Name
Professor
Class
Date
Universal Basic Income
At the advent of Industrialization, the demand for labor was immense, almost dire. Apart from the raw materials and energy source for an industrial establishment, labor availability was a make or break for many proposed industries. As time went by, entrepreneurs and managers alike noticed many drawbacks in the use of human labor. They would get tired and had to be replaced by others, there were inconsistencies in the final products they made, and there was a need to supervise them to ensure that work was done as is required. (Ford Ch.9) asserts that since most of the work done by the labor workforce is predictable and largely repeatable, a computer does not necessarily have to ape everything that a worker has in terms of intelligence in order to take over the work. All that is needed is the specialization of the computer in order to carry out tasks that are commonly carried out and for which workers are paid for. If computers have the potential to replace human labor completely, the number of unemployed citizens is set to shoot over the roof, and without a stable source of income, a lot of people are likely to wallow in poverty. This paper discusses solutions to this foreseen loss of jobs, with a keen focus on the Universal Basic Income (UBI).
Having a Universal Basic Income gives workers more bargaining power when settling for jobs. In the near future, a lot of people will settle for jobs that pay poorly or that are not in tandem with their qualifications. The trial and error phase for modern computers with the ability to think like human beings is almost over if the current discoveries by companies like IBM are anything to go by. In fact, there is a likelihood that these machines will exceed human intellect and will bring out a totally unprecedented discovery (Ford Ch.9). If people begin to settle for jobs of insignificant value and income, the poverty gap is going to widen significantly, with the affluent members even earning more while the poor ones suffer greatly. The security of tenure will also be a thing of the past because people would be replaced by computers at any time. With a universal basic income, people will not be settling for jobs out of desperation.
In the current wave of a rise in technology, a lot of people are likely to lose their jobs as a consequence. While it might be juvenile to think that these jobs will be restored in the near future, the more futuristic thought would be to explore avenues that are being created as others are lost. (Ford Ch.7) claims that while mass employment will be lost, and companies will adopt schemes where few employees generate a lot of revenue and have high valuations, some new businesses will be generated to support the technology-oriented companies. With a Universal Basic Income, people who lose mainstream jobs can choose to start these supporting industries as a form of self-employment even if it will be a joint venture among many partners. This will be a permanent solution for overreliance on employment.
A technology shift is more likely to affect the low-income worker the most. Taking, for instance, people in fast food outlets, despite the fact that everyone in America relies on them for food daily, they are still underpaid and have to enroll in some form of public assistance that in total costs the taxpayer about $7billion per year (Ford Ch.1). As if this is not enough, they have to pass through a lot of bureaucratic channels before they finally gain access to these funds since there is a verification process to determine whether they need assistance. Having a dedicated Universal Basic Income will reduce the number of bureaucratic channels that people have to go through to get assistance because, in any case, everyone will be entitled to the money.
Works Cited
Ford, Martin. Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. Basic Books, 2015.