I think the 21st century will see a big push toward some form of guaranteed annual income.
As human labor becomes less needed (automation) I’m not sure how a lot of people will get access to money.
Personally — and this is, frankly, utopian — I like the idea of people having something like “40 acres and a mule” with the expectation that they will grow much of their own food and be (somewhat) self-sufficient. And in addition, maybe Uncle Sugar will send them some monthly check to make starvation less likely.
But if the world does not need your labor, we don’t have a lot of options.
The guaranteed income movement is the logical next step to eradicating poverty by making it illegal.
The enormous bureaucracy devoted to redistributing wealth to those who have not earned it is overburdening in its requirements, paperwork, exceptions, logistics, etc - if you’re going to have a pervasive welfare state, then may as well just send everyone a check for “poverty line” income so nobody is left out and everybody has no excuse to be “poor”. Simple, straightforward, logical.
Except that by doing so they’ve devalued the poverty line. Everyone having that income means prices will rise to limit demand for limited goods/services. Raise the GBI check value, and prices will rise more. Spreading the wealth around doesn’t mean availability of what that wealth purchases will increase - it means prices will rise to limit demand.
My kids think money is accessed via an ATM. They had to learn that money is simply a medium for transferring wealth. Then they had to learn that in order to have money you had to generate something of value that would cause people to exchange their wealth for the thing you offered in return.
Once they learned that lesson they lost access to money, my money that is.
Utopian? No. People have been proclaiming the end of “jobs” forever. If I have money I will always have a way to spend it and people will devise ways to pry it out of my hands. The world is not going to run out of jobs.
The Swiss have already had a vote on it.
Guaranteed Income for All? Switzerland’s Voters Say No Thanks
You and Elon Musk
Your predictions are illogical. Have you ever farmed? I doubt it. Raising food is darned hard work. Plus with vault 7 leaks the ability of The Government or some rogue jerk to hack those robots should be concerning
Don’t over value technology. It is less perfect than humans
I like 40 acres and a mule too, but you’ve gotta count the cost of buying back that land from BigAg, Monsanto, and the other big boys who have put small family farms out of business.
I read a little book decades ago by a health guru, Dr. R.N. Walker who said you could raise a family of four (two kids) and be totally self sufficient on 10 acres if you had two goats, a small flock of chickens, a couple of fruit trees, and knew good organic farming methods. Come to think of it, he lived in a state that was sunny year round, and was advocating vegetarianism: the goats were for milk and cheese, the chickens just for eggs. Many people could do the diet easily by adding an occasional steak and lamb chop. I actually prefer goat milk to cows’—an acquired taste. Goats eat far less than cows.