| This is more of a historical survey of the idea UBI than a mediation on why it's good/bad thing. I get the arguments he makes from the perspective of the revolutionary Left. They are, however, not interesting or really acknowledging the role that robotics/computer vision/etc will play in the future. It's not really his fault though. Rather, I think many people are just ignorant of the profound impact that this kind of technology is going to have, simply because their direct exposure to it is so minimal. As someone that has had experience in the rev. Left for some years and saw developments with robotics in research at a well-regarded school as a grad student, I feel like I have some perspective on this article. What I saw in school really made me change my mind and re-evaluate how the future will play out. Things are going to change and the genie, so to speak is out of the bottle and there's no putting it back in. But as pretty much all most socio-enviro-economic problems, the impediments we collectively face generally aren't technological as much as they are political, and that's where the activist focus needs to be. But I digress. Mr. Phillips, doesn't seem to get that the technology isn't ready to displace humans from all work. The real threat (which is a threat until further notice) is that robotic technology is now "good enough" to do the kind of work that was just out of reach of automation in the past. It is not inconceivable to think robots will be able to perform the tasks of human garment workers soon. The gap between robots and semi-skilled labor are disappearing every year. The idea for calling for a stronger labor movement as a solution is frankly laughable. It isn't going to happen any time soon and the economic conditions (what Marxists would colloquially refer to as "super-profitability") that created things like a labor aristocracy (another term) and social democracy no longer exist. How does one recreate a strong labor movement when the industries that were unionized are structurally hollowed out by no-pay robotic "labor" (which isn't labor in the Marxist sense either)? I'd love to hear a non hand wavy answer (seriously!). UBI is actually a strong step on the road to the Marxist idea of communism (ironically enough) in that it does something special: it decouples the idea of compensation from labor, which is one of the long term goals of a society transforming from capitalism to a stateless, classless society. Lenin had a term for this too, which was "bourgeois right". Anyway, my 2 cents. |
Seems like a labour movement is a means, not an end. So I wouldn't be too sad, if you need other means.
Perhaps the left should pick up Georgism (again)? See http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-val... for an introduction.