NODE 2
The role
of technology
From widespread automation to the impact on work dynamics
From widespread automation to the impact on work dynamics
and new role of work with respect to consumption
When it comes to “universal” income, or guaranteed income, an endless enemy fire usually starts. It does not matter whether it comes from industrial corporations, or from political factions: there is a compact front that does not even accept that this topic is discussed in general terms. But let’s not fall victim to prejudice: we propose a reflection starting from the data.
It is estimated that in the next few years (ie by 2030) from 400 to 800 million jobs will be reduced, moved, optimized, merged or simply eliminated. These draconian numbers are primarily attributable to technological development and secondly to the evolution of new market demands, which of course will lead to a change in the production of goods and services towards new objectives and standards.
At the same time, it is estimated that from 75 to 300 million people will have to change their employment by learning other skills or moving towards new professional categories.
This is normal, it must be said: technological development has always traced inclement lines over human habits, promoting job choices or sinking others. It doesn’t take much imagination to remember all those professions, now outdated by history, which only a few years ago seemed normal or widespread. As indeed it is true that some occupations, considered extinct, are now back in the limelight and perhaps, thanks to a new more technical and advanced approach, have been able to change into decidedly sophisticated and specialized jobs.
However, the widespread robotization process – which we have already talked about – will really be a watershed. It will systematically reduce some jobs (especially the repetitive and cyclical ones) without necessarily requiring the creation of parallel professions, destined to control or linked to the same production chain.
This will result in a sort of short circuit within the evolved economies. On the one hand, the efficiency and robotization of production systems will lead to the creation of better, more complex and perhaps even less expensive products. On the other hand, the widespread loss of work could generate the impossibility, for a large part of the population, of purchasing those same goods.
Many analysts have therefore come to the conclusion that the only way to keep an economy viable, despite these major transformations, will be to offer all citizens a “universal minimum income”.
With this expression we mean a monthly economic endowment unconditionally granted to everyone, without proof of one’s working efficiency is required. A sort of minimum guarantee that the community pays to the individual to actively participate in community life.
Naturally intended for those who are unable to reach a figure defined “adequate” for minimum survival, this income will have a whole series of positive consequences. We start from the training and retraining of workers who, as we have seen, is a crucial hub of reasoning.
Income will allow recipients to access learning paths without worrying about their survival. This will allow to raise the professional and cultural standards of the population and systematically reduce the share of underqualified workers, therefore unable to integrate into the new productive economies.
In addition, it will encourage the emergence of new business models on an entrepreneurial basis. By subtracting the most binding element from the “salary = survival” equation, in fact, many more people will feel free to experiment with innovative and stimulating economic paths, linked to attitudes and passions, more in line with the person’s real skills.
Again: thanks to this income, a significant part of citizens could request to participate in part-time employment programs. This would mean maintaining a similar economic content over time, while increasing the quality of life and the amount of time to spend with the family. It would allow to desaturate the jobs, requiring more and more workers in the various sectors, at the same costs for the companies. More employment for everyone, but everyone at work for less hours. But in reality the benefits of this welfare and cultural innovation are systemic. And many studies, conducted on pilot populations, seem to predict many positive developments.
Of course there are also possible objections, the first of which can be condensed in the fear that an economically subsidized population will become weak, reluctant to work and substantially parasitic. However true this may seem, the data seem to suggest otherwise.
The populations least concerned about their survival tend to be more attached to work, more productive (therefore capable of achieving better results in less time), more happy and self-actualized, more equipped with strategic intuitions and finally also longer-lived.
Furthermore, this income would serve to reduce the inequities of economic systems. Those who find themselves on the margins of the communities (unemployed, under-employed, homeless, parents of large families, etc.) would find the help they need to fully fit into the canons of dignified survival. This, among other things, would mean relieving the community of a whole series of indirect costs, necessary for the support of the poor and indigent or unintegrated individuals.
Finally, the impact on the illegal occupations and “shadow” economy. A worker who receives a guaranteed income can afford to choose. It can refuse badly paid, unpaid, unsafe, clandestine job opportunities that fuel organized crime and illicit trafficking. This system would force a rapid regularization of the borderline professions, today carried out by low-skilled and unprotected workers, so as to fuel a renewal of the productive apparatus towards better and more satisfying standards for all parties involved.
There is only one question left to clarify: who would finance this income? Who would take on this objectively robust expenditure until the real systemic benefits of this process can be verified? We have dedicated a chapter later on this topic – as in general on the problem of financing new future measures.
Universal income represents an opportunity to vitalize an economic system that would otherwise risk stagnation. The great challenges, as we have seen many times, will consist in the effort to overcome the strong resistances of the actors (primarily companies) by requiring them to share the profits derived from the new positions of technological superiority
Collective socio-political analysis project on Covid 19. Post Coronavirus scenarios: opportunities and dead ends. What can we learn from the Covid 19 epidemic.
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Texts updated on May 4, 2020.
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Universal income
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