Abstract
This paper argues that even though massive technological unemployment will likely be one of the results of automation, we will not need to institute mass-scale redistribution of wealth (such as would be involved in, e.g., instituting universal basic income) to deal with its consequences. Instead, reasons are given for cautious optimism about the standards of living the newly unemployed workers may expect in the (almost) fully-automated future. It is not claimed that these predictions will certainly bear out. Rather, they are no less likely to come to fruition than the predictions of those authors who predict that massive technological unemployment will lead to the suffering of the masses on such a scale that significant redistributive policies will have to be instituted to alleviate it. Additionally, the paper challenges the idea that the existence of a moral obligation to help the victims of massive unemployment justifies the coercive taking of anyone else’s property.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This paper will use the terms Basic Income Guarantee and Universal Basic Income interchangeably.
It is also worth noting that subscribing to the Polanyi-Dreyfus-Autor skepticism about machine abilities would make the case for optimism about automation easier to argue for (though not trivially so).
A skeptic could argue that the rich will likely have at their disposal armies of robotic soldiers and other types of automated defense systems, capable of overpowering most human armed forces, so the threat of a revolution is not as big to them as one would think. This possibility will be discussed later.
Despite its name, it is unlikely that this will appeal only to anarchists. In fact, the intuition it pushes seems quite a robust one, regardless of one’s political philosophy.
In his later work, Walker (2016) embraces the consequentialist justification for BIG.
In the next section, some consideration that might alter the consequentialist calculations will be provided.
It is assumed throughout that it is within the other person’s means to help, that she is aware of the situation etc.
This way of thinking is in line with sufficientarian approaches to justice, such as Harry Frankfurt’s. Frankfurt claims that what matters for justice is “that each should have enough. If everyone had enough it would be of no moral consequence whether some had more than others” (1987, p. 21). While the conclusion drawn above from the case of Pola and Greta might run afoul of more egalitarian approaches to justice, it is not clear whether Walker’s solution fares any better on this count.
See, for example Glaeser and Gyourko (2002).
In an, admittedly dated, review, Reichert (1990, p. 374) says: “a wide range of studies consistently show that age, race, sex, and marital status impact the demand for housing [references omitted]. Holding other factors such as income constant, these studies generally find that blacks have a lower demand for housing than whites, that being married with dependents increases housing demand, and that increasing age is associated with a greater likelihood of home ownership”..
See Stott (2014) for more details.
It is not clear how fanciful this is, in context. After all, this paper, as does Walker’s (and other works in this area), is taking seriously the idea of machines being able to substitute for any human task imaginable, in the near enough future. It is not obvious whether this is any less fanciful than thinking that Mars could be terraformed or that livable offshore communities could be created, in the near enough future.
While the above points could defuse Turner’s worries about the availability and prices of housing, they (apart from seasteading, terraforming, and perhaps Munger’s point) will do little to alleviate the limited supply of attractive land itself (and it is the latter that might be taken as Turner’s main concern). Even so, while unable to produce more land out of thin air, technology may enhance the attractiveness of previously less desirable land (thus increasing the overall supply of attractive land). For example, improving the quality and speed of transportation—making the central locations more easily and comfortably accessible from increasingly distant places—will render these places more attractive in turn.
How sudden is too sudden? It is not entirely clear. Predictions range both for the pace and scope of the changes, measured in years and numbers of workers displaced, respectively. While certainly disruptive, there are surely the kinds of changes and timescales that allow for some preparation.
While one may reasonably think that the kind of human enhancement that will allow humans to compete with machines is too distant to be seriously considered, there is anecdotal evidence (Smart Drugs: the Feed Forum 2015) that, even now, taking chemical enhancements such as Adderall significantly improves healthy workers’ productivity.
Interestingly, research has uncovered that middle-income individuals give less than high-income and less than low-income individuals.
This is an inexact approximation based on Lee and colleagues’ estimates that the dollar value of hours contributed to charity is about three times larger than the amount of monetary donations.
The assumption that the coercive solution would not face the same problem of massive inequality could also be questioned. Much would depend on the amount that BIG would provide, and (thus) how much would be needed through taxation. But if the taxation’s purpose was the alleviation of inequality in addition to the alleviation of the suffering of the newly unemployed, one would need a new argument from Walker. The kind of solution he offers would prima facie do little to reduce inequality.
These passages talk about the standard of living as measured by something like the amount of goods and services a person will be able to afford. One might think of this as a somewhat objective measure of wellbeing. It is, however, unclear what level of subjective wellbeing one could expect the newly unemployed to have. Would the new jobless class develop the sense that their lives lack meaning, in some sense of meaning that doing productive work is supposed to provide? Could this lack be replaced by something else? With respect to this objection, one has to keep in mind that the very same issue arises for Walker’s solution. No BIG-like program alone will replace the sense of meaning and purpose people get out of working, providing for their family, and so on. And neither will charity. See also Danaher (2017) for a thorough and illuminating discussion of this problem.
The claim is not that patrons do in fact often or even sometimes impose arbitrary restrictions on recipients. The worry is that they are in a position to do so more or less unchecked.
This paper cannot hope to offer a fuller reply to these worries (and they surely merit this) within the space constraints. What it does say, however, can, one hopes, at least shift the argumentative burden onto the defender of UBI schemes.
It is important to bear in mind that freedom in this context means non-domination rather than absence of interference.
References
Anderson, E. (2017). Private Government: How employers rule our lives (and why we don’t talk about it). Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Auten, G. E., Sieg, H., & Clotfelter, C. T. (2002). Charitable giving, income, and taxes: An analysis of panel data. American Economic Review, 92(1), 371–382.
Autor, D. H. (2015). Why are there still so many jobs? The history and future of workplace automation. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(3), 3–30.
Bekkers, R., & Wiepking, P. (2011). A literature review of empirical studies of philanthropy: Eight mechanisms that drive charitable giving. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40(5), 924–973. https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764010380927.
Bielefeld, W., Rooney, P., & Steinberg, K. (2005). How do need, capacity, geography, and politics influence giving. In A. C. Brooks (Ed.), Gifts of money in America’s communities (pp. 127–158). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Bostrom, N. (2003). The transhumanist FAQ. https://nickbostrom.com/views/transhumanist.pdf
Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. NY: WW Norton & Company.
Danaher, J. (2017). Will life be worth living in a world without work? Technological unemployment and the meaning of life. Science and Engineering Ethics, 23(1), 41–64. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9770-5.
Dreyfus, H. L. (1992). What computers still can’t do: A critique of artificial reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Field, A. J. (2008). Productivity. The concise encyclopedia of economics. Retrieved March 1, 2018, from http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Productivity.html
Frankfurt, H. (1987). Equality as a moral ideal. Ethics, 98(1), 21–43.
Frey, C. B., & Osborne, M. A. (2017). The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation? Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 114, 254–280.
Garcia, T., & Sandler, R. (2008). Enhancing justice? Nanoethics, 2(3), 277–287.
Glaeser, E., & Gyourko, J. (2002). Zoning’s steep price. Regulation, 25(3), 24–31.
Harris, K., & Kimson, A. (2018). Labor 2030: The collision of demographics, automation and inequality. Boston, MA: Bain & Company.
Huemer, M. (2003). Is there a right to own a gun? Social Theory and Practice, 29(2), 297–324.
Huemer, M. (2010). Is there a right to immigrate? Social Theory and Practice, 36(3), 429–461.
Jacobson, P. (1995). Three voluntary economies. Foundations, 2(4), 405–409.
Kaplan, J. (2015). Humans need not apply: A guide to wealth and work in the age of artificial intelligence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Lederer, E. M. (2018, 3/3/2018). UN humanitarian chief calls Yemen conditions ‘catastrophic’. From http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/humanitarian-chief-calls-yemen-conditions-catastrophic-53390141
Lee, L., Piliavin, J. A., & Vaughn, R. A. C. (1999). Giving time, money, and blood: Similarities and differences. Social Psychology Quarterly, 62(3), 276–290. https://doi.org/10.2307/2695864.
List, J. A. (2011). The market for charitable giving. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(2), 157–180.
Long, R. (2007). Defending a free nation. In E. Stringham (Ed.), Anarchy and the law: The political economy of choice (pp. 149–162). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Lovett, F. (2010). A general theory of domination and justice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Munger, M. C. (2018). Tomorrow 3.0: Transaction costs and the sharing economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pettit, P. (1997). Republicanism: A theory of freedom and government. Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press.
Pettit, P. (2008). A Republican right to basic income? In Basic income studies (vol. 2).
Polanyi, M. (1967). The tacit dimension. London: Routledge & K. Paul.
Quirk, J., & Friedman, P. (2017). Seasteading: How floating nations will restore the environment, enrich the poor, cure the sick, and liberate humanity from politicians. New York: Free Press.
Rappaport, J. (2018). Pent-up demand and continuing price increases: The outlook for housing in 2018. In The Macro bulletin. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
Reichert, A. K. (1990). The impact of interest rates, income, and employment upon regional housing prices. The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 3(4), 373–391.
Sandefur, T. (2008). Inovation. In The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Retrieved March 2, 2018, from http://www.econlib.org/Library/Enc/Innovation.html
Smart Drugs: the Feed Forum. (2015). Retrieved from https://www.sbs.com.au/news/thefeed/story/smart-drugs-feed-forum
Steinberg, R. (1990). Taxes and giving: New findings. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 1(2), 61–79.
Stott, R. (2014). Chinese company showcases ten 3D-printed houses. In ArchDaily.
Turner, A. (2016). Between debt and the devil: Money, credit, and fixing global finance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Van Parijs, P. (1991). Why surfers should be fed: The liberal case for an unconditional basic income. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 20(2), 101–131.
Walker, M. (2014). BIG and technological unemployment: Chicken Little versus the economists. Journal of Evolution and Technology, 24(1), 5–25.
Walker, M. (2016). Free money for all: A basic income guarantee solution for the twenty-first century. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Widerquist, K. (2011). Why we demand an unconditional basic income. The ECSO freedom case. In 2011, Arguing about justice. Essays for Philippe Van Parijs, Presses universitaires de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve (pp. 387–394).
Widerquist, K., Noguera, J. A., Vanderborght, Y., & De Wispelaere, J. (2013). Basic income: An anthology of contemporary research.
Wiepking, P., & Bekkers, R. (2012). Who gives? A literature review of predictors of charitable giving. Part Two: Gender, family composition and income. Voluntary Sector Review, 3(2), 217–245.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for this journal for a range of very helpful suggestions and comments on a previous draft of this paper. The author also benefited from discussions about the topics covered in this paper with Ben Yelle, Katy Shorey, Ron Sandler, and the students in his Technology and Human Values course at Northeastern University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chomanski, B. Massive Technological Unemployment Without Redistribution: A Case for Cautious Optimism. Sci Eng Ethics 25, 1389–1407 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-018-0070-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-018-0070-0