Almost all professions are confronted with robots and computers
It is a fact that a large number of professions will disappear in the future. Not only the simple jobs – also the highly qualified ones! Computers have become so smart that they are a real competition even for academics.
Thanks to machine learning, computers today are able to read and write texts. If a program has read enough articles, it can write them independently.
People will have much free time and little money in the future
That is why the unconditional basic income is the only possible answer of politics to the automation of the economy
For many people this possibility sounds fantastic and not realizable. But why? If one considers this against the background of automation, it is the only way to avoid an economic disaster.
The economy lives on demand – if nobody buys, even the most beautiful automation is useless
People who have no money don’t buy anything – if nobody buys anything, the factories and productions come to a standstill. The unconditional basic income creates the stable demand that the economy needs.
This has nothing to do with socialism
On the contrary – the economist Friedrich Hayek, who is considered to be conservative, developed the idea of an unconditional basic income and this has nothing to do with socialism.
Hayek saw a basic income as the best way to keep the costs of a welfare state low. No bloated authorities controlling the distribution of money. But social security for all and stable demand for the economy. In addition – according to his thesis – income security would motivate many people to become active. Their motivation could lead them to become self-employed as entrepreneurs.
Who wouldn’t want that? – Enjoy his work?
Paradoxically, it is difficult to get people excited about the idea of a basic income. Most of you are afraid that you will have to pay a large part of your salary for others, who then lounge around. I maintain that these people have not understood that their work could also be in danger. Education today is no longer a guarantee for a good order situation.
Enthusiasm, joy, freedom
The freedom of man does not lie in the fact that he can do what he wants, but that he does not have to do what he does not want to do. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
Enthusiasm as a guarantee for tasks
Wherever people do something with sincere enthusiasm, they are ready to continue learning. And that is exactly what will make them different from the machines’ capabilities. Machines only learn – people can be inspired by them.
It must be cleared up!
People must understand that the unconditional basic income secures work, not endangers it.
Concerns about financing are not justified, economists largely agree. The welfare state would merely be restructured – a renovation towards more justice.
“In any case, this would result in a very sharp drop in social security spending. In the medium term, such pooling of social benefits would allow savings in administrative expenditure” (Malte Jahn)
Are there alternatives to the renovation of the welfare state?
No! Except to stop technical progress. Just as the machine wreckers planned during the first Industrial Revolution when they destroyed looms. But it is precisely from this experience that we know Progress cannot be stopped.
Even more education does not provide the opportunity to defy automation. Companies will use artificial intelligence and robots. It will be difficult to tell entrepreneurs how they want to organise their business in the future.
Therefore, a basic income is the only way in the long term to cushion the effects of automation on our economy.
We should accept the challenge!
Let us begin to renovate our welfare state and accept the challenge, I demand.
This would have another advantage: many people would then have time to deal with the things that are close to their hearts. This ensures satisfaction. Many satisfied people make the world a better place.
And we need time. Also to think about how we want to shape the future. Where is our journey going – how do we want to live? With an artificial intelligence in the middle of our digital society?
It’s time to talk about it.
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