A philosophical basis for a guaranteed annual income may have to await an
appropriate context for it to emerge. I suspect that the time is now past
when economic/political theory could be conceived without the explicit
incorporation of its technological context.
The following scenario was written _26 years ago_ whilst I was trying to
get a handle on the impact of an information economy. It is NOT intended as
a prediction and, indeed, the case may be made that, contrary to the
scenario, automation/cybernation may create work by increasing
opportunities for human interaction, invention and innovation (hmmm ...
could that be a philosophical basis for a GAI?):
There follows an attempt to trace through some of the implications
of automation:
Machines invented. Give greater quality control and higher rate of
production. But costly.
Labour rates rise. Labour strife and absenteeism increase. It
becomes cheaper to automate.
Automation installed in factory. Labour laid off. Some absorbed
locally. Some retrained. Some migrate. Some retire. Welfare rolls
increased.
Work hours decrease. Vacation length increases. Education level rises.
Computer invented. Cybernated data processing and decision-making
introduced.
Lay-off of clerks and middle management.
Rising affluence of employed and rising population reaches
threshold of a variety of service activities which soaks up some
unemployment.
Development of artificial intelligence and information systems
reduces labor requirement in service-oriented activities.
Unemployment reaches into higher education groups.
Work hours further decrease. Vacations longer. Business sabbatical leaves
become common. Work-sharing schemes introduced.
Unemployment insurance payments rise. Welfare payments rise.
Business taxes increase to offset tax loss resulting from unemployment.
Taxes of high income employed also increase.
Government transfers tax funds to unemployed thus enabling them to
purchase automated production. The non-productive defence forces and
industries also serve as an alternative mode of dispensing welfare
payments, and provide an aura of gainful employment. But these activities,
too, become automated! Further, a decline in the popularity of warfare
results in a cutback in defence production. More unemployment.
Enter environmental pollution. Concern for protection and
maintenance of the life-support environmental system contributes to a
de-emphasis on economic growth and a new emphasis on long-life,
self-maintaining products. This leads to further unemployment in productive
and repair activities.
All this time the vast 'knowledge industry' has been growing in
production and employment. But with the introduction of electronic
intercommunication systems, electronic libraries and data banks, electronic
facsimile reproduction, picturephones and videotape recording, (all
produced, of course, in highly cybernated enterprises!), there occurs a
decline in books, newspapers, periodicals, schools, and other educational
institutions. More unemployment.
But the sophisticated electronic communications era has also
brought the chequeless and cashless society, and studies are underway to
displace money in favor of information. With all financial, productive,
distributive, and consumptive units on-line, the development of a complex
guaranteed income scheme becomes feasible (as it also becomes a necessity
in order to avoid a societal and economic breakdown!)
Recent thoughts at http://www.geog.uwo.ca/cybergeog/cybintro.html .
Bob
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