A Radical Solution to an Enormous Challenge
How many “millions of new jobs” will it take to solve the problem of all the jobs that are being lost to robots and mechanization? Nowhere near enough.
How about some radical solutions? Like a basic income guarantee so everyone gets enough to live? It has been on the ballot in Switzerland, and Finland has just initiated a pilot program. So it’s not wild-eyed liberalism but a responsible way to fix the world in a more fundamental way than any other proposal.
“Marriage equality, marijuana legalization — those movements weren’t about tinkering with the system. They had big, bold demands. Basic income is a big, bold demand.”
– Dan O’Sullivan, Community Organizer,
Co-Founder of Basic Income Action
See the case made for a BIG in a SUE Speaks program I produced in 2014. A World Without Work dealt with the issue of not enough jobs no matter what we do, where the Basic Income Guarantee would be the solution.
The Atlantic used the same title, A World Without Work, in a lengthy piece in 2015, which was picked up by Fareed Zacaria on CNN.
What follows is a growing collection of pieces on the subject. Go ahead and send us links that belong here, or add your own thoughts in the comments section below.
Willem Buiter, Chief Economist for Citibank, has called for a Basic Income Guarantee.
Finland, where unemployment is growing, will experiment with a BIG, and the media is watching, at Vox and at Futurism.
Basic Income Action launched a petition to “All Candidates for President of the United States.”
Switzerland voted down BIG in a national refrendum, the first time the concept has been voted on nationally, but there are many other studies underway.
Professor Richard Gilbert, of Loyola Marymount University, considered how technology will change the world of work in this 2014 Sue Speaks presentation.
Bernie Sanders has spoken about the BIG idea, but didn’t give it much of a profile during his 2016 campaign.