I find this piece persuasive but was hoping for more specifics about how we might shore up unemployment insurance. Should we dramatically extend how long unemployed workers can take UI, for example?
It also didn’t address the possibility that AI completely replaces human labor eventually.
"But the disruptions didn’t cause us to ban factories, and here we are, two centuries later: richer and more fully employed than ever. (I feel sure I am much happier as an economist pontificating on the internet than I would have been as a weaver.)"
I feel like this is yada-yada'ing tectonic upheavals in social systems across europe/america and decades of labor rights movements, some of which resulted in actual revolutions happening in some countries.
This is a great reminder of the virtues of our UI system, and of the importance of having a good UI system in a healthy society. Credit to socialists within the Democratic party way back when, for establishing this in a number of states during the early 1930s, and to our great socialist former president, FDR, and the socialist Democrats in Congress at the time, for codifying it nationally shortly thereafter.
We absolutely need this, and we need it to work well. I totally agree with this essay.
However, there's no reason not to *also* adopt a universal basic income, in addition to UI. Saudi Arabia, of all places, has had such a system in place for decades. Saudi citizens earn a substantial share of their nation's oil revenues. The amount was something like $40,000 per person, per year while I was there during the early 2000s. I'd have to look up how that has changed to mention anything about how it is now — but here I'd just like to note how well it worked for them 20 years ago. It absolutely revolutionized the quality of their lives, and is something all wealthy nations should consider, in my opinion.
UBI should work by replacing the remaining manual labor government jobs with mandatory 10 hrs of community service per week and a reduction of full time benefit qualifications to an additional 20 hrs.
The biggest danger is our work becomes a place to inefficiently hang out where extroverts are having a blast and introverts want to die.
I find this piece persuasive but was hoping for more specifics about how we might shore up unemployment insurance. Should we dramatically extend how long unemployed workers can take UI, for example?
It also didn’t address the possibility that AI completely replaces human labor eventually.
💯 This calls for a follow-up, for sure.
"But the disruptions didn’t cause us to ban factories, and here we are, two centuries later: richer and more fully employed than ever. (I feel sure I am much happier as an economist pontificating on the internet than I would have been as a weaver.)"
I feel like this is yada-yada'ing tectonic upheavals in social systems across europe/america and decades of labor rights movements, some of which resulted in actual revolutions happening in some countries.
This is a great reminder of the virtues of our UI system, and of the importance of having a good UI system in a healthy society. Credit to socialists within the Democratic party way back when, for establishing this in a number of states during the early 1930s, and to our great socialist former president, FDR, and the socialist Democrats in Congress at the time, for codifying it nationally shortly thereafter.
We absolutely need this, and we need it to work well. I totally agree with this essay.
However, there's no reason not to *also* adopt a universal basic income, in addition to UI. Saudi Arabia, of all places, has had such a system in place for decades. Saudi citizens earn a substantial share of their nation's oil revenues. The amount was something like $40,000 per person, per year while I was there during the early 2000s. I'd have to look up how that has changed to mention anything about how it is now — but here I'd just like to note how well it worked for them 20 years ago. It absolutely revolutionized the quality of their lives, and is something all wealthy nations should consider, in my opinion.
UBI should work by replacing the remaining manual labor government jobs with mandatory 10 hrs of community service per week and a reduction of full time benefit qualifications to an additional 20 hrs.
The biggest danger is our work becomes a place to inefficiently hang out where extroverts are having a blast and introverts want to die.