Consider the following as my two cents and a bit of thinking out loud. It is meant more as a point of discussion and idea brainstorming than advocacy.
Intellectual property rights reform is needed to address the coming glut of displaced workers due to rapid technological change.
Keep in mind that intellectual property rights are a legal construct and not part of the principle of ownership that exists under natural law. Therefore citizens, having forfeited a subset of natural rights under such laws, are rightfully entitled to benefit directly from the innovations that are protected by such laws.
Reduce patent protection on software to the 5-10 year range. Companies can either do that or keep their software a trade secret. (Can’t do both. If it is commercialized while it is a trade secret, it cannot later be patented.) Require software protected by patents to become fully open source (including comments and supporting documentation) after the patent expires. Innovations to such software can also be patented and cannot incorporate open source software into the patent. (In other words, you can patent a plugin or extension but cannot patent a forked version of the open source code.)
Either heavily tax all patented products or pay the owners (i.e. innovators) a hefty purchase price to nationalize them. Use the taxes, royalties, and fines for infringement collected to subsidize and retrain displaced workers (or any other “entitlement” programs that continue to exist). Penalize other nations that do not enforce the treaties they’ve entered into.
I have written in the past that the idea of a universal basic income is not intrinsically a Socialist / Communist concept. The usual proposal may be socialistic, but it does not have to be. While I am not sure a UBI is a good idea, and I am not an advocate of such, I think it should be within the realm of debate among conservatives. To me the conservative position on government subsidies and “hand outs” should be that all citizens are treated equally. This would necessitate the end of means testing, for example. If anyone gets subsidized food, EVERYONE (i.e. citizens) should get subsidized food. If anyone gets subsidized housing, EVERYONE (i.e. citizens) should get subsidized housing. Etc.
If we continue to tax income, it should be a flat percentage for EVERYONE, i.e. for ALL income earners, regardless of citizenship status.
Companies could be required to share a certain amount of ownership with employees. So when companies innovate or buy innovations that displace workers, those workers benefit from the increased profitability of the companies.
The problem is that the Government never seems to deliver on these promises. Or if they do they 'underdeliver'. In any case all they are doing is establishing a poverty floor -- which is a relative thing.
Do we want an arbitrary command-controlled economy or one that is open to innovation?