I have had repeated conversations with my 3 sons on this issue. I actually think the universal basic income will be ushered in because of the technical disruption of AI and robotics.
The real issue is what do you do with the people that lose their jobs over this? I don’t think those jobs will be replaced. I think in the long run, the deal will be “if you get sterilized, you get to have UBI and free medical care, and oh btw, you get basic entertainment (phone, Internet, etc), but you have to be sterilized”.
The great divide will be between those who have jobs and those who don’t. And many of those who do have jobs won’t be much better off than the jobless. Think “Soylent Green”.
“The real issue is what do you do with the people that lose their jobs over this?”
I see help wanted signs everywhere, on the backs of trucks, on the road side in front of businesses, and in store front windows. Granted, this may be temporary. The last time I saw signs like this was in the late sixties. What has changed? I read an article about Trump’s stealth revolution. He has removed not two regulations for one, but 13 for one. He just cancelled a regulation that cost 1% of the entire GDP to implement and enforce. One of the reasons jobs are disappearing isn’t that we don’t need the workers, it’s because they were regulated out of existence. Get rid of the economic drogue chute called over-regulation and we will handily absorb the coming changes introduced by AI and automation. (Oh, and we need to reform education away from political indoctrination and back into something that helps the student adjust to the new world’s economy.)