal basic income (UBI). In regard to these matters, it is high time for us to move from discussion and speculation to action – or at least to the contemplation of it. PART 3 What is to be done? 7 Encourage it, or tax and regulate it? “Unfortunately, robots do not pay taxes.” Luciano Floridi1 “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat every problem as if it were a nail.”


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Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything―Even Things That Seem Impossible Today by Jane McGonigal

2021 United States Capitol attack, Airbnb, airport security, Alvin Toffler, augmented reality, autism spectrum disorder, autonomous vehicles, availability heuristic, basic income, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, circular economy, clean water, climate change refugee, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, Community Supported Agriculture, coronavirus, COVID-19, CRISPR, cryptocurrency, data science, decarbonisation, digital divide, disinformation, Donald Trump, drone strike, Elon Musk, fake news, fiat currency, future of work, Future Shock, game design, George Floyd, global pandemic, global supply chain, Greta Thunberg, income inequality, index card, Internet of things, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, lockdown, longitudinal study, Mason jar, mass immigration, meta-analysis, microbiome, Minecraft, moral hazard, open borders, pattern recognition, place-making, plant based meat, post-truth, QAnon, QR code, remote working, RFID, risk tolerance, School Strike for Climate, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Snapchat, social distancing, stem cell, TED Talk, telepresence, telepresence robot, The future is already here, TikTok, traumatic brain injury, universal basic income, women in the workforce, work culture , Y Combinator

Governments are increasingly experimenting with frequent cash payments as a form of economic stimulus. If you’re an American, you may have experienced this yourself as a recipient of pandemic relief stimulus checks or child cash stimulus payments. Or you may have heard about the growing number of pilot programs for universal basic income (UBI), in which local residents receive an unconditional cash stipend to support their basic needs, often in the range of US$500–$1,000 a month. These programs are happening right now in places from rural South Korea to the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro to Stockton, California. And in 2021, Evanston, Illinois, became the first city in the United States to pay cash reparations to Black residents, who historically faced housing discrimination and were therefore unable to benefit financially from an appreciation in home values.

—Kathi Vian, distinguished fellow, Institute for the Future Which global trends—things going on in the world that are bigger than you, and beyond your individual control—do you think will have the most influence on your life, and on your friends’ and family’s lives, over the next decade? Here’s my list: Extreme heat and drought from climate change Post-pandemic trauma (ours, and the planet’s too) The radicalization of young people via social media and conspiracy theories The widespread adoption of facial recognition technologies Universal basic income, if our city, state, or national government adopts it The reinvention of higher education, to be more affordable and lifelong When I think about my life goals, my family’s safety and security, my friends’ plans and dreams, our future health and happiness—I’m keeping this list in mind.

But when it comes to future forces, it’s almost certain that we’re all going to have to reckon with them, one way or another. You can work against a future force to try to minimize it, slow it down, or prevent future harm—the way climate crisis activists are working to mitigate the risks of climate change. You can work with a future force to help it spread faster—the way universal basic income advocates are funding their own pilot programs and studies, to try to prove to governments how much the policy could help. Or you can explore a future force with an open mind and try to find new opportunities in it—the way virtually every fast-food chain in the United States introduced at least one new plant-based version of a popular dairy or meat item in 2021.3 Whatever you do, know that you will never be in control of a future force.


pages: 1,172 words: 114,305

New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI by Frank Pasquale

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, algorithmic bias, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anthropocene, augmented reality, Automated Insights, autonomous vehicles, basic income, battle of ideas, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Bill Joy: nanobots, bitcoin, blockchain, Brexit referendum, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, carbon tax, citizen journalism, Clayton Christensen, collective bargaining, commoditize, computer vision, conceptual framework, contact tracing, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, critical race theory, cryptocurrency, data is the new oil, data science, decarbonisation, deep learning, deepfake, deskilling, digital divide, digital twin, disinformation, disruptive innovation, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, effective altruism, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Filter Bubble, finite state, Flash crash, future of work, gamification, general purpose technology, Google Chrome, Google Glasses, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, guns versus butter model, Hans Moravec, high net worth, hiring and firing, holacracy, Ian Bogost, independent contractor, informal economy, information asymmetry, information retrieval, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, James Bridle, Jaron Lanier, job automation, John Markoff, Joi Ito, Khan Academy, knowledge economy, late capitalism, lockdown, machine readable, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, medical malpractice, megaproject, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, move fast and break things, mutually assured destruction, natural language processing, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, nuclear winter, obamacare, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), open immigration, OpenAI, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, paperclip maximiser, paradox of thrift, pattern recognition, payday loans, personalized medicine, Peter Singer: altruism, Philip Mirowski, pink-collar, plutocrats, post-truth, pre–internet, profit motive, public intellectual, QR code, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, regulatory arbitrage, Robert Shiller, Rodney Brooks, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, sentiment analysis, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Singularitarianism, smart cities, smart contracts, software is eating the world, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, Strategic Defense Initiative, surveillance capitalism, Susan Wojcicki, tacit knowledge, TaskRabbit, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, TED Talk, telepresence, telerobotics, The Future of Employment, The Turner Diaries, Therac-25, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Turing test, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, wage slave, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, working poor, workplace surveillance , Works Progress Administration, zero day

Even in the most self-interested frame, the “cost” of goods and services to me is not a pure drain on my well-being. Rather, it is a way of reallocating purchasing power to empower those who helped me (by creating whatever I am buying) to eventually help themselves (to perhaps purchase what I make or do). To be sure, a universal basic income would make up some of the purchasing power of those put out of work by robotics. But it is unrealistic to expect redistribution to do anything near the work of “pre-distribution” in assuring some balanced pattern of economic reward. Most democratic electorates have been cutting the relative tax liability of the richest for decades.79 Robotization is unlikely to change that dynamic, which unravels ambitious plans for redistributing wealth.

At bottom, a new and better global political economy is the only way to avoid a tragic drain of resources into a vortex of robotic arms races of surveillance and countersurveillance, force and deflection of force. Chapter 7 maps the basic features of a renewed political economy of automation, including fiscal and monetary policy. Each must adjust in order to promote human-centered AI. Universal basic income proposals are, at present, in the spotlight. As the limits of redistributive policy become clearer, guarantees of universal basic services and jobs will be even more critical. These policies aim not only at guaranteeing subsistence, but also ensuring more democratic governance of the economy as a whole.

Nevertheless, we need to avoid deterring technological advance in areas where human governance and insight are not contributing to process and quality improvements. And we must also avoid supporting “lowest common denominator” employers who have browbeaten their workers into ever-paltrier wages. These predictable shortcomings of the EITC have fueled widespread interest in another, simpler approach: a universal basic income (UBI) for all persons, whether or not they work. Trialed repeatedly and exhaustively defended and developed by philosophers such as Philippe van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, UBI has enjoyed renewed relevance in an era of automation. Four distinct framings justify it. One is purely humanitarian: everyone deserves some basic subsistence, regardless of their contributions to society.


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The Road to Conscious Machines by Michael Wooldridge

Ada Lovelace, AI winter, algorithmic bias, AlphaGo, Andrew Wiles, Anthropocene, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, backpropagation, basic income, Bletchley Park, Boeing 747, British Empire, call centre, Charles Babbage, combinatorial explosion, computer vision, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, DARPA: Urban Challenge, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, don't be evil, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elaine Herzberg, Elon Musk, Eratosthenes, factory automation, fake news, future of work, gamification, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, gig economy, Google Glasses, intangible asset, James Watt: steam engine, job automation, John von Neumann, Loebner Prize, Minecraft, Mustafa Suleyman, Nash equilibrium, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, NP-complete, P = NP, P vs NP, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, Philippa Foot, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Rodney Brooks, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, strong AI, technological singularity, telemarketer, Tesla Model S, The Coming Technological Singularity, The Future of Employment, the scientific method, theory of mind, Thomas Bayes, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, traveling salesman, trolley problem, Turing machine, Turing test, universal basic income, Von Neumann architecture, warehouse robotics

Whatever the precise reasons, the obvious and slightly depressing conclusion from the experience of the 1970s is that for the immediate future at least, technology probably won’t create a leisurely utopia for almost all of us. This leads us neatly to universal basic income: the idea that everyone in society should receive a certain guaranteed income, irrespective of whether they work, and without any kind of means test. Universal basic income is not a new idea, but recent technological developments, particularly in AI, have brought it back into focus. The suggestion is that AI/robotics/automation will create sufficient wealth that a universal basic income becomes possible (because machines can do the work) and desirable (because, in any case, there are no jobs for people: the robots have taken them all).

The suggestion is that AI/robotics/automation will create sufficient wealth that a universal basic income becomes possible (because machines can do the work) and desirable (because, in any case, there are no jobs for people: the robots have taken them all). Much as I would love to believe in a utopian future, large-scale universal basic income schemes driven by AI don’t seem plausible any time soon.4 First of all, the economic benefits generated by AI would have to be enormous to make a universal basic income viable. These would need to be on a scale far beyond what has been delivered by previous technological innovations. And there is no sign whatsoever that current AI advances are going to deliver economic benefits on this scale. Secondly, introducing a universal basic income would require unprecedented political will: social circumstances would need to be extremely compelling to make it a politically acceptable course of action.

Secondly, introducing a universal basic income would require unprecedented political will: social circumstances would need to be extremely compelling to make it a politically acceptable course of action. My guess is there would need to be unemployment on a vast scale before the idea could become part of the political mainstream. Finally, universal basic income would fundamentally disrupt the nature of society, in which work plays a central social role. There is no sign at present that societies are willing to contemplate such changes. Important though AI is as a factor in the changing landscape of work, it is by no means the only such factor. It may not even be the most important. For one thing, the inexorable steamroller of globalization has not yet reached the end of its journey, and before it has done so it will continue to shake up our world in ways we cannot yet envisage.


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The People vs Tech: How the Internet Is Killing Democracy (And How We Save It) by Jamie Bartlett

Ada Lovelace, Airbnb, AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Andrew Keen, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, Boris Johnson, Californian Ideology, Cambridge Analytica, central bank independence, Chelsea Manning, cloud computing, computer vision, creative destruction, cryptocurrency, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Filter Bubble, future of work, general purpose technology, gig economy, global village, Google bus, Hans Moravec, hive mind, Howard Rheingold, information retrieval, initial coin offering, Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, John Gilmore, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John Perry Barlow, Julian Assange, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, mittelstand, move fast and break things, Network effects, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, off grid, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, payday loans, Peter Thiel, post-truth, prediction markets, QR code, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, Renaissance Technologies, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Mercer, Ross Ulbricht, Sam Altman, Satoshi Nakamoto, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, smart cities, smart contracts, smart meter, Snapchat, Stanford prison experiment, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, strong AI, surveillance capitalism, TaskRabbit, tech worker, technological singularity, technoutopianism, Ted Kaczynski, TED Talk, the long tail, the medium is the message, the scientific method, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, theory of mind, too big to fail, ultimatum game, universal basic income, WikiLeaks, World Values Survey, Y Combinator, you are the product

There are parts of this glorious and gleaming metropolis that reek of destitution, used needles, human waste and food banks, some of it literally in the shadows of the world’s biggest and coolest companies. One morning I witnessed junkies openly shooting up on a busy pavement: it wasn’t yet 9a.m. And, on the same street, techies wearing white earbuds entered the gleaming offices of a company that promises to let you ‘belong anywhere’. Epilogue: Universal Basic Income At some point all this creative destruction becomes bad even for the winners. No one wants to live in a world comprising a handful of trillionaires and hordes of unemployed or extremely poorly paid people – not even the trillionaires. A growing number of people are proposing a bold new idea to deal with this.

He is often described as ‘the man who invents the future’. The companies Y Combinator have funded include Airbnb and Starsky Robotics, and are now altogether valued at $80 billion. Aware of the potential turbulence that AI might unleash, Y Combinator recently started to fund a pilot in universal basic income. UBI, as it is commonly referred to, is an increasingly popular idea to deal with the possible rise of joblessness and tech-fuelled inequality. The basic concept is that governments should give everyone enough money to live on, with no strings attached. Several pilot schemes, including Oakland, California and Finland, are examining the idea (although it’s too early to say how well they are working yet), and a number of serious thinkers and writers believe it is worth further investigation.

A growing number of people from both the left and the right of politics imagine that the falling cost of goods and higher machine-driven productivity will produce a world of plenty and the end of meaningless work. Our lives will be happier, easier and more fulfilling. Greater connectivity and more information will continue to make us generally wiser, better informed and hopefully kinder. But, to make sure people aren’t left behind, something akin to a universal basic income will be needed to spread the wealth around. For many people this is the utopian scenario. By contrast, the dystopian scenario is that central governments will gradually lose the ability to function properly. Inequality will increase to a point where a tiny number of people end up with all the tech and all the wealth and everyone else has no choice but to scratch out a living serving the winners.


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Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History by Kurt Andersen

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, airline deregulation, airport security, Alan Greenspan, always be closing, American ideology, American Legislative Exchange Council, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-communist, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, artificial general intelligence, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bear Stearns, Bernie Sanders, blue-collar work, Bonfire of the Vanities, bonus culture, Burning Man, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, centre right, computer age, contact tracing, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate raider, cotton gin, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Elon Musk, ending welfare as we know it, Erik Brynjolfsson, feminist movement, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, Future Shock, game design, General Motors Futurama, George Floyd, George Gilder, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Herbert Marcuse, Herman Kahn, High speed trading, hive mind, income inequality, industrial robot, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, It's morning again in America, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, jitney, Joan Didion, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kevin Roose, knowledge worker, lockdown, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, mass immigration, mass incarceration, Menlo Park, Naomi Klein, new economy, Norbert Wiener, Norman Mailer, obamacare, Overton Window, Peter Thiel, Picturephone, plutocrats, post-industrial society, Powell Memorandum, pre–internet, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, Right to Buy, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Seaside, Florida, Second Machine Age, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, stock buybacks, strikebreaker, tech billionaire, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, too big to fail, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban planning, urban renewal, very high income, wage slave, Wall-E, War on Poverty, We are all Keynesians now, Whole Earth Catalog, winner-take-all economy, women in the workforce, working poor, young professional, éminence grise

Since 2013, when the digital pioneer and Microsoft philosopher-prince Jaron Lanier wrote a book about the basic unfairness of the Internet economy and proposed requiring the tech companies to somehow pay for our data, that notion has also moved from chimerical toward possible. Ditto with universal basic income. Andrew Yang’s presidential candidacy was quixotic but also successful—it gave the first extended, respectful national spotlight to the two important truths underlying his campaign: the inexorable automation of jobs, and our need to radically readjust the political economy to cope. Who knows how or when or if a universal basic income could be rolled out, or what its precise funding mechanisms and rules would be? But it’s feasible.*7 The Yang campaign version was $1,000 a month from age eighteen on, funded by a value-added tax and a carbon tax.

Which meant that a quarter-century later, in the 1930s, we could afford to decide that in this country becoming old should no longer mean becoming poor. In 1940, the year Social Security benefits started, three-quarters of Americans sixty-five and older lived in poverty; by 1980 the average retiree was getting the equivalent of $14,000 a year from the federal government, a universal basic income for the old. The countervailing powers that we built into our free-market political economy from 1880 until 1980 did not amount to an anticapitalist conversion. Rather, it was really the opposite, essential to the system’s evolution and renewal, making our version of capitalism more fair, less harsh, and politically sustainable, a robust foundation for a growing middle class whose spending fueled more economic growth and a society that made most of its citizens reasonably content and proud.

In the thirty-seven years since Leontief wrote that, of course, America has indeed put increasingly uneconomic workers on short rations. And although there’s still a lot of optimistic, hand-waving conventional wisdom about the future of jobs in the new AI era, a national conversation about putting workers out to pasture with universal basic incomes has begun. Automation and computers replace human workers in all kinds of ways, some more obvious and visible than others, but the process of actual robots taking over the jobs of Americans is still in its early days. Maybe a million U.S. workers—machinists and welders and the like—have already been replaced by robots.


pages: 294 words: 77,356

Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks

autonomous vehicles, basic income, Black Lives Matter, business process, call centre, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, correlation does not imply causation, data science, deindustrialization, digital divide, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, ending welfare as we know it, experimental subject, fake news, gentrification, housing crisis, Housing First, IBM and the Holocaust, income inequality, job automation, mandatory minimum, Mark Zuckerberg, mass incarceration, minimum wage unemployment, mortgage tax deduction, new economy, New Urbanism, payday loans, performance metric, Ronald Reagan, San Francisco homelessness, self-driving car, sparse data, statistical model, strikebreaker, underbanked, universal basic income, urban renewal, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, warehouse automation, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional, zero-sum game

“A Herstory of the #Blacklivesmatter Movement.” http://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/. [Accessed June 28, 2017.] Gillespie, Sarah. “Mark Zuckerberg Supports Universal Basic Income. What Is It?” CNN Money, May 26, 2017. http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/26/news/economy/mark-zuckerberg-universal-basic-income/index.html. [Accessed June 28, 2017.] Hiltzik, Michael. “Conservatives, Liberals, Techies, and Social Activists All Love Universal Basic Income: Has Its Time Come?” Los Angeles Times, June 22, 2017. http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-ubi-20170625-story.html. [Accessed June 28, 2017.]

Luke Shaefer point out in $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, work doesn’t always work for everyone. “We need a program that can provide a temporary cash cushion,” they write, “because no matter what strategies we implement, work … will sometimes fail.”4 In the face of fears that automation promises a jobless future, a cash assistance plan, the universal basic income (UBI) is enjoying a resurgence. Experiments in UBI are currently being conducted in Finland and in Ontario, Canada. In May 2017, Hawaii adopted a bill declaring that “all families … deserve basic financial security” and began to explore instituting a UBI. High-tech entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, and Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors, believe that a UBI will provide a cushion allowing everyone to innovate and try new ideas.

See also eligibility rules equity as a national value Errington, Sue eugenics expungement “failure to cooperate” fair hearings Family Assistance Program (FAP) false negatives false positives “fear of falling” Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) Flaherty, David food banks food stamps. See also Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Ford, Ezell Ford, Ira B. Ford, Mabel Ford, Shawntee foster care fraud detection and algorithms and Indiana technologies and universal basic income (UBI) Freeland, Mary Galton, Francis Gambrill, Eileen “gaming” the system Gandy, Oscar Gangadharan, Seeta Peña Garcetti, Eric Garza, Alicia gentrification. See also urban renewal Gilbert, Fred Gilens, Martin Gillespie, Sarah Goldberg v. Kelly Gordon, Pat Gray, Freddie Great Depression Great Railroad Strike of 1877 Great Recession of 2007 Gregory, Justin E.


pages: 406 words: 105,602

The Startup Way: Making Entrepreneurship a Fundamental Discipline of Every Enterprise by Eric Ries

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, AOL-Time Warner, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, Ben Horowitz, billion-dollar mistake, Black-Scholes formula, Blitzscaling, call centre, centralized clearinghouse, Clayton Christensen, cognitive dissonance, connected car, corporate governance, DevOps, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, fault tolerance, financial engineering, Frederick Winslow Taylor, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, hockey-stick growth, index card, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, Lean Startup, loss aversion, machine readable, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, minimum viable product, moral hazard, move fast and break things, obamacare, PalmPilot, peer-to-peer, place-making, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Sam Altman, Sand Hill Road, scientific management, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, skunkworks, Steve Jobs, TechCrunch disrupt, the scientific method, time value of money, Toyota Production System, two-pizza team, Uber for X, universal basic income, web of trust, Y Combinator

A federal job guarantee might achieve similar outcomes: jacobinmag.com/​2017/​02/​federal-job-guarantee-universal-basic-income-investment-jobs-unemployment/. 21. nytimes.com/​2016/​12/​17/​business/​economy/​universal-basic-income-finland.html. 22. qz.com/​696377/​y-combinator-is-running-a-basic-income-experiment-with-100-oakland-families. 23. kauffman.org/​what-we-do/​resources/​entrepreneurship-policy-digest/​can-social-insurance-unlock-entrepreneurial-opportunities. 24. theatlantic.com/​business/​archive/​2016/​06/​netherlands-utrecht-universal-basic-income-experiment/​487883/; theguardian.com/​world/​2016/​oct/​28/​universal-basic-income-ontario-poverty-pilot-project-canada. 25. vox.com/​new-money/​2017/​2/​13/​14580874/​google-self-driving-noncompetes. 26. kauffman.org/​what-we-do/​resources/​entrepreneurship-policy-digest/​how-intellectual-property-can-help-or-hinder-innovation. 27. forbes.com/​2009/​08/​10/​government-internet-software-technology-breakthroughs-oreilly.html. 28. obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/​the-press-office/​2013/​05/​09/​executive-order-making-open-and-machine-readable-new-default-government-. 29.

I honestly don’t know how many people don’t pursue their entrepreneurial dreams for lack of $1,000 that they could afford to lose. But I think the number could be large. The cost to find out would be pretty small, and this program could easily be piloted in one community or city to find out. UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME A policy idea that is all the rage in Silicon Valley right now is the universal basic income (UBI), the idea that governments could guarantee to every citizen a secure income that is unrelated to their ability to work.20 Even a modest UBI would probably pay huge dividends in the category of more startups formed, by simply reducing the risk inherent in failure.

Scale fast,” unemployment insurance Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 8.1 Team of Teams (McChrystal) teams attracting members corporate, typical, 3.1, 3.2 cross-functional, 1.1, 6.1, 6.2, p03.1, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 executive sponsors, 6.1, 7.1, 7.2 focus on, 3.1, nts.1n3 incentivizing island of freedom or sandbox milestones for, 2.1, 5.1 modern company morale, 6.1, 7.1 small versus big, 3.1, p02.1 startup teams, 3.1, 6.1, p03.1 two-pizza team, 1.1, 5.1 Techstars, 2.1, 7.1, 7.2 Telefónica Tomoyama, Shigeki, 1.1, 6.1 Toyota, itr.1, 1.1, 6.1, 11.1 InfoTechnology Center (ITC) Internet-connected car TPS, 1.1, 1.2, 8.1 transformation (organizational), itr.1, itr.2, itr.3, p01.1, 6.1, p03.1, 10.1 beginning of common patterns energy (motivation) for outcomes of Phase One, p02.1, p02.2, 6.1 Phase Two, p02.1, p02.2, 7.1 Phase Three, p02.1, p02.2, 8.1 Phases and Scales, p02.1, 9.1 three questions for unified theory of Twilio, itr.1, 3.1, 4.1, 6.1 Twitter uncertainty, 1.1, 2.1, 7.1, 10.1 unicorn startup, 1.1, 11.1 unified theory of entrepreneurship universal basic income (UBI), 11.1, nts.1n20 USAID, U.S. Global Development Lab U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), 8.1, p03.1, 11.1 U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 7.1, 11.1 U.S. Digital Service (USDS), 2.1, 3.1, p02.1, 6.1, 7.1, 8.1 U.S. government, itr.1, 6.1 digital dimension, p02.1, 6.1, 6.2 employees as entrepreneurs Government 2.0/Data.gov, 11.1 procurement reform See also specific agencies U.S.


pages: 462 words: 129,022

People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent by Joseph E. Stiglitz

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, AlphaGo, antiwork, barriers to entry, basic income, battle of ideas, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, business cycle, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, carried interest, central bank independence, clean water, collective bargaining, company town, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, DeepMind, deglobalization, deindustrialization, disinformation, disintermediation, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial intermediation, Firefox, Fractional reserve banking, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, George Akerlof, gig economy, Glass-Steagall Act, global macro, global supply chain, greed is good, green new deal, income inequality, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, labor-force participation, late fees, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, mass incarceration, meta-analysis, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, patent troll, Paul Samuelson, pension reform, Peter Thiel, postindustrial economy, price discrimination, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Robert Mercer, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, search costs, secular stagnation, self-driving car, shareholder value, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, speech recognition, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, surveillance capitalism, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The Great Moderation, the market place, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, two-sided market, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, uranium enrichment, War on Poverty, working-age population, Yochai Benkler

FEC, 332n29 “splinternet,” 135 split shifts/split scheduling, 66, 197 Standard Oil, 134 standards of living after 1800, 264n23 government-sponsored research and, 232 growth and, 181 increases over past 250 years, 11–12 international comparisons of, 35–37 knowledge and, 183–84, 240, 263n22 tariffs and, 91 Stanford University, 16 Staples, 125 state capitalism, 95 stock market, 112, 207, 214, 236 streaming video, 147–48 structural reforms, 70 student debt, 220 subsidies, 96–97 “sugar high,” from 2017 tax bill, 185, 236–38 suicide, 42 Super PACs, 332n29 supply and demand, labor and, 82, 122, 198 supply chains, 92 supply-side economics, xv, xvii, 25, 195 Supreme Court gene patent cases, 74–75, 127 lack of enforcement power, 241 on limits to freedom of speech, 133 loss of status as fair arbiter, 165–67 and power of money in politics, 169–70 Senate and, 6 Voting Rights Act gutted by, 202 Sweden, 25, 133, 269n45 Switzerland, 193 Syprine, 71 tariffs, 35, 87, 90–93 taxation of data, 131 educational system and, 220 of financial institutions, 207 and free-rider problem, 156 rent-seeking and, 268n43 restoring fairness to system, 205–8 and structural transformation from technological change, 123 and Sweden’s economic success, 25 and technological change, 122 of universities, 16, 184 tax avoidance, 108 tax bill (2017), 85 Affordable Care Act and, 212–13 damage to future generations from, 204 failed ideas behind, 184–85 flaws and loopholes, xvii–xix, 85, 258n6 infrastructure and, 183 public opinion of, 160 real estate interests and, 168–69 regressiveness of, 175, 194, 206 research universities and, 16, 184 share buybacks, 109 “sugar high” from, 236–38 trade deficit and, 90 Trump and, 152 as voodoo economics, xv tax cuts effects of, 268–69n44, 268n43 growth slowed by, 25, 26 under Trump, See tax bill (2017) tax revenue, globalization and, 84–86 teachers, 123, 200, 201 teams and teamwork, 225–26 Tea Party movement, 114, 174, 178 technology AI, See artificial intelligence Big Data, See Big Data challenges posed by, 117–37 customer targeting, 125–26 data regulation, 128–31 effect on individuals/social interactions, 136 employment and, 118–23 job destruction and, 86–87 lower wages and increased inequality from, 122–23 market power and, 73–74, 123–35 privacy and, 127–28 real pace of innovation, 118–19 threat to democracy posed by, 131–35 wealth of nation and, xiv telecom industry, 49 Ten Commandments, 143 term limits, 166, 167 Thaler, Richard, 126 Thatcher, Margaret, xiv–xv Thiel, Peter, 47, 104 Thomas, Clarence, 165 three-fifths clause, 161 Time Warner, 325n17 tolerance, 228 TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), 87 trade agreements, 80, 83–84, 87–89, 91, 99 trade deficit, 35, 89–91, 307n32 trade imbalance, budget deficits and, 90 trade liberalization, 82; See also globalization Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), 89 trade wars, 93–94 transaction costs mortgage reform and, 217 public vs. private sector, 189, 214 of voting, 161 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), 87 transparency, disclosure laws and, 171 Treasury Department, US, 173 trickle-down economics, xxv, 38, 82–83; See also supply-side economics TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), 89 Trump, Donald, and administration; See also tax bill (2017) and Affordable Care Act, 212–13 attack on checks and balances, 233–34 attack on Enlightenment ideals, 14–22 attack on judiciary, 17, 165 attack on political system, 164 attack on publicly-funded research, 184 attack on truth, 177, 234 attack on truth-telling institutions, 14–18 2008 bank bailout and rise of, 114 and business community, 14–16 cost-benefit analysis under, 205 election of, 3 and globalization, 80–81 and immigration, 181 and lack of consequences for elites in Great Recession, 152 lack of rational discussion of nation’s problems, 240 Nazi’s rise in Germany compared to, 15–16 and need for good governance, 234–35 net neutrality repeal, 147 and protectionism, 89 public institutions undermined by, 231–33 Reagan administration’s parallels with, xvi and “rigged” system, 21 rule of law disregarded by, 80–81 tax “reform,” See tax bill [2017] and TPP, 87 and trade wars, 93–94 Trumponomics, xx; See also tax bill (2017) trust, as essential to economic system, 104 truth Enlightenment’s concern with, 10 Trump’s attack on, 14–18, 234 Tüfekçi, Zeynep, 126 Turing Pharmaceuticals, 296n72 twin deficits, 307n30 Twitter, 132 UBI (universal basic income), 190–91 Ulukaya, Hamdi, 266n33 unemployment automation and, 119–20 labor markets and, 65 market economies and, 23 universal basic income, 190–91 as waste of resources, 193 unemployment insurance, 189–90 unions, 66–67, 86–87 union shops, 67 United Kingdom, independent public media in, 133 US Trade Representative (USTR), 99–100 universal basic income (UBI), 190–91 universal health care, 13 universities income inequality and, 200 and 2017 tax bill, 16, 184 Trump’s attack on, 16–17 University of California, Berkeley, 16 University of Chicago, 68 unskilled workers, See low-skilled workers urbanization, 153, 187 USTR (US Trade Representative), 99–100 usury laws, 145 Valeant, 71 values American, 222 as cause of current problems, 239–40 conservatism vs. embracing change, 226–28 globalization and multiple systems of, 94–97 market economy and, 30 myths and, 224–26 shared, 228–30 social reality vs., 223–28 vertical mergers, 325n17 Visa, 60 Vlingo, 286n34 voodoo economics, xv voter disenfranchisement/suppression, 161–62 voting, 246 voting reform, 161–63 Voting Rights Act (1965), 202 wages after Great Recession, 193–94 class disparities, 38–39 globalization and, 80, 82 market power and, 65–66 new technologies and, 122–23 productivity and, 38 teachers and incentive pay, 201 Wall Street, 173; See also stock market Walmart, 71–72 Walton family, 43, 279n40 wealth concentration among three richest Americans, 5 creating vs. taking, 49–50 curbing the influence on democracy, 176–78 and inequality of opportunity, 44–45 and manipulation of public opinion via new technology, 132 and media control, 133 wealth creation, xiv, 26 wealth income ratio, 54 wealth inequality, 43, 177–78, 206, 238 wealth of nations alternative theories on sources of, 22–31 attack on sources of, 14–22 elements of, xiv, xxiv supply-side economics and, 25 true sources of, 8–9 unfettered markets and, 23–25 Wealth of Nations, The (Smith), 8–9 wealth redistribution, 50, 64 weather-related disasters, 207 Wells Fargo, 103 WhatsApp, 70, 73, 124 women and labor force growth, 181 life expectancy and socioeconomic status, 41 and teacher salaries, 200 wage inequality, 41 work, See jobs work–life balance, 192, 197 World Bank, 80 World Bank human capital index, 36 World Trade Organization (WTO), 83 World War II, 120, 210 Wynn, Steve, 331n26 Yale University, 126 Youn, Monica, 333n35 zero-sum thinking, 19 Zuckerberg, Mark, 117 ALSO BY JOSEPH E.

The relative weakness of the American social safety net is part of what accounted for the severity of the 2008 Great Recession, much worse than in Germany and other Northern European countries, some of which were initially hit even worse. Universal basic income Some, especially in the hi-tech community, have put forward the intriguing suggestion of a universal basic income (UBI) as a supplement to our existing social safety nets. Some have even suggested that such a program should replace the myriad other social support programs. A UBI would essentially be a financial stipend for all citizens. Everybody would get a check from the government, say on the first of the month.

There can be long, costly delays before Congress votes for the needed injection of funds into the economy. 20.There has been a plethora of books advocating a UBI, including the following: Guy Standing, Basic Income: A Guide for the Open-Minded (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017); Annie Lowrey, Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World (New York: Crown, 2018); and Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017). The titles suggest the transformative role that the authors believe a UBI would have for our society. 21.Some have suggested that there are also political advantages—universal programs, like Social Security, receive more support, simply because they are universal.


System Error by Rob Reich

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 2021 United States Capitol attack, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Aaron Swartz, AI winter, Airbnb, airport security, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, algorithmic bias, AlphaGo, AltaVista, artificial general intelligence, Automated Insights, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Ben Horowitz, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Big Tech, bitcoin, Blitzscaling, Cambridge Analytica, Cass Sunstein, clean water, cloud computing, computer vision, contact tracing, contact tracing app, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, creative destruction, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, data is the new oil, data science, decentralized internet, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, deplatforming, digital rights, disinformation, disruptive innovation, Donald Knuth, Donald Trump, driverless car, dual-use technology, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, end-to-end encryption, Fairchild Semiconductor, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Filter Bubble, financial engineering, financial innovation, fulfillment center, future of work, gentrification, Geoffrey Hinton, George Floyd, gig economy, Goodhart's law, GPT-3, Hacker News, hockey-stick growth, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, information security, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, Jim Simons, jimmy wales, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John Perry Barlow, Lean Startup, linear programming, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, meta-analysis, minimum wage unemployment, Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, move fast and break things, Myron Scholes, Network effects, Nick Bostrom, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, NP-complete, Oculus Rift, OpenAI, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Parler "social media", pattern recognition, personalized medicine, Peter Thiel, Philippa Foot, premature optimization, profit motive, quantitative hedge fund, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, recommendation engine, Renaissance Technologies, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Sam Altman, Sand Hill Road, scientific management, self-driving car, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Shoshana Zuboff, side project, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, software is eating the world, spectrum auction, speech recognition, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, strong AI, superintelligent machines, surveillance capitalism, Susan Wojcicki, tech billionaire, tech worker, techlash, technoutopianism, Telecommunications Act of 1996, telemarketer, The Future of Employment, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, traveling salesman, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, trolley problem, Turing test, two-sided market, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, ultimatum game, union organizing, universal basic income, washing machines reduced drudgery, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, When a measure becomes a target, winner-take-all economy, Y Combinator, you are the product

There’s no reason that the funds couldn’t also be used to support a universal basic income. How to pay for UBI is an important issue because the potential cost is enormous. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated that a basic income of $10,000 per year in the United States—$2,000 less than Yang’s proposal—would cost the government $3 trillion per year. By contrast, the US government’s largest social welfare program currently, Social Security, cost $988 billion in fiscal year 2018. In advancing a vision of a universal basic income, Yang was in august company. The list of UBI champions includes tech titans, such as Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey; champions of progressive policy reforms, including civil rights activist Dr.

Only forty-four years of age, he had worked in the business world and founded Venture for America, a fellowship program that placed recent college graduates in start-ups to prepare for an entrepreneurial career. He was the first Asian American to run for the presidential nomination of a major party, and though at first his poll numbers were miserable, his campaign managed to capture the imagination of young people in particular. A single idea defined his policy platform: the freedom dividend, a universal basic income (UBI) that would give every American adult $1,000 per month, regardless of his or her work status. Though the idea has a long history among intellectuals and policy makers, his version of the plan was uniquely tailored to the AI moment. As he explained, “The big trap that America is in right now is that as artificial intelligence and autonomous cars and trucks take off, we’re going to see more and more work disappear and we’re not going to have new revenue to account for it.”

As he explained, “The big trap that America is in right now is that as artificial intelligence and autonomous cars and trucks take off, we’re going to see more and more work disappear and we’re not going to have new revenue to account for it.” His view was that people need an unconditional basic income as a cushion from these systemic shocks, and the companies that will most benefit from automation—the tech companies—should be the ones to pay for it. “So the way we pay for a universal basic income,” he argued, “is by passing a value added tax which would get the American public a slice of every Amazon transaction and Google search.” You might think that business leaders would oppose Yang’s proposed solution. But Bill Gates has also proposed the notion of a “robot tax,” where companies that displace workers through machines would be taxed on those machines in a way similar to the human worker.


pages: 280 words: 74,559

Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Aaron Bastani

"Peter Beck" AND "Rocket Lab", Alan Greenspan, Anthropocene, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boston Dynamics, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, capital controls, capitalist realism, cashless society, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, computer age, computer vision, CRISPR, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, deep learning, dematerialisation, DIY culture, Donald Trump, double helix, driverless car, electricity market, Elon Musk, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, financial independence, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, Future Shock, G4S, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, Gregor Mendel, housing crisis, income inequality, industrial robot, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Jevons paradox, job automation, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, Kuiper Belt, land reform, Leo Hollis, liberal capitalism, low earth orbit, low interest rates, low skilled workers, M-Pesa, market fundamentalism, means of production, mobile money, more computing power than Apollo, new economy, off grid, pattern recognition, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, post scarcity, post-work, price mechanism, price stability, private spaceflight, Productivity paradox, profit motive, race to the bottom, rewilding, RFID, rising living standards, Robert Solow, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sensor fusion, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Slavoj Žižek, SoftBank, stem cell, Stewart Brand, synthetic biology, technological determinism, technoutopianism, the built environment, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, transatlantic slave trade, Travis Kalanick, universal basic income, V2 rocket, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We are as Gods, Whole Earth Catalog, working-age population

See also luxury populism Post, Mark, 170–2, 175, 176 post-capitalism information and, 59–60 without communism, 56–9 poverty, 24–5 Preston Model, 208–11, 213 private space industry, 120–1 privatisation, 202–4, 207, 209–10 production, mode of, 195 productivity paradox, 233 productivity revolution, 60–3 progressive procurement, 207 property-owning democracy, 25 prototype politics, 198 PV (photovoltaic) cells, 47, 102–5 radical politics, revival of, 27–8 railway lines, 33–4 realism, capitalist, 17–9 red politics, 188–92 Rees-Mogg, Jacob, 206–7 Reformation, 240, 241 regeneration, 207 Reither, Walter, 70–1 Relativity Space, 123, 124 renewable energy about, 104, 108 financing, 219–20 generating and storing, 218–19 green movement and, 238–9 transitioning to, 218–19 renewables, 106 ‘Reopening the American Frontier: Exploring How the Outer Space Treaty Will Impact American Commerce and Settlement in Space’, 129 Resolution Foundation, 58 resources asteroid mining, 119–20 globalism and, 197 post-scarcity in, 117–37 private space industry, 120–1 space, 119–37 Ricardo, David, 69, 233 rice production, 161–2 Richards, Bob, 124 Rifkin, Jeremy, 79 Rio Earth Summit, 98, 197 robots about, 78, 133 Atlas, 82–3, 132 da Vinci surgery robot, 90 information technology and robotics, 76 ‘KIVA’, 89 rise of, 80–2 Rocket Lab, 121, 122, 123 Romer, Paul, 63–5, 199–200 Roosevelt, Franklin, 194 Rutter, Brad, 80 Sanders, Bernie, 29, 30 Saturn V, 120, 122 Saudi Arabia, 220–1 Schumpeter, Joseph, 36 Scottish National Party, 28 Second Disruption, 11, 32–6, 72–4, 79, 94, 96, 106, 134, 139, 141, 163, 188, 190, 192, 198, 201, 208, 217, 232–3, 236, 238, 241 Selden, Mike, 172, 173 self-regulation, consequences of, 206 ‘Sermon on Indulgences and Grace’ (Luther), 241 Silicon Valley, 196 ‘Six Laws of Technology’ (Kranzberg), 237 Skelton, Noel, 25 Smith, Adam, 69, 233 ‘Social Prosperity for the Future’, 214 socialised capital market, 230–2 socialism, 191 society, electoralism and, 194–6 soil fertility, 118 ‘solar home’, 113–14 solar power/energy about, 101–5, 107 Global South and, 106–11 in Saudi Arabia, 220–1 Solow, Robert, 233 Sondergaard, Peter, 87 space asteroid mining, 133–4 falling costs of, 122–4 mineral wealth in, 134–7 Moon Express, 125–6 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), 130–1 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 127 as private industry, 120–1 private sector, 132–3 SPACE Act (2015), 2, 9 Space Launch System, 120 Space Shuttle programme, 122 SpaceX, 119–21, 122, 133–4, 156 speculative economy, repressing the, 229–30 Sputnik, 137, 153 state socialism, 213 steam engine, 93, 95, 149, 164, 201, 238 steam power, 33 Summers, Larry, 64–5, 116, 199–200 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, 24 surplus, food, disruptions and, 159–60 sustenance about, 178–9 cultured meat, 170–5 egg whites, 177–9 food, surplus and disruptions, 159–60 meat from vegetables, 175–7 milk, 177–9 planetary limits, 160–4 post-scarcity in, 159–81 synthetic meat, 168–70 wine, 177–81 synthetic meat, 168–70 Syriza, 28, 30 TALEN (transcription activator-like effector-based nucleases), 150 Taylor, Frederick, 60–3, 85 Taylorism, 60–3 technological unemployment, 86–8 technology Marx on, 237 relationship between politics and, 237 Technology and Unemployment report, 53 Terran 1 rocket, 124 Tesla, 84, 85, 106 Thatcher, Margaret, 206–7 Third Disruption, 11, 37–48, 70, 79, 82, 92, 116, 143–4, 148, 156, 171, 185–8, 192–6, 201, 212–4, 217, 221, 226, 232, 234, 236, 238, 241–3 3-D Magnetic Recording technology, 45–6 3-D printing, 122–4, 127 Tithebarn project, 208 transatlantic telegraph cable, 34 transcription activator-like effector-based nucleases (TALEN), 150 transportation, in UK, 215 travel, exponential, 39–40 Trump, Donald, 21, 24, 29, 30 Trussell Trust, 24 Turnspit dog, 72–3 Uber, 84, 85 UBI (Universal Basic Income), 224–6 UBS (Universal Basic Services), 207–8, 213–17, 224, 226, 236 UK ageing in Britain, 141–4 healthcare in, 215–16 transportation in, 215 UKIP, 28 unemployment, 26 unfreedom, 214 unions, in Britain, 211–12 Universal Basic Income (UBI), 224–6 Universal Basic Services (UBS), 207–8, 213–17, 224, 226, 236 University College London, 90 US Department of Agriculture, 178 US Food and Drug Administration, 153 US National Institute of Health, 147 US National Space Council, 129 US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, 129 utopia, from crisis to, 48–9 V2, 137 Valeti, Uma, 173 vegetables, meat from, 175–7 Verne, Jules Around the World in Eighty Days, 33 von Braun, Wernher, 120, 128 voting, 195 wage-labour, 35 Wagner, Erika, 135 Wales, 114 Watson (computer), 80 Watson, James, 144, 149 Watt, James, 33 Watt’s steam engine, 93, 95, 149, 201, 238 The Wealth of Nations (Smith), 69–70 wheat production, 161–2, 165 Whole Foods Market, 88 Wikipedia, 235 wind power/energy, 111–13 windfall tax, 230 wine, cellular agriculture and, 177–81 work, future of, 92–3 worker-owned cooperatives, 209–10 worker-owned economy, 207–8, 211–12, 219 World Bank, 221, 222 Wycliffe, John, 239–41 Xplorer, 132 Yang (factory worker), 1–2 ZFNs (zinc finger nucleases), 150 zinc, 118 zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), 150 Žižek, Slavoj, 17n

Wealthier countries must pay for the clean energy of poorer ones. 11 Reforging the Capitalist State It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. Robert Kennedy Money for Nothing While the state guaranteeing the provision of certain goods has a long history, particularly in the twentieth century, it is the idea of a Universal Basic Income – the ‘UBI’ – which seems to have attracted greater curiosity in recent years. The reason why isn’t difficult to understand. Many are convinced of its ability to address multiple aspects of the five crises, with it being uniquely capable of responding to ‘the conjunction of growing inequality, a new wave of automation, and a more acute awareness of the ecological limits to growth’.

Decarbonisation Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Penguin Books, 2015. ‘Softbank and Saudi Arabia Announce New Solar Generation Project’. CNBC, 27 March 2018. 11. Reforging the Capitalist State Money for Nothing Martinelli, Luke. ‘Assessing the Case for a Universal Basic Income in the UK.’ University of Bath Institute for Policy Research, September 2017. Van Parijs, Philippe and Yannick Vanderborght. Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy. Harvard University Press, 2017. Zamora, Daniel. ‘The Case Against a Basic Income’. Jacobin, 28 December 2017.


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Economic Dignity by Gene Sperling

active measures, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, antiwork, autism spectrum disorder, autonomous vehicles, basic income, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Cass Sunstein, collective bargaining, company town, corporate governance, cotton gin, David Brooks, desegregation, Detroit bankruptcy, disinformation, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, driverless car, Elon Musk, employer provided health coverage, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ferguson, Missouri, fulfillment center, full employment, gender pay gap, ghettoisation, gig economy, Gini coefficient, green new deal, guest worker program, Gunnar Myrdal, housing crisis, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, independent contractor, invisible hand, job automation, job satisfaction, labor-force participation, late fees, liberal world order, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, mass incarceration, mental accounting, meta-analysis, minimum wage unemployment, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open immigration, payday loans, Phillips curve, price discrimination, profit motive, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, speech recognition, stock buybacks, subprime mortgage crisis, tech worker, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Toyota Production System, traffic fines, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, warehouse robotics, working poor, young professional, zero-sum game

“Medicare and Medicaid Milestones 1937–2015,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, July 2015, https://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/Agency-Information/History/Downloads/Medicare-and-Medicaid-Milestones-1937-2015.pdf; and Margot L. Crandall-Hollick, The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC): A Brief Legislative History (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2018), 3, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44825.pdf. 56. Robyn Sundlee, “Alaska’s Universal Basic Income Problem,” Vox, September 5, 2019, https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/5/20849020/alaska-permanent-fund-universal-basic-income. 57. Elisabeth Jacobs and Jacob Hacker, The Rising Instability of American Family Incomes, 1969–2004 (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2008), 1, https://www.epi.org/publication/bp213/. 58. “The Risk of Losing Health Insurance over a Decade: New Findings from Longitudinal Data,” U.S.

But for those who have suffered a severe career or job dislocation and want something more, we offer far too little. For working parents who have lost their job and are under enormous financial and emotional stress, even free tuition can be an empty promise. They need direct financial support in order to participate in a time-intensive program to get back on their feet. “UBI to Rise,” a universal basic income (UBI) for a period of time where dislocated workers are trying to rise, makes sense. This simply recognizes that if we want workers—especially those in midlife and in the middle of raising families—to be able to take the gamble of exploring a new career or attaining a valuable credential or degree, we can’t ignore that they need to be able to provide for their families at the same time.

UNIVERSAL BASIC ECONOMIC DIGNITY In designing an economic dignity wage and economic dignity net, the goal should be to have a universal guarantee that all who work and contribute can afford the core components of economic dignity—what can be called universal basic economic dignity (UBED). Critically, this is a different definition of “universal” than is used by those calling for programs like a universal basic income (UBI). Under that definition, the focus is on whether a particular policy is “universal” in the sense that everyone receives an identical basic income grant regardless of income or need. By contrast, under the UBED approach, “universal” is about the ultimate impact on people. Are our most critical protections for caring for family and pursuing purpose universally available to everyone when their economic dignity is at stake?


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The Gig Economy: The Complete Guide to Getting Better Work, Taking More Time Off, and Financing the Life You Want by Diane Mulcahy

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, basic income, Clayton Christensen, cognitive bias, collective bargaining, creative destruction, David Brooks, deliberate practice, digital nomad, diversification, diversified portfolio, fear of failure, financial independence, future of work, gig economy, helicopter parent, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, independent contractor, job satisfaction, Kickstarter, loss aversion, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, mass immigration, mental accounting, minimum wage unemployment, mortgage tax deduction, negative equity, passive income, Paul Graham, remote working, risk tolerance, Robert Shiller, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, social contagion, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, the strength of weak ties, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, wage slave, WeWork, Y Combinator, Zipcar

In Reich’s example, if “your monthly income dips more than 50 percent below the average monthly income you’ve received from all the jobs you’ve taken over the preceding five years, you’d automatically receive half the difference for up to a year.”13 Implement a Universal Basic Income Robert Reich and others have publicly come out in support of a universal basic income (UBI), or basic income guarantee.14 UBI is a guaranteed, fixed amount paid by the government to every citizen for life, regardless of employment or work status. In turn, governments eliminate public assistance and poverty programs such as unemployment and food assistance.

Hill, Steven, “The Future of Work in the Uber Economy,” Boston Review, July 22, 2015. bostonreview.net/us/steven-hill-uber-economy-individual-security-accounts 13. Reich, Robert, “The Upsurge in Uncertain Work,” Robert Reich, August 23, 2015. robertreich.org/post/127426324745 14. Reich, Robert, “Inequality for All Q&A” (video). www.dailykos.com/story/2014/3/26/1287365/-Robert-Reich-Universal-Basic-Income-In-The-US-Almost-Inevitable 15. Harford, Tim, “An Economist’s Dreams of a Fairer Gig Economy,” Tim Harfor, December 29, 2015. next.ft.com/content/1280a92e-a405-11e5-873f-68411a84f346Web 16. Beekman, Daniel, “The Seattle City Council Voted 8-0 Monday Afternoon to Enact Councilmember Mike O’Brien’s Ordinance, Giving Taxi, For-Hire and Uber Drivers the Ability to Unionize,” December 16, 2015. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/unions-for-taxi-uber-drivers-seattle-council-votes-today/ 17.

life insurance Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) loss aversion Maker’s Schedule Manager’s Schedule marketing, for new jobs Marsh, Nigel Mastermind Dinners (Gaignard) material wealth, vs. personal fulfillment MBA students, planning by McDonald’s mental tasks, combining with physical Merchant, Nilofer MetLife, Study of the American Dream Microsoft middle class impact of home ownership middle managers Mihalic, Joe Mint.com Moment money, perspective on mortgage mortgage calculator National Labor Relations Act National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) negative cash flow net worth, in principal residence networks maintaining 99designs Obituary exercise offer in connecting 168 Hours (Vanderkam) opportunity, income security from opportunity mindset outbound connecting Outliers (Gladwell) overconfidence ownership, vs. access paid leave part-time side gigs passion, pursuing in time off passive income Peers.org pension plans personal branding personal burn rate personal fulfillment, vs. material wealth perspective, time off to change Pew Research Center physical tasks, combining with mental pilot tests planning for best-case scenario in financial flexibility for time off playtime portfolio of gigs building for experiments learning by doing opportunity for connections Postmates power, and expanding time predictors of future feelings priorities checkbook diagnostic exercise on extended family as of others, impact of private sector, job creation decline pro-bono legal adviser Proctor & Gamble Profiting from Uncertainty (Schoemaker) public assistance, eliminating public speaking purchases, time cost of Qapital QuickBooks quitting job, exit strategy for Rae, Amber rates of return, for housing Raw Deal (Hill) referrals, asking for regret, risk of Reich, Robert Reinventing You (Clark) rejuvenation, time off for relationships, impact on success renting growth in households vs. ownership reputation RescueTime resources, allocating to short-term activities vs. long-term goals resume, gaps for time off resume virtues retail workers retirement healthcare costs in new vision of plans to work longer before saving to finance traditional savings plans supplemental income in rewards, time for longer-term risk assessment of of boring life debt and of diploma debt facing fear by identifying size of risk reduction by acceptance by eliminating exercise for facing fear by assessing options with insurance by mitigating risk by shifting risk risk taker, learning to be Rohn, Jim Rolf, David Roth IRA Rowing the Atlantic (Savage) S Corporation S&P 500 companies, average life sabbaticals safety net, creating Sagmeister, Stefan Savage, Roz, Rowing the Atlantic saving for retirement traditional plan savings, financial plan and increase ScheduleOnce Schoemaker, Paul, Profiting from Uncertainty Schrager, Allison security creating from diversifying for income for job self-employment income tax form for risk assessment SEP IRA service workers Shared Security Account Shell, Richard Simmons, Gail skill-based economy, vs. credentials-based economy skill-based employment system, vs. tenure-based employment system skilled workers skills, income security from building Slaughter, Anne-Marie Snapchat social capital, of introducer social contagion social media Social Security Social Security Administration Society for Human Resources Management sole proprietor, independent worker as South by Southwest (SXSW) speaking inbound connecting through skills for specialization spending, auditing Stand Out (Clark) Star Plates start dates, negotiating startup exit strategy for Strayed, Cheryl Stride Health strong ties in network student loans success as contagious defining vision of external versions new American dream as definition refining vision of surrogation sweat equity bucket Target TaskRabbit tax data analysis Tax Policy Center taxes deductions for mortgage interest Schedule C withholding teaching technology for delegating outbound connecting by leveraging technology companies tenure-based employment system, vs. skill-based employment system time age-related difference in perception calculating use employees’ learned helplessness about expanding horizon for savings plan for longer-term rewards management mindfulness about and purchase cost reaction to wasting reclaiming tracking investments time frame, for goals time off benefits developing ideas for exercise financing friends and family reaction gaps in resume from between gigs, vs. paid time off planning for Toastmaster tolerance of risk Ton, Zeynep The Good Jobs Strategy Top Chef Topcoder total cost of home travel Twitter Uber drivers uncertainty, cognitive biases about unearned income unemployment insurance unemployment protection, for self-employed universal basic income (UBI) universality of benefits universities, faculty members Upwork Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center vacation. see also time off Vanderkam, Laura, 168 Hours Vanguard, online calculator Virtues exercise volunteer positions during time off wage insurance Walmart Ware, Bronnie weak ties in network wealth gap WeWork withholding taxes Wolff, Edward work flexibility full-time job disappearance future of workers eliminating categorization of last resort workers’ compensation working lives, end of worst case, facing fear by starting with writing skills inbound connecting through Xero YouCanBook.me ABOUT THE AUTHOR Diane created and teaches The Gig Economy, which was named by Forbes as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Business School Classes in the country.


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This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World by Yancey Strickler

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, Abraham Maslow, accelerated depreciation, Adam Curtis, basic income, benefit corporation, Big Tech, big-box store, business logic, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Cass Sunstein, cognitive dissonance, corporate governance, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, David Graeber, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, Dutch auction, effective altruism, Elon Musk, financial independence, gender pay gap, gentrification, global supply chain, Hacker News, housing crisis, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, invention of the printing press, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Nash: game theory, Joi Ito, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Kōnosuke Matsushita, Larry Ellison, Louis Pasteur, Mark Zuckerberg, medical bankruptcy, Mr. Money Mustache, new economy, Oculus Rift, off grid, offshore financial centre, Parker Conrad, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, Richard Thaler, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, self-driving car, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Snapchat, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, Solyndra, stem cell, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, TechCrunch disrupt, TED Talk, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Travis Kalanick, Tyler Cowen, universal basic income, white flight, Zenefits

“not in my business”: As reported by Axios (“Forget About Broad-Based Pay Raises, Executives Say,” May 27, 2018) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas event “Technology-Enabled Disruption: Implications for Business, Labor Markets, and Monetary Policy” on May 24–25, 2018. Lazonick has put it: Lazonick’s characterization of buybacks as “profits without prosperity” was in Harvard Business Review (“Profits Without Prosperity,” September 2014). universal basic income: Two recommended books to learn more about universal basic income: Rutger Bregman’s Utopia for Realists and Annie Lowrey’s Give People Money. debt to enter the workforce: Background and stats on student loans come from CNBC (“Why Does a College Degree Cost So Much?” in 2015 and “Student Loan Balances Jump Nearly 150 Percent in a Decade” in 2017).

Our current trajectory is driving us toward this future in Insane Mode, while keeping us woefully unprepared for the shocks that will come when we get there. We need a better answer for what to do with excess capital than give it away to shareholders. One potential answer is higher taxes combined with some version of a universal basic income. This has merits and challenges too long to go into here. Regardless of the specific plan, if we don’t change course we’ll end up in an ugly future with a very big mullet. MULLET UNIVERSITY Some of the biggest victims of the Mullet Economy aren’t even part of it yet. They’re college students, soon-to-be college students, and recent college graduates who are taking on record amounts of debt to enter the workforce.

Bentoism Elizabeth Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality How Ideas Work Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind John Higgs, The KLF: Chaos, Magic, and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds John Higgs, Stranger Than We Can Imagine: An Alternative History of the 20th Century Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Daniel Rodgers, Age of Fracture J. Z. Young, Doubt and Certainty in Science: A Biologist’s Reflections on the Brain Economics Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Updated and Expanded) Annie Lowrey, Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths Mariana Mazzucato, The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy Carlota Perez, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages Thomas Picketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century E.


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21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 1960s counterculture, accounting loophole / creative accounting, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, algorithmic trading, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Ayatollah Khomeini, basic income, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, blockchain, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, carbon-based life, Charlie Hebdo massacre, cognitive dissonance, computer age, computer vision, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, decarbonisation, DeepMind, deglobalization, disinformation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, failed state, fake news, Filter Bubble, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Freestyle chess, gig economy, glass ceiling, Google Glasses, illegal immigration, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, job automation, knowledge economy, liberation theology, Louis Pasteur, low skilled workers, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, means of production, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, Mohammed Bouazizi, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, obamacare, pattern recognition, post-truth, post-work, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, restrictive zoning, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Scramble for Africa, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, TED Talk, transatlantic slave trade, trolley problem, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, zero-sum game

Assuming, too, that we will like these salaries to cover all of a family’s basic needs, the end result will be something that is not very different from universal basic income. Alternatively, governments could subsidise universal basic services rather than income. Instead of giving money to people, who then shop around for whatever they want, the government might subsidise free education, free healthcare, free transport and so forth. This is in fact the utopian vision of communism. Though the communist plan to start a working-class revolution might well become outdated, maybe we should still aim to realise the communist goal by other means? It is debatable whether it is better to provide people with universal basic income (the capitalist paradise) or universal basic services (the communist paradise).

These models should be guided by the principle of protecting humans rather than jobs. Many jobs are uninspiring drudgery, not worth saving. Nobody’s life-dream is to be a cashier. What we should focus on is providing for people’s basic needs and protecting their social status and self-worth. One new model, which is gaining increasing attention, is universal basic income. UBI proposes that governments tax the billionaires and corporations controlling the algorithms and robots, and use the money to provide every person with a generous stipend covering his or her basic needs. This will cushion the poor against job loss and economic dislocation, while protecting the rich from populist rage.23 A related idea proposes to widen the range of human activities that are considered to be ‘jobs’.

Whichever way you choose to define ‘basic human needs’, once you provide them to everyone free of charge, they will be taken for granted, and then fierce social competitions and political struggles will focus on non-basic luxuries – be they fancy self-driving cars, access to virtual-reality parks, or enhanced bioengineered bodies. Yet if the unemployed masses command no economic assets, it is hard to see how they could ever hope to obtain such luxuries. Consequently the gap between the rich (Tencent managers and Google shareholders) and the poor (those dependent on universal basic income) might become not merely bigger, but actually unbridgeable. Hence even if some universal support scheme provides poor people in 2050 with much better healthcare and education than today, they might still be extremely angry about global inequality and the lack of social mobility. People will feel that the system is rigged against them, that the government serves only the super-rich, and that the future will be even worse for them and their children.29 Homo sapiens is just not built for satisfaction.


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Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life by Adam Greenfield

3D printing, Airbnb, algorithmic bias, algorithmic management, AlphaGo, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, bank run, barriers to entry, basic income, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, business intelligence, business process, Californian Ideology, call centre, cellular automata, centralized clearinghouse, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, circular economy, cloud computing, Cody Wilson, collective bargaining, combinatorial explosion, Computer Numeric Control, computer vision, Conway's Game of Life, CRISPR, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, deep learning, DeepMind, dematerialisation, digital map, disruptive innovation, distributed ledger, driverless car, drone strike, Elon Musk, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, facts on the ground, fiat currency, fulfillment center, gentrification, global supply chain, global village, Goodhart's law, Google Glasses, Herman Kahn, Ian Bogost, IBM and the Holocaust, industrial robot, informal economy, information retrieval, Internet of things, Jacob Silverman, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Hawkins, job automation, jobs below the API, John Conway, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John Perry Barlow, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, late capitalism, Leo Hollis, license plate recognition, lifelogging, M-Pesa, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, megacity, megastructure, minimum viable product, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, natural language processing, Network effects, New Urbanism, Nick Bostrom, Occupy movement, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, PalmPilot, Pareto efficiency, pattern recognition, Pearl River Delta, performance metric, Peter Eisenman, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, Ponzi scheme, post scarcity, post-work, printed gun, proprietary trading, RAND corporation, recommendation engine, RFID, rolodex, Rutger Bregman, Satoshi Nakamoto, self-driving car, sentiment analysis, shareholder value, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart contracts, social intelligence, sorting algorithm, special economic zone, speech recognition, stakhanovite, statistical model, stem cell, technoutopianism, Tesla Model S, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, Tony Fadell, transaction costs, Uber for X, undersea cable, universal basic income, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, Vitalik Buterin, warehouse robotics, When a measure becomes a target, Whole Earth Review, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce

Their argument, broadly, is that going forward, there simply won’t be enough meaningful work to furnish a global labor force of five billion or more with employment capable of sustaining them—and that it is in any event perverse to defend jobs we know full well to be bullshit.48 Instead of squandering energies in the sentimental defense of a proletarian way of life that no longer corresponds to any set of facts on the ground, they propose that there is a far more valuable effort progressive forces could dedicate themselves to at this moment in history: the struggle for a universal basic income, or UBI. As the name suggests, most UBI plans—and the variants are many—propose that the state furnish all of its citizens with some kind of sustaining stipend, regardless of means tests or other qualifications. Most versions propose a grant at least equal to the local poverty line, in theory liberating recipients from the worst of the want and gnawing fear that might otherwise beset them in a time of mass disemployment.

And whichever direction it comes from, arguing for the accelerated disappearance of work is a very high-stakes gamble to make, in a world where the welfare state and its safety net are distant and receding memories and the horizontal and mutualist infrastructures that might replace them have not had time to develop. One could, therefore, be forgiven for concluding that in practical terms, the achievement of a universal basic income will result not in anything like total leisure and unlimited self-actualization, but in the further entrenchment of desperation and precarity. When far more powerful forces are already waiting to exploit its emergence and divert its flows for their own ends, it seems unnecessarily cavalier of people who think of themselves as being on the left to “demand” a generic UBI.

With most fabricated objects tagged with information about their material composition, alongside instructions for recycling, it’s easy to disassemble products when they’ve reached the end of their useful life and sort their components for recapture or reuse; in fact, an automated recovery chain just as elaborate as the supply chain exists to do precisely that. It is clearer every day that the legitimating purpose of all economic activity is the production of universal bounty. Here, a formal Universal Basic Income isn’t necessary, because the goods of life are essentially free for the taking. The fruits of the Earth are distributed not merely equitably, but lavishly, as we always knew they could be. The grand framing narrative of commodity capitalism is finally shattered and left behind, the economics of want no longer relevant to a time when demand is estimated by wise algorithm, and fulfilled by automated production.


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Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society by Eric Posner, E. Weyl

3D printing, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, anti-communist, augmented reality, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Branko Milanovic, business process, buy and hold, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, collective bargaining, commoditize, congestion pricing, Corn Laws, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, endowment effect, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, feminist movement, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gamification, Garrett Hardin, George Akerlof, global macro, global supply chain, guest worker program, hydraulic fracturing, Hyperloop, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, informal economy, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jean Tirole, Jeremy Corbyn, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, Landlord’s Game, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, Lyft, market bubble, market design, market friction, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, negative equity, Network effects, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open borders, Pareto efficiency, passive investing, patent troll, Paul Samuelson, performance metric, plutocrats, pre–internet, radical decentralization, random walk, randomized controlled trial, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Ronald Coase, Rory Sutherland, search costs, Second Machine Age, second-price auction, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, special economic zone, spectrum auction, speech recognition, statistical model, stem cell, telepresence, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban planning, Vanguard fund, vertical integration, women in the workforce, Zipcar

These funds could be used to finance government services, public goods (such as investment in basic research), or social welfare programs for the poor. One could also imagine a system in which the revenue generated by the COST is simply sent back to the population on a per capita basis as a social dividend—akin to the universal basic income, which is currently being touted by leading commentators.63 In this form, a COST would also serve as a much more effective way to collect a tax on wealth, which some economists have recently advocated for other reasons, because it has a built-in self-enforcement mechanism in the form of a buyer’s right to force a sale.

Hope King, Owner of ClintonKaine.com wants $90,000, CNN Money (July 27, 2016), http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/27/technology/clinton-kaine-website/index.html. 62. Lauren Cohen, Umit G. Gurun, & Scott Duke Kominers, The Growing Problem of Patent Trolling, 352 Science 521 (2016). 63. It is increasingly popular to refer to such a universal refundable tax credit as a “universal basic income” (UBI). We resist this description because a UBI is typically described as being indexed to some notion of an income required to live a decent life, a notion that we consider ill-defined and which, in any case, is not the aim of our proposal. Our social dividend would be proportioned to the total self-assessed wealth of a country and not to some notion of basic needs. 64.

Michael, 66–67 Spotify, 289, 292 stagnation, 3, 8–11, 14, 24, 190, 254, 257–58, 262, 276 stagnequality, 11–12, 24, 27, 257, 276 Stalin, Joseph, 93 Standard Oil Company, 40, 174–75, 177 starvation, 2, 38, 127, 260–61 State Street, 171, 181–84, 183 Stewart, Jimmy, 17 Stigler, George, xix, 49 stock market, 8, 78, 171, 179, 181, 193, 211, 275 Stolper, Wolfgang, 142–43 stop-and-frisk law, 89 strategic voting, 93, 119–20, 303n20 Sun Yat-Sen, 46, 56 supermajorities, 84–85, 88, 92 supersonic trains, 30–32 Suri, Sid, 233–34 surveillance, 237, 293 Sweden, 182, 272 Syria, 116, 140, 145 Syverson, Chad, 298 Taft, William, 175 Taiwan, 46, 56, 71 tariffs, 138, 266 taxes: arbitrage and, 275; avoidance of, 317n18; carbon, 243; common ownership self-assessed tax (COST) and, 61–69 (see also common ownership self-assessed tax [COST]); consolidated business influence and, 262; consumer groups and, 262; corporate, 189, 191; credits and, 121, 302n63; double taxation and, 65; human capital and, 259–61; immigrants and, 143–45, 156; import, 132; liberalism and, 5, 9, 23–24; property, 28, 31, 42–44, 51, 55–70, 73–76, 301n36; Quadratic Voting (QV) and, 263, 275; reform and, 274–75; retirement and, 260; road congestion and, 276; self-assessment and, 31, 55–56, 61–62, 70, 72, 258, 260, 270, 302n63; subsidies and, 274; tariffs and, 138, 266; turnover rate and, 58–61, 64, 76; universal basic income (UBI) and, 302n63; US vs. European systems of, 143–44 Taylor, Fred, 280 Tea Party, 3 “Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes” (Likert), 111 technofeudalism, 230–33 technology, 2; artificial intelligence (AI), 202, 208–9, 213, 219–24, 226, 228, 230, 234, 236, 241, 246, 248, 254, 257, 287, 292; automated video editing and, 208; biotechnology, 254; capitalism and, 34, 203, 316n4; climate treaties and, 265; common ownership self-assessed tax (COST) and, 71–72, 257–59; computers, 21 (see also computers); consumers and, 287; cybersquatters and, 72; data and, 210–13, 219, 222–23, 236–41, 244; diminishing returns and, 226, 229–30; distribution of complexity and, 228; facial recognition and, 208, 216–19; growth and, 255; human capital and, 293; hyperlinks and, 210; Hyperloop and, 30–33; immigrants and, 256–57; income distribution of companies in, 223; information, 139, 210; innovation and, 30–32, 34, 71, 172, 187, 189, 202, 258; intellectual property and, 26, 38, 48, 72, 210, 212, 239; Internet and, 21, 27, 51, 71, 210–12, 224, 232, 235, 238–39, 242, 246–48; job displacement and, 222, 253, 316n4; labor and, 210–13, 219, 222–23, 236–41, 244, 251, 253–59, 265, 274, 293, 316n4; machine learning (ML) and, 208–9, 213–14, 217–21, 226–31, 234–35, 238, 247, 289, 291, 315n48; marginal value and, 224–28, 247; markets and, 203, 286–87, 292; medical, 291; Moore’s Law and, 286–87; network effects and, 211, 236, 238, 243; neural nets and, 214–19; overfitting and, 217–18; pencils and, 278–79; programmers and, 163, 208–9, 214, 217, 219, 224; property and, 34, 66, 70–71; Quadratic Voting (QV) and, 264; Radical Markets and, 277, 285–86; rapid advances in, 4, 173; recommendation systems and, 289–90; robots and, 222, 248, 251, 254, 287; sea power and, 131; self-driving cars and, 230; server farms and, 217; siren servers and, 220–24, 230–41, 243; social media and, 231, 236, 251; spam and, 210, 245; surveillance and, 237, 293; thinking machines and, 213–20; wealth and, 254; websites, 151, 155, 221; World Wide Web and, 210 techno-optimists, 254–55, 316n1 techno-pessimists, 254–55, 316n2 TEDz talk, 169 tenant farmers, 37–38, 41 Thaler, Richard, 67 Thales of Miletus, 172 Theory of Price, The (Stigler), 49 Theory of the Leisure Class (Veblen), 78 Three Principles of the People (Sun), 46 Through the Looking-Glass (Carroll), 176 Tirole, Jean, 236–37 Tom Sawyer (Twain), 233, 237 trade barriers, 14 tragedy of the commons, 44 transportation, 136, 139, 141, 174, 207, 288, 291 trickle down theories, 9, 12 Trump, Donald, 12–14, 120, 169, 296n20 Turkey, 15 turnover rate, 58–61, 64, 76 Twain, Mark, 233, 237 Twitter, 117, 221 Uber, xxi, 70, 77, 117, 288 unemployment, 9–11, 190, 200, 209, 223, 239, 255–56 unions, 23, 94, 118, 200, 240–45, 316n4 United Airlines, 171, 191 United Arab Emirates (UAE), 151–52, 158–59 United Kingdom: British East India Company and, 21, 173; Corbyn and, 12, 13; democracy and, 95–96; House of Commons and, 84–85; House of Lords and, 85; labor and, 133, 139, 144; Labor Party and, 45; national health system of, 290–91; Philosophical Radicals and, 95; rationing in, 20; voting and, 96 United States: American Constitution and, 86–87; American Independence and, 95; Articles of Confederation and, 88; checks and balances system of, 87; Civil War and, 88; Cold War and, xix, 25, 288; common ownership self-assessed tax (COST) and, 71–76; democracy and, 86–90, 93, 95; Gilded Age and, 174, 262; gun rights and, 15, 90; H1–B program and, 149, 154, 162–63; income distribution in, 4–6; Jackson and, 14; labor and, 9–10, 130, 135–54, 157–61, 164–65, 210, 222; liberalism and, 24 (see also liberalism); lobbyists and, 262; Long Depression of, 36; markets and, 272, 288, 290; monopolies and, 21; New Deal and, 176, 200; Nixon and, 288; Occupy Wall Street and, 3; political campaign contributions and, 15; political corruption and, 27; populist tradition of, 12; primary system and, 93; Progressive movement in, 45; property and, 36, 38, 45, 47–48, 51, 71–76; Radical Markets and, 177, 182–83, 196, 201; religious liberty and, 15; Revolutionary War and, 88; stop-and-frisk law and, 89; technology and, 71–72; Trump and, 12–14, 120, 169, 296n20 United States v.


pages: 611 words: 130,419

Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events by Robert J. Shiller

agricultural Revolution, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, algorithmic trading, Andrei Shleifer, autism spectrum disorder, autonomous vehicles, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, behavioural economics, bitcoin, blockchain, business cycle, butterfly effect, buy and hold, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, collective bargaining, computerized trading, corporate raider, correlation does not imply causation, cryptocurrency, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, debt deflation, digital divide, disintermediation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edmond Halley, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, fake news, financial engineering, Ford Model T, full employment, George Akerlof, germ theory of disease, German hyperinflation, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hacker Ethic, implied volatility, income inequality, inflation targeting, initial coin offering, invention of radio, invention of the telegraph, Jean Tirole, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, litecoin, low interest rates, machine translation, market bubble, Modern Monetary Theory, money market fund, moral hazard, Northern Rock, nudge unit, Own Your Own Home, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, public intellectual, publish or perish, random walk, Richard Thaler, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Rubik’s Cube, Satoshi Nakamoto, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, speech recognition, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, stochastic process, stocks for the long run, superstar cities, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Thorstein Veblen, traveling salesman, trickle-down economics, tulip mania, universal basic income, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We are the 99%, yellow journalism, yield curve, Yom Kippur War

Taxing companies that use robots, the argument goes, will provide revenue to help the government deal with the unemployment consequences of robotics.25 George proposed to distribute part of the tax proceeds as a “public benefit.”26 His proposal is essentially the same universal basic income proposal that is talked about so often today: In this all would share equally—the weak with the strong, young children and decrepit old men, the maimed, the halt, and the blind, as well as the vigorous.27 Other incarnations of the universal basic income proposal were offered by Lady Juliet Rhys-Williams in a 1943 book, Something to Look Forward To; a Suggestion for a New Social Contract, and by Robert Theobald in a 1963 book, Free Men and Free Markets.

Thus Baker advocated something like a universal basic income for all: We have got to face the fact that there is one way, and only one, whereby we can make a market for our huge surplus of goods.… Increase the purchasing power of the 95 percent of the families of the United States who have only tiny incomes, and they will at once buy more.28 Recent years have seen a renewal of this great wave of concern as new redistribution proposals are put forth and discussed. Notably, Google Trends shows a huge uptrend in searches for the term universal basic income starting in 2012. ProQuest News & Newspapers reveals essentially the same uptrend.

The Basic Income European Network (BIEN), an advocacy group, was founded in 1986 and later renamed the Basic Income Earth Network. The narrative that the future will be jobless for many or most people has helped sustain support for a progressive income tax and for an earned income tax credit, though in modern times it has not succeeded in producing a universal basic income in any country. The mutating technology/unemployment narrative tends to attract public attention when a new story creates the impression that the problems generated by technological unemployment are reaching a crisis point. A celebrated 1932 book by Charles Whiting Baker, Pathways Back to Prosperity, sought to explain why the public’s concerns about labor-saving machines replacing jobs were wrong until now, the early 1930s.


AI 2041 by Kai-Fu Lee, Chen Qiufan

3D printing, Abraham Maslow, active measures, airport security, Albert Einstein, AlphaGo, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, bitcoin, blockchain, blue-collar work, Cambridge Analytica, carbon footprint, Charles Babbage, computer vision, contact tracing, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, CRISPR, cryptocurrency, DALL-E, data science, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, delayed gratification, dematerialisation, digital map, digital rights, digital twin, Elon Musk, fake news, fault tolerance, future of work, Future Shock, game design, general purpose technology, global pandemic, Google Glasses, Google X / Alphabet X, GPT-3, happiness index / gross national happiness, hedonic treadmill, hiring and firing, Hyperloop, information security, Internet of things, iterative process, job automation, language acquisition, low earth orbit, Lyft, Maslow's hierarchy, mass immigration, mirror neurons, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, mutually assured destruction, natural language processing, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, OpenAI, optical character recognition, pattern recognition, plutocrats, post scarcity, profit motive, QR code, quantitative easing, Richard Feynman, ride hailing / ride sharing, robotic process automation, Satoshi Nakamoto, self-driving car, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart contracts, smart transportation, Snapchat, social distancing, speech recognition, Stephen Hawking, synthetic biology, telemarketer, Tesla Model S, The future is already here, trolley problem, Turing test, uber lyft, universal basic income, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, zero-sum game

Classification: LCC Q335 .L423 2021 (print) | LCC Q335 (ebook) | DDC 006.3—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2021012928 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2021012929 International edition ISBN 9780593240717 Ebook ISBN 9780593238301 crownpublishing.com Book design by Edwin Vazquez, adapted for ebook Cover Design: Will Staehle ep_prh_5.7.1_c0_r0 Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Epigraph Introduction by Kai-Fu Lee: The Real Story of AI Introduction by Chen Qiufan: How We Can Learn to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Future with Imagination Chapter One: The Golden Elephant Analysis: Deep Learning, Big Data, Internet/Finance Applications, AI Externalities Chapter Two: Gods Behind the Masks Analysis: Computer Vision, Convolutional Neural Networks, Deepfakes, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Biometrics, AI Security Chapter Three: Twin Sparrows Analysis: Natural Language Processing, Self-Supervised Training, GPT-3, AGI and Consciousness, AI Education Chapter Four: Contactless Love Analysis: AI Healthcare, AlphaFold, Robotic Applications, COVID Automation Acceleration Chapter Five: My Haunting Idol Analysis: Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR), Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), Ethical and Societal Issues Chapter Six: The Holy Driver Analysis: Autonomous Vehicles, Full Autonomy and Smart Cities, Ethical and Social Issues Chapter Seven: Quantum Genocide Analysis: Quantum Computers, Bitcoin Security, Autonomous Weapons and Existential Threat Chapter Eight: The Job Savior Analysis: AI Job Displacement, Universal Basic Income (UBI), What AI Cannot Do, 3Rs as a Solution to Displacement Chapter Nine: Isle of Happiness Analysis: AI and Happiness, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Personal Data, Privacy Computing Using Federated Learning and Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) Chapter Ten: Dreaming of Plenitude Analysis: Plenitude, New Economic Models, the Future of Money, Singularity Acknowledgments Other Titles About the Authors What we want is a machine that can learn from experience.

The floating scene shifted to an abandoned Times Square, a run-down mall, an empty Disneyland, images of barred factories and silent assembly lines. Next came images of crowds on the street wearing PPE, holding up placards protesting large-scale layoffs, and more-disturbing pictures of looting and riots. The narration continued: “In 2024, the White House changed hands, and the new administration spearheaded a universal basic income program. UBI guaranteed each citizen a monthly stipend, paid for by taxing the ultrarich and the billionaire tycoons who’d made a fortune from companies powered by new technologies and data collection. Addressing the structural unemployment brought about by advancements in AI had become urgent.”

In an instant, he recalled that faraway afternoon, Mom’s expression when she received news of the layoff. Who wins and who loses was perhaps insignificant in the face of history’s powerful current. Michael Saviour had tugged at his necktie knot, as if to give himself breathing room. Then he’d raised his hand and voted for the future. ANALYSIS AI JOB DISPLACEMENT, UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME (UBI), WHAT AI CANNOT DO, 3RS AS A SOLUTION TO DISPLACEMENT Artificial intelligence can perform many tasks better than people can, at essentially zero cost. This simple fact is poised to generate tremendous economic value but also to cause unprecedented job displacement—a wave of disruption that will hit blue- and white-collar workers alike.


pages: 416 words: 112,268

Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control by Stuart Russell

3D printing, Ada Lovelace, AI winter, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Alfred Russel Wallace, algorithmic bias, AlphaGo, Andrew Wiles, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, behavioural economics, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, brain emulation, Cass Sunstein, Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon: information theory, complexity theory, computer vision, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, connected car, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, delayed gratification, Demis Hassabis, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ernest Rutherford, fake news, Flash crash, full employment, future of work, Garrett Hardin, Geoffrey Hinton, Gerolamo Cardano, Goodhart's law, Hans Moravec, ImageNet competition, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of the wheel, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Kelly, Law of Accelerating Returns, luminiferous ether, machine readable, machine translation, Mark Zuckerberg, multi-armed bandit, Nash equilibrium, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, NP-complete, OpenAI, openstreetmap, P = NP, paperclip maximiser, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Pierre-Simon Laplace, positional goods, probability theory / Blaise Pascal / Pierre de Fermat, profit maximization, RAND corporation, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, recommendation engine, RFID, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Shiller, robotic process automation, Rodney Brooks, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart contracts, social intelligence, speech recognition, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, superintelligent machines, surveillance capitalism, Thales of Miletus, The Future of Employment, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thomas Bayes, Thorstein Veblen, Tragedy of the Commons, transport as a service, trolley problem, Turing machine, Turing test, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, vertical integration, Von Neumann architecture, Wall-E, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, web application, zero-sum game

See work, elimination of Tegmark, Max, 4, 114, 138 Tellex, Stephanie, 73 Tencent, 250 tensor processing units (TPUs), 35 Terminator (film), 112, 113 Tesauro, Gerry, 55 Thaler, Richard, 244 Theory of the Leisure Class, The (Veblen), 230 Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahneman), 238 thinking, learning from, 293–95 Thornton, Richard, 133 Times, 7, 8 tool (narrow) artificial intelligence, 46, 47, 136 TPUs (tensor processing units), 35 tragedy of the commons, 31 Transcendence (film), 3–4, 141–42 transitivity of preferences, 23–24 Treatise of Human Nature, A (Hume), 167 tribalism, 150, 159–60 truck drivers, 119 TrueSkill system, 279 Tucker, Albert, 30 Turing, Alan, 32, 33, 37–38, 40–41, 124–25, 134–35, 140–41, 144, 149, 153, 160–61 Turing test, 40–41 tutoring, 100–101 tutoring systems, 70 2001: A Space Odyssey (film), 141 Uber, 57, 182 UBI (universal basic income), 121 uncertainty AI uncertainty as to human preferences, principle of, 53, 175–76 human uncertainty as to own preferences, 235–37 probability theory and, 273–84 United Nations (UN), 250 universal basic income (UBI), 121 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), 107 universality, 32–33 universal Turing machine, 33, 40–41 unpredictability, 29 utilitarian AI, 217–27 Utilitarianism ((Mill), 217–18 utilitarianism/utilitarian AI, 214 challenges to, 221–27 consequentialist AI, 217–19 ideal utilitarianism, 219 interpersonal comparison of utilities, debate over, 222–24 multiple people, maximizing sum of utilities of, 219–26 preference utilitarianism, 220 social aggregation theorem and, 220 Somalia problem and, 226–27 utility comparison across populations of different sizes, debate over, 224–25 utility function, 53–54 utility monster, 223–24 utility theory, 22–26 axiomatic basis for, 23–24 objections to, 24–26 value alignment, 137–38 Vardi, Moshe, 202–3 Veblen, Thorstein, 230 video games, 45 virtual reality authoring, 101 virtue ethics, 217 visual object recognition, 6 von Neumann, John, 23 W3C Credible Web group, 109 WALL-E (film), 255 Watson, 80 wave function, 35–36 “we’re the experts” argument, 152–54 white-collar jobs, 119 Whitehead, Alfred North, 88 whole-brain emulation, 171 Wiener, Norbert, 10, 136–38, 153, 203 Wilczek, Frank, 4 Wiles, Andrew, 185 wireheading, 205–8 work, elimination of, 113–24 caring professions and, 122 compensation effects and, 114–17 historical warnings about, 113–14 income distribution and, 123 occupations at risk with adoption of AI technology, 118–20 reworking education and research institutions to focus on human world, 123–24 striving and enjoying, relation between, 121–22 universal basic income (UBI) proposals and, 121 wage stagnation and productivity increases, since 1973, 117 “work in human–machine teams” argument, 163 World Economic Forum, 250 World Wide Web, 64 Worshipful Company of Scriveners, 109 Zuckerberg, Mark, 157 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ About the Author Stuart Russell is a professor of Computer Science and holder of the Smith-Zadeh Chair in Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

He did not, however, imagine that in the long run—after a century of further technological advances—there would be a return to full employment: Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem—how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well. Such a future requires a radical change in our economic system, because, in many countries, those who do not work face poverty or destitution. Thus, modern proponents of Keynes’s vision usually support some form of universal basic income, or UBI. Funded by value-added taxes or by taxes on income from capital, UBI would provide a reasonable income to every adult, regardless of circumstance. Those who aspire to a higher standard of living can still work without losing the UBI, while those who do not can spend their time as they see fit.

She conceded that it was correct on the global scale, but noted that “Singapore is small enough to fit in the lifeboat.” 28. Support for UBI from a conservative viewpoint: Sam Bowman, “The ideal welfare system is a basic income,” Adam Smith Institute, November 25, 2013. 29. Support for UBI from a progressive viewpoint: Jonathan Bartley, “The Greens endorse a universal basic income. Others need to follow,” The Guardian, June 2, 2017. 30. Chace, in The Economic Singularity, calls the “paradise” version of UBI the Star Trek economy, noting that in the more recent series of Star Trek episodes, money has been abolished because technology has created essentially unlimited material goods and energy.


pages: 460 words: 107,454

Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy That Works for Progress, People and Planet by Klaus Schwab, Peter Vanham

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, air traffic controllers' union, Anthropocene, Apple II, Asian financial crisis, Asperger Syndrome, basic income, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, blue-collar work, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business process, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon footprint, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, company town, contact tracing, contact tracing app, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, currency peg, cyber-physical system, decarbonisation, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, Diane Coyle, digital divide, don't be evil, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, George Floyd, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, Google bus, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, high net worth, hiring and firing, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, industrial robot, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, lockdown, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, means of production, megacity, microplastics / micro fibres, Mikhail Gorbachev, mini-job, mittelstand, move fast and break things, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, new economy, open economy, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, precariat, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, reserve currency, reshoring, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, School Strike for Climate, self-driving car, seminal paper, shareholder value, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the scientific method, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, transfer pricing, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, War on Poverty, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, Oxford University, September 2013, https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf. 6 The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation, Carl Frey, Princeton University Press, June 2019, https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172798/the-technology-trap. 7 “If Robots and AI Steal Our Jobs, a Universal Basic Income Could Help”, Peter H. Diamandis, Singularity Hub, December 2016, https://singularityhub.com/2016/12/13/if-robots-steal-our-jobs-a-universal-basic-income-could-help/. 8 Interview with Claus Jensen by Peter Vanham, May 2019 9 Even if jobs disappeared in one part of the industry, which happened when ships were no longer mainly built by humans but by robots, having a long-term vision of change helped him keep a positive and constructive outlook.

Consumer Rights Groups Humanity Forward is one example of a modern consumer rights group. It's a nonprofit founded by former US presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Aware of the fundamental changes brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution in American society, the organization puts forward solutions such as universal basic income (UBI) and data as a property right.44 Conceived as a monthly check for $1,000 written to every American adult, Humanity Forward believes UBI can serve as a safety cushion for workers already operating in the gig economy or those faced with a life or work situation that requires a basic safety net.

Moller–Maersk case study on efforts to reduce, 167–168 Boston Consulting Group study on reducing, 167 CO2 emissions, 160, 161, 165–166, 182, 200, 202, 203, 207 EU's emissions cap-and-trade scheme to lower, 166, 183 fossil fuels, 49 Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics used to measure reduced, 249 See also Climate change; Pollution Green New Deal (EU), 183 Greenpeace, 50 Die Grünen (the Greens) [Germany], 78–79 The Guardian, 223 H Hartmann machine works (Chemnitz, Kingdom of Saxony), 103fig Hartmann, Richard, 103 Harvard Business School, 11 Health care COVID-19 pandemic revealing inequalities in, 3–4, 43, 73, 227 digital connectivity providing access to, 227–228 effective government focus on, 225–227 high EU percentage of GDP spent on, 231 high US cost of, 227, 231, 232 improving access in China, 225–226 Singapore's universal health care system, 230–232 Health inequalities COVID-19 pandemic revealing, 3–4, 43, 73, 227 health insurance, 43 wealth inequality, social mobility, and related, 41–42 Healthy365 app (Singapore), 232 Hess-Maier, Dorothee, 9 High-quality debt, 29 Hiroshima bombing (1945), 5 Hirsch, Jeffrey, 240 Hitachi (Japan), 142 Hong Kong carbon footprint per capita, 159 globalization driving economic growth of, 98 Nanyang Commercial Bank of, 57–58 See also Asian Tigers Horowitz, Sara, 242 Housing financial crisis 2008 and loss of, 227 redlining discriminatory practice, 226 Singapore's HDB public, 228–230 stakeholder government providing access to, 225–227 Housing Development Board (HDB) [Singapore], 228–230 Houston Natural Gas (US), 217 Houten, Frans van, 250 Huawei, 55, 60 Hughes, Chris, 128 Human capital definition of, 235 New Zealand's Living Standards Framework on, 235fig–236 Humanity Forward, 239–240 Human rights, Singapore's regulation of, 123 Hungary erosion of political center in, 83–84 Fidesz-KNDP coalition in, 83 financial crisis (2008) impact on, 112, 113 vote for right-wing populist parties (2000, 2017–2019), 84fig I IBM, 139 Iceland, 224 IDN Media (Indonesia), 94–95, 114 IDN Media HQ (Jakarta, Indonesia), 95 Inclusive Development Index (World Economic Forum), 189, 190 Income equality Denmark's success with, 119, 186 EPI plotting union membership against, 186 stakeholder government role in enabling, 178–179, 225 union membership impact on, 186 universal basic income (UBI) concept of, 239 See also Prosperity Income inequality COVID-19 pandemic revealing increased, 3–4, 43, 73 Elephant Curve of Global Inequality and Growth graph, 137–138fig First Industrial Revolution (19th century) and, 132–134 Gini Indices on China and India impact on, 37fig–38, 226 history of US, 34–36, 38–39fig, 88–89 impact on the global economic system by, 36–41 Kuznets curve on problem of, 34–41, 44–45 Kuznets Wave on, 45fig–46 wealth inequality higher than, 41 World Inequality Lab (WIL) on India and China's, 72–73fig World Inequality Report (2018) on, 38, 138fig See also Inequalities; Wealth inequality Independent contractors (freelancers), 237–238, 240–243 Independent Drivers Guild (New York), 238, 241–242 India continued trust in public institutions in, 196 COVID-19 pandemic impact on, 66, 67, 68–69 demographic changes in, 161 economic growth (1980s-2020) in, 66, 67–69, 96–97 gig workers of, 240, 243 Gini Indices on global income inequality impact of, 37fig–38 increasing national income inequality in, 40 protectionist policies and License Raj system of, 67, 69 WHO on unsafe air (2019) in, 72 World Inequality Lab (WIL) on rising inequality in, 72–73fig Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), 68 Indignados protest (Spain), 40, 86 Indochina (19th century), 56 Indonesia Bandung entrepreneurs story (2012) on MYCL, 93–94, 96, 98, 114 continued trust in public institutions in, 196 economic recession (1997) in, 98, 109 gig workers of, 237, 240 globalization success stories in, 93–99 history of international trade by, 97 IDN Media, 94–95, 114 IT and Internet revolution role in expanding economy of, 137 predicted economic growth (2020–2021) in, 65–66 Spice Islands trade (Maluku Islands), 100 tech unicorns of, 66, 67fig Industrial Revolution (19th century), 56, 71, 108, 116, 119, 130–134, 161 Inequalities Benioff on the problem of growing, 210 Big Tech widening, 210 COVID-19 pandemic revealing increased, 3–4, 43, 73, 227 “digital divide,” 227 World Inequality Lab (WIL) on India and China's, 72–73fig See also Income inequality; Wealth inequality Inflation rates debt burden and low, 33 low-interest rates and low, 31–33 Infosys [India], 68 Infrastructure increasing funding gap (2016–2040) for, 32 New Zealand's physical capital, 235fig–236 Institute of International Finance (IIF), 27 Institutions international, 178, 179, 194, 196–197 loss of trust in public, 196 stakeholder model on need for robust, 185, 193–198 Intel, 141 Interest rates COVID-19 pandemic impact on, 31 low inflation and low, 31–33 US Federal Reserve (2009–2019), 31 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [UN], 51, 149 Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES) report [2019], 51 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now World Bank), 6 International Business Council (World Economic Forum), 193, 214, 249 International communities aim to preserve peace, 179 civil society and the, 237–238 as key stakeholders, 178 weakening of institutions of, 194, 196–197 See also specific international community International Monetary Fund (IMF) continued low global GDP growth expectation by, 26–27 creation of the, 6 GDP measure used by, 24 on increasing rates of median debt by mid-2021, 28 lack of representation evidenced in, 197 2020 fiscal monitor of, 19 World Economic Outlook (2020) on ASEAN economies, 65–66 Internet “digital divide” and, 227 improving digital connectivity to, 225, 227–228, 232 Internet Agenda (World Economic Forum), 246 Internet Explorer, 139 Internet of Things, 18, 72, 161 InterNorth (US), 217, 218 Ireland, 194 Iron Curtain, 77, 80 Israel OPEC members in opposition to, 12 Yom Kippur War, 12 Italy COVID-19 pandemic impact on economy of, 68 erosion of the political center in, 83 Five Star Movement in, 83, 87–88 Marshall Plan to rebuild economy of, 6 Pitchfork protests (2013), 86 ruined post-World War II economy of, 5 J Jacobin Magazine (socialist publication), 243 Japan demographic decline in, 161 Second World War occupation of Chinese territory by, 56 Japanese economy economic boom (1945–1970s) in, 8, 109 reconstruction of post-war society and, 8 ruined post-World War II, 5 Jensen, Claus, 117 Jobs, Steve, 126 Johnson, Lyndon B., 135, 184 Jordan, 162 JPMorgan Chase, 132 Julius, Otto, 9 K Kambhampati, Uma, 224 Kennedy, John F., 76 Kenya, 27, 70 Keynes, John Maynard, 103, 104 Khadija, 99 Khan, Lina, 127, 140 Klein, Alice, 220 Klein, Ezra, 231–232 Kohl, Helmut, 78, 81 KPMG (US), 215, 250 Krugman, Paul, 127–128 Kuznets, Simon Smith, 21–25, 34, 44–45, 53, 234 Kuznets' theories Environmental Kuznets Curve, 21–22, 46–47, 53 on mistaken pursuit of GDP growth, 21–25, 34, 46, 53 on problem of income inequality, 34–41, 44–45 Kuznets Wave, 45fig–46 L Labor force automation challenges for, 115–126 collective bargaining in European countries, 10 comparison of US and Danish approach to, 117–120, 123 constructive relationship between Danish companies and, 117–120 Financial Times on loss of manufacturing jobs (1990–2016), 120 gig economy, 237–238, 240–243 increased female participation in the, 9 US and UK politically polarizing, 122–123 Labor market reskilling American labor market deficiencies in, 121–122 Denmark's “Active Labour Market Policies,” 120–121 Labor strikes call for global Uber and Lyft (2019), 187 UK miners' strike, 122 US air traffic controllers, 122 Labor unions collective bargaining, 10, 14, 17 EPI plotting income inequality against history of, 186 high membership in Denmark, 240 stakeholder approach to modern, 240–243 strikes held by, 122 Laissez-faire economy, 225 Lakner, Christoph, 137, 138 Lasn, Kalle, 40 Latin American countries average economic mobility improvement in, 44 capitalism vs. communism ideological battle in, 7 dropping voter turnout for elections in, 188 emerging markets in, 63 income inequality in, 40 “reefer ships” (1870s) and international trade by, 104, 110 “21st century socialism” of, 225 See also specific country “League of Legends” game, 60 Lee Hsien Loong, 230 Lee, Kai-Fu, 143 Legacy preferences (university admissions), 226 Lega (League) [Germany], 83, 88 Legatum Prosperity Index (2019), 231 Lenin, Vladimir, 22 Leonhard, David, 140 LGBTQ people, 123, 195 LGBTQ rights groups, 243 Liberal political parties (Europe), 188 License Raj system (India), 67, 69 “The Limits to Growth” study (Peccei), 47, 48, 52 Lin, David, 49 LinkedIn (US), 211 “Little Mermaid” statue (Copenhagen), 200 Liu Guohong, 57 Living Standards Framework (LSF) [New Zealand], 222–223, 234–236 Local government.


pages: 460 words: 107,454

Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy That Works for Progress, People and Planet by Klaus Schwab

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, air traffic controllers' union, Anthropocene, Apple II, Asian financial crisis, Asperger Syndrome, basic income, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, blue-collar work, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business process, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon footprint, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, company town, contact tracing, contact tracing app, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, currency peg, cyber-physical system, decarbonisation, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, Diane Coyle, digital divide, don't be evil, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, George Floyd, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, Google bus, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, high net worth, hiring and firing, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, industrial robot, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, lockdown, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, means of production, megacity, microplastics / micro fibres, Mikhail Gorbachev, mini-job, mittelstand, move fast and break things, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, new economy, open economy, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, precariat, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, reserve currency, reshoring, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, School Strike for Climate, self-driving car, seminal paper, shareholder value, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the scientific method, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, transfer pricing, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, War on Poverty, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, Oxford University, September 2013, https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf. 6 The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation, Carl Frey, Princeton University Press, June 2019, https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172798/the-technology-trap. 7 “If Robots and AI Steal Our Jobs, a Universal Basic Income Could Help”, Peter H. Diamandis, Singularity Hub, December 2016, https://singularityhub.com/2016/12/13/if-robots-steal-our-jobs-a-universal-basic-income-could-help/. 8 Interview with Claus Jensen by Peter Vanham, May 2019 9 Even if jobs disappeared in one part of the industry, which happened when ships were no longer mainly built by humans but by robots, having a long-term vision of change helped him keep a positive and constructive outlook.

Consumer Rights Groups Humanity Forward is one example of a modern consumer rights group. It's a nonprofit founded by former US presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Aware of the fundamental changes brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution in American society, the organization puts forward solutions such as universal basic income (UBI) and data as a property right.44 Conceived as a monthly check for $1,000 written to every American adult, Humanity Forward believes UBI can serve as a safety cushion for workers already operating in the gig economy or those faced with a life or work situation that requires a basic safety net.

Moller–Maersk case study on efforts to reduce, 167–168 Boston Consulting Group study on reducing, 167 CO2 emissions, 160, 161, 165–166, 182, 200, 202, 203, 207 EU's emissions cap-and-trade scheme to lower, 166, 183 fossil fuels, 49 Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics used to measure reduced, 249 See also Climate change; Pollution Green New Deal (EU), 183 Greenpeace, 50 Die Grünen (the Greens) [Germany], 78–79 The Guardian, 223 H Hartmann machine works (Chemnitz, Kingdom of Saxony), 103fig Hartmann, Richard, 103 Harvard Business School, 11 Health care COVID-19 pandemic revealing inequalities in, 3–4, 43, 73, 227 digital connectivity providing access to, 227–228 effective government focus on, 225–227 high EU percentage of GDP spent on, 231 high US cost of, 227, 231, 232 improving access in China, 225–226 Singapore's universal health care system, 230–232 Health inequalities COVID-19 pandemic revealing, 3–4, 43, 73, 227 health insurance, 43 wealth inequality, social mobility, and related, 41–42 Healthy365 app (Singapore), 232 Hess-Maier, Dorothee, 9 High-quality debt, 29 Hiroshima bombing (1945), 5 Hirsch, Jeffrey, 240 Hitachi (Japan), 142 Hong Kong carbon footprint per capita, 159 globalization driving economic growth of, 98 Nanyang Commercial Bank of, 57–58 See also Asian Tigers Horowitz, Sara, 242 Housing financial crisis 2008 and loss of, 227 redlining discriminatory practice, 226 Singapore's HDB public, 228–230 stakeholder government providing access to, 225–227 Housing Development Board (HDB) [Singapore], 228–230 Houston Natural Gas (US), 217 Houten, Frans van, 250 Huawei, 55, 60 Hughes, Chris, 128 Human capital definition of, 235 New Zealand's Living Standards Framework on, 235fig–236 Humanity Forward, 239–240 Human rights, Singapore's regulation of, 123 Hungary erosion of political center in, 83–84 Fidesz-KNDP coalition in, 83 financial crisis (2008) impact on, 112, 113 vote for right-wing populist parties (2000, 2017–2019), 84fig I IBM, 139 Iceland, 224 IDN Media (Indonesia), 94–95, 114 IDN Media HQ (Jakarta, Indonesia), 95 Inclusive Development Index (World Economic Forum), 189, 190 Income equality Denmark's success with, 119, 186 EPI plotting union membership against, 186 stakeholder government role in enabling, 178–179, 225 union membership impact on, 186 universal basic income (UBI) concept of, 239 See also Prosperity Income inequality COVID-19 pandemic revealing increased, 3–4, 43, 73 Elephant Curve of Global Inequality and Growth graph, 137–138fig First Industrial Revolution (19th century) and, 132–134 Gini Indices on China and India impact on, 37fig–38, 226 history of US, 34–36, 38–39fig, 88–89 impact on the global economic system by, 36–41 Kuznets curve on problem of, 34–41, 44–45 Kuznets Wave on, 45fig–46 wealth inequality higher than, 41 World Inequality Lab (WIL) on India and China's, 72–73fig World Inequality Report (2018) on, 38, 138fig See also Inequalities; Wealth inequality Independent contractors (freelancers), 237–238, 240–243 Independent Drivers Guild (New York), 238, 241–242 India continued trust in public institutions in, 196 COVID-19 pandemic impact on, 66, 67, 68–69 demographic changes in, 161 economic growth (1980s-2020) in, 66, 67–69, 96–97 gig workers of, 240, 243 Gini Indices on global income inequality impact of, 37fig–38 increasing national income inequality in, 40 protectionist policies and License Raj system of, 67, 69 WHO on unsafe air (2019) in, 72 World Inequality Lab (WIL) on rising inequality in, 72–73fig Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), 68 Indignados protest (Spain), 40, 86 Indochina (19th century), 56 Indonesia Bandung entrepreneurs story (2012) on MYCL, 93–94, 96, 98, 114 continued trust in public institutions in, 196 economic recession (1997) in, 98, 109 gig workers of, 237, 240 globalization success stories in, 93–99 history of international trade by, 97 IDN Media, 94–95, 114 IT and Internet revolution role in expanding economy of, 137 predicted economic growth (2020–2021) in, 65–66 Spice Islands trade (Maluku Islands), 100 tech unicorns of, 66, 67fig Industrial Revolution (19th century), 56, 71, 108, 116, 119, 130–134, 161 Inequalities Benioff on the problem of growing, 210 Big Tech widening, 210 COVID-19 pandemic revealing increased, 3–4, 43, 73, 227 “digital divide,” 227 World Inequality Lab (WIL) on India and China's, 72–73fig See also Income inequality; Wealth inequality Inflation rates debt burden and low, 33 low-interest rates and low, 31–33 Infosys [India], 68 Infrastructure increasing funding gap (2016–2040) for, 32 New Zealand's physical capital, 235fig–236 Institute of International Finance (IIF), 27 Institutions international, 178, 179, 194, 196–197 loss of trust in public, 196 stakeholder model on need for robust, 185, 193–198 Intel, 141 Interest rates COVID-19 pandemic impact on, 31 low inflation and low, 31–33 US Federal Reserve (2009–2019), 31 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [UN], 51, 149 Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES) report [2019], 51 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now World Bank), 6 International Business Council (World Economic Forum), 193, 214, 249 International communities aim to preserve peace, 179 civil society and the, 237–238 as key stakeholders, 178 weakening of institutions of, 194, 196–197 See also specific international community International Monetary Fund (IMF) continued low global GDP growth expectation by, 26–27 creation of the, 6 GDP measure used by, 24 on increasing rates of median debt by mid-2021, 28 lack of representation evidenced in, 197 2020 fiscal monitor of, 19 World Economic Outlook (2020) on ASEAN economies, 65–66 Internet “digital divide” and, 227 improving digital connectivity to, 225, 227–228, 232 Internet Agenda (World Economic Forum), 246 Internet Explorer, 139 Internet of Things, 18, 72, 161 InterNorth (US), 217, 218 Ireland, 194 Iron Curtain, 77, 80 Israel OPEC members in opposition to, 12 Yom Kippur War, 12 Italy COVID-19 pandemic impact on economy of, 68 erosion of the political center in, 83 Five Star Movement in, 83, 87–88 Marshall Plan to rebuild economy of, 6 Pitchfork protests (2013), 86 ruined post-World War II economy of, 5 J Jacobin Magazine (socialist publication), 243 Japan demographic decline in, 161 Second World War occupation of Chinese territory by, 56 Japanese economy economic boom (1945–1970s) in, 8, 109 reconstruction of post-war society and, 8 ruined post-World War II, 5 Jensen, Claus, 117 Jobs, Steve, 126 Johnson, Lyndon B., 135, 184 Jordan, 162 JPMorgan Chase, 132 Julius, Otto, 9 K Kambhampati, Uma, 224 Kennedy, John F., 76 Kenya, 27, 70 Keynes, John Maynard, 103, 104 Khadija, 99 Khan, Lina, 127, 140 Klein, Alice, 220 Klein, Ezra, 231–232 Kohl, Helmut, 78, 81 KPMG (US), 215, 250 Krugman, Paul, 127–128 Kuznets, Simon Smith, 21–25, 34, 44–45, 53, 234 Kuznets' theories Environmental Kuznets Curve, 21–22, 46–47, 53 on mistaken pursuit of GDP growth, 21–25, 34, 46, 53 on problem of income inequality, 34–41, 44–45 Kuznets Wave, 45fig–46 L Labor force automation challenges for, 115–126 collective bargaining in European countries, 10 comparison of US and Danish approach to, 117–120, 123 constructive relationship between Danish companies and, 117–120 Financial Times on loss of manufacturing jobs (1990–2016), 120 gig economy, 237–238, 240–243 increased female participation in the, 9 US and UK politically polarizing, 122–123 Labor market reskilling American labor market deficiencies in, 121–122 Denmark's “Active Labour Market Policies,” 120–121 Labor strikes call for global Uber and Lyft (2019), 187 UK miners' strike, 122 US air traffic controllers, 122 Labor unions collective bargaining, 10, 14, 17 EPI plotting income inequality against history of, 186 high membership in Denmark, 240 stakeholder approach to modern, 240–243 strikes held by, 122 Laissez-faire economy, 225 Lakner, Christoph, 137, 138 Lasn, Kalle, 40 Latin American countries average economic mobility improvement in, 44 capitalism vs. communism ideological battle in, 7 dropping voter turnout for elections in, 188 emerging markets in, 63 income inequality in, 40 “reefer ships” (1870s) and international trade by, 104, 110 “21st century socialism” of, 225 See also specific country “League of Legends” game, 60 Lee Hsien Loong, 230 Lee, Kai-Fu, 143 Legacy preferences (university admissions), 226 Lega (League) [Germany], 83, 88 Legatum Prosperity Index (2019), 231 Lenin, Vladimir, 22 Leonhard, David, 140 LGBTQ people, 123, 195 LGBTQ rights groups, 243 Liberal political parties (Europe), 188 License Raj system (India), 67, 69 “The Limits to Growth” study (Peccei), 47, 48, 52 Lin, David, 49 LinkedIn (US), 211 “Little Mermaid” statue (Copenhagen), 200 Liu Guohong, 57 Living Standards Framework (LSF) [New Zealand], 222–223, 234–236 Local government.


pages: 304 words: 80,143

The Autonomous Revolution: Reclaiming the Future We’ve Sold to Machines by William Davidow, Michael Malone

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, AlphaGo, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Automated Insights, autonomous vehicles, basic income, benefit corporation, bitcoin, blockchain, blue-collar work, Bob Noyce, business process, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, cashless society, citizen journalism, Clayton Christensen, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, deep learning, DeepMind, disintermediation, disruptive innovation, distributed ledger, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, Filter Bubble, Ford Model T, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, general purpose technology, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, gig economy, Gini coefficient, high-speed rail, holacracy, Hyperloop, income inequality, industrial robot, Internet of things, invention of agriculture, invention of movable type, invention of the printing press, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, license plate recognition, low interest rates, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, Network effects, new economy, peer-to-peer lending, QWERTY keyboard, ransomware, Richard Florida, Robert Gordon, robo advisor, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Skinner box, Snapchat, speech recognition, streetcar suburb, Stuxnet, surveillance capitalism, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, trade route, Turing test, two and twenty, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, urban planning, vertical integration, warehouse automation, zero day, zero-sum game, Zipcar

See Transportation Security Administration Turing, Alan, 46 Turing Pharmaceuticals, 57–58 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 159 Turo, 84, 86 Twenge, Jean M., 146, 147–148 Twitter, 49, 142, 146–147, 168, 173 Uber, 70, 84, 85, 86, 100 UBI. See universal basic income unemployment rates, 1, 105, 106–107, 111 unions, labor, 30–31 United States (US): CIA, 119, 172 cybercrime and security response from, 175, 179 cyber weapons of, 172–173 government, history and evolution of, 159–161 income inequality in, 13, 31, 163–164, 191–192, 194 total household income for, 194 workers’ rights legislation in, 30–31, 160 universal basic income (UBI), 110–111, 192 urban environments. See cities/urban environments Uruk, 24, 183–184 US. See United States Utopian ideals, 4–5, 19–20, 195 value systems, 12 citizen unity on and commitment to, 193–195 redefining, 67–68, 189–190 Vanguard, 77 vehicles.

Everyone would be required to spend $3,000 on health insurance. Payments would start to taper off after someone was earning more than $30,000 per year.52 Murray argues that the savings resulting from the elimination of entitlements would be enough to finance much of the plan. One of the most common objections to universal basic income (UBI) proposals is that they undermine the self-esteem and personal identity that comes with having a job. Opponents of UBI paint pictures of twenty-one-year-old white males living in cheap apartments, hooked on opioids, playing video games ten hours a day, and contemplating suicide. But as Murray points out, the plan would not incentivize unemployment, because everyone would still have to work to live at a comfortable level.

Hopefully we can find free-market solutions (or private/public solutions), such as investing proactively in the infrastructure of the future and in greater entrepreneurship. If those solutions do not lessen inequality, we are going to have to use other systems for redistributing wealth, such as higher taxes, free universal health care, and universal basic income (UBI). One consequence of all of this is that we may end up with even bigger government. Countries like Sweden spend about 10 to 15 percent more of their GDP on government than we do.13 Not coincidentally, Sweden’s Gini coefficient—the lower the number, the greater the income equality—is 0.259, less than a third of that of the United States.14 If the solution to income inequality comes in the form of high tax rates, universal health care, and UBI we will have moved closer to socialism—a very big value change.


pages: 180 words: 55,805

The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation Is the Key to an Abundant Future by Jeff Booth

3D printing, Abraham Maslow, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, additive manufacturing, AI winter, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, AlphaGo, Amazon Web Services, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, bitcoin, blockchain, Bretton Woods, business intelligence, butterfly effect, Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon: information theory, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive bias, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, corporate raider, creative destruction, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, currency manipulation / currency intervention, dark matter, deep learning, DeepMind, deliberate practice, digital twin, distributed ledger, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, fiat currency, Filter Bubble, financial engineering, full employment, future of work, game design, gamification, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, Gordon Gekko, Great Leap Forward, Hyman Minsky, hype cycle, income inequality, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, invention of movable type, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, late fees, low interest rates, Lyft, Maslow's hierarchy, Milgram experiment, Minsky moment, Modern Monetary Theory, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, Network effects, Nick Bostrom, oil shock, OpenAI, pattern recognition, Ponzi scheme, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, ride hailing / ride sharing, self-driving car, software as a service, technoutopianism, TED Talk, the long tail, the scientific method, Thomas Bayes, Turing test, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, winner-take-all economy, X Prize, zero-sum game

Job losses and income inequality will reduce the number of people who can participate in the economy. At some point along that continuum of fewer people participating in the economy, the math doesn’t work, and the system collapses anyway. That means that even though universal basic income sounds radical to some, it is at least an alternative to that outcome. On execution, it becomes much more difficult. Universal basic income is essentially a version of wealth transfer. Beyond the traditional arguments from the right that it disincentivizes work and, as a result, incentivizes people to get paid for nothing, there is a cornucopia of additional challenges because of the complexity in determining the right wage.

It is hard to see the money that you believe that you have earned because of your ingenuity or hard work go to others who you deem not to have worked as hard. The argument from those who have wealth is that the higher the tax rate on the wealthy, the more disincentive there is to take risks, innovate, and be a strong contributor to society. One of the more prominent proposals in this camp is universal basic income. In policy circles around the world, it is getting serious airtime. The idea is simple in premise: raise taxes on the wealthy to give a minimum basic income whether people work or not, topping people up if they work to a maximum amount but also not requiring them to work for their wage. The idea is hardly new; various proposals date back hundreds of years.


pages: 194 words: 56,074

Angrynomics by Eric Lonergan, Mark Blyth

AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, basic income, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Branko Milanovic, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, central bank independence, collective bargaining, COVID-19, credit crunch, cryptocurrency, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Erik Brynjolfsson, Extinction Rebellion, fake news, full employment, gig economy, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, hiring and firing, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, income per capita, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, labour market flexibility, liberal capitalism, lockdown, low interest rates, market clearing, Martin Wolf, Modern Monetary Theory, precariat, price stability, quantitative easing, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, self-driving car, Skype, smart grid, sovereign wealth fund, spectrum auction, The Future of Employment, The Great Moderation, The Spirit Level, universal basic income

As such, a NWF would address some of the legitimate anger against wealth inequality generated by angrynomics along with mitigating the private stressors of uncertainty about health, education and housing. Who can object to that? ERIC: Okay, that’s a good start, a viable powerful policy that could make a serious difference to people’s lives and one that addresses the concentration of wealth in society. Let’s now shift to the issue of income. The idea of a universal basic income (UBI) – a minimum level of income paid to all citizens – has gained a lot of traction recently. The two major objections to it are, firstly, how do we pay for it without undermining the resources available for social security, and secondly, is it right for people to receive something for nothing?

AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) 114 Afghanistan 6 aging population 10, 13, 14, 95, 106–11 and consumption 109–10 and government bonds 138–9, 152 and inequality 56–7, 58, 107–10 and inter-generational transfer 106–107 and poverty 57, 107 as stressor 57, 91, 106, 110, 111, 116, 118 and technological change 90, 106, 122 AIG 85, 124 Amazon 96, 98, 104, 142, 143–4 Anderson, Elizabeth 176 anger 2–3, 7–9, 10, 11–12, 159, 161 misplaced 13 as opportunity 16 and play 153 private see private anger public see public anger reducing see calming strategies anxiety/stress 9, 13–14, 50, 53, 55–6, 88, 118, 161 and cognitive effort 89–90, 91 and job insecurity 95–6 three causes of 91 and uncertainty see uncertainty Apple 96, 142, 143 Aristotle 59, 153 artificial intelligence (AI) 14, 102–106, 142 Asian financial crisis (1998) 77, 140 asset ownership 130–31, 133, 136, 140–41 Atkinson, Tony 80, 173 austerity policies 2–3, 6, 15, 34–5, 41, 48, 84 and euro crisis 44–5 and low interest rates 135 Australia 125 Austria 3 baby boomers 107–108, 110, 111, 175 Bank of England 84, 103, 120, 145, 148 TFS scheme 149–50, 166 banks 1, 6, 15, 33–5, 42, 44, 48, 145–50 and capital/liquidity ratios 126 and direct support for consumption 145–8 and dual interest rates 149–50 and economic models 3, 4 failure of 119–21, 122 and helicopter money 131, 146 independence of 78, 79 and leverage see financial leverage and problem of low interest rates 120–21, 122, 131, 135 regulations on 125–6, 127, 129, 132 restrictions on 72, 77 see also financial crisis (2008) Beck, Aaron 171–2 Bernanke, Ben 6, 148 Biden, Joe 106 billionaires 4 Bitcoin 102, 103 Blackrock 165 blockchain technology 14, 103 Blyth, Mark 172, 175 bonuses 81, 85, 124 Brazil 11, 127 Brexit 4, 7, 11, 22, 24, 37, 38, 55, 117, 154 and austerity policies 41, 45 and immigration 111, 112, 114, 116 and job insecurity 100–101 Brill, Stephen 175 Britain (UK) 3, 38, 119, 155, 162, 164 aging population in 107, 110 austerity policies in 41 dual interest rates in 149–50 and EU see Brexit fear of immigration in 27 gig economy in 100 and government bonds 135, 140 government spending in 71 immigration in 111, 112, 114, 115–16 inequality in 6 interest rates in 145 nationalism in 23 Thatcherism in 75, 76 Brittan, Samuel 151 Brynjolfsson, Erik 173 budget deficits 71, 75 Buffett, Warren 130 calming strategies 12, 15, 118, 122, 123–57 and data dividend see data dividend and direct support for consumption 145–8 and dual interest rates 149–50 and economic diversity 153–6 and inequality see inequality, strategies to reduce and national wealth fund see NWF and regulations on banks 125–6, 127, 129, 132 and sustainable investment see sustainable investment Canada 125 cancer 53, 87, 88, 106 capital 4 cost of 137, 139, 153 and dispersion 97–98 as “fictitious” commodity 65 formation, rate of 108 global 40, 42, 43, 49, 50, 58 and labour 50, 60, 69, 72 and neoliberalism 75, 76, 77, 79 protection of, following financial crisis 85 versus capital 97, 98 Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Piketty) 49, 108–10 capital/liquidity ratios 126 capitalism 64–5 and commodities 65–6 capitalism as computer 11, 61–72 fixing 124–25 hardware of 62–3, 117 software of 63–4, 68–71 and unemployment/inequality 66–7 version 1.0 68–9 version 1.0 crash 64, 66, 67, 71, 73, 83, 118 version 2.0 69–73, 74, 75, 76, 116 version 2.0 crash 70–71, 73, 83–4, 118 version 3.0 74–80, 98–9, 117, 125, 140–41 version 3.0 crash 116 car industry 100–101 caring industry 104 Case, Anne 54, 176 centrism, political 38, 48, 118–19, 121, 160–61, 162 CEOs (chief executive officers) 4 Chamberlain, Joseph 66 Chile 3 China 42, 63, 64, 78, 93, 137, 151, 156 Citibank 81, 82 cities 55, 56 climate change 104, 111, 121, 129, 131, 153, 159–60 and investment see sustainable investment Clinton, Hillary 160 Coggan, Philip 172 cognitive effort 89–90, 91 Cold War 28, 48 ending/legacy of 5, 23, 26, 29, 30, 37, 116 communism 68, 71 competition/competitiveness 47, 65, 94, 95, 111, 116, 125 and technology 105 see also product market competition computer analogy see capitalism as computer constrained volatility 85 consumption, direct support for 145–8, 150–51, 160 consumption, distribution of 52–3, 58 Corbyn, Jeremy 119 corporations 6, 20, 57 and competition 95, 96 and data dividend see data dividend corruption 8, 29, 61, 130 Covid-19 163 culture 160 Czech Republic 146, 147, 155 data dividend 141–4, 160, 162 and monopolies 142, 143, 144 and privacy 141–2 and property rights 142–3 de-unionization 50, 95, 99 Deaton, Angus 54, 176 debt 75, 84, 120, 132, 145, 150 and demography 109, 111, 131 government 136–7, 151, 152 net 136 deflation 65, 69, 120, 128, 144, 148 demand management 44–5, 47, 126–7 democracy 16, 25, 29, 39, 40, 104, 117, 130 and markets 68 demography see aging population Denmark 64, 164 depression see recession deregulation 28, 40, 48, 50, 58, 75 and inflation 127 as micro-stressor 94, 96, 99, 101, 118 DGSE (dynamic stochastic general equilibrium) models 3–4 Doughnut Economics (Raworth) 131–2, 165 dual interest rates 131–2, 149–50, 174 Dublin (Ireland) 17–18 economic change 9–10, 29, 43, 153 see also fiscal reform; recession economic growth 2, 6, 41, 69, 71, 86 and demography 108–10 and immigration 116 and inequality 76, 79–80 and quality of jobs/wages 46, 47, 85 economic ideology 28 economics 12, 54–5 shortcomings of models 3–5, 6, 7 education 24, 53, 58, 135, 141 tuition fees/student loans 107, 111 electoral politics 5–6, 104 and demographics 107, 110 and tribalism 13, 22, 24–7, 29, 30, 31 electric vehicles 153 elites 2–3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 37 in cities 55, 56 and corruption 8, 29 and ethical norms 20 and financial crisis 43–4 manipulation of tribal identity by 22, 24, 61, 116, 161 policy failures of 48–9 Engbom, Niklas 175–6 environmental degradation 29, 161 see also climate change environmental and social governance 168 ethical norms 20 euro crisis 7, 37, 44, 77, 144 Europe 34, 42, 137, 140 inequality in 41, 53, 56, 58 migrant crisis in 7 tribalism in 30 European Central Bank (ECB) 34, 84, 146, 155, 164–5 TLTRO programme 147–8, 166 European Union (EU) 22, 33, 34–5, 37, 43, 119 austerity policies in 2, 36, 48 and financial crisis (2008) 82 micro-stressors in 47–8 and nationalism 154–6 and neoliberalism 76, 77 unemployment in 44–5 see also Brexit eurozone 45, 65, 83, 148, 151, 155 exchange rates 72, 134 Extinction Rebellion 8, 131–2 Facebook 27, 96, 98, 142, 143 fake news 26 Farage, Nigel 17, 161 Farmer, Roger 174 fascism 45–6, 66, 67–8, 71 fear 16, 17, 94, 113, 117, 150, 161 and media 26, 27 and politics 7, 45 financial crisis (2008) 1–2, 6, 26, 29, 30, 39, 48, 127, 163 and automation 102–103 and bail-out of banks 84 fragility of recovery from 46, 85, 89, 121 further reading on 172–3 and globalized financial system 84 and growth of populism 85 and inequality 79–80 and low interest rates 135 and regulation of banks 129 financial leverage 72, 81–3, 85, 99, 126, 157 and credit crunch 83 and interest rates 81–2 financial market deregulation 77 fiscal councils 150–51 fiscal reform 15, 150–53, 162 Fischer, Stan 148, 165 Florence (Italy) 87–8 foodbanks 6, 53 football fans 8, 19, 56 France 2, 3, 20, 55, 56, 71, 101, 154, 156 and NWF 135 Franklin, Benjamin 87 free markets 30, 69, 118 Friedman, Milton 118 full employment 40, 47, 60, 66, 71–2, 79, 85, 175 and inflation 73–4, 76 without inflation 121, 125, 126 future 101–102, 111 Garcia family, parable of 33–5, 43 Gates, Bill 130 GDP (gross domestic product) 5, 44, 76, 79, 100–101, 106, 151, 152 and NWF 135, 141 Germany 3, 11, 34, 38, 42, 62–3, 66, 151, 154, 156, 167 and migrant crisis 111, 113–14 and NWF 135 Gibley, Bruce Cannon 175 gig economy 94, 98, 99–100 global economy 12, 39–40, 50, 53, 58, 133 and nationalism 154 and neoliberalism 77 globalization 5, 39, 41, 42–3, 48, 77, 117 hyper- 40 and inequality 80 and inflation 127 and insecurity 101 and labour market 42, 43 and nationalism 154 Gold Standard 65, 67 Google 96, 98, 104, 142 government bonds 72, 131, 133, 135, 137, 138–9, 152 as insurance policies 139, 140 government borrowing 134–5, 137, 152–3 and cost of capital 137, 139, 153 and low inflation 128, 138–40, 150 and NWF 136–137, 138–40 Great Depression 40, 44, 66, 69, 120 Great Moderation 6, 120 Greece 35, 38, 44, 45, 106–07, 110, 144 green revolution see sustainable investment gross domestic product see GDP Guilluy, Christophe 55 Gulf States 133, 134 Hayek, Friedrich 118 healthcare 47, 53–4, 58, 123–4, 135, 139 and access to data 141–2 and NWF 141 and uncertainty/probability 92 hedge fund managers 4 helicopter money 131, 146, 166 Hildebrand, Philipp 165 Hong Kong 2–3, 140, 164 Hopkin, Jonathan 172 Hopkins, Ellen 123 housing 71, 113, 114, 135 Hungary 11, 23, 30 Iceland 1–2, 8, 20 immigration 5, 7, 26, 27, 111–17, 164 economic effects of 115–16 and housing/training 113, 114 and income distribution 112, 113, 114–15 and manipulation by media/politicians 111, 115 as stressor 113, 115 and technological change 106 and tribalism 95, 111, 112, 113 income see wages income distribution 43, 50, 51 and Keynesian economics 71 and neoliberalism 80, 81 independent fiscal councils 150–51 India 23, 127 individualism 29, 154 Indonesia 3 inequality 3, 4, 6, 15, 29, 30, 40–41, 43, 49–57, 58, 61, 79, 118 difficulties in measuring 50–53 and distribution of income/consumption 53–4 and financial crisis (2008) 79–80, 83, 85 further reading on 173, 176 intergenerational 56–7, 107–10 and populism 54–5 and uncertainty 49–50 inequality, strategies to reduce 121–2, 129–31, 132, 162 asset ownership 130–31, 133, 136, 140–41 and data dividend 141–4 National Wealth Fund see NWF optimal/effective 132–3 and universal basic income (UBI) 141, 144 wealth tax 130, 132 inflation 5, 40, 51–2, 53, 69 death of 126, 128 and full employment 73–4, 76, 121, 122, 125 and global financial markets 78 and interest rates 75, 81–2, 120 low see low inflation and oil prices 96–7 and printing money 78, 128, 145 and raising taxes 129 and recession 144–5 and regulation of banks 125–6, 127, 132 and stagflation 40, 74, 120, 128 inheritance 132, 133, 160 national 136 innovation see technological change insurance industry 93 interest rates 15, 33–4, 75, 81–2, 165–6 dual, and sustainable investment 131–2, 149–50 low, problem of 120–21, 122, 131, 132, 135, 146–8, 152 negative, problem of 15, 148, 149, 150 and spending 147 internet 25 investment spending 40, 60, 69 and future expectations 103 and global capital flows 77–8 and inflation 74 public sector 67, 70–71 sustainable see sustainable investment IRA (Irish Republican Army) 17 Iraq 6 Ireland 17–18, 23, 24 Islam 27 Italy 35, 37, 38, 39, 44, 66, 71, 87–8, 144, 156, 167 aging population in 110 poverty in 47 tribalism in 45–6 Japan 26, 84, 110, 137, 140, 148 job security/insecurity 34, 50, 56, 61, 94, 95–6, 100–101 and technology 102 Kalecki, Michał 60–61, 73–5, 120, 121, 127 Keynes, John Maynard/Keynesian economics 60, 66–7, 68–70, 92, 103, 118, 127, 151 General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money 66, 175 and inflation 67, 69, 128 labour market 35, 40–41, 42, 43, 44 and automation 102–106 deregulation 50, 95, 99, 122, 127 dispersion in 98–9 and full employment see full employment and immigration 115–16 in Keynesian system 71–2 and labour as commodity 59, 60, 65–6, 73, 85 and protectionism 59–61, 66 and secular stability 125, 126 and training 62–3 see also wages Lagarde, Christine 167 Lerner, Abba 118 libertarianism 63 Lonergan, Eric 174 Los Indignatios 85 low inflation 79, 134, 157 and full employment/secular stability 126 and government spending/borrowing 128, 138–40, 150, 152 and recession 144–5, 150, 162 Luce, Edward 164 Ludd, Ned/Luddites 102 machine learning (MI) 102–104 see also artificial intelligence macroeconomics 9, 13, 47, 89 failure of 119–20 and uncertainty 94 Macron, Emmanuel 162 Mair, Peter 172 markets 30, 59–61, 62, 66–7 and democracy 68 and quantity theory of money 68–9 see also labour market Mauss, Marcel 21–2 Mazzucato, Mariana 156 media 11, 43, 47 and technological change 98, 102–103, 105 and tribalism 24–5, 26–7, 29, 31, 61, 116, 161 Merkel, Angela 114 Mexico 63 micro-stressors 47–8, 53, 84, 91 and aging populations see aging populations and change 94 and fourth industrial revolution 94 and immigration see immigration microeconomics 9, 13–14, 160 migrant crisis 7, 111 Milanovic, Branko 52, 80 minimal group paradigm 21 Minsky, Hyman 128 mobile phones 53, 96, 97, 142 modern monetary theory (MMT) 118, 128–9 money, printing 78, 128, 145 monopolies 142, 143, 144 moral outrage 8, 13, 15, 35–6, 57–8, 117, 130, 161 and inequality see inequality as rational 36 and tribalism, compared 19, 20, 22, 29, 30–31, 36 triggers for 36 mortgages 34, 35, 38, 82, 111, 137, 145 nation state 39–40, 48, 50, 117, 119 national wealth fund see NWF nationalism 5, 11, 23, 29, 31, 39, 41, 116, 119 as positive 153–6 neoliberalism 4, 28–9, 37, 75–8, 122 and global capital flows 77–8 and inequality 51, 52, 53 NHS (National Health Service) 107 Nissan 100–101 Nixon, Richard 26 Northern Ireland 17–18, 23, 24 Norway 133, 134 Nussbaum, Martha 16, 35, 36 NWF (national wealth fund) 15, 132, 133–41, 143, 152, 168 and aging population 138–9 and asset ownership 133, 136, 140–41 and government borrowing/debt 136–7, 138–40 and growth of global stock market 137–8 and individual trust funds 135 and negative interest rates 134–5, 136 and risk 136, 137–8 sovereign 133–4 and trade surplus 134 Obama, Barack 29, 46 oil prices 96–7 Orban, Viktor 23, 30, 161 “Panama Papers” 2, 20 pensions 57, 63, 106–107, 138 perpetual loans 147–8 Philadelphia Eagles 20 Pickett, Kate 168 Piketty, Thomas 49, 52, 80, 108–10 play 153 Poland 11, 30 Polanyi, Karl 59–61, 64–5, 67, 175 political centrism 38, 48, 118–19, 121, 160–61, 162 political disengagement 29 political economy 12, 13 political identity 22–3, 29–30, 37, 48, 116, 117 further reading on 172 political parties 5–6, 7, 28 politics, new 15–16, 58, 160 populism 11, 27, 39 and financial crisis 86 three genres of 54–5 Portugal 35, 38, 44, 144 poverty 47, 67, 72, 80, 115 and demographics 57, 107 power 4, 48 powerlessness 9, 41 price stability 76, 79, 128, 147 private anger 7, 8, 9, 10, 13–14, 36, 117 and cognitive effort 89–90, 91 see also anxiety/stress private sector debt 131, 145 and government borrowing 134–5, 137, 138–40 investment 67, 70, 149–50, 151 liability in financial crisis 85, 127 privatization 28, 40, 96, 107 probability 91–3 product market competition 94, 95–8, 116, 125 and deregulation/privatization 96–7 and dispersion 97, 98–9 intensification of 96, 101 and technological change 96, 97–8, 99 productivity 40 and technological innovation 9, 10, 15, 102, 104–105 and wages 71, 72, 74, 76 profit margins 98, 101, 105, 143 property prices 34, 38 property rights 142, 143, 154 protectionism 59–60, 61, 66 public anger 7, 8–9, 10, 89, 98, 117–18 economic causes of 13 see also moral outrage; tribalism/tribal anger public housing 71, 113, 114 public sector investment 67, 70–71 public services 24, 115, 116 quantitative easing (QE) 146–7, 167 quantity theory of money 68–9, 78 racism 26, 54, 55, 115 Raworth, Kate 131–2, 173 Reagan, Ronald 26, 75, 118 recession 15, 29, 30, 34–5, 44, 49, 55, 58, 84, 152, 153 and dual interest rates 150 and interest rates 75, 120–21 and investment spending 60, 70, 71 and low inflation 144–5, 150, 162 and MMT 128–9 and stock markets 139, 140 see also euro crisis referenda 37 regeneration, economic 132 regional development 15, 115, 116, 149, 153, 156 Renzi, Matteo 37 risk 91–2, 127, 136, 137, 153 Roberts, Carys 174 robotics see artificial intelligence Rodrik, Dani 4, 39, 40 Russia 11, 41 Sahm, Claudia 150–51 Salvo, Francesca 87–8 Sandbu, Martin 174 Sanders, Bernie 128, 164 savings 93 scale economies 98, 99, 142 Scottish nationalism 7, 119 secular stability 125, 126, 127 service-based economy 52 Singapore 133, 134, 162 SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises) 164–5, 166 social democracy 63–4 social media 26, 27, 90, 98 Solow growth model 109 sovereign wealth funds 133–4 sovereignty 39 Spain 33–5, 38, 44, 45, 144 protests against austerity in 85 spending increasing 145, 147, 151 investment 40, 60 power 145 public sector 67, 70–71, 128, 151 restrictions on 41, 44, 149 sports fans 8, 19–20, 21, 25 sports industry 99 stagflation 40, 74, 120, 128 status-injury 36, 54 stock markets 63, 137–8, 139–40 stress see anxiety/stress strikes 73, 74 student loans 111 supply–demand 60, 96, 104 sustainable investment 131–2, 149–50, 152, 153 Sweden 63–4, 72–3 Syria 111, 113 Tavris, Carol 36, 171 taxes 40, 50, 57, 108, 116, 124 cuts in 34, 44, 111, 151 dodging 2, 6, 20, 132–3, 143 political opposition to 129, 130, 132, 133 raising 152 on wealth 129, 130, 132, 140 Tea Party movement 85 technocracy 37, 42–3, 48, 160–61 technological change 29, 58, 96, 109 and aging population 90, 106, 122 and competition 96, 97–8 and dispersion of returns 97 and fourth industrial revolution 94 further reading on 173–4 and inequality 50, 53 and labour market 102–104 and media 24–5, 27 as micro-stressor 88, 91, 94, 96, 97–8, 99, 101–102, 105, 116, 118 and productivity 9, 10, 15, 105, 122 and rate of diffusion 14 and uncertainty 101–102 telecommunications 96, 97, 142 terrorism 17, 18, 27 Thatcher, Margaret 75, 76, 118, 131 Thunberg, Greta 150 TLTRO programme (European Central Bank) 147–8 trade 21–2, 26, 42, 78, 154 and neoliberalism 78 trade surplus 134 trade unions 28, 42, 63, 66, 72, 73, 76, 79 trade wars 21–2, 26 training 62–3, 93, 113, 114, 141 tribalism/tribal anger 8–9, 11, 18–31, 41, 45–6, 117 and central/eastern Europe 23, 30 destructiveness of 24 and ethical norms 20 and fascism 68 and financial crisis 86, 89 and global politics 21–2, 26, 28–9 and immigration 95, 111, 112, 113 manipulation by politicians/media of 13, 22, 24–7, 29, 30, 31, 35, 61, 95, 116, 161 and minimal group paradigm 21 and moral outrage, compared 19, 20, 22, 29, 30–31, 36 and political identity 22–23, 29–30 social function of 20–21 and sport fans 19–20, 25 see also nationalism trickling down/up 79–80 trilemma, political 39 trucking industry 103 Trump, Donald 11, 22, 23, 25–6, 27, 33, 38, 119, 126, 161 and deregulation 129 election of 41–2, 54 tax cuts of 11 Turkey 11 universal basic income (UBI) 141, 144 Ukraine 11 uncertainty 9–10, 43, 49–50, 65, 91–4, 99, 118, 161 and aging populations see aging populations and emerging technologies 102–103, 106 and healthcare 92 and immigration see immigration reducing 93–4 and risk/probability 91–3 and skills development 93 unemployment 2, 30, 34, 44–5, 48, 58, 66, 72, 84, 167 and inflation/interest rates 74, 75, 125 unfairness 25, 36, 105 United States (US) 3, 38, 93, 118, 129, 164 aging population in 107–108, 110, 111 automation in 103, 104–105 financial crisis in (2008) 82–3, 84, 85 gig economy in 100 healthcare in 47–8, 53–4, 58, 106, 123–4 independent fiscal councils in 150–51 inequality in 50, 51, 53–4, 58, 80–81 Keynesian system in 71, 72–3 labour market in 42, 44, 46, 62 micro-stressors in 47–8 neoliberalism in 76 and NWF 135 stock market in 63 tribalism in 23, 25, 29 wealth tax in 130 US Federal Reserve 6, 46, 84, 108, 110, 120, 148, 151 voice, loss of 37–9, 43, 48, 58 Volcker, Paul 75, 81–2 voting 37–8 see also electoral politics wages 2, 60 and automation 105 and competition 96–7, 98 and consumption 53–4, 58, 72 distribution of see income distribution growth in, without inflation 125 and immigration 115–16 and inequality 4, 50–53, 58 and neoliberalism 76, 77 and oil prices 96–7 and productivity 72, 76 stagnation in 34, 47, 58, 80–81, 83, 84, 85 and supply/demand 65–6 Wall Street Crash 67 Warren, Elizabeth 130, 132 Watson’s Analytics 19 wealth, distribution of 4, 15, 29, 30 welfare state 71 WhatsApp 2 Wilkinson, Richard 176 wind power, investment in 150 Wolf, Martin 80, 173 World Trade Organization (WTO) 42 Wren-Lewis, Simon 151 Yates, Tony 151 “Yellow Jackets” protests 2, 20, 55, 56

AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) 114 Afghanistan 6 aging population 10, 13, 14, 95, 106–11 and consumption 109–10 and government bonds 138–9, 152 and inequality 56–7, 58, 107–10 and inter-generational transfer 106–107 and poverty 57, 107 as stressor 57, 91, 106, 110, 111, 116, 118 and technological change 90, 106, 122 AIG 85, 124 Amazon 96, 98, 104, 142, 143–4 Anderson, Elizabeth 176 anger 2–3, 7–9, 10, 11–12, 159, 161 misplaced 13 as opportunity 16 and play 153 private see private anger public see public anger reducing see calming strategies anxiety/stress 9, 13–14, 50, 53, 55–6, 88, 118, 161 and cognitive effort 89–90, 91 and job insecurity 95–6 three causes of 91 and uncertainty see uncertainty Apple 96, 142, 143 Aristotle 59, 153 artificial intelligence (AI) 14, 102–106, 142 Asian financial crisis (1998) 77, 140 asset ownership 130–31, 133, 136, 140–41 Atkinson, Tony 80, 173 austerity policies 2–3, 6, 15, 34–5, 41, 48, 84 and euro crisis 44–5 and low interest rates 135 Australia 125 Austria 3 baby boomers 107–108, 110, 111, 175 Bank of England 84, 103, 120, 145, 148 TFS scheme 149–50, 166 banks 1, 6, 15, 33–5, 42, 44, 48, 145–50 and capital/liquidity ratios 126 and direct support for consumption 145–8 and dual interest rates 149–50 and economic models 3, 4 failure of 119–21, 122 and helicopter money 131, 146 independence of 78, 79 and leverage see financial leverage and problem of low interest rates 120–21, 122, 131, 135 regulations on 125–6, 127, 129, 132 restrictions on 72, 77 see also financial crisis (2008) Beck, Aaron 171–2 Bernanke, Ben 6, 148 Biden, Joe 106 billionaires 4 Bitcoin 102, 103 Blackrock 165 blockchain technology 14, 103 Blyth, Mark 172, 175 bonuses 81, 85, 124 Brazil 11, 127 Brexit 4, 7, 11, 22, 24, 37, 38, 55, 117, 154 and austerity policies 41, 45 and immigration 111, 112, 114, 116 and job insecurity 100–101 Brill, Stephen 175 Britain (UK) 3, 38, 119, 155, 162, 164 aging population in 107, 110 austerity policies in 41 dual interest rates in 149–50 and EU see Brexit fear of immigration in 27 gig economy in 100 and government bonds 135, 140 government spending in 71 immigration in 111, 112, 114, 115–16 inequality in 6 interest rates in 145 nationalism in 23 Thatcherism in 75, 76 Brittan, Samuel 151 Brynjolfsson, Erik 173 budget deficits 71, 75 Buffett, Warren 130 calming strategies 12, 15, 118, 122, 123–57 and data dividend see data dividend and direct support for consumption 145–8 and dual interest rates 149–50 and economic diversity 153–6 and inequality see inequality, strategies to reduce and national wealth fund see NWF and regulations on banks 125–6, 127, 129, 132 and sustainable investment see sustainable investment Canada 125 cancer 53, 87, 88, 106 capital 4 cost of 137, 139, 153 and dispersion 97–98 as “fictitious” commodity 65 formation, rate of 108 global 40, 42, 43, 49, 50, 58 and labour 50, 60, 69, 72 and neoliberalism 75, 76, 77, 79 protection of, following financial crisis 85 versus capital 97, 98 Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Piketty) 49, 108–10 capital/liquidity ratios 126 capitalism 64–5 and commodities 65–6 capitalism as computer 11, 61–72 fixing 124–25 hardware of 62–3, 117 software of 63–4, 68–71 and unemployment/inequality 66–7 version 1.0 68–9 version 1.0 crash 64, 66, 67, 71, 73, 83, 118 version 2.0 69–73, 74, 75, 76, 116 version 2.0 crash 70–71, 73, 83–4, 118 version 3.0 74–80, 98–9, 117, 125, 140–41 version 3.0 crash 116 car industry 100–101 caring industry 104 Case, Anne 54, 176 centrism, political 38, 48, 118–19, 121, 160–61, 162 CEOs (chief executive officers) 4 Chamberlain, Joseph 66 Chile 3 China 42, 63, 64, 78, 93, 137, 151, 156 Citibank 81, 82 cities 55, 56 climate change 104, 111, 121, 129, 131, 153, 159–60 and investment see sustainable investment Clinton, Hillary 160 Coggan, Philip 172 cognitive effort 89–90, 91 Cold War 28, 48 ending/legacy of 5, 23, 26, 29, 30, 37, 116 communism 68, 71 competition/competitiveness 47, 65, 94, 95, 111, 116, 125 and technology 105 see also product market competition computer analogy see capitalism as computer constrained volatility 85 consumption, direct support for 145–8, 150–51, 160 consumption, distribution of 52–3, 58 Corbyn, Jeremy 119 corporations 6, 20, 57 and competition 95, 96 and data dividend see data dividend corruption 8, 29, 61, 130 Covid-19 163 culture 160 Czech Republic 146, 147, 155 data dividend 141–4, 160, 162 and monopolies 142, 143, 144 and privacy 141–2 and property rights 142–3 de-unionization 50, 95, 99 Deaton, Angus 54, 176 debt 75, 84, 120, 132, 145, 150 and demography 109, 111, 131 government 136–7, 151, 152 net 136 deflation 65, 69, 120, 128, 144, 148 demand management 44–5, 47, 126–7 democracy 16, 25, 29, 39, 40, 104, 117, 130 and markets 68 demography see aging population Denmark 64, 164 depression see recession deregulation 28, 40, 48, 50, 58, 75 and inflation 127 as micro-stressor 94, 96, 99, 101, 118 DGSE (dynamic stochastic general equilibrium) models 3–4 Doughnut Economics (Raworth) 131–2, 165 dual interest rates 131–2, 149–50, 174 Dublin (Ireland) 17–18 economic change 9–10, 29, 43, 153 see also fiscal reform; recession economic growth 2, 6, 41, 69, 71, 86 and demography 108–10 and immigration 116 and inequality 76, 79–80 and quality of jobs/wages 46, 47, 85 economic ideology 28 economics 12, 54–5 shortcomings of models 3–5, 6, 7 education 24, 53, 58, 135, 141 tuition fees/student loans 107, 111 electoral politics 5–6, 104 and demographics 107, 110 and tribalism 13, 22, 24–7, 29, 30, 31 electric vehicles 153 elites 2–3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 37 in cities 55, 56 and corruption 8, 29 and ethical norms 20 and financial crisis 43–4 manipulation of tribal identity by 22, 24, 61, 116, 161 policy failures of 48–9 Engbom, Niklas 175–6 environmental degradation 29, 161 see also climate change environmental and social governance 168 ethical norms 20 euro crisis 7, 37, 44, 77, 144 Europe 34, 42, 137, 140 inequality in 41, 53, 56, 58 migrant crisis in 7 tribalism in 30 European Central Bank (ECB) 34, 84, 146, 155, 164–5 TLTRO programme 147–8, 166 European Union (EU) 22, 33, 34–5, 37, 43, 119 austerity policies in 2, 36, 48 and financial crisis (2008) 82 micro-stressors in 47–8 and nationalism 154–6 and neoliberalism 76, 77 unemployment in 44–5 see also Brexit eurozone 45, 65, 83, 148, 151, 155 exchange rates 72, 134 Extinction Rebellion 8, 131–2 Facebook 27, 96, 98, 142, 143 fake news 26 Farage, Nigel 17, 161 Farmer, Roger 174 fascism 45–6, 66, 67–8, 71 fear 16, 17, 94, 113, 117, 150, 161 and media 26, 27 and politics 7, 45 financial crisis (2008) 1–2, 6, 26, 29, 30, 39, 48, 127, 163 and automation 102–103 and bail-out of banks 84 fragility of recovery from 46, 85, 89, 121 further reading on 172–3 and globalized financial system 84 and growth of populism 85 and inequality 79–80 and low interest rates 135 and regulation of banks 129 financial leverage 72, 81–3, 85, 99, 126, 157 and credit crunch 83 and interest rates 81–2 financial market deregulation 77 fiscal councils 150–51 fiscal reform 15, 150–53, 162 Fischer, Stan 148, 165 Florence (Italy) 87–8 foodbanks 6, 53 football fans 8, 19, 56 France 2, 3, 20, 55, 56, 71, 101, 154, 156 and NWF 135 Franklin, Benjamin 87 free markets 30, 69, 118 Friedman, Milton 118 full employment 40, 47, 60, 66, 71–2, 79, 85, 175 and inflation 73–4, 76 without inflation 121, 125, 126 future 101–102, 111 Garcia family, parable of 33–5, 43 Gates, Bill 130 GDP (gross domestic product) 5, 44, 76, 79, 100–101, 106, 151, 152 and NWF 135, 141 Germany 3, 11, 34, 38, 42, 62–3, 66, 151, 154, 156, 167 and migrant crisis 111, 113–14 and NWF 135 Gibley, Bruce Cannon 175 gig economy 94, 98, 99–100 global economy 12, 39–40, 50, 53, 58, 133 and nationalism 154 and neoliberalism 77 globalization 5, 39, 41, 42–3, 48, 77, 117 hyper- 40 and inequality 80 and inflation 127 and insecurity 101 and labour market 42, 43 and nationalism 154 Gold Standard 65, 67 Google 96, 98, 104, 142 government bonds 72, 131, 133, 135, 137, 138–9, 152 as insurance policies 139, 140 government borrowing 134–5, 137, 152–3 and cost of capital 137, 139, 153 and low inflation 128, 138–40, 150 and NWF 136–137, 138–40 Great Depression 40, 44, 66, 69, 120 Great Moderation 6, 120 Greece 35, 38, 44, 45, 106–07, 110, 144 green revolution see sustainable investment gross domestic product see GDP Guilluy, Christophe 55 Gulf States 133, 134 Hayek, Friedrich 118 healthcare 47, 53–4, 58, 123–4, 135, 139 and access to data 141–2 and NWF 141 and uncertainty/probability 92 hedge fund managers 4 helicopter money 131, 146, 166 Hildebrand, Philipp 165 Hong Kong 2–3, 140, 164 Hopkin, Jonathan 172 Hopkins, Ellen 123 housing 71, 113, 114, 135 Hungary 11, 23, 30 Iceland 1–2, 8, 20 immigration 5, 7, 26, 27, 111–17, 164 economic effects of 115–16 and housing/training 113, 114 and income distribution 112, 113, 114–15 and manipulation by media/politicians 111, 115 as stressor 113, 115 and technological change 106 and tribalism 95, 111, 112, 113 income see wages income distribution 43, 50, 51 and Keynesian economics 71 and neoliberalism 80, 81 independent fiscal councils 150–51 India 23, 127 individualism 29, 154 Indonesia 3 inequality 3, 4, 6, 15, 29, 30, 40–41, 43, 49–57, 58, 61, 79, 118 difficulties in measuring 50–53 and distribution of income/consumption 53–4 and financial crisis (2008) 79–80, 83, 85 further reading on 173, 176 intergenerational 56–7, 107–10 and populism 54–5 and uncertainty 49–50 inequality, strategies to reduce 121–2, 129–31, 132, 162 asset ownership 130–31, 133, 136, 140–41 and data dividend 141–4 National Wealth Fund see NWF optimal/effective 132–3 and universal basic income (UBI) 141, 144 wealth tax 130, 132 inflation 5, 40, 51–2, 53, 69 death of 126, 128 and full employment 73–4, 76, 121, 122, 125 and global financial markets 78 and interest rates 75, 81–2, 120 low see low inflation and oil prices 96–7 and printing money 78, 128, 145 and raising taxes 129 and recession 144–5 and regulation of banks 125–6, 127, 132 and stagflation 40, 74, 120, 128 inheritance 132, 133, 160 national 136 innovation see technological change insurance industry 93 interest rates 15, 33–4, 75, 81–2, 165–6 dual, and sustainable investment 131–2, 149–50 low, problem of 120–21, 122, 131, 132, 135, 146–8, 152 negative, problem of 15, 148, 149, 150 and spending 147 internet 25 investment spending 40, 60, 69 and future expectations 103 and global capital flows 77–8 and inflation 74 public sector 67, 70–71 sustainable see sustainable investment IRA (Irish Republican Army) 17 Iraq 6 Ireland 17–18, 23, 24 Islam 27 Italy 35, 37, 38, 39, 44, 66, 71, 87–8, 144, 156, 167 aging population in 110 poverty in 47 tribalism in 45–6 Japan 26, 84, 110, 137, 140, 148 job security/insecurity 34, 50, 56, 61, 94, 95–6, 100–101 and technology 102 Kalecki, Michał 60–61, 73–5, 120, 121, 127 Keynes, John Maynard/Keynesian economics 60, 66–7, 68–70, 92, 103, 118, 127, 151 General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money 66, 175 and inflation 67, 69, 128 labour market 35, 40–41, 42, 43, 44 and automation 102–106 deregulation 50, 95, 99, 122, 127 dispersion in 98–9 and full employment see full employment and immigration 115–16 in Keynesian system 71–2 and labour as commodity 59, 60, 65–6, 73, 85 and protectionism 59–61, 66 and secular stability 125, 126 and training 62–3 see also wages Lagarde, Christine 167 Lerner, Abba 118 libertarianism 63 Lonergan, Eric 174 Los Indignatios 85 low inflation 79, 134, 157 and full employment/secular stability 126 and government spending/borrowing 128, 138–40, 150, 152 and recession 144–5, 150, 162 Luce, Edward 164 Ludd, Ned/Luddites 102 machine learning (MI) 102–104 see also artificial intelligence macroeconomics 9, 13, 47, 89 failure of 119–20 and uncertainty 94 Macron, Emmanuel 162 Mair, Peter 172 markets 30, 59–61, 62, 66–7 and democracy 68 and quantity theory of money 68–9 see also labour market Mauss, Marcel 21–2 Mazzucato, Mariana 156 media 11, 43, 47 and technological change 98, 102–103, 105 and tribalism 24–5, 26–7, 29, 31, 61, 116, 161 Merkel, Angela 114 Mexico 63 micro-stressors 47–8, 53, 84, 91 and aging populations see aging populations and change 94 and fourth industrial revolution 94 and immigration see immigration microeconomics 9, 13–14, 160 migrant crisis 7, 111 Milanovic, Branko 52, 80 minimal group paradigm 21 Minsky, Hyman 128 mobile phones 53, 96, 97, 142 modern monetary theory (MMT) 118, 128–9 money, printing 78, 128, 145 monopolies 142, 143, 144 moral outrage 8, 13, 15, 35–6, 57–8, 117, 130, 161 and inequality see inequality as rational 36 and tribalism, compared 19, 20, 22, 29, 30–31, 36 triggers for 36 mortgages 34, 35, 38, 82, 111, 137, 145 nation state 39–40, 48, 50, 117, 119 national wealth fund see NWF nationalism 5, 11, 23, 29, 31, 39, 41, 116, 119 as positive 153–6 neoliberalism 4, 28–9, 37, 75–8, 122 and global capital flows 77–8 and inequality 51, 52, 53 NHS (National Health Service) 107 Nissan 100–101 Nixon, Richard 26 Northern Ireland 17–18, 23, 24 Norway 133, 134 Nussbaum, Martha 16, 35, 36 NWF (national wealth fund) 15, 132, 133–41, 143, 152, 168 and aging population 138–9 and asset ownership 133, 136, 140–41 and government borrowing/debt 136–7, 138–40 and growth of global stock market 137–8 and individual trust funds 135 and negative interest rates 134–5, 136 and risk 136, 137–8 sovereign 133–4 and trade surplus 134 Obama, Barack 29, 46 oil prices 96–7 Orban, Viktor 23, 30, 161 “Panama Papers” 2, 20 pensions 57, 63, 106–107, 138 perpetual loans 147–8 Philadelphia Eagles 20 Pickett, Kate 168 Piketty, Thomas 49, 52, 80, 108–10 play 153 Poland 11, 30 Polanyi, Karl 59–61, 64–5, 67, 175 political centrism 38, 48, 118–19, 121, 160–61, 162 political disengagement 29 political economy 12, 13 political identity 22–3, 29–30, 37, 48, 116, 117 further reading on 172 political parties 5–6, 7, 28 politics, new 15–16, 58, 160 populism 11, 27, 39 and financial crisis 86 three genres of 54–5 Portugal 35, 38, 44, 144 poverty 47, 67, 72, 80, 115 and demographics 57, 107 power 4, 48 powerlessness 9, 41 price stability 76, 79, 128, 147 private anger 7, 8, 9, 10, 13–14, 36, 117 and cognitive effort 89–90, 91 see also anxiety/stress private sector debt 131, 145 and government borrowing 134–5, 137, 138–40 investment 67, 70, 149–50, 151 liability in financial crisis 85, 127 privatization 28, 40, 96, 107 probability 91–3 product market competition 94, 95–8, 116, 125 and deregulation/privatization 96–7 and dispersion 97, 98–9 intensification of 96, 101 and technological change 96, 97–8, 99 productivity 40 and technological innovation 9, 10, 15, 102, 104–105 and wages 71, 72, 74, 76 profit margins 98, 101, 105, 143 property prices 34, 38 property rights 142, 143, 154 protectionism 59–60, 61, 66 public anger 7, 8–9, 10, 89, 98, 117–18 economic causes of 13 see also moral outrage; tribalism/tribal anger public housing 71, 113, 114 public sector investment 67, 70–71 public services 24, 115, 116 quantitative easing (QE) 146–7, 167 quantity theory of money 68–9, 78 racism 26, 54, 55, 115 Raworth, Kate 131–2, 173 Reagan, Ronald 26, 75, 118 recession 15, 29, 30, 34–5, 44, 49, 55, 58, 84, 152, 153 and dual interest rates 150 and interest rates 75, 120–21 and investment spending 60, 70, 71 and low inflation 144–5, 150, 162 and MMT 128–9 and stock markets 139, 140 see also euro crisis referenda 37 regeneration, economic 132 regional development 15, 115, 116, 149, 153, 156 Renzi, Matteo 37 risk 91–2, 127, 136, 137, 153 Roberts, Carys 174 robotics see artificial intelligence Rodrik, Dani 4, 39, 40 Russia 11, 41 Sahm, Claudia 150–51 Salvo, Francesca 87–8 Sandbu, Martin 174 Sanders, Bernie 128, 164 savings 93 scale economies 98, 99, 142 Scottish nationalism 7, 119 secular stability 125, 126, 127 service-based economy 52 Singapore 133, 134, 162 SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises) 164–5, 166 social democracy 63–4 social media 26, 27, 90, 98 Solow growth model 109 sovereign wealth funds 133–4 sovereignty 39 Spain 33–5, 38, 44, 45, 144 protests against austerity in 85 spending increasing 145, 147, 151 investment 40, 60 power 145 public sector 67, 70–71, 128, 151 restrictions on 41, 44, 149 sports fans 8, 19–20, 21, 25 sports industry 99 stagflation 40, 74, 120, 128 status-injury 36, 54 stock markets 63, 137–8, 139–40 stress see anxiety/stress strikes 73, 74 student loans 111 supply–demand 60, 96, 104 sustainable investment 131–2, 149–50, 152, 153 Sweden 63–4, 72–3 Syria 111, 113 Tavris, Carol 36, 171 taxes 40, 50, 57, 108, 116, 124 cuts in 34, 44, 111, 151 dodging 2, 6, 20, 132–3, 143 political opposition to 129, 130, 132, 133 raising 152 on wealth 129, 130, 132, 140 Tea Party movement 85 technocracy 37, 42–3, 48, 160–61 technological change 29, 58, 96, 109 and aging population 90, 106, 122 and competition 96, 97–8 and dispersion of returns 97 and fourth industrial revolution 94 further reading on 173–4 and inequality 50, 53 and labour market 102–104 and media 24–5, 27 as micro-stressor 88, 91, 94, 96, 97–8, 99, 101–102, 105, 116, 118 and productivity 9, 10, 15, 105, 122 and rate of diffusion 14 and uncertainty 101–102 telecommunications 96, 97, 142 terrorism 17, 18, 27 Thatcher, Margaret 75, 76, 118, 131 Thunberg, Greta 150 TLTRO programme (European Central Bank) 147–8 trade 21–2, 26, 42, 78, 154 and neoliberalism 78 trade surplus 134 trade unions 28, 42, 63, 66, 72, 73, 76, 79 trade wars 21–2, 26 training 62–3, 93, 113, 114, 141 tribalism/tribal anger 8–9, 11, 18–31, 41, 45–6, 117 and central/eastern Europe 23, 30 destructiveness of 24 and ethical norms 20 and fascism 68 and financial crisis 86, 89 and global politics 21–2, 26, 28–9 and immigration 95, 111, 112, 113 manipulation by politicians/media of 13, 22, 24–7, 29, 30, 31, 35, 61, 95, 116, 161 and minimal group paradigm 21 and moral outrage, compared 19, 20, 22, 29, 30–31, 36 and political identity 22–23, 29–30 social function of 20–21 and sport fans 19–20, 25 see also nationalism trickling down/up 79–80 trilemma, political 39 trucking industry 103 Trump, Donald 11, 22, 23, 25–6, 27, 33, 38, 119, 126, 161 and deregulation 129 election of 41–2, 54 tax cuts of 11 Turkey 11 universal basic income (UBI) 141, 144 Ukraine 11 uncertainty 9–10, 43, 49–50, 65, 91–4, 99, 118, 161 and aging populations see aging populations and emerging technologies 102–103, 106 and healthcare 92 and immigration see immigration reducing 93–4 and risk/probability 91–3 and skills development 93 unemployment 2, 30, 34, 44–5, 48, 58, 66, 72, 84, 167 and inflation/interest rates 74, 75, 125 unfairness 25, 36, 105 United States (US) 3, 38, 93, 118, 129, 164 aging population in 107–108, 110, 111 automation in 103, 104–105 financial crisis in (2008) 82–3, 84, 85 gig economy in 100 healthcare in 47–8, 53–4, 58, 106, 123–4 independent fiscal councils in 150–51 inequality in 50, 51, 53–4, 58, 80–81 Keynesian system in 71, 72–3 labour market in 42, 44, 46, 62 micro-stressors in 47–8 neoliberalism in 76 and NWF 135 stock market in 63 tribalism in 23, 25, 29 wealth tax in 130 US Federal Reserve 6, 46, 84, 108, 110, 120, 148, 151 voice, loss of 37–9, 43, 48, 58 Volcker, Paul 75, 81–2 voting 37–8 see also electoral politics wages 2, 60 and automation 105 and competition 96–7, 98 and consumption 53–4, 58, 72 distribution of see income distribution growth in, without inflation 125 and immigration 115–16 and inequality 4, 50–53, 58 and neoliberalism 76, 77 and oil prices 96–7 and productivity 72, 76 stagnation in 34, 47, 58, 80–81, 83, 84, 85 and supply/demand 65–6 Wall Street Crash 67 Warren, Elizabeth 130, 132 Watson’s Analytics 19 wealth, distribution of 4, 15, 29, 30 welfare state 71 WhatsApp 2 Wilkinson, Richard 176 wind power, investment in 150 Wolf, Martin 80, 173 World Trade Organization (WTO) 42 Wren-Lewis, Simon 151 Yates, Tony 151 “Yellow Jackets” protests 2, 20, 55, 56


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The Corona Crash: How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism by Grace Blakeley

Anthropocene, asset-backed security, basic income, Big Tech, bond market vigilante , Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, carbon tax, central bank independence, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, creative destruction, credit crunch, crony capitalism, debt deflation, decarbonisation, degrowth, deindustrialization, don't be evil, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gig economy, global pandemic, global value chain, green new deal, Greenspan put, income inequality, informal economy, inverted yield curve, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, lockdown, low interest rates, Martin Wolf, Modern Monetary Theory, moral hazard, move fast and break things, Network effects, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, pensions crisis, Philip Mirowski, post-war consensus, price mechanism, quantitative easing, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, reshoring, Rishi Sunak, savings glut, secular stagnation, shareholder value, social distancing, structural adjustment programs, too big to fail, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, yield curve

Before the pandemic, just 2 per cent of people thought the British economy wasn’t in need of some degree of reform, while 63 per cent were in favour of a Green New Deal. The corona crash has undoubtedly seen public support for state intervention rise even further. A YouGov poll in April 2020 showed that 72 per cent of people supported the creation of a jobs guarantee scheme, 51 per cent supported a universal basic income ‘where the government makes sure everyone has an income, without a means test or a requirement to work’, and 74 per cent supported rent controls.23 The inefficiencies, inequities and corruption generated by state-monopoly capitalism do not result from centralisation in itself, but from centralisation absent the centrifugal force of democratic accountability.

, IMF Finance and Development 53, no. 2 (June 2016), imf.org. 21 Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism, London: Verso, 2016. 22 Peter Mair, Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy, London and New York: Verso, 2013. 23 IPPR, ‘Public Support for a Paradigm Shift in Economic Policy’, Institute for Public Policy Research, 17 November 2019, ippr.org; Labour for a Green New Deal, ‘Majority of Public Support Ending Net Zero 2030 Emissions Target, Poll Finds’, press release, 7 November 2019, labourgnd.uk; ‘Public Support Universal Basic Income, Job Guarantee and Rent Controls to Respond to Coronavirus Pandemic, Poll Finds’, Independent, 27 April 2020.


pages: 470 words: 148,730

Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems by Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo

3D printing, accelerated depreciation, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, basic income, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, business cycle, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon credits, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, charter city, company town, congestion pricing, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, endowment effect, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, experimental economics, experimental subject, facts on the ground, fake news, fear of failure, financial innovation, flying shuttle, gentrification, George Akerlof, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, high net worth, immigration reform, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, industrial cluster, industrial robot, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jane Jacobs, Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kevin Roose, labor-force participation, land reform, Les Trente Glorieuses, loss aversion, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, middle-income trap, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, no-fly zone, non-tariff barriers, obamacare, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), open economy, Paul Samuelson, place-making, post-truth, price stability, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, restrictive zoning, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, school choice, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, smart meter, social graph, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, systematic bias, Tax Reform Act of 1986, tech worker, technology bubble, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, Twitter Arab Spring, universal basic income, urban sprawl, very high income, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, working-age population, Y2K

A ‘Labeled Cash Transfer’ for Education,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 7, no. 3 (2015): 86–125. 11 These key numbers are summarized in Robert Reich’s review of two books on the UBI https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/09/books/review/annie-lowrey-give-people-money-andrew-yang-war-on-normal-people.html and can also be found in the books themselves. Annie Lowrey, Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World, 2018, and Andrew Yang, The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future, 2018. 12 George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion (London: Penguin Classics, 2013). 13 Map Descriptive of London Poverty 1898–9, accessed April 21, 2019, https://booth.lse.ac.uk/learn-more/download-maps/sheet9. 14 “Radio Address to the Nation on Welfare Reform,” Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, accessed March 20, 2019, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/research/speeches/21586a. 15 Ibid. 16 For the reader who wants more, this literature is summarized in several books: James P.

We will no doubt do so many times in this book. Not just about the growth rate, which is mostly a hopeless exercise, but also about somewhat more limited questions, like how much carbon taxes will help with climate change, how CEOs’ pay might be affected if taxes were to be raised a lot, or what universal basic income would do to the structure of employment. But economists are not the only ones who make mistakes. Everyone gets things wrong. What is dangerous is not making mistakes, but to be so enamored of one’s point of view that one does not let facts get in the way. To make progress, we have to constantly go back to the facts, acknowledge our errors, and move on.

This will add, to a greater or lesser extent, to what the China shock and the other changes described in previous chapters have done to the working class in much of the developed world. It could lead to a rise in unemployment or a multiplication of poorly paid, unstable jobs. This perspective deeply worries the elites who feel responsible for, and also threatened by, this state of affairs. This is why the idea of a universal basic income has become so popular in Silicon Valley. Most tend to think, however, that robot-induced despair will become a problem in the future, after technologies have improved even further. But the problem of high and rising inequality has already been staring us in the face in many countries, nowhere more so than in the United States.


pages: 343 words: 91,080

Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work by Alex Rosenblat

"Susan Fowler" uber, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, algorithmic management, Amazon Mechanical Turk, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, big-box store, bike sharing, Black Lives Matter, business logic, call centre, cashless society, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, cognitive load, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, data science, death from overwork, digital divide, disinformation, disruptive innovation, don't be evil, Donald Trump, driverless car, emotional labour, en.wikipedia.org, fake news, future of work, gender pay gap, gig economy, Google Chrome, Greyball, income inequality, independent contractor, information asymmetry, information security, Jaron Lanier, Jessica Bruder, job automation, job satisfaction, Lyft, marginal employment, Mark Zuckerberg, move fast and break things, Network effects, new economy, obamacare, performance metric, Peter Thiel, price discrimination, proprietary trading, Ralph Waldo Emerson, regulatory arbitrage, ride hailing / ride sharing, Salesforce, self-driving car, sharing economy, side hustle, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Skype, social software, SoftBank, stealth mode startup, Steve Jobs, strikebreaker, TaskRabbit, technological determinism, Tim Cook: Apple, transportation-network company, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, urban planning, Wolfgang Streeck, work culture , workplace surveillance , Yochai Benkler, Zipcar

While Occupy Wall Street activists formed a tent city in Zuccotti Park on Wall Street, members of Black Lives Matter were staging protests across the country to advocate a political agenda that could address the root causes of inequality.14 Soon, more voices joined the chorus, this time from the top. Facebook cofounder and philanthropist Chris Hughes dedicated his intellectual thought leadership to promoting a universal basic income,15 and Mark Zuckerberg, his former roommate, mentioned it in the commencement speech he gave at Harvard.16 This quasi-moral solution to income inequality—and to expanding the definition of equality for this generation—finds its strongest American proponents in Silicon Valley. Home to the billion-dollar titans of industry, who form a slightly reluctant political elite in the New Economy, Silicon Valley and the culture of technology radiate influence across the business, political, and media culture of major American cities.

Home to the billion-dollar titans of industry, who form a slightly reluctant political elite in the New Economy, Silicon Valley and the culture of technology radiate influence across the business, political, and media culture of major American cities. And Silicon Valley has a strong stake in national debates over whether automation technology, such as self-driving cars, will take all our jobs. Universal basic income is one form of “automation alimony” that is proposed to relieve the rising inequality often attributed to automation. It was in this economic and cultural climate that the buzz around “the sharing economy” began. Its promise was seductively simple. The sharing economy was a social technology movement designed to use tech to share resources more efficiently—a true “commonwealth” aimed at remedying some of the insecurity fostered by the Great Recession.

Chris Hughes, Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018). 16. Todd Haselton, “Mark Zuckerberg Joins Silicon Valley Bigwigs in Calling for Government to Give Everybody Free Money,” CNBC, May 25, 2017, www.cnbc.com/2017/05/25/mark-zuckerberg-calls-for-universal-basic-income-at-harvard-speech.html. 17. Eric A. Posner and Glen E. Weyl, “Property Is Only Another Name for Monopoly,” Journal of Legal Analysis (January 31, 2017), https://ssrn.com/abstract=2818494. 18. Jack, “Imagining the Sharing Economy.” 19. Robin Chase, “Bye, Bye Capitalism: We’re Entering the Age of Abundance,” Backchannel, July 16, 2015, https://medium.com/backchannel/see-ya-later-capitalism-the-collaborative-economy-is-taking-over-34a5fc3a37cd.


pages: 348 words: 97,277

The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything by Paul Vigna, Michael J. Casey

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Airbnb, altcoin, Amazon Web Services, barriers to entry, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, blood diamond, Blythe Masters, business process, buy and hold, carbon credits, carbon footprint, cashless society, circular economy, cloud computing, computer age, computerized trading, conceptual framework, content marketing, Credit Default Swap, cross-border payments, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cyber-physical system, decentralized internet, dematerialisation, disinformation, disintermediation, distributed ledger, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Dunbar number, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, failed state, fake news, fault tolerance, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, Garrett Hardin, global supply chain, Hernando de Soto, hive mind, informal economy, information security, initial coin offering, intangible asset, Internet of things, Joi Ito, Kickstarter, linked data, litecoin, longitudinal study, Lyft, M-Pesa, Marc Andreessen, market clearing, mobile money, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, Network effects, off grid, pets.com, post-truth, prediction markets, pre–internet, price mechanism, profit maximization, profit motive, Project Xanadu, ransomware, rent-seeking, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ross Ulbricht, Satoshi Nakamoto, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, smart contracts, smart meter, Snapchat, social web, software is eating the world, supply-chain management, Ted Nelson, the market place, too big to fail, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, Turing complete, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, universal basic income, Vitalik Buterin, web of trust, work culture , zero-sum game

See also ledger-keeping Trump, Donald trust, distributed trusted computing Trusted Computing Group Trusted IoT Alliance trusted third parties and Bitcoin and blockchain-inspired startups and blockchain property registries and cloud computing and energy sector and governance and identity and permissioned systems truth discovery truth machine Tual, Stephan Turing, Alan “Turing complete” Uber “God’s View” knowledge Ubitquity UBS Ujo Ulbricht, Ross UNESCO Union Square Ventures United Kingdom Brexit Financial Conduct Authority Government Office for Science blockchain report and universal basic income United Nations UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) UNHCR identity program World Food Program (WFP) universal basic income (UBI) user attention Veem venture capital (VC) Ver, Roger Veripart Verisign Vertcoin Vigna, Paul. See also Age of Cryptocurrency, The (Casey and Vigna) Vogelsteller, Fabian Walden, Jesse Wall Street. See financial sector WannaCry ransom attacks Waze Web 3 Foundation Weber, Mark WeTrust Wilcox-O’Hearn, Zooko Wilson, Fred Wilson, Steve Wladawsky-Berger, Irving Wong, Pindar Wood, Gavin World Bank blockchain lab World Economic Forum World Food Program (WFP) Wosnak, Nathan Wu, Jihan Wuille, Peter Xanadu project Xapo Xi Jinping Yelp Yieira, Thingo Yunis, Muhammad Zaatari refugee camp (Jordan).

This is where the offline institutions of society—political, legal, philanthropic—must be brought to bear. Without them, social cohesion will fall apart. And all of the great, value-creating power of this new, decentralizing software will be for naught. One proposal gaining weight among some policymakers and certain economists is that of a universal basic income, or UBI. Under this policy, which has been proposed by the UK Labour Party and is present in some form within a number of Scandinavian countries, governments provide a basic living wage to every adult citizen. This idea, first floated by Thomas Paine in the eighteenth century, has enjoyed a resurgence on the left as people have contemplated how robotics, artificial intelligence, and other technologies would hit working-class jobs such as truck driving.

This idea, first floated by Thomas Paine in the eighteenth century, has enjoyed a resurgence on the left as people have contemplated how robotics, artificial intelligence, and other technologies would hit working-class jobs such as truck driving. But it may gain wider traction as decentralizing forces based on blockchain models start destroying middle-class jobs. In fact, even though a universal basic income would, on the surface, run against the classic economic rationalist belief that state subsidies disincentivize work, the idea has some support on the right. One reason is that a simple, universally distributed transfer of this kind could be more efficiently distributed with far less waste and bureaucracy than a means-tested welfare system.


Free Money for All: A Basic Income Guarantee Solution for the Twenty-First Century by Mark Walker

3D printing, 8-hour work day, additive manufacturing, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, basic income, Baxter: Rethink Robotics, behavioural economics, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, commoditize, confounding variable, driverless car, financial independence, full employment, guns versus butter model, happiness index / gross national happiness, industrial robot, intangible asset, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job satisfaction, John Markoff, Kevin Kelly, laissez-faire capitalism, late capitalism, longitudinal study, market clearing, means of production, military-industrial complex, new economy, obamacare, off grid, off-the-grid, plutocrats, precariat, printed gun, profit motive, Ray Kurzweil, rent control, RFID, Rodney Brooks, Rosa Parks, science of happiness, Silicon Valley, surplus humans, The Future of Employment, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, transaction costs, universal basic income, warehouse robotics, working poor

Karl Widerquist, “OPINION: Big Changes Come,” BIEN, June 17, 2013, http:// www.basicincome.org/news/2013/06/opinion-big-changes-come/. 4. Jurgen De Wispelaere and A. Noguera, “On the Political Feasibility of Universal Basic Income: An Analytic Framework,” Basic Income Guarantee and Politics: International Experiences and Perspectives on the Viability of Income Guarantee (2012), 17. Jurgen De Wispelaere, “The Struggle for Strategy: On the Politics of Universal Basic Income,” Politics (2013), http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/38/. R efer ences “2012 HHS Poverty Guidelines.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed May 10, 2012. http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/12poverty. shtml. “2014 Land Report 100.”

data/national_accounts_gdp/gdp_ expenditure_approach/structure_of_gdp_expenditure_approach/structure_of_gdp_expenditure_approach_annual_nominal_of_gdp|chart/lin e&countries=usa&sorting=list//title. De Wispelaere, Jurgen. “Sharing Job Resources: Ethical Reflections on the Justification of Basic Income.” Analyse & Kritik 22, 2 (2000): 237–256. ———. “The Struggle for Strategy: On the Politics of Universal Basic Income.” Politics, 2013. http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/38/. De Wispelaere, Jurgen, and A. Noguera. “On the Political Feasibility of Universal Basic Income: An Analytic Framework.” In Basic Income Guarantee and Politics: International Experiences and Perspectives on the Viability of Income Guarantee, ed. Richard K Caputo, 17–38. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. REFERENCES 237 Diener, E.


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Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price

Asperger Syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, basic income, Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, David Graeber, defund the police, Donald Trump, emotional labour, George Floyd, Greta Thunberg, impulse control, independent contractor, job satisfaction, meta-analysis, multilevel marketing, neurotypical, phenotype, QAnon, randomized controlled trial, remote working, Rubik’s Cube, seminal paper, theory of mind, TikTok, traumatic brain injury, universal basic income

It is for this reason that writer and anthropologist David Graeber suggested in the book Bullshit Jobs that it would be far less expensive and far more socially just to simply provide a baseline, universal basic income to all people, with no strings attached. While replacing all social welfare programs with universal basic income is probably not a wise move, based on the available data,[29] a less restrictive, more generous approach to providing disability benefits would clearly improve disabled people’s quality of life. Rather than forcing Autistic people (and others) to prove and re-prove that we truly are disabled, and truly cannot work, universal basic income would be doled out to everyone, symbolically and practically asserting that all humans deserve to have enough money to live, no matter what.

See also post-traumatic stress disorder stress management, 26, 28, 56, 75, 176–77 stubbornness, 77, 143, 144, 145–46, 159 subclinical Autism, 9, 31–32 substance use, 28, 42, 110, 111, 113–19, 232 author’s experience, 116–17 sensory sensitivities, 115–16 treatments, 118–19 sucking, 19, 27, 102 suffering, 133, 184, 230, 249–50 support groups, 86, 221–23, 225–26 symbolic communication, 212 T tech field, 20, 63, 98, 109, 127, 128, 173–74 terminology, 46–50 common dos and don’ts, 48 testing, 41–42 Thunberg, Greta, 103 time, 177–78 “time blind,” 79 toileting, 93–94 Toledo, Adam, 65 toughness, 93, 94, 108 transgender Autistics, 9, 57–60, 220, 232, 252–53 author’s experience, 57–59, 220–21, 252–53 Bobbi’s experience, 51–53, 58, 146 eating disorders and, 121 gender-based disparities in diagnosis, 6–8, 35–38, 40 terminology, 47 transphobia, 59, 131–32 trauma, 28–29, 31, 117–18, 160, 216–17. See also post-traumatic stress disorder Trump, Donald, 141 Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, 247 Twitter, 196–97, 225 “typical” Autism, 32–35 U unemployment, 127, 129, 231, 244–45 universal basic income, 245 universal health care, 244–45 unmasking for everyone, 248–50 as a political goal, 233–34 unmasking process, 139–63 building an Autistic life. See Autistic life, building an celebrating special interests, 150–55 Clara’s experience, 150–51, 172 creating a neurodiverse world.


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Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker

3D printing, Abraham Maslow, access to a mobile phone, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, Alignment Problem, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-communist, Anton Chekhov, Arthur Eddington, artificial general intelligence, availability heuristic, Ayatollah Khomeini, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, biodiversity loss, Black Swan, Bonfire of the Vanities, Brexit referendum, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Charlie Hebdo massacre, classic study, clean water, clockwork universe, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, Columbine, conceptual framework, confounding variable, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, dark matter, data science, decarbonisation, degrowth, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, distributed generation, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, double helix, Eddington experiment, Edward Jenner, effective altruism, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, end world poverty, endogenous growth, energy transition, European colonialism, experimental subject, Exxon Valdez, facts on the ground, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, Flynn Effect, food miles, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, frictionless, frictionless market, Garrett Hardin, germ theory of disease, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, Hacker Conference 1984, Hans Rosling, hedonic treadmill, helicopter parent, Herbert Marcuse, Herman Kahn, Hobbesian trap, humanitarian revolution, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, income inequality, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of writing, Jaron Lanier, Joan Didion, job automation, Johannes Kepler, John Snow's cholera map, Kevin Kelly, Khan Academy, knowledge economy, l'esprit de l'escalier, Laplace demon, launch on warning, life extension, long peace, longitudinal study, Louis Pasteur, Mahbub ul Haq, Martin Wolf, mass incarceration, meta-analysis, Michael Shellenberger, microaggression, Mikhail Gorbachev, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, Nate Silver, Nathan Meyer Rothschild: antibiotics, negative emissions, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, Norman Mailer, nuclear taboo, nuclear winter, obamacare, ocean acidification, Oklahoma City bombing, open economy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, paperclip maximiser, Paris climate accords, Paul Graham, peak oil, Peter Singer: altruism, Peter Thiel, post-truth, power law, precautionary principle, precision agriculture, prediction markets, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, radical life extension, Ralph Nader, randomized controlled trial, Ray Kurzweil, rent control, Republic of Letters, Richard Feynman, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Rodney Brooks, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Rory Sutherland, Saturday Night Live, science of happiness, Scientific racism, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Simon Kuznets, Skype, smart grid, Social Justice Warrior, sovereign wealth fund, sparse data, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, Stuxnet, supervolcano, synthetic biology, tech billionaire, technological determinism, technological singularity, Ted Kaczynski, Ted Nordhaus, TED Talk, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, Tragedy of the Commons, union organizing, universal basic income, University of East Anglia, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, uranium enrichment, urban renewal, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, women in the workforce, working poor, World Values Survey, Y2K

They are uniquely suited to invest in education, basic research, and infrastructure, to underwrite health and retirement benefits (relieving American corporations of their enervating mandate to provide social services), and to supplement incomes to a level above their market price, which for millions of people may decline even as overall wealth rises.67 The next step in the historic trend toward greater social spending may be a universal basic income (or its close relative, a negative income tax). The idea has been bruited for decades, and its day may be coming.68 Despite its socialist aroma, the idea has been championed by economists (such as Milton Friedman), politicians (such as Richard Nixon), and states (such as Alaska) that are associated with the political right, and today analysts across the political spectrum are toying with it. Though implementing a universal basic income is far from easy (the numbers have to add up, and incentives for education, work, and risk-taking have to be maintained), its promise cannot be ignored.

Economic challenges and solutions: Dobbs et al. 2016; Summers & Balls 2015. 66. S. Winship, “Inequality Is a Distraction. The Real Issue Is Growth,” Washington Post, Aug. 16, 2016. 67. Governments vs. employers as social service providers: M. Lind, “Can You Have a Good Life If You Don’t Have a Good Job?” New York Times, Sept. 16, 2016. 68. Universal basic income: Bregman 2017; S. Hammond, “When the Welfare State Met the Flat Tax,” Foreign Policy, June 16, 2016; R. Skidelsky, “Basic Income Revisited,” Project Syndicate, June 23, 2016; C. Murray, “A Guaranteed Income for Every American,” Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2016. 69. Studies of the effects of basic income: Bregman 2017.

Braudel, F. 2002. Civilization and capitalism, 15th–18th century (vol. 1: The structures of everyday life). London: Phoenix Press. Bregman, A. S. 1990. Auditory scene analysis: The perceptual organization of sound. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bregman, R. 2017. Utopia for realists: The case for a universal basic income, open borders, and a 15-hour workweek. Boston: Little, Brown. Brennan, J. 2016. Against democracy. National Interest, Sept. 7. Brickman, P., & Campbell, D. T. 1971. Hedonic relativism and planning the good society. In M. H. Appley, ed., Adaptation-level theory: A symposium. New York: Academic Press.


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Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case, Angus Deaton

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, basic income, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Boeing 737 MAX, business cycle, call centre, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, company town, Corn Laws, corporate governance, correlation coefficient, crack epidemic, creative destruction, crony capitalism, declining real wages, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, falling living standards, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial engineering, fulfillment center, germ theory of disease, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, Joseph Schumpeter, Ken Thompson, Kenneth Arrow, labor-force participation, Les Trente Glorieuses, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, meritocracy, Mikhail Gorbachev, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, pensions crisis, pill mill, randomized controlled trial, refrigerator car, rent-seeking, risk tolerance, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, trade liberalization, Tyler Cowen, universal basic income, working-age population, zero-sum game

We are often happy to subsidize food or shelter for those who cannot provide it for themselves, the argument goes, so why not leisure? As Bertrand Russell once noted, among the strongest advocates that the poor should work more are the idle rich, who have never done any.15 Such arguments are important when we come to think about what to do, in chapter 16, and particularly about the much-discussed universal basic income. The Changing Nature of Work for Those with Less Education The American working class has not always existed. The manufacturing jobs that supported and defined it began to take workers out of agriculture into factories in the nineteenth century, more rapidly so after the Civil War, and reached a peak around 1950.

That said, we have no recipe for policies that would address that issue. The philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah has argued that we need to valorize a wider range of talents beyond the passing of meritocratic exams, but it is unclear, at least to us, how that might be implemented.17 The idea of a universal basic income (UBI) has many adherents, and it would make sense that, in a world in which robots have replaced many or even most workers, something of the kind would be required to ensure that all of the national income did not go to the owners of and inventors of the robots. But we are still a long way from such a dystopia.

Emma Rothschild, 2000, “A basic income for all: Security and laissez-faire,” Boston Review, October 1, http://bostonreview.net/forum/basic-income-all/emma-rothschild-security-and-laissez-faire. 20. Herbert Simon, 2000, “A basic income for all: UBI and the flat tax,” Boston Review, October 1, http://bostonreview.net/forum/basic-income-all/herbert-simon-ubi-and-flat-tax. 21. Hilary W. Hoynes and Jesse Rothstein, 2019, “Universal basic income in the US and advanced countries,” NBER Working Paper 25538, February, https://www.nber.org/papers/w25538. 22. Robert H. Frank, 2014, “Let’s try a basic income and public work,” Cato Unbound, August 11, https://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/08/11/robert-h-frank/lets-try-basic-income-public-work. 23.


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The Glass Half-Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the Twenty-First Century by Rodrigo Aguilera

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Alan Greenspan, Anthropocene, availability heuristic, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, capitalist realism, carbon footprint, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, clean water, cognitive bias, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Colonization of Mars, computer age, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate raider, creative destruction, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, death from overwork, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, Dunning–Kruger effect, Elon Musk, European colonialism, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, fundamental attribution error, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, Hans Rosling, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Jevons paradox, job automation, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, lake wobegon effect, land value tax, Landlord’s Game, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, long peace, loss aversion, low interest rates, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, means of production, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, moral panic, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, Pareto efficiency, passive investing, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, principal–agent problem, profit motive, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, savings glut, Scientific racism, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Slavoj Žižek, Social Justice Warrior, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, sovereign wealth fund, Stanislav Petrov, Steven Pinker, structural adjustment programs, surveillance capitalism, tail risk, tech bro, TED Talk, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transatlantic slave trade, trolley problem, unbiased observer, universal basic income, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, Y2K, young professional, zero-sum game

This lays the stage for Chapter Eight, which discusses how the progress narrative has been embraced by some of the most extreme ideologies of the moment, namely libertarianism, the “New Right”, and also has a parallel with futurist ideologies of the transhumanists and neo-reactionaries. Chapter Nine ends with the promise of what we could achieve if we adopted progressive ideas like employee-ownership, universal basic income, and participatory democracy, which contrary to what their critics claim, are far less disruptive and would bring about the kind of progress that we should be aiming for: one that maximizes not just individual freedom and material prosperity, but also social cohesion and global justice and does so in ways that do not endanger our planet’s future.

Secondly, there is the false dichotomy that one has to accept liberal capitalism’s uncomfortable tolerance for inequality because the only other way to achieve optimal levels of equality is through massive catastrophes like plague and world war (Pinker quotes Schiedel’s “four horsemen” to argue this point).47 And yet the post-war social democratic experience is proof that it is possible without chaos. In fairness, Pinker is at least notionally supportive of ideas like universal basic income and does not appear to have much sympathy for the more rapacious type of capitalism seen in the US, something which certainly sets him apart from libertarians like Norberg and Ridley. Still, it’s hard not to understand his broader disdain for inequality as yet another attempt at scoring points against the left-wing “progressophobic” intellectuals and social justice warriors to which inequality matters a great deal.

Under globalization, nobody escapes structural economic change and most developing countries will pay a huge price for ignoring the need for national industrial policies, something that countries like China and India (which largely ignored the most extreme policy prescriptions of the laissez-faire era) did not. One widely touted solution to the automation threat is universal basic income (UBI), a monthly income to every citizen which they can spend as they please. UBI would not be means-tested; that is, it would be provided to every citizen as a basic right whether they be a bricklayer or a CEO, although the latter would end up paying it back via higher taxation. Although no country has yet to implement a UBI in full (ironically, the US came closest to implementation in the 1970s32), numerous pilot schemes have shown that the recipients do not work significantly less (or more) than the control population, which thus counters the criticism from the right that it would simply be used to pay for the lifestyles of scroungers.


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Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Merchant

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Ada Lovelace, algorithmic management, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, Cambridge Analytica, Charles Babbage, ChatGPT, collective bargaining, colonial rule, commoditize, company town, computer age, computer vision, coronavirus, cotton gin, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, DALL-E, decarbonisation, deskilling, digital rights, Donald Trump, Edward Jenner, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, factory automation, flying shuttle, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, George Floyd, gig economy, gigafactory, hiring and firing, hockey-stick growth, independent contractor, industrial robot, information asymmetry, Internet Archive, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, Jessica Bruder, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, military-industrial complex, move fast and break things, Naomi Klein, New Journalism, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, OpenAI, precariat, profit motive, ride hailing / ride sharing, Sam Bankman-Fried, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, super pumped, TaskRabbit, tech billionaire, tech bro, tech worker, techlash, technological determinism, Ted Kaczynski, The Future of Employment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, working poor, workplace surveillance

“If the capitalists and the millions of unemployed would abandon large towns and cities for communities of moderate size,” Booth said, “and were all employed as economically as such a union would occasion, in agriculture, making and working machinery for the common benefit of the whole, these islands in the course of a few years would present an entirely different aspect, and poverty and starvation become utterly unknown.” It was a radical solution to what Owen saw as rapidly escalating inequality and worker exploitation. (It also presaged the thinking of humanist entrepreneurs like Andrew Yang, who gained fame championing a universal basic income, another top-down social solution to the ills of automation and exploitation.) “If! If! If!” Mellor said, almost yelling now. “What’s the use of such sermons as this to starving men?” This was the unanswerable retort to the machinery question. Such questions come down to who has the power and luxury to answer them in the first place, and who those answers apply to.

“A VAT makes it impossible for them to benefit from the American people, automation, and infrastructure without paying their fair share,” Yang’s campaign website states. “By implementing a VAT, the American people will get a tiny sliver from the transactions of the big winners from the twenty-first-century economy, the trillion-dollar tech companies.” The income generated by the VAT would pay for a universal basic income program designed to insulate working people from adverse impacts of automation. The more direct robot taxes, those specifically targeting automation or robotics, have been put forward by some unlikely bedfellows—New York City mayors, tech monopolists, and South Korea. Bill Gates came out in favor of taxing industrial robots at the same rate that the humans they replace would have to pay.

He was certainly the most vocal in foregrounding automation and the capacity of technology to degrade jobs as a major pressing threat—it was his signature campaign issue. Yang even proposed policy solutions not so distant from the weavers’ idea for an automated loom tax that surfaced in the pre-Luddite years: he wanted to instate a “robot tax” on companies like Amazon that are increasingly automating their processes. He would use the proceeds to fund a universal basic income (UBI) program, which he dubbed the Freedom Dividend, and would deliver $1,000 to every citizen each month, as a sort of buffer for those whose jobs are automated away. In some ways, Yang’s approach is reminiscent of the paternalistic utopianism of Robert Owen. Both men genuinely fear the impact of automation and inequality, and both believe that a sweeping technical fix can address it.


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Prosperity Without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow by Tim Jackson

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, Basel III, basic income, biodiversity loss, bonus culture, Boris Johnson, business cycle, carbon footprint, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, circular economy, collapse of Lehman Brothers, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, critique of consumerism, David Graeber, decarbonisation, degrowth, dematerialisation, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, financial deregulation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, full employment, Garrett Hardin, Glass-Steagall Act, green new deal, Growth in a Time of Debt, Hans Rosling, Hyman Minsky, impact investing, income inequality, income per capita, intentional community, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, laissez-faire capitalism, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, means of production, meta-analysis, Money creation, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Murray Bookchin, Naomi Klein, negative emissions, new economy, ocean acidification, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, paradox of thrift, peak oil, peer-to-peer lending, Philip Mirowski, Post-Keynesian economics, profit motive, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, retail therapy, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, science of happiness, secular stagnation, short selling, Simon Kuznets, Skype, smart grid, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, universal basic income, Works Progress Administration, World Values Survey, zero-sum game

A simple shift of focus opens out wide new horizons of possibility. Realising those possibilities relies on developing an innovative palette of policy options. Beyond the conventional dichotomy between regulation and incentive, the progressive State must engage creatively and imaginatively in change. Universal basic income, sovereign money, capital taxation, pension restructuring, fiduciary reform, financial prudence: these have all received increasing attention in the years since the financial crisis. They are ideas whose time has come.15 At the end of the day, the task of elaborating the economy of tomorrow is precise, definable, meaningful and pragmatic.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 1754. A Discourse upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind, reprinted 2004. New York: Dover. Online at www.bartleby.com/168/605.html (accessed 15 November 2015). RSA 2015. ‘Creative citizen, creative state: the principled and pragmatic case for a universal basic income’. London: Royal Society for the Arts. Online at www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/reports/basic-income (accessed 14 May 2016). Rutherford, Jonathan 2008. Wellbeing, Economic Growth and Recession. London: Sustainable Development Commission. Online at www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php?

INDEX Locators in italic refer to figures absolute decoupling 84–6; historical perspectives 89–96, 90, 92, 94, 95; mathematical relationship with relative decoupling 96–101, 111 abundance see opulence accounting errors, decoupling 84, 91 acquisition, instinctive 68 see also symbolic role of goods adaptation: diminishing marginal utility 51, 68; environmental 169; evolutionary 226 advertising, power of 140, 203–4 Africa 73, 75–7; life-expectancy 74; philosophy 227; pursuit of western lifestyles 70; growth 99; relative income effect 58, 75; schooling 78 The Age of Turbulence (Greenspan) 35 ageing populations 44, 81 agriculture 12, 148, 152, 220 Aids/HIV 77 algebra of inequality see inequality; mathematical models alienation: future visions 212, 218–19; geographical community 122–3; role of the state 205; selfishness vs. altruism 137; signals sent by society 131 alternatives: economic 101–2, 139–40, 157–8; hedonism 125–6 see also future visions; post-growth macroeconomics; reform altruism 133–8, 196, 207 amenities see public services/amenities Amish community, North America 128 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Smith) 123, 132 angelised growth see green growth animal welfare 220 anonymity/loneliness see alienation anthropological perspectives, consumption 70, 115 anti-consumerism 131 see also intrinsic values anxiety: fear of death 69, 104, 115, 212–15; novelty 116–17, 124, 211 Argentina 58, 78, 78, 80 Aristotle 48, 61 The Art of Happiness (Dalai Lama) 49 arts, Baumol’s cost disease 171–2 assets, stranded 167–8 see also ownership austerity policies xxxiii–xxxv, 189; and financial crisis 24, 42–3; mathematical models 181 Australia 58, 78, 128, 206 authoritarianism 199 autonomy see freedom/autonomy Ayres, Robert 143 backfire effects 111 balance: private interests/common good 208; tradition/innovation 226 Bank for International Settlements 46 bank runs 157 banking system 29–30, 39, 153–7, 208; bonuses 37–8 see also financial crisis; financial system basic entitlements: enterprise as service 142; income 67, 72–9, 74, 75, 76, 78; limits to growth 63–4 see also education; food; health Basu, Sanjay 43 Baumol, William 112, 147, 222, 223; cost disease 170, 171, 172, 173 BBC survey, geographical community 122–3 Becker, Ernest 69 Belk, Russ 70, 114 belonging 212, 219 see also alienation; community; intrinsic values Bentham, Jeremy 55 bereavement, material possessions 114, 214–15 Berger, Peter 70, 214 Berry, Wendell 8 Better Growth, Better Climate (New Climate Economy report) 18 big business/corporations 106–7 biodiversity loss 17, 47, 62, 101 biological perspectives see evolutionary theory; human nature/psyche biophysical boundaries see limits (ecological) Black Monday 46 The Body Economic (Stuckler and Basu) 43 bond markets 30, 157 bonuses, banking 37–8 Bookchin, Murray 122 boom-and-bust cycles 157, 181 Booth, Douglas 117 borrowing behaviour 34, 118–21, 119 see also credit; debt Boulding, Elise 118 Boulding, Kenneth 1, 5, 7 boundaries, biophysical see limits (ecological) bounded capabilities for flourishing 61–5 see also limits (flourishing within) Bowen, William 147 Bowling Alone (Putnam) 122 Brazil 58, 88 breakdown of community see alienation; social stability bubbles, economic 29, 33, 36 Buddhist monasteries, Thailand 128 buen vivir concept, Ecuador xxxi, 6 built-in obsolescence 113, 204, 220 Bush, George 121 business-as-usual model 22, 211; carbon dioxide emissions 101; crisis of commitment 195; financial crisis 32–8; growth 79–83, 99; human nature 131, 136–7; need for reform 55, 57, 59, 101–2, 162, 207–8, 227; throwaway society 113; wellbeing 124 see also financial systems Canada 75, 206, 207 capabilities for flourishing 61–5; circular flow of the economy 113; future visions 218, 219; and income 77; progress measures 50–5, 54; role of material abundance 67–72; and prosperity 49; relative income effect 55–61, 58, 71, 72; role of shame 123–4; role of the state 200 see also limits (flourishing within); wellbeing capital 105, 107–10 see also investment Capital in the 21st Century (Piketty) 33, 176, 177 Capital Institute, USA 155 capitalism 68–9, 80; structures 107–13, 175; types 105–7, 222, 223 car industry, financial crisis 40 carbon dioxide emissions see greenhouse gas emissions caring professions, valuing 130, 147, 207 see also social care Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Williams) 213 causal path analysis, subjective wellbeing 59 Central Bank 154 central human capabilities 64 see also capabilities for flourishing The Challenge of Affluence (Offer) 194 change see alternatives; future visions; novelty/innovation; post-growth macroeconomics; reform Chicago school of economics 36, 156 children: advertising to 204; labour 62, 154; mortality 74–5, 75, 206 Chile xxxiii, xxxvii, 58, 74, 74, 75, 76 China: decoupling 88; GDP per capita 75; greenhouse gas emissions 91; growth 99; life expectancy 74; philosophy 7; post-financial crisis 45–6; pursuit of western lifestyles 70; relative income effect 58; resource use 94; savings 27; schooling 76 choice, moving beyond consumerism 216–18 see also freedom/autonomy Christian doctrine see religious perspectives chromium, commodity price 13 Cinderella economy 219–21, 224 circular economy 144, 220 circular flow of the economy 107, 113 see also engine of growth citizen’s income 207 see also universal basic income civil unrest see social stability Clean City Law, São Paulo 204 climate change xxxv, 22, 47; critical boundaries 17–20; decoupling 85, 86, 87, 98; fatalism 186; investment needs 152; role of the state 192, 198, 201–2 see also greenhouse gas emissions Climate Change Act (2008), UK 198 clothing see basic entitlements Club of Rome, Limits to Growth report xxxii, xxxiii, 8, 11–16, Cobb, John 54 collectivism 191 commercial bond markets 30, 157 commitment devices/crisis of 192–5, 197 commodity prices: decoupling 88; financial crisis 26; fluctuation/volatility 14, 21; resource constraints 13–14 common good: future visions 218, 219; vs. freedom and autonomy 193–4; vs. private interests 208; role of the state 209 common pool resources 190–2, 198, 199 see also public services/amenities communism 187, 191 community: future visions of 219–20; geographical 122–3; investment 155–6, 204 see also alienation; intrinsic values comparison, social 115, 116, 117 see also relative income effect competition 27, 112; positional 55–61, 58, 71, 72 see also struggle for existence complexity, economic systems 14, 32, 108, 153, 203 compulsive shopping 116 see also consumerism Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (CoP21) 19 conflicted state 197, 201, 209 connectedness, global 91, 227 conspicuous consumption 115 see also language of goods consumer goods see language of goods; material goods consumer sovereignty 196, 198 consumerism 4, 21, 22, 103–4, 113–16; capitalism 105–13, 196; choice 196; engine of growth 104, 108, 120, 161; existential fear of death 69, 212–15; financial crisis 24, 28, 39, 103; moving beyond 216–18; novelty and anxiety 116–17; post-growth economy 166–7; role of the state 192–3, 196, 199, 202–5; status 211; tragedy of 140 see also demand; materialism contemplative dimensions, simplicity 127 contraction and convergence model 206–7 coordinated market economies 27, 106 Copenhagen Accord (2009) 19 copper, commodity prices 13 corporations/big business 106–7 corruption 9, 131, 186, 187, 189 The Cost Disease: Why Computers get Cheaper and Health Care Doesn’t (Baumol) 171, 172 Costa Rica 74, 74, 76 countercyclical spending 181–2, 182, 188 crafts/craft economies 147, 149, 170, 171 creative destruction 104, 112, 113, 116–17 creativity 8, 79; and consumerism 113, 116; future visions 142, 144, 147, 158, 171, 200, 220 see also novelty/innovation credit, private: deflationary forces 44; deregulation 36; financial crisis 26, 27, 27–31, 34, 36, 41; financial system weaknesses 32–3, 37; growth imperative hypothesis 178–80; mortgage loans 28–9; reforms in financial system 157; spending vs. saving behaviour of ordinary people 118–19; and stimulation of growth 36 see also debt (public) credit unions 155–6 crises: of commitment 192–5; financial see financial crisis critical boundaries, biophysical see limits (ecological) Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi 127 Cuba: child mortality 75; life expectancy 74, 77, 78, 78; response to economic hardship 79–80; revolution 56; schooling 76 Cushman, Philip 116 Dalai Lama 49, 52 Daly, Herman xxxii, 54, 55, 160, 163, 165 Darwin, Charles 132–3 Das Kapital (Marx) 225 Davidson, Richard 49 Davos World Economic Forum 46 Dawkins, Richard 134–5 de Mandeville, Bernard 131–2, 157 death, denial of 69, 104, 115, 212–15 debt, public-sector 81; deflationary forces 44; economic stability 81; financial crisis 24, 26–32, 27, 37, 41, 42, 81; financial systems 28–32, 153–7; money creation 178–9; post-growth economy 178–9, 223 Debt: The First Five Thousand Years (Graeber) 28 decoupling xix, xx, xxxvii, 21, 84–7; dilemma of growth 211; efficiency measures 84, 86, 87, 88, 95, 104; green growth 163, 163–5; historical perspectives 87–96, 89, 90, 92, 94, 95; need for new economic model 101–2; relationship between relative and absolute 96–101 deep emission and resource cuts 99, 102 deficit spending 41, 43 deflationary forces, post-financial crisis 43–7, 45 degrowth movement 161–3, 177 demand 104, 113–16, 166–7; post-financial crisis 44–5; post-growth economy 162, 164, 166–9, 171–2, 174–5 dematerialisation 102, 143 democratisation, and wellbeing 59 deposit guarantees 35 deregulation 27, 34, 36, 196 desire, role in consumer behaviour 68, 69, 70, 114 destructive materialism 104, 112, 113, 116–17 Deutsche Bank 41 devaluation of currency 30, 45 Dichter, Ernest 114 digital economy 44, 219–20 dilemma of growth xxxi, 66–7, 104, 210; basic entitlements 72–9, 74, 75, 76, 78; decoupling 85, 87, 164; degrowth movement 160–3; economic stability 79–83, 174–6; material abundance 67–72; moving beyond 165, 166, 183–4; role of the state 198 diminishing marginal utility: alternative hedonism 125, 126; wellbeing 51–2, 57, 60, 73, 75–6, 79 disposable incomes 27, 67, 118 distributed ownership 223 Dittmar, Helga 126 domestic debt see credit dopamine 68 Dordogne, mindfulness community 128 double movement of society 198 Douglas, Mary 70 Douthwaite, Richard 178 downshifting 128 driving analogy, managing change 16–17 durability, consumer goods 113, 204, 220 dynamic systems, managing change 16–17 Eastern Europe 76, 122 Easterlin, Richard 56, 57, 59; paradox 56, 58 eco-villages, Findhorn community 128 ecological investment 101, 166–70, 220 see also investment ecological limits see limits (ecological) ecological (ecosystem) services 152, 169, 223 The Ecology of Money (Douthwaite) 178 economic growth see growth economic models see alternatives; business-as-usual model; financial systems; future visions; mathematical models; post-growth macroeconomics economic output see efficiency; productivity ‘Economic possibilities for our grandchildren’ (Keynes) 145 economic stability 22, 154, 157, 161; financial system weaknesses 34, 35, 36, 180; growth 21, 24, 67, 79–83, 174–6, 210; post-growth economy 161–3, 165, 174–6, 208, 219; role of the state 181–3, 195, 198, 199 economic structures: post-growth economy 227; financial system reforms 224; role of the state 205; selfishness 137 see also business-as-usual model; financial systems ecosystem functioning 62–3 see also limits (ecological) ecosystem services 152, 169, 223 Ecuador xxxi, 6 education: Baumol’s cost disease 171, 172; and income 67, 76, 76; investment in 150–1; role of the state 193 see also basic entitlements efficiency measures 84, 86–8, 95, 104, 109–11, 142–3; energy 41, 109–11; growth 111, 211; investment 109, 151; of scale 104 see also labour productivity; relative decoupling Ehrlich, Paul 13, 96 elasticity of substitution, labour and capital 177–8 electricity grid 41, 151, 156 see also energy Elgin, Duane 127 Ellen MacArthur Foundation 144 emissions see greenhouse gas emissions employee ownership 223 employment intensity vs. carbon dioxide emissions 148 see also labour productivity empty self 116, 117 see also consumerism ends above means 159 energy return on investment (EROI) 12, 169 energy services/systems 142: efficiency 41, 109–11; inputs/intensity 87–8, 151; investment 41, 109–10, 151–2; renewable xxxv, 41, 168–9 engine of growth 145; consumerism 104, 108, 161; services 143, 170–4 see also circular flow of the economy enough is enough see limits enterprise as service 140, 141–4, 158 see also novelty/innovation entitlements see basic entitlements entrepreneur as visionary 112 entrepreneurial state 220 Environmental Assessment Agency, Netherlands 62 environmental quality 12 see also pollution environmentalism 9 EROI (energy return on investment) 12, 169 Essay on the Principle of Population (Malthus) 9–11, 132–3 evolutionary map, human heart 136, 136 evolutionary theory 132–3; common good 193; post-growth economy 226; psychology 133–5; selfishness and altruism 196 exchange values 55, 61 see also gross domestic product existential fear of death 69, 104, 115, 212–15 exponential expansion 1, 11, 20–1, 210 see also growth external debt 32, 42 extinctions/biodiversity loss 17, 47, 62, 101 Eyres, Harry 215 Fable of the Bees (de Mandeville) 131–2 factor inputs 109–10 see also capital; labour; resource use fast food 128 fatalism 186 FCCC (Framework Convention on Climate Change) 92 fear of death, existential 69, 104, 115, 212–15 feedback loops 16–17 financial crisis (2008) 6, 23–5, 32, 77, 103; causes and culpability 25–8; financial system weaknesses 32–7, 108; Keynesianism 37–43, 188; nationalisation of financial sector 188; need for financial reforms 175; role of debt 24, 26–32, 27, 81, 179; role of state 191; slowing of growth 43–7, 45; spending vs. saving behaviour of ordinary people 118–21, 119; types/definitions of capitalism 106; youth unemployment 144–5 financial systems: common pool resources 192; debt-based/role of debt 28–32, 153–7; post-growth economy 179, 208; systemic weaknesses 32–7; and wellbeing 47 see also banking system; business-as-usual model; financial crisis; reform Findhorn community 128 finite limits of planet see limits (ecological) Fisher, Irving 156, 157 fishing rights 22 flourishing see capabilities for flourishing; limits; wellbeing flow states 127 Flynt, Larry 40 food 67 see also basic entitlements Ford, Henry 154 forestry/forests 22, 192 Forrester, Jay 11 fossil fuels 11, 20 see also oil Foucault, Michel 197 fracking 14, 15 Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) 92 France: GDP per capita 58, 75, 76; inequality 206; life-expectancy 74; mindfulness community 128; working hours 145 free market 106: financial crisis 35, 36, 37, 38, 39; ideological controversy/conflict 186–7, 188 freedom/autonomy: vs. common good 193–4; consumer 22, 68–9; language of goods 212; personal choices for improvement 216–18; wellbeing 49, 59, 62 see also individualism Friedman, Benjamin 176 Friedman, Milton 36, 156, 157 frugality 118–20, 127–9, 215–16 fun (more fun with less stuff) 129, 217 future visions 2, 158, 217–21; community banking 155–6; dilemma of growth 211; enterprise as service 140, 141–4, 147–8, 158; entrepreneur as visionary 112; financial crisis as opportunity 25; and growth 165–6; investment 22, 101–2, 140, 149–53, 158, 169, 208; money as social good 140, 153–7, 158; processes of change 185; role of the state 198, 199, 203; timescales for change 16–17; work as participation 140, 144–9, 148, 158 see also alternatives; post-growth macroeconomics; reform Gandhi, Mahatma 127 GDP see gross domestic product gene, selfish 134–5 Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) 54, 54 geographical community 122–3 Germany xxxi; Federal Ministry of Finance 224–5; inequality 206; relative income effect 58; trade balance 31; work as participation 146 Glass Steagal Act 35 Global Commodity Price Index (1992–2015) 13 global corporations 106–7 global economy 98: culture 70; decoupling 86–8, 91, 93–5, 95, 97, 98, 100; exponential expansion 20–1; inequality 4, 5–6; interconnectedness 91, 227; post-financial crisis slowing of growth 45 Global Research report (HSBC) 41 global warming see climate change Godley, Wynne 179 Goldman Sachs 37 good life 3, 6; moral dimension 63, 104; wellbeing 48, 50 goods see language of goods; material goods; symbolic role of goods Gordon, Robert 44 governance 22, 185–6; commons 190–2; crisis of commitment 192–5, 197; economic stability 34, 35; establishing limits 200–8, 206; growth 195–9; ideological controversy/conflict 186–9; moving towards change 197–200, 220–1; post-growth economy 181–3, 182; power of corporations 106; for prosperity 209; signals 130 government as household metaphor 30, 42 governmentality 197, 198 GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) 54, 54 Graeber, David 28 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act 35 Great Depression 39–40 Greece: austerity xxxiii–xxxiv, xxxvii, 43; energy inputs 88; financial crisis 28, 30, 31, 77; life expectancy 74; schooling 76; relative income effect 58; youth unemployment 144 Green Economy initiative 41 green: growth xxxvii, 18, 85, 153, 166, 170; investment 41 Green New Deal, UNEP 40–1, 152, 188 greenhouse gas emissions 18, 85, 86, 91, 92; absolute decoupling 89–92, 90, 92, 98–101, 100; dilemma of growth 210–11; vs. employment intensity 148; future visions 142, 151, 201–2, 220; Kyoto Protocol 18, 90; reduction targets 19–20; relative decoupling 87, 88, 89, 93, 98–101, 100 see also climate change Greenspan, Alan 35 gross domestic product (GDP) per capita 3–5, 15, 54; climate change 18; decoupling 85, 93, 94; financial crisis 27, 28, 32; green growth 163–5; life expectancy 74, 75, 78; as measure of prosperity 3–4, 5, 53–5, 54, 60–1; post-financial crisis 43, 44; post-growth economy 207; schooling 76; wellbeing 55–61, 58 see also income growth xxxvii; capitalism 105; credit 36, 178–80; decoupling 85, 96–101; economic stability 21, 24, 67, 80, 210; financial crisis 37, 38; future visions 209, 223, 224; inequality 177; labour productivity 111; moving beyond 165, 166; novelty 112; ownership 105; post-financial crisis slowing 43–7, 45; prosperity as 3–7, 23, 66; role of the state 195–9; sustainable investment 166–70; wellbeing 59–60; as zero sum game 57 see also dilemma of growth; engine of growth; green growth; limits to growth; post-growth macroeconomy growth imperative hypothesis 37, 174, 175, 177–80, 183 habit formation, acquisition as 68 Hall, Peter 106, 188 Hamilton, William 134 Hansen, James 17 happiness see wellbeing/happiness Happiness (Layard) 55 Hardin, Garrett 190–1 Harvey, David 189, 192 Hayek, Friedrich 187, 189, 191 health: Baumol’s cost disease 171, 172; inequality 72–3, 205–6, 206; investment 150–1; and material abundance 67, 68; personal choices for improvement 217; response to economic hardship 80; role of the state 193 see also basic entitlements Heath, Edward 66, 82 hedonism 120, 137, 196; alternatives 125–6 Hirsch, Fred xxxii–xxxiii historical perspectives: absolute decoupling 86, 89–96, 90, 92, 94, 95; relative decoupling 86, 87–9, 89 Holdren, John 96 holistic solutions, post-growth economy 175 household finances: house purchases 28–9; spending vs. saving behaviour 118–20, 119 see also credit household metaphor, government as 30, 42 HSBC Global Research report 41 human capabilities see capabilities for flourishing human happiness see wellbeing/happiness human nature/psyche 3, 132–5, 138; acquisition 68; alternative hedonism 125; evolutionary map of human heart 136, 136; intrinsic values 131; meaning/purpose 49–50; novelty/innovation 116; selfishness vs. altruism 133–8; short-termism/living for today 194; spending vs. saving behaviour 34, 118–21, 119; symbolic role of goods 69 see also intrinsic values human rights see basic entitlements humanitarian perspectives: financial crisis 24; growth 79; inequality 5, 52, 53 see also intrinsic values hyperbolic discounting 194 hyperindividualism 226 see also individualism hyper-materialisation 140, 157 I Ching (Chinese Book of Changes) 7 Iceland: financial crisis 28; life expectancy 74, 75; relative income effect 56; response to economic hardship 79–80; schooling 76; sovereign money system 157 identity construction 52, 69, 115, 116, 212, 219 IEA (International Energy Agency) 14, 152 IMF (International Monetary Fund) 45, 156–7 immaterial goods 139–40 see also intrinsic values; meaning/purpose immortality, symbolic role of goods 69, 104, 115, 212–14 inclusive growth see inequality; smart growth income 3, 4, 5, 66, 124; basic entitlements 72–9, 74, 75, 76, 78; child mortality 74–5, 75; decoupling 96; economic stability 82; education 76; life expectancy 72, 73, 74, 77–9, 78; poor nations 67; relative income effect 55–61, 58, 71, 72; tax revenues 81 see also gross domestic product INDCs (intended nationally determined commitments) 19 India: decoupling 99; growth 99; life expectancy 74, 75; philosophy 127; pursuit of western lifestyles 70; savings 27; schooling 76 indicators of environmental quality 96 see also biodiversity; greenhouse gas emissions; pollution; resource use individualism 136, 226; progressive state 194–7, 199, 200, 203, 207 see also freedom/autonomy industrial development 12 see also technological advances inequality 22, 67; basic entitlements 72; child mortality 75, 75; credible alternatives 219, 224; deflationary forces 44; fatalism 186; financial crisis 24; global 4, 5–6, 99, 100; financial system weaknesses 32–3; post-growth economy 174, 176–8; role of the state 198, 205–7, 206; selfishness vs. altruism 137; symbolic role of goods 71; wellbeing 47, 104 see also poverty infant mortality rates 72, 75 inflation 26, 30, 110, 157, 167 infrastructure, civic 150–1 Inglehart, Ronald 58, 59 innovation see novelty/innovation; technological advances inputs 80–1 see also capital; labour productivity; resource use Inside Job documentary film 26 instant gratification 50, 61 instinctive acquisition 68 Institute for Fiscal Studies 81 Institute for Local Self-Reliance 204 institutional structures 130 see also economic structures; governance intended nationally determined commitments (INDCs) 19 intensity factor, technological 96, 97 see also technological advances intentional communities 127–9 interconnectedness, global 91, 227 interest payments/rates 39, 43, 110; financial crisis 29, 30, 33, 39; post-growth economy 178–80 see also credit; debt Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 18, 19, 201–2 International Energy Agency (IEA) 14, 152 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 45, 156–7 intrinsic values 126–31, 135–6, 212; role of the state 199, 200 see also belonging; community; meaning/purpose; simplicity/frugality investment 107–10, 108; ecological/sustainable 101, 152, 153, 166–70, 220; and innovation 112; loans 29; future visions 22, 101–2, 140, 149–53, 158, 169, 208, 220; and savings 108; social 155, 156, 189, 193, 208, 220–3 invisible hand metaphor 132, 133, 187 IPAT equation, relative and absolute decoupling 96 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 18, 19, 201–2 Ireland 28; inequality 206; life expectancy 74, 75; schooling 76; wellbeing 58 iron cage of consumerism see consumerism iron ore 94 James, Oliver 205 James, William 68 Japan: equality 206; financial crisis 27, 45; life expectancy 74, 76, 79; relative income effect 56, 58; resource use 93; response to economic hardship 79–80 Jefferson, Thomas 185 Jobs, Steve 210 Johnson, Boris 120–1 Kahneman, Daniel 60 Kasser, Tim 126 keeping up with the Joneses 115, 116, 117 see also relative income effect Kennedy, Robert 48, 53 Keynes, John Maynard/Keynesianism 23, 34, 120, 174, 181–3, 187–8; financial crisis 37–43; financial system reforms 157; part-time working 145; steady state economy 159, 162 King, Alexander 11 Krugman, Paul 39, 85, 86, 102 Kyoto Protocol (1992) 18, 90 labour: child 62, 154; costs 110; division of 158; elasticity of substitution 177, 178; intensity 109, 148, 208; mobility 123; production inputs 80, 109; structures of capitalism 107 labour productivity 80–1, 109–11; Baumol’s cost disease 170–2; and economic growth 111; future visions 220, 224; investment as commitment 150; need for investment 109; post-growth economy 175, 208; services as engine of growth 170; sustainable investment 166, 170; trade off with resource use 110; work-sharing 145, 146, 147, 148, 148, 149 Lahr, Christin 224–5 laissez-faire capitalism 187, 195, 196 see also free market Lakoff, George 30 language of goods 212; material footprint of 139–40; signalling of social status 71; and wellbeing 124 see also consumerism; material goods; symbolic role of goods Layard, Richard 55 leadership, political 199 see also governance Lebow, Victor 120 Lehman Brothers, bankruptcy 23, 25, 26, 118 leisure economy 204 liberal market economies 106, 107; financial crisis 27, 35–6 life expectancy: and income 72, 73, 74, 77–9, 78; inequality 206; response to economic hardship 80 see also basic entitlements life-satisfaction 73; inequality 205; relative income effect 55–61, 58 see also wellbeing/happiness limits, ecological 3, 4, 7, 11, 12, 20–2; climate change 17–20; decoupling 86; financial crisis 23–4; growth 21, 165, 210; post-growth economy 201–2, 226–7; role of the state 198, 200–2, 206–7; and social boundaries 141; wellbeing 62–63, 185 limits, flourishing within 61–5, 185; alternative hedonism 125–6; intrinsic values 127–31; moving towards 215, 218, 219, 221; paradox of materialism 121–23; prosperity 67–72, 113, 212; role of the state 201–2, 205; selfishness 131–8; shame 123–4; spending vs. saving behaviour 118–21, 119 see also sustainable prosperity limits to growth: confronting 7–8; exceeding 20–2; wellbeing 62–3 Limits to Growth report (Club of Rome) xxxii, xxxiii, 8, 11–16 ‘The Living Standard’ essay (Sen) 50, 123–4 living standards 82 see also prosperity Lloyd, William Forster 190 loans 154; community investment 155–6; financial system weaknesses 34 see also credit; debt London School of Economics 25 loneliness 123, 137 see also alienation long-term: investments 222; social good 219 long-term wellbeing vs. short-term pleasures 194, 197 longevity see life expectancy love 212 see also intrinsic values low-carbon transition 19, 220 LowGrow model for the Canadian economy 175 MacArthur Foundation 144 McCracken, Grant 115 Malthus, Thomas Robert 9–11, 132–3, 190 market economies: coordinated 27, 106; liberal 27, 35–6, 106, 107 market liberalism 106, 107; financial crisis 27, 35–6; wellbeing 47 marketing 140, 203–4 Marmot review, health inequality in the UK 72 Marx, Karl/Marxism 9, 189, 192, 225 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 11, 12, 15 material abundance see opulence material goods 68–9; identity 52; language of 139–40; and wellbeing 47, 48, 49, 51, 65, 126 see also symbolic role of goods material inputs see resource use materialism: and fear of death 69, 104, 115, 212–15; and intrinsic values 127–31; paradox of 121–3; price of 126; and religion 115; values 126, 135–6 see also consumerism mathematical models/simulations 132; austerity policies 181; countercyclical spending 181–2, 182; decoupling 84, 91, 96–101; inequality 176–8; post-growth economy 164; stock-flow consistent 179–80 Mawdsley, Emma 70 Mazzucato, Mariana 193, 220 MDG (Millennium Development Goals) 74–5 Meadows, Dennis and Donella 11, 12, 15, 16 meaning/purpose 2, 8, 22; beyond material goods 212–16; consumerism 69, 203, 215; intrinsic values 127–31; moving towards 218–20; wellbeing 49, 52, 60, 121–2; work 144, 146 see also intrinsic values means and ends 159 mental health: inequality 206; meaning/purpose 213 metaphors: government as household 30, 42; invisible hand 132, 133, 187 Middle East, energy inputs 88 Miliband, Ed 199 Mill, John Stuart 125, 159, 160, 174 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 74–5 mindfulness 128 Minsky, Hyman 34, 35, 40, 182, 208 MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) 11, 12, 15 mixed economies 106 mobility of labour, loneliness index 123 Monbiot, George 84, 85, 86, 91 money: creation 154, 157, 178–9; and prosperity 5; as social good 140, 153–7, 158 see also financial systems monopoly power, corporations 106–7 The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth (Friedman) 82, 176 moral dimensions, good life 63 see also intrinsic values moral hazards, separation of risk from reward 35 ‘more fun with less stuff’ 129, 217 mortality fears 69, 104, 115, 212–15 mortality rates, and income 74, 74–6, 75 mortgage loans 28–9, 35 multinational corporations 106–7 national debt see debt, public-sector nationalisation 191; financial crisis 38, 188 natural selection 132–3 see also struggle for existence nature, rights of 6–7 negative emissions 98–9 negative feedback loops 16–17 Netherlands 58, 62, 206, 207 neuroscientific perspectives: flourishing 68, 69; human behaviour 134 New Climate Economy report Better Growth, Better Climate 18 New Deal, USA 39 New Economics Foundation 175 nickel, commodity prices 13 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001) 121 Nordhaus, William 171, 172–3 North America 128, 155 see also Canada; United States Norway: advertising 204; inequality 206; investment as commitment 151–2; life expectancy 74; relative income effect 58; schooling 76 novelty/innovation 104, 108, 113; and anxiety 116–17, 124, 211; crisis of commitment 195; dilemma of growth 211; human psyche 135–6, 136, 137; investment 150, 166, 168; post-growth economy 226; role of the state 196, 197, 199; as service 140, 141–4, 158; symbolic role of goods 114–16, 213 see also technological advances Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Thaler and Sunstein) 194–5 Nussbaum, Martha 64 nutrient loading, critical boundaries 17 nutrition 67 see also basic entitlements obesity 72, 78, 206 obsolescence, built in 113, 204, 220 oceans: acidification 17; common pool resources 192 Offer, Avner 57, 61, 71, 194, 195 oil prices 14, 21; decoupling 88; financial crisis 26; resource constraints 15 oligarchic capitalism 106, 107 opulence 50–1, 52, 67–72 original sin 9, 131 Ostrom, Elinor and Vincent 190, 191 output see efficiency; gross domestic product; productivity ownership: and expansion 105; private vs. public 9, 105, 191, 219, 223; new models 223–4; types/definitions of capitalism 105–7 Oxfam 141 paradoxes: materialism 121–3; thrift 120 Paris Agreement 19, 101, 201 participation in society 61, 114, 122, 129, 137; future visions 200, 205, 218, 219, 225; work as 140–9, 148, 157, 158 see also social inclusion part-time working 145, 146, 149, 175 Peccei, Aurelio 11 Perez, Carlota 112 performing arts, Baumol’s cost disease 171–2 personal choice 216–18 see also freedom/autonomy personal property 189, 191 Pickett, Kate 71, 205–6 Piketty, Thomas 33, 176, 177 planetary boundaries see limits (ecological) planning for change 17 pleasure 60–1 see also wellbeing/happiness Plum Village mindfulness community 128 Polanyi, Karl 198 policy see governance political leadership 199 see also governance Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts 41 pollution 12, 21, 53, 95–6, 143 polycentric governance 191, 192 Poor Laws 10 poor nations see poverty population increase 3, 12, 63, 96, 97, 190; Malthus on 9–11, 132–3 porn industry 40 Portugal 28, 58, 88, 206 positional competition 55–61, 58, 71, 72 see also social comparison positive feedback loops 16–17 post-growth capitalism 224 post-growth macroeconomics 159–60, 183–4, 221; credit 178–80; degrowth movement 161–3; economic stability 174–6; green growth 163–5; inequality 176–8; role of state 181–3, 182, 200–8, 206; services 170–4; sustainable investment 166–70 see also alternatives; future visions; reform poverty 4, 5–6, 216; basic entitlements 72; flourishing within limits 212; life expectancy 74, 74; need for new economic model 101; symbolic role of goods 70; wellbeing 48, 59–60, 61, 67 see also inequality; relative income effect power politics 200 predator–prey analogy 103–4, 117 private credit see credit private vs. public: common good 208; ownership 9, 105, 191, 219, 223; salaries 130 privatisation 191, 219 product lifetimes, obsolescence 113, 204, 220 production: inputs 80–1; ownership 191, 219, 223 productivity: investment 109, 167, 168, 169; post-growth economy 224; services as engine of growth 171, 172, 173; targets 147; trap 175 see also efficiency measures; labour productivity; resource productivity profits: definitions of capitalism 105; dilemma of growth 211; efficiency measures 87; investment 109; motive 104; post-growth economy 224; and wages 175–8 progress 2, 50–5, 54 see also novelty/innovation; technological advances progressive sector, Baumol’s cost disease 171 progressive state 185, 220–2; contested 186–9; countering consumerism 202–5; equality measures 205–7, 206; governance of the commons 190–2; governance as commitment device 192–5; governmentality of growth 195–7; limit-setting 201–2; moving towards 197–200; post-growth macroeconomics 207–8, 224; prosperity 209 prosocial behaviour 198 see also social contract prosperity 1–3, 22, 121; capabilities for flourishing 61–5; and growth 3–7, 23, 66, 80, 160; and income 3–4, 5, 66–7; limits of 67–72, 113, 212; materialistic vision 137; progress measures 50–5, 54; relative income effect 55–61, 58, 71, 72; social perspectives 2, 22, 48–9; state roles 209 see also capabilities for flourishing; post-growth macroeconomics; sustainable prosperity; wellbeing prudence, financial 120, 195, 221; financial crisis 33, 34, 35 public sector spending: austerity policies 189; countercyclical spending strategy 181–2, 182; welfare economy 169 public services/amenities: common pool resources 190–2, 198, 199; future visions 204, 218–20; investment 155–6, 204; ownership 223 see also private vs. public; service-based economies public transport 41, 129, 193, 217 purpose see meaning/purpose Putnam, Robert 122 psyche, human see human nature/psyche quality, environmental 12 see also pollution quality of life: enterprise as service 142; inequality 206; sustainable 128 quality to throughput ratios 113 quantitative easing 43 Queen Elizabeth II 25, 32, 34, 37 quiet revolution 127–31 Raworth, Kate 141 Reagan, Ronald 8 rebound phenomenon 111 recession 23–4, 28, 81, 161–3 see also financial crisis recreation/leisure industries 143 recycling 129 redistribution of wealth 52 see also inequality reforms 182–3, 222; economic structures 224; and financial crisis 103; financial systems 156–8, 180 see also alternatives; future visions; post-growth economy relative decoupling 84–5, 86; historical perspectives 87–9, 89; relationship with absolute decoupling 96–101, 111 relative income effect 55–61, 58, 71, 72 see also social comparison religious perspectives 9–10, 214–15; materialism as alternative to religion 115; original sin 9, 131; wellbeing 48, 49 see also existential fear of death renewable energy xxxv, 41, 168–169 repair/renovation 172, 220 resource constraints 3, 7, 8, 11–15, 47 resource productivity 110, 151, 168, 169, 220 resource use: conflicts 22; credible alternatives 101, 220; decoupling 84–9, 92–5, 94, 95; and economic output 142–4; investment 151, 153, 168, 169; trade off with labour costs 110 retail therapy 115 see also consumerism; shopping revenues, state 222–3 see also taxation revolution 186 see also social stability rights: environment/nature 6–7; human see basic entitlements risk, financial 24, 25, 33, 35 The Road to Serfdom (Hayek) 187 Robinson, Edward 132 Robinson, Joan 159 Rockström, Johan 17, 165 romantic movement 9–10 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 35, 39 Rousseau, Jean Jacques 9, 131 Russia 74, 76, 77–80, 78, 122 sacred canopy 214, 215 salaries: private vs. public sector 130, 171; and profits 175–8 Sandel, Michael 150, 164, 218 São Paulo, Clean City Law 204 Sardar, Zia 49, 50 Sarkozy, Nicolas xxxi, 53 savage state, romantic movement 9–10 savings 26–7, 28, 107–9, 108; investment 149; ratios 34, 118–20, 119 scale, efficiencies of 104 Scandinavia 27, 122, 204 scarcity, managing change 16–17 Schumpeter, Joseph 112 Schwartz, Shalom 135–6, 136 schooling see education The Science of Desire (Dichter) 114 secular stagnation 43–7, 45, 173 securitisation, mortgage loans 35 security: moving towards 219; and wellbeing 48, 61 self-development 204 self-expression see identity construction self-transcending behaviours see transcendence The Selfish Gene (Dawkins) 134–5 selfishness 133–8, 196 Sen, Amartya 50, 52, 61–2, 123–4 service concept/servicization 140–4, 147–8, 148, 158 service-based economies 219; engine of growth 170–4; substitution between labour and capital 178; sustainable investment 169–70 see also public services SFC (stock-flow consistent) economic models 179–80 shame 123–4 shared endeavours, post-growth economy 227 Sheldon, Solomon 214 shelter see basic entitlements shopping 115, 116, 130 see also consumerism short-termism/living for today 194, 197, 200 signals: sent out by society 130, 193, 198, 203, 207; social status 71 see also language of goods Simon, Julian 13 simplicity/simple life 118–20, 127–9, 215–16 simulations see mathematical models/simulations slow: capital 170; movement 128 smart growth 85, 163–5 see also green growth Smith, Adam 51, 106–7, 123, 132, 187 social assets 220 social boundaries (minimum standards) 141 see also basic entitlements social care 150–1 see also caring professions social comparison 115, 116, 117 see also relative income effect social contract 194, 198, 199, 200 social inclusion 48, 69–71, 114, 212 see also participation in society social investment 155, 156, 189, 193, 208, 220–3 social justice 198 see also inequality social logic of consumerism 114–16, 204 social stability 24, 26, 80, 145, 186, 196, 205 see also alienation social status see status social structures 80, 129, 130, 137, 196, 200, 203 social tolerance, and wellbeing 59, 60 social unrest see social stability social wage 40 social welfare: financial reforms 182–3; public sector spending 169 socialism 223 Sociobiology (Wilson) 134 soil integrity 220 Solon, quotation 47, 49, 71 Soper, Kate 125–6 Soros, George 36 Soskice, David 106 Soviet Union, former 74, 76, 77–80, 78, 122 Spain 28, 58, 144, 206 SPEAR organization, responsible investment 155 species loss/extinctions 17, 47, 62, 101 speculation 93, 99, 149, 150, 154, 158, 170; economic stability 180; financial crisis 26, 33, 35; short-term profiteering 150; spending: behaviour of ordinary people 34, 119, 120–1; countercyclical 181–2, 182, 188; economic stability 81; as way out of recession 41, 44, 119, 120–1; and work cycle 125 The Spirit Level (Wilkinson and Pickett) 71, 205–6 spiritual perspectives 117, 127, 128, 214 stability see economic stability; social stability stagflation 26 stagnant sector, Baumol’s cost disease 171 stagnation: economic stability 81–2; labour productivity 145; post-financial crisis 43–7, 45 see also recession state capitalism, types/definitions of capitalism 106 state revenues, from social investment 222–3 see also taxation state roles see governance status 207, 209, 211; and possessions 69, 71, 114, 115, 117 see also language of goods; symbolic role of goods Steady State Economics (Daly) xxxii steady state economies 82, 159, 160, 174, 180 see also post-growth macroeconomics Stern, Nicholas 17–18 stewardship: role of the state 200; sustainable investment 168 Stiglitz, Joseph 53 stock-flow consistent (SFC) economic models 179–80 Stockholm Resilience Centre 17, 201 stranded assets 167–8 see also ownership structures of capitalism see economic structures struggle for existence 8–11, 125, 132–3 Stuckler, David 43 stuff see language of goods; material goods; symbolic role of goods subjective wellbeing (SWB) 49, 58, 58–9, 71, 122, 129 see also wellbeing/happiness subprime lending 26 substitution, between labour and capital 177–178 suffering, struggle for existence 10 suicide 43, 52, 77 Sukdhev, Pavan 41 sulphur dioxide pollution 95–6 Summers, Larry 36 Sunstein, Cass 194 sustainability xxv–xxvi, 102, 104, 126; financial systems 154–5; innovation 226; investment 101, 152, 153, 166–70, 220; resource constraints 12; role of the state 198, 203, 207 see also sustainable prosperity Sustainable Development Strategy, UK 198 sustainable growth see green growth sustainable prosperity 210–12; creating credible alternatives 219–21; finding meaning beyond material commodities 212–16; implications for capitalism 222–5; personal choices for improvement 216–18; and utopianism 225–7 see also limits (flourishing within) SWB see subjective wellbeing; wellbeing/happiness Switzerland 11, 46, 157; citizen’s income 207; income relative to wellbeing 58; inequality 206; life expectancy 74, 75 symbolic role of goods 69, 70–1; existential fear of death 212–16; governance 203; innovation/novelty 114–16; material footprints 139–40; paradox of materialism 121–2 see also language of goods; material goods system dynamics model 11–12, 15 tar sands/oil shales 15 taxation: capital 177; income 81; inequality 206; post-growth economy 222 technological advances 12–13, 15; decoupling 85, 86, 87, 96–8, 100–3, 164–5; dilemma of growth 211; economic stability 80; population increase 10–11; role of state 193, 220 see also novelty/innovation Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre 8 terror management, and consumption 69, 104, 115, 212–15 terrorist attacks (9/11) 121 Thailand, Buddhist monasteries 128 Thaler, Richard 194 theatre, Baumol’s cost disease 171–2 theology see religious perspectives theory of evolution 132–3 thermodynamics, laws of 112, 164 Thich Nhat Hanh 128 thrift 118–20, 127–9, 215–16 throwaway society 113, 172, 204 timescales for change 16–17 tin, commodity prices 13 Today programme interview xxix, xxviii Totnes, transition movement 128–9 Towards a Green Economy report (UNEP) 152–3 Townsend, Peter 48, 61 trade balance 31 trading standards 204 tradition 135–6, 136, 226 ‘Tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin) 190–1 transcendence 214 see also altruism; meaning/purpose; spiritual perspectives transition movement, Totnes 128–9 Triodos Bank 156, 165 Trumpf (machine-tool makers) Germany 146 trust, loss of see alienation tungsten, commodity prices 13 Turkey 58, 88 Turner, Adair 157 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (2015) 19 UBS (Swiss bank) 46 Ubuntu, African philosophy 227 unemployment 77; consumer goods 215; degrowth movement 162; financial crisis 24, 40, 41, 43; Great Depression 39–40; and growth 38; labour productivity 80–1; post-growth economy 174, 175, 183, 208, 219; work as participation 144–6 United Kingdom: Green New Deal group 152; greenhouse gas emissions 92; labour productivity 173; resource inputs 93; Sustainable Development Strategy 198 United Nations: Development Programme 6; Environment Programme 18, 152–3; Green Economy initiative 41 United States: credit unions 155–6; debt 27, 31–32; decoupling 88; greenhouse gas emissions 90–1; subprime lending 26; Works Progress Administration 39 universal basic income 221 see also citizen’s income University of Massachusetts, Political Economy Research Institute 41 utilitarianism/utility, wellbeing 50, 52–3, 55, 60 utopianism 8, 38, 125, 179; post-growth economy 225–7 values, materialistic 126, 135–6 see also intrinsic values Veblen, Thorstein 115 Victor, Peter xxxviii, 146, 175, 177, 180 vision of progress see future visions; post-growth economy volatility, commodity prices 14, 21 wages: and profits 175–8; private vs. public sector 130, 171 walking, personal choices for improvement 217 water use 22 Wealth of Nations, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes (Smith) 123, 132 wealth redistribution 52 see also inequality Weber, Axel 46 welfare policies: financial reforms 182–3; public sector spending 169 welfare of livestock 220 wellbeing/happiness 47–50, 53, 121–2, 124; collective 209; consumer goods 4, 21, 22, 126; growth 6, 165, 211; intrinsic values 126, 129; investment 150; novelty/innovation 117; opulence 50–2, 67–72; personal choices for improvement 217; planetary boundaries 141; relative income effect 55–61, 58, 71, 72; simplicity 129; utilitarianism 50, 52–3, 55, 60 see also capabilities for flourishing western lifestyles 70, 210 White, William 46 Whybrow, Peter 68 Wilhelm, Richard 7 Wilkinson, Richard 71, 205–6 Williams, Tennessee 213 Wilson, Edward 134 wisdom traditions 48, 49, 63, 128, 213–14 work: as participation 140–9, 148, 157, 158; and spend cycle 125; sharing 145, 146, 149, 175 Works Progress Administration, USA 39 World Bank 160 World Values Survey 58 youth unemployment, financial crisis 144–5 zero sum game, growth as 57, 71


pages: 447 words: 111,991

Exponential: How Accelerating Technology Is Leaving Us Behind and What to Do About It by Azeem Azhar

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, 3D printing, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Ada Lovelace, additive manufacturing, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, algorithmic management, algorithmic trading, Amazon Mechanical Turk, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Bletchley Park, Blitzscaling, Boeing 737 MAX, book value, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, carbon footprint, Chris Urmson, Citizen Lab, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, collective bargaining, computer age, computer vision, contact tracing, contact tracing app, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, deep learning, deglobalization, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Demis Hassabis, Diane Coyle, digital map, digital rights, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, drone strike, Elon Musk, emotional labour, energy security, Fairchild Semiconductor, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Firefox, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, future of work, Garrett Hardin, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, gig economy, global macro, global pandemic, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, GPT-3, Hans Moravec, happiness index / gross national happiness, hiring and firing, hockey-stick growth, ImageNet competition, income inequality, independent contractor, industrial robot, intangible asset, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John Perry Barlow, Just-in-time delivery, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, Law of Accelerating Returns, lockdown, low skilled workers, lump of labour, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, Mitch Kapor, Mustafa Suleyman, Network effects, new economy, NSO Group, Ocado, offshore financial centre, OpenAI, PalmPilot, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Peter Thiel, Planet Labs, price anchoring, RAND corporation, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, remote working, RFC: Request For Comment, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Bork, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Sam Altman, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, software as a service, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Stuxnet, subscription business, synthetic biology, tacit knowledge, TaskRabbit, tech worker, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Nature of the Firm, Thomas Malthus, TikTok, Tragedy of the Commons, Turing machine, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, vertical integration, warehouse automation, winner-take-all economy, workplace surveillance , Yom Kippur War

In times of rapid change, a safety net becomes critical – lest people lose their jobs and find themselves unable to survive. And the more entrepreneurial and volatile the economy, the more essential such a safety net becomes. Many academics and technologists, from the French superstar economist Thomas Piketty to the founder of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, argue for universal basic income (UBI) to solve this very problem. Under a UBI system, a government gives every citizen a regular sum of cash, no strings attached. Expensive as this might sound, it’s certainly a quick route to economic security for large numbers of people who might otherwise be at the mercy of a cruel labour market.

However, many cities seem up for the challenge. Many municipal governments have recently started to work together to identify the shared policies they need. The C40 initiative brings mayors together to discuss climate change; the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income is a coalition of American cities advocating for universal basic income. These forms of revitalised urban governance are deeply necessary. Exponential technologies take our apparently flattened two-dimensional world and, like a pop-up map, make valleys and peaks suddenly visible. And this is a terrain that our current institutional arrangements, from our approach to trade to how we think about local governance, are ill-equipped to deal with.

Abu Dhabi, UAE, 250 Acemoglu, Daron, 139 Acorn Computers, 16, 21 Ada Lovelace Institute, 8 additive manufacturing, 43–4, 46, 48, 88, 166, 169, 175–9 Adidas, 176 advertising, 94, 112–13, 116, 117, 227–8 AdWords, 227 aeroponics, 171 Afghanistan, 38, 205 Africa, 177–8, 182–3 Aftenposten, 216 Age of Spiritual Machines, The (Kurzweil), 77 agglomeration, 181 Air Jordan sneakers, 102 Airbnb, 102, 188 aircraft, 49–50 Alexandria, Egypt, 180 AlexNet, 33 Algeciras, HMM 61 Alibaba, 48, 102, 108, 111, 122 Alipay, 111 Allen, Robert, 80 Alphabet, 65, 113–14, 131, 163 aluminium, 170 Amazon, 65, 67–8, 94, 104, 108, 112, 122, 135–6 Alexa, 25, 117 automation, 135–6, 137, 139, 154 collective bargaining and, 163 Covid-19 pandemic (2020–21), 135–6 drone sales, 206 Ecobee and, 117 Go stores, 136 Kiva Systems acquisition (2012), 136 management, 154 Mechanical Turk, 142–3, 144, 145 monopoly, 115, 117, 122 Prime, 136, 154 R&D, 67–8, 113 Ami Pro, 99 Amiga, 16 Anarkali, Lahore, 102 anchoring bias, 74 Android, 85, 94, 117, 120 Angola, 186 Ant Brain, 111 Ant Financial, 111–12 antitrust laws, 114, 119–20 Apache HTTP Server, 242 Appelbaum, Binyamin, 63 Apple, 47, 62, 65, 85, 94, 104, 108, 112, 122 App Store, 105, 112, 115 chip production, 113 Covid-19 pandemic (2019–21), 222–3 data collection, 228 iOS, 85 iPhone, 47, 62, 85, 94, 105 media subscription, 112 watches, 112 APT33 hacker group, 198 Aral, Sinan, 238 Aramco, 108, 198 Armenia, 206–7 Arthur, William Brian, 110, 123 artificial intelligence, 4, 8, 31–4, 54, 88, 113, 249 academic brain drain, 118 automation, 125–42 data and, 31–2, 142 data network effect, 106–7 drone technology and, 208, 214 education and, 88 employment and, 126–7 healthcare and, 88, 103 job interviews and, 153 regulation of, 187, 188 arXiv, 59 Asana, 151 Asian Development Bank, 193 Aslam, Yaseen, 148 Assembly Bill 5 (California, 2019), 148 asymmetric conflict, 206 AT&T, 76, 100 Atari, 16 attack surfaces, 192–3, 196, 209, 210 Aurora, 141 Australia, 102, 197 automation, 125–42 autonomous weapons, 208, 214 Azerbaijan, 173, 206–7 Ballmer, Steve, 85 Bangladesh, 175 banking, 122, 237 Barcelona, Catalonia, 188 Barlow, John Perry, 184 Barrons, Richard, 195, 211 Bartlett, Albert, 73 batteries, 40, 51, 53–4, 250, 251 Battle of the Overpass (1937), 162 Bayraktar TB2 drone, 206 Bee Gees, 72 Bekar, Clifford, 45 Bell Labs, 18 Bell Telephone Company, 100 Benioff, Marc, 108–9 Bentham, Jeremy, 152 Berlin Wall, fall of (1989), 4 Bermuda, 119 Berners-Lee, Timothy, 55, 100, 160, 239 Bessen, James, 46 Bezos, Jeffrey, 135–6 BGI, 41 Biden, Joseph, 225 Bing, 107 biological weapons, 207, 213 biology, 10, 39, 40–42, 44, 46 genome sequencing, 40–41, 90, 229, 234, 245–7, 250, 252 synthetic biology, 42, 46, 69, 174, 245, 250 biopolymers, 42 bits, 18 Black Death (1346–53), 12 BlackBerry, 120 Blair, Tony, 81 Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, 22 blitzscaling, 110 Blockbuster, 138 BMW, 177 Boeing, 51, 236 Bol.com, 103 Bollywood, 181 Boole, George, 18 Bork, Robert, 114–15, 117, 119 Bosworth, Andrew, 233 Boyer, Pascal, 75 Boyle, James, 234 BP, 92, 158 brain, 77 Braudel, Fernand, 75 Brave, 242 Brazil, 202 Bremmer, Ian, 187 Bretton Woods Conference (1944), 87 Brexit (2016–20), 6, 168 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 87, 129, 191 Brookings Institution, 130 BT, 123 Bulgaria, 145 Bundy, Willard Legrand, 149 Busan, South Korea, 56 business, 82, 92–124 diminishing returns to scale, 93, 108 economic dynamism and, 117 economies of scale, 50, 92 growth, 110–13 increasing returns to scale, 108–10 intangible economy, 104–7, 118, 156, 175, 180 linear value chains, 101 market share, 93–6, 111 monopolies, 10, 71, 94, 95, 114–24 network effect, 96–101 platform model, 101–3, 219 re-localisation, 11, 166–79, 187, 252, 255 state-sized companies, 11, 67 superstar companies, 10, 94–6 supply chains, 61–2, 166–7, 169, 175, 187, 252, 255 taxation of, 96, 118–19 Butler, Nick, 179 ByteDance, 28 C40 initiative, 189 Cambridge University, 127, 188 cancer, 57–8, 127 Capitol building storming (2021), 225 car industry, 93 carbon emissions, 35, 90, 251 Carlaw, Kenneth, 45 Carnegie, Andrew, 112 Carnegie Mellon University, 131 Catholic Church, 83, 88 censorship, 216–17, 224–6, 236 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 194 Cerebras, 34 cervical smears, 57–8 chemical weapons, 207, 213 Chen, Brian, 228 chewing gum, 78 Chicago Pile-1 reactor, 64 Chile, 170 China automation in, 127, 137 brainwave reading in, 152 Covid-19 pandemic (2019–21), 245 drone technology in, 207 Great Firewall, 186, 201 Greater Bay Area, 182 horizontal expansion in, 111–12 manufacturing in, 176 misinformation campaigns, 203 raw materials, demand for, 178 Singles’ Day, 48 social credit systems, 230 superstar companies in, 95 US, relations with, 166 chips, 19–22, 28–9, 48–9, 52, 113, 251 Christchurch massacre (2019), 236 Christensen, Clayton, 24 CIPD, 153 cities, 11, 75, 169, 179–84, 188, 255 Clegg, Nick, 225–6, 235 climate change, 90, 169, 187, 189, 251, 252 cloud computing, 85, 112 Cloudflare, 200 cluster bombs, 213 CNN, 185, 190 coal, 40, 65, 172 Coase, Ronald, 92 Coca-Cola, 93 code is law, 220–22, 235 cold fusion, 113–14 Cold War (1947–91), 194, 212, 213 collective bargaining, 147, 149, 154, 156, 162–5 Colombia, 145 colonialism, 167 Columbus, Christopher, 4 combination, 53–7 Comical Ali, 201 commons, 234–5, 241–3, 256 companies, see business comparative advantage, 170 complex systems, 2 compounding, 22–3, 28 CompuServe, 100 computing, 4, 10, 15–36, 44, 46, 249 artificial intelligence, 4, 8, 31–4, 54, 88 cloud computing, 85, 112 internet, 47–8, 55, 65, 84 Law of Accelerating Returns, 30–31, 33, 35 machining, 43 Moore’s Law, see Moore’s Law quantum computing, 35 transistors, 18–22, 28–9, 48–9, 52 conflict, 87, 189, 190–215 attack surfaces, 192–3, 196, 209, 210 cyberattacks, 11, 114, 140, 181, 187, 190–200, 209–14, 256 de-escalation, 212–13 drone technology, 11, 192, 204–9, 214, 256 institutional change and, 87 misinformation, 11, 191, 192, 200–204, 209, 212, 217, 225 new wars, 194 non-proliferation, 213–14 re-localisation and, 189, 193, 194, 209 consent of the networked, 223 Costco, 67 Coursera, 58 Covid-19 pandemic (2019–21), 12–13, 59, 78–9, 131, 245–9 automation and, 127, 135, 136 cities and, 183 contact-tracing apps, 222–3 gig economy and, 146 lockdowns, 12, 152, 176, 183, 246 manufacturing and, 176 misinformation and, 202–4, 247–8 preprint servers and, 60 recession (2020–21), 178 remote working and, 146, 151, 153 supply chains and, 169, 246 vaccines, 12, 202, 211, 245–7 workplace cultures and, 151, 152 cranks, 54 credit ratings, 162, 229 critical thinking skills, 212 Croatia, 145 Crocker, David, 55 crowdsourcing, 143–4 Cuba, 203 Cuban missile crisis (1962), 99, 212 cultural lag, 85 cyberattacks, 11, 114, 140, 181, 187, 190–200, 209–14, 256 CyberPeace Institute, 214 Daniel, Simon, 173–4 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 183 Darktrace, 197 data, 8, 11, 71, 217–19, 226–31, 235, 237–42, 256 AI and, 8, 32, 33, 58, 106 compensation for, 239 commons, 242 cyberattacks and, 196 doppelgängers, 219, 226, 228, 239 interoperability and, 237–9 network effects, 106–7, 111 protection laws, 186, 226 rights, 240 Daugherty, Paul, 141 DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroe thane), 253 death benefits, 151 Dediu, Horace, 24, 30 deep learning, 32–4, 54, 58, 127 deforestation, 251 dehumanisation, 71, 154, 158 deindustrialisation, 168 Deliveroo, 154, 163 Delphi, 100 dematerialised techniques, 166, 175 Denmark, 58, 160, 199–200, 257 Deutsche Bank, 130 Diamandis, Peter, 5 Dickens, Charles, 80 digital cameras, 83–4 Digital Geneva Convention, 211 Digital Markets Act (EU, 2020), 122 digital minilateralism, 188 Digital Nations group, 188 Digital Services Act (EU, 2020), 123 diminishing returns, 93, 108 disinformation, see misinformation DoorDash, 147, 148, 248 dot-com bubble (1995–2000), 8, 108, 150 Double Irish tax loophole, 119 DoubleClick, 117 drone technology, 11, 192, 204–9, 214, 256 Dubai, UAE, 43 Duke University, 234 dystopia, 208, 230, 253 Eagan, Nicole, 197 eBay, 98, 121 Ecobee, 120 economies of scale, 50, 92 Economist, The, 8, 65, 119, 183, 239 economists, 63 Edelman, 3 education artificial intelligence and, 88 media literacy, 211–12 Egypt, 145, 186 Elance, 144 electric cars, 51, 69, 75, 173–4, 177, 250 electricity, 26, 45, 46, 54, 157, 249–50 see also energy Electronic Frontier Foundation, 184 email, 6, 55 embodied institutions, 82 employment, 10, 71, 125–65 automation, 125–42 collective bargaining, 147, 149, 154, 156, 162–5 dehumanisation and, 71, 154, 158 flexicurity, 160–61, 257 gig economy, 10, 71, 142–9, 153, 162, 164, 239, 252, 255 income inequality, 155–8, 161, 168 lump of labour fallacy, 139 management, 149–54, 158–9 protections, 85–6, 147–9 reskilling, 159–60 universal basic income (UBI), 160, 189 Enclosure, 234–5, 241 energy, 11, 37–8, 39–40, 44, 46, 172–4, 250 cold fusion, 113–14 fossil fuels, 40, 159, 172, 250 gravitational potential, 53 solar power, 37–8, 53, 65, 77, 82, 90, 171, 172, 173, 249, 250, 251 storage, 40, 53, 114, 173–4, 250, 251 wind power, 39–40, 52 Energy Vault, 53–4, 173 Engels, Friedrich, 81 Engels’ pause, 80, 81 environmental movement, 73 Epic Games, 116 estate agents, 100 Estonia, 188, 190–91, 200, 211 Etzion Airbase, Sinai Peninsula, 195 European Commission, 116, 122, 123 European Space Agency, 56 European Union, 6, 82, 147, 186, 226 Excel, 99 exogeny, 2 exponential gap, 9, 10, 67–91, 70, 89, 253 cyber security and, 193 institutions and, 9, 10, 79–88, 90 mathematical understanding and, 71–5 predictions and, 75–9 price declines and, 68–9 superstar companies and, 10, 94–124 exponential growth bias, 73 Exponential View, 8–9 externalities, 97 extremism, 232–4 ExxonMobil, 65, 92 Facebook, 27, 28, 65, 94, 104, 108, 122, 216–17, 218, 219, 221–2, 223 advertising business, 94, 228 censorship on, 216–17, 224–6, 236 collective bargaining and, 164 data collection on, 228, 239–40 extremism and, 233–4 Instagram acquisition (2012), 117, 120 integrity teams, 234 interoperability, 237–8 Kenosha unrest shooting (2020), 224 misinformation on, 201, 225 network effect and, 98, 223 Oculus acquisition (2014), 117 pay at, 156–7 Phan photo controversy (2016), 216–17, 224, 225 platform model, 101 polarisation and, 233 relationship status on, 221–2 Rohingya ethnic cleansing (2018), 224, 225 US presidential election (2016), 217 WhatsApp acquisition (2014), 117 facial recognition, 152, 208 Factory Act (UK, 1833), 81 Fairchild Semiconductor, 19, 21 fake news, 201–4 family dinners, 86 farming, 170–72, 251 Farrar, James, 148 fax machines, 97 Federal Aviation Administration (US), 236 feedback loops, 3, 13 fertilizers, 35, 90 5G, 203 Financial Conduct Authority, 122 Financial Times, 183 Finland, 160, 211–12 Fitbit, 158 Fiverr, 144 flashing of headlights, 83 flexicurity, 160, 257 flints, 42 flywheels, 54 Ford, 54, 92, 162 Ford, Gerald, 114 Ford, Henry, 54, 162 Ford, Martin, 125 Fortnite, 116 fossil fuels, 40, 159, 172 France, 100, 138, 139, 147, 163 free-market economics, 63–4 freelance work, 10, 71, 142–9 Frey, Carl, 129, 134, 141 Friedman, Milton, 63–4, 241 Friedman, Thomas, 167 FriendFeed, 238 Friendster, 26 Fudan University, 245 fund management, 132 Galilei, Galileo, 83 gaming, 86 Gates, Bill, 17, 25, 84 gender, 6 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 87 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), 226 General Electric, 52 General Motors, 92, 125, 130 general purpose technologies, 10, 45–8 generative adversarial networks (GANs), 58 Geneva Conventions, 193, 199, 209 Genghis Khan, 44 GEnie, 100 genome sequencing, 40–41, 90, 229, 234, 245–7, 250, 252 Germany, 75, 134, 147 Giddens, Anthony, 82 gig economy, 10, 71, 142–9, 153, 162, 164, 239, 252, 255 Gilbreth, Lillian, 150 Ginsparg, Paul, 59 GitHub, 58, 60 GlaxoSmithKline, 229–30 global financial crisis (2007–9), 168 Global Hawk drones, 206 global positioning systems (GPS), 197 globalisation, 11, 62, 64, 156, 166, 167–71, 177, 179, 187, 193 internet and, 185 conflict and, 189, 193, 194 Glocer, Thomas, 56 Go (game), 132 GOAT, 102 Gojek, 103 Golden Triangle, 170 Goldman Sachs, 151 Goodfellow, Ian, 58 Google, 5, 35, 36, 94, 98, 104, 108, 115, 122 advertising business, 94, 112–13, 116, 117, 227 Android, 85, 94, 117, 120 chip production, 113 Covid-19 pandemic (2019–21), 222–3 data network effect, 106–7 death benefits, 151 Double Irish tax loophole, 119 Maps, 113 quantum computing, 35 R&D, 114, 118 vertical integration, 112–13, 116 X, 114 YouTube acquisition (2006), 112, 117 Gopher, 59, 100 GPT-3, 33 Graeber, David, 133–4 Grand Bazaar, Istanbul, 102 Graphcore, 34, 35 graphics chips, 34 Grateful Dead, The, 184 gravitational potential energy, 53 gravity bombs, 195 Greater Bay Area, China, 182 Greenberg, Andy, 199 Gross, Bill, 53 Grove, Andrew, 17 GRU (Glavnoje Razvedyvatel’noje Upravlenije), 199 Guangzhou, Guangdong, 182 Guardian, 8, 125, 154, 226, 227 Guiyang, Guizhou, 166 H1N1 virus, 75 Habermas, Jürgen, 218 Hard Times (Dickens), 80 Hardin, Garrett, 241 Harop drones, 207–8 Harpy drones, 207–8 Harvard University, 150, 218, 220, 221, 253 healthcare artificial intelligence and, 57–8, 88, 103 data and, 230, 239, 250–51 wearable devices and, 158, 251 Helsinki, Finland, 160 Herlev Hospital, Denmark, 58 Hinton, Geoffrey, 32, 126–7 HIPA Act (US, 1996), 230 Hitachi, 152 Hobbes, Thomas, 210 Hoffman, Josh, 174 Hoffman, Reid, 110, 111 Holmes, Edward, 245 homophily, 231–4 Hong Kong, 182 horizontal expansion, 111–12, 218 Houston Islam protests (2016), 203 Houthis, 206 Howe, Jeff, 143 Hsinchu, Taiwan, 181 Hughes, Chris, 217 Hull, Charles, 43 Human + Machine (Daugherty), 141 human brain, 77 human genome, 40–41, 90, 229, 234, 250 human resources, 150 Hussein, Saddam, 195 Hyaline, 174 hydroponics, 171 hyperinflation, 75 IBM, 17, 21, 47, 98 IDC, 219 Ideal-X, 61 Ikea, 144 Illumina, 41 Ilves, Toomas Hendrik, 190 ImageNet, 32 immigration, 139, 168, 183–4 Impossible Foods, 69 Improv, 99 income inequality, 155–8, 161, 168 India, 103, 145, 181, 186, 224, 253, 254 Indonesia, 103 Industrial Revolution (1760–1840), 79–81, 157, 235 informational networks, 59–60 ING, 178 innovation, 14, 117 Innovator’s Dilemma, The (Christensen), 24 Instagram, 84, 117, 120, 121, 237 institutions, 9, 10, 79–88, 90–91 path dependence, 86–7 punctuated equilibrium, 87–8 intangible economy, 104–7, 118, 156, 175, 180 integrated circuits, 19 Intel, 16–17, 19, 163 intellectual property law, 82 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (1987), 237 International Alliance of App-Based Transport Workers, 164 International Court of Justice, 224 International Criminal Court, 208 International Energy Agency, 77, 82 International Labour Organization, 131 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 87, 167, 187 international organisations, 82 International Organization for Standardization, 55, 61 International Rescue Committee, 184 International Telecommunication Union, 55 internet, 7, 47–8, 55, 65, 72, 75, 84–5, 88, 115, 184–6 code is law, 220–22, 235 data and, 11, 32, 71 informational networks, 59–60 localisation, 185–6 lockdowns and, 12 network effect, 100–101 online shopping, 48, 61, 62, 75, 94, 102, 135 platform model and, 102 public sphere and, 223 standardisation, 55 Wi-Fi, 151 interoperability, 55, 120–22, 237–9, 241, 243, 256–7 iPhone, 47, 62, 85, 94, 115, 175 Iran, 186, 196, 198, 203, 206 Iraq, 195–6, 201, 209 Ireland, 57–8, 119 Islamic State, 194, 233 Israel, 37, 188, 195–6, 198, 206, 207–8 Istanbul, Turkey, 102 Jacobs, Jane, 182 Japan, 37, 152, 171, 174 Jasanoff, Sheila, 253 JD.com, 137 Jena, Rajesh, 127 Jio, 103 job interviews, 153, 156 John Paul II, Pope, 83 Johnson, Boris, 79 Jumia, 103 just in time supply chains, 61–2 Kahneman, Daniel, 74 KakaoTalk, 27 Kaldor, Mary, 194 Kapor, Mitchell, 99 Karunaratne, Sid, 140–41, 151 Kenosha unrest shooting (2020), 224 Keynes, John Maynard, 126, 158 Khan, Lina, 119 Khartoum, Sudan, 183 Kim Jong-un, 198 King’s College London, 179 Kiva Systems, 136 Kobo360, 145 Kodak, 83–4, 88 Kranzberg, Melvin, 254 Krizhevsky, Alex, 32–3, 34 Kubursi, Atif, 178 Kurdistan Workers’ Party, 206 Kurzweil, Ray, 29–31, 33, 35, 77 Lagos, Nigeria, 182 Lahore, Pakistan, 102 landmines, 213 Law of Accelerating Returns, 30–31, 33, 35 Laws of Motion, 20 learning by doing, 48, 53 Leggatt, George, 148 Lemonade, 56 Lessig, Larry, 220–21 Leviathan (Hobbes), 210 Li Fei-Fei, 32 life expectancy, 25, 26 light bulbs, 44, 157 Lime, 27 Limits to Growth, The (Meadows et al.), 73 linear value chains, 101 LinkedIn, 26, 110, 121, 237, 238 Linkos Group, 197 Linux OS, 242 Lipsey, Richard, 45 lithium-ion batteries, 40, 51 lithium, 170 localism, 11, 166–90, 252, 255 log files, 227 logarithmic scales, 20 logic gates, 18 logistic curve, 25, 30, 51, 52, 69–70 London, England, 180, 181, 183 London Underground, 133–4 looms, 157 Lordstown Strike (1972), 125 Lotus Development Corporation, 99 Luddites, 125, 253 Lufa Farms, 171–2 Luminate, 240 lump of labour fallacy, 139 Lusaka, Zambia, 15 Lyft, 146, 148 machine learning, 31–4, 54, 58, 88, 127, 129, 143 MacKinnon, Rebecca, 223 Maersk, 197, 199, 211 malaria, 253 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shootdown (2014), 199 Malta, 114 Malthus, Thomas, 72–3 malware, 197 Man with the Golden Gun, The (1974 film), 37 manufacturing, 10, 39, 42–4, 46, 166–7, 175–9 additive, 43–4, 46, 48, 88, 166, 169, 175–9 automation and, 130 re-localisation, 175–9 subtractive, 42–3 market saturation, 25–8, 51, 52 market share, 93–6, 111 Marshall, Alfred, 97 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 18, 147, 202, 238 Mastercard, 98 May, Theresa, 183 Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, 189 McCarthy, John, 31 McKinsey, 76, 94 McMaster University, 178 measles, 246 Mechanical Turk, 142–3, 144, 145 media literacy, 211–12 meningitis, 246 Mexico, 202 microorganisms, 42, 46, 69 Microsoft, 16–17, 65, 84–5, 88, 98–9, 100, 105, 108, 122, 221 Bing, 107 cloud computing, 85 data collection, 228 Excel, 99 internet and, 84–5, 100 network effect and, 99 Office software, 98–9, 110, 152 Windows, 85, 98–9 Workplace Productivity scores, 152 Mill, John Stuart, 193 miniaturisation, 34–5 minimum wage, 147, 161 misinformation, 11, 191, 192, 200–204, 209, 212, 217, 225, 247–8 mobile phones, 76, 121 see also smartphones; telecom companies Moderna, 245, 247 Moixa, 174 Mondelez, 197, 211 Mongol Empire (1206–1368), 44 monopolies, 10, 71, 94, 95, 114–24, 218, 255 Monopoly (board game), 82 Montreal, Quebec, 171 mood detection systems, 152 Moore, Gordon, 19, 48 Moore’s Law, 19–22, 26, 28–9, 31, 34, 63, 64, 74 artificial intelligence and, 32, 33–4 Kodak and, 83 price and, 41–2, 51, 68–9 as social fact, 29, 49 superstar companies and, 95 time, relationship with, 48–9 Moravec, Hans, 131 Moravec’s paradox, 131–2 Motorola, 76 Mount Mercy College, Cork, 57 Mozilla Firefox, 242 Mumbai, India, 181 mumps, 246 muskets, 54–5 MySpace, 26–7 Nadella, Satya, 85 Nagorno-Karabakh War (2020), 206–7 napalm, 216 NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), 56 Natanz nuclear site, Iran, 196 National Health Service (NHS), 87 nationalism, 168, 186 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 191, 213 Netflix, 104, 107, 109, 136, 137, 138, 139, 151, 248 Netherlands, 103 Netscape Communicator, 6 networks, 58–62 network effects, 96–101, 106, 110, 121, 223 neural networks, 32–4 neutral, technology as, 5, 220–21, 254 new wars, 194 New York City, New York, 180, 183 New York Times, 3, 125, 190, 228 New Zealand, 188, 236 Newton, Isaac, 20 Nigeria, 103, 145, 182, 254 Niinistö, Sauli, 212 Nike, 102 nitrogen fertilizers, 35 Nixon, Richard, 25, 114 Nobel Prize, 64, 74, 241 Nokia, 120 non-state actors, 194, 213 North Korea, 198 North Macedonia, 200–201 Norway, 173, 216 NotPetya malware, 197, 199–200, 211, 213 Novell, 98 Noyce, Robert, 19 NSO Group, 214 nuclear weapons, 193, 195–6, 212, 237 Nuremberg Trials (1945–6), 208 O’Reilly, Tim, 107 O’Sullivan, Laura, 57–8, 60 Obama, Barack, 205, 214, 225 Ocado, 137 Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria, 239 Oculus, 117 oDesk, 144 Ofcom, 8 Ofoto, 84 Ogburn, William, 85 oil industry, 172, 250 Houthi drone attacks (2019), 206 OAPEC crisis (1973–4), 37, 258 Shamoon attack (2012), 198 Standard Oil breakup (1911), 93–4 Olduvai, Tanzania, 42 online shopping, 48, 61, 62, 75, 94, 102, 135 open-source software, 242 Openreach, 123 Operation Opera (1981), 195–6, 209 opium, 38 Orange, 121 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 119, 167 Osborne Computer Corporation, 16 Osborne, Michael, 129 Osirak nuclear reactor, Iraq, 195–6, 209 Ostrom, Elinor, 241 Oxford University, 129, 134, 203, 226 pace of change, 3 pagers, 87 Pakistan, 145, 205 palladium, 170 PalmPilot, 173 panopticon, 152 Paris, France, 181, 183 path dependence, 86 PayPal, 98, 110 PC clones, 17 PeerIndex, 8, 201, 237 Pegasus, 214 PeoplePerHour, 144 PepsiCo, 93 Perez, Carlota, 46–7 pernicious polarization, 232 perpetual motion, 95, 106, 107, 182 Petersen, Michael Bang, 75 Phan Thi Kim Phuc, 216–17, 224, 225 pharmaceutical industry, 6, 93, 250 phase transitions, 4 Philippines, 186, 203 Phillips Exeter Academy, 150 phishing scams, 211 Phoenix, Arizona, 134 photolithography, 19 Pigou, Arthur Cecil, 97 Piketty, Thomas, 160 Ping An Good Doctor, 103, 250 Pix Moving, 166, 169, 175 PKK (Partîya Karkerên Kurdistanê), 206 Planet Labs, 69 platforms, 101–3, 219 PlayStation, 86 plough, 157 Polanyi, Michael, 133 polarisation, 231–4 polio, 246 population, 72–3 Portify, 162 Postel, Jon, 55 Postings, Robert, 233 Predator drones, 205, 206 preprints, 59–60 price gouging, 93 price of technology, 22, 68–9 computing, 68–9, 191, 249 cyber-weapons, 191–2 drones, 192 genome sequencing, 41–2, 252 renewable energy, 39–40, 250 printing press, 45 public sphere, 218, 221, 223 Pulitzer Prize, 216 punctuated equilibrium, 87–8 al-Qaeda, 205, 210–11 Qatar, 198 quantum computing, 35 quantum physics, 29 quarantines, 12, 152, 176, 183, 246 R&D (research and development), 67–8, 113, 118 racial bias, 231 racism, 225, 231, 234 radicalisation pathways, 233 radiologists, 126 Raford, Noah, 43 Raz, Ze’ev, 195, 209 RB, 197 re-localisation, 11, 166–90, 253, 255 conflict and, 189, 193, 194, 209 Reagan, Ronald, 64, 163 religion, 6, 82, 83 resilience, 257 reskilling, 159–60 responsibility gap, 209 Restrepo, Pascual, 139 Reuters, 8, 56, 132 revolutions, 87 Ricardo, David, 169–70, 177 rights, 240–41 Rise of the Robots, The (Ford), 125 Rittenhouse, Kyle, 224 Roche, 67 Rockefeller, John, 93 Rohingyas, 224 Rome, ancient, 180 Rose, Carol, 243 Rotterdam, Netherlands, 56 Rule of Law, 82 running shoes, 102, 175–6 Russell, Stuart, 31, 118 Russian Federation, 122 disinformation campaigns, 203 Estonia cyberattacks (2007), 190–91, 200 Finland, relations with, 212 Nagorno-Karabakh War (2020), 206 nuclear weapons, 237 Ukraine cyberattacks (2017), 197, 199–200 US election interference (2016), 217 Yandex, 122 S-curve, 25, 30, 51, 52, 69–70 al-Sahhaf, Muhammad Saeed, 201 Salesforce, 108–9 Saliba, Samer, 184 salt, 114 Samsung, 93, 228 San Francisco, California, 181 Sandel, Michael, 218 Sanders, Bernard, 163 Sandworm, 197, 199–200, 211 Santander, 95 Sasson, Steve, 83 satellites, 56–7, 69 Saturday Night Fever (1977 soundtrack), 72 Saudi Arabia, 108, 178, 198, 203, 206 Schmidt, Eric, 5 Schwarz Gruppe, 67 Second Machine Age, The (Brynjolfsson and McAfee), 129 self-driving vehicles, 78, 134–5, 141 semiconductors, 18–22, 28–9, 48–9, 52, 113, 251 September 11 attacks (2001), 205, 210–11 Shamoon virus, 198 Shanghai, China, 56 Shannon, Claude, 18 Sharp, 16 Shenzhen, Guangdong, 182 shipping containers, 61–2, 63 shopping, 48, 61, 62, 75, 94, 102, 135 Siemens, 196 silicon chips, see chips Silicon Valley, 5, 7, 15, 24, 65, 110, 129, 223 Sinai Peninsula, 195 Sinclair ZX81, 15, 17, 21, 36 Singapore, 56 Singles’ Day, 48 Singularity University, 5 SixDegrees, 26 Skydio R1 drone, 208 smartphones, 22, 26, 46, 47–8, 65, 86, 88, 105, 111, 222 Smith, Adam, 169–70 sneakers, 102, 175–6 Snow, Charles Percy, 7 social credit systems, 230 social media, 26–8 censorship on, 216–17, 224–6, 236 collective bargaining and, 164 data collection on, 228 interoperability, 121, 237–8 market saturation, 25–8 misinformation on, 192, 201–4, 217, 247–8 network effect, 98, 223 polarisation and, 231–4 software as a service, 109 solar power, 37–8, 53, 65, 77, 82, 90, 171, 172, 173, 249, 250, 251 SolarWinds, 200 Solberg, Erna, 216 South Africa, 170 South Korea, 188, 198, 202 Southey, Robert, 80 sovereignty, 185, 199, 214 Soviet Union (1922–91), 185, 190, 194, 212 Spain, 170, 188 Spanish flu pandemic (1918–20), 75 Speedfactory, Ansbach, 176 Spire, 69 Spotify, 69 Sputnik 1 orbit (1957), 64, 83 stagflation, 63 Standard and Poor, 104 Standard Oil, 93–4 standardisation, 54–7, 61, 62 Stanford University, 32, 58 Star Wars franchise, 99 state-sized companies, 11, 67 see also superstar companies states, 82 stirrups, 44 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 208 Stockton, California, 160 strategic snowflakes, 211 stress tests, 237 Stuxnet, 196, 214 Sudan, 183 superstar companies, 10, 11, 67, 94–124, 218–26, 252, 255 blitzscaling, 110 collective bargaining and, 163 horizontal expansion, 111–12, 218 increasing returns to scale, 108–10 innovation and, 117–18 intangible economy, 104–7, 118, 156 interoperability and, 120–22, 237–9 monopolies, 114–24, 218 network effect, 96–101, 121 platform model, 101–3, 219 taxation of, 118–19 vertical expansion, 112–13 workplace cultures, 151 supply chains, 61–2, 166–7, 169, 175, 187, 252 surveillance, 152–3, 158 Surviving AI (Chace), 129 Sutskever, Ilya, 32 synthetic biology, 42, 46, 69, 174, 245, 250 Syria, 186 Taiwan, 181, 212 Talkspace, 144 Tallinn, Estonia, 190 Tang, Audrey, 212 Tanzania, 42, 183 TaskRabbit, 144 Tasmania, Australia, 197 taxation, 10, 63, 96, 118–19 gig economy and, 146 superstar companies and, 118–19 Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 150, 152, 153, 154 Tel Aviv, Israel, 181 telecom companies, 122–3 Tencent, 65, 104, 108, 122 territorial sovereignty, 185, 199, 214 Tesco, 67, 93 Tesla, 69, 78, 113 Thailand, 176, 203 Thatcher, Margaret, 64, 163 Thelen, Kathleen, 87 Thiel, Peter, 110–11 3D printing, see additive manufacturing TikTok, 28, 69, 159–60, 219 Tisné, Martin, 240 Tomahawk missiles, 207 Toyota, 95 trade networks, 61–2, 166–7, 169, 175 trade unions, see collective bargaining Trading Places (1983 film), 132 Tragedy of the Commons, The (Hardin), 241 transistors, 18–22, 28–9, 48–9, 52, 113, 251 transparency, 236 Treaty of Westphalia (1648), 199 TRS-80, 16 Trump, Donald, 79, 119, 166, 201, 225, 237 Tufekci, Zeynep, 233 Turing, Alan, 18, 22 Turkey, 102, 176, 186, 198, 202, 206, 231 Tversky, Amos, 74 23andMe, 229–30 Twilio, 151 Twitch, 225 Twitter, 65, 201, 202, 219, 223, 225, 237 two cultures, 7, 8 Uber, 69, 94, 102, 103, 106, 142, 144, 145 Assembly Bill 5 (California, 2019), 148 engineering jobs, 156 London ban (2019), 183, 188 London protest (2016), 153 pay at, 147, 156 satisfaction levels at, 146 Uber BV v Aslam (2021), 148 UiPath, 130 Ukraine, 197, 199 Unilever, 153 Union of Concerned Scientists, 56 unions, see collective bargaining United Arab Emirates, 43, 198, 250 United Autoworkers Union, 162 United Kingdom BBC, 87 Biobank, 242 Brexit (2016–20), 6, 168 collective bargaining in, 163 Covid-19 epidemic (2020–21), 79, 203 DDT in, 253 digital minilateralism, 188 drone technology in, 207 flashing of headlights in, 83 Golden Triangle, 170 Google and, 116 Industrial Revolution (1760–1840), 79–81 Luddite rebellion (1811–16), 125, 253 misinformation in, 203, 204 National Cyber Force, 200 NHS, 87 self-employment in, 148 telecom companies in, 123 Thatcher government (1979–90), 64, 163 United Nations, 87, 88, 188 United States antitrust law in, 114 automation in, 127 Battle of the Overpass (1937), 162 Capitol building storming (2021), 225 China, relations with, 166 Cold War (1947–91), 194, 212, 213 collective bargaining in, 163 Covid-19 epidemic (2020–21), 79, 202–4 Cyber Command, 200, 210 DDT in, 253 drone technology in, 205, 214 economists in, 63 HIPA Act (1996), 230 Kenosha unrest shooting (2020), 224 Lordstown Strike (1972), 125 manufacturing in, 130 misinformation in, 202–4 mobile phones in, 76 nuclear weapons, 237 Obama administration (2009–17), 205, 214 polarisation in, 232 presidential election (2016), 199, 201, 217 presidential election (2020), 202–3 Reagan administration (1981–9), 64, 163 self-employment in, 148 September 11 attacks (2001), 205, 210–11 shipping containers in, 61 shopping in, 48 solar energy research, 37 Standard Oil breakup (1911), 93–4 taxation in, 63, 119 Trump administration (2017–21), 79, 119, 166, 168, 201, 225, 237 Vietnam War (1955–75), 216 War on Terror (2001–), 205 universal basic income (UBI), 160, 189 universal service obligation, 122 University of Cambridge, 127, 188 University of Chicago, 63 University of Colorado, 73 University of Delaware, 55 University of Oxford, 129, 134, 203, 226 University of Southern California, 55 unwritten rules, 82 Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 194 UpWork, 145–6 USB (Universal Serial Bus), 51 Ut, Nick, 216 utility providers, 122–3 vaccines, 12, 202, 211, 245–7 Vail, Theodore, 100 value-free, technology as, 5, 220–21, 254 Veles, North Macedonia, 200–201 Véliz, Carissa, 226 Venezuela, 75 venture capitalists, 117 vertical expansion, 112–13, 116 vertical farms, 171–2, 251 video games, 86 Vietnam, 61, 175, 216 Virological, 245 Visa, 98 VisiCalc, 99 Vodafone, 121 Vogels, Werner, 68 Wag!


pages: 386 words: 112,064

Rich White Men: What It Takes to Uproot the Old Boys' Club and Transform America by Garrett Neiman

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, basic income, Bernie Sanders, BIPOC, Black Lives Matter, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carried interest, clean water, confounding variable, coronavirus, COVID-19, critical race theory, dark triade / dark tetrad, data science, Donald Trump, drone strike, effective altruism, Elon Musk, gender pay gap, George Floyd, glass ceiling, green new deal, high net worth, Home mortgage interest deduction, Howard Zinn, impact investing, imposter syndrome, impulse control, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, Jeffrey Epstein, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, knowledge worker, Larry Ellison, liberal capitalism, Lyft, Mahatma Gandhi, mandatory minimum, Mark Zuckerberg, mass incarceration, means of production, meritocracy, meta-analysis, Michael Milken, microaggression, mortgage tax deduction, move fast and break things, Nelson Mandela, new economy, obamacare, occupational segregation, offshore financial centre, Paul Buchheit, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, Ralph Waldo Emerson, randomized controlled trial, rent-seeking, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, subprime mortgage crisis, TED Talk, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, Travis Kalanick, trickle-down economics, uber lyft, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, War on Poverty, white flight, William MacAskill, winner-take-all economy, women in the workforce, work culture , working poor

Rachel Treisman, “California Program Giving $500 No-Strings-Attached Stipends Pays Off, Study Finds,” NPR, March 4, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/03/04/973653719/california-program-giving-500-no-strings-attached-stipends-pays-off-study-finds. 33. “Participant Story: Laura,” SEED, accessed October 8, 2022, https://www.stocktondemonstration.org/participant-stories/laura. 34. “A City Made the Case for Universal Basic Income. Dozens Are Following Suit,” PBS News Hour, December 27, 2020, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/a-city-made-the-case-for-universal-basic-income-dozens-are-following-suit. 35. Emily A. Shrider, Melissa Kollar, Frances Chen, and Jessica Semega, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2020, US Census Bureau, report no. P60-273, September 14, 2021, https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-273.html. 36.

In fact, the moment when the idea had the most traction—until perhaps recently—was when President Nixon proposed the Family Assistance Plan, which would have guaranteed every family of four $1,600 per year, at a time when the median household income was $7,400.19 It never came to pass, but yes, just a few decades ago, Republicans were advocating for a universal basic income—as well as reparations for the forced internment of Japanese Americans.20 Still, reducing poverty is not the same as abolishing the condition. While a variety of efforts in education, housing, economic development, health care, and other systems assist those in poverty, no program exists that formally puts an end to poverty.

In 1795, Thomas Paine, one of the intellectual architects of the American Revolution, proposed that a “groundrent” of fifteen pounds be paid to every individual upon turning twenty-one and ten pounds be paid every year after turning fifty. “Every person, rich or poor,” Paine argued, should receive the payments “to prevent invidious distinctions.”26 I first became interested in the idea of a universal basic income back in 2008 while I was a student at Stanford. Alex Berger, one of my classmates, had gotten involved in effective altruism, a philosophical and social movement that advocates for “using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis.”27 Alex told me about GiveDirectly, a nonprofit organization operating in East Africa—primarily Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda—that helps families living in extreme poverty by making unconditional cash transfers to them via mobile phone.28 The program has expanded significantly: in 2019, GiveDirectly provided a total of $33 million to forty thousand households.29 Part of what has enabled GiveDirectly’s growth is that the organization measures its impact using randomized control trials.


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The Wake-Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It by John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge

Admiral Zheng, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, basic income, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bike sharing, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, carbon tax, carried interest, cashless society, central bank independence, contact tracing, contact tracing app, Corn Laws, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, defund the police, Deng Xiaoping, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Etonian, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Future Shock, George Floyd, global pandemic, Internet of things, invisible hand, it's over 9,000, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", Jeremy Corbyn, Jones Act, knowledge economy, laissez-faire capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, lockdown, McMansion, military-industrial complex, night-watchman state, offshore financial centre, oil shock, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Parkinson's law, pensions crisis, QR code, rent control, Rishi Sunak, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, smart cities, social distancing, Steve Bannon, surveillance capitalism, TED Talk, trade route, Tyler Cowen, universal basic income, Washington Consensus

When British shops reopened, a cartoon in the Daily Telegraph showed a consumer, loaded down with goods, announcing, “Just charge it to Rishi Sunak,” Britain’s finance minister. The left wants more. Corbynistas and Sandersistas are having a merry time attaching all their favorite policies onto Covid-19 like so many baubles on a Christmas tree—radical redistribution here, universal basic income there. “The Corona crisis is not without its advantages,” says Ulrike Herrmann, a German anticapitalist. Some of this is silly, but two historically left-wing ideas are gathering admirers across the political spectrum: industrial policy and leveling up. In the eurozone, even before Covid, there was pressure to create companies big enough to compete with America’s and China’s behemoths.

All the same, there are two reasons why an even larger Leviathan will not (and indeed should not) last forever. The first is that, for all their current tolerance, the markets and taxpayers will not stomach it. When governments spent heavily after the financial crisis, a round of belt-tightening quickly followed. Austerity could happen again. Fantasies about universal basic income will not survive an era of postpandemic belt-tightening. Look at France: Bruno Le Maire, the finance minister, has already ruled out tax rises. Or look at Italy, the country that has been most successful in resisting reform in Europe. For the moment, the markets are lending it money. But at some point, the penny will drop (or perhaps it will be told to drop by Mrs.


pages: 289 words: 86,165

Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria

"there is no alternative" (TINA), 15-minute city, AlphaGo, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-fragile, Asian financial crisis, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, butterfly effect, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon tax, central bank independence, clean water, cloud computing, colonial rule, contact tracing, coronavirus, COVID-19, Credit Default Swap, David Graeber, Day of the Dead, deep learning, DeepMind, deglobalization, Demis Hassabis, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, Edward Jenner, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, failed state, financial engineering, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gentrification, George Floyd, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global reserve currency, global supply chain, green new deal, hiring and firing, housing crisis, imperial preference, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, invention of the wheel, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Snow's cholera map, junk bonds, lockdown, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, means of production, megacity, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, middle-income trap, Monroe Doctrine, Nate Silver, Nick Bostrom, oil shock, open borders, out of africa, Parag Khanna, Paris climate accords, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, popular capitalism, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, remote working, reserve currency, reshoring, restrictive zoning, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, social distancing, software is eating the world, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Suez crisis 1956, TED Talk, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, UNCLOS, universal basic income, urban planning, Washington Consensus, white flight, Works Progress Administration, zoonotic diseases

And yet it says something that Sanders would campaign openly as a socialist and that young people do not run away from that label. Meanwhile, on the right, prominent politicians think nothing of proposing large government relief programs. Self-described libertarian tech entrepreneurs embrace the idea of a universal basic income to ensure that even if robots and software leave most people jobless, they won’t be broke. Many taboos have been broken—and they have been broken because American capitalism itself is broken. THE PENDULUM SWINGS We often make the mistake of thinking that people support a political party because of deep-rooted agreement with its basic principles, values, and logic.

(Even McEwan’s prediction about poets is coming true: computer scientists are developing algorithms that can write literature.) Discussions about the “future of work” should recognize that the future is already with us. Philosophers used to theorize about how to keep people afloat once technology replaced a critical mass of jobs. Now, Covid-19 has forced countries to experiment with some kind of near-universal basic income. In the United States, this idea went mainstream in a matter of months—no longer just the quixotic quest of the underdog presidential candidate Andrew Yang but a proposal that, in a temporary form, was passed by Congress to stave off economic disaster. During the pandemic, governments concluded that, through no fault of their own, people could not earn money and so deserved to be paid for not working.

A big problem with technological revolutions, Keynes said, was that with so much of the work increasingly being done by technology, humans would have to find a sense of purpose. For human beings, especially men, work has historically given them an identity, a sense of accomplishment, and dignity. These are not irrelevant attributes. That’s why I have always found the idea of a universal basic income unsatisfying, preferring the expansion of a program like the Earned Income Tax Credit, which essentially tops up the wages of low-income workers. It incentivizes work but guards against immiseration. It’s an idea that has attracted support from the far Left as well as from libertarians. I’m convinced it is not as popular as other, less effective policies—like raising the minimum wage—because it is difficult to express simply and symbolically.


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The Job: The Future of Work in the Modern Era by Ellen Ruppel Shell

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", 3D printing, Abraham Maslow, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, airport security, Albert Einstein, AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, basic income, Baxter: Rethink Robotics, big-box store, blue-collar work, Buckminster Fuller, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, collective bargaining, company town, computer vision, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, data science, deskilling, digital divide, disruptive innovation, do what you love, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, Elon Musk, emotional labour, Erik Brynjolfsson, factory automation, follow your passion, Frederick Winslow Taylor, future of work, game design, gamification, gentrification, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, hiring and firing, human-factors engineering, immigration reform, income inequality, independent contractor, industrial research laboratory, industrial robot, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Jeff Bezos, Jessica Bruder, job automation, job satisfaction, John Elkington, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, labor-force participation, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, move fast and break things, new economy, Norbert Wiener, obamacare, offshore financial centre, Paul Samuelson, precariat, Quicken Loans, Ralph Waldo Emerson, risk tolerance, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Rodney Brooks, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thomas L Friedman, Thorstein Veblen, Tim Cook: Apple, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban renewal, Wayback Machine, WeWork, white picket fence, working poor, workplace surveillance , Y Combinator, young professional, zero-sum game

the “social vaccine of the 21st century” Critics point to a conflict of interest: rather than promote technology that contributes to general human flourishing, Silicon Valley elites favor UBI as a publicly supported solution that does not impede their profit-making activities. See, for example, Jathan Sadowski, “Why Silicon Valley Is Embracing Universal Basic Income,” Guardian, July 14, 2017, https://www.thegu­ardian.com/​technology/​2016/​jun/​22/​silicon-valley-universal-basic-income-y-combinator. an addictive public handout Predictions that a BIG (basic income guarantee) would result in many people laying around lazily are not supported by the evidence. In particular, Brazil’s subsistence-level BIG program has resulted in very little change in workforce participation.

Left-leaning sociologist Erik Olin Wright writes in Envisioning Real Utopias that the plan would “generate an incentive structure for employers to seek technical and organizational innovations that eliminate unpleasant work” and would result in “not just a labor-saving bias, but a labor-humanizing bias.” Libertarian Charles Murray agrees, though for different reasons—he believes BIG would eliminate the need for “unearned” entitlements, like Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment benefits. And as I’ve mentioned, Silicon Valley, too, enthusiastically supports the idea. “Universal basic income might be the most meaningful way we could subsidize the earliest stages of innovation,” venture capitalist Roy Bahat, the head of venture fund Bloomberg Beta, once enthused. “It could multiply, by many factors, the amount of time people can spend creating.” Other besotted enthusiasts have gone so far as to call BIG the “social vaccine of the 21st century.”

See, for example, Robert Gibbons and Rebecca Henderson, “Relational Contracts and Organizational Capabilities,” Organization Science 23, no. 5 (September–October 2012): 1350–64, http://dx.doi.org/​doi:10.1287/​orsc.1110.0715. “freeing him to do work he finds meaningful” Aditya Chakrabortty, “A Basic Income for Everyone? Yes, Finland Shows It Really Can Work,” Guardian, October 31, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/​comment­isfree/​2017/​oct/​31/​finland-universal-basic-income. less engaged in educational, religious, and political organizations Robert D. Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy 6, no. 1 (1995): 65–78, http://dx.doi.org/​doi:10.1353/​jod.1995.0002. a mere 18 percent of Americans “Public Trust in Government: 1958–2017,” Pew Research Center, May 3, 2017, http://www.people-press.org/​2017/​05/​03/​public-trust-in-government-1958-2017/.


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Tenants: The People on the Frontline of Britain's Housing Emergency by Vicky Spratt

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, basic income, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, British Empire, Buy land – they’re not making it any more, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, clean water, coronavirus, COVID-19, credit crunch, cryptocurrency, edge city, en.wikipedia.org, full employment, garden city movement, gender pay gap, gentrification, gig economy, global pandemic, housing crisis, Housing First, illegal immigration, income inequality, Induced demand, Jane Jacobs, Jeremy Corbyn, land bank, land reform, land value tax, lockdown, longitudinal study, low interest rates, mass immigration, mega-rich, meta-analysis, negative equity, Overton Window, Own Your Own Home, plutocrats, quantitative easing, rent control, Right to Buy, Rishi Sunak, Rutger Bregman, side hustle, social distancing, stop buying avocado toast, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, urban planning, urban renewal, working-age population, young professional, zero-sum game

Over the course of eleven days, between 17 and 27 March, as we all looked on in disbelief, the mood in Whitehall was, as a senior advisor at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) told me over WhatsApp, ‘careful and urgent’. A furlough scheme was quickly implemented to stop people losing their jobs. It was Universal Basic Income in all but name, and a high one at that – up to £2,500 a month, which is more than all the main people I interviewed for this book earned when I met them. The Treasury also moved quickly to shore up the mortgage market by convincing banks to give homeowners mortgage holidays to avert mass repossessions if people could no longer make their monthly payments because their income was impacted by the pandemic.

The survey also suggested that, post-Brexit, our views on social security and immigration were becoming significantly more liberal. There is a huge question mark hanging over what happens next, but we know this much: where the public go, politicians follow. In 2020, a YouGov poll found that, as well as a Universal Basic Income and the furlough scheme, there was public support for rent controls. The pollsters asked whether people supported a policy ‘where the government sets caps on what landlords can charge, or freezing rents’. This policy was supported by 74 per cent of the public, with just 8 per cent unsupportive.

The Overton Window shifts, the needle moves. We may yet find the ‘radical’ ideas of the former leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn – a four-day working week, nationalised universal broadband – adopted by the centre right. Stranger things have happened. We have already seen an iteration of Universal Basic Income – it was called the furlough scheme. Under crisis, the politically impossible can very quickly become possible. The progressive can be conservative when it is necessary and politically expedient. A More Compassionate Politics Is a loving and compassionate approach to housing policy anything other than common sense?


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The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind by Raghuram Rajan

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, airline deregulation, Albert Einstein, Andrei Shleifer, banking crisis, barriers to entry, basic income, battle of ideas, Bernie Sanders, blockchain, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Build a better mousetrap, business cycle, business process, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carl Icahn, central bank independence, computer vision, conceptual framework, corporate governance, corporate raider, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, currency manipulation / currency intervention, data acquisition, David Brooks, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, deskilling, disinformation, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Glaeser, facts on the ground, financial innovation, financial repression, full employment, future of work, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, household responsibility system, housing crisis, Ida Tarbell, illegal immigration, income inequality, industrial cluster, intangible asset, invention of the steam engine, invisible hand, Jaron Lanier, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, labor-force participation, Les Trente Glorieuses, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, Money creation, moral hazard, Network effects, new economy, Nicholas Carr, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, race to the bottom, Richard Thaler, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Sam Peltzman, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, SoftBank, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steve Jobs, superstar cities, The Future of Employment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade liberalization, trade route, transaction costs, transfer pricing, Travis Kalanick, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, Walter Mischel, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, working-age population, World Values Survey, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

Before we end this chapter, we need to discuss three issues. First, to what extent should some of the support beyond the Beveridge level of care, for those who have not saved money or paid for insurance, be decided and administered by the community? Second, should we prepare for increasing technological unemployment with schemes like a universal basic income? Third, how do we pay for the entitlements that have already been committed to, as well as the outstanding government debt, even before we embark on creating new entitlements? COMMUNITY-DETERMINED ADDITIONAL SUPPORT The basic level of economic support in case of unemployment, disability, or old age should have no conditions attached.

As we have discussed, the ICT revolution also allows for a greater flow of information to the state, which can offer a second line of defense against corruption. A MORE COMPREHENSIVE GOVERNMENT SUPPORT PLAN? Some want to go much further in providing support. One proposal has been gaining currency as societies anticipate massive joblessness from technological change. It is to give every adult in the country a universal basic income (UBI), which will be enough to live a decent life, with no questions asked. The difference from the basic support we discussed above is that UBI would be set at much higher levels, and paid to everyone regardless of need. There is an ongoing debate about whether those who fear technological unemployment are too pessimistic, underestimating the ability of markets and human ingenuity to find productive uses for unemployed humans.

., 137, 159–60, 292 inclusive civic nationalism, 297–99, 302 inclusive localism, xxii, 22, 285–87, 289–302, 327, 351, 394 income and wages, 90, 127, 152, 213, 388, 395, 396 dispersion across US cities, 220 of doctors, 388 Earned Income Tax Credit and, 345–46 economic segregation and, 307–9 effects of technology and trade on, 188–94 median wage, 189–91 occupational licensing and, 207 top one percent, 102, 191–94 universal basic income, 322–23 India, xxvi, xxviii, 19–20, 31, 113–15, 139, 144, 245, 246, 267–74, 287, 298, 317, 350, 391 affirmative action in, 300–302 bribery in, 312 China compared with, 247–48, 267, 269, 270, 275–76 corruption in, 272 cronyism in, 268, 269 decentralization in, 270, 272 democracy in, 268–70, 272–74 economic growth of villages in, 275 Finance Ministry in, 274 Indore, 335–37, 339, 344 land acquisition for public projects in, 275–76 liberalization in, 269–71, 273, 276 populism in, 272, 276–78 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in, xix, 277 socialism in, 267–69, 391 state, markets, and democracy in, 272–74 individualism, 194–96, 201, 284 Indore, 335–37, 339, 344 industrialization, 75, 88, 127, 275 Industrial Revolution(s), 16, 18, 26, 70, 74, 78, 84, 87, 91, 230 First, 116–17 Fourth, 117 handloom weavers and, 18–19, 116, 188 Second, 117–19, 122, 146, 147, 152, 153, 160–61 Third, 117 in U.S., 121 see also Information and Communications Technology (ICT) revolution inflation, 56–57, 163, 164, 366 Information and Communications Technology (ICT) revolution, xii–xiii, xxi, xxviii, 117, 148, 161, 162, 175–211, 213, 313, 321–22, 338, 340, 382, 393, 394 automation in, xii, xviii, 3, 143–44, 175, 178, 185–87, 314 communities and, xviii–xx, 176, 184–88 decentralization and, 312–13 interconnected world and, 350–51 jobs and, 143–44, 173, 175, 177–88, 395 trade and, 143–44, 173, 181–88 inheritance, 37, 45, 105 Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, An (Smith), 80 intellectual property, 73, 183, 278, 351, 362–63, 382–84 patents, 204–6, 362, 382–84 International Monetary Fund (IMF), xxvi, 146, 151, 270, 367, 368–69 international responsibilities, 363–67, 372, 397 internet, 117, 310 China and, 266, 350 community and, 330–35 political views and, 332–33 Ireland, 237, 238, 353–54 Italy, 145, 162, 303–4, 359 in European Union, 169 Montegrano, 12–14, 113, 227 in postwar period, 149, 152 Jackson, Andrew, 93 James I, King, 66–67 Jams II, King, 70 Janesville, Wisc., 341 Janesville (Goldstein), 186 Japan, 157, 160, 302, 368, 380 aging population in, 292–93 currency in, 366 immigration and, 292–93 income in, 191 in postwar period, 148, 153 protectionism in, 354 Jeffers, Jessica, 205 Jefferson, Thomas, 58 Jensen, Michael, 196 Jiang Zemin, 251 jobs, xii, xviii, 163, 164, 224, 343, 389, 395 African Americans and, 230–31 credentials and, 233–34, 317, 393 ICT revolution and, 143–44, 173, 175, 177–88, 395 and lump of labor fallacy, 180 mercantilism and, 62–63 occupational licensing and, 206–7, 387–88, 393 Second Industrial Revolution and, 122 see also income and wages; workers Johnson, Lyndon, 157–58, 229 Juncker, Jean-Claude, 172 Jungle, The (Sinclair), 104 Justice, US Department of, 202 Kahn, Alfred, 165 Kalanick, Travis, 196 Kaplan, Steve, 192 Katz, Bruce, 303 Kautilya, 31 Keynes, John Maynard, 154, 163, 395 Khan, Khizr, xxi Khilnani, Sunil, 298 Khodorkovsky, Mikhail, 111 Kim, Han, 220 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 157, 158, 397 Kleiner, Morris, 207 knowledge, diffusion of, 204–6 Krueger, Alan, 207 Kyoto Protocol, 365 laissez-faire, 77–78, 81, 83 landowners, 37, 58, 72, 74 gentry, 54–58, 64–66, 71, 72 Lasch, Christopher, 227 Latin America, 72, 93, 96 Lee Kuan Yew, 247 LEGO, 391 lending, see loans Le Pen, Marine, 236 Lerner, Josh, 362 Levine, David, 382–83 liberal democracy, 74–75 liberalism, 83, 160 liberalization, 206 in China, 248–67, 276 in India, 269–71, 273, 276 private sector’s reaction to, 194–201, 207–8 liberal market democracies, xiii, xx, xxvii libertarianism, 115 limited-access societies, 97–98 Lindsey, Brink, 205 loans, 44–45, 48 contract in, 29–31 see also usury lobbying, 378, 389 localism, xxi, xxviii, 285, 286, 303 inclusive, xxii, 22, 285–87, 289–302, 327, 351, 394 long-term benefits of, 303 location, importance of, 219–21 Long, Huey, 136 looms, 18–19, 116, 188 Louis XIV, King, 60, 65, 66 Luce, Edward, 227 Luther, Martin, 46 Madison, James, 97, 218 magnates, decline of, 53–54 Mahajan, Vijay, 337 Malthus, Thomas Robert, 83 Mann, Horace, 121 manufacturing, 152, 184–85, 206 Mao Zedong, 247–50 markets, xiii, xv, xvii–xviii, xx, xxii, xxvii–xxviii, 25–27, 50, 56, 77–106, 145, 154, 172, 173, 243–44, 283, 184, 285–87, 304, 393, 394 community adjustment to, 388–92 community and state buffers against volatility in, 127–38 community loss of faith in, 115–19 community values and, 390–92 competition in, see competition data in, 384–86 definition of, xiv democracy and, 106, 110 emerging, 245, 271; see also China; India fairness in, 115–16 freeing, 80–81 laissez-faire and, 77–78, 81, 83 liberalization of, see liberalization liberal market democracies, xiii, xx, xxvii perceived legitimacy of players in, 110–12 philosophy for, 81–84 reforming, 373–92 separation from community, xiv–xv state and, 304 transactions in, 3, 4 unbridled, 84–87 see also trade marriage, 231, 235 Marshall Plan, 149–51, 365 marshmallow test, 222–23 Marx, Karl, 49, 78, 87–91 Marxism, 87–91, 112, 115, 249, 287 Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding (Moynihan), 158 McClure’s Magazine, 103 McKinley, William, 106 McLean, Malcolm, 181 meatpacking industry, 104, 107–8 Medicare, 241, 324 mercantilism, 62–65, 80 Merchant of Venice, The (Shakespeare), 30 meritocracy, 390, 393 children and, 224–25, 228 in China, 257, 265 Merkel, Angela, 241 military technologies, 42–44, 51, 53 Mill, Harriet, 81 Mill, John Stuart, 81–83 minorities, 218, 219, 289, 296–97 affirmative action and, 300–302 see also African Americans; immigration, immigrants Mischel, Walter, 223 misery index, 163 Mitterand, François, 168 Mokyr, Joel, 20, 21 monarchy, 51–53, 56–59, 61–63, 65, 73 monasteries, 54, 57, 72 moneylending, see loans Monnet, Jean, 154 monopolies, 58–62, 64, 80, 81, 87, 91, 97, 99, 105, 106, 108, 109, 112, 201–7, 283, 379–82 antitrust laws and, 101, 103–4, 381–82 Montegrano, 12–14, 113, 227 Moore, Barrington, 73 Moretti, Enrico, 220 Morgan, John Pierpont, 99, 104 Morse, Adair, 220 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 158, 340 multilateral institutions, 367–70 Murphy, Kevin, 196 Murray, Charles, 227 muskets, 42–43 Muslims, 21, 35, 36, 241, 242, 272, 277 Napoleon I, 126 nationalism, xvii, 64, 184, 330, 397 civic, 297–99, 302 ethnic, 215–17; see also populist nationalism mercantilism and, 63 populist, see populist nationalism Nation at Risk, A, 232–33 nation-states, 26, 42, 50, 51–52, 61–62 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 267, 270, 287, 298 neighborhoods, 297 isolation index and, 333 sorting and, see residential sorting see also community Netville, 331–32 Neumann, Franz, 112 New Deal, 134–35 New Localism, The (Katz and Nowak), 303 news consumption, and diversity of opinions, 332–33 New York Times, 19, 98, 218, 387 Nixon, Richard, 98, 108 North, Douglass, 70, 97 Nowak, Jeremy, 303 Obama, Barack, xvii, 158, 235, 240 India visited by, 273 Obama, Michelle, 240 Obamacare, 144, 214, 239–41 Oceana (Harrington), 58 oil industry, 84–86, 99, 103, 107, 111 Oliver, Douglas, 9 one percent, 102, 191–94 On Liberty (Mill), 81–83 open-access societies, 98 Opium Wars, 349–50 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 189–90 Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America (Fallows and Fallows), 344 Owen, Robert, 88 Owens, Ann, 226 Papal Revolution, 38, 40 parents, 222–31, 343 Paris Agreement, 365 parliaments, 77, 78–79 English, 57, 60–62, 65–70, 74, 77, 84, 105 patents, 204–6, 362, 382–84 patriotism, 298 peasants, 37–38, 73, 74, 78 see also feudalism, feudal communities Peltzman, Sam, 202 Perez, Carlotta, 118 Petersen, Mitchell, 15, 219 pharmaceutical drugs and companies, 183, 184, 204, 354, 362–63, 384 Physiocrats, 77 Piketty, Thomas, 191 Pilsen community, xxii–xxvi, 12, 298, 344, 381 Pirenne, Henri, 45 plague (Black Death), 40, 41–42 Polanyi, Karl, 84 police officers, 312 politics: conflict over, 234–36 isolation index and, 332–33 left-wing, xiii, xix, xxvii, 214, 217, 394 right-wing, xiii, xix, 214–17, 394 Polybius, 118 population aging, 260, 284, 286, 292–93, 324, 342–43, 348, 396 population diversity, see diversity population growth, 83, 152, 162–63 populism, xiii, xix, xxviii, 63, 136, 137, 211, 213–44, 284 in China, 276–79 and conflict over values and politics, 234–36 in Europe, 241–43 Global Financial Crisis and, 236–43 growing divide and, 218–19 in India, 272, 276–78 left-wing, 214, 217 Obamacare and, 239–41 Populist movement at turn of nineteenth century, 23, 26, 79, 98–101, 102, 105–6, 112, 244, 265 reemergence in the industrial West, 213–44 right-wing, 214–17 types of, 214–18 populist nationalism, xiii, xix–xx, xxi, xxvii, 144, 216–17, 241–44, 246, 276–79, 286, 289, 295–300, 302, 352, 353 in China, 276–79 in Europe, 241–43 in India, 276–78 why it cannot work, 296–97 Populist Revolt, The (Hicks), 99 Portugal, 148, 238 Poterba, James, 140 poultry farms, 354–55, 357 poverty, 396 African Americans and, 157 Elberfeld system of assistance, 129–31, 320 War on, 158, 160, 229 Powell, Enoch, 159 presidential election of 2016, 235, 236, 333, 354 Price, Brendan, 185 Princeton University, 125 printing press, 41–42, 46 private sector, 107–8, 111, 139, 147, 283, 284, 352, 371 liberalization and, 194–201, 207–8 Progressives, 26, 79, 98–99, 102–6, 112, 124, 134, 137, 244, 265 property, 26, 52, 57, 58, 74, 79, 83, 103, 115, 352, 362, 374, 394 competition and, 286 intellectual, see intellectual property land, see landowners taxes on, 121, 123 as theft, 110–11 protectionism, 108, 258–59, 278, 306, 353–56, 364 Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, The (Weber), 47 Protestant Reformation, 40–41, 47, 49 Protestants, 48, 49 public hearings, 389–90 Putnam, Robert, 227, 334 Quakers, 16–17, 230 race, see ethnicity and race race to the bottom, 358–60 railroad industry, 85, 87, 99, 101 Ramanathan, Swati, 312 Ramcharan, Rodney, 72 ranchers, 9–10, 11 Rand, Ayn, 80, 391 R&D, 183–84 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), xix, 277 Rauh, Joshua, 192 Rawls, John, 115 Raymundo, Raul, xxiii, xxvi Reagan, Ronald, 165, 194, 232 Reeves, Richard, 224 Reformation, 40–41, 47, 49 regulation(s), 103–5, 107–8, 165, 172 antitrust, 202 of banks, 358–60 communities and, 285, 304, 306–7, 341, 357 competition and, 165, 387–88 deregulation, 165–67, 194, 197 harmonization of, 354–63, 365, 371 relief efforts, 131–33, 135 see also safety nets religion, 49, 51, 64 Protestant Reformation, 40–41, 47, 49 Protestants, 48, 49 see also Catholic Church Republicans, 235–36 residential sorting, 144, 177, 222, 227, 314 by income, 307–9 race and immigration and, 229–31 resources, policies on, 365 Resurrection Project, xxiii–xxvi Ritter, Jay, 201 Robinson, James, 94 Rockefeller, John D., 84–91, 98, 103, 104, 108, 200 Rodgers, Daniel, 334 Rodrik, Dani, 364–65, 371 Roman Republic, 58 Romney, Mitt, 235 Roosevelt, Franklin, 134–37, 156 Roosevelt, Theodore, 106 Rosen, Sherwin, 193 Russell, John, 95 Russia, 97, 287, 292, 354, 369 wealthy in, 111 Saez, Emmanuel, 191 safety nets, 139, 173, 290 caregivers and, 319–20 community and, 127–38, 318–25 in Europe, 156 government support in, 322–24 health care, see health care paying for, 324–25 for peasants, 37–38 in U.K., 155–56 in U.S., 133–34, 156, 157–58, 320–21, 324 welfare, 129, 137, 148, 158, 230 Salam, Reihan, 235 Sandel, Michael, 389–90 Sanders, Bernie, 214 Satyanath, Shaker, 112 schools, see education and schools Schumpeter, Joseph, 203, 379 Schwartz, Heather, 225–26 science, 21 “Second Coming, The” (Yeats), 141 Second Federal Bank, xxv SeeClickFix, 311–12 Sen, Amartya, 287 Shakespeare, William, 30 Shapiro, Jesse, 332–33 Share Our Wealth Society plan, 136 Shleifer, Andrei, 197 Sinclair, Upton, 104 Singapore, 247, 291, 318 Singh, Manish, 336 Singh, Manmohan, 270 Siuai people, 9 smartphones, 175, 178, 182–83 Smith, Adam, 17, 64, 77, 80–81, 83, 84, 87, 91, 105, 200 Smoot Hawley Act, 138 socialism, 132, 138, 145–47, 168, 250 in India, 267–69, 391 socializing the young, 5–7 social media, 330, 354, 386 social relationships, 7–8 social safety nets, see safety nets Social Security, 134–38, 187, 241, 324 Sokoloff, Kenneth, 72, 96 sorting, see residential sorting South Sea Company, 68, 69–70 sovereignty, 349–72 and controlling flows, 351–54 and harmonization of regulation, 354–63 Soviet Union, 91, 145–47, 153–54, 250, 251, 267, 287, 367 Spain, 148, 162, 169, 237, 238, 353–54 Spence, Michael, 234 stagflation, 163 Standard Oil, 86, 99, 103, 107 Stanford marshmallow test, 222–23 state, xiii, xv, xvii–xviii, xx–xxi, xxvii–xxviii, 25–27, 50, 139, 140, 172, 283–86, 304, 393 anti-state ideology and, 176 buffers against market volatility, 127–38 Church and, 45–46 community and, 303–25, 345–46 constitutionally limited, 52–74, 83 definition of, xiii–xiv growth of, 145 international responsibilities and, 363–67, 372, 397 laissez-faire and, 77–78, 81, 83 markets and, 304 relief efforts from, 131–33 separation from community, xiv–xv strong but limited, rise of, 51–75 sustainable financing for, 65–71 steel industries, 87, 99, 122, 185, 186, 253, 261, 338, 364, 366 European Coal and Steel Community, 150 student loans, 317–18 suffrage, see voting, suffrage Summers, Larry, 197 Supreme Court, U.S., 103, 384 Sweden, 138 Swift, Taylor, 193 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, 66 Tarbell, Ida, 103, 200 tariffs, 61, 63–64, 80–81, 100, 108, 138, 150–51, 164, 181–83, 217, 242, 258–59, 271, 277, 352–53, 356, 363, 364, 366, 371 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 146, 150, 353 Tawney, Richard, 34–35, 46 taxes, 59, 61–62, 102–5, 156–57, 163–64, 206, 308–9, 364 for education, 121, 123 property, 121, 123 tax holidays, 341 tax incentives, 345 on towns, 59–60 universal basic income and, 322–23 tax preparation, 179, 180 Tea Party movement, 239–41, 242, 333 technology, xii, xxviii, 117, 160–62, 175–76, 283, 284, 286, 287 automation in, 18, 84, 179, 180, 284 China and, 261–62, 278 community and, 119, 335, 344–45 disruptive change from, xii–xiii, xix education and, 122–23 feudal community and, 41–42 financial crises and, 118 incomes and, 188–94 job losses from, xii, xviii public anxiety about, 116–18 winner-take-most effects of, 191–94 see also Industrial Revolution; Information and Communications Technology revolution Teles, Steven, 205 Thatcher, Margaret, 165–66, 194 three pillars, xiii, 25–27, 393, 394 balance between, xvii–xviii, 175, 394 see also community; markets; state Tiananmen Square protests, 250–51 Tiv people, 7–8 Tönnies, Ferdinand, 3–4 totalitarian regimes, 97 trade, 62–64, 80–81, 143, 146, 149–51, 154, 160, 164–65, 172, 181, 245, 271, 283, 307, 352–53, 363, 371 “beggar thy neighbor” policies and, 364 communications costs and, 181, 182 communities and, xviii–xx, 335, 352 European, with Muslim lands, 36 ICT revolution and, 143–44, 173, 181–88 incomes and, 188–94 protectionism and, 108, 258–59, 278, 306, 353–56, 364 tariffs and, see tariffs transportation costs and, 181–82 Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS), 362 training and socializing the young, 5–7 transactions: in communities, 3, 8–9, 10–11 market, 3, 4 Trotsky, Leon, 90 Trump, Donald, 235 Truly Disadvantaged, The (Wilson), 230 Turkey, xix, 97, 167, 190, 245 Uber, 196 Unified Payments Interface (UPI), 386 unions, 165, 198, 206, 360, 361 United Kingdom, 173 Companies Act in, 377 health care in, 156 income in, 191, 192 in Opium Wars, 349–50 safety net in, 155–56 United Nations, 367 United States, 143, 145, 149, 246, 298 African Americans in, see African Americans agriculture in, 184 China and, 278 Civil War in, 74, 93, 133–34 competitive market in, 98–105 Constitution of, 71 diversity in population of, 134 financial crises in, 87–88, 118 GI Bill in, 156, 157 Gilded Age in, 87 gold standard in, 100 government debt in, 324 growth of, 148, 162 health care in, 158, 203 hegemony of, 148, 367–69 immigration and, 137, 159–60, 292 Industrial Revolution in, 121 manufacturing in, 184–85 Marshall Plan of, 149–51, 365 in postwar period, 148 presidential election of 2016, 235, 236, 333, 354 safety net in, 133–34, 157–58, 320–21, 324 schools in, 119–25, 127, 190–91, 233–34, 317 South of, 72, 74 Supreme Court, 103, 384 voting rights in, 92–93, 96 Western settlers in, 72, 99–100 universal basic income (UBI), 322–23 universities, see colleges and universities University of Chicago, xxiii, xxvi, 87, 124–25, 164, 290–91 University of Rochester, 223 usury: Catholic Church and, 34–42, 44–46, 49 favorable public attitudes toward, 44 intellectual support for ban on, 39–40 prohibition on, 31–32 rationale for proscribing, 32–34 values: community, and tolerance for markets, 390–92 conflict over, 234–36 Virginia, 58 Voigtländer, Nico, 112 Volcker, Paul, 163 Voth, Hans-Joachim, 112 voting and suffrage, xxvii, 26, 79, 105 extension of franchise, 91–98 wages, see income and wages Wallis, John, 97 Washington Post, 108 wealth, 111, 395–96 Wealth of Nations, The (Smith), 80 weavers, 18–19, 116, 188 Weber, Max, 47, 38 Weingast, Barry, 70, 97–98 welfare, 129, 137, 148, 158, 230 Wellman, Andrew, 331 Whigs, 67, 95 William of Orange, 67 Wilson, William Junius, 230, 231 Wilson, Woodrow, 125 Wolf, Martin, 355 workers, 75, 78, 79, 87, 89, 97, 127–28 education and capabilities of, 313–18 insurance plans for, 132 rights of, 360–61 strikes by, 102 unions for, 165, 198, 206, 360, 361 see also income and wages; jobs working at a distance, 219, 220 World Bank, 151, 253–54 World Trade Organization (WTO), 353, 356, 362 World Values Survey, 297 World War I, 103, 112, 124 World War II, xxvii, 138, 139, 140, 143, 145, 146, 155–57, 210, 243, 367 Marshall Plan and, 149–51, 365 postwar period, 148–54 Wulf, Julie, 193 Xi Jinping, 261, 278 Xiushui Market, 255 Yeats, W.


pages: 651 words: 162,060

The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions by Greta Thunberg

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accounting loophole / creative accounting, air freight, Alfred Russel Wallace, Anthropocene, basic income, Bernie Sanders, biodiversity loss, BIPOC, bitcoin, British Empire, car-free, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, circular economy, clean water, cognitive dissonance, coronavirus, COVID-19, David Attenborough, decarbonisation, degrowth, disinformation, energy transition, Extinction Rebellion, Food sovereignty, global pandemic, global supply chain, Global Witness, green new deal, green transition, Greta Thunberg, housing crisis, Indoor air pollution, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, land tenure, late capitalism, lockdown, mass immigration, megacity, meta-analysis, microplastics / micro fibres, military-industrial complex, Naomi Klein, negative emissions, ocean acidification, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, out of africa, phenotype, planetary scale, planned obsolescence, retail therapy, rewilding, social distancing, supervolcano, tech billionaire, the built environment, Thorstein Veblen, TikTok, Torches of Freedom, Tragedy of the Commons, universal basic income, urban sprawl, zoonotic diseases

Kirsten Mullen have endorsed a strategy rooted in direct payments to African Americans descended from those enslaved in the US, to be governed by a National Reparations Board that would empower recipients to research and make decisions about the funds. Scholar and organizer Dorian Warren, of the Economic Security Project, has proposed a universal basic income for all which would add an additional amount for African Americans to account for the owed reparations. Beyond the US, others have also suggested a global universal basic income, which could be weighted along the lines Warren suggests. Unconditional transfers of cash aren’t just for individuals or households. Redirecting the historic currents of capital can – and must – also happen at the level of countries and multinational institutions.

D. 375 human exceptionalism, 416, 417 humidity, 60, 97, 101, 134, 137–8, 144, 167, 192 hunter gatherers, 21–2 hunting, 9, 10, 51, 107 hurricanes, 7, 26, 62, 160, 163, 170, 219, 356, 379; Hurricane Harvey (2017), 68, 193, 194–5; Hurricane Ida (2021), 159, 379; Hurricane Irma (2017), 170; Hurricane Katrina (2005), 159; Hurricane Sandy (2012), 68, 191 hydrates, 118, 119, 121 hydrogen, 7, 34, 226, 228, 229, 261, 268, 271, 288 hydrological cycle, 186 hydropower, 228 I Ice ages, 10, 14, 15, 18, 33, 72, 74, 80, 81, 84, 118, 119 ice-albedo feedback, 37, 62, 121 Iceland, air carbon removal plant in, 216–17, 218 ice, melting, 3; Antarctica, 33, 38, 39, 72, 76–7, 80, 82, 85, 91, 114, 124; Arctic, 24, 33, 38, 39, 51, 62–6, 63, 64, 76–7, 91, 93, 114, 115, 124, 173–5, 233; Greenland Ice Sheet 38, 39, 46–7, 49, 72–3, 76, 77, 80, 82, 91, 120, 204; Ronne ice shelf, 77; sea-level rise and, 36, 72–3, 80–81, 83, 124–5; West Antarctic Ice Sheet 38, 39 iDentity barrier, 337, 338 imidacloprid, 111 imported goods, 4, 156, 224, 257, 297, 389, 406, 406, 430, 434 incomes: associated lifestyle emissions 4, 406–7; carbon taxes and, 408–9; climate change division along lines of, 208; GDP and see GDP; guaranteeing during just transition, 393, 394–5; inequality, 182–5, 405–9; national income losses, climate change and 184, 185; redistribution, decarbonization and, 405–9; sacrifice zones and, 163; universal basic income, 412; waste and, 291, 292, 292. See also wealth India, 28, 38, 69, 88–9, 151, 152–3, 155, 183, 183, 258, 259, 296, 297, 308, 315, 397, 413 Indigenous peoples: agriculture and traditional knowledge, 172, 420; Amazon rainforest and, 176–7; ‘biodiversity hot spots’ and, 417–18; Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) communities, 163, 392; Chad pastoralists advocate for ancestral agroecological practices, 177, 178–9; climate justice leadership, elevating voices in, 418–19; colonialism and, 162, 387–8, 399–400, 411; COP26 and, 204; ‘divest-invest’ strategies, 412; drought and, 399; environmental philosophy, 420; front-line communities, 392; geoengineering and, 234; as land defenders, 49; land management of, 107; Lumad, 401; rewilding and, 351; Sámi see Sámi individual action, 5, 278, 283, 284, 324–43, 426, 433–4; activism see activism; apathy, overcoming climate, 337–9; boycotts, 327; buying/using less, 434; culture wars, avoiding, 433; diet and, 340–43, 433–4; democracy, defending, 433; education, self- 324–7, 433; influential/high-profile public figures committing to personal actions, 329; lifestyles, 1.5 °C, 331–6; most affected people in the most affected areas (MAPA) and, 433; personal responsibility for climate change, fossil fuel industry role in promoting idea of, 29, 326–7, 330; scepticism and, 434; systematic change and, 327 Indonesia, 14, 258, 282, 296, 313–17, 383, 384–5, 408–9 Industrial Revolution, 18, 19, 22, 24, 50, 155, 162, 219, 344, 372, 392, 411 industry: disconnection from public consciousness, 260; electrifying industrial processes, 260–61; industrial chemicals, 53, 121, 237; industrial inertia on decarbonization, 258; mapping emissions in, 256–9, 257, 258, 259 inequality, 42; climate change linked to, 42, 132, 138, 182–5, 184, 316, 358, 389, 398; climate reparations and, 410–14, 429; economic growth and, 133; EVs and, 272; fascism and, 181; geopolitics and, 316; Global North and Global South see Global North and Global South; individual carbon rights and, 407–8; just transition and, 377, 390, 391, 395, 396; middle class, rise of global and, 282; redistribution and, 405–9, 406; taxes and see taxes; urbanized populations and, 138–9; vector-borne disease and, 143; World Inequality Database, 406; World Inequality Report (2022), 407 inertia, 79, 220–21, 258 infectious disease: Covid-19 see Covid-19; Great Dying and, 387; green barrier against spread of, 101; nutrient reductions and, 149–50; zoonotic, 133 influential/high-profile public figures committing to personal actions, 329 information, consumption of, 286 Informed Citizens for the Environment, 30 insects, 104, 108, 110–12, 113, 114, 115, 144, 150, 172, 360, 378 Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), 30 Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), 187 insurance rates, 193 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 36, 40, 52, 57–8, 97, 125, 171, 192, 324, 337, 372, 380, 402; First Assessment Report (1990), 26, 28, 39, 204, 205, 235, 337; founded, 20, 26, 157; Third Assessment Report (2001), 39–40, 39, 373; Fifth Assessment Report (2014) 39; Sixth Assessment Report (2021/22), 37–8, 39, 68, 80–81, 158, 427–8 internally displaced people, 167, 181, 187, 188 International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), 269 International Energy Agency (IEA), 228, 261, 272, 298, 306; Covid-19 recovery plan estimates, 217; Energy Technology Perspectives report (2020), 260–61; net zero scenario for CCS capture, 261, 263, 264; World Energy Outlook, 260 International Maritime Organization (IMO), 269 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 217, 383 international travel, 146, 380 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 90 interpersonal influence, 328–9 Irma, hurricane (2017), 170 iron, dietary, 149, 150, 151 iron/iron ore production, 256, 261, 388 irrigation, 10, 55, 73, 168, 171, 183, 245, 246, 255, 341, 342, 343, 402 J Japan, 62, 65, 86, 90, 258, 269, 270, 297, 304 jet stream, 62–6, 63, 64 jobs: exploitation of workers, 362; green, 42, 312, 338, 346, 351, 392–3; just transition and, 377, 391, 392–3; no worker left behind principle, 393, 394; retraining, 376, 393 Jokkmokk, 173–4 Jones, Bryan, 167 journalism, 155, 435 just transition, 187, 377, 390–95, 401 K Kavango Basin, 399–400 Keep America Beautiful lobby group, 295 Kenya, 149–50, 402–4, 413 Keynes, John Maynard, 382 keystone species, 349 Klemetsrud waste facility CCS plant, Norway, 262 Koch brothers, 221 Kolkata, India, 414 Kolyuchin, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russian Federation 125, 126–7 Kyoto Protocol (1997), 27, 28, 92, 156, 269 L Lakota people, 387 land theft, 42, 394 land-fill, 87, 140, 281, 282, 291, 294, 296, 297, 333, 425 landslide, 91, 291 land use management, 91, 244–7, 246; agriculture and, 244–55, 246, 249, 250, 251; biodiversity loss and, 109, 212; food systems and, 248–55, 249, 250, 251; forested areas, 99, 103, 230, 245, 246; mixed use, 253, 254; reflectance, 55; wildfires and, 96, 99 La Niña, 64, 166 lawsuits, big polluter, 280 Leishmaniasis, 143 liability, climate change, 159, 357 life expectancy, 292, 386–7 Lindqvist, Sven: Exterminate all the Brutes, 388 lobbying, 30, 218, 222, 227, 295, 296, 338, 370 locusts, 149, 156, 378 logging, 100, 102, 325, 356 Lumad, 401 M Maathai, Wangari 402–4 Magnitogorsk, Russia, 213, 214–15 maize, 149, 165, 166, 192, 250, 254, 402 Malaysia, 297, 425 Mali, 172 Manabe, Syukuro, 23, 23n, 25, 306, 382 Manchin, Joe, 221 mangroves, 85, 151, 152–3, 253, 317, 318–19, 345, 346, 350 manure, 140–41, 248, 252–3 Maria, hurricane, 170 marine protected areas, 347 Markey, Ed, 382 Marshall, Alfred, 331, 333, 335 material efficiency strategies, 259, 264 material footprints, national, 311, 311 Mauritian dodo, 9 Mayan Forest, 417 McNeill, J.

See also forests U Uganda, 273, 357, 398 UK: carbon dioxide emissions from territorial and consumption-based accounting perspectives 258; climate leadership claim, 27, 156; Climate Change Committee, 306; cumulative carbon dioxide emissions per capita (1850–2020) 155; economy and lowering of territorial carbon dioxide emissions, 306; insect declines and, 110; keystone species in, 349; media in, 369; nuclear power in, 229; pork and beef consumption in, 250; Royal Society in, 30; Selby Drax power plant carbon dioxide emissions, 92; transport carbon dioxide emissions and, 267, 272, 273, 274; vulnerability to impacts of climate change, 159–60; waste in, 297–9 Ukraine, Russian invasion of (2022), 356 Unilever, 295, 297 uninhabitable areas, 166, 167, 170, 192 United Nations (UN), 25, 218; biodiversity, report on declining (2019), 417; ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ to decarbonize principle, 257; Convention on Biological Diversity, 234; Copenhagen climate summit (2009) 28, 337; Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 418; Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro (1992), 20, 26, 204, 206, 240; Emissions Gap report, 301; Environment Programme (UNEP) Agenda 21, 90; fishing subsidies and, 345; Framework Convention on Climate Change, 26, 28, 306; Green Climate Fund, 412; High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 187; IPCC and see Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); Kyoto Protocol (1997), 27, 28, 92, 156, 269; nationally determined contributions (NDC), 308–9; New York climate summit (2018), 354; New York declaration (2014), 90; Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 187; Paris Agreement and see Paris Agreement; poll on perceptions of climate change as a global emergency, 405; Sustainable Development Goals, 90, 135; World Food Programme (WFP), 168 universal basic income, 412 universal basic services, 333, 334 uranium mining, 229, 413 urbanization/urban population, 135, 137, 139, 146, 291, 292, 341 United States of America: aerosol emissions in, 58; African Americans, 163, 164, 412; American Clean Energy and Security Act (2009), 30; Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) communities, 163; car use in, 220–21; carbon dioxide emissions fall in, 224; carbon dioxide emissions from territorial and consumption-based accounting perspectives 258; carbon dioxide emission inequalities, 406, 407; cold spell, south-central states (2021), 25, 62, 65; Congress, 26–7, 306; consumerism, 281, 282, 284, 287; Covid stimulus, 381, 382–3; cumulative carbon dioxide emissions per capita (1850–2020) 155; deforestation, 14; diets, 250, 342; drought, 62; electric vehicle use, 272; GDP per capita (2019) 184; Global South and, 163–4; health care carbon footprint, 334; heatwaves, 25, 50, 65; historical carbon dioxide emissions, 163–4; hurricanes see hurricanes; Kyoto Protocol and, 27; migration and, 167, 168; net zero emissions by 2050 target and, 21; oil production, 93, 217; Paris Agreement and, 28, 141; per capita carbon dioxide emissions, 4; pesticide use, 111; plastic waste, 295–6, 298; recycling, 295–6; sacrifice zones, 163, 416; Senate, 25, 382; Swedish emigration to, 387–8; temperate forests, 103, 104, 105, 105; UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and, 26–7; universal basic income concept and, 412; violent personal crime 190; wildfires, 98, 130–31, 133, 378 V Vector-borne disease, 134, 143–6, 183 vested interests, 221, 234, 367 violent conflicts, 88–9 volatile organic compounds, 53, 55 volcanoes, 6–7, 8, 313, 314 voluntary carbon offsetting, 269–70 voting, 20, 284, 326, 364, 374, 420, 424 W Walking, 135, 273 Warren, Dorian, 412 Warehouse to Bowl, transforming worldview from, 419 waste: agricultural, 99, 140; food, 244, 247, 251, 252, 253, 255; management, 87, 155, 281, 290–300, 363, 414; plastic see plastic; projected total waste generation by region (2020–50) 293; projected waste generation per capita (2020–50) by income 292; recycling and see recycling water: conflicts over, 88–9; food production and, 248, 249, 249, 252, 342, 343; hydropower, 228; peak, 89; quality, 10, 96, 148, 155, 246, 340, 341, 392; scarcity, 3, 52, 73, 134, 167, 170, 171, 172, 186–7, 248, 407–8; use, 13, 32, 35, 88–9, 247; vapour, 24, 67, 75 wealth: climate change effects and inequalities in, 182–5, 184; climate change linked to inequalities in, 42, 132, 138, 182–5, 184, 316, 358, 389, 398; climate reparations and inequalities in, 410–14, 429; consumerism and, 264, 282–3; Global North and Global South and see Global North and Global South; individual carbon rights and, 407–8; individual inequalities in and individual carbon dioxide emissions, 3, 4, 132, 154, 159, 161, 208, 282–3, 329–30, 331–2, 369, 393–4, 405–9, 408, 432; just transition and, 377, 390, 391, 395, 396; middle class, rise of global and, 282; national inequalities in and national carbon dioxide emissions, 154–5, 159, 206, 207, 304, 308–12, 358, 389, 393–4, 406, 412; redistribution of, 405–9; taxes on, 312, 393, 402, 409; tax havens and, 412, 424; transfer from north to south, 393; wealth group contribution to world emissions (2019) 406; World Inequality Database, 406; World Inequality Report (2022), 407.


pages: 294 words: 96,661

The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity by Byron Reese

"World Economic Forum" Davos, agricultural Revolution, AI winter, Apollo 11, artificial general intelligence, basic income, bread and circuses, Buckminster Fuller, business cycle, business process, Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon: information theory, clean water, cognitive bias, computer age, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, dark matter, DeepMind, Edward Jenner, Elon Musk, Eratosthenes, estate planning, financial independence, first square of the chessboard, first square of the chessboard / second half of the chessboard, flying shuttle, full employment, Hans Moravec, Hans Rosling, income inequality, invention of agriculture, invention of movable type, invention of the printing press, invention of writing, Isaac Newton, Islamic Golden Age, James Hargreaves, job automation, Johannes Kepler, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John von Neumann, Kevin Kelly, lateral thinking, life extension, Louis Pasteur, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, Mary Lou Jepsen, Moravec's paradox, Nick Bostrom, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, OpenAI, pattern recognition, profit motive, quantum entanglement, radical life extension, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, Rodney Brooks, Sam Altman, self-driving car, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Skype, spinning jenny, Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, strong AI, technological singularity, TED Talk, telepresence, telepresence robot, The Future of Employment, the scientific method, Timothy McVeigh, Turing machine, Turing test, universal basic income, Von Neumann architecture, Wall-E, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration, Y Combinator

The problem won’t be a lack of money, but an unstable distribution of it. Finally, if possibility three happens, then we won’t see unrest because we don’t see widespread unrest now. The situation in possibility three is like that of the present, only with us all wealthier. Universal Basic Income Why are poor people poor? Well, call me Princeton Pete, but I would maintain they are poor because they don’t have any money. The universal basic income (UBI) is a direct antidote to that. It is, as the name suggests, a minimum guaranteed income for everyone. The UBI is an old idea with newfound popularity. Advocates for it are a strange set of bedfellows, each eyeing the others suspiciously since they are so seldom in agreement.

So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living. By the 1960s, it looked like the time for a universal basic income might have arrived in the United States when a memorandum entitled “The Triple Revolution” was delivered to President Johnson. It was signed by roster of glitterati including a Nobel laureate, politicians, futurists, historians, economists, and technologists. It said that in a world of increased automation, it was ever more difficult to “disguise a historic paradox: That a substantial proportion of the population is subsisting on minimal incomes, often below the poverty line, at a time when sufficient productive potential is available to supply the needs of everyone in the U.S.”


pages: 340 words: 94,464

Randomistas: How Radical Researchers Changed Our World by Andrew Leigh

Albert Einstein, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anton Chekhov, Atul Gawande, basic income, behavioural economics, Black Swan, correlation does not imply causation, crowdsourcing, data science, David Brooks, Donald Trump, ending welfare as we know it, Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science, experimental economics, Flynn Effect, germ theory of disease, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, Indoor air pollution, Isaac Newton, It's morning again in America, Kickstarter, longitudinal study, loss aversion, Lyft, Marshall McLuhan, meta-analysis, microcredit, Netflix Prize, nudge unit, offshore financial centre, p-value, Paradox of Choice, placebo effect, price mechanism, publication bias, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, recommendation engine, Richard Feynman, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Metcalfe, Ronald Reagan, Sheryl Sandberg, statistical model, Steven Pinker, sugar pill, TED Talk, uber lyft, universal basic income, War on Poverty

Petersburg Times 60 Stark, William 16 Stewart, Matthew, and The Management Myth 138 Stigler, Stephen 50 Street Narcotics Unit experiment 92–3 streptomycin trial 56 see also Austin Bradford Hill Sullivan, Andrew, and Pyrotron 14 Suskind, Dana 70 Syed, Matthew 142 teacher payment trial 111 see also Karthik Muralidharan Telford, Dick 201–2 text messages, and use of 9, 78, 82, 123, 154 textbook trial 123–4 see also Karthik Muralidharan The Battered Women’s Movement 89 the book of Daniel 22 ‘the brevia’ and ‘the scrutiny’ 181 the ‘gold standard’ 194 The Lancet 24, 55, 120 The Matrix 30 ‘the paradox of choice’ 195 the placebo effect see placebo effect ‘the Super Bowl impossibility theorem’ 140 Thirty Million Words initiative 79–80 ‘three strikes’ law’ 99, 101 ‘Triple P’ positive parenting program 68–9 ‘True Love Waits’ program 47 Trump campaign 154 Tseng, Yi-Ping 37 see also ‘Journey to Social Inclusion’ UK Department for International Development 103 unemployment 36, 44–6, 78, 103 see also German government unemployment incentive; job training programs; ‘universal basic income’ ‘universal basic income’ 46 University of Chicago, and ‘Science of Philanthropy Initiative’ 159 University of London 54 University of Queensland, and ‘Triple P’ positive parenting program 68 University of Wollongong 187 US Agency for International Development 103, 210 US Behavioural Insights Team 186 see also Elizabeth Linos US Congressional Budget Office 194 US National Academy panel 100 US Police Foundation 89 ‘verbal bombardment’ and Perry Preschool 67 Vienna General Hospital 24–5 see also Ignaz Semmelweis Vietnam war draft 42–3 Virgin Atlantic Airways 136 ‘virginity pledges’ in the US 46–7 Wagner, Dan 159 Waiting for Superman 79 Washington Post 7 Washington Times 60 Weikart, David 66–7, 71 West Heidelberg centre 71 What Works Clearinghouse 76–7, 208 Western Union 130 Wilson, James 184–5 Wootton, David 26, 203–4 and Bad Medicine 26 World Bank 103, 111 World Health Organization 112–13, 115, 199 World Medical Association 186 Wydick, Bruce 114–15 Yale University, and Innovations for Poverty Action 123 YouWiN!

In January 2017 Finland set about testing this approach by randomly selecting a small group of unemployed people. Those in the study receive a ‘basic income’ of €6720 per year, which continues to be paid even if they find a job.35 The experiment, which covers 2000 people, will report its results in 2019. Advocates of a ‘universal basic income’ eagerly await the findings. * In recent decades, millions of young Americans have signed ‘virginity pledges’, promising to refrain from sex until they are married. The first such program – ‘True Love Waits’ – saw teenagers pledging ‘to be sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship’.


pages: 370 words: 102,823

Rethinking Capitalism: Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth by Michael Jacobs, Mariana Mazzucato

Alan Greenspan, balance sheet recession, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, Bernie Sanders, Bretton Woods, business climate, business cycle, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, circular economy, collaborative economy, complexity theory, conceptual framework, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, degrowth, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Detroit bankruptcy, double entry bookkeeping, Elon Musk, endogenous growth, energy security, eurozone crisis, factory automation, facts on the ground, fiat currency, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, Ford Model T, forward guidance, full employment, G4S, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Growth in a Time of Debt, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, investor state dispute settlement, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, mass incarceration, military-industrial complex, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, new economy, non-tariff barriers, ocean acidification, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, planned obsolescence, Post-Keynesian economics, price stability, private sector deleveraging, quantitative easing, QWERTY keyboard, railway mania, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, savings glut, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Solyndra, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, systems thinking, the built environment, The Great Moderation, The Spirit Level, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, total factor productivity, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, vertical integration, very high income

The proliferation of free internet-based services has inspired many to innovate in networks of sharing access to possessions, exchanging time and collaborating in creative projects. This is one of the routes along which ICT enables a green economy grounded in sustainability and focused on services and personal care. Move towards some form of basic income. Providing a minimum income in the advanced countries—such as the universal basic income currently being trialled in Finland, a negative income tax and/or workfare for community projects and services—is the necessary platform for encouraging the sharing and collaborative economies, the growth of voluntary organisations and of creative endeavours that could contribute to the quality of life both at the community level and through participation in global networks.

China Development Bank (CDB) circular economy citizenship goods climate change and capitalism and economics and politics Paris Accord policy Club of Rome Cold War collective goods Compaq compensation contracts competition Japanese law limits perfect competition protected firms and sectors consumerism consumers behaviour benefits choice debt demand protection welfare corporate sector accountability debt financialisation Fortune 500 companies Fortune 1000 companies governance new public management (NPM) organisational models resource allocation D DARPA debt consumer corporate household hysteria private public short-term sovereign debt-to-GDP ratios decarbonisation and structural change democracy and capitalism election campaigns post-democratic politics Department of Defense Department of Energy Department of health developing countries devolution discrimination anti-discrimination laws displacement of peoples Dosi, Giovanni Draghi, Mario E economic and monetary union (EMU) economic growth and inequality and innovation and technology environmental concerns green growth zero growth economic policy and capitalism consensus-building macroeconomic policy monetary expansion reshaping economic theory economic models model of the firm neoclassical orthodox post-Keynesian education access to and skills efficiency employment growth ‘non-standard’ work energy sector storage technologies environmental impacts environmental risk damage degradation sustainability technologies euro zone debt-to-GDP ratio economic policy fiscal policy GDP growth government lending investment macroeconomic conditions private investment productivity growth recession southern countries sovereign debt unemployment European Central Bank (ECB) role European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) European Investment Bank (EIB) proposed new European Fund for Investment European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) European Stability Mechanism European Union (EU) competition law debt-to-GDP ratio de-industrialisation GDP growth government lending Growth Compact investment-led recovery macroeconomic conditions monetary expansion policy framework private investment productivity growth Stability and Growth Pact unemployment executive pay F Federal Reserve financial crash of 1929 financial crash of 2008 financial markets borrowing discrimination efficient markets hypothesis mispricing short-termism systemic risks financial regulation Finland public innovation research and development universal basic income firms business models in perfect competition productive firm First World War fiscal austerity fiscal compact fiscal consolidation fiscal deficits fiscal policy fiscal tightening food insecurity Forstater, Matthew Fortune 500 companies Fortune 1000 firms fossil fuels fracking France average real wage index labour productivity growth private debt public deficit unemployment Freeman, Chris Friedman, Milton G G4S Gates, Bill Germany average real wage index GDP green technology investment state investment bank unemployment wages global financial system globalisation and welfare state asymmetric first golden age Godley, Wynne Goldman Sachs Goodfriend, Marvin Google governments and innovation deficits failures intervention by modernisation of risk-taking Graham, Benjamin Great Depression Greece austerity bailouts debt problems GDP investment activity public deficit unemployment green technology green direction for innovation greenhouse gas emissions Greenspan, Alan Grubb, Michael H Hatzius, Jan health and climate change older people Hirschman, Albert history Integration with theory home mortgage specialists household income housing purchases value I IBM income distribution industrial revolution inequality adverse effects and economic performance China ethnicity explanation for income international trend OECD countries opportunities redistributive policies reinforcement reversing rise taxation UK wealth inflation information and communications technologies (ICT) consumer demand green direction internet of things online education planned obsolescence innovation and climate change and companies and government and growth innovative enterprise path-dependence public sector institutions European financial role Intel interest rates and quantitative easing Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) International Energy Agency (IEA) International Labour Organization (ILO) International Monetary Fund (IMF) Studies investment and theory of the firm crowding out decline in investment in innovation private private vs publicly owned firms public public–private investment partnerships investment-led growth Ireland debt problems investment activity Public deficit Israel public venture capital fund research and development Italy average real wage index debt problems GDP Income inequality unemployment J Japan average real wage index competitive advantage over US GDP wages Jobs, Steve Juncker, Jean-Claude K Kay Review Keynes, John Maynard KfW Knight, Frank Koo, Richard Krueger, Alan Krugman, Paul L labour markets insecurity of regulation structures United States labour productivity and wages declining growth public deficit unemployment Lehman Brothers Lerner, Abba liquidity crisis Lloyd George, David lobbying corporate M Maastricht Treaty Malthus, Thomas market economy theory markets behaviour failure uncertainty Marshall, Alfred Marx, Karl McCulley, Paul Merrill Lynch Mill, John Stuart Minsky, Hyman mission oriented investment monetary policy money and fiscal policy and macroeconomic policy bank money electronic transactions endogenous exogenous fiat money government bonds IOUs modern money theory quantity theory theories monopolies monopoly rents natural Moore, Gordon N NASA nanotechnology National Health Service (NHS) National Institutes of Health (NIH) national savings neoliberalism corporate Newman, Frank Newton, Isaac O Obama, Barack P patents patient capital patient finance see patient capital Penrose, Edith Piketty, Thomas PIMCO Pisano, Gary Polanyi, Karl Portugal austerity bailout debt problems GDP investment activity unemployment privatisation productivity marginal productivity theory productive firm unproductive firm – see also labour productivity public deficits public goods public organisations and change public policy and change evaluation role public service outsourcing public spending public–private investment partnerships Q quantitative easing quarterly capitalism R Reagan, Ronald recessions Reinhart, Carmen renewable energy policy rents and banks increase rent-seeking research and development (R&D) state organisations Ricardo, David risk-taking – mitigation of risk role of the state Rogoff, Kenneth Roosevelt, Franklin D.

Schumpeter, Joseph Second World War Senior, Nassau Serco share prices shareholder value short-termism and investments empirical evidence of investors’ discount rates policy implications value of future cash-flows single European market smart phones social care Solyndra Spain austerity debt problems GDP investment activity private debt unemployment stagnation economic secular state investment banks funding for green projects renewable energy investments Stirling, Andy stock market values Szczurek, Mateusz T taxation avoidance and evasion energy and materials favourable rates income tax rates inequality policy preferential treatment reform revenues short-term gains tax breaks technological revolutions consumer demand diffusion green direction green growth history recessions telecommunications Tesla Motors Thatcher, Margaret top earners Australia Canada United Kingdom United States trade unions Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) transparency Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance Turkey income inequality U unemployment Europe global southern Europe United Kingdom United States young people universal basic income United Kingdom GDP income inequality inequality investment labour productivity growth private debt public deficit Public Finance Initiative (PFI) recessions and recovery research and development sectoral financial balances support for banks top earners unemployment wages United States average real wage index business models emergency loans to banks energy policies GDP income inequality investment Japanese competition labour productivity growth National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform poverty private debt public deficit research and development sectoral financial balances Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programme top earners trickle-down strategy unemployment wages wealth US legislation Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Taxpayer Relief Act 2012 V Veblen, Thorstein venture capital venture capitalism Volcker, Paul Von Hayek, Friedrich W wages and labour productivity average real wage index higher-skilled workers legal minimum lower-skilled workers United Kingdom wealth creation welfare payments welfare state western capitalism collapse failures Wolf, Martin Woodford, Michael world economy Cambridge Alphametrics Model (CAM) Y Yellen, Janet youth unemployment


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MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them by Nouriel Roubini

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 2021 United States Capitol attack, 3D printing, 9 dash line, AI winter, AlphaGo, artificial general intelligence, asset allocation, assortative mating, autonomous vehicles, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, Big Tech, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, business process, call centre, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, cashless society, central bank independence, collateralized debt obligation, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, credit crunch, crony capitalism, cryptocurrency, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, data is the new oil, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, decarbonisation, deep learning, DeepMind, deglobalization, Demis Hassabis, democratizing finance, Deng Xiaoping, disintermediation, Dogecoin, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, eurozone crisis, failed state, fake news, family office, fiat currency, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, floating exchange rates, forward guidance, Fractional reserve banking, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, friendshoring, full employment, future of work, game design, geopolitical risk, George Santayana, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global reserve currency, global supply chain, GPS: selective availability, green transition, Greensill Capital, Greenspan put, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, inflation targeting, initial coin offering, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of movable type, Isaac Newton, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge worker, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, M-Pesa, margin call, market bubble, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, meme stock, Michael Milken, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, Minsky moment, Modern Monetary Theory, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Mustafa Suleyman, Nash equilibrium, natural language processing, negative equity, Nick Bostrom, non-fungible token, non-tariff barriers, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, paradox of thrift, pets.com, Phillips curve, planetary scale, Ponzi scheme, precariat, price mechanism, price stability, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, reshoring, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Satoshi Nakamoto, Savings and loan crisis, Second Machine Age, short selling, Silicon Valley, smart contracts, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, Stephen Hawking, TED Talk, The Great Moderation, the payments system, Thomas L Friedman, TikTok, too big to fail, Turing test, universal basic income, War on Poverty, warehouse robotics, Washington Consensus, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, working-age population, Yogi Berra, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game, zoonotic diseases

But two centuries of technological progress has not wiped out all jobs. It has led to new types of jobs. Meanwhile, higher economic growth that accompanies automation might offset the impact of structural unemployment. At the current level of economic growth, universal basic income (UBI) proposals are not feasible. If growth in advanced countries doubles or triples to 5 percent or 6 percent, the math significantly improves. A universal basic income or universal provision of public services or some combination of the two could furnish a new financial safety net. Ex-ante pre-distribution of assets rather the ex-post redistribution of wealth is an alternative option to reduce wealth inequality.

Taxing robots as if they were human sounds appealing but really amounts to almost the same thing: taxing the owners of the machines. If we adjust taxation for this brave new world the next question centers on redistribution that is vital to sustaining demand for the goods that robots produce. One option surfaced during the 2020 presidential campaign in the United States: universal basic income (UBI) that lets consumers consume. Besides replacing lost income, proposals include more robust public services under the banner of universal basic provision (UBP). Twists abound, including community service in exchange for UBI. We could give each individual a share of ownership of all firms.


pages: 196 words: 54,339

Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff

1960s counterculture, Abraham Maslow, Adam Curtis, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Berlin Wall, big-box store, bitcoin, blockchain, Burning Man, carbon footprint, circular economy, clean water, clockwork universe, cloud computing, collective bargaining, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, corporate personhood, digital capitalism, disintermediation, Donald Trump, drone strike, European colonialism, fake news, Filter Bubble, full employment, future of work, game design, gamification, gig economy, Google bus, Gödel, Escher, Bach, hockey-stick growth, Internet of things, invention of the printing press, invention of writing, invisible hand, iterative process, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly, Kevin Roose, knowledge economy, Larry Ellison, Lewis Mumford, life extension, lifelogging, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, mirror neurons, multilevel marketing, new economy, patient HM, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, Peter Thiel, planned obsolescence, power law, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, social intelligence, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, tech billionaire, technoutopianism, TED Talk, theory of mind, trade route, Travis Kalanick, Turing test, universal basic income, Vannevar Bush, We are as Gods, winner-take-all economy, zero-sum game

Furthermore, they propose technosolutions that are radical in every way except in their refusal to challenge the underlying rule set of venture capitalism or the extreme wealth of those who are making the investments. Every technosolution must still be a profitable investment opportunity—otherwise, it is not considered a solution at all. Even promising wealth redistribution ideas, such as universal basic income, are recontextualized by the technosolutionists as a way of keeping their companies going. In principle, the idea of a negative income tax for the poor, or a guaranteed minimum income for everyone, makes economic sense. But when we hear these ideas espoused by Silicon Valley’s CEOs, it’s usually in the context of keeping the extraction going.

The products they manufacture may be unnecessary plastic contraptions for which demand must be created with manipulative marketing and then space made in landfills, but at least they will create an excuse to employ some human hours. If we truly are on the brink of a jobless future, we should be celebrating our efficiency and discussing alternative strategies for distributing our surplus, from a global welfare program to universal basic income. But we are nowhere close. While machines may get certain things done faster and more efficiently than humans, they externalize a host of other problems that most technologists pretend do not exist. Even today’s robots and computers are built with rare earth metals and blood minerals; they use massive amounts of energy; and when they grow obsolete their components are buried in the ground as toxic waste.


pages: 566 words: 160,453

Not Working: Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone? by David G. Blanchflower

90 percent rule, active measures, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Black Swan, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, Clapham omnibus, collective bargaining, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, driverless car, estate planning, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, full employment, George Akerlof, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Growth in a Time of Debt, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, income inequality, independent contractor, indoor plumbing, inflation targeting, Jeremy Corbyn, job satisfaction, John Bercow, Kenneth Rogoff, labor-force participation, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, longitudinal study, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, market clearing, Martin Wolf, mass incarceration, meta-analysis, moral hazard, Nate Silver, negative equity, new economy, Northern Rock, obamacare, oil shock, open borders, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Own Your Own Home, p-value, Panamax, pension reform, Phillips curve, plutocrats, post-materialism, price stability, prisoner's dilemma, quantitative easing, rent control, Richard Thaler, Robert Shiller, Ronald Coase, selection bias, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, trade liberalization, universal basic income, University of East Anglia, urban planning, working poor, working-age population, yield curve

On May 28, 2018, Italian president Sergio Mattarella blocked a bid by two populist parties, which are riding high in the opinion polls, the anti-establishment Five Star and the far-right anti-immigrant Northern League alliance, to form a government. While both are called “populist,” they have conflicting policies, so it isn’t surprising that their efforts to form a government ultimately failed. The Five Star Movement called for a universal basic income of $920 a month, implying a huge increase in government outlays. The Northern League has called for a flat tax rate of 15 percent and actions against refugees. It would also like to see heavy spending on infrastructure. Both parties wish to roll back pension reforms and other plans aimed at boosting competitiveness.

Matteo Salvini, the League’s leader and Italy’s new interior minister, has promised to speed up deportations and detentions of up to 500,000 illegal immigrants—which could cause angst in Berlin, as well as potentially violating EU law. The League also wants a flat tax of 15 per cent on income. Five Star, its coalition partner, has argued for a universal basic income. Those policies together are a recipe for blowing up the EU’s 3 per cent limit on national budget deficits. If the government in Rome ignores the EU’s fiscal rules, the reaction from Brussels and Berlin will be harsh. When Italy then finds itself under pressure from the bond markets, the likes of Mr Varoufakis and Mr Savona will return to the argument that the EU elite is conspiring against the will of the people.30 On June 5, 2018, Bloomberg reported that Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte pledged in his maiden speech that his government would push through measures ranging from a “citizen’s income” for the poor to tax cuts and curbs on immigration, as he called for a stronger, fairer Europe. 31 Italian bonds extended their decline during his speech as he gave investors little indication that he would diverge from the Five Star–League program.

It would make sense for a millionaire to pay at least the same proportion as his or her secretary and for a billionaire to pay a higher proportion than a millionaire. I am a great believer in providing incentives to work. It is inappropriate to subsidize indolence. Finally, it is time to look at ways of encouraging and giving incentives for work to those at the bottom. There has also been talk of Universal Basic Income (UBI) whereby the federal government would provide each adult below a certain income level with a specific amount of money each year. It acts as a negative income tax. In a new Gallup poll taken in February 2018 an astonishing 48 percent of Americans support this idea. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won a surprise primary election in New York and called for a universal jobs guarantee, under which the federal government would provide a job for every American.


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The Retreat of Western Liberalism by Edward Luce

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, affirmative action, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, call centre, carried interest, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, cognitive dissonance, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, computer age, corporate raider, cuban missile crisis, currency manipulation / currency intervention, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gentrification, George Santayana, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, imperial preference, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, Internet of things, Jaron Lanier, knowledge economy, lateral thinking, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, meritocracy, microaggression, Monroe Doctrine, moral panic, more computing power than Apollo, mutually assured destruction, new economy, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, offshore financial centre, one-China policy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, precariat, purchasing power parity, reserve currency, reshoring, Richard Florida, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Skype, Snapchat, software is eating the world, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, superstar cities, telepresence, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, unpaid internship, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, white flight, World Values Survey, Yogi Berra

In marketing they call this bait and switch. The net effect of Trump’s actual – as opposed to his rhetorical – economic agenda will be to deepen the economic conditions that gave rise to his candidacy. It is not my aim to set out a detailed policy manifesto. Every grand remedy has its downsides. Setting up a Universal Basic Income – one solution that has attracted growing support – has broad meretricious appeal. Every citizen would receive a basic income of say £15,000 a year. All other welfare benefits would be scrapped, which would fund the whole thing. A UBI would cushion the losers in bad times and give them a springboard during the good.

., 201 Thoreau, Henry David, 127–8 Thrower, Randolph, 132 Tillerson, Rex, 147–8, 161 Toil Index, 35–6 Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership, 73, 167 transport, 54, 55, 56–7, 58, 61; self-driving vehicles, 54, 57, 60, 68 Trump, Donald: admiration for Putin, 7, 129, 135; and America First movement, 117; autocratic/authoritarian nature of, 133, 169, 171, 178–9; Bannon as Surkov of, 173; Chinese view of, 85–6, 140; confusion as strategic goal, 79, 86, 127, 128, 130, 131, 173, 178–9, 195–6; foreign policy, 167–70, 178–80, 181–4; ignorance of how other countries think, 161, 167–9; inaugural address, 135, 146; Andrew Jackson comparisons, 113–14; and male voters, 57; as mortal threat to democracy, 97, 104, 111, 126, 133–6, 138, 139, 161, 169–70, 178–84, 203–4; and Muslim ban, 135, 181, 182; narcissism of, 170; need for new Mark Felt/Deep Throat, 136; and nuclear weapons, 175, 176; offers cure worse than the disease, 14, 181; plan to deport Mexican immigrants, 114, 135; poorly educated as base, 103, 123; promised border wall, 94–5; protectionism of, 19–20, 73, 149; and pro wrestling, 124; stealing of the left’s clothes, 101, 103; stoking of racism by, 97; support for plutocracy, 193, 195, 196, 199–200; and Taiwan, 145, 166–7, 168; targeting of Muslims, 135, 181–3, 195–6; and Twitter, 70, 146; and UFC, 126; urban–hinterland split in 2016 vote, 47–8, 119, 120, 130, 135; and US political system, 131, 133–5; US–China war scenario, 145–53, 161; victory in US presidential election, 5, 6–7, 11–12, 15, 28, 47–8, 79, 87, 96–8, 111, 120, 194–5 Trump: The Game (board game), 7 Tsai Ing-Wen, 151 Tunisia, 12, 82 Turkey, 12, 82, 137, 140, 175 Twitter, 34, 53, 70, 146 Uber, 63 UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), 125–6, 127 UK Independence Party (UKIP), 90, 98, 100, 101–2, 190; xenophobia during Brexit campaign, 100–1 Ukraine: Orange Revolution (2004), 79; Putin’s annexation of Crimea (2014), 8, 173 United States of America (USA): 1968 Democratic Convention, 188–9; 2016 presidential election, 5, 6–7, 11–12, 15, 28, 47–8, 79, 87–8, 91–8, 119, 130, 133, 135; 9/11 terrorist attacks, 79–80, 81, 182; America First movement, 117; civil rights victories (1960s), 190; ‘complacent classes’ in, 40; Constitution, 112–13, 163; and containment of China, 25–6, 145–6, 157–61, 165; decline of established parties, 89; declining hegemony of, 14, 21–2, 26–8, 140–1, 200–1; domestic terrorist attacks, 182, 183; elite–heartland divide, 47–8, 119, 130, 135; foreign policy since WW2, 183–4; gig economy, 63–5; gilded age, 42–3; growth after 2008 crisis, 30–1; growth of inequality in modern era, 43, 44–8, 49, 50–1; history in popular imagination, 163; Lend-Lease aid to Britain, 169; middle-income problem in, 35–41; Monroe Doctrine (1823), 164–5; murder rate in suburbs, 47; nineteenth-century migration to, 41; Operation Iraqi Freedom, 8, 81, 85, 156; opioid-heroin epidemic, 37–8; Patriot Act, 80; political system, 112–13, 131–6, 163; post-Cold War triumphalism, 6, 71; primacy in Asia Pacific, 26, 157, 160–1; racial/ethnic make-up of, 94–6; relations with Soviet Union see Cold War; relative decline of, 170; ‘reverse white flight’ in, 46; technological leap forward (from 1870), 58–9; vanishing class mobility in, 43–6; ‘war on terror’, 80–1, 140, 183; Washington’s ‘deep state’, 133–4 Universal Basic Income (UBI) proposals, 196–7 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 8–9, 10 Vance, J.D., 108 Venezuela, 82 Versailles Conference (1919), 154 Vienna, Congress of (1814–15), 7 Vietnam, 166 Wallace, George, 113 Walters, Johnnie M., 132 ‘war on terror’, US, 80–1, 140, 183 Warsh, Kevin, 150 Washington Consensus, 29–30, 71, 77, 78–9, 158–9 Washington Post, 132 Weber, Max, 162 welfare systems, 42, 101–3, 191, 198 Western thought: on China, 158–9, 161–2; conceit of primacy of, 4–5, 8–9, 85, 158–9, 162; declining influence of, 200–1; idea of progress, 4, 8, 11–12, 37; modernity concept, 24, 162; non-Western influences on, 24–5; see also democracy, liberal; liberalism, Western WhatsApp, 54 White, Hugh, 25, 158 Wilders, Geert, 102 Wilentz, Sean, 114 Williamson, John, 29 Wilson, Woodrow, 115 Woodward, Bob, 132 Wordsworth, William, 3 World Bank, 84 World Trade Organization (WTO), 26, 72, 149, 150 Wright, Thomas, 180 WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), 124–5 Xi Jinping, 19–20, 26, 27, 146, 149, 168, 170; and US–China war scenario, 150, 152 Yellen, Janet, 150 Yeltsin, Boris, 78, 79 Young, Michael, 45–6 YouTube, 54 Zakaria, Fareed, 13, 119


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Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future by Paul Mason

air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, Alfred Russel Wallace, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, Basel III, basic income, Bernie Madoff, Bill Gates: Altair 8800, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, business process, butterfly effect, call centre, capital controls, carbon tax, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, Claude Shannon: information theory, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, commons-based peer production, Corn Laws, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, David Graeber, deglobalization, deindustrialization, deskilling, discovery of the americas, disinformation, Downton Abbey, drone strike, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, eurozone crisis, factory automation, false flag, financial engineering, financial repression, Firefox, Fractional reserve banking, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, game design, Glass-Steagall Act, green new deal, guns versus butter model, Herbert Marcuse, income inequality, inflation targeting, informal economy, information asymmetry, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Perry Barlow, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, late capitalism, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market clearing, means of production, Metcalfe's law, microservices, middle-income trap, Money creation, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, mortgage debt, Network effects, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Norbert Wiener, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, Pearl River Delta, post-industrial society, power law, precariat, precautionary principle, price mechanism, profit motive, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, reserve currency, RFID, Richard Stallman, Robert Gordon, Robert Metcalfe, scientific management, secular stagnation, sharing economy, Stewart Brand, structural adjustment programs, supply-chain management, technological determinism, The Future of Employment, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Transnistria, Twitter Arab Spring, union organizing, universal basic income, urban decay, urban planning, vertical integration, Vilfredo Pareto, wages for housework, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Yochai Benkler

This is the major difference between a postcapitalism based on info-tech and one based on command planning. There is no reason to abolish markets by diktat, as long as you abolish the basic power imbalances that the term ‘free market’ disguises. Once firms are forbidden to set monopoly prices, and a universal basic income is available (see below), the market is actually the transmitter of the ‘zero marginal cost’ effect, which manifests as falling labour time across society. But in order to control the transition, we would need to send clear signals to the private sector, one of the most important of which is this: profit derives from entrepreneurship, not rent.

One byproduct of promoting competition and diversity in the service sector is that, once you can’t relentlessly drive down wages, there would have to be a surge of technical innovation, the outcome of which would be to reduce the number of work hours needed across society overall. And that leads us to what is probably the biggest structural change required to make postcapitalism happen: a universal basic income guaranteed by the state. PAY EVERYONE A BASIC INCOME The basic income, as a policy, is not that radical. Various pilot projects and designs have been touted, often by the right, sometimes by the centre-left, as a replacement for the dole with cheaper administration costs. But in the postcapitalist project, the purpose of the basic income is radical: it is (a) to formalize the separation of work and wages and (b) to subsidize the transition to a shorter working week, or day, or life.

The advantages of working remain clear, but there are also advantages to be gained through not working: you can look after your kids, write poetry, go back to college, manage your chronic illness or peer-educate others like you. Under this system, there would be no stigma attached to not working. The labour market would be stacked in favour of the high-paying job and the high-paying employer. The universal basic income, then, is an antidote to what the anthropologist David Graeber calls ‘bullshit jobs’: the low-paid service jobs capitalism has managed to create over the past twenty-five years that pay little, demean the worker and probably don’t need to exist.10 But it’s only a transitional measure for the first stage of the postcapitalist project.


pages: 419 words: 109,241

A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond by Daniel Susskind

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, agricultural Revolution, AI winter, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, algorithmic trading, AlphaGo, artificial general intelligence, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Big Tech, blue-collar work, Boston Dynamics, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cloud computing, computer age, computer vision, computerized trading, creative destruction, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, demographic transition, deskilling, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Douglas Hofstadter, driverless car, drone strike, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, fulfillment center, future of work, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Google Glasses, Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hans Moravec, income inequality, income per capita, industrial robot, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jacques de Vaucanson, James Hargreaves, job automation, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John von Neumann, Joi Ito, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Roose, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, Larry Ellison, low skilled workers, lump of labour, machine translation, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, Metcalfe’s law, natural language processing, Neil Armstrong, Network effects, Nick Bostrom, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, Paul Samuelson, Peter Thiel, pink-collar, precariat, purchasing power parity, Ray Kurzweil, ride hailing / ride sharing, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Sam Altman, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, social intelligence, software is eating the world, sovereign wealth fund, spinning jenny, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, strong AI, tacit knowledge, technological solutionism, TED Talk, telemarketer, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Travis Kalanick, Turing test, Two Sigma, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We are the 99%, wealth creators, working poor, working-age population, Y Combinator

See also frictional technological unemployment; structural technological unemployment future of inequality and Keynes and television Temple of Heaven Park Tennyson, Alfred territorial dividends Tesla Thebes A Theory of Justice (Rawls) Thiel, Peter Thiel Foundation 3-D printing techniques Thrun, Sebastian timing toilet paper top-down creation top income inequality tractors Trades Union Congress (TUC) traditional capital transparency tribal sovereignty Trump, Donald TUC. See Trades Union Congress Turing, Alan “The Turk” (chess machine) TV. See television Twitter two sigma problem Uber UBI. See universal basic income “Ulysses” (Tennyson) unattainable skills uncanny valley unconscious design underestimation unemployment. See also technological unemployment unemployment rate unions universal basic income (UBI) universal benefits unskill bias upheaval, change and upper class up-skilling Ure, Andrew valuation Van Parijs, Philippe Veblen, Thorstein vehicles, autonomous virtues Vives, Juan Luis volunteering von Kempelen, Wolfgang wages Watson wealth funds weavering Weber, Max WeChat Wei Xiaoyong Weizenbaum, Joseph welfare welfare state WhatsApp working tax credits work week length The World of Yesterday (Zweig) Xi Jinping YouTube zero capital tax Zeus Zo (chatbot) Zuckerberg, Mark Zucman, Gabriel Zweig, Stefan ALSO BY DANIEL SUSSKIND The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts (with Richard Susskind) ABOUT THE AUTHOR DANIEL SUSSKIND is the coauthor, with Richard Susskind, of The Future of the Professions, named as one of the best books of the year by the Financial Times, New Scientist, and the Times Literary Supplement.

Revenue was spent on raising the wages of the lowest-paid workers and on supporting those who found themselves unemployed while encouraging them back into the job market. In a world with less work, however, these approaches will be markedly less effective than they were in the past. This is why, among those who worry about the future of work, there is a lot of excitement about the idea of a universal basic income, or UBI. This scheme sidesteps the labor market altogether: it is a regular payment that the government provides to everyone, whether or not they are employed. Support for the UBI can also be found well beyond just those who are anxious about automation: it is one of those rare policy proposals that makes the political spectrum bend back on itself, with people on opposite ends meeting in violent agreement.


pages: 205 words: 61,903

Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires by Douglas Rushkoff

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 4chan, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Web Services, Andrew Keen, AOL-Time Warner, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, behavioural economics, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, Biosphere 2, bitcoin, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, Burning Man, buy low sell high, Californian Ideology, carbon credits, carbon footprint, circular economy, clean water, cognitive dissonance, Colonization of Mars, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, CRISPR, data science, David Graeber, DeepMind, degrowth, Demis Hassabis, deplatforming, digital capitalism, digital map, disinformation, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, European colonialism, Evgeny Morozov, Extinction Rebellion, Fairphone, fake news, Filter Bubble, game design, gamification, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, Google bus, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, Haight Ashbury, hockey-stick growth, Howard Rheingold, if you build it, they will come, impact investing, income inequality, independent contractor, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jeffrey Epstein, job automation, John Nash: game theory, John Perry Barlow, Joseph Schumpeter, Just-in-time delivery, liberal capitalism, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, megaproject, meme stock, mental accounting, Michael Milken, microplastics / micro fibres, military-industrial complex, Minecraft, mirror neurons, move fast and break things, Naomi Klein, New Urbanism, Norbert Wiener, Oculus Rift, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), operational security, Patri Friedman, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, Plato's cave, Ponzi scheme, profit motive, QAnon, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robinhood: mobile stock trading app, Sam Altman, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, SimCity, Singularitarianism, Skinner box, Snapchat, sovereign wealth fund, Stephen Hawking, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, surveillance capitalism, tech billionaire, tech bro, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, Ted Nelson, TED Talk, the medium is the message, theory of mind, TikTok, Torches of Freedom, Tragedy of the Commons, universal basic income, urban renewal, warehouse robotics, We are as Gods, WeWork, Whole Earth Catalog, work culture , working poor

But the funding of technological solutions to social, medical, governmental, and other problems ends up infusing the world with the values of The Mindset—as well as making us all more dependent on the companies these philanthropists founded. Whether we’re talking about a smart finance grid, biohacking, drone warfare, space colonization, or universal basic income, technosolutions are too commonly informed by the values inherent in technology itself: exponential growth, automation over human intervention, forward momentum, platformization, and a disregard for existing conditions on the ground. As a result, most moonshots turn out to be boondoggles.

But taken to the extreme and implemented by neoliberal technocrats, it begins to feel totalizing and disempowering—corrosive to the way people form their sense of identity, establish a connection to purpose, and experience their participation in the greater scheme of things. Traditional government assistance or The Mindset’s updated universal basic income both look good on paper; still, they are poor substitutes for the dignity of getting to run one’s own small business or family farm. Such enterprises were rendered all but impossible by corporate-friendly, neoliberal policies and the monopolizing power of new technologies. Government emphasis on job training, high-tech skills, and our general compatibility with a digital future has led schools to emphasize STEM—science, technology, engineering, and math—over the softer, squishier subjects like English, social studies, and philosophy.


pages: 735 words: 165,375

The Survival of the City: Human Flourishing in an Age of Isolation by Edward Glaeser, David Cutler

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, Alvin Toffler, Andrei Shleifer, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, British Empire, business cycle, buttonwood tree, call centre, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, Columbian Exchange, contact tracing, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, COVID-19, crack epidemic, defund the police, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, discovery of penicillin, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, Elisha Otis, Fellow of the Royal Society, flying shuttle, future of work, Future Shock, gentrification, George Floyd, germ theory of disease, global pandemic, global village, hiring and firing, Home mortgage interest deduction, Honoré de Balzac, income inequality, industrial cluster, James Hargreaves, Jane Jacobs, Jevons paradox, job automation, jobless men, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Snow's cholera map, knowledge worker, lockdown, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, mass incarceration, Maui Hawaii, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, new economy, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, out of africa, place-making, precautionary principle, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, remote working, Richard Florida, Salesforce, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, social distancing, Socratic dialogue, spinning jenny, superstar cities, Tax Reform Act of 1986, tech baron, TED Talk, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, TikTok, trade route, union organizing, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, working poor, Works Progress Administration, zero-sum game, zoonotic diseases

See also influenza pandemic (1918–19) Sprung-Keyser, Benjamin, 331 Stalin, Joseph, 325 Stanton, Christopher, 231 Stergios, James, 306 Stigler, George, 178–79 “stop and frisk” policies, 288–91 Strong, William Lafayette, 84–85 student debt, canceling, 16 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, 44 sub-Saharan Africa, 79 suburbs, 7–8, 215, 219, 268–69, 270 Sugar Research Foundation, 125 suicides, 98, 123, 204, 319 super-spreader events, 87 Sweden, 197, 302 Swift, Gustavus, 182 Switzerland, 134 Sy, Elhadj As, 323 Sydenham, Thomas, 118 Tabarrok, Alex, 282 Taiwan, 132, 149, 156, 165, 166 Tammany Hall, 73, 82, 268 Tan, Brandon, 300 taxes and taxation as centrifugal/dispersing force, 218 and corporate relocations, 209 and declines in tax base, 7 and funding of public services, 8 and home mortgage interest deductions, 216 impact of pandemic on revenues from, 6 tax subsidies for working poor, 16 of unhealthy products, 100, 128 teachers unions, 308, 311–12, 313–15, 316 Tebes, John, 290 telemedicine, 146 tenements, disease-infested, 81–83 terrorism car bomb in Times Square, 287–88 September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 6, 243 testing for COVID-19 of asymptomatic populations, 18, 149, 164, 167, 198 countries with notable success in, 156 in Germany, 156, 167 governments’ responsibility for, 154–55 in New Zealand, 18, 156, 164–65 in the United States, 149, 150, 167 WHO’s test for, 150 Texas, 18–19, 214 Thatcher, Margaret, 224 The Third Wave (Toffler), 219–20 “three strikes” laws, 14, 277, 281, 282–85, 286 Thucydides, 25, 29–30, 34, 36, 46 Tito, Josip Broz, 54 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 14–15, 72 Toffler, Alvin, 22, 207, 219–23, 224–25, 226, 227, 229, 238 trade, 28, 32, 40, 42 transportation, 7, 210, 212–14, 215, 216–17 travel restrictions ability to quickly implement, 55 and cordon sanitaire at national borders, 53 and COVID-19 pandemic, 50, 54, 55, 149, 150 failures in, 50 of New Zealand, 163 Ragusa’s application of, 41–42 screening international travelers, 55 and yellow fever in Philadelphia, 47 Troesken, Werner, 78 Truman, Harry, 137–38, 140, 145 Trump, Donald, 132, 151, 152 Trump administration, 149–50, 168 tuberculosis, 175 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 268 “Typhoid Mary,” 38 unemployment/joblessness due to COVID-19, 2, 169, 196, 197, 228, 229, 233 and housing costs, 272 long-term, 272 and universal basic income, 204 United Kingdom commitment to urban sanitation in, 77 food consumption trends in, 108–9 health care spending in, 134, 142–43 manufacturing in, 189, 190 National Health Service of, 139–40 place-based health differences in, 103 rural population in, 221 service industry in, 2, 190 sewer system investment of, 76–77 vaccine preorders, 144 vaccine rollout, 77, 145 United Nations (UN), 57, 92, 325 universal basic income, 204 University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 91 upward mobility, 3, 16, 244, 257–58, 276 Urban Fortunes (Molotch and Logan), 267 urbanization, rate of, 173, 221 USA Today, 310–11 U.S.

Before COVID-19 struck, there was a lively debate about the right policy response when the rise of robots leaves humanity with nothing to do. One line of reasoning, advanced by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, is that as work disappears, we should provide everyone with an unconditional check from the government, called universal basic income. If vast numbers of Americans were paid for doing nothing, then the economy could indeed become pandemic-proof. The relatively small number of working Americans could oversee the robots and do highly intellectual, creative, and well-compensated tasks. The rest of the country could cash their checks (virtually, of course) and enjoy the delights of video-gaming.

See also opioid epidemic Dubrovnik (Ragusa), 40–43, 131 Dukakis, Michael, 279 Duncan, Arne, 303, 308 Eastern equine encephalitis, 89 Ebola (2013–16, 2018–20), 3, 56, 88, 91, 156 e-cigarettes, 125 education and schooling and barriers to reform efforts, 313–16 and battle over academic standards, 302–9 and busing, 299 charter schools, 332 community colleges, 334–35 and COVID-19 pandemic, 6–7, 313–14, 329 and drug use, 123 dysfunction in urban schools, 4 encouraging healthy behaviors in, 100 face-to-face connections in, 236–37, 240 forward-looking recommendations for, 329–32, 334–35 and health trends, 98 insider bias in, 276, 277, 302–3, 313, 314 investing in, 100 and life-expectancy disparities, 101, 102, 103 and No Child Left Behind, 331 online learning, 313–14 as path to middle-class, 18 pre-K programs, 16 as protection against disease, 127–28 and remote work options, 229 and school employees, 191 spillover effects of, 128 standardized testing, 299–300, 310–11 as strongest predictor of health, 100 and teacher quality, 245, 309–12 and teachers unions, 308, 311–12, 313–15, 316 and urban opportunity gap, 299–301 and vocational training, 316–17 and vulnerability to disease, 98 Egypt, plague in, 31 Ellis Island, 42 Emanuel, Natalia, 207–8, 230–31, 232, 234, 315 employment of essential workers, 194–95 in factories, 175, 176, 178–79, 186, 190, 217 and growth of labor force, 193, 223 impact of pandemic on, 196, 197, 227–30, 233 and job growth, 200, 237–38 lost due to COVID-19, 2, 169, 196, 197, 228, 229, 233 machines’ displacement of, 188–89, 190, 191, 203–4, 217, 221 and regulation of workplaces, 178–80 and spread of infectious disease, 104–5 and tax base of urban areas, 8 Toffler on future of, 221–22 and universal basic income, 204 and vocational training, 16 and wages, 171–72, 176, 235–36, 298, 301 of women, 204 and workplace safety, 175–80 See also remote work/telecommuting; service industry/economy England, 12, 70, 171, 172, 173, 189. See also United Kingdom entertainment, transmission of, 215 entrepreneurship, 170, 199–203, 218, 273 epidemiology field, 80 essential workers, 194–95, 229–30 Estrada, Gilbert, 251 European Union (EU), 166, 323–24, 325 Evans, William, 293 Exodus, Book of, 31 Eyam village of Derbyshire, England, 53 face-to-face contact advantages of, 224–27, 233–34 and appeal of urban environments, 235–36 demand for, 239–40 emotional connection with, 234–35 productivity associated with, 22–23 in schools, 236–37, 240 in service industry, 22, 190, 198–99, 203 Toffler on future of, 22, 221–22, 224 value of, 30 vulnerability associated with, 169, 188, 191, 203 factories, 175, 176, 178–79, 186, 189, 190, 217 Fagan, Jeffrey, 288 families in isolation, 38–39 fast foods, 112–15 Fauci, Anthony, 150 fentanyl, 122, 123, 129.


pages: 403 words: 111,119

Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", 3D printing, Alan Greenspan, Alvin Toffler, Anthropocene, Asian financial crisis, bank run, basic income, battle of ideas, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, blockchain, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, Buckminster Fuller, business cycle, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, circular economy, clean water, cognitive bias, collapse of Lehman Brothers, complexity theory, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, degrowth, dematerialisation, disruptive innovation, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Easter island, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, experimental economics, Exxon Valdez, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, full employment, Future Shock, Garrett Hardin, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, global village, Henri Poincaré, hiring and firing, Howard Zinn, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of writing, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, land reform, land value tax, Landlord’s Game, loss aversion, low interest rates, low skilled workers, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, megacity, Minsky moment, mobile money, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, Myron Scholes, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, Occupy movement, ocean acidification, off grid, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, out of africa, Paul Samuelson, peer-to-peer, planetary scale, price mechanism, quantitative easing, randomized controlled trial, retail therapy, Richard Thaler, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, smart cities, smart meter, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, South Sea Bubble, statistical model, Steve Ballmer, systems thinking, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the map is not the territory, the market place, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Torches of Freedom, Tragedy of the Commons, trickle-down economics, ultimatum game, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, Vilfredo Pareto, wikimedia commons

For the next 10–15 years, 6,000 of the poorest people in Kenya will regularly receive a guaranteed income that is enough to meet their family’s basic needs, sent via their phone. By running such an extended pilot scheme, the charity hopes to give recipients the security needed to take longer-term life-changing decisions – and to prove that a universal basic income is an idea whose time has come.92 There’s only one caution: that private incomes are no substitute for public services. The market works best in tackling inequality and poverty when it complements, rather than replaces, the state and the commons. Accompanied by free-at-the-point-of-use provision of education and primary healthcare, such a basic income would be a direct investment in the potential of every woman, man and child, significantly advancing the prospects of achieving the Doughnut’s social foundation for all.

Global Basic Income Foundation, What Is a Global Basic Income? http://www.globalincome.org/English/Global-Basic-Income.html 92. Faye, M. and Niehaus, P. (2016) ‘What if we just gave poor people a basic income for life? That’s what we are about to test’, Slate, 14 April 2016, available at: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/04/14/universal_basic_income_this_nonprofit_is_about_to_test_it_in_a_big_way.html 93. Hurun Global Rich List 2015. http://www.hurun.net/en/articleshow.aspx?nid=9607 94. Seery, E. and Caistor Arendar, A. (2014) Even It Up: Time to End Extreme Inequality. Oxford: Oxfam International, p. 17. 95. ICRICT (2015) Declaration of the Independent Commissions for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation. www.icrict.org 96.

., 6 micro-businesses, 9, 173, 178 microeconomics, 132–4 microgrids, 187–8 Micronesia, 153 Microsoft, 231 middle class, 6, 46, 58 middle-income countries, 90, 164, 168, 173, 180, 226, 254 migration, 82, 89–90, 166, 195, 199, 236, 266, 286 Milanovic, Branko, 171 Mill, John Stuart, 33–4, 73, 97, 250, 251, 283, 284, 288 Millo, Yuval, 101 minimum wage, 82, 88, 176 Minsky, Hyman, 87, 146 Mises, Ludwig von, 66 mission zero, 217 mobile banking, 199–200 mobile phones, 222 Model T revolution, 277–8 Moldova, 199 Mombasa, Kenya, 185–6 Mona Lisa (da Vinci), 94 money creation, 87, 164, 177, 182–8, 205 MONIAC (Monetary National Income Analogue Computer), 64–5, 75, 142, 262 Monoculture (Michaels), 6 Monopoly, 149 Mont Pelerin Society, 67, 93 Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, The (Friedman), 258 moral vacancy, 41 Morgan, Mary, 99 Morogoro, Tanzania, 121 Moyo, Dambisa, 258 Muirhead, Sam, 230, 231 MultiCapital Scorecard, 241 Murphy, David, 264 Murphy, Richard, 185 musical tastes, 110 Myriad Genetics, 196 N national basic income, 177 Native Americans, 115, 116, 282 natural capital, 7, 116, 269 Natural Economic Order, The (Gessel), 274 Nedbank, 216 negative externalities, 213 negative interest rates, 275–6 neoclassical economics, 134, 135 neoliberalism, 7, 62–3, 67–70, 81, 83, 84, 88, 93, 143, 170, 176 Nepal, 181, 199 Nestlé, 217 Netherlands, 211, 235, 224, 226, 238, 277 networks, 110–11, 117, 118, 123, 124–6, 174–6 neuroscience, 12–13 New Deal, 37 New Economics Foundation, 278, 283 New Year’s Day, 124 New York, United States, 9, 41, 55 Newlight Technologies, 224, 226, 293 Newton, Isaac, 13, 15–17, 32–3, 95, 97, 129, 131, 135–7, 142, 145, 162 Nicaragua, 196 Nigeria, 164 nitrogen, 49, 52, 212–13, 216, 218, 221, 226, 298 ‘no pain, no gain’, 163, 167, 173, 204, 209 Nobel Prize, 6–7, 43, 83, 101, 167 Norway, 281 nudging, 112, 113, 114, 123–6 O Obama, Barack, 41, 92 Oberlin, Ohio, 239, 240–41 Occupy movement, 40, 91 ocean acidification, 45, 46, 52, 155, 242, 298 Ohio, United States, 190, 239 Okun, Arthur, 37 onwards and upwards, 53 Open Building Institute, 196 Open Source Circular Economy (OSCE), 229–32 open systems, 74 open-source design, 158, 196–8, 265 open-source licensing, 204 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 38, 210, 255–6, 258 Origin of Species, The (Darwin), 14 Ormerod, Paul, 110, 111 Orr, David, 239 Ostrom, Elinor, 83, 84, 158, 160, 181–2 Ostry, Jonathan, 173 OSVehicle, 231 overseas development assistance (ODA), 198–200 ownership of wealth, 177–82 Oxfam, 9, 44 Oxford University, 1, 36 ozone layer, 9, 50, 115 P Pachamama, 54, 55 Pakistan, 124 Pareto, Vilfredo, 165–6, 175 Paris, France, 290 Park 20|20, Netherlands, 224, 226 Parker Brothers, 149 Patagonia, 56 patents, 195–6, 197, 204 patient capital, 235 Paypal, 192 Pearce, Joshua, 197, 203–4 peer-to-peer networks, 187, 192, 198, 203, 292 People’s QE, 184–5 Perseus, 244 Persia, 13 Peru, 2, 105–6 Phillips, Adam, 283 Phillips, William ‘Bill’, 64–6, 75, 142, 262 phosphorus, 49, 52, 212–13, 218, 298 Physiocrats, 73 Pickett, Kate, 171 pictures, 12–25 Piketty, Thomas, 169 Playfair, William, 16 Poincaré, Henri, 109, 127–8 Polanyi, Karl, 82, 272 political economy, 33–4, 42 political funding, 91–2, 171–2 political voice, 43, 45, 51–2, 77, 117 pollution, 29, 45, 52, 85, 143, 155, 206–17, 226, 238, 242, 254, 298 population, 5, 46, 57, 155, 199, 250, 252, 254 Portugal, 211 post-growth society, 250 poverty, 5, 9, 37, 41, 50, 88, 118, 148, 151 emotional, 283 and inequality, 164–5, 168–9, 178 and overseas development assistance (ODA), 198–200 and taxation, 277 power, 91–92 pre-analytic vision, 21–2 prescription medicines, 123 price-takers, 132 prices, 81, 118–23, 131, 160 Principles of Economics (Mankiw), 34 Principles of Economics (Marshall), 17, 98 Principles of Political Economy (Mill), 288 ProComposto, 226 Propaganda (Bernays), 107 public relations, 107, 281 public spending v. investment, 276 public–private patents, 195 Putnam, Robert, 76–7 Q quantitative easing (QE), 184–5 Quebec, 281 Quesnay, François, 16, 73 R Rabot, Ghent, 236 Rancière, Romain, 172 rating and review systems, 105 rational economic man, 94–103, 109, 111, 112, 126, 282 Reagan, Ronald, 67 reciprocity, 103–6, 117, 118, 123 reflexivity of markets, 144 reinforcing feedback loops, 138–41, 148, 250, 271 relative decoupling, 259 renewable energy biomass energy, 118, 221 and circular economy, 221, 224, 226, 235, 238–9, 274 and commons, 83, 85, 185, 187–8, 192, 203, 264 geothermal energy, 221 and green growth, 257, 260, 263, 264, 267 hydropower, 118, 260, 263 pricing, 118 solar energy, see solar energy wave energy, 221 wind energy, 75, 118, 196, 202–3, 221, 233, 239, 260, 263 rentier sector, 180, 183, 184 reregulation, 82, 87, 269 resource flows, 175 resource-intensive lifestyles, 46 Rethinking Economics, 289 Reynebeau, Guy, 237 Ricardo, David, 67, 68, 73, 89, 250 Richardson, Katherine, 53 Rifkin, Jeremy, 83, 264–5 Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, The (Kennedy), 279 risk, 112, 113–14 Robbins, Lionel, 34 Robinson, James, 86 Robinson, Joan, 142 robots, 191–5, 237, 258, 278 Rockefeller Foundation, 135 Rockford, Illinois, 179–80 Rockström, Johan, 48, 55 Roddick, Anita, 232–4 Rogoff, Kenneth, 271, 280 Roman Catholic Church, 15, 19 Rombo, Tanzania, 190 Rome, Ancient, 13, 48, 154 Romney, Mitt, 92 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 37 rooted membership, 190 Rostow, Walt, 248–50, 254, 257, 267–70, 284 Ruddick, Will, 185 rule of thumb, 113–14 Ruskin, John, 42, 223 Russia, 200 rust belt, 90, 239 S S curve, 251–6 Sainsbury’s, 56 Samuelson, Paul, 17–21, 24–5, 38, 62–7, 70, 74, 84, 91, 92, 93, 262, 290–91 Sandel, Michael, 41, 120–21 Sanergy, 226 sanitation, 5, 51, 59 Santa Fe, California, 213 Santinagar, West Bengal, 178 São Paolo, Brazil, 281 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 43 Saumweder, Philipp, 226 Scharmer, Otto, 115 Scholes, Myron, 100–101 Schumacher, Ernst Friedrich, 42, 142 Schumpeter, Joseph, 21 Schwartz, Shalom, 107–9 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 163, 167, 204 ‘Science and Complexity’ (Weaver), 136 Scotland, 57 Seaman, David, 187 Seattle, Washington, 217 second machine age, 258 Second World War (1939–45), 18, 37, 70, 170 secular stagnation, 256 self-interest, 28, 68, 96–7, 99–100, 102–3 Selfish Society, The (Gerhardt), 283 Sen, Amartya, 43 Shakespeare, William, 61–3, 67, 93 shale gas, 264, 269 Shang Dynasty, 48 shareholders, 82, 88, 189, 191, 227, 234, 273, 292 sharing economy, 264 Sheraton Hotel, Boston, 3 Siegen, Germany, 290 Silicon Valley, 231 Simon, Julian, 70 Sinclair, Upton, 255 Sismondi, Jean, 42 slavery, 33, 77, 161 Slovenia, 177 Small Is Beautiful (Schumacher), 42 smart phones, 85 Smith, Adam, 33, 57, 67, 68, 73, 78–9, 81, 96–7, 103–4, 128, 133, 160, 181, 250 social capital, 76–7, 122, 125, 172 social contract, 120, 125 social foundation, 10, 11, 44, 45, 49, 51, 58, 77, 174, 200, 254, 295–6 social media, 83, 281 Social Progress Index, 280 social pyramid, 166 society, 76–7 solar energy, 59, 75, 111, 118, 187–8, 190 circular economy, 221, 222, 223, 224, 226–7, 239 commons, 203 zero-energy buildings, 217 zero-marginal-cost revolution, 84 Solow, Robert, 135, 150, 262–3 Soros, George, 144 South Africa, 56, 177, 214, 216 South Korea, 90, 168 South Sea Bubble (1720), 145 Soviet Union (1922–91), 37, 67, 161, 279 Spain, 211, 238, 256 Spirit Level, The (Wilkinson & Pickett), 171 Sraffa, Piero, 148 St Gallen, Switzerland, 186 Stages of Economic Growth, The (Rostow), 248–50, 254 stakeholder finance, 190 Standish, Russell, 147 state, 28, 33, 69–70, 78, 82, 160, 176, 180, 182–4, 188 and commons, 85, 93, 197, 237 and market, 84–6, 200, 281 partner state, 197, 237–9 and robots, 195 stationary state, 250 Steffen, Will, 46, 48 Sterman, John, 66, 143, 152–4 Steuart, James, 33 Stiglitz, Joseph, 43, 111, 196 stocks and flows, 138–41, 143, 144, 152 sub-prime mortgages, 141 Success to the Successful, 148, 149, 151, 166 Sugarscape, 150–51 Summers, Larry, 256 Sumner, Andy, 165 Sundrop Farms, 224–6 Sunstein, Cass, 112 supply and demand, 28, 132–6, 143, 253 supply chains, 10 Sweden, 6, 255, 275, 281 swishing, 264 Switzerland, 42, 66, 80, 131, 186–7, 275 T Tableau économique (Quesnay), 16 tabula rasa, 20, 25, 63, 291 takarangi, 54 Tanzania, 121, 190, 202 tar sands, 264, 269 taxation, 78, 111, 165, 170, 176, 177, 237–8, 276–9 annual wealth tax, 200 environment, 213–14, 215 global carbon tax, 201 global financial transactions tax, 201, 235 land-value tax, 73, 149, 180 non-renewable resources, 193, 237–8, 278–9 People’s QE, 185 tax relief v. tax justice, 23, 276–7 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), 202, 258 Tempest, The (Shakespeare), 61, 63, 93 Texas, United States, 120 Thailand, 90, 200 Thaler, Richard, 112 Thatcher, Margaret, 67, 69, 76 Theory of Moral Sentiments (Smith), 96 Thompson, Edward Palmer, 180 3D printing, 83–4, 192, 198, 231, 264 thriving-in-balance, 54–7, 62 tiered pricing, 213–14 Tigray, Ethiopia, 226 time banking, 186 Titmuss, Richard, 118–19 Toffler, Alvin, 12, 80 Togo, 231, 292 Torekes, 236–7 Torras, Mariano, 209 Torvalds, Linus, 231 trade, 62, 68–9, 70, 89–90 trade unions, 82, 176, 189 trademarks, 195, 204 Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), 92 transport, 59 trickle-down economics, 111, 170 Triodos, 235 Turkey, 200 Tversky, Amos, 111 Twain, Mark, 178–9 U Uganda, 118, 125 Ulanowicz, Robert, 175 Ultimatum Game, 105, 117 unemployment, 36, 37, 276, 277–9 United Kingdom Big Bang (1986), 87 blood donation, 118 carbon dioxide emissions, 260 free trade, 90 global material footprints, 211 money creation, 182 MONIAC (Monetary National Income Analogue Computer), 64–5, 75, 142, 262 New Economics Foundation, 278, 283 poverty, 165, 166 prescription medicines, 123 wages, 188 United Nations, 55, 198, 204, 255, 258, 279 G77 bloc, 55 Human Development Index, 9, 279 Sustainable Development Goals, 24, 45 United States American Economic Association meeting (2015), 3 blood donation, 118 carbon dioxide emissions, 260 Congress, 36 Council of Economic Advisers, 6, 37 Earning by Learning, 120 Econ 101 course, 8, 77 Exxon Valdez oil spill (1989), 9 Federal Reserve, 87, 145, 146, 271, 282 free trade, 90 Glass–Steagall Act (1933), 87 greenhouse gas emissions, 153 global material footprint, 211 gross national product (GNP), 36–40 inequality, 170, 171 land-value tax, 73, 149, 180 political funding, 91–2, 171 poverty, 165, 166 productivity and employment, 193 rust belt, 90, 239 Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), 92 wages, 188 universal basic income, 200 University of Berkeley, 116 University of Denver, 160 urbanisation, 58–9 utility, 35, 98, 133 V values, 6, 23, 34, 35, 42, 117, 118, 121, 123–6 altruism, 100, 104 anthropocentric, 115 extrinsic, 115 fluid, 28, 102, 106–9 and networks, 110–11, 117, 118, 123, 124–6 and nudging, 112, 113, 114, 123–6 and pricing, 81, 120–23 Veblen, Thorstein, 82, 109, 111, 142 Venice, 195 verbal framing, 23 Verhulst, Pierre, 252 Victor, Peter, 270 Viner, Jacob, 34 virtuous cycles, 138, 148 visual framing, 23 Vitruvian Man, 13–14 Volkswagen, 215–16 W Wacharia, John, 186 Wall Street, 149, 234, 273 Wallich, Henry, 282 Walras, Léon, 131, 132, 133–4, 137 Ward, Barbara, 53 Warr, Benjamin, 263 water, 5, 9, 45, 46, 51, 54, 59, 79, 213–14 wave energy, 221 Ways of Seeing (Berger), 12, 281 Wealth of Nations, The (Smith), 74, 78, 96, 104 wealth ownership, 177–82 Weaver, Warren, 135–6 weightless economy, 261–2 WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic), 103–5, 110, 112, 115, 117, 282 West Bengal, India, 124, 178 West, Darrell, 171–2 wetlands, 7 whale hunting, 106 Wiedmann, Tommy, 210 Wikipedia, 82, 223 Wilkinson, Richard, 171 win–win trade, 62, 68, 89 wind energy, 75, 118, 196, 202–3, 221, 233, 239, 260, 263 Wizard of Oz, The, 241 Woelab, 231, 293 Wolf, Martin, 183, 266 women’s rights, 33, 57, 107, 160, 201 and core economy, 69, 79–81 education, 57, 124, 178, 198 and land ownership, 178 see also gender equality workers’ rights, 88, 91, 269 World 3 model, 154–5 World Bank, 6, 41, 119, 164, 168, 171, 206, 255, 258 World No Tobacco Day, 124 World Trade Organization, 6, 89 worldview, 22, 54, 115 X xenophobia, 266, 277, 286 Xenophon, 4, 32, 56–7, 160 Y Yandle, Bruce, 208 Yang, Yuan, 1–3, 289–90 yin yang, 54 Yousafzai, Malala, 124 YouTube, 192 Yunnan, China, 56 Z Zambia, 10 Zanzibar, 9 Zara, 276 Zeitvorsoge, 186–7 zero environmental impact, 217–18, 238, 241 zero-hour contracts, 88 zero-humans-required production, 192 zero-interest loans, 183 zero-marginal-cost revolution, 84, 191, 264 zero-waste manufacturing, 227 Zinn, Howard, 77 PICTURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Illustrations are reproduced by kind permission of: archive.org


pages: 391 words: 71,600

Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone by Satya Nadella, Greg Shaw, Jill Tracie Nichols

3D printing, AlphaGo, Amazon Web Services, anti-globalists, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bretton Woods, business process, cashless society, charter city, cloud computing, complexity theory, computer age, computer vision, corporate social responsibility, crowdsourcing, data science, DeepMind, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, equal pay for equal work, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, fault tolerance, fulfillment center, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, Google Glasses, Grace Hopper, growth hacking, hype cycle, industrial robot, Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, John von Neumann, knowledge worker, late capitalism, Mars Rover, Minecraft, Mother of all demos, Neal Stephenson, NP-complete, Oculus Rift, pattern recognition, place-making, Richard Feynman, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, Snow Crash, special economic zone, speech recognition, Stephen Hawking, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, subscription business, TED Talk, telepresence, telerobotics, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Soul of a New Machine, Tim Cook: Apple, trade liberalization, two-sided market, universal basic income, Wall-E, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, young professional, zero-sum game

The new jobs will be predicated on knowing how to work with machines, but also on these uniquely human attributes. In the face of these many coming shifts, there must be a new social contract that helps to achieve economic surplus and opportunity on a more equitable basis. To get there, what will the new labor movement look like? There has been talk of a Universal Basic Income. How will we re-skill and retrain workers—not just high-end knowledge workers, but also low-skill and mid-skill labor? Can the service sector and people-on-people jobs be the source of new employment for many displaced from traditional manufacturing or agricultural sectors? Finally, as leaders, what is our role?

See also specific products Tait, Richard, 7, 29 talent development, 117–18 TCI company, 28 teachers, 104, 106, 198, 226 teams and team building, 1, 39, 56, 107, 117–18 technology boom of 1990s, 24 democratizing and personalizing, 69 diffusion of, 216–17, 219 disruption and, 12 empathy and, 42–43 future of, 140–44 human performance augmented by, 142–43, 201 intensity of use, 217, 219, 221, 224–26 soul and, 68–69 transformation and, 11–12 TED talks, 180 telecommunications, 225 teleconferencing, shared-screen, 142 telegraph, 186 telepresence, 236 telerobotics, 236 tensor-processing unit (TPU), 161 Teper, Jeff, 29 terrorism, 172, 177–79 TextIt, 216 theoretical physicists, 162–64 think weeks, 64 32-bit operating systems, 29 Thiruvengadam, Arun, 187 Thompson, John, 14–15 3D printing, 228 three C s, 122–23, 141 Three Laws of Robotics, 202 ThyssenKrupp, 59–60 Tiger Server project, 30 time management model, 138 Tirupati, India, 19 topological quantum computing (TQC), 166 Toyota, 127 Tractica, 198 trade, 229–31, 236 training, 92, 227 transfer learning, 151, 153, 155 transformation, 11–12, 57, 67, 90 cloud and, 42, 55–56, 71 cultural (see culture, transforming) Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), 230–31 transparency, 135, 174–75, 191–92, 202, 204–6 Trump, Donald, 212, 230 trust, 56, 88, 107, 135, 169–94, 205, 236 Turing, Alan, 26 Turner, Kevin, 3 TV white space, 99, 225 Twilight Zone, The (TV show), 159 Twitter, 174 2001 (film), 201 two-in-one computers, 129 two-sided markets, 50 Uber, 44, 126, 153 uncertainty, 38, 111, 157 United Kingdom, 215, 236 United Nations, 44 U.S. Congress, 177, 211 U.S. Constitution, 187 U.S. Court of Appeals for Second Circuit, 177 U.S. Postal Service, 186 U.S. Supreme Court, 177, 185 universal basic income, 239–40 University of California at Santa Barbara, 162 University of Chicago, 29 University of Pennsylvania, 184 University of Wisconsin, 22–26 UNIX, 26, 29, 128 Upside of Inequality, The (Conard), 220 asphyxia in utero, 8 Vairavan, Dr., 23 values, 76, 182, 205 Vancouver, 92–93 Vanity Fair, 73–74 venture capital, 199 vice presidents, 118–19 videogames, 103, 106–8, 127 video-on-demand (VOD), 30 video surveillance cameras, 153 Vietnam, 170 virtual reality, 144–45, 228 visual crowding, 104 visual recognition, 76, 89, 150–51, 200 Visual Studio, 58, 59 vocational training, 227 Volvo, 153 Von Neumann, John, 26 WALL-E (film), 13 Wall Street Journal, 179, 230 Wal-Mart, 3 Washington Post, 80 Watsa, Prem, 20 Web, 49, 99.


pages: 222 words: 70,132

Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy by Jonathan Taplin

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "there is no alternative" (TINA), 1960s counterculture, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, American Legislative Exchange Council, AOL-Time Warner, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, back-to-the-land, barriers to entry, basic income, battle of ideas, big data - Walmart - Pop Tarts, Big Tech, bitcoin, Brewster Kahle, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, Clayton Christensen, Cody Wilson, commoditize, content marketing, creative destruction, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, data is the new oil, data science, David Brooks, David Graeber, decentralized internet, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Dynabook, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, equal pay for equal work, Erik Brynjolfsson, Fairchild Semiconductor, fake news, future of journalism, future of work, George Akerlof, George Gilder, Golden age of television, Google bus, Hacker Ethic, Herbert Marcuse, Howard Rheingold, income inequality, informal economy, information asymmetry, information retrieval, Internet Archive, Internet of things, invisible hand, Jacob Silverman, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John Perry Barlow, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, Larry Ellison, life extension, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, Menlo Park, Metcalfe’s law, military-industrial complex, Mother of all demos, move fast and break things, natural language processing, Network effects, new economy, Norbert Wiener, offshore financial centre, packet switching, PalmPilot, Paul Graham, paypal mafia, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, pre–internet, Ray Kurzweil, reality distortion field, recommendation engine, rent-seeking, revision control, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Robert Metcalfe, Ronald Reagan, Ross Ulbricht, Sam Altman, Sand Hill Road, secular stagnation, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Skinner box, smart grid, Snapchat, Social Justice Warrior, software is eating the world, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, tech billionaire, techno-determinism, technoutopianism, TED Talk, The Chicago School, the long tail, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transfer pricing, Travis Kalanick, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, unpaid internship, vertical integration, We are as Gods, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, web application, Whole Earth Catalog, winner-take-all economy, women in the workforce, Y Combinator, you are the product

Already in the United States we know that the labor-force participation rate for men between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-four who have only a high school diploma is at historic lows as this chart demonstrates. The only way out of this crisis—to realize Andreessen’s vision of six billion people dabbling in art, science, and culture—is to have some version of a universal basic income (UBI), free health care, and a deep reduction in the length of the workday. Already some employers in Sweden are cutting their workday to six hours, and Finland is experimenting with a guaranteed income. These are not impossible goals, yet Andreessen can still posit a future in which a deep social safety net exists without the most modest proposed changes to the status quo, such as free college tuition and universal health care.

I am under no illusion that this would be an easy process or that I have the correct strategy. I am not going to try to address the larger issue of whether robots and artificial intelligence are going to lead to a world without jobs, for that would take a book in itself. I have suggested that policy makers begin exploring a universal basic income, or UBI, a concept that has support on both the left and right. It does seem to me that to ignore the dystopian possibility that software will “eat the world” would be foolhardy. Just because some techno-optimists continue to insist that old jobs will be replaced by new jobs we can’t imagine yet does not mean it is true.


pages: 246 words: 68,392

Gigged: The End of the Job and the Future of Work by Sarah Kessler

"Susan Fowler" uber, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, basic income, bitcoin, blockchain, business cycle, call centre, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, crowdsourcing, data science, David Attenborough, do what you love, Donald Trump, East Village, Elon Musk, financial independence, future of work, game design, gig economy, Hacker News, income inequality, independent contractor, information asymmetry, Jeff Bezos, job automation, law of one price, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, market clearing, minimum wage unemployment, new economy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, payday loans, post-work, profit maximization, QR code, race to the bottom, ride hailing / ride sharing, Salesforce, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, TaskRabbit, TechCrunch disrupt, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, working-age population, Works Progress Administration, Y Combinator

In its new role as a partner to other organizations, Samaschool would continue to focus on these skills. In terms of efforts toward helping his own community went, Terrence was back to his habit of asking children if they were hungry. He’d been thinking deeply about why Samaschool hadn’t worked, and what might have worked better. A policy idea called “Universal Basic Income” (UBI) had started gaining steam in Silicon Valley as a way to end poverty. Programs based on this idea pay everyone a minimum income, regardless of their circumstances. Martin Luther King Jr., the conservative economist Friedrich Hayek, and President Richard Nixon had all supported this idea, and modern boosters were no less varied.

No limits” pitch Pandora partnership politics and price war with Lyft rating system self-driving cars and surge pricing model SXSW and taxi industry and tips and Uber Freedom (Facebook page) #Uberspotting UberX unions and valuation worker benefits worker earnings worker equity packages worker expenses Xchange Leasing See also Campbell, Harry; Husein, Mamdooh; Kalanick, Travis; Leadum, Mario “Uber for X” model “Uberization” of work UN International Labour Office unemployment unemployment benefits unicorns (high-valuation startups) Unionen (Swedish white-collar trade union) unions. See labor and trade unions United Construction Trades and Industrial Employees Union Universal Basic Income (UBI) UPS Upwork (freelance marketplace) US Department of Labor USA Today venture capital gig economy and Google Ventures Managed by Q and TechCrunch Disrupt and Uber and venture capitalists VentureBeat (blog) Walker, Anthony Walmart Warner, Mark Warren, Elizabeth Washington Post Washio (on-demand laundry startup) WeFuel (on-demand fuel startup) Weil, David Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation Wired (magazine) Woodhead, Carole workers advocacy groups workers’ compensation Xchange Leasing Y Combinator (tech incubator) Yelp (user review website) Zaarly (online marketplace) Zirtual (virtual assistant services) Zuckerberg, Mark About the Author SARAH KESSLER is a reporter at Quartz, where she writes about the future of work.


pages: 268 words: 64,786

Cashing Out: Win the Wealth Game by Walking Away by Julien Saunders, Kiersten Saunders

barriers to entry, basic income, Big Tech, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, blockchain, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, death from overwork, digital divide, diversification, do what you love, Donald Trump, estate planning, financial independence, follow your passion, future of work, gig economy, glass ceiling, global pandemic, index fund, job automation, job-hopping, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, lifestyle creep, Lyft, microaggression, multilevel marketing, non-fungible token, off-the-grid, passive income, passive investing, performance metric, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, Salesforce, side hustle, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, Vanguard fund, work culture , young professional

The third problem is that many of the jobs we have come to rely on for income are slowly being eliminated as companies invest more in technology. In 2019, the former presidential candidate Andrew Yang became widely known for his campaign’s signature program, “The Freedom Dividend.” The premise of the program was to provide a universal basic income in the form of a $1,000 stipend for all Americans regardless of their work status. His justification for this proposal was simple. “As technology improves, workers will be able to stop doing the most dangerous, repetitive, and boring jobs. This should excite us, but if Americans have no source of income—no ability to pay for groceries, buy homes, save for education, or start families with confidence—then the future could be very dark,” said Yang.[1] The threat of technology and automation has particularly harmful effects on America’s Black population.

See consumerism and spending standards of living, pressure to uphold, 107 Statista, 63 stealth wealth, 37–39 stock market calculated risks in, 174 downturns in, 98–99, 173–74 and health of economy, 230 historical average returns in, 162–63, 168 index funds’ relationship to, 158–59 and investment clubs, 170 lack of certainty in, 111, 114–16 as wealth-building machine, 16 storage industry, 63–64 strengths, getting feedback on, 89–90 stress, 31–32, 97 struggle, financial, 46–48 student loan debt of authors, 6 average balance of, 76–77 challenge of paying down, 4, 59 as crisis, 210 and Jannese’s success story, 123, 124 success maintaining appearance of, 4 as six-figure salary, 147 on your own terms, 28–29 swagbucks.com, 131 T taboo of talking about money, 12, 38 talentstacker.com, 212 taskrabbit.com, 131 taxes, 165 Teachable, 137 technology advances in, 127 and digital divide, 128 entrepreneurship in, 128–29 and future of wealth, 127–29 and gig economy, 131–34 impact on entrepreneurship, 128–29 income options unlocked by, 139 technological literacy, 128 as threat to employment, 125–26 television, gurus/celebrity advisers on, 155–56, 223 terrorism, domestic, 3 “Thriller” video (Jackson), 101–2 time to do what you love, 25–26 exchanged for wages/salary, 124–27, 138 token integration, 41 Torres-Rodriguez, Jannese, 123–24 Total Stock Market Index Fund (Vanguard), 167, 168 transportation as Big 3 expense, 57, 59 trucking industry, automation in, 126 Twitter, 145 2008 economic downturn, 76, 131–34, 155, 173 U Uber, 131, 135 Umi Feeds (nonprofit), 221–22 universal basic income, 125–26 upside/urgency in entrepreneurial opportunities, 129–37, 129 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 153 V vacation time, unused, 26 values and consumerism cycle, 45 and financial independence, 68 lifestyles aligned with, 26, 35 spending money/time in tune with, 41 Vanguard, 167, 168 Vanzant, Iyanla, 130 virtual reality, 129 W wages.


pages: 279 words: 76,796

The Unbanking of America: How the New Middle Class Survives by Lisa Servon

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, basic income, behavioural economics, Build a better mousetrap, business cycle, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, cross-border payments, do well by doing good, employer provided health coverage, financial exclusion, financial independence, financial innovation, gender pay gap, gentrification, George Akerlof, gig economy, Glass-Steagall Act, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, Joseph Schumpeter, late fees, low interest rates, Lyft, M-Pesa, medical bankruptcy, microcredit, Occupy movement, payday loans, peer-to-peer lending, precariat, Ralph Nader, Richard Thaler, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, sharing economy, subprime mortgage crisis, too big to fail, transaction costs, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, We are the 99%, white flight, working poor, Zipcar

When people invest in their own education—their human capital—it’s good for all of us because human capital increases productivity, which helps fuel the economy. We have good reason to care about one another’s financial health. There is more than one way to tackle this much larger set of problems, and many ideas exist: creating a universal basic income, implementing a federal jobs-creation program, providing greater subsidies for childcare, housing, education, and health care. We have the resources and the ideas. What we need now is political will. In addition, we need to rethink our assumptions about the way people make decisions. Most people have very good reasons for doing what they do with their money.

See Truth in Lending Act TransUnion, 70, 151 trust in banks, xix, 44–45, 111–12, 118, 146 business practice tricks and, 34, 36 in check cashing, xix in informal savings and loans, xv, 124–27, 131–34 in innovation, 146 of millennials, 111–12, 118 Truth in Lending Act (TILA, 1968), 200n43, 209n68 U un- and underbanked, xvi–xvii, 44, 147, 165. See also financial exclusion underground economy. See informal savings and loans unemployment, 50, 64, 73–74, 107–8 Uniform Small Loan Laws, 65, 224n163 universal basic income, 168 universal financial health, 166–67 Urban Institute, 175 US Financial Diaries, 203n52 V Vazquez, Raul, 162–64 Venkatesh, Sudhir, 127–28 Venmo app, 112–13 Virginia Poverty Law Center, 96–97, 184 Visa, 55, 71–72 W wages. See income Warren, Elizabeth, 39–40, 69–70 Washington Mutual, 36 Watson Grote, Mae, 31 wealthy people, xii, 6, 26, 29, 85 Weinstein, John, 84–86, 90–91, 184 welfare, 3, 11–12, 18, 21–22, 85, 94 Wells Fargo, 31, 37, 87 white people, 3, 7–8, 41–42, 86–87 Wiggins, Dana, 96–97, 101 Y young adults.


pages: 283 words: 73,093

Social Democratic America by Lane Kenworthy

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, business cycle, carbon tax, Celtic Tiger, centre right, clean water, collective bargaining, corporate governance, David Brooks, desegregation, Edward Glaeser, endogenous growth, full employment, Gini coefficient, hiring and firing, Home mortgage interest deduction, illegal immigration, income inequality, invisible hand, Kenneth Arrow, labor-force participation, manufacturing employment, market bubble, minimum wage unemployment, new economy, off-the-grid, postindustrial economy, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, school choice, shareholder value, sharing economy, Skype, Steve Jobs, too big to fail, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, union organizing, universal basic income, War on Poverty, working poor, zero day

The idea originated with Milton Friedman, and Congress gave a version of it serious consideration in the early 1970s.147 Today, it is supported by some on the left, most prominently Philippe Van Parijs, and some on the right, such as Charles Murray.148 On the left, the argument in favor focuses on the potential enhancement of freedom—specifically, freedom from work. In the words of Van Parijs: A basic income would serve as a powerful instrument of social justice: it would promote freedom for all by providing the material resources that people need to pursue their aims.…A UBI [universal basic income] makes it easier to take a break between two jobs, reduce working time, make room for more training, take up self-employment, or join a cooperative. And with a UBI, workers will only take a job if they find it suitably attractive.… If the motive in combating unemployment is not some sort of work fetishism—an obsession with keeping everyone busy—but rather a concern to give every person the possibility of taking up gainful employment in which she can find recognition and accomplishment, then the UBI is to be preferred.149 For proponents on the right, the chief advantage is reduction in the deadweight costs of public social programs.

“Transfer Issues and Directions for Reform: Australian Transfer Policy in Comparative Perspective.” Kensington, Australia: Social Policy Research Center. Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW). 2011. “Living Below the Line: Economic Insecurity and America’s Families.” Washington, DC. Widerquist, Karl. 2013. “Is Universal Basic Income Still Worth Talking About?” Pp. 568–584 in The Economics of Inequality, Poverty, and Discrimination in the 21st Century. Edited by Robert Rycroft. New York: Praeger. Wilensky, Harold L. 1975. The Welfare State and Equality. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wilensky, Harold L. 2002.


pages: 237 words: 74,109

Uncanny Valley: A Memoir by Anna Wiener

autonomous vehicles, back-to-the-land, basic income, behavioural economics, Blitzscaling, blockchain, blood diamond, Burning Man, call centre, charter city, cloud computing, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, commoditize, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, dark triade / dark tetrad, data science, digital divide, digital nomad, digital rights, end-to-end encryption, Extropian, functional programming, future of work, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, growth hacking, guns versus butter model, housing crisis, Jane Jacobs, job automation, knowledge worker, Lean Startup, means of production, medical residency, microaggression, microapartment, microdosing, new economy, New Urbanism, Overton Window, passive income, Plato's cave, pull request, rent control, ride hailing / ride sharing, San Francisco homelessness, Sand Hill Road, self-driving car, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Social Justice Warrior, social web, South of Market, San Francisco, special economic zone, subprime mortgage crisis, systems thinking, tech bro, tech worker, technoutopianism, telepresence, telepresence robot, union organizing, universal basic income, unpaid internship, urban planning, urban renewal, warehouse robotics, women in the workforce, work culture , Y2K, young professional

“Do you think you hate yourself?” asked a therapist in Berkeley. Coming on strong for an intake session, I thought, but the next day I caught myself following a bunch of venture capitalists on the microblogging platform. It wasn’t exactly an act of self-care. The venture capitalists were discussing a universal basic income, and I couldn’t look away. They were concerned about the unlocked economic potential of the urban poor. As icebergs melted and the ocean’s temperatures ticked toward uninhabitability, they were concerned that AI—specifically, the question of whether they or China would own it—would bring about the Third World War.

and joked about disrupting capitalism. Something was stirring, or taking root. People were coming to politics for the first time through their white-collar labor. They were developing theoretical frameworks on the internet; they were beginning to identify with the Worker. They talked about universal basic income over free cocktails at the company bar. On social media, there were whispers of dissent among people whose avatars were their fursonas. Site reliability engineers posted nuanced Marxist critiques in the middle of their workdays. A labor reckoning for the tech companies seemed to glimmer on the horizon, slowly taking shape.


pages: 504 words: 129,087

The Ones We've Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America by Charlotte Alter

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, "World Economic Forum" Davos, 4chan, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, carbon footprint, carbon tax, clean water, collective bargaining, Columbine, corporate personhood, correlation does not imply causation, Credit Default Swap, crowdsourcing, data science, David Brooks, deepfake, deplatforming, disinformation, Donald Trump, double helix, East Village, ending welfare as we know it, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, Ferguson, Missouri, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, gentrification, gig economy, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, Google Hangouts, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, housing crisis, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), job-hopping, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, Lyft, mandatory minimum, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, mass incarceration, McMansion, medical bankruptcy, microaggression, move fast and break things, Nate Silver, obamacare, Occupy movement, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, passive income, pre–internet, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, sexual politics, Sheryl Sandberg, side hustle, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, Snapchat, Social Justice Warrior, Steve Bannon, TaskRabbit, tech bro, too big to fail, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, unpaid internship, We are the 99%, white picket fence, working poor, Works Progress Administration

“He was the first officer I had a conversation with.” Michael implemented the first basic income pilot program in the nation, guaranteeing $500 monthly checks to a select group of residents for eighteen months to test whether simple cash transfers could alleviate poverty. While democratic socialists were writing long op-eds demanding universal basic income, Michael was actually testing how it could work. He started the Student Success and Leadership Academy, a group of about eight hundred kids who clean up parks during the summer; the program simultaneously keeps the city’s parks nice and gives the kids something to do when school is out. But Michael knew they would still be left behind without more education.

And FDR opposed the creation of public sector unions, arguing they would require state governments to essentially negotiate against themselves. But FDR also fought for programs that would be considered radically left even by today’s standards. He wanted cradle-to-grave Social Security for all Americans—essentially a universal basic income—but never proposed it because he thought it was politically impossible. In 1942, five months after the United States entered World War II, he asked Congress to increase the top marginal tax rate to a level that would virtually eliminate great wealth. “Discrepancies between low personal incomes and very high personal incomes should be lessened,” he said.

than Chicago or Afghanistan: Crimesider Staff, “Report: Stockton, Calif, Has More Murders Per Capita thank Chicago,” CBS News, June 29, 2012, cbsnews.com/news/report-stockton-calif-has-more-murders-per-capita-than-chicago/. and an incarcerated father: Edward-Isaac Dovere, “Can This Millennial Mayor Make Universal Basic Income a Reality,” Politico, April 24, 2018, politico.com/magazine/story/2018/04/24/michael-tubbs-stockton-california-mayor-218070. work hard in school: Roger Phillips, “My Three Moms,” Recordnet.com, May 11, 2014, recordnet.com/article/20140511/a_news/405110320. kids out of poverty: Alana Semuels, “Can Philanthropy Save a City?


pages: 302 words: 84,881

The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy by Paolo Gerbaudo

Airbnb, barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Californian Ideology, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, centre right, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, data science, digital capitalism, digital divide, digital rights, disintermediation, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Dunbar number, Edward Snowden, end-to-end encryption, Evgeny Morozov, feminist movement, gig economy, industrial robot, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, jimmy wales, Joseph Schumpeter, Mark Zuckerberg, Network effects, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shock, post-industrial society, precariat, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Florida, Richard Stallman, Ruby on Rails, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Skype, Slavoj Žižek, smart cities, Snapchat, social web, software studies, Stewart Brand, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, the long tail, Thomas L Friedman, universal basic income, vertical integration, Vilfredo Pareto, WikiLeaks

Nevertheless, many of these parties are also cognisant of the new social problems that characterise the digital condition, and the need to establish new forms of social protection, in a society in which job structures, forms of employment appear to be increasingly unstable. One of the key measures advocated by many digital parties is Universal Basic Income (UBI). This policy, which aims at providing all citizens, irrespective of their employment situation or wealth, with a state-provided subsidy, has been widely debated in recent years and experimented in a number of countries including Switzerland, Finland and the Netherlands. Basic income in its various denominations is often framed as a response to the imbalances created by technological evolution.

.: 23 Galapagar case: 138–9 Game of Thrones: 156 Ghibellines: 28 Gillespie, Tarleton: 69 Gramsci, Antonio: 7, 27, 37–8, 41, 43–4, 75, 77, 105, 143, 164 Theory of party structure: 38–9, 164 On the passivity of the mass: 147 On leadership: 151–2, Great Recession: 4, 27, 46, 168, Green Party: 10, 16, 26, 27 Basisdemokratie (grassroots democracy): 16 Grillo, Beppe: 2–3, 9, 43, 59–60, 74–5, 80, 83, 89, 95, 100–1, 135, 141, 153, 154–5, 158–60, 181 theatre shows: 154 Guelphs: 28 Guevara, Che: 25, 26, 148 House of Cards: 25 Hyperleader: 17, 144–62 And reactive democracy: 185 As benevolent dictator: 186 Characteristics: 153–5 Relationship with advisors: 159–60 Reputation: 154 Iglesias Turrion, Pablo: 11, 86, 94, 136, 138–9, 145, 149–50, 151, 153, 155–6, 158–60, 181 Italia a 5 Stelle (Five star movement annual gathering): 1–3 Izquierda Unida (IU): 136 Julius Caesar: 19, 28, 150, 152, 159, 161 Kant, Immanuel: 184 Karpf, David: 13, 169 Katz, Richard: 7, 30, 32, 59, 99 Kautsky, Karl: 110 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald: 33 Kirchheimer, Otto: 7, 32 Klug, Adam: 12, 171 La Tuerka: 150, 156 Labour Party: 12, 14, 29, 31, 35, 41, 52, 54, 107–8, 111, 148, 151, 156, 165, 168, 177 Lansman, Jon: 12, 103, Lavapies (neighbourhood in Madrid): 94 Leadership: 146–8 Charismatic leadership: 148–9 Leaderlessness: 77, 146, 181, 183, 187 Legal-rational: 147 Routinisation of charisma: 188 Liberalism: 28 Linux: 19, 82, 86, 159 Liquid Feedback: 4, 16, 61, 112–4, 121, 124 Loomio: 108, 112, 114–5 Machiavelli, Niccolò: 151, 186 Macron, Emmanuel: 13, 108, 140 Madison, James: 24 Mair, Peter: 7, 30, 32, 59, 99 Marx, Karl: 68, 93 May’s law: 124, 170 Mélenchon, Jean-Luc: 12, 52, 53, 86–8, 93, 107, 122, 132, 144–5, 156–9 Michels, Robert: 7, 16, 27, 30–1, 36–9, 41, 103, 110, 140, 142, 147, 152–3, 175, 179 Iron law of oligarchy: 36–7 Theory of party structure: 39 Microbureaucracy: 97 Mill, John Stuart: 24 Momentum: 26, 73, 80, 83, 87, 96, 102–3, 107, 166, 171–2 Monedero, Juan Carlos: 11 Montero, Irene: 138–9, 158 Morgan, Gareth: 67 MoVimento 5 Stelle (Five Star Movement): 1–5, 7, 9–19, 26, 43, 52–4, 57, 60–4, 66, 73–4, 77, 80–1, 83, 86–90, 93, 95–7, 99, 100–2, 105, 107–8, 112, 115–7, 119–20, 124, Meetup groups: 97, 99–102 Referendums for the expulsion of members: 135 Salary restitution programme: 57 Movimento Sociale Italiano (rightwing party in Italy): 2 NationBuilder (political campaigning app): 12, 107, 121, 124 Nazism: 24 Nielsen, Jakob: 91 Law of participation: 91 Nixon, Richard: 33 Nvotes: 108, 119 Obama, Barack: 11, 13 Olivetti, Adriano: 88–9, 154 Optimates: 28 Organisation: 67 Delegation: 17 Elimination of middlemen: 15, 183 Integration of technology: 13 Iron law of oligarchy: 36–7, 185 Lean management: 15 Organisational fragility: 187 Netroots organisations: 13 Ostrogorski, Moisei: 24, 27, 31, 104, Paine, Thomas: 111 Panebianco, Angelo: 7, 27, 32, 34–5 Parlamentarie (M5S online primaries): 10 Parliament et Citoyens (French parliament digital democracy project): 107 Parsons, Talcott: 45 Participa (Podemos participatory portal): 12, 73, 132 Participation And anti-party suspicion: 85–8 As an idea in contemporary culture: 84 And distrust towards bureaucracy: 150 And lack of party office: 96 Aristocratic tendencies: 164, 173 Difference between militant and sympathiser: 174 Habitueés of meetings: 103 Individualisation of participation: 102–3, 188 In parties’ discourse: 82–4 Lurking supporters: 174 Participationism: 81–9, 191 Participation aristocracy: 91 Participation divide: 91 Participatory representation: 123 Passive membership: 175 Superbase: 17, 152, 162–72 Partido de la Red (Party of the Net, Argentina): 8 Partido Popular (Popular Party): 11 Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE): 11, 14, 108, 166, 190 Partido X (X Party, also known as the Party of the Future, Spain): 8 Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist Party): 31, 35, 42, 92, 93, 95 Partito Democratico (Democratic Party, Italy): 10, 35, 52–3, 111 Partito Socialista Italiano (Italian Socialist Party, PSI): 153 Pericles: 185 Pirate Bay (file sharing server): 8, 56, 58, 166 Pirate Parties: 4, 7–9, 12–3, 16, 26, 48, 50, 52, 54–8, 61–2, 64, 66, 73, 77, 82, 86, 88, 93, 99, 105, 107, 112, 115, 159, 166, 172, 174, 177, 178, 180–1 Piratar (Iceland): 8 Pirate Party International (PPI): 8 Piratenpartei (Germany): 8, 114 Piratpartiet (Sweden): 8, 55, 166, 167 Česká pirátská strana (Czech Pirate Party): 8 Place Fear of, terror loci: 93, 95 Organisational principle of: 42 Platformisation: 14, 67, 69, 73, 76–7, 179, 183–4, 187, Podemos: 4, 7, 9, 11–4, 16, 19, 26, 52–5, 57, 61–3, 65–6, 69, 73, 81, 86–8, 93–8, 104–5, 107–8, 112, 115, 119–21, 123–5, 131–2, 136–43, 149–51, 153, 155–60, 166–70, 173–4, 177, 180–1, 193 Circles (Podemos’ local groups): 97–8, 115, 132 Citizens’ Council (Podemos’ central committee): 11, 96, 131, 136 Iniciativas Ciudadanas and Popular Podemos (Podemos Citizens’ and Popular initiatives): 121, 131 Plaza Podemos: 16, 86, 120, 131 Political Parties: Astroturf parties: 26 Definitions of: 27–9 Cadres: 18, 161, 179, 183 Catchall: 33 Integration: 182 Electoral/professional parties: 33 Party systems: 26 Political careers: 99 Mass parties: 30–2 Movement parties: 25 New Left: 27 Party sections, cells: 97–8 Passivity of the mass: 186 Patronage parties: 28 Return of: 25–8 Suspicion towards: 22–4 Television parties: 33–6 Populares (Party in ancient Rome): 28 Populism: 1, 4, 9, 10, 12, 15, 27, 39, 44 Poulantzas, Nicos: 27 Power struggles: 161, Precariat: 50 Proceduralism: 188, 189, Protest movements: 1968: 26 2011: 36 Environmentalist: 25, 146 Feminist: 25, 146 Raggi, Virginia: 10 Rajoy, Mariano: 138 Reduction of membership of traditional parties: 165 Rees, Emma: 12, 103 Renewable energy: 62–3 Republican Party: 28 Republique En Marche (REM, Macron’s movement): 108 Revelli, Marco: 31–2 Rittinghausen, Moritz Robespierre Rokkan, Stein: 45 Role as diffusors of messages: 176 Rousseau (5 Star Movement decision-making system): 2, 10–11, 116–7 Lex functions: 117, 131 Lex Iscritti: 117 Hacker attacks: 119 Villaggio Rousseau: 2 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques: 37 Salvini, Matteo: 1, 13 Sanchez, Pedro: 11 Sanders, Bernard (US senator and presidential primary candidate in 2016): 13 Scarrow, Susan: 28, 128–9 Schneider, James: 12 Schumpeter, Joseph: 38 Scudo della Rete (Shield of the Net): 57 Security Silicon Valley: 15 Signup process: 168–9 Skocpol, Theda: 42 Snowden, Edward: 50 Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD): 14 Srnicek, Nick: 71 Stalinism: 24 Stallman, Richard (open source activist): 116, 124 Super-volunteer: 171–3 Teatro Smeraldo, Milan: 9 Telegram: 4 The Apprentice: 156 TOR (The onion router): 56 Tormey, Simon: 60 Torvalds, Linus: 159 Transparency: 57 Trump, Donald: 6, 35 Tufekci, Zeynep: 187 Twitter: 4, 124 UK Independence Party (UKIP): 65 Universal basic income: 63, 131 Universal basic services: 64 V for Vendetta (film): 3 Vaffanculo Day (literally ‘Fuck Off Day’, M5S protest in 2007): 9 Veltroni, Walter: 93 Von Hayek, Friedrich: 25 Von Treitsche, Heinrich: 24 Wales, Jimmy: 159 Washington, George Weber, Max: 7, 27–9., 31, 37–8, 40, 147, 151, 185 Weil, Simone (Christian anarchist); WhatsApp: 4 Whigs (Liberal party, UK): 22 Wikipartido (Wikiparty, Mexico): 8 Wikipedia: 19, 82, 86, 91, 159 World Social Forum: 25 Yang, Guobin: 44 Your Priorities: 108 Zeming, Jang: 148 Zuckerberg, Mark: 63, 66, 158


pages: 288 words: 86,995

Rule of the Robots: How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything by Martin Ford

AI winter, Airbnb, algorithmic bias, algorithmic trading, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Web Services, artificial general intelligence, Automated Insights, autonomous vehicles, backpropagation, basic income, Big Tech, big-box store, call centre, carbon footprint, Chris Urmson, Claude Shannon: information theory, clean water, cloud computing, commoditize, computer age, computer vision, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, coronavirus, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, data is the new oil, data science, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, deskilling, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, factory automation, fake news, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, George Floyd, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, Googley, GPT-3, high-speed rail, hype cycle, ImageNet competition, income inequality, independent contractor, industrial robot, informal economy, information retrieval, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, Kiva Systems, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, Law of Accelerating Returns, license plate recognition, low interest rates, low-wage service sector, Lyft, machine readable, machine translation, Mark Zuckerberg, Mitch Kapor, natural language processing, Nick Bostrom, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, Ocado, OpenAI, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, passive income, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, Phillips curve, post scarcity, public intellectual, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, remote working, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Rodney Brooks, Rubik’s Cube, Sam Altman, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, social distancing, SoftBank, South of Market, San Francisco, special economic zone, speech recognition, stealth mode startup, Stephen Hawking, superintelligent machines, TED Talk, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, Turing machine, Turing test, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, very high income, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Y Combinator

FIXING THE DISTRIBUTIONAL PROBLEM In my view, the most straightforward and effective way to address the distributional challenge brought about by artificial intelligence advances is simply to give people money. In other words, supplement the incomes of all or the bulk of the population with some version of a guaranteed minimum income, negative income tax or basic income. The idea that has recently gained the most traction is an unconditional universal basic income, or UBI. The visibility of UBI as a policy response to AI-driven automation was dramatically accelerated in 2019 by the presidential candidacy of Andrew Yang. Yang, who sought the Democratic nomination for president, ran primarily on a platform of a $1,000 per month “Freedom Dividend” that would be paid to all U.S. citizens.

Because programs like unemployment insurance or welfare payments are phased out or eliminated entirely once the recipient finds a job and begins to earn income, there can be a powerful disincentive to seek employment. Accepting even a low-paying job puts the person’s existing income at immediate risk. As a result, people often get trapped into dependency on safety net programs and see little in the way of a concrete incentive to take small steps toward a better future. A universal basic income, in contrast, is unaffected by employment, and therefore anyone who chooses to work or perhaps start a small business that generates extra income will always be better off than the person who simply sits at home and collects the monthly UBI payment. The UBI creates an absolute income floor, but there always remains a strong incentive to earn more.


pages: 477 words: 144,329

How Money Became Dangerous by Christopher Varelas

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Airbnb, airport security, barriers to entry, basic income, Bear Stearns, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Bonfire of the Vanities, California gold rush, cashless society, corporate raider, crack epidemic, cryptocurrency, discounted cash flows, disintermediation, diversification, diversified portfolio, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, driverless car, dumpster diving, eat what you kill, fiat currency, financial engineering, fixed income, friendly fire, full employment, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, initial coin offering, interest rate derivative, John Meriwether, junk bonds, Kickstarter, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, mandatory minimum, Mary Meeker, Max Levchin, Michael Milken, mobile money, Modern Monetary Theory, mortgage debt, Neil Armstrong, pensions crisis, pets.com, pre–internet, profit motive, proprietary trading, risk tolerance, Saturday Night Live, selling pickaxes during a gold rush, shareholder value, side project, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, technology bubble, The Predators' Ball, too big to fail, universal basic income, zero day

In a community where 25 percent of the people are in poverty, where the average median income is $46,000 for a household—not even for an individual, but for a family—where almost half the jobs in this county are minimum-wage jobs, all our issues make sense. They’re almost a byproduct.” One of Tubbs’s staffers suggested the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI). The idea was as straightforward as it was radical. Martin Luther King Jr. had explored it in his final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?: “In addition to the absence of coordination and sufficiency, the programs of the past all have another common failing—they are indirect.

., 327 Sinatra, Frank, 94 Singer, William “Rick,” 291 60 Minutes, 294 Smach, Tom, 184–88, 213–14 SmarTalk, 218, 221–23, 244 Smith, Greg, 155 Smith Barney, 188 Snider, Stacey, 169 Snow, Zachary, 67 social media, 305, 307 influencers on, 283–84, 291–99, 301–3, 305 Social Security, 353 Soenen, Colleen, 115 Soenen, Don, 115 Soenen, Michael, 115–18, 131–35, 259 relationship troubles of, 138–43 Soledad State Prison, 158–59 South Street Seaport, 48, 61 Soviet Union, 124 special access, see privilege speed of communication and decision making, 127–28, 143–44, 360–61 Spitzer, Eliot, 207, 212–13 Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, 47 spreadsheets, 19–20, 24, 37, 360 F9 mistake and, 127 Stanford University, 291, 340 Starbucks, 162 startup culture, 244 Steinberg, Saul, 81–84, 86–91, 98, 102–4, 111 Stephanopoulos, George, 324 Stern, Howard, 140 stock(s), 36, 37, 51, 178 high-frequency trading of, 242–43 manipulation of, 72–74 options, 181 pools, 73–74 Stockton, Calif., 311–14, 320–23, 335–37, 339–42, 346–52, 354 pension crisis in, 335–36 Silva as mayor of, 346–47, 350 Tubbs in, 311–13, 322, 323, 339–42, 347–52, 370 Universal Basic Income in, 348–50 Stockton Arena, 321 Stockton Boys and Girls Club, 346–47 Stockton Scholars, 347–48 Stone, Dan, 5–6 Stone, Oliver, 98 Strauss, Levi, 230 Strauss, Tom, 57, 67, 68 Studebaker, John, 230 student loans, 292, 307 for business school students, 284–86 Suicide Forest, 301 Sun Also Rises, The (Hemingway), 311 survivalists (preppers), 305–8 sustainability, 2 Sweitzer, Caesar, 156, 158, 165, 166, 262 Sykes, Gene “Tiger,” 118, 119, 124 tail numbers, 117, 259 Talladega Nights, 113 technology, 358 fears about, 305 speed of communication, 127–28, 143–44 technology industry, 96, 233–34 Tedesco, Michael (“T”), 283–84, 292–93, 296–98, 304 telecom industry, 96, 211, 220, 225 Citi TMT group, 5, 211–12, 253 Teterboro Airport, 117, 259 The Influential Network (TIN), 293, 295–99 Thornton, Jeremy, 304 Tice, Kevin, 251–52, 260, 263–64, 266, 273–75 Time, 211 Tolstoy, Leo, War and Peace, 120, 147 Touchstone Pictures, 88, 102 transaction friction, 233 transparency, 177, 180, 361 in compensation, 260, 269, 270, 275, 361–62 Travelers, 188, 189 Citicorp merger with, 189, 253 Salomon acquired by, 253 Treasury bonds, 77–78 Salomon scandal, 55–58, 62, 64, 67, 72, 74–76, 262 True Son, 341 Trump, Donald, 306 Tubbs, Michael D., 311–13, 322, 323, 339–42, 347–52, 370 Uber, 246 Union Pacific Railroad, 163–64 Universal Basic Income (UBI), 348–50 Universal Studios and Music Group, 169, 170 Usenet, 226, 227 U.S.

., 311–14, 320–23, 335–37, 339–42, 346–52, 354 pension crisis in, 335–36 Silva as mayor of, 346–47, 350 Tubbs in, 311–13, 322, 323, 339–42, 347–52, 370 Universal Basic Income in, 348–50 Stockton Arena, 321 Stockton Boys and Girls Club, 346–47 Stockton Scholars, 347–48 Stone, Dan, 5–6 Stone, Oliver, 98 Strauss, Levi, 230 Strauss, Tom, 57, 67, 68 Studebaker, John, 230 student loans, 292, 307 for business school students, 284–86 Suicide Forest, 301 Sun Also Rises, The (Hemingway), 311 survivalists (preppers), 305–8 sustainability, 2 Sweitzer, Caesar, 156, 158, 165, 166, 262 Sykes, Gene “Tiger,” 118, 119, 124 tail numbers, 117, 259 Talladega Nights, 113 technology, 358 fears about, 305 speed of communication, 127–28, 143–44 technology industry, 96, 233–34 Tedesco, Michael (“T”), 283–84, 292–93, 296–98, 304 telecom industry, 96, 211, 220, 225 Citi TMT group, 5, 211–12, 253 Teterboro Airport, 117, 259 The Influential Network (TIN), 293, 295–99 Thornton, Jeremy, 304 Tice, Kevin, 251–52, 260, 263–64, 266, 273–75 Time, 211 Tolstoy, Leo, War and Peace, 120, 147 Touchstone Pictures, 88, 102 transaction friction, 233 transparency, 177, 180, 361 in compensation, 260, 269, 270, 275, 361–62 Travelers, 188, 189 Citicorp merger with, 189, 253 Salomon acquired by, 253 Treasury bonds, 77–78 Salomon scandal, 55–58, 62, 64, 67, 72, 74–76, 262 True Son, 341 Trump, Donald, 306 Tubbs, Michael D., 311–13, 322, 323, 339–42, 347–52, 370 Uber, 246 Union Pacific Railroad, 163–64 Universal Basic Income (UBI), 348–50 Universal Studios and Music Group, 169, 170 Usenet, 226, 227 U.S. Filter, 150–53, 155–83 acquisitions of, 153, 162, 164–68, 172, 179 American Toxxic Control beginnings of, 155, 159, 168 Culligan and, 164–68, 182 Heckmann as CEO of, 150–53, 155–83, 222–23 pooling (accounting practice) and, 170–72, 176 quarterly earnings expectations of, 162–63, 168, 170, 172, 174, 175 Seidel at, 158–61, 164, 167, 174–75, 179, 181–82 Union Pacific train wreck and, 163–64 Vivendi and, 168–70, 172–76, 178, 179, 181, 182 Van Camp, Peter (“PVC”), 237–38, 240–42 Varelas, Christopher: at Bank of America, 5, 7, 9–43, 111, 216–17, 285, 358 childhood and parents of, 281–82 at Citi, 5, 199, 204–5, 211–12 as Disneyland employee, 4, 5, 10, 11–13, 40, 45, 61, 71, 81–85, 89–90, 106–12, 148, 158, 289, 290 Drexel’s offer to, 91, 93, 94–95 first savings account of, 2–3, 7–8 mother’s cancer and death, 120, 147–49 as Occidental College student, 4, 11, 81, 83, 89, 99, 111, 287 return to California, 234, 235, 265 at Salomon Brothers, 5, 44–50, 54, 55, 59–62, 64–66, 70–74, 76–80, 90–91, 94, 95, 101, 114, 115, 118–24, 126–36, 145–46, 148, 149, 156–83, 195–207, 229, 236, 248–59, 265–70, 277, 284, 286, 314–15, 323–28, 330–35; see also Salomon Brothers Salomon Brothers bonuses of, 248–51, 266–70 sister of, at Salomon, 134–36 as TMT (technology, media, and telecom) head, 5, 211–12, 253 uncle John of, 371–73 wedding of, 222 as Wharton student, 5, 38, 42, 45, 61, 80, 89–90, 96, 97, 99, 284, 286, 287, 309 Varelas, Jessica, 201, 234, 235 Vasquez, Gaddi, 333, 334 vendor financing, 191 Lucent and, 191–95, 215 Venmo, 246 Veolia, 182 Vernon, Calif., 36, 38 Vine, 283, 297 Viqueira, Bill, 190, 191–95, 215 Vivendi, 168–69, 176 U.S.


pages: 864 words: 222,565

Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller by Alec Nevala-Lee

Adam Neumann (WeWork), Airbnb, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, American energy revolution, Apple II, basic income, Biosphere 2, blockchain, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, Charles Lindbergh, cloud computing, Columbine, complexity theory, Computer Lib, coronavirus, cotton gin, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, declining real wages, digital nomad, double helix, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, East Village, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Elon Musk, Evgeny Morozov, Frank Gehry, gentrification, gig economy, global village, Golden Gate Park, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, hydraulic fracturing, index card, information retrieval, James Dyson, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, Kitchen Debate, Lao Tzu, lateral thinking, Lean Startup, Lewis Mumford, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, megastructure, Menlo Park, minimum viable product, Mother of all demos, Neil Armstrong, New Journalism, Norbert Wiener, Norman Mailer, Own Your Own Home, Paul Graham, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, reality distortion field, remote working, Ronald Reagan, side project, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, Ted Nelson, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the medium is the message, Thomas Malthus, universal basic income, urban planning, urban renewal, We are as Gods, WeWork, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks

As the Swiss designer Yves Béhar has pointed out, Fuller was among the first to realize that a reputation for visionary architecture could be achieved without any tangible artifacts whatsoever: “We owe the notion of architect as statement maker to Buckminster Fuller—the idea of creating photographically accurate renderings of an architectural intervention at a gigantic scale.” Ephemeralization was also the engine of his program for change. Fuller paired technological innovations, including automation, with a universal basic income, which would distribute the benefits of efficiency to all mankind. He observed that progress tended to occur as a by-product of war, or “emergence through emergency,” which he aimed to replace with a peaceful design-science revolution. Unlike a government or company, a single person could work on something that might not be needed for fifty years: “The individual can simply start to think.”

But while they spoke, [I] did as I do at the movies when it’s clear everything’ll turn out all right. I wept.” Their final report was built around the group’s concept of the “bare maximum,” or the resources needed for a person to reach “not his minimum potential but his maximum potential.” They discussed the merits of a universal basic income, and Fuller was told that he had correctly anticipated everything that they had found, including the importance of a global energy network, which they called “our first move in the World Game.” Growing emotional, Fuller said to the group, “I feel I have seen what has been going on in my head for years, but it is more beautiful than I imagined.”

Between the Green Revolution, Moore’s Law, and advances in energy efficiency, the accelerating breakthroughs that he predicted have come to pass, but instead of enabling mankind to make logical choices, they have deepened existing divides. As Fuller recognized, the machine of capitalism moves wealth in one direction, rewarding the very rich while discouraging the distribution of resources to those most in need. More recently, technologists such as Musk and Andrew Yang have paired the issue of automation with a universal basic income, which looks increasingly like the best candidate for the first move in the World Game. “We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work,” the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said. “We should be excited by that. But the reason we’re not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don’t have a job, you are left to die.”


pages: 375 words: 88,306

The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism by Arun Sundararajan

"World Economic Forum" Davos, additive manufacturing, Airbnb, AltaVista, Amazon Mechanical Turk, asset light, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, bike sharing, bitcoin, blockchain, book value, Burning Man, call centre, Carl Icahn, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, commoditize, commons-based peer production, corporate social responsibility, cryptocurrency, data science, David Graeber, distributed ledger, driverless car, Eben Moglen, employer provided health coverage, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, future of work, general purpose technology, George Akerlof, gig economy, housing crisis, Howard Rheingold, independent contractor, information asymmetry, Internet of things, inventory management, invisible hand, job automation, job-hopping, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Kula ring, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mary Meeker, megacity, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, moral panic, Network effects, new economy, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer lending, peer-to-peer model, peer-to-peer rental, profit motive, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, recommendation engine, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Ronald Coase, Ross Ulbricht, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, smart contracts, Snapchat, social software, supply-chain management, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, the long tail, The Nature of the Firm, total factor productivity, transaction costs, transportation-network company, two-sided market, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, Vitalik Buterin, WeWork, Yochai Benkler, Zipcar

First, I examine the current debate on the employment status of sharing economy workers and proposed expansions to the US worker categorization model. Next, I ask, how do we ensure that a social safety net is available to people whose chosen form of work is something other than full-time employment? In the long run, a universal basic income may be socially desirable, although crafting policy that shares the funding of a portable safety net among the individual, the marketplace, and the government may be more politically feasible. Third, I conjecture that platforms facilitating genuine entrepreneurship at a small scale will lead to more inclusive growth than those whose platform-provider relationship is more hierarchical, and outline over 20 metrics that might help identify the right kind of platform-based entrepreneurship.

A bolder possibility along these lines is embodied in the idea of a fixed monthly income guaranteed by the government. While this idea may seem quite extreme, it is a vision whose advocates range from the social entrepreneur Peter Barnes, whose book With Liberty and Dividends for All discusses the desirability of a universal basic income,21 to the venture capitalist Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures, who spoke about basic income at his TEDxNewYork talk in November 2014. In her entertaining Medium post “Silicon Valley’s Basic Income Bromance,” Lauren Smiley discusses the diverse base of support for basic income across a variety stakeholders in the technology industry.


pages: 209 words: 89,619

The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing

8-hour work day, banking crisis, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, bread and circuses, call centre, Cass Sunstein, centre right, collective bargaining, company town, corporate governance, crony capitalism, death from overwork, deindustrialization, deskilling, emotional labour, export processing zone, fear of failure, full employment, Herbert Marcuse, hiring and firing, Honoré de Balzac, housing crisis, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, independent contractor, information security, it's over 9,000, job polarisation, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, land reform, libertarian paternalism, low skilled workers, lump of labour, marginal employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, means of production, mini-job, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, nudge unit, old age dependency ratio, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, pension time bomb, pensions crisis, placebo effect, post-industrial society, precariat, presumed consent, quantitative easing, remote working, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, science of happiness, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, technological determinism, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Spirit Level, Tobin tax, transaction costs, universal basic income, unpaid internship, winner-take-all economy, working poor, working-age population, young professional

By 1 May 2005, their ranks had swollen to well over 50,000 – over 100,000, according to some estimates – and ‘EuroMayDay’ had become pan-European, with hundreds of thousands of people, mostly young, taking to the streets of cities across continental Europe. The demonstrations marked the first stirrings of the global precariat. The ageing trade unionists who normally orchestrated May Day events could only be bemused by this new parading mass, whose demands for free migration and a universal basic income had little to do with traditional unionism. The unions saw the answer to precarious labour in a return to the ‘labourist’ model they had been so instrumental in cementing in the mid-twentieth century – more stable jobs with long-term employment security and the benefit trappings that went with that.

There are arguments for believing that reducing short-term capital flows would be beneficial in any event. And then there are ecological taxes, designed to compensate for the externalities caused by pollution and to slow or reverse the rapid depletion of resources. In short, there is no reason to think a universal basic income is unaffordable. Internationally, the recent legitimation of cash transfers as an instrument of development aid is promising. They were first accepted as short-term schemes for post-shock situations, as after earthquakes and floods. Later, as noted earlier, conditional cash transfer schemes swept Latin America.


pages: 339 words: 94,769

Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI by John Brockman

AI winter, airport security, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Benoit Mandelbrot, Bill Joy: nanobots, Bletchley Park, Buckminster Fuller, cellular automata, Claude Shannon: information theory, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, CRISPR, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Danny Hillis, data science, David Graeber, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, easy for humans, difficult for computers, Elon Musk, Eratosthenes, Ernest Rutherford, fake news, finite state, friendly AI, future of work, Geoffrey Hinton, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, gig economy, Hans Moravec, heat death of the universe, hype cycle, income inequality, industrial robot, information retrieval, invention of writing, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Hawkins, Johannes Kepler, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John von Neumann, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, Laplace demon, Large Hadron Collider, Loebner Prize, machine translation, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, mirror neurons, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, OpenAI, optical character recognition, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, personalized medicine, Picturephone, profit maximization, profit motive, public intellectual, quantum cryptography, RAND corporation, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, Richard Feynman, Rodney Brooks, self-driving car, sexual politics, Silicon Valley, Skype, social graph, speech recognition, statistical model, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, strong AI, superintelligent machines, supervolcano, synthetic biology, systems thinking, technological determinism, technological singularity, technoutopianism, TED Talk, telemarketer, telerobotics, The future is already here, the long tail, the scientific method, theory of mind, trolley problem, Turing machine, Turing test, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, Von Neumann architecture, Whole Earth Catalog, Y2K, you are the product, zero-sum game

The Industrial Revolution did trigger enormous social change of this kind, including a shift to universal education. But it will not happen unless we make it happen: This is essentially about power, agency, and control. What’s next for, say, the forty-year-old taxi driver or truck driver in an era of autonomous vehicles? One idea that has been touted is that of a universal basic income, which will allow citizens to pursue their interests, retrain for new occupations, and generally be free to live a decent life. However, market economies, which are predicated on growing consumer demand over all else, may not tolerate this innovation. There is also a feeling among many that meaningful work is essential to human dignity and fulfillment.

See singularity Tegmark, Max, 76–87 AI safety research, 81 Asilomar AI Principles, 2017, 81, 84 background and overview of work of, 76–77 competence of superintelligent AGI, 85 consciousness as cosmic awakening, 78–79 general expectation AGI achievable within next century, 79 goal alignment for AGI, 85–86 goals for a future society that includes AGI, 84–86 outlook, 86–87 rush to make humans obsolescent, reasons behind, 82–84 safety engineering, 86 societal impact of AI, debate over, 79–82 Terminator, The (film), 242 three laws of artificial intelligence, 39–40 Three Laws of Robotics, Asimov’s, 250 threshold theorem, 164 too-soon-to-worry argument against AI risk, 26–27, 81 Toulmin, Stephen, 18–19 transhumans, rights of, 252–53 Treister, Suzanne, 214–15 Trolley Problem, 244 trust networks, building, 200–201 Tsai, Wen Ying, 258, 260–61 Turing, Alan, 5, 25, 35, 43, 60, 103, 168, 180 AI-risk message, 93 Turing Machine, 57, 271 Turing Test, 5, 46–47, 276–77 Tversky, Amos, 130–31, 250 2001: A Space Odyssey (film), 183 Tyka, Mike, 212 Understanding Media (McLuhan), 208 understanding of computer results, loss of, 189 universal basic income, 188 Universal Turing Machine, 57 unsupervised learning, 225 value alignment (putting right purpose into machines) Dragan on, 137–38, 141–42 Griffiths on, 128–33 Pinker on, 110–11 Tegmark on, 85–86 Wiener on, 23–24 Versu, 217 Veruggio, Gianmarco, 243 visualization programs, 211–13 von Foerster, Heinz, xxi, 209–10, 215 Vonnegut, Kurt, 250 von Neumann, John, xx, 8, 35, 60, 103, 168, 271 digital computer architecture of, 58 second law of AI and, 39 self-replicating cellular automaton, development of, 57–58 use of symbols for computing, 164–65 Watson, 49, 246 Watson, James, 58 Watson, John, 225 Watt, James, 3, 257 Watts, Alan, xxi Weaver, Warren, xviii, 102–3, 155 Weizenbaum, Joe, 45, 48–50, 105, 248 Wexler, Rebecca, 238 Whitehead, Alfred North, 275 Whole Earth Catalog, xvii “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” (Joy), 92 Wiener, Norbert, xvi, xviii–xx, xxv, xxvi, 35, 90, 96, 103, 112, 127, 163, 168, 256 on automation, in manufacturing, 4, 154 on broader applications of cybernetics, 4 Brooks on, 56–57, 59–60 control via feedback, 3 deep-learning and, 9 Dennett on, 43–45 failure to predict computer revolution, 4–5 on feedback loops, 5–6, 103, 153–54 Hillis on, 178–80 on information, 5–6, 153–59, 179 Kaiser on Wiener’s definition of information, 153–59 Lloyd on, 3–7, 9, 11–12 Pinker on, 103–5, 112 on power of ideas, 112 predictions/warnings of, xviii–xix, xxvi, 4–5, 11–12, 22–23, 35, 44–45, 93, 104, 172 Russell on, 22–23 on social risk, 97 society, cybernetics impact on, 103–4 what Wiener got wrong, 6–7 Wilczek, Frank, 64–75 astonishing corollary (natural intelligence as special case of AI), 67–70 astonishing hypothesis of Crick, 66–67 background and overview of work of, 64–65 consciousness, creativity and evil as possible features of AI, 66–68 emergence, 68–69 human brain’s advantage over AI, 72–74 information-processing technology capacities that exceed human capabilities, 70–72 intelligence, future of, 70–75 Wilkins, John, 275 wireheading problem, 29–30 With a Rhythmic Instinction to Be Able to Travel Beyond Existing Forces of Life (Parreno), 263–64 Wolfram, Stephen, 266–84 on AI takeover scenario, 277–78 background and overview of work of, 266–67 computational knowledge system, creating, 271–77 computational thinking, teaching, 278–79 early approaches to AI, 270–71 on future where coding ability is ubiquitous, 279–81 goals and purposes, of humans, 268–70 image identification system, 273–74 on knowledge-based programming, 278–81 purposefulness, identifying, 281–84 Young, J.


pages: 326 words: 88,968

The Science and Technology of Growing Young: An Insider's Guide to the Breakthroughs That Will Dramatically Extend Our Lifespan . . . And What You Can Do Right Now by Sergey Young

23andMe, 3D printing, Albert Einstein, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, basic income, Big Tech, bioinformatics, Biosphere 2, brain emulation, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, Charles Lindbergh, classic study, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive bias, computer vision, coronavirus, COVID-19, CRISPR, deep learning, digital twin, diversified portfolio, Doomsday Clock, double helix, Easter island, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, European colonialism, game design, Gavin Belson, George Floyd, global pandemic, hockey-stick growth, impulse control, Internet of things, late capitalism, Law of Accelerating Returns, life extension, lockdown, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, meta-analysis, microbiome, microdosing, moral hazard, mouse model, natural language processing, personalized medicine, plant based meat, precision agriculture, radical life extension, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Feynman, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, stem cell, Steve Jobs, tech billionaire, TED Talk, uber lyft, ultra-processed food, universal basic income, Virgin Galactic, Vision Fund, X Prize

The inflation-adjusted income of the average person on Earth is 4.4 times greater than it was in 1950.31 Between 1981 and 2013, China lifted 850 million people out of poverty, reducing its poverty rate from 63 percent to less than 2 percent today.32 Global poverty declined over the same period from 29 percent to 12 percent!33 Technology will accelerate this improvement by bringing education, health care, and opportunity to disadvantaged parts of the world where poverty is most severe today. New models will emerge. Perhaps universal basic income and equal access to life extension will be viewed in the year 2100 as public goods—like education and pension systems are today. The rise of AGI, robotic avatars, and human extreme lifespan may even completely eliminate work as we know it. Perhaps future generations will cluck their tongues about the way twentieth-century office workers bent over their primitive computers the way we criticize the barbarism of slavery and sweatshops today.

If we remain of sound body and mind, it’s probable that we never need to retire, and we can keep on working forever. But just as likely, we might not work at all. If we delegate the job of learning to our avatars, we may let them apply that knowledge in work situations as well. Machines and computers can take care of all the “grown-up” responsibilities while we go swimming, play piano, and collect universal basic income, enjoying centuries of fulfilling our dreams. Will the machines take over governments as well? Today the biggest challenges facing governments include corruption, poor leadership skills, action based on partisan politics rather than facts, and concern for the greater good. All of these problems could be solved by making perfect AGI-powered algorithms decide how every aspect of society is run.


pages: 88 words: 26,706

Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right by Michael Brooks

4chan, Anton Chekhov, Ayatollah Khomeini, basic income, Bernie Sanders, capitalist realism, centre right, Community Supported Agriculture, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, drone strike, Flynn Effect, gun show loophole, invisible hand, Jeremy Corbyn, late capitalism, market fundamentalism, mass incarceration, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, open borders, Peter Thiel, Philippa Foot, public intellectual, Silicon Valley, Slavoj Žižek, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, trolley problem, universal basic income, upwardly mobile

Why should anyone accept an economic order in which a minority of the population has the resources to own businesses and everyone else has to submit to their authority for (at least) eight out of every 16 waking hours? (Yeah, yeah, some people are upwardly mobile, but there are only so many lifeboats to save the working class. We can’t all be athletes, business prodigies, or even podcasters and YouTube talk show hosts.) And contrary to the delusions of the #YangGang, the combination of robots and a Universal Basic Income isn’t going to result in any kind of desirable alternative. Even if things did play out that way, which they won’t, that’s just a recipe for ever-greater division between rich and poor. As Ben Burgis said when we discussed Yang on TMBS, the #YangGang’s dystopia might look a lot like the Roman Empire, in which wealthy aristocrats monopolized farmable land and forced the poor to flock to Rome to live on a miserly grain ration.


pages: 533

Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech by Jamie Susskind

3D printing, additive manufacturing, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, airport security, algorithmic bias, AlphaGo, Amazon Robotics, Andrew Keen, Apollo Guidance Computer, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, automated trading system, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Big Tech, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Boeing 747, brain emulation, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business process, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cashless society, Cass Sunstein, cellular automata, Citizen Lab, cloud computing, commons-based peer production, computer age, computer vision, continuation of politics by other means, correlation does not imply causation, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, digital divide, digital map, disinformation, distributed ledger, Donald Trump, driverless car, easy for humans, difficult for computers, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, end-to-end encryption, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Filter Bubble, future of work, Future Shock, Gabriella Coleman, Google bus, Google X / Alphabet X, Googley, industrial robot, informal economy, intangible asset, Internet of things, invention of the printing press, invention of writing, Isaac Newton, Jaron Lanier, John Markoff, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, Large Hadron Collider, Lewis Mumford, lifelogging, machine translation, Metcalfe’s law, mittelstand, more computing power than Apollo, move fast and break things, natural language processing, Neil Armstrong, Network effects, new economy, Nick Bostrom, night-watchman state, Oculus Rift, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, pattern recognition, payday loans, Philippa Foot, post-truth, power law, price discrimination, price mechanism, RAND corporation, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Stallman, ride hailing / ride sharing, road to serfdom, Robert Mercer, Satoshi Nakamoto, Second Machine Age, selection bias, self-driving car, sexual politics, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, smart contracts, Snapchat, speech recognition, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, tech bro, technological determinism, technological singularity, technological solutionism, the built environment, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas L Friedman, Tragedy of the Commons, trolley problem, universal basic income, urban planning, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, work culture , working-age population, Yochai Benkler

At its simplest, this could mean taxing some of the profits of firms and redistributing them among the general public. Hence Bill Gates’ proposal for a ‘Robot Tax’, by which firms would be taxed for their use of machines with the proceeds going to fund employment opportunities elsewhere.25 Another increasingly popular notion is a universal basic income (UBI) paid in cash to everyone ‘with no strings attached’.26 On the radical model advocated by Philippe van Parijs, a UBI of about a thousand dollars a month would be available to every citizen with no means test or qualifying obligations.27 Such a system would differ from the ‘make-work’ model above because it would not require people to work.

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Piketty argues for a ‘progressive global tax on capital’ as the OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/05/18, SPi РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS 328 FUTURE POLITICS ‘ideal’ way to avoid ‘an endless inegalitarian spiral’ and regain control over ‘the dynamics of accumulation’.48 A Robot Tax of the kind proposed by Bill Gates could be targeted at productive technologies.49 There may even be ways of taxing the usage or flow of data. Whichever the chosen model, the principle is that some of the wealth generated by the ownership of capital should be skimmed off and spent for the benefit of those who have no capital to their name.This public spending could take the form of a universal basic income (UBI) of the kind described in chapter seventeen. Conceptually, the idea of taxing capital is not a radical departure from the Private Property Paradigm.Taxes take a share of the wealth generated by capital rather than the capital itself. Many forms of capital are already taxed in this way.

R. 232 Topol, Sarah A. 372 Tor 45 Torgerson, Douglas 416 totalitarianism 177–9 consumer tolerance of 189 touchscreens 51 Townsend, Anthony M. 370 Toyota 55 trademarks 324 tradition 349 translation 30, 58, 65–6 transparency regulation 354–6 troll-spotting 234 Trotsky, Leon 21, 114, 370 Trump, Donald 12, 158, 190, 220, 233, 239 truth 238–9 Tsarapatsanis, Dimitrios 393 Tucker, Ian 421 Tucker, Patrick 380 Tufekci, Zeynep 236, 395, 410, 412, 414 Turing, Alan 40, 203 Turkey 183, 184 Tutt, Andrew 433 Tutu, Desmond 292 Twitter 378 bots 233 Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism 191 minstrel accounts 232 new media 77 retweeting of political statements 221 Saudi Arabia 183 social rewards 149 Tay 37 tweets 63 US House of Representatives 229 user numbers 45 Tyson, Laura 425 Uber 47, 116, 289, 336 ubiquitous computing see smart devices OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/05/18, SPi РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS 514 Index Underworlds 50 unemployment see technological unemployment United Kingdom (UK) blockchain 47 Brexit referendum 4, 233, 239 Department for Work and Pensions 47 encryption 184 freedom of speech 235 guns 14 housing market fluctuations 331 illegal acts 172 liberalism 77 tax authorities 66 see also England United States (US) 2012 presidential election 219–20 2016 presidential election 4, 12, 220, 230, 233, 354 antitrust law 357 Army 48, 178 blockchain 47 censuses 17, 19 city design 130 civil society organizations 221 Cold War 133 computers, abuse of 276 concentration of industries 318 Constitution 155, 235, 243, 333 consumer searches 268 DARPA 47, 178 democracy 221, 225, 241 disabilities, people with 273 drones 55 FBI 155 federal budget (2015) 38 freedom of speech 235 guns 14 Holocaust denial 235 House of Representatives 229 internet of things 136 IRS 139 lawsuits 102 liberalism 77 Library of Congress 56 Louisville, Kentucky 44 manufacturing sector 295 net neutrality 158 new media 77 New York’s Metropolitan Transportation authority 178 NSA see National Security Agency poverty 305 predictive sentencing 174 Revolution 167, 168, 216 State Department 236 statistics 18 Supreme Court 109 truckers 299 unattended ground sensors used by military 50 universal basic income (UBI) 306–7, 310, 328, 337 universality 291 unsupervised learning (AI) 35 Urban Engines 319 usage rights 330–1 Useem, Jeremy 419 usufructuary rights 330–1 utility companies, similarity of tech firms to 157–8 Valentino-DeVries, Jennifer 419 Vanderborght,Yannick 425, 426 Van Reybrouck, David 408 Vättö, Kristian 375 Verne, Jules 21 vibrators, smart 135–6 virtual reality (VR) 59–60 ‘cyber’ and ‘real’ distinction, disappearance of 97–8 degradation argument 361 digital liberty 206 harm principle 200–2, 203–4 mixed reality 60 perception-control 146, 149 politics of technology 13 scrutiny 135 technological unemployment 311 vision, machine 51 see also facial recognition OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/05/18, SPi РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS Index VITAL (Validating Investment Tool for Advancing Life Sciences) 31 Vita-More, Natasha 402, 434 voice analysis 52 voice recognition 282 voteforpolicies.org.uk 417 Voter.xyz 417 voting AI Democracy 252 apps 252 Data Democracy 247, 249 Direct Democracy 240, 241–2 VR see virtual reality vTaiwan 234 vulnerability, human 364, 365 Wakefield, Jane 381 Waldrop, M.


pages: 626 words: 167,836

The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation by Carl Benedikt Frey

3D printing, AlphaGo, Alvin Toffler, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, business cycle, business process, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Charles Babbage, Clayton Christensen, collective bargaining, computer age, computer vision, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, data science, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, demographic transition, desegregation, deskilling, Donald Trump, driverless car, easy for humans, difficult for computers, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, factory automation, Fairchild Semiconductor, falling living standards, first square of the chessboard / second half of the chessboard, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, full employment, future of work, game design, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, Hans Moravec, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, industrial cluster, industrial robot, intangible asset, interchangeable parts, Internet of things, invention of agriculture, invention of movable type, invention of the steam engine, invention of the wheel, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, job satisfaction, job-hopping, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, labour mobility, Lewis Mumford, Loebner Prize, low skilled workers, machine translation, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, means of production, Menlo Park, minimum wage unemployment, natural language processing, new economy, New Urbanism, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, nowcasting, oil shock, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, OpenAI, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Pareto efficiency, pattern recognition, pink-collar, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, Renaissance Technologies, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, robot derives from the Czech word robota Czech, meaning slave, safety bicycle, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social intelligence, sparse data, speech recognition, spinning jenny, Stephen Hawking, tacit knowledge, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, trade route, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Turing test, union organizing, universal basic income, warehouse automation, washing machines reduced drudgery, wealth creators, women in the workforce, working poor, zero-sum game

In the words of the economist Robert LaLonde, “Whereas private markets offer insurance for storms and fire, no such insurance is available when a middle-aged worker loses a job and suffers a permanent drop in wages. There is a market failure here, and government should correct it.”33 Tax Credits In the popular press, universal basic income (UBI) has become a widely discussed way of limiting individual losses resulting from automation and deindustrialization. Of course, there are arguments in favor of UBI that have nothing to do with technological change, but this is not the place to dwell on them. The question here is whether it provides a good way of addressing the discontents brought about by the rise of the robots.

For survey evidence showing that people find meaning in their jobs, see R. Dur and M. van Lent, 2018, “Socially Useless Jobs” (Discussion Paper 18-034/VII, Amsterdam: Tinbergen Institute). 37. On happiness and unemployment, see B. S. Frey, 2008, Happiness, chapter 4. 38. I. Goldin, 2018, “Five Reasons Why Universal Basic Income Is a Bad Idea,” Financial Times, February 11. 39. G. Hubbard, 2014, “Tax Reform Is the Best Way to Tackle Income Inequality,” Washington Post, January 10. 40. For an overview of the effects of the EITC, see A. Nichols and J. Rothstein, 2015, “The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)” (Working Paper 21211, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA). 41.

., 179 Tull, Jethro, 54 Turing test, 317 Turnpike Trusts, 108 Twain, Mark, 21, 165, 208 typewriter, 161–62 typographers, computer’s effect on jobs and wages of, 247 unemployment, 246, 254; AI-driven, 356; American social expenditure on, 274; average duration of, 177; blame for, 141; fear of, 113; mass, fears of, 366; technological, 12, 117 union security agreements, 257 United Auto Workers (UAW) union, 276 United Nations, 305 universal basic income (UBI), 355 universal white male suffrage, 270 unskilled work, 350 urban-rural wage gap, 209 Ure, Andrew, 97, 104, 119 U.S. Government Printing Office, 151 Usher, Abbott, 40, 45 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 208 Varian, Hal, 328 Versailles, 84 Vespasian, Roman Emperor, 10, 40 Victorian Age, machinery critics of, 119 Vietnam War, 185 virtual agents, 306 Vitruvius, 38 Voltaire, 84 Voth, Hans-Joachim, 131, 337 wage insurance, 355 wages, American, leveling of, 211 Wall Street, depression suffered by, 211 warehouse automation, 314 washing machine, 27, 158, 160 waterwheel, 38, 44 Watt, James, 94, 106, 147, 317, 329 wave of gadgets, 30, 79, 179, 330 web designers, 248 Weber, Max, 47, 78 Wedgwood, Josiah, 127 weight-driven clock, 45 welfare capitalism, 198, 200 welfare dependency, 253 welfare programs, 240 welfare state, emergence of, 145, 221, 272 welfare system, tax-financed, 276 Wellesley, Arthur (1st Duke of Wellington), 9, 109–110 Westinghouse, 155 wheel, invention of, 35 White, Lynn, 42, 78 white-collar employment, 197, 218 Whitney, Eli, 74, 149 Whitworth, Joseph, 150 Wiener, Norbert, 230 Williamson, Jeffrey, 68, 207, 211 William the Conqueror, 44 Wilson, William Julius, 250, 252 windmill, 44 Wolfers, Justin, 336 women: college-graduated, 242; entering the workforce, 161 Word War II, 143, 230, 334 worker-replacing invention, 54 working class: as cultural phenomenon, 278; identity of, 280 World Trade Organization (WTO), 281, 286 World War I, 89, 108, 209 Wright, Gavin, 16 Wyatt, John, 101 Yang, Andrew, 291 Young, Arthur, 75 Zonca, Vittorio, 51–52 zoning, housing and, 361–62


pages: 349 words: 98,868

Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason by William Davies

active measures, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Amazon Web Services, Anthropocene, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Black Lives Matter, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, citizen journalism, Climategate, Climatic Research Unit, Colonization of Mars, continuation of politics by other means, creative destruction, credit crunch, data science, decarbonisation, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, digital divide, discovery of penicillin, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, drone strike, Elon Musk, failed state, fake news, Filter Bubble, first-past-the-post, Frank Gehry, gig economy, government statistician, housing crisis, income inequality, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Johannes Kepler, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, loss aversion, low skilled workers, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, meta-analysis, Mont Pelerin Society, mutually assured destruction, Northern Rock, obamacare, Occupy movement, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paris climate accords, pattern recognition, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, planetary scale, post-industrial society, post-truth, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Florida, road to serfdom, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, sentiment analysis, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley startup, smart cities, Social Justice Warrior, statistical model, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, tacit knowledge, the scientific method, Turing machine, Uber for X, universal basic income, University of East Anglia, Valery Gerasimov, W. E. B. Du Bois, We are the 99%, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

Today policies predicated on universality—of treating everyone equally—have growing political appeal. The British Labour Party’s unexpected surge in the 2017 general election campaign was fueled by extremely simple promises, that had no conditions or strings attached, such as free school meals for all, free university tuition for all, and so on. Much of the appeal of “universal basic income” is the simplicity of paying everybody a fixed amount of money, with no strings attached. Sufficiently simple and universal promises are able to withstand political attacks and media distortions, even in an age of rising online propaganda. Politics has always been awash with liars and broken promises.

., Roger, 24, 25 Piketty, Thomas, 74 Pinker, Stephen, 207 plagues, 56, 67–71, 75, 79–80, 81, 89, 95 pleasure principle, 70, 109, 110, 224 pneumonia, 37, 67 Podemos, 5, 202 Poland, 20, 34, 60 Polanyi, Michael, 163 political anatomy, 57 Political Arithmetick (Petty), 58, 59 political correctness, 20, 27, 145 Popper, Karl, 163, 171 populism xvii, 211–12, 214, 220, 225–6 and central banks, 33 and crowd-based politics, 12 and democracy, 202 and elites/experts, 26, 33, 50, 152, 197, 210, 215 and empathy, 118 and health, 99, 101–2, 224–5 and immediate action, 216 in Kansas (1880s), 220 and markets, 167 and private companies, 174 and promises, 221 and resentment, 145 and statistics, 90 and unemployment, 88 and war, 148, 212 Porter, Michael, 84 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 111–14, 117, 209 post-truth, 167, 224 Potsdam Conference (1945), 138 power vs. violence, 19, 219 predictive policing, 151 presidential election, US (2016), xiv and climate change, 214 and data, 190 and education, 85 and free trade, 79 and health, 92, 99 and immigration, 79, 145 and inequality, 76–7 and Internet, 190, 197, 199 “Make America Great Again,” 76, 145 and opinion polling, 65, 80 and promises, 221 and relative deprivation, 88 and Russia, 199 and statistics, 63 and Yellen, 33 prisoners of war, 43 promises, 25, 31, 39–42, 45–7, 51, 52, 217–18, 221–2 Propaganda (Bernays), 14–15 propaganda, 8, 14–16, 83, 124–5, 141, 142, 143 property rights, 158, 167 Protestantism, 34, 35, 45, 215 Prussia (1525–1947), 8, 127–30, 133–4, 135, 142 psychiatry, 107, 139 psychoanalysis, 107, 139 Psychology of Crowds, The (Le Bon), 9–12, 13, 15, 16, 20, 24, 25 psychosomatic, 103 public-spending cuts, 100–101 punishment, 90, 92–3, 94, 95, 108 Purdue, 105 Putin, Vladimir, 145, 183 al-Qaeda, 136 quality of life, 74, 104 quantitative easing, 31–2, 222 quants, 190 radical statistics, 74 RAND Corporation, 183 RBS, 29 Reagan, Ronald, 15, 77, 154, 160, 163, 166 real-time knowledge, xvi, 112, 131, 134, 153, 154, 165–70 Reason Foundation, 158 Red Vienna, 154, 155 Rees-Mogg, Jacob, 33, 61 refugee crisis (2015–), 60, 225 relative deprivation, 88 representative democracy, 7, 12, 14–15, 25–8, 61, 202 Republican Party, 77, 79, 85, 154, 160, 163, 166, 172 research and development (R&D), 133 Research Triangle, North Carolina, 84 resentment, 5, 226 of elites/experts, 32, 52, 61, 86, 88–9, 161, 186, 201 and nationalism/populism, 5, 144–6, 148, 197, 198 and pain, 94 Ridley, Matt, 209 right to remain silent, 44 Road to Serfdom, The (Hayek), 160, 166 Robinson, Tommy, ix Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 52 Royal Exchange, 67 Royal Society, 48–52, 56, 68, 86, 133, 137, 186, 208, 218 Rumsfeld, Donald, 132 Russian Empire (1721–1917), 128, 133 Russian Federation (1991–) and artificial intelligence, 183 Gerasimov Doctrine, 43, 123, 125, 126 and information war, 196 life expectancy, 100, 115 and national humiliation, 145 Skripal poisoning (2018), 43 and social media, 15, 18, 199 troll farms, 199 Russian Revolution (1917), 155 Russian SFSR (1917–91), 132, 133, 135–8, 155, 177, 180, 182–3 safe spaces, 22, 208 Sands, Robert “Bobby,” 43 Saxony, 90 scarlet fever, 67 Scarry, Elaine, 102–3 scenting, 135, 180 Schneier, Bruce, 185 Schumpeter, Joseph, 156–7, 162 Scientific Revolution, 48–52, 62, 66, 95, 204, 207, 218 scientist, coining of term, 133 SCL, 175 Scotland, 64, 85, 172 search engines, xvi Second World War, see World War II securitization of loans, 218 seismology, 135 self-employment, 82 self-esteem, 88–90, 175, 212 self-harm, 44, 114–15, 117, 146, 225 self-help, 107 self-interest, 26, 41, 44, 61, 114, 141, 146 Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), 180, 182, 200 sentiment analysis, xiii, 12–13, 140, 188 September 11 attacks (2001), 17, 18 shell shock, 109–10 Shrecker, Ted, 226 Silicon Fen, Cambridgeshire, 84 Silicon Valley, California, xvi, 219 and data, 55, 151, 185–93, 199–201 and disruption, 149–51, 175, 226 and entrepreneurship, 149–51 and fascism, 203 and immortality, 149, 183–4, 224, 226 and monopolies, 174, 220 and singularity, 183–4 and telepathy, 176–8, 181, 185, 186, 221 and weaponization, 18, 219 singularity, 184 Siri, 187 Skripal poisoning (2018), 43 slavery, 59, 224 smallpox, 67 smart cities, 190, 199 smartphone addiction, 112, 186–7 snowflakes, 22, 113 social indicators, 74 social justice warriors (SJWs), 131 social media and crowd psychology, 6 emotional artificial intelligence, 12–13, 140–41 and engagement, 7 filter bubbles, 66 and propaganda, 15, 18, 81, 124 and PTSD, 113 and sentiment analysis, 12 trolls, 18, 20–22, 27, 40, 123, 146, 148, 194–8, 199, 209 weaponization of, 18, 19, 22, 194–5 socialism, 8, 20, 154–6, 158, 160 calculation debate, 154–6, 158, 160 Socialism (Mises), 160 Society for Freedom in Science, 163 South Africa, 103 sovereignty, 34, 53 Soviet Russia (1917–91), 132, 133, 135–8, 177, 180, 182–3 Spain, 5, 34, 84, 128, 202 speed of knowledge, xvi, 112, 124, 131, 134, 136, 153, 154, 165–70 Spicer, Sean, 3, 5 spy planes, 136, 152 Stalin, Joseph, 138 Stanford University, 179 statactivism, 74 statistics, 62–91, 161, 186 status, 88–90 Stoermer, Eugene, 206 strong man leaders, 16 suicide, 100, 101, 115 suicide bombing, 44, 146 superbugs, 205 surveillance, 185–93, 219 Sweden, 34 Switzerland, 164 Sydenham, Thomas, 96 Syriza, 5 tacit knowledge, 162 talking cure, 107 taxation, 158 Tea Party, 32, 50, 61, 221 technocracy, 53–8, 59, 60, 61, 78, 87, 89, 90, 211 teenage girls, 113, 114 telepathy, 39, 176–9, 181, 185, 186 terrorism, 17–18, 151, 185 Charlottesville attack (2017), 20 emergency powers, 42 JFK Airport terror scare (2016), x, xiii, 41 Oxford Circus terror scare (2017), ix–x, xiii, 41 September 11 attacks (2001), 17, 18 suicide bombing, 44, 146 vehicle-ramming attacks, 17 war on terror, 131, 136, 196 Thames Valley, England, 85 Thatcher, Margaret, 154, 160, 163, 166 Thiel, Peter, 26, 149–51, 153, 156, 174, 190 Thirty Years War (1618–48), 34, 45, 53, 126 Tokyo, Japan, x torture, 92–3 total wars, 129, 142–3 Treaty of Westphalia (1648), 34, 53 trends, xvi, 168 trigger warnings, 22, 113 trolls, 18, 20–22, 27, 40, 123, 146, 148, 194–8, 199, 209 Trump, Donald, xiv and Bannon, 21, 60–61 and climate change, 207 and education, 85 election campaign (2016), see under presidential election, US and free trade, 79 and health, 92, 99 and immigration, 145 inauguration (2017), 3–5, 6, 9, 10 and inequality, 76–7 “Make America Great Again,” 76, 145 and March for Science (2017), 23, 24, 210 and media, 27 and opinion polling, 65, 80 and Paris climate accord, 207 and promises, 221 and relative deprivation, 88 and statistics, 63 and Yellen, 33 Tsipras, Alexis, 5 Turing, Alan, 181, 183 Twitter and Corbyn’s rallies, 6 and JFK Airport terror scare (2016), x and Oxford Circus terror scare (2017), ix–x and Russia, 18 and sentiment analysis, 188 and trends, xvi and trolls, 194, 195 Uber, 49, 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, 192 UK Independence Party, 65, 92, 202 underemployment, 82 unemployment, 61, 62, 72, 78, 81–3, 87, 88, 203 United Kingdom austerity, 100 Bank of England, 32, 33, 64 Blitz (1940–41), 119, 143, 180 Brexit (2016–), see under Brexit Cameron government (2010–16), 33, 73, 100 Center for Policy Studies, 164 Civil Service, 33 climate-gate (2009), 195 Corbyn’s rallies, 5, 6 Dunkirk evacuation (1940), 119 education, 85 financial crisis (2007–9), 29–32, 100 first past the post, 13 general election (2015), 80, 81 general election (2017), 6, 65, 80, 81, 221 Grenfell Tower fire (2017), 10 gross domestic product (GDP), 77, 79 immigration, 63, 65 Irish hunger strike (1981), 43 life expectancy, 100 National Audit Office (NAO), 29 National Health Service (NHS), 30, 93 Office for National Statistics, 63, 133 and opiates, 105 Oxford Circus terror scare (2017), ix–x, xiii, 41 and pain, 102, 105 Palantir, 151 Potsdam Conference (1945), 138 quantitative easing, 31–2 Royal Society, 138 Scottish independence referendum (2014), 64 Skripal poisoning (2018), 43 Society for Freedom in Science, 163 Thatcher government (1979–90), 154, 160, 163, 166 and torture, 92 Treasury, 61, 64 unemployment, 83 Unite for Europe march (2017), 23 World War II (1939–45), 114, 119, 138, 143, 180 see also England United Nations, 72, 222 United States Bayh–Dole Act (1980), 152 Black Lives Matter, 10, 225 BP oil spill (2010), 89 Bush Jr. administration (2001–9), 77, 136 Bush Sr administration (1989–93), 77 Bureau of Labor, 74 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 3, 136, 151, 199 Charlottesville attack (2017), 20 Civil War (1861–5), 105, 142 and climate change, 207, 214 Clinton administration (1993–2001), 77 Cold War, see Cold War Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), 176, 178 Defense Intelligence Agency, 177 drug abuse, 43, 100, 105, 115–16, 131, 172–3 education, 85 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 137 Federal Reserve, 33 Fifth Amendment (1789), 44 financial crisis (2007–9), 31–2, 82, 158 first past the post, 13 Government Accountability Office, 29 gross domestic product (GDP), 75–7, 82 health, 92, 99–100, 101, 103, 105, 107, 115–16, 158, 172–3 Heritage Foundation, 164, 214 Iraq War (2003–11), 74, 132 JFK Airport terror scare (2016), x, xiii, 41 Kansas populists (1880s), 220 libertarianism, 15, 151, 154, 158, 164, 173 life expectancy, 100, 101 March For Our Lives (2018), 21 March for Science (2017), 23–5, 27, 28, 210 McCarthyism (1947–56), 137 Million-Man March (1995), 4 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 23, 175 National Defense Research Committee, 180 National Park Service, 4 National Security Agency (NSA), 152 Obama administration (2009–17), 3, 24, 76, 77, 79, 158 Occupy Wall Street (2011), 5, 10, 61 and opiates, 105, 172–3 and pain, 103, 105, 107, 172–3 Palantir, 151, 152, 175, 190 Paris climate accord (2015), 205, 207 Parkland attack (2018), 21 Patriot Act (2001), 137 Pentagon, 130, 132, 135, 136, 214, 216 presidential election (2016), see under presidential election, US psychiatry, 107, 111 quantitative easing, 31–2 Reagan administration (1981–9), 15, 77, 154, 160, 163, 166 Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns” speech (2002), 132 Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), 180, 182, 200 September 11 attacks (2001), 17, 18 Tea Party, 32, 50, 61, 221 and torture, 93 Trump administration (2017–), see under Trump, Donald unemployment, 83 Vietnam War (1955–75), 111, 130, 136, 138, 143, 205 World War I (1914–18), 137 World War II (1939–45), 137, 180 universal basic income, 221 universities, 151–2, 164, 169–70 University of Cambridge, 84, 151 University of Chicago, 160 University of East Anglia, 195 University of Oxford, 56, 151 University of Vienna, 160 University of Washington, 188 unknown knowns, 132, 133, 136, 138, 141, 192, 212 unknown unknowns, 132, 133, 138 “Use of Knowledge in Society, The” (Hayek), 161 V2 flying bomb, 137 vaccines, 23, 95 de Vauban, Sébastien Le Prestre, Marquis de Vauban, 73 vehicle-ramming attacks, 17 Vesalius, Andreas, 96 Vienna, Austria, 153–5, 159 Vietnam War (1955–75), 111, 130, 136, 138, 143, 205 violence vs. power, 19, 219 viral marketing, 12 virtual reality, 183 virtue signaling, 194 voice recognition, 187 Vote Leave, 50, 93 Wainright, Joel, 214 Wales, 77, 90 Wall Street, New York, 33, 190 War College, Berlin, 128 “War Economy” (Neurath), 153–4 war on drugs, 43, 131 war on terror, 131, 136, 196 Watts, Jay, 115 weaponization, 18–20, 22, 26, 75, 118, 123, 194, 219, 223 weapons of mass destruction, 132 wearable technology, 173 weather control, 204 “What Is An Emotion?”


Layered Money: From Gold and Dollars to Bitcoin and Central Bank Digital Currencies by Nik Bhatia

Alan Greenspan, bank run, basic income, Bear Stearns, bitcoin, blockchain, Bretton Woods, British Empire, central bank independence, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, distributed ledger, fiat currency, fixed income, Fractional reserve banking, interest rate derivative, interest rate swap, Isaac Newton, joint-stock company, Kickstarter, Long Term Capital Management, margin call, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, offshore financial centre, quantitative easing, reserve currency, risk free rate, Satoshi Nakamoto, slashdot, smart contracts, time value of money, tulip mania, universal basic income

The Fed wouldn’t necessarily be able to provide this type of economic stimulus without a larger political debate; a CBDC blurs the line between the central bank’s independent monetary policy and government-controlled fiscal policy. Helicopter money has been explored as a monetary policy tool for decades, and with the popularity of political ideas such as Universal Basic Income, CBDCs are the ideal vehicle to transmit direct payments to citizens in the future. Broadbent formally introduced the CBDC acronym that is sure to dominate the monetary conversation for many years to come. Since his speech, the central banks of China, Sweden, and Australia have started testing CBDCs.


pages: 300 words: 106,520

The Nanny State Made Me: A Story of Britain and How to Save It by Stuart Maconie

"there is no alternative" (TINA), banking crisis, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, British Empire, Bullingdon Club, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, David Attenborough, Desert Island Discs, don't be evil, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Elon Musk, Etonian, Extinction Rebellion, failed state, fake news, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, G4S, gentrification, Golden age of television, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Greta Thunberg, helicopter parent, hiring and firing, housing crisis, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, North Sea oil, Own Your Own Home, plutocrats, post-truth, post-war consensus, rent control, retail therapy, Right to Buy, road to serfdom, Russell Brand, Silicon Valley, Stephen Fry, surveillance capitalism, The Chicago School, universal basic income, Winter of Discontent

The latest experiment, Universal Credit, a means-tested Speenhamland-style ‘top up’ that replaces six ‘legacy’ benefits, has been erratically rolled out, widely criticised and will be abolished by any future Labour government. But there is growing approval and interest in another ‘universal’ benefit. What I wonder, would the sternly moralistic Beveridge have made of a benefit system that literally and unashamedly proposes handing out money for nothing with no strings attached? It’s known as Universal Basic Income, or UBI, and is an idea gaining much traction now to the surprise of many, me included. When I was a teenage sociology student, I read a 1966 essay by Marshall McLuhan called ‘Guaranteed Income in the Electric Age’. You can probably guess the gist from the title. One day fairly soon, robots would be doing all the dirty, boring, dangerous work for us and we would receive an allowance from the state in order to not work.

But belatedly and implausibly, something like McLuhan’s dreamily utopian scheme may well soon come to pass, at least in some parts of the world. Before we get into that, let’s define some terms. Though there are as many variants of UBI as there are incarnations of The Drifters currently touring northern clubs, Universal Basic Income is essentially that: a benefit paid by the state to all citizens regardless of their income, resources or employment status. In its purest form it should be periodic, i.e. regular, in cash not vouchers, given to each individual not a household, universal and unconditional. It’s the last two criteria that seem so shocking at first.


pages: 371 words: 109,320

News and How to Use It: What to Believe in a Fake News World by Alan Rusbridger

airport security, basic income, Bellingcat, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, Bletchley Park, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Chelsea Manning, citizen journalism, Climategate, cognitive dissonance, coronavirus, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, Credit Default Swap, crisis actor, cross-subsidies, crowdsourcing, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, end-to-end encryption, fake news, Filter Bubble, future of journalism, George Floyd, ghettoisation, global pandemic, Google Earth, green new deal, hive mind, housing crisis, Howard Rheingold, illegal immigration, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jeff Bezos, Jeffrey Epstein, Jeremy Corbyn, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, lockdown, Mark Zuckerberg, Murray Gell-Mann, Narrative Science, Neil Kinnock, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, Nicholas Carr, ocean acidification, offshore financial centre, post-truth, profit motive, public intellectual, publication bias, Seymour Hersh, Snapchat, social distancing, Social Justice Warrior, Steve Bannon, tech baron, the scientific method, TikTok, universal basic income, WikiLeaks, yellow journalism

They have turned to publications such as Bright Green, a UK-based blog dedicated to ‘radical, democratic, green movements’, and the Ecologist, a combined online newspaper and print magazine reporting on environmental issues since 1970. Both publish the commentaries (‘Strategies for social-ecological transformation’) and cross-cutting policy analyses (‘5 Reasons why a Green New Deal and Universal Basic Income go hand in hand’) that have their readers looking constantly forward to solutions. Voices like these are stealing ground from the mainstream press, who could be offering more of a platform for new thinking on how to transition to a livable planet. If the press wants to be thought of as today’s equivalent of the public square, then it should place itself at the centre of such debates (SEE: PUBLIC SPHERE).

OrwellFoundation.com, 2019. <https://www.orwellfoundation.com/investigative/madison-marriage/> Orwell, George. The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 4: In Front of Your Nose 1945–1950. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970. Osborne, Martin. ‘5 reasons why a Green New Deal and Universal Basic Income go hand in hand’. Bright Green (blog), 10 October 2019. <http://bright-green.org/2019/10/10/5-reasons-why-a-green-new-deal-and-basic-income-go-hand-in-hand/> Papacharissi, Zizi. ‘The virtual sphere: The internet as a public sphere’. New Media & Society, 1 February 2002. <https://doi.org/10.1177/14614440222226244> Pappu, Sridhar.


pages: 354 words: 118,970

Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream by Nicholas Lemann

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, Abraham Maslow, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, augmented reality, basic income, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, Black-Scholes formula, Blitzscaling, buy and hold, capital controls, Carl Icahn, computerized trading, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, cryptocurrency, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, deal flow, dematerialisation, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, Fairchild Semiconductor, financial deregulation, financial innovation, fixed income, future of work, George Akerlof, gig economy, Glass-Steagall Act, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, Ida Tarbell, index fund, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Irwin Jacobs, Joi Ito, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Arrow, Kickstarter, life extension, Long Term Capital Management, Mark Zuckerberg, Mary Meeker, mass immigration, means of production, Metcalfe’s law, Michael Milken, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, Myron Scholes, Neal Stephenson, new economy, Norman Mailer, obamacare, PalmPilot, Paul Samuelson, Performance of Mutual Funds in the Period, Peter Thiel, price mechanism, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, proprietary trading, prudent man rule, public intellectual, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, Ralph Nader, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Metcalfe, rolodex, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Sand Hill Road, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, Snow Crash, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, Steve Jobs, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, The Nature of the Firm, the payments system, the strength of weak ties, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, transaction costs, universal basic income, War on Poverty, white flight, working poor

Anyway, although he liked to associate himself with liberal causes, it didn’t really represent his own ideas about how to solve economic problems. Another cause that was becoming popular with Silicon Valley’s left wing, including some of Hoffman’s partners at Greylock, was a government-provided universal basic income, to provide for the needs of people who had been left behind by technological advances, but Hoffman was not comfortable with that either. He liked to quote a statistic he had picked up from a United Nations report: the global economy will have to create six hundred million jobs over the next twenty years in order to keep most of the population decently fed and housed.

.; classes of in Silicon Valley; executives compensated in; new instruments outpacing; online sales of; on margin; see also stock market Story of a Lover, The (Hapgood) “Strength of Weak Ties, The” (Granovetter) Strickland, Ted strikes Strober, Sue Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The (Kuhn) Stuart, Harold subprime auto loans subprime mortgages, see mortgages Subud suburbs suffragists Summers, Lawrence Supreme Court; Brandeis on Sutton, Betty swaps, financial syndicate system; decline of Taft, William Howard Taft-Hartley bill Talman Federal Savings Tamayo Financial Services Tarbell, Ida TaskRabbit Teaching in the Home (Berle) Team Auto Tea Party technology, see computers; Internet; networks; Silicon Valley TED (conference) Temporary National Economic Committee Ten Step Sales Procedure (Spitzer) Tesla Thaler, Richard “Theory of the Firm” (Jensen and Meckling) Thiel, Peter; as provocateur Think and Grow Rich (Hill) Time-Life Tokyo Stock Exchange “too big to fail” doctrine totalitarianism Toyota trading: largest loss in; rise of; see also investment banking; Morgan Stanley Transaction Man; institutional model replaced by; loss of faith in; paradigm applied to social issues; pluralism and; see also financial economics; investment banking; Morgan Stanley Treasury Department; under Paulson; under Rubin passim; under Woodin Treaty of Detroit “Treaty of Detroit, The” (Bell) Troubled Asset Relief Program trucking Truman, David Truman, Harry Trump, Donald trustbusting; GM’s strategy against; of Morgan Stanley; obsolescence of; of tech firms Turner, Frederick Jackson Tversky, Amos 2008 financial crisis; automotive industry during; in Chicago Lawn; credit markets frozen during; government bailouts during; lead-up to, see deregulation; derivatives; mortgages Uber underwriting; by banks; decline of unions; criticism of; government support for; as interest groups; pensions from; Treaty of Detroit by United Auto Workers United Nations United States: core institutions of; corporations unforeseen by founders of; global influence of; national character in United States of America v. Henry S. Morgan, Harold Stanley, et al. United Steelworkers universal basic income university endowments University of Berlin University of Chicago; economics paradigm shift at; graduates of, in finance University of Rochester Unseen Revolution, The (Drucker) U.S. Steel Vanderbilt, Cornelius Van Dyke, Jason Van Susteren, Greta Van Tiem, Katie Vassar Veblen, Thorstein venture capital Vietnam War Visa Visible Hand, The (Chandler) Volcker, Paul Vorberg, Amy Vorberg, Elaine Wachovia Wagoner, Rick Wald, Lillian Wall Street; Berle’s work on; corporations vs.; criminality of; political giving by; see also investment banking; Morgan Stanley; specific financial instruments Wall Street Journal, The war Watergate wealth, concentration of; during New Deal; pre–New Deal; Silicon Valley’s solution to Weekend to Be Named Later, The (conference) Weill, Sanford Weinberg, Nat Weiner, Jeff welfare states; corporations as Wells Fargo Bank Westinghouse Electric West Wing, The Weyl, Walter Wharton, Edith WhatsApp Whedon, Joss White, William Allen White Collar (Mills) white flight white nationalism Whitewater Whitman, Walt Whittemore, Frederick Whyte, William H.


pages: 463 words: 115,103

Head, Hand, Heart: Why Intelligence Is Over-Rewarded, Manual Workers Matter, and Caregivers Deserve More Respect by David Goodhart

active measures, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, assortative mating, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Brexit referendum, British Empire, call centre, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, computer age, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, data science, David Attenborough, David Brooks, deglobalization, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, desegregation, deskilling, different worldview, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, emotional labour, Etonian, fail fast, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Flynn Effect, Frederick Winslow Taylor, future of work, gender pay gap, George Floyd, gig economy, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, income inequality, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, lockdown, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, meritocracy, new economy, Nicholas Carr, oil shock, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, pink-collar, post-industrial society, post-materialism, postindustrial economy, precariat, reshoring, Richard Florida, robotic process automation, scientific management, Scientific racism, Skype, social distancing, social intelligence, spinning jenny, Steven Pinker, superintelligent machines, TED Talk, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thorstein Veblen, twin studies, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, wages for housework, winner-take-all economy, women in the workforce, young professional

The double goal is clear enough: to invest sufficiently in the expensive metropolitan centers to allow poorer people to stay put with a reasonable quality of life and, at the same time, to prevent people from the smaller towns and suburbs feeling like resentful second-class citizens. Adair Turner argues that for even the low-paid to enjoy a reasonable standard of life in the metropolitan centers, the provision of good public services—health, education, public transport, public spaces—and, as important, affordable housing is a higher priority than Universal Basic Income (UBI). UBI potentially disconnects people from work, which for many is an important source of meaning and companionship. Indeed, happiness researchers, like the British economist Richard Layard, argue that the state guarantee of a minimum-wage job for anyone unemployed for more than six months—even accompanied with the stick of having benefits withdrawn for those who reject the offer—is a better safety net for generating well-being.

Susskind), 261–62, 298 A World Without Work, 244, 268 Sutton Trust, 18 Sweden, 81, 83, 206, 213, 222, 229 Switzerland, 213 Syed, Matthew, Rebel Ideas, 282 Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 97, 260 Teach First (UK), 151 Teach for America (US), 151 teaching, 151, 218, 226, 228, 232, 294 Terman, Lewis, 64, 65 Thatcher, Margaret, 106 Thiel, Peter, 297 time-use data, 242–43, 246–47 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 43 trade unions: activism of, 158 apprenticeships, 47 demarcation disputes, 122–23 membership declines, 139–40 Trump, Donald: as anti-system politician, 169, 171 election in 2016, 32, 154–55, 159, 161, 169, 214–15, 220 Executive Order to expand apprenticeships (2017), 112–13 immigration policy, 162 populism of, 161, 220, 279 power of direct language and, 178 Turner, Adair, 241, 272–74, 286, 288 Capitalism in the Age of Robots, 272–74 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 52 Twenge, Jean, 281 twin studies, of cognitive aptitude, 72–73, 74 Tyndale, William, 181 unions, see trade unions United Kingdom (UK): A levels, 35, 46, 57–60, 95–96, 98, 105, 108–10, 124, 192 adult social care and, 239–41, 242 Anywhere-Somewhere divide and, 13–20 apprenticeships and, 15, 40, 47, 57–58, 106, 109–14, 119, 170–71, 200–201 civil service reform, 31, 41 Education Acts, 43–44, 46, 98, 100 family and gender policy, 27 family breakdown in, 221–22 free education, 43–44, 46 further education (FE) colleges (UK), 105–6, 108–10, 115 geographic mobility and, 17, 288, 289–90 globalization and, 111–17 “graduatization”/income divergence of the labor market, 133–52 higher education system, 41–53, 80–81, 100–107, 113–17, 120, 125–31, 262–63 industrialization and urbanization in, 33–34, 51–52 IQ-type tests, 65 mental well-being in, 222–23 migration premium and, 18 Northcote-Trevelyan Report and, 31, 41 Oxford/Cambridge duopoly and, 41–42, 44–52, 84, 97–98, 101–2, 156, 172–73, 263, 264 polytechnics/“new universities” (UK), 98, 100–102, 105–8, 115, 119, 263 professions/professional exams and, 42–43 “redbrick” universities, 45–46, 47, 49, 51 rise of cognitive class in, 32, 33–35, 41–42, 76–78 social mobility trends in, 75–78, 80–81, 126–31 technical and vocational training, 15, 40, 42, 46–47, 50, 97–98, 100–102, 105–8, 198, 265 training/retraining failure and, 111–17 see also Brexit Britain United States (US): Anywhere-Somewhere divide and, 13–20 apprenticeships and, 112–13 correlation between intelligence and socioeconomic status, 78–82, 83–84 family and gender policy, 27 family breakdown in, 220 free public education, 43–44, 50 geographic mobility and, 17–19 GI Bill, 43–44, 66, 96, 115 globalization and, 111–17 “graduatization”/income divergence of the labor market, 133–52 higher education system, 43–44, 48–50, 52–53, 66, 80, 96, 112–17, 264 immigration and, 52, 162 IQ-type tests, 65–66 labor shortage and, 50 land and western frontier, 52 professions/professional exams, 43 social mobility trends, 78–84 technical and vocational training, 49, 50, 114, 115 training/retraining failure and, 111–17 US Army, large-scale intelligence testing, 64–65 US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 225, 241–42, 273 US Department of Justice, 6n US General Social Survey, 222 Universal Basic Income (UBI), 288 universities, see college/university education urbanization, 10, 33–34, 37, 51–52, 221, 273–74, 288 values: cognitive improvement technology, 280–81 crisis of meaning of Heart (care) vs. Head (cognitive) work, 218–25 “ecumenical niceness” (Murray), 180, 279–80 nature of, 21 “playing God,” 280, 280n political cognitive domination and, 180–86 of postindustrial societies, 36 value divide and, 32, 36, 279–84 Vance, J.


pages: 444 words: 117,770

The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century's Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, 3D printing, active measures, Ada Lovelace, additive manufacturing, agricultural Revolution, AI winter, air gap, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, algorithmic bias, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, Alvin Toffler, Amazon Web Services, Anthropocene, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, ASML, autonomous vehicles, backpropagation, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bioinformatics, Bletchley Park, Blitzscaling, Boston Dynamics, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, ChatGPT, choice architecture, circular economy, classic study, clean tech, cloud computing, commoditize, computer vision, coronavirus, corporate governance, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, creative destruction, CRISPR, critical race theory, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, data science, decarbonisation, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Demis Hassabis, disinformation, drone strike, drop ship, dual-use technology, Easter island, Edward Snowden, effective altruism, energy transition, epigenetics, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ernest Rutherford, Extinction Rebellion, facts on the ground, failed state, Fairchild Semiconductor, fear of failure, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, future of work, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, global pandemic, GPT-3, GPT-4, hallucination problem, hive mind, hype cycle, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet Archive, Internet of things, invention of the wheel, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John von Neumann, Joi Ito, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, lab leak, large language model, Law of Accelerating Returns, Lewis Mumford, license plate recognition, lockdown, machine readable, Marc Andreessen, meta-analysis, microcredit, move 37, Mustafa Suleyman, mutually assured destruction, new economy, Nick Bostrom, Nikolai Kondratiev, off grid, OpenAI, paperclip maximiser, personalized medicine, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, plutocrats, precautionary principle, profit motive, prompt engineering, QAnon, quantum entanglement, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, Richard Feynman, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Sam Altman, Sand Hill Road, satellite internet, Silicon Valley, smart cities, South China Sea, space junk, SpaceX Starlink, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Stephen Fry, Steven Levy, strong AI, synthetic biology, tacit knowledge, tail risk, techlash, techno-determinism, technoutopianism, Ted Kaczynski, the long tail, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas Malthus, TikTok, TSMC, Turing test, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, warehouse robotics, William MacAskill, working-age population, world market for maybe five computers, zero day

Tax credits topping up the lowest incomes could be an immediate buffer in the face of stagnating or even collapsing incomes. At the same time, a massive re-skilling program and education effort should prepare vulnerable populations, raise awareness of risks, and increase opportunities for engagement with the capabilities of the wave. A universal basic income (UBI)—that is, an income paid by the state for every citizen irrespective of circumstances—has often been floated as the answer to the economic disruptions of the coming wave. In the future, there will likely be a place for UBI-like initiatives; however, before one even gets to that, there are plenty of good ideas.

See authoritarianism; surveillance traffic optimization, 98 transcriptors, 88 transformers, 64, 90–91 transistor, 32–33, 67 Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968), 43, 263 Tsar Bomba, 42 Tsinghua University, 121 TSMC, 251 Turing, Alan, 35, 75 23andMe, 81 2001: A Space Odyssey, 110 U Uighur ethnic cleansing, 195 Ukraine, 44, 103–4, 161–62 Unabomber, 213 United States export controls, 249–50 international cooperation and, 265–66 surveillance, 195 universal basic income (UBI), 262 University of Oxford, 101 Urban II (pope), 39 urbanization, technology waves and, 27–28 U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), 161 V vehicles asymmetrical impact and, 107 autonomy and, 113 internal combustion engine and, 24–25 regulation of, 229–30 Venter, Craig, 84 Vigilant Solutions, 196 viruses, 173–75, 209, 273–74 von Neumann, John, 141, 221, 222 W Walmart, 95–96 WannaCry, 160–61, 163, 166 Watson, James, 80 Watson, Thomas J., 32 WaveNet, 61 waves, viii, 5–6, 16 See also technology waves We (Zamyatin), 196 weapons AI and, 165 containment and, 39, 40, 263 nation-states and, 157 stirrup and, 183–84 See also military applications; nuclear technology wheel, 28 White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, 260 Wilkins, Maurice, 80 Winner, Langdon, 156 World War I, 110, 205 World War II, 32, 42, 126, 205, 264 writing, 27, 28, 156–57 X Xi Jinping, 121, 122, 123–24, 249 Z Zamyatin, Yevgeny, 196 Zhang, Feng, 265 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ABOUT THE AUTHORS Mustafa Suleyman is the co-founder and CEO of Inflection AI.


pages: 442 words: 112,155

The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure by Yascha Mounk

23andMe, affirmative action, basic income, centre right, coronavirus, COVID-19, critical race theory, Donald Trump, failed state, global pandemic, illegal immigration, income inequality, language acquisition, Mahatma Gandhi, meta-analysis, Milgram experiment, Peter Singer: altruism, phenotype, Republic of Letters, Ronald Reagan, Steven Pinker, theory of mind, transatlantic slave trade, universal basic income, unpaid internship, World Values Survey

GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT industrial policy or even a basic income: For an influential philosophical justification of universal basic income, see Philippe van Parijs, Real Freedom for All: What (If Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997). For a discussion of recent attempts to implement it, see Sigal Samuel, “Guaranteed Income Is Graduating from Charity to Public Policy,” Vox, June 3, 2021, https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2021/6/3/22463776/guaranteed-universal-basic-income-charity-policy. GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT A significant increase in the resources devoted: Notably, it would boost economic growth for society as a whole, helping diverse democracies generate the growth and tax revenue they need to offer their citizens secure prosperity.


pages: 144 words: 43,356

Surviving AI: The Promise and Peril of Artificial Intelligence by Calum Chace

3D printing, Ada Lovelace, AI winter, Airbnb, Alvin Toffler, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, barriers to entry, basic income, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, blockchain, brain emulation, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Babbage, cloud computing, computer age, computer vision, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, deep learning, DeepMind, dematerialisation, Demis Hassabis, discovery of the americas, disintermediation, don't be evil, driverless car, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, Flash crash, friendly AI, Geoffrey Hinton, Google Glasses, hedonic treadmill, hype cycle, industrial robot, Internet of things, invention of agriculture, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John von Neumann, Kevin Kelly, life extension, low skilled workers, machine translation, Mahatma Gandhi, means of production, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer model, Peter Thiel, radical life extension, Ray Kurzweil, Robert Solow, Rodney Brooks, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Skype, South Sea Bubble, speech recognition, Stanislav Petrov, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, strong AI, technological singularity, TED Talk, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, theory of mind, Turing machine, Turing test, universal basic income, Vernor Vinge, wage slave, Wall-E, zero-sum game

But if the day dawns when everyone acknowledges that more than half the population will never work again, the result will surely be a political and social crisis sufficient to oblige governments everywhere to do something about it. UBI and VR If and when the economic singularity arrives, we may need to institute what is now called the Universal Basic Income (UBI). This is a payment available to all citizens as of right, providing everyone with the living standard of today’s middle-class American. The optimistic scenario is that AI-powered robots do all the work, creating an economy of what Peter Diamandis calls radical abundance, leaving humans to pursue self-fulfilment by reading, writing, talking, playing sports and undertaking adventures.


pages: 453 words: 122,586

Samuelson Friedman: The Battle Over the Free Market by Nicholas Wapshott

2021 United States Capitol attack, Alan Greenspan, bank run, basic income, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, business cycle, California gold rush, collective bargaining, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Donald Trump, double helix, en.wikipedia.org, fiat currency, financial engineering, fixed income, floating exchange rates, full employment, God and Mammon, greed is good, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, indoor plumbing, invisible hand, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, laissez-faire capitalism, light touch regulation, liquidity trap, lockdown, low interest rates, Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman, market bubble, market clearing, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, Money creation, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, new economy, Nixon shock, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, Phillips curve, price mechanism, price stability, public intellectual, pushing on a string, quantitative easing, rent control, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, seminal paper, Simon Kuznets, social distancing, Tax Reform Act of 1986, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, War on Poverty, We are all Keynesians now, Works Progress Administration, zero-sum game

It was an economic truth given prominence by Trump54 in his 2016 insurgent presidential campaign that promised a renegotiation of America’s trade deals and the introduction of selective tariffs to protect home markets. Friedman’s novel plan for a negative income tax to replace traditional welfare payments attracted support from across the political spectrum, including from Samuelson, who praised it as “an idea whose time has come.”55 The idea morphed into the “universal basic income” in which the state would provide a minimum wage to everyone as a right. The COVID-19 pandemic saw governments around the world adopting similar schemes, at least temporarily, though the prospect of a world economy dependent upon robots rather than humans made more likely permanent direct state funding of those not needed for work.

., 291–92, 333, 342 unemployment after financial freeze, 278–79 in Britain after World War I, 40, 63, 234 COVID-19 pandemic, 342 Federal Reserve mandate, 108, 178 financial freeze of 2007–8, 278–79 Friedman on, 110–11, 304–5 Hayek on, 199 Joseph on, 234–35 Keynes on, 15, 64, 234–35 “natural rate” of, 110–11, 114–15 rates in U.S., 1975–1980, 175 Samuelson on, 15, 20, 23, 88, 120, 264 universal basic income, 292 Value Added Tax, 239 Veblen, Thorstein, 164, 328 velocity of money Friedman on, 61, 93–94, 106, 109 Keynes on, 63, 94, 97, 98 Samuelson on, 172 Volcker on, 185, 212 Vietnam War draft dodgers, 49 Galbraith and, 7, 312 and inflation, 121, 145 Johnson and, 7, 52 Vincent Astor Foundation, 3, 4 Viner, Jacob, 14, 28, 33, 99, 304 Volcker, Paul about, 177, 329 AEA address, 181 appointment as Fed chairman, 177–78, 186 at Camp David summit, 148 Carter’s reaction to Fed policies, 191 consumer credit controls, 192 on Friedman’s computer algorithm idea, 200 interest rates under, 181, 186–87, 188, 190–92, 194–95, 199, 212 monetarism abandoned by, 212, 246 monetary policy to fight inflation, 186–92, 194–95, 202–4 monetary targets, 181, 182–83, 184–86, 188–89, 192–93, 195–96 Reagan support for, 202, 212 recession provoked by, 191–92, 193, 194, 195–96, 202, 211–12 skepticism about monetarism, 178–80, 181–85, 189, 235 stagflation and, 186, 202 on velocity of money, 185, 212 wage and price controls, 149 Volker Foundation, 45, 66 von Mises, Ludwig, 36, 37, 62, 73–74, 163, 172, 309 wage and price controls controls in U.S., 149–51, 152, 154–55, 156–57, 326 incomes and pay policies in U.K., 228, 229, 232–33, 235 Wald, George, 169 Wałęsa, Lech, 215, 334 Wallace, George, 142 Wallich, Henry, 5, 7, 54, 302 Wallis, W.


pages: 533 words: 125,495

Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker

affirmative action, Albert Einstein, autonomous vehicles, availability heuristic, Ayatollah Khomeini, backpropagation, basic income, behavioural economics, belling the cat, Black Lives Matter, butterfly effect, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, classic study, clean water, Comet Ping Pong, coronavirus, correlation coefficient, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, critical race theory, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, David Attenborough, deep learning, defund the police, delayed gratification, disinformation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Easter island, effective altruism, en.wikipedia.org, Erdős number, Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science, fake news, feminist movement, framing effect, George Akerlof, George Floyd, germ theory of disease, high batting average, if you see hoof prints, think horses—not zebras, index card, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, libertarian paternalism, Linda problem, longitudinal study, loss aversion, Mahatma Gandhi, meta-analysis, microaggression, Monty Hall problem, Nash equilibrium, New Journalism, Paul Erdős, Paul Samuelson, Peter Singer: altruism, Pierre-Simon Laplace, placebo effect, post-truth, power law, QAnon, QWERTY keyboard, Ralph Waldo Emerson, randomized controlled trial, replication crisis, Richard Thaler, scientific worldview, selection bias, social discount rate, social distancing, Social Justice Warrior, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, sunk-cost fallacy, TED Talk, the scientific method, Thomas Bayes, Tragedy of the Commons, trolley problem, twin studies, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, Walter Mischel, yellow journalism, zero-sum game

Still, it can be instructive to unpack the logic of an argument as a set of premises and conditionals, the better to spot the fallacies and missing assumptions. It’s called formal reconstruction, and philosophy professors sometimes assign it to their students to sharpen their reasoning. Here’s an example. A candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Andrew Yang, ran on a platform of implementing a universal basic income (UBI). Here is an excerpt from his website in which he justifies the policy (I have numbered the statements): (1) The smartest people in the world now predict that ⅓ of Americans will lose their job to automation in 12 years. (2) Our current policies are not equipped to handle this crisis. (3) If Americans have no source of income, the future could be very dark. (4) A $1,000/month UBI—funded by a Value Added Tax—would guarantee that all Americans benefit from automation.10 Statements (1) and (2) are factual premises; let’s assume they are true. (3) is a conditional, and is uncontroversial.

., 356–57n67 trade and investment, international, 327 Tragedy of the Carbon Commons, 242–44, 328 Tragedy of the Commons, 242, 243–44, 315 Tragedy of the Rationality Commons, 298, 315–17 Trivers, Robert, 241 trolley problem, 97 Trump, Donald, 6, 60, 82–83, 88, 92, 126, 130–31, 145, 245, 283–84, 284, 285, 288, 303, 306, 310, 312–13, 313 truth tables, 76–78 tu quoque (what-aboutery), 89 Turkmenistan, 245–47, 251 Tversky, Amos, 7, 25–29, 119, 131, 146, 154–55, 156, 186–87, 190–95, 196, 254, 342n15, 349–50nn6,27 Twain, Mark, 201 Twitter, 313, 316, 321–23 uncertainty, distinguished from risk, 177 United Nations, 327 unit homogeneity, 258 universal basic income (UBI), 85–87 universal realism, 300–301 universities academic freedom in, 41 benefits of college education, 264 college admissions, 262, 263, 266–67, 294 sexual misconduct policies, 218 suppression of opinions in, 43, 313–14 viewpoint diversity, lack of, 313–14 See also academia; education unreflective thinking, 8–10, 311 See also System 1 & 2 urban legends, 287, 306, 308 Uscinski, Joseph, 287 US Constitution, 75, 333 US Department of Education, 218 USSR, 60, 89, 122 vaccines, 284, 325.


pages: 165 words: 47,193

The End of Work: Why Your Passion Can Become Your Job by John Tamny

Albert Einstein, Andy Kessler, Apollo 13, asset allocation, barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, cloud computing, commoditize, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, do what you love, Downton Abbey, future of work, George Gilder, haute cuisine, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, knowledge economy, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Palm Treo, Peter Thiel, profit motive, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Stephen Hawking, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, There's no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home - Ken Olsen, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, Yogi Berra

It’s about replacing older, less interesting, sweaty jobs with machines and creating more and better jobs requiring human capital. No one wants to believe this. The fear today is that robots will take everyone’s job, requiring the government to issue checks to all its citizens in the form of Universal Basic Income. This is hooey. Machines augment human beings and slowly but surely replace jobs at the lower end of the stack. Buttered buns are made by machines. Airline tickets are sorted in databases rather than by human beings. Artificial intelligence can implement image recognition and sort photographs and tag videos better than any person can.


pages: 505 words: 138,917

Open: The Story of Human Progress by Johan Norberg

Abraham Maslow, additive manufacturing, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, anti-globalists, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Bletchley Park, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business cycle, business process, California gold rush, carbon tax, citizen journalism, classic study, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, crony capitalism, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, digital map, Donald Trump, Edward Jenner, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, Filter Bubble, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Flynn Effect, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, Galaxy Zoo, George Gilder, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global supply chain, global village, green new deal, humanitarian revolution, illegal immigration, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, indoor plumbing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Islamic Golden Age, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labour mobility, Lao Tzu, liberal capitalism, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, negative emissions, Network effects, open borders, open economy, Pax Mongolica, place-making, profit motive, RAND corporation, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, Republic of Letters, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Schrödinger's Cat, sharing economy, side project, Silicon Valley, Solyndra, spice trade, stem cell, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, tacit knowledge, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, Tyler Cowen, Uber for X, ultimatum game, universal basic income, World Values Survey, Xiaogang Anhui farmers, zero-sum game

This has the obvious drawback that it would depopulate left-behind communities even more, but perhaps we should focus less on saving communities and more on saving people. One of the most destructive parts of our welfare system is that those who start working again lose most of their benefits. Almost 40 per cent of the unemployed in the OECD countries face a marginal rate higher than 80 per cent if they take a job.10 Replacing the welfare system with a universal basic income (UBI), often proposed to deal with technology-induced unemployment, could get us out of this welfare trap. Since it is paid out no matter how much the wage increases, it doesn’t discourage work. It would also go some way to dealing with the fear of losing jobs and incomes due to recessions or restructuring.

(Fukuyama), 362–5 End of Work, The (Rifkin), 312 Engels, Friedrich, 33, 36, 162, 206, 247, 256 English Civil War (1642–1651), 148, 183, 184, 201 Enigma machine, 124–6 Enlightenment, 4, 5, 6, 13, 103, 154–60, 165–6, 195–6 Environmental Performance Index, 327 Ephesus, 45 Epic of Gilgamesh, The, 38 Epicurus, 134–5 Epstein, Richard, 320 equality matching, 262–6, 267 Erasmus, 152 Erdogan, Recep Tayyip, 354 Ethiopia, 72, 130 ethnocentrism, 219, 271 Etruscan civilization (c. 900–27 BC), 43 Eubulus, 47 eugenics, 109 Euphrates river, 37 Euripides, 132 European Organization for Nuclear Research, 306 European Parliament, 325 European Union (EU) Brexit (2016–), 9, 14, 118, 238, 240–41, 349, 354, 379 common currency, 280–81 freedom of movement, 118, 343 migration crisis (2015–), 10, 114, 115, 342–3, 358 subsidies in, 280 trade and, 272 United States, trade with, 19 Evans, Oliver, 203 Evolution of God, The (Wright), 249 evolutionary psychology, 14, 23, 225 exoticism, 84 Expressionism, 198 Facebook, 239, 309 Falwell, Jerry, 113–14 Farage, Nigel, 241 farming, see agriculture Fascist Italy (1922–1943), 105, 219 FedEx, 319 Feifer, Jason, 290–92 Fenway Park, Boston, 223 Ferdinand II, King of Aragon, 97, 98, 106 Ferguson, Charles, 314 Fermi, Enrico, 105 Ferney, France, 153 feudalism, 92, 194, 202, 208 fight-or-flight instinct, 15, 346, 348–9 filter bubbles, 239 financial crisis (2008), 10, 15, 62, 254, 333, 358, 359–60 fire, control of, 32–3, 76 Flanders, 208 fluyts, 100 Flynn effect, 109 Fogel, Robert, 276 folk economics, 258–62 football, 223–4, 245–6 Forbes, 274 Ford, Henry, 203 Fortune 500 companies, 82 Fox News, 82, 302, 354 France, 151 American Revolutionary War (1775–83), 201 automation in, 313 Cathars, 94, 142 Cobden–Chevalier Treaty (1860), 53–4 corruption in, 345 Dutch War (1672–8), 101 Encyclopédie, 154 free zones in, 180–81 Huguenots, persecution of, 97, 99, 101, 158, 193 immigration in, 115 Jews, persecution of, 96, 97, 254 languages in, 289 Minitel, 313 Revolution (1789–99), 201, 292 Royal Academy of Sciences, 156 ruin follies, 287 St Bartholomew’s Day massacre (1572), 97 Thököly Uprising (1678–85), 137 Uber in, 320 University of Paris, 140, 141–2, 143 Francis I, Emperor of Austria-Hungary, 178 Franciscans, 144 Franklin, Benjamin, 107 Franks, 92 free speech, 127, 131–2, 160, 163–5, 343 Chicago principles, 164–5 emigration for, 152–3 university campuses, 163–5 free trade, see under trade Fried, Dan, 289 Friedman, Benjamin, 253 Friedman, David, 284 Friedman, Thomas, 325 Friedrich Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, 153 Fukuyama, Francis, 362–5 Fulda, Germany, 179, 180 Future and Its Enemies, The (Postrel), 300 Future of Nostalgia, The (Boym), 288 Galatia, 90 Galaxy Zoo, 80 Galilei, Galileo, 146, 150 Gallup, 164 game theory, 26 Gandhi, Indira, 326 gas lighting, 297 Gates, William ‘Bill’, 274, 277, 309 Gauls, 90, 91, 92 gay rights, 113, 336 Geary, Patrick, 288–9 gender equality, 113, 114 General Motors, 64 generations baby-boom generation (1946–64), 294, 340 generation X (1965–80), 340 immigration and, 106, 110–11, 113–14 interwar generation (1928–45), 340 millennial generation (1981–96), 340 nostalgia and, 291, 293–4, 296 genetically modified organisms (GMO), 299, 301 Geneva, Switzerland, 152, 153 Genghis Khan, 94–5, 96, 174 Genoa, Republic of (1005–1797), 73, 178 George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland, 193 George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland, 103, 193 George Mason University, 257, 258 Georgia, 365 Georgia, United States, 349 German Conservative Party, 254 Germany automatic looms, 179 Berlin Wall, fall of (1989), 10, 340, 341, 363, 364 Bronze Age migration, 75 budget deficits, 60 COVID-19 pandemic (2019–20), 12 guilds in, 190 immigration in, 114, 115 Jews, persecution of, 99, 104–6, 109, 220, 233 migration crisis (2015–), 342–3 Nazi period (1933–45), 104–6, 109, 124, 220, 233, 353 Neolithic migration, 74 protectionism in, 314 Reichstag fire (1933), 353 Thirty Years War (1618–48), 150 United States, migration to, 104, 107–8, 111 Weimar period (1918–33), 353 al-Ghazali, 139 Gholia, 89 Gibbon, Edward, 90 Gilder, George, 314 Gilgamesh, 38 Gillis, John, 291 Gingrich, Newton, 313 Gini coefficient, 273 Gintis, Herbert, 36 global history, 13 global price crisis (2010–11), 11 global warming, 75, 323, 325, 326–34 globalization, 4, 55, 270 backlashes against, 9, 14, 54, 57 cities and, 35 classical world, 43–50 conspiracy theories on, 323 disease and, 11, 77–9 United States and, 19 Westernization, 4 Glorious Revolution (1688), 101, 185–8, 190, 193 Goa, India, 146–7 golden nugget theory, 5 Golden Rule, 251–2 Golding, William, 219, 243, 244 Goldstone, Jack, 5, 133, 353 Goodness Paradox, The (Wrangham), 227 Google, 309, 311 Gordon, Thomas, 201 Göring, Hermann, 106 gossip, 229 Goths, 92 Gottlieb, Anthony, 135 Great Awakening (1730–55), 102 Great Depression (1929–39), 54–5, 56, 254 Great Enrichment, 167, 204 Great Recession (2007–9), 254–5, 358, 359–60 Great Transformation, The (Polanyi), 37 Great Vanishing, 134–5 Great Wall of China, 178 Greece, ancient, 127–32, 169 Athens, 47, 53, 89, 90, 131–2, 134 Axial Age, 129 cosmopolitanism, 87–8 golden nugget theory, 5 Ionian enlightenment, 127–9 Mycenae, 88 philosophy, 13, 70, 127–32, 134–5, 136 Phoenicians, relations with, 43, 44, 45, 46 science, 127–32, 136 Sparta, 47, 54, 90, 132 trade, attitudes towards, 47, 54 xenophobia in, 90 Green New Deal, 302 Greene, Joshua, 216, 259 Greenland, 51 Gregorian calendar, 137, 152 Gregory IX, Pope, 142 Gregory XIII, Pope, 152 gross domestic product (GDP), 68–9, 257, 278–9 Grotius, Hugo, 147, 152–3 groupthink, 83 Guangzhou, Guangdong, 352 guilds, 190 Gutenberg, Johannes, 146 Haber, Fritz, 105 Habsburg Empire (1282–1918) anti-Semitism in, 254 Austria, 151, 179, 190 refugees, 99 Spain, 98–9, 208 Hadrian, Roman Emperor, 91 Hadrian’s Wall, 47 Hagley Park, West Midlands, 286–7 Haidt, Jonathan, 163, 229, 344, 348, 357 Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, 72 Hamas, 365 Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 173 Hanseatic League (1358–1862), 53 Hanson, Robin, 282 Hanway, Jonas, 298 Happy Days, 294 Harari, Yuval Noah, 38 Harriot, Thomas, 150 Hartsoeker, Nicolaas, 159 Harvard Business Review, 313 Harvard University, 116, 122, 137, 253, 309, 313 Haskell, Thomas, 206 Hässelby, Stockholm, 217–18, 245 Hayashi, Stuart, 370 Hayek, Friedrich, 1, 7, 29, 300, 325 Hebrew Bible, 248–50 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 288, 365 Helm, Dieter, 328, 331 Henrich, Joseph, 36 Hercules, 87 Herodotus, 132 Hewlett-Packard, 304 Higgs, Robert, 337 Hill, Christopher, 182 Hinduism, 136, 149, 354 von Hippel, William, 24, 25, 262, 284 Hippocrates, 128 Hispanic people, 110–11 Hitler, Adolf, 104–5, 353 Hobbes, Thomas, 9, 152, 226 Hofer, Johannes, 288 Holmgren, Pär, 325 Holocaust (1941–5), 109, 220 Holy Roman Empire (800–1806), 155, 181, 288 Homestead Acts, 171 Homo economicus, 34, 36 Homo erectus, 76, 267 Homo sapiens, 3, 21, 23, 30–33, 76, 259–62, 282, 371 homosexuality, 79, 113–14, 336 Homs, Syria, 82 Honeywell, 303 Hong Kong, 53, 235, 316 Hoover, Herbert, 55 horseshoes, 203 House of Wisdom, Baghdad, 136 Household Narrative, The, 297 housing, 375–6 Huguenots, 97, 99, 101, 158, 193 human rights, 87, 147, 213 humanitarianism, 204–7 Hume, David, 151, 154, 194 Hungary, 105, 190, 235, 237, 354, 357 hunkering down, 121, 165 Huns, 93 hunter-gatherer societies death rate, 9 disease and, 78 division of labour and, 29, 32, 40–41, 57 equality matching, 262–3, 265 inbreeding and, 78 isolation and, 52 migration, 73–4, 78–9 physical fallacy, 268 race and, 232 trade, 265 tyranny of cousins, 230 Huntington, Samuel, 110, 362–3, 365–6 Hussein, Saddam, 345 Hussey, Edward, 287 Hutchins, Robert Maynard, 165 Hutus, 230–31 Hypatia, 134 hyper-fast stars, 80 IBM, 305, 307, 319 Ibn al-Haytham, 156 Ibn Hayyan, Jabir, 156 Ibn Rushd, 137–8, 143, 144, 145 ice core drilling, 49 Identity & Violence (Sen), 231 identity politics, 241 al-Idrisi, Muhammad, 137 immigration birth rates and, 115 crime and, 110, 119 culture and, 69–73, 116, 119, 120–23 disgust and, 336, 371 division of labour and, 117 empires and, 84–106 European migration crisis (2015–), 10, 114, 115, 118, 342–3 exoticism, 84 GDP and, 68 innovation and, 81–4 Islam and, 112–14, 255 labour market and, 115, 116–19 opposition to, 69, 70, 114–23, 223, 254–5 productivity and, 68, 81, 117, 204 protectionism and, 66–7 self-selection and, 107, 112 skilled vs unskilled, 66, 82, 102, 116, 117 trade and, 35, 66–7, 234–5 tribalism and, 223, 235–6, 240, 243 urban vs rural areas, 114 welfare and, 118, 281 zero-sum thinking and, 254–5, 259 immigration in United States, 102–14 crime and, 110, 119 innovation and, 81–2, 202 overestimation of, 115, 223 tribalism and, 223, 240 zero-sum thinking and, 254–5, 259 In Defence of Global Capitalism (Norberg), 270 in vitro fertilization, 298–9 inbreeding, 78 India, 42, 45, 46, 56, 75, 129, 136, 140, 146, 270 Arabic numerals, 70, 137 engineering in, 269 Hindu nationalism, 354 industrialization, 207 Maurya Empire (323–184 BC), 53 Mughal Empire (1526–1857), 98, 148, 149, 215 national stereotypes, 235 Pakistan, relations with, 366 pollution in, 326 poverty in, 276, 326 Indo-European language, 75 Indonesia, 41 Industrial Revolution; industrialization, 5, 6, 13, 54, 132, 180, 339 in Britain, 182, 188–99, 202 in China, 169, 172–3, 207 climate change and, 326 in Dutch Republic, 101 in India, 207 in Japan, 71 in United States, 202, 291–2 in Vietnam, 207 inequality, 273, 349 Inglehart, Ronald, 339 ingroups and outgroups, 217–47 fluidity, 230–38 political, 224–5, 238–42 zero-sum relationships and, 252–5 Innocent III, Pope, 233 InnoCentive, 126–7 innovation, 4, 6, 10, 27, 80 ancient world, 32, 42, 44, 46 authoritarianism and, 318 bureaucratic inertia and, 318–21 canon and, 195 cities and, 40, 53, 79 creative destruction, 57, 179, 182, 190 cultural evolution, 28 immigration and 81–4 patent systems, 189–90 population and, 27, 51, 53 Schumpeterian profits, 273–5 resistance to, 10, 179–81 zero-sum thinking and, 266–9 Inquisition, 150 France, 94, 143 Portugal, 100 Spain, 97, 98 intellectual property, 58 Intergalactic Computer Network, 307 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 117 Internet, 57, 275, 278, 306–11, 312, 313 interwar generation (1928–45), 340 Inuit, 22, 51 Ionian enlightenment, 127–9 IQ (intelligence quotient), 109 Iran, 365 Ireland, 104, 108–9, 111, 112, 379 iron, 172 Isabella I, Queen of Castile, 97 Isaiah, 46 Isaura Palaia, Galatia, 90 Isenberg, Daniel, 296 Isis, 89 Islam; Islamic world Arab Spring (2011), 10, 342 clash of civilizations narrative, 237, 365 conflict within, 365 efflorescence, 6, 53, 136–41 fundamentalism, 112, 134, 139, 351 Koran, 137, 250–51 migration from, 112–14 orthodox backlash, 148–9 philosophy, 5, 13 science, 70, 132, 136–41 values in, 112, 113 Islamic State, 351, 365–6 Islamic world, 5, 6, 13, 53, 70 Israel, 111, 365 Italy, 6, 151, 169 anti-Semitism in, 254 Fascist period (1922–1943), 105 Genoa, Republic of (1005–1797), 73, 178 guilds in, 190 Lombard League (1167–1250), 181 Ötzi, 1–2, 8–9, 73, 74 Padua, 144, 146 Papacy in, 155, 181 Renaissance, 6, 150, 153, 169 United States, migration to, 104, 109 Venice, Republic of (697–1797), 53, 144, 152, 174, 181 Jacobs, Jane, 39–40, 79, 264 James II and VII, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, 185–6 Jamestown, Virginia, 200 Japan housing in, 376 kimonos, 73 Meiji Restoration (1868), 53, 70–71 protectionism, 314 Tokugawa Shogunate (1600–1868), 54 United States, migration to, 104, 236, 335 Japanning, 156 JavaScript, 310 jealous emulation, 154–7 jeans, 73 Jefferson, Thomas, 103, 184, 201, 205 Jenner, Edward, 296 Jerusalem, 87, 251 Jesus, 250 Jews in Abbasid Caliphate, 136 anti-Semitism, 254–5, 356 Ashkenazim, 99 Babylonian captivity, 87, 249 Bible, 46, 72, 248–50 Black Death and, 355–6 in Britain, 101, 193 in Dutch Republic, 99, 100, 150 in Germany, 99, 104–6, 109, 111, 254 Inquisition and, 97, 98 in Israel, 111 Mongol invasion and, 95 Muhammed and, 251 Nazirites, 72 in Ottoman Empire, 98 persecution of, 11, 95–7, 109, 220, 233, 251, 355–6 in Poland, 111, 220 in Roman Empire, 90, 93, 94 Sephardim, 99 in Song Empire, 170 in Spain, 97, 98, 99, 140 in United States, 102, 109 Jim Crow laws (1877–1965), 106, 254 Job Buddy, 375 Jobless Future, The (Aronowitz), 312 Jobs, Steven, 82, 304 John Chrysostom, 135 John III Sobieski, King of Poland, 237, 238 Johnson, Samuel, 191, 197 Johnson, Steven, 306 Jones, Rhys, 51 Joule, James Prescott, 196 Judaism, 46, 72, 93, 94, 96, 97 Jupiter, 145 Jurchen people, 172 Justinian I, Byzantine Emperor, 134, 224 Kahn, Robert, 307 Kandinsky, Wassily, 220–21, 289 Kant, Immanuel, 154 Karakorum, Mongol Empire, 96 al-Karaouine, Morocco, 137 Kearney, Denis, 109 keels, 44 Kenya, 21–2 Khayyam, Omar, 137 al-Khwarizmi, 137 Kiesling, Lynne, 328 Kim Jong-il, 314–15 kimonos, 73 King, Martin Luther, 19 King, Steven, 111 Kipling, Rudyard, 70 Klee, Paul, 220–21, 289 Know-Nothings, 108–9 Kodak, 319 Koran, 137, 250–51 Kramer, Samuel Noah, 37, 292 Krastev, Ivan, 342–3 Krugman, Paul, 309 Ku Klux Klan, 254 Kublai Khan, 174 Kurds, 136 Kushim, 37–8 labour mobility, 69, 374–7 lacquerware, 156 lactose, 75 Lao Tzu, 129 lapis lazuli, 70 Late Bronze-Age Collapse (1200–1150 BC), 44, 49, 54 Lebanon, 43, 236 Lee, William, 179 leisure, 199 Lenin, Vladimir, 256 Lesbos, 141 Levellers, 183–4, 186 Leviathan (Hobbes), 152 Levinovitz, Alan Jay, 290 Levy, David, 205 Lewis, David Levering, 140 Libanius, 49 liberalism, 14, 183, 334–40 colonialism and, 214 disgust and, 335, 336 dynamism and, 301 economic, 185, 336 Islam and, 112–14 security and, 334–40, 378 slave trade and, 205 universities and, 163 Libya, 48, 89, 366 Licklider, Joseph Carl Robnett, 307 life expectancy, 4, 169, 339 light bulbs, 297 Lilburne, John, 183 Lincoln, Abraham, 203 Lind, Amanda, 72 Lindsey, Brink, 301 literacy, 15, 57, 168 in Britain, 188, 198 in China, 148 in Dark Ages, 50 empathy and, 246–7 in Greece, 128–9 in Renaissance, 146, 148 Lithuania, 238 Little Ice Age, 148 lobbying, 280, 329 Locke, John, 100, 152, 185, 186, 201 Lombard League, 181 London, England, 190, 193–4, 197 7/7 bombings (2005), 341 London Bridge stabbings (2019), 120 Long Depression (1873–86), 253–4 Lord of the Flies (Golding), 219, 243, 244 Lord’s Resistance Army, 365 Louis IX, King of France, 96 Louis XIV, King of France, 237 Louis XVI, King of France, 201 love, 199 Lucas, Robert, 167 Lucy, 24–5 Lugh, 89 Lul, 111 Luther, Martin, 150, 356 Lutheranism, 99, 356 Lüthi, Max, 351 Lysenko, Trofim, 162 Lyttelton family, 286 Macartney Mission (1793), 176 Macedonian Empire (808–148 BC), 84, 87–9 Madison, James, 337 madrasas, 138 Madrid train bombings (2004), 341 Maduro, Nicolás, 354, 380 Magna Carta (1215), 5 Magris, Claudio, 219 Malacca, 100 Maltesholm School, Hässelby, 217–18, 245 mammoths, 76 Manchester United, 246 Manichaeism, 93 Mann, Thomas, 79 Mansfield, Edward, 271 Mao Zedong, 53, 162, 315, 316, 317, 355 Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor, 91 Marduk, 87 de Mariana, Juan, 147 markets, 37 humanitarianism and, 204, 206 immigration and, 68 tribalism, 247 ultimatum game, 34–5 Marley, Robert ‘Bob’, 72 marriage, 199 Marshall, Thurgood, 335 Marx, Karl, 33, 36, 162, 169, 247, 255–6 Marxism, 33, 36, 162, 182, 256, 268 Mary II, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, 186, 193 Maryland, United States, 349 Maslow, Abraham, 339, 341 al-Masudi, 136 mathematics, 70, 134, 135, 137, 156 Maurya Empire (323–184 BC), 53 Mauss, Marcel, 71 McCarthy, Joseph, 335 McCarthy, Kevin, 108 McCloskey, Deirdre, 167, 189, 191–2, 198 McConnell, Addison Mitchell ‘Mitch’, 108 McKinsey, 313 measles, 77 media, 346–9, 370 Medicaid, 119 Medina, 251 Medusa, 88 Meiji Restoration (1868), 53, 70–71 Mencken, Henry Louis, 325, 353 Mercury, 89 Merkel, Angela, 343 Mesopotamia, 37–43, 45, 70, 292–3 Metaphysics (Aristotle), 142 Mexico, 73, 77, 257 United States, migration to, 110, 122, 223, 240, 255 Miami, Florida, 120 Micro-80 computers, 304 Microsoft, 305–6, 309 middle class, 60–61 Migration Advisory Committee, UK, 118 Miletus, 127 militarism, 214 Mill, John Stuart, 124, 160, 164, 176, 319 millennial generation (1981–96), 340 Milton, John, 150 Ming Empire (1368–1644), 54, 148, 175, 177–8, 179, 215 minimal group paradigm, 220–22 Minitel, 313 Mobutu Sese Seko, 187 Mokyr, Joel, 157, 195, 196–7 Molyneux, Stefan, 84 Mongol Empire (1206–1368), 53, 84, 94–7, 138, 139, 173–4, 352–3 monopolies, 182, 189 Monte Testaccio, 48 Montesquieu, 89, 94 Moral Consequences of Growth, The (Friedman), 253 Moral Man and Immoral Society (Niebuhr), 253 Moriscos, 97 mortgages, 375 Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering, 304 most-favoured-nations clause, 53–4 Mughal Empire (1526–1857), 98, 148, 149, 215 Muhammed, Prophet of Islam, 251 Murray, William Vans, 104 Muslims migration of, 112–14, 170, 255 persecution of, 97, 106, 233, 355 Mutz, Diana, 271 Mycenae, 88 Myth of Nations, The (Geary), 288–9 Myth of the Rational Voter, The (Caplan), 258 Naipaul, Vidiadhar Surajprasad, 167 Napoleonic Wars (1803–15), 288 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 126, 127 National Library of Medicine, US, 12 National Science Foundation, US, 313 National Security Agency, US, 313 national stereotypes, 235 nationalism, 9, 11, 13, 16 civic nationalism, 377–8 clash of civilizations narrative, 237 cultural purity and, 69, 70, 71, 352 immigration and, 69, 70, 82 nostalgia and, 287–8, 351 World War I (1914–18), 214 zero-sum thinking, 253, 254, 259, 272 nativism, 14, 122, 176, 223, 254, 349–51, 358 Natural History Museum, London, 124, 125 Naturalism, 198 Nazi Germany (1933–45), 104–6, 109, 124, 220, 233, 353 Nazirites, 72 Neanderthals, 30–33, 75, 76 Nebuchadnezzar, Babylonian Emperor, 46 neckties, 72 negative income tax, 374–5 Neilson, James Beaumont, 194 Nemeth, Charlan, 83 Neo-Classicism, 198 Neolithic period (c. 10,000–4500 BC), 74 Netflix, 309, 310 Netherlands, 99 von Neumann, John, 105 neurasthenia, 291 New Atlantis (Bacon), 147 New Guinea, 41 New Testament, 250 New York, United States crime in, 246, 334 September 11 attacks (2001), 10, 114, 340–42 New York Times, 291, 297, 325 New York University, 223 New York Yankees, 223 Newcomen, Thomas, 196 Newton, Isaac, 158–9, 201 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 131 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 253 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 365 Nîmes, France, 73 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell), 230, 368 Nineveh, Assyria, 248–9 Nixey, Catherine, 134 Nobel Prize, 82, 105, 276 non-market societies, 34, 35 Nordhaus, William, 273–4 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 63, 64 North Carolina, United States, 102 North Korea, 54, 314–15, 366 North Star, 44 nostalgia, 14, 286–95, 313, 351 Not Fit for Our Society (Schrag), 107 novels, 188–9, 246–7 nuclear power, 301, 327, 328, 329, 332 nuclear weapons, 105, 290, 306 O’Rourke, Patrick Jake, 280 Oannes, 267 Obama, Barack, 66, 240, 329 obsidian, 22, 29 occupational licensing, 376–7 Ögedei Khan, 96 Ogilvie, Sheilagh, 179 Oklahoma, United States, 218–19 Old Testament, 46, 72, 248–50 olive oil, 48 Olorgesailie, 21–2 omnivores, 299 On Liberty (Mill), 160 one-year-old children, 26 open society, 6 open-mindedness, 35, 112 Opening of the mouth’ rite, 70 Orbán, Viktor, 354, 380 de Orta, Garcia, 146–7 Orwell, George, 230, 368 Osman II, Ottoman Sultan, 148 Ottoman Empire (1299–1923), 84, 94, 98, 148, 215, 220, 237, 353 Ötzi, 1–2, 8–9, 73, 74 overpopulation, 81, 160 Overton, Richard, 183 Pacific islands, 52 Paine, Thomas, 56, 158, 247 Pakistan, 70, 366 Pallas Athena, 89 Pallavicino, Ferrante, 150 Palmer, Tom Gordon, 15 Panthers and Pythons, 243–4 Papacy, 102, 142, 143, 152, 155, 178 Papin, Denis, 179, 180 Paris, France exiles in, 152, 153 University of Paris, 140, 141–2, 143 parochialism, 216 patent systems, 58, 82, 189–90, 203, 314 in Britain, 179, 189–90, 203, 314 in China, 58 in France, 189 immigrants and, 82 in Netherlands, 189 in United States, 203 PayPal, 310 Peasants’ Revolt (1381), 208 peer review, 127 Pence, Michael, 108 penny universities, 166 Pericles, 131 Permissionless Innovation (Thierer), 299 Perry, Gina, 243 Perseus, 87–8 Persia, ancient, 84, 86–7, 88, 95, 129, 215 Abbasid period (750–1258), 136 Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC), 86–7, 88 Greeks, influence on, 129 Mongols, influence on, 95 Safavid Empire (1501–1736), 149 Sasanian Empire (224–651), 134 personality traits, 7 Pertinax, Roman Emperor, 91 Pessimists Archive, 290, 297, 298 Pessinuntia, 89 Peters, Margaret, 66 Peterson Institute for International Economics, 60 Petty, William, 296 Philip II King of Spain, 98 Phoenicia (2500–539 BC), 43–6, 49, 70, 128–9 Phoenicia dye, 44 Phrygians, 89 physical fallacy, 267–8 Physics (Aristotle), 142 Pietists, 153 Pinker, Steven, 23, 243, 266, 324 Plague of Justinian (541–750), 77 Plato, 130, 131, 132, 134, 352 pluralism, 85, 129, 357 Plutarch, 45–6 Poland Battle of Vienna (1683), 237, 238 Dutch Republic, migration to, 99 Holocaust (1941–5), 220 immigration, 116 Israel, migration to, 111 United Kingdom, migration to, 120 United States, migration to, 108, 109 Polanyi, Karl, 37 polio, 293 pollution, 326, 347 Polo, Marco, 174 Popper, Karl, 6, 26, 127, 129, 130, 182–3, 237, 362 population density, 28 populism, 9, 13, 14, 16, 324, 379–82 authoritarianism and, 325, 350–51 complexity and, 324 nostalgia and, 295, 324, 351 trade and, 19 zero-sum thinking and, 254, 259, 274 pornography, 113, 336 Portugal Empire (1415–1999), 100, 146–7, 178 guilds in, 190 Inquisition, 100 Postrel, Virginia, 300, 312, 326 pound locks, 172 poverty, 4, 168, 213, 270 in Britain, 256 in China, 4, 316 immigration and, 66, 69, 81, 121 in Japan, 71 Jeff Bezos test, 275–9 Preston, Lancashire, 190 priests, 41, 128 printing, 146, 153, 171 Pritchard, James Bennett, 43 productivity cities and, 40 foreign trade and, 57, 59, 63 free goods and, 278 immigration and, 68, 81, 117, 204 programming, 8 Progress (Norberg), 12–13 progressives, 286, 300–302 Proserpina, 89 protectionism, 13, 15, 16, 54–5 Great Depression (1929–39), 54–5 immigration and, 66–7 Internet and, 314 Trump administration (2017–), 19, 57–8 Protestantism, 99, 104, 148, 149, 153, 169, 178, 237 Prussia (1701–1918), 153, 288 Psychological Science, 335 Puerto Rico, 80 Pufendorf, Samuel, 147 purchasing power, 59, 61, 63, 66, 198 Puritanism, 99, 102 Putin, Vladimir, 14, 353–4 Putnam, Robert, 121, 165 Pythagoras, 137 Pythons and Panthers, 243–4 al-Qaeda, 351 Qianlong, Qing Emperor, 153 Qing Empire (1644–1912), 148, 149, 151, 153, 175–7, 179 Quakers, 99, 102, 206 Quarantelli, Enrico, 338 Quarterly Journal of Economics, The, 63 race; racism, 76–7, 206, 231–4, 358–9 railways, 53, 179, 202, 296, 297 Rammstein, 274 RAND Corporation, 307 Raphael, 137 Rastafari, 72 Rattlers and Eagles, 218–19, 236, 243, 252 reactive aggression, 227–8 Reagan, Ronald, 63, 111 Realism, 198 realistic conflict theory, 222 Reconquista (711–1492), 139 Red Genies, 236 Red Sea, 75 Reformation, 148, 155 refugees crime and, 119 European migration crisis (2015–), 10, 114, 115, 281, 342–3 integration of, 117–18 German Jews (1933–45), 104–6, 109 Rembrandt, 99 reminiscence bump, 294 Renaissance, 5, 6, 132, 143, 145–6, 149–50, 215 Republic of Letters, 157–9, 165, 195 Republic, The (Plato), 352 Republican Party, 164, 225, 238, 240, 301 Reynell, Carew, 184 Reynolds, Glenn, 308 Ridley, Matthew, 20–21, 80 right to work laws, 65 Rizzo, Frank, 334 Road to Serfdom, The (Hayek), 325 Robbers Cave experiment (1954), 218–19, 236, 243, 252, 371 Robbins, Caroline, 200–201 Robertson, Marion Gordon ‘Pat’, 114 Robinson, James, 185, 187, 200 rock paper scissors, 26 Rogers, Will, 282 Roman Law, 5 Romanticism, 198, 287, 296–7 Rome, ancient, 47–50, 89–94, 132 Antonine Plague (165–80), 77 assimilation, 91–2 chariot racing, 224 Christianity in, 90, 93–4, 133–4 citizenship, 91 cosmopolitanism, 89–91 fall of, 54, 94 gods in, 89–90 golden nugget theory, 5 globalization, 45–6, 47–50 haircuts, 72 Latin alphabet, 45 philosophy, 70, 136 Phoenicians, relations with, 43, 44 Sabines, relations with, 89 Social War (91–88 BC), 91 trousers, attitudes towards, 92 Romulus, 89, 90 Rotterdam, Holland, 158 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 226 Royal Navy, 205 Royal Society, 156, 157, 158, 196 Rubin, Paul, 258 ruin follies, 286–7 rule of law, 68, 189, 269, 334, 343, 358, 379 Rumbold, Richard, 183–4 Rushdie, Salman, 73 Ruskin, John, 206, 297 Russia Imperial period (1721–1917), 154, 289–90 Israel, migration to, 111 Mongol period (1237–1368), 95, 352 Orthodox Christianity, 155 Putin period (1999–), 14, 15, 347, 353–4, 365, 367 Soviet period (1917–91), 162, 302–5, 315, 317 United States, relations with, 236 Yamnaya people, 74–5 Rust Belt, 58, 62, 64–6, 349 Rwandan Genocide (1994), 230–31 Sabines, 89 Safavid Empire (1501–1736), 149 safety of wings, 374 Saint-Sever, France, 180 Salamanca school, 147, 150 Sanders, Bernard, 302 Santa Fe Institute, 216 SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), 3, 162 Saudi Arabia, 365 Scandinavia Bronze Age migration, 75 Neolithic migration, 74 United States, migration to, 104, 108 see also Sweden scapegoats, 11, 83, 253, 268, 349, 355–61 Black Death (1346–53), 352, 355–6 Great Recession (2007–9), 255 Mongol invasion (1241), 95 Schmandt-Besserat, Denise, 38 School of Athens, The (Raphael), 137 School of Salamanca, 147, 150 Schrag, Peter, 107 Schrödinger, Erwin, 105, 128, 129, 132 Schumpeter, Joseph, 277 Schumpeterian profits, 273–5 science, 127–66 in China, 4, 13, 70, 153, 156, 162–3, 169–73 Christianity and, 133–5, 141–6, 149–50 Enlightenment, 154–9 experiments, 156–7 Great Vanishing, 134–5 in Greece, 127–32 jealous emulation and, 154–7 in Islamic world, 70, 132, 136–41 Renaissance, 145–6 Republic of Letters, 157–9, 165, 195 sclera, 25 Scotland, 101, 194 Scotney Castle, Kent, 287 Sculley, John, 304 sea peoples, 43 sea snails, 44 Seinfeld, Jerry, 224 Seleucid Empire (312–63 BC), 88 self-esteem, 372, 379 Sen, Amartya, 231 Seneca, 49, 91 Sephardic Jews, 99 September 11 attacks (2001), 10, 114, 340–42, 363 Septimius Severus, Roman Emperor, 91 Servius, Publius, 90 Seven Wonders of the World, 45 Seville, Spain, 91, 139 sex bonobos and, 226 encoding and, 233 inbreeding, 78 views on, 113, 336 SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), 307 Shaftesbury, Lord, see Cooper, Anthony Ashley Sherif, Muzafer, 219, 220, 222, 243, 252 Shia Islam, 149 Shining, The, 335 shirts, 72 Siberia, 76 Sicily, 89 Sierra Leone, 365 Siger of Brabant, 143, 144 Sikhism, 149 Silicon Valley, 311 Silk Road, 171, 174, 352 silver processing, 49 Simler, Kevin, 282 Simmel, Georg, 266 Simon, Julian, 81 Simple Rules for a Complex World (Epstein), 320 Singapore, 53 skilled workers, 36, 45, 66, 95, 97, 101, 117 Slater, Samuel, 202 slavery, 86, 156, 205–6, 232 in British Empire, 182, 199, 200, 205 in Mesopotamia, 40, 41, 43 in Rome, 47, 48 in Sparta, 54 in United States, 103, 106, 205, 232 smallpox, 77, 197, 293, 296 Smith, Adam, 21, 59, 192, 194, 205, 280 Smith, Fred, 319 smoke detectors, 234 Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act (1930), 55 snack boxes, 20 Snow, Charles Percy, 105 social media, 239, 347, 370 social status, 281–5 Social War (91–88 BC), 91 Socrates, 130, 131–2, 330 solar power, 328, 329, 331, 332 Solomon, King of Israel, 38, 45 Solyndra, 329 Song Empire (960–1279), 53, 169–75 Sony, 319 Soros, George, 323 South Korea, 314, 366 South Sudan, 365 Soviet Union (1922–91), 162, 302–5, 315, 317 Sovu, Rwanda, 231 Sowell, Thomas, 267–8 Spain, 97–101, 184, 207 Almohad Caliphate (1121–1269), 137–8 amphorae production, 48 al-Andalus (711–1492), 97, 137–9, 140 Columbus’ voyages (1492–1503), 178 Dutch Revolt (1568–1648), 98–9, 101 Empire (1492–1976), 147, 178, 182 guilds in, 190 Inquisition (1478–1834), 97, 98 Jews, persecution of, 97–8, 106, 140 Madrid train bombings (2004), 341 Muslims, persecution of, 97, 106 Reconquista (711–1492), 97, 138–9, 140 regional authorities, 152 Roman period (c.218 BC–472 AD), 48, 91 Salamanca school, 147, 150 sombreros, 73 Uber in, 320 vaqueros, 73 Spanish flu (1918–19), 77 Sparta, 47, 54, 90, 132 Spencer, Herbert, 165, 214 Spinoza, Baruch, 100, 150, 153 Spitalfields, London, 190 sports, 199, 223–4, 232–3, 245–6 Sri Lanka, 100, 365 St Bartholomew’s Day massacre (1572), 97 St Louis, SS, 109 Standage, Tom, 166 Stanford University, 307, 311 Star Trek, 246, 259 stasists, 301–2 Statute of Labourers (1351), 208 steam engine, 179, 180, 189, 194, 203, 296 steamships, 53, 202 Stenner, Karen, 242, 343, 348, 350, 357 Stockholm, Sweden, 217–18 Stranger Things, 294 Strasbourg, France, 153 strategic tolerance, 86–96 Strindberg, August, 239 Suarez, Francisco, 147 suits, 72 Sumer (4500–1900 BC), 37–43, 45, 55, 292–3 Summers, Larry, 329 Sunni Islam, 148, 149, 238, 365 superpowers, 338–9 supply chains, 11, 62, 66 Sweden DNA in, 73 Green Party, 325 Lind dreadlocks affair (2019), 72 immigration in, 114, 115, 118, 281 manufacturing in, 65 Muslim community, 114 Neolithic migration, 74 refugees in, 118, 281, 342 United States, migration to, 107 Sweden Democrats, 281 swine flu, 3 Switzerland, 152, 153 Sylvester II, Pope, 137 Symbolism, 198 Syria, 42, 82, 342, 365, 366 tabula rasa, 225 Tacitus, 91 Taiwan, 316, 366 Taizu, Song Emperor, 170 Tajfel, Henri, 220, 221–2 Tandy, Geoffrey, 124–6 Tang Empire (618–907), 84, 170, 177, 352 Tanzania, 257 Taoism, 129, 149 tariffs, 15, 56, 373 Anglo–French Treaty (1860), 53–4 Great Depression (1929–39), 54–5 Obama’s tyre tariffs (2009), 66 Trump’s steel tariffs (2018), 272 Tasmania, 50–53, 54 Tatars, 238 taxation in Britain, 72, 187, 188, 189 carbon tax, 330–31 crony capitalism and, 279–80 immigration and, 69 negative income tax, 374–5 in Song Empire, 172 in Spanish Netherlands, 98 Taylor, Robert, 306 TCP/IP protocol, 307 technology, 296–9 automation, 63, 312–13 computers, 302–14 decline, 51–2 Internet, 57, 275, 278, 306–11, 312 nostalgia and, 296–9, 313 technocrats, 299–300, 312, 313–14, 326–9 technological decline, 51–2 telescopes, 145–6 Teller, Edward, 105 Temple of Artemis, Ephesus, 45 Temple of Serapis, Alexandria, 134 Tencent, 311 terrorism, 10, 114, 229, 340–41, 363 Tetlock, Philip, 160 textiles, 172–3 Thales, 127 Thierer, Adam, 299 third-party punishment game, 35 Thirty Years War (1618–48), 72, 97, 148, 150 Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 142–3, 144–5 Thoreau, Henry David, 203 Thracians, 130 Thucydides, 131, 132 Tiangong Kaiwu, 153 Tibetans, 85 Tierra del Fuego, 52–3 Tigris river, 37, 139 Timurid Empire (1370–1507), 139 tin, 42 Tokugawa Shogunate (1600–1868), 54 Toledo, Spain, 140 tolerance, 86–114, 129 Tomasello, Michael, 25 ‘too big to fail’, 280 Tower of Babel, 39 Toynbee, Arnold, 382 trade, 13, 19–23, 28–9, 129, 140, 363, 373 backlashes against, 19, 54–67, 254 benefit–cost ratio, 60, 61, 62 Britain, 181–99 competitive advantage, 28–9 division of labour and, 28, 31, 57 Great Depression (1929–39), 54–5 Greece, ancient, 47 humanitarianism and, 204–7 Mesopotania, 37–43 migration and, 35, 66–7, 234–5 morality of, 33–6 Phoenicia, 43–6 Rome, ancient, 47–50 snack boxes, 20 United States, 19, 57–8, 202–3 zero-sum thinking and, 248, 252–66, 270–72 trade unions, 64, 65, 272, 374 Trajan, Roman Emperor, 91 Trans-Pacific Partnership, 58 Transparency International, 381 Treaty of Trianon (1920), 354 Treaty of Versailles (1919), 353 Trenchard, John, 201 Treschow, Michael, 65 Trevor-Roper, Hugh, 215, 356 tribalism, 14, 217–47, 362, 368–72 fluid, 230–38 political, 224–5, 238–42, 378, 379 media and, 348, 370 threats and, 241, 350, 370 Trollboda School, Hässelby, 218 Trump, Donald, 9, 14, 240, 313, 321, 322, 354, 365, 367, 380 immigration, views on, 223 presidential election (2016), 238, 241, 242, 349, 350 stasism, 301, 302 steel tariffs (2018), 272 trade, views on, 19, 57–8 zero-sum attitude, 248 Tunisia, 45, 48 Turing, Alan, 124 Turkey; Turks, 70, 74, 136, 156, 354, 357, 365 turtle theory, 121–2 Tutsis, 230–31 Twilight Zone, The, 260–61 Twitter, 84, 239, 245 Two Treatises of Government (Locke), 186, 201 tyranny of cousins, 229, 230 tyre tariffs, 66 Tyre, 45 Uber, 319–20 Uganda, 365 Ukraine, 75, 116, 365 ultimatum game, 34–6 umbrellas, 298 uncertainty, 321–6 unemployment, 62, 373–4, 376, 377 ‘unicorns’, 82 United Auto Workers, 64 United Kingdom, see Britain United Nations, 327 United States, 199–203 Afghanistan War (2001–14), 345 America First, 19, 272 automation in, 313 Bureau of Labor Statistics, 65 California Gold Rush (1848–1855), 104 China, trade with, 19, 57, 58–9, 62–3, 64 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 254 citizenship, 103 Civil War (1861–5), 109 climate change polices in, 328 Constitution (1789), 102, 202 consumer price index, 277 COVID-19 pandemic (2019–20), 12 crime in, 110, 119, 120, 346 Declaration of Independence (1776), 103, 201, 202 dynamism in, 301–2 Federalist Party, 103 free trade gains, 60, 61 Great Depression (1929–39), 54–5, 254 gross domestic product (GDP), 257 Homestead Acts, 171 housing in, 376 immigration, see immigration in United States Industrial Revolution, 202, 291–2 innovation in, 53, 203, 298–9 intellectual property in, 58 Internet in, 306–14 Iraq War (2003–11), 345 Jim Crow laws (1877–1965), 106, 254 Know-Nothings, 108–9 Ku Klux Klan, 254 labour mobility in, 374, 376–7 lobbying in, 280, 329 Manhattan Project (1942–6), 105 manufacturing, 62–6 McCarthy era (1947–57), 335 Medicaid, 119 middle class, 60–61 NAFTA, 63, 64 National Library of Medicine, 12 national stereotypes, 235, 236 nostalgia in, 290–92, 294 open society, 169, 199–203 patent system, 203 political tribalism in, 224–5, 238, 240 populist movement, 254 presidential election (2016), 238, 241, 242, 349, 350 railways, 202 Revolutionary War (1775–83), 102–3, 200–201 Robbers Cave experiment (1954), 218–19, 236, 243, 252, 371 Rust Belt, 58, 62, 64–6, 349 Saudi Arabia, relations with, 365 Senate, 108 September 11 attacks (2001), 10, 114, 340–42, 363 slavery in, 103, 106, 205 Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act (1930), 55 Supreme Court, 108, 335 tariffs, 66, 272 trade deficits, 60, 270 Trump administration (2017–), see Trump, Donald unemployment in, 373, 376 universities, 163–5, 241 Vietnam War (1955–75), 345 Watergate scandal (1972–4), 345 World War II (1939–45), 56, 64, 335 Yankees, 58 United Steelworkers, 64, 272 universal basic income (UBI), 374, 375 universities, 140 University Bologna, 140 University of California, Berkeley, 311 University of Cambridge, 140 University of Chicago, 165 University of Leeds, 357 University of London, 201 University of Marburg, 153 University of Oxford, 140, 144, 145, 328 University of Padua, 144, 146 University of Paris, 140, 141–2, 143 University of Pennsylvania, 271 University of Salamanca, 140 University of Toulouse, 144 unskilled workers, 36, 66, 102, 117 untranslatable words, 288 Ur, 55 urbanization, see cities Uruk, Sumer, 39 US Steel, 64 Usher, Abbott Payson, 196 Uyghurs, 85, 174 vaccines, 12, 296, 299 Vandals, 92 Vanini, Lucilio, 150 vaqueros, 73 Vargas Llosa, Mario, 213, 261 Vatican Palace, 137 Vavilov, Nikolai, 162 Venezuela, 354 Venice, Republic of (697–1797), 53, 144, 152, 174, 181 Vermeer, Johannes, 99 Vespucci, Amerigo, 146 Vienna, Austria, 95, 237, 238 Vienna Congress (1815), 288 Vietnam, 171, 207, 270, 345 Virgil, 91 Virginia Company, 200 vitamin D, 74 de Vitoria, Francisco, 147 Vladimir’s choice, 221, 252, 271 Voltaire, 153, 193 Walton, Sam, 277 Wang, Nina, 315 War of the Polish Succession (1733–8), 289–90 Ward-Perkins, Bryan, 50 warfare, 216–17, 243 Warren, Elizabeth, 302 washing of hands, 10, 335 Washington, George, 103, 205 Washington, DC, United States, 280 Watergate scandal (1972–4), 345 Watson, John, 291 Watson, Peter, 79 Watt, James, 172, 189, 194, 274 Weatherford, Jack, 95 Web of Science, 159 Weber, Maximilian, 204 WeChat, 311 Weekly Standard, 312 welfare systems, 118, 281, 374 Wengrow, David, 42 West Africa Squadron, 205 Western Roman Empire (395–480), 94, 135 Westernization, 4–5 Wheelan, Charles, 20 Whig Party, 185, 201 White House Science Council, 313 white supremacists, 84, 351, 367 Whitechapel, London, 190 Who Are We?


pages: 909 words: 130,170

Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time by James Suzman

agricultural Revolution, AlphaGo, Anthropocene, basic income, biodiversity loss, carbon footprint, clean water, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, cyber-physical system, David Graeber, death from overwork, deepfake, do-ocracy, double entry bookkeeping, double helix, fake news, financial deregulation, Ford Model T, founder crops, Frederick Winslow Taylor, gentrification, Great Leap Forward, interchangeable parts, invention of agriculture, invention of writing, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kibera, Kickstarter, late capitalism, lateral thinking, market bubble, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, ocean acidification, Parkinson's law, Peter Singer: altruism, post-industrial society, post-work, public intellectual, Rubik’s Cube, Schrödinger's Cat, scientific management, sharing economy, social intelligence, spinning jenny, The Future of Employment, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, urban planning, work culture , zoonotic diseases

Among the most influential have been the many that propose various models of ‘post-capitalism’, or those that insist we take economic growth down from its hallowed pedestal and recognise that the market is at best a poor arbiter of value, and when it comes to things like our living environment, a destroyer of it. The most interesting of these have been the ones that seek to diminish the importance we give to accumulation of private wealth. These include proposals like granting a universal basic income (apportioning free money to everyone whether they work or not) and shifting the focus on taxation from income to wealth. Other interesting approaches propose extending the fundamental rights we give to people and companies to ecosystems, rivers and crucial habitats. Others still have taken a more optimistic approach, based largely on the idea that automation and AI will organically usher in a level of such great material luxury that we will find ways of surmounting whatever obstacles get in the way of our path to an economic utopia.

Thomas Robert here, here, here Malthusian Society here Mapungubwe here Marie Antoinette, Queen of France here Marx, Karl here, here Master and Servants Act here mathematics here Mayans here, here, here Meadows, Dennis here measles here Melanesian islands here Memphis here, here mental health issues here Mesopotamia, Islamic conquest of here metalwork here Midvale Steel Works here Miller, George Armitage here mockery here Model T Ford here mole rats here, here money, origins of here, here, here monopolies here ‘moral harassment’ here Mount Carmel Project here Muaryan Empire here Mughal India here mutualism here, here Namibian independence here nationalism here, here, here Native Americans here, here, here, here, here Natufians here, here, here, here, here, here natural selection here, here, here, here, here, here see also sexual selection Navajo hunters here navigation here Nayaka here Neanderthals here, here, here, here, here, here, here Dorothy Garrod and here needs, ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ here, here, here, here nettle soup here neuroplasticity here, here, here, here, here, here ‘New Class’ here newborns, human here Newcomen, Thomas here Newton, Sir Isaac here, here, here, here Nietzsche, Friedrich here Noah’s Ark here Nuer here nutritional deficiencies here, here Oates, Pastor Wayne here Occupy movement here ocean acidification here Oldowan tools here Olmecs here Olorgesailie flakes here Orangi Town here orang-utans here orcas here Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) here, here, here overwork here oxpeckers here oxygen, atmospheric here ozone layer here, here Pacific North West Coast peoples here, here, here Paiute here palaeogenetics, see genomic studies Palmyra here pangolins here Papua New Guinea here, here ‘paradox of value’ here parasite economy here parasites here, here parasitism here Parkinson’s Law here Parthenon here passerine birds here pathogens here Patterson, Orlando here Patterson, Penny here Pax Romana here peacocks here Pennsylvania Gazette here, here Persian Empire here persistence hunting here pestles and mortars here, here pests here Peterson, Nicolas here Pfeffer, Jeffrey here photorespiration here photosynthesis here, here ‘physiocrats’ here plant domestication here, here, here, here, here Plato here Polanyi, Karl here Pompeii here population growth here, here, here, here, here post-capitalism here post-industrialisation here, here potlatch ceremonies here probability here prokaryotes here, here prostitutes here public wealth, transfer to private hands here purposive (purposeful) behaviour here, here Putamoyo River here Pyramids here, here pyrite here Pythagoras here, here Qesem Cave here Quarternary Ice Age here Reagan, Ronald here renewable energy here Ricardo, David here, here Rigollot, Marcel Jérôme here ritual burial here robots here, here, here, here rock and cave paintings here, here, here, here Roman Empire, endurance of here Rome, ancient here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here collegia (artisan colleges) here, here, here, here trades and professions here and urbanisation here, here and wealth inequalities here Romulus and Remus here Roosevelt, Franklin D. here, here Rubik’s cube here rubisco here Russian Revolution here Sado, Miwa here, here Sahlins, Marshall here St Paul’s Cathedral here SARS here Savery, Thomas here, here scarcity, problem of, see ‘economic problem’ Schmidt, Klaus here, here Schöningen spears here Schrödinger, Erwin here, here, here ‘scientific management’ here, here, here sculptures here, here second law of thermodynamics here, here seduction here self-interest here Semliki River here services sector here, here sexual relationships, and work here sexual selection here, here shamans here, here, here Shelley, Mary here, here Shelley, Percy Bysshe here shellfish here, here Sherman Act here Sibiloi National Park here Sibudu Cave here ‘skull cult’ here skull morphology here slavery here, here, here, here, here, here slaves, ceremonial murder of here Smith, Adam here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here snapping shrimp here social hierarchies here social learning here social networks here social welfare here South Korea here, here, here space, domestication of here Spencer, Herbert here, here spinning frame here steam engines here, here, here sticklebacks here Stonehenge here, here, here, here, here structuralism here sugar here, here, here suicide here, here, here see also karo jisatsu Sumerians here, here, here sumptuary laws here Sunghir here, here supply and demand here survival of the fittest here sustainability here, here, here, here, here symbiosis here, here synaptic pruning here Takahashi, Mariko here ‘talent’, myth of here, here, here Tarahumara hunters here taxation here, here Taylor, Freerick Winslow here, here, here, here Taylorism here, here technological unemployment here television here Tenochitlán here termites here, here, here, here, here, here, here Thatcher, Margaret here theft, tolerated here theological conservatism here Thieme, Hartmut here Thirty Years War here thumbs, opposable here time, transformation in understanding of here ‘time is money’ (the phrase) here, here, here Tower of Babel here toxoplasmosis here trade unions here, here, here, here, here Tsimshian here Turnbull, Colin here UK Office for National Statistics here UN Climate Change Conference here underwork here universal basic income here universe, creation of here universities here upright posture, and vocal capabilities here urbanisation here, here and agriculture here emergence of new professions here neighbourhoods and trades here Uruk here, here, here, here, here, here Urukagima, King here US Treasury here vervet monkeys here vestigial features here vocal abilities here vultures here, here wages improved here and productivity here waterwheels here Watson, James here Watt, James here weaver birds here, here, here, here weed species here, here whales here, here, here wheat, wild here, here, here wheels, pulleys and levers here Wilde, Oscar here, here wildebeest here, here, here Windhoek here, here windmills here Wonderwerk Cave here, here Woodburn, James here Wordnet database here work definition here the word here workaholism here, here working hours here, here, here, here, here workplace engagement here World Debating Championships here World Economic Forum here Wrangham, Richard here writing here Xerxes here Yanomamo here Yolngu here Younger Dryas here, here Yukhagir here Zen Buddhism here Zeus here, here Zilliboti, Fabrizio here A Note on the Author James Suzman is an anthropologist specialising in the Khoisan peoples of southern Africa.


pages: 561 words: 138,158

Shutdown: How COVID Shook the World's Economy by Adam Tooze

2021 United States Capitol attack, air freight, algorithmic trading, Anthropocene, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, basic income, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Benchmark Capital, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, blue-collar work, Bob Geldof, bond market vigilante , Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, business process, business process outsourcing, buy and hold, call centre, capital controls, central bank independence, centre right, clean water, cognitive dissonance, contact tracing, contact tracing app, coronavirus, COVID-19, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, currency risk, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, energy transition, eurozone crisis, facts on the ground, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear index, financial engineering, fixed income, floating exchange rates, friendly fire, George Floyd, gig economy, global pandemic, global supply chain, green new deal, high-speed rail, housing crisis, income inequality, inflation targeting, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Jeremy Corbyn, junk bonds, light touch regulation, lockdown, low interest rates, margin call, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, mass incarceration, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, Modern Monetary Theory, moral hazard, oil shale / tar sands, Overton Window, Paris climate accords, Pearl River Delta, planetary scale, Potemkin village, price stability, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, QR code, quantitative easing, remote working, reserve currency, reshoring, Robinhood: mobile stock trading app, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, six sigma, social distancing, South China Sea, special drawing rights, stock buybacks, tail risk, TikTok, too big to fail, TSMC, universal basic income, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, yield curve

Handed out to everyone below a certain income level, this was “welfare without the welfare state”—cash support, free of any intrusive, prescriptive, bureaucratic, paternalistic state apparatus.33 It was the kind of welfare that Milton Friedman might have supported, a stepping-stone toward a universal basic income as advocated by figures like Democratic Party candidate Andrew Yang. There were all sorts of things you could do with your stimulus check. You were free to choose. Despite these innovative elements, there was, however, no disguising the fact that the basic logic of the fiscal interventions in 2020 was conservative.

See also specific UN institutions United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 99, 243 United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), 172–73 United States: and China relations, 194–95; and development lending programs, 263–64; and early responses to pandemic, 51, 67, 89, 220–24; economic recovery from pandemic, 282; election of 2020, 2–3, 21–22, 215–16, 224–29, 287; and emerging market debt crises, 162, 170–71; and environmental policies, 19; financial market turmoil, 125; and fiscal responses to pandemic, 133, 140, 142–43; and global response to pandemic spread, 95, 96; and global vaccine rollout, 242, 249–50; ICU capacities, 84; January 6, 2021 capitol attack, 269–70, 276; and labor market disruptions, 105; and lessons of 2020, 299–300; life expectancy in, 28–29; and mortality rates of SARS-CoV-2, 28; populist politics, 269–70; and scope of 2020 challenges, 12; and second wave of pandemic, 233, 292; social conflict in, 216–19; and stock market declines, 109; and testing technology, 73–74; U.S.-China economic competition, 19–20, 50, 205, 209–13, 229, 242, 274, 296; and wartime rhetoric on pandemic, 135; and WHO funding, 32, 33 universal basic income, 139 universal health care, 21, 169 Universal Immunisation Programme, 237 U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 221, 228 U.S. Commerce Department, 211 U.S. Congress, 14, 48, 128, 134, 140, 151–52, 221 U.S. Constitution, 21, 299, 300 U.S. Department of Agriculture, 229–30 U.S.


pages: 527 words: 147,690

Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection by Jacob Silverman

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, 4chan, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Aaron Swartz, Airbnb, airport security, Amazon Mechanical Turk, augmented reality, basic income, Big Tech, Brian Krebs, California gold rush, Californian Ideology, call centre, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, commoditize, company town, context collapse, correlation does not imply causation, Credit Default Swap, crowdsourcing, data science, deep learning, digital capitalism, disinformation, don't be evil, driverless car, drone strike, Edward Snowden, Evgeny Morozov, fake it until you make it, feminist movement, Filter Bubble, Firefox, Flash crash, game design, global village, Google Chrome, Google Glasses, Higgs boson, hive mind, Ian Bogost, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, information retrieval, Internet of things, Jacob Silverman, Jaron Lanier, jimmy wales, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Larry Ellison, late capitalism, Laura Poitras, license plate recognition, life extension, lifelogging, lock screen, Lyft, machine readable, Mark Zuckerberg, Mars Rover, Marshall McLuhan, mass incarceration, meta-analysis, Minecraft, move fast and break things, national security letter, Network effects, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, optical character recognition, payday loans, Peter Thiel, planned obsolescence, postindustrial economy, prediction markets, pre–internet, price discrimination, price stability, profit motive, quantitative hedge fund, race to the bottom, Ray Kurzweil, real-name policy, recommendation engine, rent control, rent stabilization, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Salesforce, self-driving car, sentiment analysis, shareholder value, sharing economy, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Snapchat, social bookmarking, social graph, social intelligence, social web, sorting algorithm, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, technological determinism, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, TED Talk, telemarketer, transportation-network company, Travis Kalanick, Turing test, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, unpaid internship, women in the workforce, Y Combinator, yottabyte, you are the product, Zipcar

We need some redistribution of resources, which ultimately means a redistribution of power and authority. A universal basic income, paid for in part by taxes and fees levied on the companies making fabulous profits out of the quotidian materials of our lives, would help to reintroduce some fairness into our technologized economy. It’s an idea that’s had support from diverse corners—liberals and leftists often cite it as a pragmatic response to widespread inequality, while some conservatives and libertarians see it as an improvement over an imperfect welfare system. As the number of long-term unemployed, contingent, and gig workers increases, a universal basic income would restore some equity to the system.


pages: 524 words: 155,947

More: The 10,000-Year Rise of the World Economy by Philip Coggan

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Ada Lovelace, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, anti-communist, Apollo 11, assortative mating, autonomous vehicles, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, basic income, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Bletchley Park, Bob Noyce, Boeing 747, bond market vigilante , Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Carl Icahn, Carmen Reinhart, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, Charles Babbage, Charles Lindbergh, clean water, collective bargaining, Columbian Exchange, Columbine, Corn Laws, cotton gin, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, cross-border payments, currency peg, currency risk, debt deflation, DeepMind, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, Donald Trump, driverless car, Easter island, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, Fairchild Semiconductor, falling living standards, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, floating exchange rates, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Fractional reserve banking, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, general purpose technology, germ theory of disease, German hyperinflation, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, global value chain, Gordon Gekko, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, Greenspan put, guns versus butter model, Haber-Bosch Process, Hans Rosling, Hernando de Soto, hydraulic fracturing, hydroponic farming, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, income inequality, income per capita, independent contractor, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, inflation targeting, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, job automation, John Snow's cholera map, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Jon Ronson, Kenneth Arrow, Kula ring, labour market flexibility, land reform, land tenure, Lao Tzu, large denomination, Les Trente Glorieuses, liquidity trap, Long Term Capital Management, Louis Blériot, low cost airline, low interest rates, low skilled workers, lump of labour, M-Pesa, Malcom McLean invented shipping containers, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, McJob, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, mittelstand, Modern Monetary Theory, moral hazard, Murano, Venice glass, Myron Scholes, Nelson Mandela, Network effects, Northern Rock, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Paul Samuelson, Paul Volcker talking about ATMs, Phillips curve, popular capitalism, popular electronics, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, railway mania, Ralph Nader, regulatory arbitrage, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, scientific management, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, special drawing rights, spice trade, spinning jenny, Steven Pinker, Suez canal 1869, TaskRabbit, techlash, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, The Great Moderation, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, transcontinental railway, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, V2 rocket, Veblen good, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, women in the workforce, world market for maybe five computers, Yom Kippur War, you are the product, zero-sum game

A monarch or tyrant is a “stationary bandit”: ruling a set amount of territory, he takes only a portion of wealth every year, since that is the most lucrative strategy in the long run.59 But as well as stability, the Romans also brought their legal system, which protected its citizens’ economic rights. The law “guaranteed private property, discouraged dishonesty in business and made it relatively easy to enforce contracts”.60 There was also an early version of a “universal basic income”, in the form of a corn distribution that began in 58BCE (it was granted to every citizen rather than being focused on the poor). The Romans had to import 150,000 tons of grain a year to feed the city’s population; some of this came from the rest of Italy but a lot of it was from Egypt.61 The annual tribute from Egypt in the reign of Augustus may have covered 70% of the city’s grain consumption.62 The emperor Claudius built an artificial harbour near the port of Ostia to cater for the larger ships needed to import the grain – a useful example of strategic planning.

On the other hand, many people choose to operate as freelancers and independent contractors, and surveys show that they are happier than traditional employees.44 The idea that everyone would have a full-time job in a factory or in an office, and would stay with a single employer for a large chunk of their career, developed in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was unusual before 1820 and may become unusual again. But if employers fail to provide benefits, or a regular income, the state may have to step in to fill the gap. One suggestion is a “universal basic income”, with the state providing an income to all citizens; this could, in part, replace the benefit system. The big question is how to create an income that is high enough to provide an acceptable standard of living without costing so much that the resulting tax burden would be crippling.45 The technology sector has also threatened a wide range of industries.


pages: 208 words: 57,602

Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation by Kevin Roose

"World Economic Forum" Davos, adjacent possible, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, algorithmic bias, algorithmic management, Alvin Toffler, Amazon Web Services, Atul Gawande, augmented reality, automated trading system, basic income, Bayesian statistics, Big Tech, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, business process, call centre, choice architecture, coronavirus, COVID-19, data science, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, disinformation, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, factory automation, fake news, fault tolerance, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Freestyle chess, future of work, Future Shock, Geoffrey Hinton, George Floyd, gig economy, Google Hangouts, GPT-3, hiring and firing, hustle culture, hype cycle, income inequality, industrial robot, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, Kevin Roose, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, labor-force participation, lockdown, Lyft, mandatory minimum, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, meta-analysis, Narrative Science, new economy, Norbert Wiener, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, off-the-grid, OpenAI, pattern recognition, planetary scale, plutocrats, Productivity paradox, QAnon, recommendation engine, remote working, risk tolerance, robotic process automation, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, social distancing, Steve Jobs, Stuart Kauffman, surveillance capitalism, tech worker, The Future of Employment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, TikTok, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, work culture

Employers pay into the councils, and when workers are laid off, the councils give them severance pay and personal job counselors, who help match them with open jobs and provide professional and emotional support as they look for other work. Today, the most frequent big-net suggestion made by AI experts in the United States is universal basic income. Under a UBI plan, all adult citizens would receive a monthly, no-strings-attached cash grant, no matter their employment status or income. Several communities around the country are already testing small-scale UBI programs, and early results have been promising. Some leaders, including Bill Gates and New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio, have proposed paying for expanded safety net programs by implementing a “robot tax,” in which companies that deploy automated systems would pay an additional tax for each labor-displacing robot, comparable to a payroll tax for human workers.


pages: 179 words: 59,704

Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living by Elizabeth Willard Thames

Airbnb, asset allocation, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, buy and hold, carbon footprint, delayed gratification, dumpster diving, East Village, financial independence, food desert, hedonic treadmill, IKEA effect, index fund, indoor plumbing, lifestyle creep, loss aversion, low interest rates, McMansion, mortgage debt, passive income, payday loans, risk tolerance, side hustle, Stanford marshmallow experiment, universal basic income, working poor

We need comprehensive medical and dental coverage, we need welfare programs that don’t strand families who earn just barely too much money to qualify for housing and food subsidies, we need to care not only for our children and our elderly, but also for adults who struggle—for any number of reasons—to cobble together a livable wage. I’m a proponent of exploring a universal basic income, as studies have demonstrated that entrusting people with money of their own often yields tremendous dividends for society as a whole. No one wins when a family has to choose between working a job or safe childcare. No one wins when the only food options in a neighborhood are unhealthy and expensive.


pages: 196 words: 61,981

Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside by Xiaowei Wang

4chan, AI winter, Amazon Web Services, artificial general intelligence, autonomous vehicles, back-to-the-land, basic income, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, business cycle, cloud computing, Community Supported Agriculture, computer vision, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, data science, deep learning, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, drop ship, emotional labour, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Garrett Hardin, gig economy, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, Huaqiangbei: the electronics market of Shenzhen, China, hype cycle, income inequality, informal economy, information asymmetry, Internet Archive, Internet of things, job automation, Kaizen: continuous improvement, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, land reform, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Menlo Park, multilevel marketing, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), Pearl River Delta, peer-to-peer lending, precision agriculture, QR code, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, Salesforce, Satoshi Nakamoto, scientific management, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, SoftBank, software is eating the world, surveillance capitalism, TaskRabbit, tech worker, technological solutionism, the long tail, TikTok, Tragedy of the Commons, universal basic income, vertical integration, Vision Fund, WeWork, Y Combinator, zoonotic diseases

The same fear of automation drives a public discourse that glints with a subterfuge: that being human is the only thing that makes us special. The project of making AI a natural, evolutionary force continues. In this state of optimized life, we are told humans will be free from work. Silicon Valley claims it has anticipated this mass unemployment by automation, with places like Y Combinator piloting universal basic income programs. Individuals would get a monthly stipend to pay rent and purchase things, keeping a consumer-driven economy afloat. The promise being advertised to us about an AI labor force is that we will be free, and we will also be able to optimize our own tiny human lives—maybe for freedom, for true happiness. 6.


pages: 237 words: 67,154

Ours to Hack and to Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, a New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet by Trebor Scholz, Nathan Schneider

1960s counterculture, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anthropocene, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Build a better mousetrap, Burning Man, business logic, capital controls, circular economy, citizen journalism, collaborative economy, collaborative editing, collective bargaining, commoditize, commons-based peer production, conceptual framework, content marketing, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, Debian, decentralized internet, deskilling, disintermediation, distributed ledger, driverless car, emotional labour, end-to-end encryption, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, food desert, future of work, gig economy, Google bus, hiring and firing, holacracy, income inequality, independent contractor, information asymmetry, Internet of things, Jacob Appelbaum, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, lake wobegon effect, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, minimum viable product, moral hazard, Network effects, new economy, offshore financial centre, openstreetmap, peer-to-peer, planned obsolescence, post-work, profit maximization, race to the bottom, radical decentralization, remunicipalization, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rochdale Principles, SETI@home, shareholder value, sharing economy, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart contracts, Snapchat, surveillance capitalism, TaskRabbit, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, Tyler Cowen, Uber for X, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, Vitalik Buterin, W. E. B. Du Bois, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, workplace surveillance , Yochai Benkler, Zipcar

And I have no doubt about the vision of platform owners like Travis Kalanick (Uber), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), or Lukas Biewald (CrowdFlower)—who, in the absence of government regulation and resistance from workers, will simply exploit their undervalued workers. I’m all on board for Paul Mason’s and Kathi Weeks’ visions for a post-capitalist, post-work future where universal basic income will rule the way we think about life opportunities. In the United States, however, unlike in Finland, the chances for this scenario becoming a reality over the next two years are not high. The question then becomes what we can do right now, with and for the most precarious among the contingent third of the American workforce, which is unlikely to see the return of the traditional safety net, the forty-hour workweek, or a steady paycheck.


pages: 218 words: 68,648

Confessions of a Crypto Millionaire: My Unlikely Escape From Corporate America by Dan Conway

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, bank run, basic income, Bear Stearns, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, buy and hold, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, disruptive innovation, distributed ledger, double entry bookkeeping, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, fault tolerance, financial independence, gig economy, Gordon Gekko, Haight Ashbury, high net worth, holacracy, imposter syndrome, independent contractor, initial coin offering, job satisfaction, litecoin, Marc Andreessen, Mitch Kapor, obamacare, offshore financial centre, Ponzi scheme, prediction markets, rent control, reserve currency, Ronald Coase, Satoshi Nakamoto, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, smart contracts, Steve Jobs, supercomputer in your pocket, tech billionaire, tech bro, Tragedy of the Commons, Turing complete, Uber for X, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, Vitalik Buterin

There were a lot of older people in attendance. Some were dressed in preppy gear while others were bohemian-looking, borderline homeless in appearance. I’d find out later that crypto early adopters ran the gamut philosophically. Some were Ayn Rand libertarians, and others were hard-left believers in a universal basic income. I was struck by the differences between crypto culture and the corporate world I was used to. At Acme, I was encouraged to retweet all philanthropy propaganda with a host of research-tested hashtags like #ACMEGIVES, #SOULOFACME and #ACMEASSISTS. Crypto Reddit, Twitter, and message boards were sophomoric, exuberant and completely off the reservation.


pages: 210 words: 65,833

This Is Not Normal: The Collapse of Liberal Britain by William Davies

Airbnb, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Cambridge Analytica, central bank independence, centre right, Chelsea Manning, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, credit crunch, data science, deindustrialization, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Edward Snowden, fake news, family office, Filter Bubble, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, ghettoisation, gig economy, global pandemic, global village, illegal immigration, Internet of things, Jeremy Corbyn, late capitalism, Leo Hollis, liberal capitalism, loadsamoney, London Interbank Offered Rate, mass immigration, moral hazard, Neil Kinnock, Northern Rock, old-boy network, post-truth, postnationalism / post nation state, precariat, prediction markets, quantitative easing, recommendation engine, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, sentiment analysis, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Slavoj Žižek, statistical model, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, surveillance capitalism, technoutopianism, The Chicago School, Thorstein Veblen, transaction costs, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, web of trust, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler

It seems too often that, while the left is willing to defend key liberal planks of political modernity such as human rights and attention to facts, this is not reciprocated with support for economic democracy and wholesale redistribution of wealth and income. The crisis ushered in by coronavirus has accelerated the need to find this common ground between the defenders of institutional norms and those who agitate for economic justice. Long-standing liberal–socialist ideals, such as universal basic income, have acquired unprecedented plausibility in the context of the global pandemic. If this moment is to be seized by something other than nationalism or a type of privatised platform technocracy, a coalition of legal and economic rebuilders will be needed. Acknowledgements The pieces in this book were originally published in the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the New York Times, openDemocracy and the blog of the Political Economy Research Centre.


pages: 215 words: 69,370

Still Broke: Walmart's Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism by Rick Wartzman

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, An Inconvenient Truth, basic income, Bernie Sanders, call centre, collective bargaining, coronavirus, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, data science, Donald Trump, employer provided health coverage, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, George Floyd, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Kickstarter, labor-force participation, low skilled workers, Marc Benioff, old-boy network, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, shareholder value, supply-chain management, TikTok, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, union organizing, universal basic income, War on Poverty, warehouse robotics, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working poor

You’re Paid What You’re Worth: And Other Myths of the Modern Economy. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2021. Ryan, John A. A Living Wage. New York: Macmillan, 1920. Shipler, David K. The Working Poor: Invisible in America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. Stern, Andy. Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream. New York: PublicAffairs, 2016. Stone, Brad. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. New York: Little, Brown, 2013. Ton, Zeynep. The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits.


pages: 619 words: 177,548

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 4chan, agricultural Revolution, AI winter, Airbnb, airline deregulation, algorithmic bias, algorithmic management, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, An Inconvenient Truth, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, basic income, Bellingcat, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Bletchley Park, blue-collar work, British Empire, carbon footprint, carbon tax, carried interest, centre right, Charles Babbage, ChatGPT, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cloud computing, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, computer age, Computer Lib, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, conceptual framework, contact tracing, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, cotton gin, COVID-19, creative destruction, declining real wages, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, Demis Hassabis, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, discovery of the americas, disinformation, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, factory automation, facts on the ground, fake news, Filter Bubble, financial innovation, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, gender pay gap, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, global supply chain, Gordon Gekko, GPT-3, Grace Hopper, Hacker Ethic, Ida Tarbell, illegal immigration, income inequality, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jacques de Vaucanson, James Watt: steam engine, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Johannes Kepler, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, land reform, land tenure, Les Trente Glorieuses, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, M-Pesa, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, mobile money, Mother of all demos, move fast and break things, natural language processing, Neolithic agricultural revolution, Norbert Wiener, NSO Group, offshore financial centre, OpenAI, PageRank, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, profit motive, QAnon, Ralph Nader, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, robotic process automation, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, seminal paper, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, social web, South Sea Bubble, speech recognition, spice trade, statistical model, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, strikebreaker, subscription business, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, supply-chain management, surveillance capitalism, tacit knowledge, tech billionaire, technoutopianism, Ted Nelson, TED Talk, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, trickle-down economics, Turing machine, Turing test, Twitter Arab Spring, Two Sigma, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, union organizing, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, WikiLeaks, wikimedia commons, working poor, working-age population

Although robust redistribution and improved social safety nets, by themselves, are not going to affect the direction of technology or reduce the power of large tech companies, they can be an effective tool in reducing large inequalities that have emerged in the United States and other industrialized nations. One specific proposal, popularized by Andrew Yang’s Democratic primary campaign in 2020, deserves discussion: universal basic income. UBI, which promises an unconditional dollar amount for every adult, has emerged as a popular policy idea in some left-wing circles, among more libertarian scholars such as Milton Friedman and Charles Murray, and with tech billionaires such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Support for the idea is rooted, in part, in the clear inadequacies of the safety net in many countries, including the United States.

These authors also worry about the negative implications of automation, and especially AI, but do not recognize the directed nature of technology. Moreover, they stress, contrary to our emphasis, that AI is already a very capable technology that will quickly replace many jobs. This makes them view a future with fewer jobs as inevitable and thus favor measures such as universal basic income to combat the negative implications of these inexorable technological trends. This is sharply different from our perspective. Specifically, we emphasize (in chapters 9 and 10) that many uses of current AI are so-so, precisely because the capabilities of machine intelligence are more limited than sometimes presumed and because humans perform many tasks drawing on large amounts of accumulated expertise and social intelligence.


pages: 254 words: 76,064

Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future by Joi Ito, Jeff Howe

3D printing, air gap, Albert Michelson, AlphaGo, Amazon Web Services, artificial general intelligence, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Black Swan, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Burning Man, business logic, buy low sell high, Claude Shannon: information theory, cloud computing, commons-based peer production, Computer Numeric Control, conceptual framework, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data acquisition, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, digital rights, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, double helix, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Ferguson, Missouri, fiat currency, financial innovation, Flash crash, Ford Model T, frictionless, game design, Gerolamo Cardano, informal economy, information security, interchangeable parts, Internet Archive, Internet of things, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, John Harrison: Longitude, Joi Ito, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, Mark Zuckerberg, microbiome, move 37, Nate Silver, Network effects, neurotypical, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), PalmPilot, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, pirate software, power law, pre–internet, prisoner's dilemma, Productivity paradox, quantum cryptography, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, Ronald Coase, Ross Ulbricht, Satoshi Nakamoto, self-driving car, SETI@home, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Simon Singh, Singularitarianism, Skype, slashdot, smart contracts, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, Stuxnet, supply-chain management, synthetic biology, technological singularity, technoutopianism, TED Talk, The Nature of the Firm, the scientific method, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, the strength of weak ties, There's no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home - Ken Olsen, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Two Sigma, universal basic income, unpaid internship, uranium enrichment, urban planning, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, Wayback Machine, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler

As our machines continue to integrate into our networks and our society, they become an extension of our intelligence—bringing us into an extended intelligence. Some of the Singularitarians (Worst. Cult. Name. Ever.) believe that it won’t be long before AI is good enough to put many humans out of work. This may be true, especially in the short run. However, others argue that the increase in productivity will allow us to create a universal basic income to support the people made redundant by the machines. At the same time, many worry that our jobs give us dignity, social status, and structure—that we need to be more concerned with how we will entertain ourselves and what we’ll create, possibly through academic or creative endeavors, than with merely providing income.


pages: 224 words: 73,737

Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain's Underclass by Darren McGarvey

basic income, British Empire, carbon footprint, deindustrialization, do what you love, Donald Trump, gentrification, imposter syndrome, impulse control, means of production, side project, Social Justice Warrior, universal basic income, urban decay, wage slave

In this far bleaker context, where politicians have no real solutions and can’t even bring themselves to discuss the matter honestly, what hope can we offer to people living their lives right now – without filling their heads with false hope or lies? What do we have to say to the people who won’t be around when the third industrial revolution begins? The people who’ll never see Universal Basic Income being rolled out? Well, I suppose we could start by being honest: There will be no revolution. Not in your lifetime. This system will limp on and so must we. Much of the reason this system endures is directly related to how we think, feel and behave as individuals, families and communities.


pages: 245 words: 72,893

How Democracy Ends by David Runciman

barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Brexit referendum, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Edward Snowden, fake news, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Internet of things, Jeremy Corbyn, Jon Ronson, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Large Hadron Collider, loss aversion, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, mutually assured destruction, Network effects, Nick Bostrom, Norman Mailer, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Paris climate accords, Peter Thiel, post-truth, power law, precautionary principle, quantitative easing, Russell Brand, self-driving car, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, the long tail, The Wisdom of Crowds, Travis Kalanick, universal basic income, Yogi Berra

He had promised to start printing banknotes again for spending within the borders of the United States. This was popular with the victims of the great block-chain deflation, including many indebted college graduates who had long since given up trying to find a permanent job. Li’s coalition was made up of the stay-at-homes, who lived off their meagre universal basic income, and the travellers, who moved from state to state looking for part-time work. His support was lowest among the over-80s, who were worried he would substitute their retirement income with dollars. The old had grown attached to their Bitcoins. They needn’t have feared – during the transition the Chair of the Federal Reserve had already explained to the President-Elect that it would be impossible to make paper money forgery-proof.


pages: 240 words: 78,436

Open for Business Harnessing the Power of Platform Ecosystems by Lauren Turner Claire, Laure Claire Reillier, Benoit Reillier

Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Web Services, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, Blitzscaling, blockchain, carbon footprint, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, cloud computing, collaborative consumption, commoditize, crowdsourcing, data science, deep learning, Diane Coyle, Didi Chuxing, disintermediation, distributed ledger, driverless car, fake news, fulfillment center, future of work, George Akerlof, independent contractor, intangible asset, Internet of things, Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Lean Startup, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, market design, Metcalfe’s law, minimum viable product, multi-sided market, Network effects, Paradox of Choice, Paul Graham, peer-to-peer lending, performance metric, Peter Thiel, platform as a service, price discrimination, price elasticity of demand, profit motive, ride hailing / ride sharing, Sam Altman, search costs, self-driving car, seminal paper, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart contracts, Snapchat, software as a service, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, TaskRabbit, the long tail, The Market for Lemons, Tim Cook: Apple, transaction costs, two-sided market, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, Y Combinator

The US would also benefit significantly through increased participation and faster matching of jobs. 6 See www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome. 7 Such as in the case of BlaBlaCar where only a contribution to the costs of driving from A to B can be levied by the driver, or charity-enabling platforms such as JustGiving that connect givers and good causes. 8 See, for example, Juliet Schor, ‘Debating the Sharing Economy’, October 2014, for a good summary of the debate: www.greattransition.org/publication/debating-the-sharingeconomy#sthash.wjx6WQ6c.dpuf. 9 11 December 2015, CNN, http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/11/technology/airbnbbias-harvard/. It is worth noting that Airbnb has since implemented robust antidiscrimination provisions that are aimed at improving this. The future of platforms 215 10 See, for example, Bloomberg article dated 2 May 2016 on universal basic income: www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-05-02/a-basic-income-should-be-the-nextbig-thing. 11 www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6874353/reddit-50-million-funding-give-users-10percent-stock-equity and www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2moyiz/serious_ how_should_reddit_inc_distribute_a/. 12 21 September 2015, Kickstarter blog, www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-now-abenefit-corporation?


pages: 256 words: 73,068

12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next by Jeanette Winterson

"Margaret Hamilton" Apollo, "World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Ada Lovelace, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, Alignment Problem, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anthropocene, Apollo 11, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, artificial general intelligence, Asilomar, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Big Tech, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cashless society, Charles Babbage, computer age, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, coronavirus, COVID-19, CRISPR, cryptocurrency, dark matter, Dava Sobel, David Graeber, deep learning, deskilling, digital rights, discovery of DNA, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, double helix, driverless car, Elon Musk, fake news, flying shuttle, friendly AI, gender pay gap, global village, Grace Hopper, Gregor Mendel, hive mind, housing crisis, Internet of things, Isaac Newton, Jacquard loom, James Hargreaves, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, John von Neumann, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kickstarter, Large Hadron Collider, life extension, lockdown, lone genius, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, microdosing, more computing power than Apollo, move fast and break things, natural language processing, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, off grid, OpenAI, operation paperclip, packet switching, Peter Thiel, pink-collar, Plato's cave, public intellectual, QAnon, QWERTY keyboard, Ray Kurzweil, rewilding, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rutger Bregman, Sam Altman, self-driving car, sharing economy, Sheryl Sandberg, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, SoftBank, SpaceX Starlink, speech recognition, spinning jenny, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Steven Pinker, superintelligent machines, surveillance capitalism, synthetic biology, systems thinking, tech billionaire, tech worker, TED Talk, telepresence, telepresence robot, TikTok, trade route, Turing test, universal basic income, Virgin Galactic, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, women in the workforce, Y Combinator

Uncanny Valley, Anna Wiener, 2020 The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir, 1949 Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Steven Levy, 1984 Psychology of Crowds, Gustave Le Bon, 1896 Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, Sheryl Sandberg, 2013 Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights, Helen Lewis, 2020 A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf, 1929 Your Computer Is on Fire, various editors, 2021 (haven’t read this at time of going to press but looks great) The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Steven Pinker, 2002 Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, Adrienne Rich, 1976 The Better Half: On the Genetic Superiority of Women, Sharon Moalem, 2020 Jurassic Car Park Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, 1949 The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells, 1898 People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent, Joseph Stiglitz, 2019 The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kolbert, 2014 Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-hour Workweek, 2014, and Humankind: A Hopeful History, 2019, Rutger Bregman Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back, Mark O’Connell, 2020 The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Steven Pinker, 2011 Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China’s Countryside, Xiaowei Wang, 2020 Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Max Tegmark, 2017 The Alignment Problem: How Can Machines Learn Human Values?


pages: 741 words: 199,502

Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class by Charles Murray

23andMe, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, Asperger Syndrome, assortative mating, autism spectrum disorder, basic income, behavioural economics, bioinformatics, Cass Sunstein, correlation coefficient, CRISPR, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, dark triade / dark tetrad, domesticated silver fox, double helix, Drosophila, emotional labour, epigenetics, equal pay for equal work, European colonialism, feminist movement, glass ceiling, Gregor Mendel, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, Kenneth Arrow, labor-force participation, longitudinal study, meritocracy, meta-analysis, nudge theory, out of africa, p-value, phenotype, public intellectual, publication bias, quantitative hedge fund, randomized controlled trial, Recombinant DNA, replication crisis, Richard Thaler, risk tolerance, school vouchers, Scientific racism, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Silicon Valley, Skinner box, social intelligence, Social Justice Warrior, statistical model, Steven Pinker, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, twin studies, universal basic income, working-age population

But despite being a policy analyst by profession, I have never done so. I can’t think of any that I believe would make a difference. Instead, I have advocated changes that I think would work if they were implemented but that I know are politically impossible—replacing all welfare and income transfer programs with a universal basic income, legal defense funds to support systematic civil disobedience to the federal government, and universal education vouchers, among others. Valued Places and the Four Wellsprings for Human Flourishing However, I do have beliefs about policy implications more sweepingly defined. Readers who don’t know what they are have an ample choice of sources.

It is my view that social policies since the mid-twentieth century, continuing to the present, have inadvertently stripped ordinary people of valued places while leaving intact the ones enjoyed by the new upper class. I accept a role for economics. Hunger and homelessness are not conducive to human flourishing. The government can provide resources that enable people to be not homeless and not hungry. My own favored solution is a universal basic income that replaces the existing system of transfers. I have written at length about why I think that such a system would eliminate involuntary poverty and revitalize civil society.36 But this is not the place to make the case for a specific solution. Rather, I want to stress that satisfactions and dignity both arise from occupying valued places, and valued places have to be formed gradually by the people who occupy them.


pages: 562 words: 201,502

Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

4chan, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, AltaVista, Apollo 11, Apple II, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, artificial general intelligence, autism spectrum disorder, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Big Tech, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, Burning Man, carbon footprint, ChatGPT, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Clayton Christensen, clean tech, Colonization of Mars, computer vision, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, coronavirus, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, disinformation, Dogecoin, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, drone strike, effective altruism, Elon Musk, estate planning, fail fast, fake news, game design, gigafactory, GPT-4, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, hive mind, Hyperloop, impulse control, industrial robot, information security, Jeff Bezos, Jeffrey Epstein, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Jony Ive, Kwajalein Atoll, lab leak, large language model, Larry Ellison, lockdown, low earth orbit, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, Mars Society, Max Levchin, Michael Shellenberger, multiplanetary species, Neil Armstrong, Network effects, OpenAI, packet switching, Parler "social media", paypal mafia, peer-to-peer, Peter Thiel, QAnon, Ray Kurzweil, reality distortion field, remote working, rent control, risk tolerance, Rubik’s Cube, Salesforce, Sam Altman, Sam Bankman-Fried, San Francisco homelessness, Sand Hill Road, Saturday Night Live, self-driving car, seminal paper, short selling, Silicon Valley, Skype, SpaceX Starlink, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Jurvetson, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Streisand effect, supply-chain management, tech bro, TED Talk, Tesla Model S, the payments system, Tim Cook: Apple, universal basic income, Vernor Vinge, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, wikimedia commons, William MacAskill, work culture , Y Combinator

His neck was hurting from his old Sumo wrestling accident, and he lay on the floor with an ice pack behind his head. “If we’re able to produce a general-purpose robot that could observe you and learn how to do a task, that would supercharge the economy to a degree that’s insane,” he said. “Then we may want to institute universal basic income. Working could become a choice.” Yes, and some would still be maniacally driven to do it. * * * Musk was in a foul mood at the next day’s practice session for AI Day presentations, which would feature not only the unveiling of Optimus but also the advances Tesla was making in self-driving cars.

Victorious, it pumped its right fist into the air, did a little dance, then turned around and walked back behind the curtain. Even Musk looked relieved. “Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quickly as possible,” he told the audience. Eventually, he promised, there would be millions of them. “This means a future of abundance, a future where there is no poverty. We can afford to have a universal basic income we give people. It really is a fundamental transformation of civilization.” Milan Kovac 80 Robotaxi Tesla, 2022 Omead Afshar, Musk, Franz von Holzhausen, Drew Baglino, Lars Moravy, and Zach Kirkhorn A Robotaxi concept We are all in on autonomy Self-driving cars, Musk believed, would do more than merely free folks from the drudgery of driving.


pages: 293 words: 81,183

Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference by William MacAskill

barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, Black Swan, Branko Milanovic, Cal Newport, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, clean water, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Brooks, Edward Jenner, effective altruism, en.wikipedia.org, end world poverty, experimental subject, follow your passion, food miles, immigration reform, income inequality, index fund, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Isaac Newton, job automation, job satisfaction, Lean Startup, M-Pesa, mass immigration, meta-analysis, microcredit, Nate Silver, Peter Singer: altruism, power law, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, randomized controlled trial, self-driving car, Skype, Stanislav Petrov, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, The Future of Employment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tyler Cowen, universal basic income, William MacAskill, women in the workforce

He considered continuing his studies at graduate school but instead pursued journalism in part because doing so gave him a platform from which to champion particularly important causes. He worked for The Washington Post and now works for Vox.com. In this position, he’s been able to promote and discuss ideas he thinks are important, such as more liberal immigration policies, a universal basic income, and the idea of earning to give. In advocacy, we would expect the distribution of impact to be highly fat-tailed: it’s a winner-takes-all environment, where a small number of thought leaders command most of the attention. We don’t have data on impact through advocacy in general, though the distribution of book sales, which one could use as a proxy, is highly fat-tailed, as is the distribution of Twitter follower counts.


pages: 281 words: 83,505

Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, assortative mating, basic income, Big Tech, big-box store, bike sharing, Black Lives Matter, Broken windows theory, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, classic study, clean water, deindustrialization, desegregation, digital divide, Donald Trump, East Village, fake news, Filter Bubble, food desert, gentrification, ghettoisation, helicopter parent, income inequality, informal economy, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, John Snow's cholera map, late fees, Mark Zuckerberg, mass incarceration, megaproject, Menlo Park, New Urbanism, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Peter Thiel, public intellectual, Ray Oldenburg, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, smart grid, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Great Good Place, the High Line, universal basic income, urban planning, young professional

At this point, we all know what the game is, and it’s insulting to be told that each new revenue-generating Facebook product—the messaging app for children under age thirteen, for instance—is really on offer because the company wants society to flourish. I don’t doubt that, in addition to his interest in accumulating more wealth and power, Zuckerberg has good intentions. He has championed experiments that provide a “universal basic income” in communities where decent-paying jobs are becoming scarce. In 2015, he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, set up the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (a limited liability company rather than a traditional foundation, which requires owners to give away 5 percent of the endowment every year and cannot invest in profit-seeking ventures).


pages: 340 words: 81,110

How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Ayatollah Khomeini, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Cass Sunstein, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, clean water, David Brooks, Donald Trump, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Gunnar Myrdal, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, Nate Silver, Norman Mailer, old-boy network, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, single-payer health, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, universal basic income

Social policies that benefit everyone—Social Security and Medicare are prime examples—could help diminish resentment, build bridges across large swaths of the American electorate, and lock into place social support for more durable policies to reduce income inequality—without providing the raw materials for racially motivated backlash. Comprehensive health insurance is a prominent example. Other examples include a much more aggressive raising of the minimum wage, or a universal basic income—a policy that was once seriously considered, and even introduced into Congress, by the Nixon administration. Still another example is “family policy,” or programs that provide paid leave for parents, subsidized day care for children with working parents, and prekindergarten education for nearly everyone.


pages: 252 words: 78,780

Lab Rats: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us by Dan Lyons

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "Susan Fowler" uber, "World Economic Forum" Davos, Airbnb, Amazon Robotics, Amazon Web Services, antiwork, Apple II, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Blue Ocean Strategy, business process, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Clayton Christensen, clean water, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, cryptocurrency, data science, David Heinemeier Hansson, digital rights, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, fake news, full employment, future of work, gig economy, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Hacker News, hiring and firing, holacracy, housing crisis, impact investing, income inequality, informal economy, initial coin offering, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job satisfaction, job-hopping, John Gruber, John Perry Barlow, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kanban, Kevin Kelly, knowledge worker, Larry Ellison, Lean Startup, loose coupling, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, McMansion, Menlo Park, Milgram experiment, minimum viable product, Mitch Kapor, move fast and break things, new economy, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Parker Conrad, Paul Graham, paypal mafia, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, precariat, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, public intellectual, RAND corporation, remote working, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rubik’s Cube, Ruby on Rails, Sam Altman, San Francisco homelessness, Sand Hill Road, scientific management, self-driving car, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, Skinner box, Skype, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, SoftBank, software is eating the world, Stanford prison experiment, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stewart Brand, stock buybacks, super pumped, TaskRabbit, tech bro, tech worker, TechCrunch disrupt, TED Talk, telemarketer, Tesla Model S, Thomas Davenport, Tony Hsieh, Toyota Production System, traveling salesman, Travis Kalanick, tulip mania, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, web application, WeWork, Whole Earth Catalog, work culture , workplace surveillance , Y Combinator, young professional, Zenefits

A more accurate prediction came from curmudgeonly business guru Tom Peters, who fretted, “I’m concerned that this global economy will in fact be garbage at the speed of light.” Peters was right. Even people who helped build the Internet economy, and have benefited from it, now fear they created a monster. Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder, says the new economy “is going to continue to destroy work,” and in a 2018 book, Fair Shot, he argues for providing universal basic income—essentially handouts to unemployed adults—paid for by taxing the top 1 percent. The first of the four factors boils down to this: twenty-five years after the dawn of the Internet, we haven’t all become millionaires. In fact, quite the opposite. Almost everyone is doing worse than they were a quarter century ago.


pages: 301 words: 89,076

The Globotics Upheaval: Globalisation, Robotics and the Future of Work by Richard Baldwin

agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, AlphaGo, AltaVista, Amazon Web Services, Apollo 11, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Big Tech, bread and circuses, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Cass Sunstein, commoditize, computer vision, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, Credit Default Swap, data science, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, deskilling, Donald Trump, Douglas Hofstadter, Downton Abbey, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, facts on the ground, Fairchild Semiconductor, future of journalism, future of work, George Gilder, Google Glasses, Google Hangouts, Hans Moravec, hiring and firing, hype cycle, impulse control, income inequality, industrial robot, intangible asset, Internet of things, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Kevin Roose, knowledge worker, laissez-faire capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, low skilled workers, machine translation, Machine translation of "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." to Russian and back, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, mass incarceration, Metcalfe’s law, mirror neurons, new economy, optical character recognition, pattern recognition, Ponzi scheme, post-industrial society, post-work, profit motive, remote working, reshoring, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Robert Metcalfe, robotic process automation, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, social intelligence, sovereign wealth fund, standardized shipping container, statistical model, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, supply-chain management, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, telepresence, telepresence robot, telerobotics, Thomas Malthus, trade liberalization, universal basic income, warehouse automation

“I’m not a career politician—I’m an entrepreneur who understands technology and the job market, and I know things are going to get much, much worse than the establishment is willing to admit.” His solutions, which he writes about in his 2018 book, The War on Normal People: The Truth about America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future, are not revolutionary. This isn’t a new “ism” like fascism or communism. But we are living through a volatile period, and things could easily get out of hand. Yang puts it starkly: “We have two options. We can stay the course, and let millions of hardworking Americans fall into unemployment and despair.


pages: 309 words: 81,975

Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization? by Aaron Dignan

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Abraham Maslow, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, adjacent possible, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, autonomous vehicles, basic income, benefit corporation, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Black Swan, blockchain, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, butterfly effect, cashless society, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, content marketing, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, David Heinemeier Hansson, deliberate practice, DevOps, disruptive innovation, don't be evil, Elon Musk, endowment effect, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, financial engineering, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, future of work, gender pay gap, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, gig economy, Goodhart's law, Google X / Alphabet X, hiring and firing, hive mind, holacracy, impact investing, income inequality, information asymmetry, Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, job satisfaction, Kanban, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, Lean Startup, loose coupling, loss aversion, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, minimum viable product, mirror neurons, new economy, Paul Graham, Quicken Loans, race to the bottom, reality distortion field, remote working, Richard Thaler, Rochdale Principles, Salesforce, scientific management, shareholder value, side hustle, Silicon Valley, single source of truth, six sigma, smart contracts, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, software is eating the world, source of truth, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steve Jobs, subprime mortgage crisis, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, The future is already here, the High Line, too big to fail, Toyota Production System, Tragedy of the Commons, uber lyft, universal basic income, WeWork, Y Combinator, zero-sum game

Public education prepares students for jobs that don’t exist yet by focusing on creativity and complex problem solving. Students spend most of their time learning how to be part of a high-performing team. Entrepreneurial skills are prized above Ivy League admission. New forms of universal basic income are being tested for their ability to provide for our basic human needs while also encouraging us to use and share our gifts—through entrepreneurship, service, and community. New forms of currency and means of exchange provide alternatives to the current model of borrowing money lent at interest.


pages: 301 words: 85,126

AIQ: How People and Machines Are Smarter Together by Nick Polson, James Scott

Abraham Wald, Air France Flight 447, Albert Einstein, algorithmic bias, Amazon Web Services, Atul Gawande, autonomous vehicles, availability heuristic, basic income, Bayesian statistics, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, Bletchley Park, business cycle, Cepheid variable, Checklist Manifesto, cloud computing, combinatorial explosion, computer age, computer vision, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Donald Trump, Douglas Hofstadter, Edward Charles Pickering, Elon Musk, epigenetics, fake news, Flash crash, Grace Hopper, Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hans Moravec, Harvard Computers: women astronomers, Higgs boson, index fund, information security, Isaac Newton, John von Neumann, late fees, low earth orbit, Lyft, machine translation, Magellanic Cloud, mass incarceration, Moneyball by Michael Lewis explains big data, Moravec's paradox, more computing power than Apollo, natural language processing, Netflix Prize, North Sea oil, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, p-value, pattern recognition, Pierre-Simon Laplace, ransomware, recommendation engine, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, self-driving car, sentiment analysis, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, speech recognition, statistical model, survivorship bias, systems thinking, the scientific method, Thomas Bayes, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, young professional

New technologies always change the mix of labor needed in the economy, putting downward pressure on wages in some areas and upward pressure in others. AI will be no different, and we strongly support job-training and social-welfare programs to provide meaningful help for those displaced by technology. A universal basic income might even be the answer here, as many Silicon Valley bosses seem to think; we don’t claim to know. But arguments that AI will create a jobless future are, so far, completely unsupported by actual evidence. Then there’s the issue of market dominance. Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple are enormous companies with tremendous power.


pages: 263 words: 80,594

Stolen: How to Save the World From Financialisation by Grace Blakeley

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, asset-backed security, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, Basel III, basic income, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, bitcoin, bond market vigilante , Bretton Woods, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, capitalist realism, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate raider, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, currency peg, David Graeber, debt deflation, decarbonisation, democratizing finance, Donald Trump, emotional labour, eurozone crisis, Extinction Rebellion, extractivism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, fixed income, full employment, G4S, gender pay gap, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, global supply chain, green new deal, Greenspan put, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, impact investing, income inequality, inflation targeting, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jeremy Corbyn, job polarisation, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, land value tax, light touch regulation, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market clearing, means of production, Modern Monetary Theory, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, neoliberal agenda, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, paradox of thrift, payday loans, pensions crisis, Phillips curve, Ponzi scheme, Post-Keynesian economics, post-war consensus, price mechanism, principal–agent problem, profit motive, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, Right to Buy, rising living standards, risk-adjusted returns, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, savings glut, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, sovereign wealth fund, the built environment, The Great Moderation, too big to fail, transfer pricing, universal basic income, Winter of Discontent, working-age population, yield curve, zero-sum game

Piketty’s wealth tax is a prime example of “solutionism”: a proposal intended to solve all of the world’s problems through tweaks to the current institutional architecture. He pays little attention to power, to politics, or any other drivers of change. The same can be said for a lot of other radical ideas that have recently become popular, like modern monetary theory, land value taxation, or universal basic income. These can all be understood as a kind of technocratic utopianism — they rely on the assumption that society can be transformed from above and that making one or two radical policy changes will completely transform the economy. Many of these policies are not incorrect or bad, but their adherents often prescribe them as the solution to all the world’s problems, without considering how we got to where we are in the first place.


pages: 286 words: 87,168

Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel

air freight, Airbnb, Anthropocene, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, biodiversity loss, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, circular economy, cognitive dissonance, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate personhood, cotton gin, COVID-19, David Graeber, decarbonisation, declining real wages, degrowth, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, disinformation, Elon Musk, energy transition, Extinction Rebellion, extractivism, Fairphone, Fellow of the Royal Society, flying shuttle, Fractional reserve banking, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gender pay gap, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of the steam engine, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, Jevons paradox, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, land reform, liberal capitalism, lockdown, longitudinal study, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, McMansion, means of production, meta-analysis, microbiome, Money creation, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Murray Bookchin, Naomi Klein, negative emissions, new economy, ocean acidification, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, out of africa, passive income, planetary scale, planned obsolescence, plutocrats, Post-Keynesian economics, quantitative easing, rent control, rent-seeking, retail therapy, Ronald Reagan, Rupert Read, Scramble for Africa, secular stagnation, shareholder value, sharing economy, Simon Kuznets, structural adjustment programs, the scientific method, The Spirit Level, transatlantic slave trade, trickle-down economics, universal basic income

Instead of letting commercial banks create credit money, we could have the state create it – free of debt – and then spend it into the economy instead of lending it into the economy. The responsibility for money creation could be placed with an independent agency that is democratic, accountable and transparent, with a mandate to balance human well-being with ecological stability. Newly created money could be distributed partly in the form of a universal basic income: an idea that is becoming increasingly popular. Banks would still be able to lend money, of course, but they would have to back it with 100% reserves, dollar for dollar.53 This is not a fringe idea. It was first proposed by economists at the University of Chicago in the 1930s, as a solution to the debt crisis of the Great Depression.


pages: 259 words: 84,261

Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World by Mo Gawdat

3D printing, accounting loophole / creative accounting, AI winter, AlphaGo, anthropic principle, artificial general intelligence, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, butterfly effect, call centre, carbon footprint, cloud computing, computer vision, coronavirus, COVID-19, CRISPR, cryptocurrency, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, digital divide, digital map, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, fake news, fulfillment center, game design, George Floyd, global pandemic, Google Glasses, Google X / Alphabet X, Law of Accelerating Returns, lockdown, microplastics / micro fibres, Nick Bostrom, off-the-grid, OpenAI, optical character recognition, out of africa, pattern recognition, Ponzi scheme, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, smart contracts, Stanislav Petrov, Stephen Hawking, subprime mortgage crisis, superintelligent machines, TED Talk, TikTok, Turing machine, Turing test, universal basic income, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, Y2K

The restriction of freedom and economic cost are among the top examples of such hardship. Both of those happen to be true in the case of AI as well. It is highly expected and often discussed that AI and robotic technology will deprive many people of their existing jobs, thus limiting their income to a point where a universal basic income might need to be introduced. That loss of job will also lead to a sense of loss of freedom, as work for many of us is not only our biggest sense of purpose but also the reason that takes us out of our home and helps us meet people. When a child is a product of a lack of affection, they develop behaviours that manifest their pain.


Emotional Labor: The Invisible Work Shaping Our Lives and How to Claim Our Power by Rose Hackman

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, basic income, behavioural economics, Black Lives Matter, cognitive load, collective bargaining, coronavirus, COVID-19, dark triade / dark tetrad, David Graeber, demand response, do what you love, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, emotional labour, equal pay for equal work, European colonialism, Ferguson, Missouri, financial independence, game design, glass ceiling, immigration reform, invisible hand, job automation, lockdown, mass incarceration, medical bankruptcy, meta-analysis, Nelson Mandela, performance metric, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, social distancing, TED Talk, The Great Resignation, TikTok, transatlantic slave trade, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, wages for housework, women in the workforce, working poor, zero-sum game

In forcing us to think of actions we have never in the mainstream considered work, it pushes us to rethink our very attitude toward work and compensation, casting people we have never thought of in such a manner as workers. Emotional labor blurs the line between private and public, exposing it as artificial to begin with, and that is a good thing. It is a rethinking we desperately need. We live in the wealthiest nation in the history of nations. Whether the answer is a universal basic income combined with stronger worker rights, whether it involves significantly strengthening Social Security combined with stronger worker rights to include parents and caregivers outside of the formal workplace, or another combination entirely does not matter. Finding a solution is entirely possible and within grasp.


pages: 356 words: 91,157

The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class?and What We Can Do About It by Richard Florida

affirmative action, Airbnb, back-to-the-city movement, basic income, Bernie Sanders, bike sharing, blue-collar work, business climate, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, Columbine, congestion charging, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, East Village, edge city, Edward Glaeser, failed state, Ferguson, Missouri, gentrification, Gini coefficient, Google bus, high net worth, high-speed rail, income inequality, income per capita, industrial cluster, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, jitney, Kitchen Debate, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, land value tax, low skilled workers, Lyft, megacity, megaproject, Menlo Park, mortgage tax deduction, Nate Silver, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, occupational segregation, off-the-grid, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paul Graham, plutocrats, RAND corporation, rent control, rent-seeking, restrictive zoning, Richard Florida, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, SimCity, sovereign wealth fund, streetcar suburb, superstar cities, tech worker, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, white flight, young professional

The development of mass public education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the dramatic expansion of college and university training after World War II, promoted economic growth and helped to spur the development of a stable middle class.26 Investing more in early childhood development, especially in chronically poor neighborhoods, will increase overall human capital and add to the economy again today. Fundamentally, poverty is the absence of money. Providing every person with a guaranteed minimum income or universal basic income is the most straightforward way to combat it; and the most efficacious way to do that is through a negative income tax, which essentially returns money to the poor so that they can cover their basic needs. Such an approach is a more cost-effective and less bureaucratically cumbersome way of mitigating poverty than providing myriad direct-assistance programs for housing, food, child support, and the like.


pages: 332 words: 89,668

Two Nations, Indivisible: A History of Inequality in America: A History of Inequality in America by Jamie Bronstein

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, back-to-the-land, barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, Community Supported Agriculture, corporate personhood, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, desegregation, Donald Trump, ending welfare as we know it, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, income inequality, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, labor-force participation, land reform, land tenure, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, mandatory minimum, mass incarceration, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, moral panic, mortgage debt, New Urbanism, non-tariff barriers, obamacare, occupational segregation, Occupy movement, oil shock, plutocrats, price discrimination, race to the bottom, rent control, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Sam Peltzman, scientific management, Scientific racism, Simon Kuznets, single-payer health, Strategic Defense Initiative, strikebreaker, the long tail, too big to fail, trade route, transcontinental railway, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, vertical integration, W. E. B. Du Bois, wage slave, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration

There are several ways to frame a basic income guarantee, and one of those possible frames is that it enhances freedom.84 Over the course of several generations, an ideally functioning free market will produce winners and losers, sometimes just due to moral bad luck. In those cases, people who are unable to meet their basic needs may end up accepting significant measures of personal coercion because they have no other choice. A universal basic income guarantee is a way to enable those people to opt out of coercive relationships without the stigma produced—or dependency supposedly produced—by other kinds of means-tested welfare.85 A basic income guarantee could also reward activities like volunteering or caregiving that are not now rewarded by the market.


pages: 346 words: 90,371

Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing by Josh Ryan-Collins, Toby Lloyd, Laurie Macfarlane

agricultural Revolution, asset-backed security, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, basic income, book value, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, credit crunch, debt deflation, deindustrialization, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, foreign exchange controls, full employment, garden city movement, George Akerlof, ghettoisation, Gini coefficient, Hernando de Soto, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, information asymmetry, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, land bank, land reform, land tenure, land value tax, Landlord’s Game, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market bubble, market clearing, Martin Wolf, means of production, Minsky moment, Money creation, money market fund, mortgage debt, negative equity, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, Pareto efficiency, place-making, Post-Keynesian economics, price stability, profit maximization, quantitative easing, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Right to Buy, rising living standards, risk tolerance, Robert Solow, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, shareholder value, subprime mortgage crisis, the built environment, The Great Moderation, The Market for Lemons, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, transaction costs, universal basic income, urban planning, urban sprawl, working poor, working-age population

Or they could give up a percentage of their equity in the property each year that wasn’t paid to the state or local authority, enabling the community to gain from any capital appreciation (Mayhew and Smith, 2016). Another option would be to hypothecate the proceeds of any large-scale land tax evenly across the population as some kind of universal basic income, as envisaged by Henry George ([1879] 1979), or perhaps hypothecate it to support a widely popular public service such as the National Health Service. The salience issue – that property taxes are unpopular because of their visibility – is a challenging problem. Visibility is clearly desirable from a decision-making perspective because it makes taxpayers aware of the costs of local public services, which enhances accountability.


pages: 302 words: 95,965

How to Be the Startup Hero: A Guide and Textbook for Entrepreneurs and Aspiring Entrepreneurs by Tim Draper

3D printing, Airbnb, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, blockchain, Buckminster Fuller, business climate, carried interest, connected car, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, deal flow, Deng Xiaoping, discounted cash flows, disintermediation, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, fake news, family office, fiat currency, frictionless, frictionless market, growth hacking, high net worth, hiring and firing, initial coin offering, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, Larry Ellison, low earth orbit, Lyft, Mahatma Gandhi, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Menlo Park, Metcalfe's law, Metcalfe’s law, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, Minecraft, Moneyball by Michael Lewis explains big data, Nelson Mandela, Network effects, peer-to-peer, Peter Thiel, pez dispenser, Ralph Waldo Emerson, risk tolerance, Robert Metcalfe, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Salesforce, Sand Hill Road, school choice, school vouchers, self-driving car, sharing economy, Sheryl Sandberg, short selling, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart contracts, Snapchat, sovereign wealth fund, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Jurvetson, Tesla Model S, Twitter Arab Spring, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, women in the workforce, Y Combinator, zero-sum game

Many government services can be provided virtually through the blockchain now, and smart governments may recognize that they are not constrained by geographic borders. Governments might look to compete for citizens, both domestic and foreign, in providing virtual services like health insurance, pensions, income insurance, or universal basic income. A government’s physical location or land base might become a lesser part of governance, and virtual governance might be where governments compete for us, whether we live in their geographic territory or not. The long-term vision for Bitcoin is to give the world economic emancipation. Banks will have to adapt their services as the need for trusted third parties and financial middlemen are eclipsed by a trusted crowd of blockchain monitors.


pages: 307 words: 90,634

Insane Mode: How Elon Musk's Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil by Hamish McKenzie

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Ben Horowitz, business climate, car-free, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Chris Urmson, Clayton Christensen, clean tech, Colonization of Mars, connected car, crony capitalism, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, disinformation, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, Fairchild Semiconductor, Ford Model T, gigafactory, Google Glasses, Hyperloop, information security, Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, low earth orbit, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, margin call, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, megacity, Menlo Park, Nikolai Kondratiev, oil shale / tar sands, paypal mafia, Peter Thiel, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, Shenzhen was a fishing village, short selling, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Snapchat, Solyndra, South China Sea, special economic zone, stealth mode startup, Steve Jobs, tech worker, TechCrunch disrupt, TED Talk, Tesla Model S, Tim Cook: Apple, Tony Fadell, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban planning, urban sprawl, Zenefits, Zipcar

Speeding tickets and driver registrations will be greatly reduced. These developments are going to affect how governments make money and citizens spend it. Robin Chase, the former CEO of car-sharing company Zipcar, and now the executive chairman of vehicle-communications company Veniam, has called for a universal basic income to offset the losses that will be brought on by an era of automation. Such guaranteed income would allow “more people the opportunity to focus on purposeful, passion-driven work,” she wrote in 2016. Instead of taxing labor, Chase argued, it would make more sense to tax the technical platforms that generate the profits and “the wealth of the small number of talented and lucky people who founded and financed these new jobless wonders.”


pages: 401 words: 93,256

Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life by Rory Sutherland

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Alfred Russel Wallace, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, Black Swan, Brexit referendum, butterfly effect, California gold rush, call centre, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, Cass Sunstein, cognitive dissonance, confounding variable, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Dava Sobel, delayed gratification, Donald Trump, double helix, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Easter island, Edward Jenner, Elon Musk, Firefox, Ford Model T, General Magic , George Akerlof, gig economy, Google Chrome, Google X / Alphabet X, Grace Hopper, Hyperloop, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, IKEA effect, information asymmetry, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, James Dyson, John Harrison: Longitude, loss aversion, low cost airline, Mason jar, Murray Gell-Mann, nudge theory, Peter Thiel, placebo effect, race to the bottom, Richard Feynman, Richard Thaler, Rory Sutherland, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, Steve Jobs, supply-chain management, systems thinking, TED Talk, the map is not the territory, The Market for Lemons, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, ultimatum game, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, US Airways Flight 1549, Veblen good, work culture

To me, this is the greatest cause for optimism: if we can honestly acknowledge the gulf between our unconscious emotional motivations and our post-rationalisations, many political disagreements may be easier to solve. Again, we simply need to learn to scent the soap. It has become fashionable to discuss an approach to welfare called Universal Basic Income (UBI). The idea, which has been tested in Finland and a few other places, is to replace welfare programmes with a single minimum income, paid to everybody in the country over a certain age. It would be enough to take care of most people’s basic needs; food, heating and housing would be paid for partly by the elimination of other forms of welfare provision but also by higher taxation on higher earners.


pages: 288 words: 89,781

The Classical School by Callum Williams

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, Charles Babbage, complexity theory, Corn Laws, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, death from overwork, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, falling living standards, Fellow of the Royal Society, full employment, Gini coefficient, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, helicopter parent, income inequality, invisible hand, Jevons paradox, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, land reform, low skilled workers, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Wolf, means of production, Meghnad Desai, minimum wage unemployment, Modern Monetary Theory, new economy, New Journalism, non-tariff barriers, Paul Samuelson, Post-Keynesian economics, purchasing power parity, Ronald Coase, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, spinning jenny, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, universal basic income

Sismondi also sees a role for the state in improving social welfare. He suggested things that to early 19th-century ears would have sounded fairly radical, such as a minimum wage and regulations on working hours. Like Adam Smith, Sismondi recommends the expansion of education for the working classes. But Sismondi even appears in favour of a “universal basic income”–an annual unconditional payment made to all citizens. No matter all this government interference might lead to some loss of economic efficiency: in his view, people’s lives end up better. Fashions change Many of Sismondi’s contemporaries believed he was talking nonsense. For about a century after the 1850s, he was forgotten.


pages: 343 words: 101,563

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, anthropic principle, Anthropocene, Asian financial crisis, augmented reality, autism spectrum disorder, basic income, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Blockadia, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, carbon-based life, Chekhov's gun, climate anxiety, cognitive bias, computer age, correlation does not imply causation, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, decarbonisation, disinformation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, effective altruism, Elon Musk, endowment effect, energy transition, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, failed state, fiat currency, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of agriculture, it's over 9,000, Joan Didion, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Kevin Roose, Kim Stanley Robinson, labor-force participation, life extension, longitudinal study, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, megacity, megastructure, Michael Shellenberger, microdosing, microplastics / micro fibres, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, negative emissions, Nick Bostrom, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, off-the-grid, Paris climate accords, Pearl River Delta, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, postindustrial economy, quantitative easing, Ray Kurzweil, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Solow, Sam Altman, Silicon Valley, Skype, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, Ted Nordhaus, TED Talk, the built environment, The future is already here, the scientific method, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, universal basic income, University of East Anglia, Whole Earth Catalog, William Langewiesche, Y Combinator

Peter Thiel may complain about the pace of technological change, but maybe he’s doing so because he’s worried it won’t outpace ecological and political devastation. He’s still investing in dubious eternal-youth programs and buying up land in New Zealand (where he might ride out social collapse on the civilization scale). Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, who has distinguished himself as a kind of tech philanthropist with a small universal-basic-income pilot project and recently announced a call for geoengineering proposals he might invest in, has reportedly made a down payment on a brain-upload program that would extract his mind from this world. It’s a project in which he is also an investor, naturally. For Bostrom, the very purpose of “humanity” is so transparently to engineer a “posthumanity” that he can use the second term as a synonym for the first.


pages: 349 words: 98,309

Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy by Alexandrea J. Ravenelle

active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, barriers to entry, basic income, Broken windows theory, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cashless society, Clayton Christensen, clean water, collaborative consumption, collective bargaining, company town, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, digital divide, disruptive innovation, Downton Abbey, East Village, Erik Brynjolfsson, full employment, future of work, gentrification, gig economy, Howard Zinn, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, job automation, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), low skilled workers, Lyft, minimum wage unemployment, Mitch Kapor, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, passive income, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer model, performance metric, precariat, rent control, rent stabilization, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, sharing economy, side hustle, Silicon Valley, strikebreaker, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, telemarketer, the payments system, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Tim Cook: Apple, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, ubercab, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, vertical integration, very high income, white flight, working poor, Zipcar

Indeed, while I was doing this research, one of my family members, seeking to soften a financial blow, began driving for Uber and Lyft. As he put it, driving was helping “make ends meet.” As critical as I am of the sharing economy and its lack of worker protections, if we aren’t going to increase incomes overall or implement a universal basic income, then we need a way to help people supplement their incomes as needed without experiencing an undue burden of risk. An easy fix would be to change how gig economy workers are classified by employers. INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR (MIS)CLASSIFICATION While many sharing economy services tell their workers that they are small business owners or independent contractors, the determination of employee or independent contractor is actually based on federal laws, although definitions and interpretations can vary.


pages: 307 words: 96,543

Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl Wudunn

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, basic income, benefit corporation, Bernie Sanders, carried interest, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, David Brooks, Donald Trump, dumpster diving, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, epigenetics, full employment, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, impulse control, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, job automation, jobless men, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, low skilled workers, mandatory minimum, Martin Wolf, mass incarceration, Mikhail Gorbachev, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, randomized controlled trial, rent control, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, Shai Danziger, single-payer health, Steven Pinker, The Spirit Level, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, Vanguard fund, War on Poverty, working poor

That’s the idea behind raising the minimum wage, strengthening labor unions and worker protections, and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or other earnings supplements. The EITC has bipartisan support, and scholars find that it largely pays for itself by turning people into taxpayers and reducing the benefits they receive. In contrast, we’re skeptical of a universal basic income both because of the difficulty getting political support at a sufficient level and because of so much evidence that what matters for well-being is not just income but also the dignity and identity that come with a job. Another smart step is wage insurance, to subsidize laid-off workers who accept lower-paying jobs rather than waiting for a job to come along that paid what the last one did.


pages: 320 words: 95,629

Decoding the World: A Roadmap for the Questioner by Po Bronson

23andMe, 3D printing, 4chan, Abraham Maslow, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, altcoin, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, Asilomar, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Burning Man, call centre, carbon credits, carbon tax, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, coronavirus, COVID-19, CRISPR, cryptocurrency, decarbonisation, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, dematerialisation, Donald Trump, driverless car, dumpster diving, edge city, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Eyjafjallajökull, factory automation, fake news, financial independence, Google X / Alphabet X, green new deal, income inequality, industrial robot, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, Mars Rover, mass immigration, McMansion, means of production, microbiome, microplastics / micro fibres, oil shale / tar sands, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paul Graham, paypal mafia, phenotype, Ponzi scheme, power law, quantum entanglement, Ronald Reagan, Sand Hill Road, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, smart contracts, source of truth, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Jurvetson, sustainable-tourism, synthetic biology, Tesla Model S, too big to fail, trade route, universal basic income, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, women in the workforce

In this way, billionaires are literally paying zero taxes. They can hold the shares for ten years—or fifty—and never pay tax. And if they do have a small tax bill, they can donate some of those shares to their children’s university to offset it. Raising the minimum wage. This is a one-hundred-times better idea than Universal Basic Income. You can put $10,000 in a worker’s pocket just by raising their wages $5 an hour. What we can’t do is change the fundamental nature of our economy. If the new technology is “winners take all,” then the economy will increasingly shift in that direction, too. We rely on the prosperous. It’s ugly, but it’s real.


pages: 347 words: 103,518

The Stolen Year by Anya Kamenetz

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, 2021 United States Capitol attack, Anthropocene, basic income, Black Lives Matter, contact tracing, coronavirus, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, Day of the Dead, desegregation, disinformation, Donald Trump, East Village, emotional labour, ending welfare as we know it, epigenetics, food desert, George Floyd, glass ceiling, global pandemic, helicopter parent, informal economy, inventory management, invisible hand, Kintsugi, labor-force participation, lockdown, Mark Zuckerberg, Maui Hawaii, medical residency, Minecraft, moral panic, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Ponzi scheme, QAnon, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, rent stabilization, risk tolerance, school choice, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, social distancing, Thorstein Veblen, TikTok, traveling salesman, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, wages for housework, War on Poverty, white flight, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration

It would arrive automatically to everyone who filed a tax return (which could prove to be a big asterisk, especially for people who work in the informal economy). The money would be mailed out in monthly checks, $250 per child over age six and $300 per child under age six, beginning in July 2021. In the past decade, randomized controlled trials have tested the effects of direct cash assistance, sometimes called universal basic income programs. These studies show that when people get reliable income, it tends to make their lives better. They spend more than before on fresh fruit and vegetables and less on alcohol and cigarettes. They save and invest in things like education so that they can earn more in the future. They work more, not less.


pages: 331 words: 95,582

Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America by Conor Dougherty

Airbnb, bank run, basic income, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, business logic, California gold rush, carbon footprint, commoditize, death of newspapers, desegregation, do-ocracy, don't be evil, Donald Trump, edge city, Edward Glaeser, El Camino Real, emotional labour, fixed income, fixed-gear, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, Google bus, Haight Ashbury, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, illegal immigration, income inequality, Joan Didion, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, mass immigration, new economy, New Urbanism, passive income, Paul Buchheit, Peter Thiel, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, self-driving car, sharing economy, side hustle, side project, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, software is eating the world, South of Market, San Francisco, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, universal basic income, urban planning, urban renewal, vertical integration, white flight, winner-take-all economy, working poor, Y Combinator, Yom Kippur War, young professional

It still meant that, but the world of politics came with questions about what kinds of housing and where, who their allies were, and what was and was not a good look. There were questions like whether it was worth it to speak in favor of luxury condo projects or if that was unnecessary and counterproductive. Some members wanted YIMBY Action to get involved in social justice issues like policing or advocating for a universal basic income. Others thought it should remain focused on housing. Even the narrow view came with lots of debates about government versus private building and the role of capitalism in land generally. Victoria Fierce was a purple‐haired trans software engineer who had started showing up at city meetings with Sonja in the earliest days of YIMBYism.


pages: 350 words: 110,764

The Problem With Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries by Kathi Weeks

antiwork, basic income, call centre, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, deskilling, feminist movement, financial independence, Ford paid five dollars a day, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, glass ceiling, Kim Stanley Robinson, late capitalism, low-wage service sector, means of production, Meghnad Desai, moral panic, new economy, New Urbanism, occupational segregation, pink-collar, post-Fordism, post-work, postindustrial economy, profit maximization, Shoshana Zuboff, social intelligence, two tier labour market, union organizing, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, wages for housework, women in the workforce, work culture , zero-sum game

Certainly there are any number of demands for change worth exploring, proposals that could affect tangible improvements in the present conditions of work.21 The demand for a living wage is an obvious example; across the United States, campaigns for living-wage reform have mobilized impressive levels of political activity and achieved significant victories. I focus on the demands for basic income and shorter hours for two reasons. First, like the demand for living wages and others, they represent important remedies for some of the problems with the existing system of wages and hours. A guaranteed and universal basic income would enhance the bargaining position of all workers vis-à-vis employers and enable some people to opt out of waged work without the stigma and precariousness of means-tested welfare programs. A thirty-hour full-time work week without a decrease in pay would help to address some of the problems of both the underemployed and the overworked.


pages: 428 words: 103,544

The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics by Tim Harford

Abraham Wald, access to a mobile phone, Ada Lovelace, affirmative action, algorithmic bias, Automated Insights, banking crisis, basic income, behavioural economics, Black Lives Matter, Black Swan, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Cass Sunstein, Charles Babbage, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, contact tracing, coronavirus, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, David Attenborough, Diane Coyle, disinformation, Donald Trump, Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science, experimental subject, fake news, financial innovation, Florence Nightingale: pie chart, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, Hans Rosling, high-speed rail, income inequality, Isaac Newton, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, Kickstarter, life extension, meta-analysis, microcredit, Milgram experiment, moral panic, Netflix Prize, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, publication bias, publish or perish, random walk, randomized controlled trial, recommendation engine, replication crisis, Richard Feynman, Richard Thaler, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, sentiment analysis, Silicon Valley, sorting algorithm, sparse data, statistical model, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, survivorship bias, systematic bias, TED Talk, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, When a measure becomes a target

The experiment influenced actions as well as words: researchers found that people became less likely to give money to lobby groups or other organizations that supported the positions they had once favored.10 It’s a rather beautiful discovery: in a world where so many people seem to hold extreme views with strident certainty, you can deflate somebody’s overconfidence and moderate their politics simply by asking them to explain the details. Next time you’re in a politically heated argument, try asking your interlocutor not to justify herself, but simply to explain the policy in question. She wants to introduce a universal basic income, or a flat tax, or a points-based immigration system, or Medicare for all. OK, that’s interesting. So what exactly does she mean by that? She may learn something as she tries to explain. So may you. And you may both find that you understand a little less, and agree a little more, than you had assumed


Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement: Stories From the Frontline by Steven K. Kapp

Asperger Syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, basic income, book value, butterfly effect, cognitive dissonance, demand response, desegregation, disinformation, Donald Trump, epigenetics, feminist movement, glass ceiling, Internet Archive, Jeremy Corbyn, medical malpractice, meta-analysis, multilevel marketing, neurotypical, New Journalism, pattern recognition, phenotype, randomized controlled trial, selection bias, slashdot, theory of mind, twin studies, universal basic income, Wayback Machine

Inspired by the principles of other social justice movements, the neurodiversity movement recognizes intersectionality (how neurodivergent people’s disadvantages are compounded by other types of social oppression) beyond cross-disability solidarity, such as race (see Giwa Onaiwu, Chapter 18), 1 Introduction 5 gender including gender identity (see daVanport, Chapter 11), and class (such as the call by Woods [2017] for universal basic income). Like the far-reaching concept of diversity, the neurodiversity movement as applied to autism functions inclusively, in that activists include nonautistic people as allies, and it accepts and fights for the full developmental spectrum of autistic people (including those with intellectual disability and no or minimal language).


pages: 388 words: 111,099

Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics by Peter Geoghegan

4chan, Adam Curtis, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, American Legislative Exchange Council, anti-globalists, basic income, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Cambridge Analytica, centre right, corporate raider, crony capitalism, data science, deepfake, deindustrialization, demographic winter, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, East Village, Etonian, F. W. de Klerk, fake news, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frank Gehry, Greta Thunberg, invisible hand, James Dyson, Jeremy Corbyn, John Bercow, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, military-industrial complex, moral panic, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open borders, Overton Window, Paris climate accords, plutocrats, post-truth, post-war consensus, pre–internet, private military company, Renaissance Technologies, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, special economic zone, Steve Bannon, surveillance capitalism, tech billionaire, technoutopianism, Torches of Freedom, universal basic income, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler, éminence grise

A dramatic alternative to the dysfunctional status quo is suggested by the title of political commentator Paul Evans’s Swiftian provocation Save Democracy – Abolish Voting. Instead of trudging to polling stations every few years, Evans proposes putting the whole world of MPs, lobbyists, think tanks, even the civil service, under public ownership. Every voter would be given a “universal basic income for democracy” – Evans envisages £20 a month – that they can spend only on supporting different aspects of the political process. A fan of the IEA? Well, give them a tenner. Want to see reform of housing legislation? Put your money into a white paper on affordable rents. Politics would become a constant marketplace of ideas.


pages: 453 words: 117,893

What Would the Great Economists Do?: How Twelve Brilliant Minds Would Solve Today's Biggest Problems by Linda Yueh

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Asian financial crisis, augmented reality, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bike sharing, bitcoin, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, collective bargaining, computer age, Corn Laws, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, currency peg, dark matter, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, endogenous growth, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, export processing zone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear of failure, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, fixed income, forward guidance, full employment, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, index card, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, information asymmetry, intangible asset, invisible hand, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, lateral thinking, life extension, low interest rates, low-wage service sector, manufacturing employment, market bubble, means of production, middle-income trap, mittelstand, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, Nelson Mandela, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, price mechanism, price stability, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, rent control, rent-seeking, reserve currency, reshoring, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, secular stagnation, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, technological determinism, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working-age population

In his view: ‘One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.’11 He also argued for a negative income tax to replace the plethora of social security and welfare schemes and to guarantee a minimum income. This was first proposed in the 1950s, but became a serious policy prospect when in 1969 President Richard Nixon proposed the Family Assistance Program. It bears some resemblance to the universal basic income (UBI) now being debated, whereby the government gives a basic level of income to every citizen. Friedman’s concept of a negative income tax would return income to those earning below a threshold. It is somewhat more complex than UBI, but would still have been simpler than the welfare system at the time.


pages: 374 words: 113,126

The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today by Linda Yueh

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Asian financial crisis, augmented reality, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bike sharing, bitcoin, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, collective bargaining, computer age, Corn Laws, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, currency peg, dark matter, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, endogenous growth, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, export processing zone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear of failure, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, fixed income, forward guidance, full employment, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, index card, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, information asymmetry, intangible asset, invisible hand, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, lateral thinking, life extension, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, means of production, middle-income trap, mittelstand, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, Nelson Mandela, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, price mechanism, price stability, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, rent control, rent-seeking, reserve currency, reshoring, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, secular stagnation, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, technological determinism, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working-age population

In his view: ‘One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.’11 He also argued for a negative income tax to replace the plethora of social security and welfare schemes and to guarantee a minimum income. This was first proposed in the 1950s, but became a serious policy prospect when in 1969 President Richard Nixon proposed the Family Assistance Program. It bears some resemblance to the universal basic income (UBI) now being debated, whereby the government gives a basic level of income to every citizen. Friedman’s concept of a negative income tax would return income to those earning below a threshold. It is somewhat more complex than UBI, but would still have been simpler than the welfare system at the time.


pages: 446 words: 117,660

Arguing With Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future by Paul Krugman

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, antiwork, Asian financial crisis, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, bitcoin, blockchain, bond market vigilante , Bonfire of the Vanities, business cycle, capital asset pricing model, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, Climategate, cognitive dissonance, cryptocurrency, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, different worldview, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, employer provided health coverage, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fiat currency, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial repression, frictionless, frictionless market, fudge factor, full employment, green new deal, Growth in a Time of Debt, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, income inequality, index fund, indoor plumbing, invisible hand, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, job automation, John Snow's cholera map, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, large denomination, liquidity trap, London Whale, low interest rates, market bubble, market clearing, market fundamentalism, means of production, Modern Monetary Theory, New Urbanism, obamacare, oil shock, open borders, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, post-truth, price stability, public intellectual, quantitative easing, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, Seymour Hersh, stock buybacks, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the map is not the territory, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade liberalization, transaction costs, universal basic income, very high income, We are all Keynesians now, working-age population

But one thing that struck me was how many of the participants just assumed that robots are a big part of the problem—that machines are taking away the good jobs, or even jobs in general. For the most part this wasn’t even presented as a hypothesis, just as part of what everyone knows. And this assumption has real implications for policy discussion. For example, a lot of the agitation for a universal basic income comes from the belief that jobs will become ever scarcer as the robot apocalypse overtakes the economy. So it seems like a good idea to point out that in this case what everyone knows isn’t true. Predictions are hard, especially about the future, and maybe the robots really will come for all our jobs one of these days.


pages: 382 words: 114,537

On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane by Emily Guendelsberger

Adam Curtis, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Amazon Picking Challenge, autism spectrum disorder, basic income, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cognitive dissonance, company town, David Attenborough, death from overwork, deskilling, do what you love, Donald Trump, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, future of work, hive mind, housing crisis, independent contractor, Jeff Bezos, Jessica Bruder, job automation, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Jon Ronson, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kiva Systems, late capitalism, Lean Startup, market design, McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, McJob, Minecraft, Nicholas Carr, Nomadland, obamacare, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, pattern recognition, precariat, Richard Thaler, San Francisco homelessness, scientific management, Second Machine Age, security theater, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, speech recognition, TaskRabbit, tech worker, The Future of Employment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tony Hsieh, Toyota Production System, Travis Kalanick, union organizing, universal basic income, unpaid internship, Upton Sinclair, wage slave, working poor

Until we recognize this, name it, measure it, and talk about it, things aren’t going to get better. Because society is going to change a lot as Wanda develops that technology we can’t even imagine—particularly when it comes to what we think of as “work.” Silicon Valley and Wall Street sure know it—half of them are libertarians looking into universal basic income, the least libertarian idea possible, and the other half are building themselves luxury apocalypse bunkers. They’re well aware that there’s way more of us than there are of them, and that if something doesn’t change soon, everything’s going to explode. This isn’t sustainable. More important, it isn’t right.


Human Frontiers: The Future of Big Ideas in an Age of Small Thinking by Michael Bhaskar

"Margaret Hamilton" Apollo, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, AI winter, Albert Einstein, algorithmic trading, AlphaGo, Anthropocene, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, backpropagation, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Boeing 747, brain emulation, Brexit referendum, call centre, carbon tax, charter city, citizen journalism, Claude Shannon: information theory, Clayton Christensen, clean tech, clean water, cognitive load, Columbian Exchange, coronavirus, cosmic microwave background, COVID-19, creative destruction, CRISPR, crony capitalism, cyber-physical system, dark matter, David Graeber, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Demis Hassabis, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, deplatforming, discovery of penicillin, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Easter island, Edward Jenner, Edward Lorenz: Chaos theory, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, endogenous growth, energy security, energy transition, epigenetics, Eratosthenes, Ernest Rutherford, Eroom's law, fail fast, false flag, Fellow of the Royal Society, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, general purpose technology, germ theory of disease, glass ceiling, global pandemic, Goodhart's law, Google Glasses, Google X / Alphabet X, GPT-3, Haber-Bosch Process, hedonic treadmill, Herman Kahn, Higgs boson, hive mind, hype cycle, Hyperloop, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, Innovator's Dilemma, intangible asset, interchangeable parts, Internet of things, invention of agriculture, invention of the printing press, invention of the steam engine, invention of the telegraph, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, ITER tokamak, James Watt: steam engine, James Webb Space Telescope, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, job automation, Johannes Kepler, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Large Hadron Collider, liberation theology, lockdown, lone genius, loss aversion, Louis Pasteur, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, megacity, megastructure, Menlo Park, Minecraft, minimum viable product, mittelstand, Modern Monetary Theory, Mont Pelerin Society, Murray Gell-Mann, Mustafa Suleyman, natural language processing, Neal Stephenson, nuclear winter, nudge unit, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, OpenAI, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, PageRank, patent troll, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, post scarcity, post-truth, precautionary principle, public intellectual, publish or perish, purchasing power parity, quantum entanglement, Ray Kurzweil, remote working, rent-seeking, Republic of Letters, Richard Feynman, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Simon Kuznets, skunkworks, Slavoj Žižek, sovereign wealth fund, spinning jenny, statistical model, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Stuart Kauffman, synthetic biology, techlash, TED Talk, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Bayes, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, TikTok, total factor productivity, transcontinental railway, Two Sigma, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, When a measure becomes a target, X Prize, Y Combinator

Most radical policy proposals are decades old: nationalisation; privatisation; fiscal tweaking with tax rises and tax cuts. This paralysis means ‘new anxieties’ are faced with ‘old ideologies’.19 Some new ideas get through: nudge unit governance for example, or perhaps nascent concepts like Universal Basic Income or Modern Monetary Theory.20 But in general, despite progress, we lack ideas to solve questions as diverse and significant as loneliness, homelessness, social care, care of the elderly and child care.21 Even the most energised debates – about race, gender or the environment, for example – have their roots in the 1960s and earlier.


pages: 370 words: 112,809

The Equality Machine: Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future by Orly Lobel

2021 United States Capitol attack, 23andMe, Ada Lovelace, affirmative action, Airbnb, airport security, Albert Einstein, algorithmic bias, Amazon Mechanical Turk, augmented reality, barriers to entry, basic income, Big Tech, bioinformatics, Black Lives Matter, Boston Dynamics, Charles Babbage, choice architecture, computer vision, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, contact tracing, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, data science, David Attenborough, David Heinemeier Hansson, deep learning, deepfake, digital divide, digital map, Elon Musk, emotional labour, equal pay for equal work, feminist movement, Filter Bubble, game design, gender pay gap, George Floyd, gig economy, glass ceiling, global pandemic, Google Chrome, Grace Hopper, income inequality, index fund, information asymmetry, Internet of things, invisible hand, it's over 9,000, iterative process, job automation, Lao Tzu, large language model, lockdown, machine readable, machine translation, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, microaggression, Moneyball by Michael Lewis explains big data, natural language processing, Netflix Prize, Network effects, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, occupational segregation, old-boy network, OpenAI, openstreetmap, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, performance metric, personalized medicine, price discrimination, publish or perish, QR code, randomized controlled trial, remote working, risk tolerance, robot derives from the Czech word robota Czech, meaning slave, Ronald Coase, Salesforce, self-driving car, sharing economy, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, social distancing, social intelligence, speech recognition, statistical model, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, surveillance capitalism, tech worker, TechCrunch disrupt, The Future of Employment, TikTok, Turing test, universal basic income, Wall-E, warehouse automation, women in the workforce, work culture , you are the product

The gig economy has been the subject of much debate and has been a focus of my research in the past decade. There is no doubt that AI-driven automation will lead to certain job losses, further deepening income inequality. I have argued in my research that it is time to consider how tax, social welfare, universal basic income, and other fiscal transfer policies might have advantages in protecting the interests of many and tackling financial insecurity and income and wealth inequality, compared to traditional labor market wage and work conditions protections.33 Moreover, we need to understand the net effects of job displacement and job gains that inevitably happen as a result of technological innovation.


pages: 320 words: 87,853

The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information by Frank Pasquale

Adam Curtis, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, algorithmic trading, Amazon Mechanical Turk, American Legislative Exchange Council, asset-backed security, Atul Gawande, bank run, barriers to entry, basic income, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Black Swan, bonus culture, Brian Krebs, business cycle, business logic, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Chelsea Manning, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, computerized markets, corporate governance, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, Debian, digital rights, don't be evil, drone strike, Edward Snowden, en.wikipedia.org, Evgeny Morozov, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Filter Bubble, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial thriller, fixed income, Flash crash, folksonomy, full employment, Gabriella Coleman, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Google Earth, Hernando de Soto, High speed trading, hiring and firing, housing crisis, Ian Bogost, informal economy, information asymmetry, information retrieval, information security, interest rate swap, Internet of things, invisible hand, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Bogle, Julian Assange, Kevin Kelly, Kevin Roose, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, kremlinology, late fees, London Interbank Offered Rate, London Whale, machine readable, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Milken, mobile money, moral hazard, new economy, Nicholas Carr, offshore financial centre, PageRank, pattern recognition, Philip Mirowski, precariat, profit maximization, profit motive, public intellectual, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, reality distortion field, recommendation engine, regulatory arbitrage, risk-adjusted returns, Satyajit Das, Savings and loan crisis, search engine result page, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, social intelligence, Spread Networks laid a new fibre optics cable between New York and Chicago, statistical arbitrage, statistical model, Steven Levy, technological solutionism, the scientific method, too big to fail, transaction costs, two-sided market, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, value at risk, vertical integration, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler, zero-sum game

I know, the tired rhetorical dichotomy between good old-fashioned American capitalism and the evils of socialism will be wheeled out against this approach. But what’s more statist— a) DHS contractors busting down the doors of copyright infringers, b) an allseeing Google/YouTube/Facebook check-in system to report on what you’re watching, or c) a universal basic income that greatly reduces the need to deploy a or b? The specter of socialism becomes 206 THE BLACK BOX SOCIETY an ever more laughable distraction as the interpenetration of state and business in finance and law enforcement serves an ever narrower set of interests. On the Narrowing Divide between Government and Business The “free markets vs. state” battles that devour American political discourse refer to a duality that is increasingly more apparent than real.


pages: 497 words: 123,778

The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It by Yascha Mounk

Abraham Maslow, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, An Inconvenient Truth, Andrew Keen, basic income, battle of ideas, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carried interest, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, classic study, clean water, cognitive bias, conceptual framework, critical race theory, David Brooks, deindustrialization, demographic transition, desegregation, disinformation, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, gentrification, German hyperinflation, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Herbert Marcuse, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, income inequality, invention of the printing press, invention of the steam engine, investor state dispute settlement, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, Joseph Schumpeter, land value tax, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, microaggression, mortgage tax deduction, Naomi Klein, new economy, offshore financial centre, open borders, Parag Khanna, plutocrats, post-materialism, price stability, ride hailing / ride sharing, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Rutger Bregman, secular stagnation, sharing economy, Steve Bannon, Thomas L Friedman, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, World Values Survey, zero-sum game

See Karl Marx, “German Ideology,” in Karl Marx, Early Political Writings, ed. Joseph J. O’Malley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 132; and Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), especially p. 6. For a more recent take in a somewhat similar vein, see Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-hour Workweek (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2017). 14. As the 2018 World Inequality Report chronicles, there is a lot of variation in the degree to which different countries have allowed their citizens to share in the growth of the local economy. This, its authors conclude, suggests “the importance of institutional and policy frameworks” in determining outcomes from affluence to inequality.


pages: 578 words: 131,346

Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, Airbnb, Anton Chekhov, basic income, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, Broken windows theory, call centre, data science, David Graeber, domesticated silver fox, Donald Trump, Easter island, experimental subject, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Garrett Hardin, Hans Rosling, invention of writing, invisible hand, knowledge economy, late fees, Mahatma Gandhi, mass incarceration, meta-analysis, Milgram experiment, mirror neurons, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, nocebo, placebo effect, Rutger Bregman, scientific management, sharing economy, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, Stanford prison experiment, Stephen Fry, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, surveillance capitalism, TED Talk, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tragedy of the Commons, transatlantic slave trade, tulip mania, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, World Values Survey

The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (London, 2019). 42Damon Jones and Ioana Elena Marinescu, ‘The Labor Market Impacts of Universal and Permanent Cash Transfers: Evidence from the Alaska Permanent Fund’, NBER Working Paper (February 2018). 43I’ve also written about this study in North Carolina and about universal basic income elsewhere. See Utopia for Realists. And How We Can Get There (London, 2017), pp. 51–4. I now prefer the term ‘citizen’s dividend’ over ‘basic income’ to underscore that we’re talking about proceeds from communal property. 44Peter Barnes, With Liberty and Dividends For All. How To Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don’t Pay Enough (Oakland, 2014). 45Scott Goldsmith, ‘The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend: An Experiment in Wealth Distribution’, Basic Income European Network (September 2002), p. 7.


pages: 490 words: 153,455

Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe

Ada Lovelace, air traffic controllers' union, Amazon Mechanical Turk, antiwork, barriers to entry, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, Boris Johnson, call centre, capitalist realism, Charles Babbage, collective bargaining, coronavirus, COVID-19, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, dematerialisation, desegregation, deskilling, do what you love, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, emotional labour, feminist movement, Ferguson, Missouri, financial independence, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, future of work, gamification, gender pay gap, gentrification, George Floyd, gig economy, global pandemic, Grace Hopper, green new deal, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, immigration reform, informal economy, job automation, job satisfaction, job-hopping, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, late capitalism, lockdown, lone genius, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, mass incarceration, means of production, mini-job, minimum wage unemployment, move fast and break things, Naomi Klein, new economy, oil shock, Peter Thiel, post-Fordism, post-work, precariat, profit motive, Rana Plaza, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, school choice, Silicon Valley, social distancing, Steve Jobs, TaskRabbit, tech billionaire, tech worker, traumatic brain injury, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, unpaid internship, W. E. B. Du Bois, wages for housework, War on Poverty, WeWork, women in the workforce, work culture , workplace surveillance , Works Progress Administration

That is really nosy.’” But when she leads with her own story, she said, people understand it differently, and if they can work together on creative projects about their experience, then they can have a discussion about it. Malone has also started to think about solutions. She’s drawn to the idea of universal basic income—the opposite of the Orwellian-named Universal Credit, which is laden with catch-22s, traps, and sanctions and rooted in the old punitive Poor Laws. Basic income, as the mothers of the welfare rights movement argued, would provide a floor for everyone, allowing single parents to take time with their children, or artists to cobble together a living doing creative work.


pages: 492 words: 141,544

Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson

artificial general intelligence, basic income, blockchain, Brownian motion, correlation does not imply causation, cryptocurrency, deep learning, Deng Xiaoping, gig economy, Great Leap Forward, Hyperloop, illegal immigration, income inequality, invisible hand, Ken Thompson, Kim Stanley Robinson, low earth orbit, machine translation, Magellanic Cloud, megacity, Neil Armstrong, precariat, quantum entanglement, Schrödinger's Cat, seigniorage, strong AI, Turing machine, universal basic income, zero-sum game

At first this seemed strange, then they realized that only a day or less had passed since they had last paid attention. In the US, Congress had finished nationalizing the major banks, and the markets were in free fall. Currency controls had been slapped in place to keep dollars from fleeing to other countries or into cryptocurrencies. Demonstrators and some legislators were demanding a universal basic income, guaranteed healthcare, free education, and the right to work, all supported by progressive taxation on both income and capital assets. Supporters of this program were in the streets; opponents were calling it a catastrophic mutiny of the irresponsible half of the citizenry. Media had so much content to report there was hardly time to froth over it.


pages: 504 words: 143,303

Why We Can't Afford the Rich by Andrew Sayer

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Anthropocene, anti-globalists, asset-backed security, banking crisis, banks create money, basic income, biodiversity loss, bond market vigilante , Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Bullingdon Club, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, carbon tax, collective bargaining, corporate raider, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, decarbonisation, declining real wages, deglobalization, degrowth, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, demand response, don't be evil, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, en.wikipedia.org, Etonian, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, G4S, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, green new deal, high net worth, high-speed rail, income inequality, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), investor state dispute settlement, Isaac Newton, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", James Dyson, job automation, Julian Assange, junk bonds, Kickstarter, labour market flexibility, laissez-faire capitalism, land bank, land value tax, long term incentive plan, low skilled workers, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, neoliberal agenda, new economy, New Urbanism, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, patent troll, payday loans, Philip Mirowski, plutocrats, popular capitalism, predatory finance, price stability, proprietary trading, pushing on a string, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, retail therapy, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, short selling, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, tacit knowledge, TED Talk, The Nature of the Firm, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, transfer pricing, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, unpaid internship, upwardly mobile, Washington Consensus, wealth creators, WikiLeaks, Winter of Discontent, working poor, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

It is ridiculous to encroach on precious rural land to build houses and shops while this is the case. Most of all, there is much work to be done to build a green economy. The restoration and improvement of the welfare state for everyone would be a big step towards a humane economy and society. As equality increased it might be possible to build support for a universal basic income to replace most specialised benefits, providing both security and a simplified welfare system. It will no doubt take a long time to reduce the unequal division of labour, given how deeply embedded it has come to be in our societies. But two things should help. First, democratising ownership and control of enterprises is likely to make it more probable that they would share out good and bad tasks more equally.


pages: 590 words: 152,595

Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War by Paul Scharre

"World Economic Forum" Davos, active measures, Air France Flight 447, air gap, algorithmic trading, AlphaGo, Apollo 13, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, automated trading system, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, brain emulation, Brian Krebs, cognitive bias, computer vision, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, DARPA: Urban Challenge, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, DevOps, Dr. Strangelove, drone strike, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, facts on the ground, fail fast, fault tolerance, Flash crash, Freestyle chess, friendly fire, Herman Kahn, IFF: identification friend or foe, ImageNet competition, information security, Internet of things, Jeff Hawkins, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Markoff, Kevin Kelly, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Loebner Prize, loose coupling, Mark Zuckerberg, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, move 37, mutually assured destruction, Nate Silver, Nick Bostrom, PalmPilot, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, Rodney Brooks, Rubik’s Cube, self-driving car, sensor fusion, South China Sea, speech recognition, Stanislav Petrov, Stephen Hawking, Steve Ballmer, Steve Wozniak, Strategic Defense Initiative, Stuxnet, superintelligent machines, Tesla Model S, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, theory of mind, Turing test, Tyler Cowen, universal basic income, Valery Gerasimov, Wall-E, warehouse robotics, William Langewiesche, Y2K, zero day

On the Columbia accident, see National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Volume 1,” August 2003, http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/sts-107/investigation/CAIB_medres_full.pdf. 154 “never been encountered before”: Matt Burgess, “Elon Musk Confirms SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Explosion Was Caused by ‘Frozen Oxygen,’ ” WIRED, November 8, 2016, http://www.wired.co.uk/article/elon-musk-universal-basic-income-falcon-9-explosion. “Musk: SpaceX Explosion Toughest Puzzle We’ve Ever Had to Solve,” CNBC, video accessed June 7, 2017, http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000565513. 154 Fukushima Daiichi: Phillip Y. Lipscy, Kenji E. Kushida, and Trevor Incerti, “The Fukushima Disaster and Japan’s Nuclear Plant Vulnerability in Comparative Perspective,” Environmental Science and Technology 47 (2013), http://web.stanford.edu/~plipscy/LipscyKushidaIncertiEST2013.pdf. 156 “A significant message for the”: William Kennedy, interview, December 8, 2015. 156 “almost never occur individually”: Ibid. 156 “The automated systems”: Ibid. 156 “Both sides have strengths and weaknesses”: Ibid. 156 F-16 fighter aircraft: Guy Norris, “Ground Collision Avoidance System ‘Saves’ First F-16 In Syria,” February 5, 2015, http://aviationweek.com/defense/ground-collision-avoidance-system-saves-first-f-16-syria. 156 software-based limits on its flight controls: Dan Canin, “Semper Lightning: F-35 Flight Control System,” Code One, December 9, 2015, http://www.codeonemagazine.com/f35_article.html?


pages: 499 words: 144,278

Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World by Clive Thompson

"Margaret Hamilton" Apollo, "Susan Fowler" uber, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, 4chan, 8-hour work day, Aaron Swartz, Ada Lovelace, AI winter, air gap, Airbnb, algorithmic bias, AlphaGo, Amazon Web Services, Andy Rubin, Asperger Syndrome, augmented reality, Ayatollah Khomeini, backpropagation, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, blockchain, blue-collar work, Brewster Kahle, Brian Krebs, Broken windows theory, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, cellular automata, Charles Babbage, Chelsea Manning, Citizen Lab, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, computer vision, Conway's Game of Life, crisis actor, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, Danny Hillis, data science, David Heinemeier Hansson, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, disinformation, don't be evil, don't repeat yourself, Donald Trump, driverless car, dumpster diving, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ernest Rutherford, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, fake news, false flag, Firefox, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Free Software Foundation, Gabriella Coleman, game design, Geoffrey Hinton, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Google Hangouts, Google X / Alphabet X, Grace Hopper, growth hacking, Guido van Rossum, Hacker Ethic, hockey-stick growth, HyperCard, Ian Bogost, illegal immigration, ImageNet competition, information security, Internet Archive, Internet of things, Jane Jacobs, John Markoff, Jony Ive, Julian Assange, Ken Thompson, Kickstarter, Larry Wall, lone genius, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Shuttleworth, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, Menlo Park, meritocracy, microdosing, microservices, Minecraft, move 37, move fast and break things, Nate Silver, Network effects, neurotypical, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, no silver bullet, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, OpenAI, operational security, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, PageRank, PalmPilot, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, paypal mafia, Peter Thiel, pink-collar, planetary scale, profit motive, ransomware, recommendation engine, Richard Stallman, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rubik’s Cube, Ruby on Rails, Sam Altman, Satoshi Nakamoto, Saturday Night Live, scientific management, self-driving car, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, single-payer health, Skype, smart contracts, Snapchat, social software, software is eating the world, sorting algorithm, South of Market, San Francisco, speech recognition, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, tech worker, techlash, TED Talk, the High Line, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban planning, Wall-E, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, WeWork, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Y Combinator, Zimmermann PGP, éminence grise

Nonetheless, tech founders fundamentally believe that talent and merit and innovation—as they define it, anyway—shouldn’t be restrained a whit. So they square that circle by supporting redistributive policies that attempt to make madcap disruption vaguely survivable. Hence the approval of universal health care—or even universal basic income, something that’s a warmly approved talking point at tech conferences. They’re happy to share some of the wealth via taxation but want to ensure nothing stops them in their process of how they amass their wealth. They believe that, fundamentally, they know what’s best for society: Their view is “trust us,” as the philosopher and technologist Ian Bogost says.


Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To by David A. Sinclair, Matthew D. Laplante

Albert Einstein, Albert Michelson, Anthropocene, anti-communist, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, Atul Gawande, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, biofilm, Biosphere 2, blockchain, British Empire, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, carbon footprint, Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon: information theory, clean water, creative destruction, CRISPR, dark matter, dematerialisation, discovery of DNA, double helix, Drosophila, Easter island, Edward Jenner, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, experimental subject, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Fellow of the Royal Society, global pandemic, Grace Hopper, helicopter parent, income inequality, invention of the telephone, Isaac Newton, John Snow's cholera map, Kevin Kelly, Khan Academy, labor-force participation, life extension, Louis Pasteur, McMansion, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, microbiome, mouse model, mutually assured destruction, Paul Samuelson, personalized medicine, phenotype, Philippa Foot, placebo effect, plutocrats, power law, quantum entanglement, randomized controlled trial, Richard Feynman, ride hailing / ride sharing, self-driving car, seminal paper, Skype, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, TED Talk, the scientific method, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, Tim Cook: Apple, Tragedy of the Commons, trolley problem, union organizing, universal basic income, WeWork, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

Skillbaticals, which might take the shape of a government-supported paid year off for every ten worked, might ultimately become cultural and even legal requisites, just as many of the labor innovations of the twentieth century have. In this way, those who are tired of “working harder” would be afforded every opportunity to “work smarter” by returning to school or a vocational training program paid for by employers or the government, a variation of the universal basic income that is being discussed in the United States and some countries in Europe. Meanwhile, those who believe they are happy and secure in their careers can enjoy what has come to be known as “a miniretirement”—a year off to travel, learn a language or musical instrument, volunteer, or refresh and reconsider the ways in which they are spending their lives.


pages: 622 words: 169,014

Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee

Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, basic income, Claude Shannon: information theory, computer age, Doomsday Clock, Elon Musk, experimental subject, Ford paid five dollars a day, heat death of the universe, lone genius, Neil Armstrong, Norbert Wiener, Norman Mailer, planetary scale, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Strategic Defense Initiative, the map is not the territory, the scientific method, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair

Wells, had used fiction to advance their ideas, and just as Campbell had used the genre to indulge in his fantasy of being a great inventor, Heinlein saw it as a vehicle for the political convictions that he had been unable to put into practice. Heinlein decided to structure For Us, the Living around his interest in a proposal for a universal basic income, and he worked on it diligently until Christmas. After Leslyn returned from the hospital, he asked for her advice, searching “for plot twists and climaxes” as they sat together in the kitchen. In the end, it wasn’t very good. Heinlein saw it less as a human story than as an excuse for long discussions of monetary theory, and it showed—but there were also scattered signs of promise, along with elements of a future history that he would continue to mine for decades.


Termites of the State: Why Complexity Leads to Inequality by Vito Tanzi

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, Andrew Keen, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, bitcoin, Black Swan, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, clean water, crony capitalism, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, experimental economics, financial engineering, financial repression, full employment, George Akerlof, Gini coefficient, Gunnar Myrdal, high net worth, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, income inequality, indoor plumbing, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jean Tirole, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, libertarian paternalism, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market fundamentalism, means of production, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, New Urbanism, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open economy, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, pushing on a string, quantitative easing, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, synthetic biology, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, transaction costs, transfer pricing, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, urban planning, very high income, Vilfredo Pareto, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce

Moss, David A., 2002, When All Else Fails: Government as the Ultimate Risk Manager (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Mueller, Dennis C., 1993, Public Choice II, Several Editions (Cambridge, UK and New Haven: Cambridge University Press). Murray, Charles, 2016, Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream (New York, NY: Public Affairs). Musgrave, Richard, 1959, The Theory of Public Finance (New York: McGraw-Hill). 1969, Fiscal Systems (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press). Musgrave, Richard and Alan Peacock, 1958, editors, Classics in the Theory of Public Finance, International Economic Association, (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.).


pages: 782 words: 187,875

Big Debt Crises by Ray Dalio

Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, break the buck, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, buy the rumour, sell the news, capital controls, central bank independence, collateralized debt obligation, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, currency risk, declining real wages, equity risk premium, European colonialism, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial innovation, foreign exchange controls, German hyperinflation, global macro, housing crisis, implied volatility, intangible asset, it's over 9,000, junk bonds, Kickstarter, land bank, large denomination, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, margin call, market bubble, market fundamentalism, military-industrial complex, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Northern Rock, Ponzi scheme, price stability, private sector deleveraging, purchasing power parity, pushing on a string, quantitative easing, refrigerator car, reserve currency, risk free rate, Savings and loan crisis, short selling, short squeeze, sovereign wealth fund, subprime mortgage crisis, too big to fail, transaction costs, universal basic income, uptick rule, value at risk, yield curve

How that money is directed could take different forms—the basic variants are either to direct the same amount to everyone or aim for some degree of helping one or more groups over others (e.g., giving money to the poor rather than to the rich). The money can be provided as a one-off or over time (perhaps as a universal basic income). All of these variants can be paired with an incentive to spend it—such as the money disappearing if it’s not spent within a year. The money could also be directed to specific investment accounts (like retirement, education, or accounts earmarked for small-business investments) targeted toward socially desirable spending/investment.


pages: 583 words: 182,990

The Ministry for the Future: A Novel by Kim Stanley Robinson

"World Economic Forum" Davos, agricultural Revolution, airport security, Anthropocene, availability heuristic, basic income, bitcoin, blockchain, Bretton Woods, cakes and ale, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, clean water, cryptocurrency, dark matter, decarbonisation, degrowth, distributed ledger, drone strike, European colonialism, failed state, fiat currency, Food sovereignty, full employment, Gini coefficient, global village, green new deal, happiness index / gross national happiness, High speed trading, high-speed rail, income per capita, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, Jevons paradox, Kim Stanley Robinson, land reform, liberation theology, liquidity trap, Mahbub ul Haq, megacity, megastructure, Modern Monetary Theory, mutually assured destruction, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, off grid, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, place-making, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, post-oil, precariat, price stability, public intellectual, quantitative easing, rewilding, RFID, Robert Solow, seigniorage, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, special economic zone, structural adjustment programs, synthetic biology, time value of money, Tragedy of the Commons, universal basic income, wage slave, Washington Consensus

So this was the financial and the carbon situation, what Mary thought of as the two macro signals, the global indexes that mattered. And at the meso- and micro-levels, the good projects that were being undertaken were so numerous they couldn’t be assembled into a single list, although they tried. Regenerative ag, landscape restoration, wildlife stewardship, Mondragón-style co-ops, garden cities, universal basic income and services, job guarantees, refugee release and repatriation, climate justice and equity actions, first people support, all these tended to be regional or localized, but they were happening everywhere, and more than ever before. It was time to gather the world and let them see it. Sick at heart, she was going to declare victory.


pages: 775 words: 208,604

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality From the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century by Walter Scheidel

agricultural Revolution, assortative mating, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, classic study, collective bargaining, colonial rule, Columbian Exchange, conceptual framework, confounding variable, corporate governance, cosmological principle, CRISPR, crony capitalism, dark matter, declining real wages, democratizing finance, demographic transition, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Downton Abbey, Edward Glaeser, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, fixed income, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, income inequality, John Markoff, knowledge worker, land reform, land tenure, low skilled workers, means of production, mega-rich, Network effects, nuclear winter, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, race to the bottom, recommendation engine, rent control, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, Simon Kuznets, synthetic biology, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, universal basic income, very high income, working-age population, zero-sum game

Numerous and often ambitious measures add up to a comprehensive reform package: the public sector should seek to influence technological change by “encouraging innovation that increases the employability of workers”; legislators should strive to “reduce market power in consumer markets” and revive the bargaining power of organized labor; firms should share profits with workers in ways that “reflect ethical principles” or be barred from supplying public bodies; the top income tax rate should rise to 65 percent, income from capital should be taxed more aggressively than earnings from labor, taxes on estates and gifts should inter vivos be tightened, and property taxes should be set based on up-to-date assessments; national savings bonds should guarantee a “positive (and possibly subsidized) real rate of interest on savings” up to a personal cap; a statutory minimum wage should be “set at a living wage”; every citizen should receive a capital endowment upon reaching maturity or a later date; and “the government should offer guaranteed employment at the living wage to everyone who seeks it” (which Atkinson himself concedes “may seem outlandish”). Possible add-ons include an annual wealth tax and a “global tax regime for personal taxpayers, based on total wealth.” In addition, the European Union should be persuaded to introduce “universal basic income for children” as a taxable benefit indexed to median national income. In his extended discussion of whether this could actually be accomplished, Atkinson focuses on the costs to the economy (which remain unclear); the countervailing pressures of globalization, which he hopes to counter through European or global policy coordination; and fiscal affordability.


pages: 976 words: 235,576

The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite by Daniel Markovits

8-hour work day, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, affirmative action, algorithmic management, Amazon Robotics, Anton Chekhov, asset-backed security, assortative mating, basic income, Bernie Sanders, big-box store, business cycle, capital asset pricing model, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carl Icahn, carried interest, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, compensation consultant, computer age, corporate governance, corporate raider, crony capitalism, David Brooks, deskilling, Detroit bankruptcy, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, Emanuel Derman, equity premium, European colonialism, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, fear of failure, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, fixed income, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, gender pay gap, gentrification, George Akerlof, Gini coefficient, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, Greenspan put, helicopter parent, Herbert Marcuse, high net worth, hiring and firing, income inequality, industrial robot, interchangeable parts, invention of agriculture, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, junk bonds, Kevin Roose, Kiva Systems, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, labor-force participation, Larry Ellison, longitudinal study, low interest rates, low skilled workers, machine readable, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, mass incarceration, medical residency, meritocracy, minimum wage unemployment, Myron Scholes, Nate Silver, New Economic Geography, new economy, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, plutocrats, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, precariat, purchasing power parity, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, savings glut, school choice, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, six sigma, Skype, stakhanovite, stem cell, Stephen Fry, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, supply-chain management, telemarketer, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thomas Davenport, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, total factor productivity, transaction costs, traveling salesman, universal basic income, unpaid internship, Vanguard fund, War on Poverty, warehouse robotics, Winter of Discontent, women in the workforce, work culture , working poor, Yochai Benkler, young professional, zero-sum game

“Some people flame out”: Hochschild, The Time Bind, 56. An unhappy, even disconsolate: See, e.g., Brigid Schulte, Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014). Roughly two-thirds: Hewlett and Luce, “Extreme Jobs.” “Vietnam moment”: See John Thornhill, “A Universal Basic Income Is an Old Idea with Modern Appeal,” Financial Times, March 14, 2016, accessed July 18, 2018, www.ft.com/content/a9758f1a-e9c0-11e5-888e-2eadd5fbc4a4. Does anyone actually want it?: Larry Kramer, “From the Dean,” Stanford Lawyer 77 (Fall 2007), accessed July 18, 2018, https://law.stanford.edu/stanford-lawyer/articles/from-the-dean-15/.


pages: 869 words: 239,167

The Story of Work: A New History of Humankind by Jan Lucassen

3D printing, 8-hour work day, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, anti-work, antiwork, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, basic income, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Charles Babbage, collective bargaining, Columbian Exchange, commoditize, computer age, coronavirus, COVID-19, demographic transition, deskilling, discovery of the americas, domestication of the camel, Easter island, European colonialism, factory automation, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fixed income, Ford Model T, founder crops, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, future of work, Great Leap Forward, hiring and firing, income inequality, income per capita, informal economy, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, joint-stock company, knowledge economy, labour mobility, land tenure, long peace, mass immigration, means of production, megastructure, minimum wage unemployment, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, new economy, New Urbanism, out of africa, pension reform, phenotype, post-work, precariat, price stability, public intellectual, reshoring, scientific management, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, stakhanovite, tacit knowledge, Thales of Miletus, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, two and twenty, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, women in the workforce, working poor

This type of assistance is, after all, ‘means-tested’, and this type of testing (increasingly digital) can be far-reaching and undermine autonomy within domestic relations. We find proponents not only, predictably, among the political left (think of the Programa Bolsa Família, introduced in 2003 by Brazil’s President Lula) but also among ideologically right-wing economists and politicians, who are sometimes pro forms of redistribution via a (Universal) Basic Income. The most famous example is the intellectual champion of the free market, Milton Friedman, who had already started developing his proposal for a Negative Income Tax in the Second World War.17 For him, the difference between both approaches lies in the level of contribution, and most of all in the implementation of government control.


pages: 903 words: 235,753

The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty by Benjamin H. Bratton

1960s counterculture, 3D printing, 4chan, Ada Lovelace, Adam Curtis, additive manufacturing, airport security, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, algorithmic trading, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Robotics, Amazon Web Services, Andy Rubin, Anthropocene, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL), Berlin Wall, bioinformatics, Biosphere 2, bitcoin, blockchain, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, call centre, capitalist realism, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, carbon-based life, Cass Sunstein, Celebration, Florida, Charles Babbage, charter city, clean water, cloud computing, company town, congestion pricing, connected car, Conway's law, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, dark matter, David Graeber, deglobalization, dematerialisation, digital capitalism, digital divide, disintermediation, distributed generation, don't be evil, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Eratosthenes, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Evgeny Morozov, facts on the ground, Flash crash, Frank Gehry, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, functional programming, future of work, Georg Cantor, gig economy, global supply chain, Google Earth, Google Glasses, Guggenheim Bilbao, High speed trading, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, Ian Bogost, illegal immigration, industrial robot, information retrieval, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), intermodal, Internet of things, invisible hand, Jacob Appelbaum, James Bridle, Jaron Lanier, Joan Didion, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Joi Ito, Jony Ive, Julian Assange, Khan Academy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kiva Systems, Laura Poitras, liberal capitalism, lifelogging, linked data, lolcat, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, Masdar, McMansion, means of production, megacity, megaproject, megastructure, Menlo Park, Minecraft, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Monroe Doctrine, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, new economy, Nick Bostrom, ocean acidification, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, Oklahoma City bombing, OSI model, packet switching, PageRank, pattern recognition, peak oil, peer-to-peer, performance metric, personalized medicine, Peter Eisenman, Peter Thiel, phenotype, Philip Mirowski, Pierre-Simon Laplace, place-making, planetary scale, pneumatic tube, post-Fordism, precautionary principle, RAND corporation, recommendation engine, reserve currency, rewilding, RFID, Robert Bork, Sand Hill Road, scientific management, self-driving car, semantic web, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, skeuomorphism, Slavoj Žižek, smart cities, smart grid, smart meter, Snow Crash, social graph, software studies, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spectrum auction, Startup school, statistical arbitrage, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, Stuxnet, Superbowl ad, supply-chain management, supply-chain management software, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, technological determinism, TED Talk, the built environment, The Chicago School, the long tail, the scientific method, Torches of Freedom, transaction costs, Turing complete, Turing machine, Turing test, undersea cable, universal basic income, urban planning, Vernor Vinge, vertical integration, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, Washington Consensus, web application, Westphalian system, WikiLeaks, working poor, Y Combinator, yottabyte

Robert MacBride, The Automated State: Computer Systems as a New Force in Society (Philadelphia: Chilton Book, 1967); Stanislaw Lem, Summa Technologica (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013; originally published 1964); and Thomas Wells, “The Robot Economy and the Crisis of Capitalism: Why We Need Universal Basic Income,” ABC Religion and Ethics (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), July 17, 2014, http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/07/17/4048180.htm. 49.  Srnicek and Williams’ book Inventing the Future would hold one end of this spectrum, while Evgeny Morozov's “The Planning Machine” would fix the other.