Tag: liberal

Will Basic Income Be Necessary as Automation Kicks in?

Will Basic Income Be Necessary as Automation Kicks in?

While a guaranteed minimum income (GMI) is popular in many societies, basic income has not yet taken proper hold as a system of welfare. Whereas GMI makes welfare transfers conditional on certain criteria (such as earning below the means of existence), basic income distinguishes itself by unconditionally transferring a set amount of wealth to all citizens of a country. Political Initiatives

Initiatives to debate and implement basic income started in the 1970s in Denmark and the Netherland. They spread into Germany and Britain and took a strong foothold in France. In 2013, a petition in Germany was deemed “unrealisable” […]

Unifor’s fight to secure jobs at Cami highlights the shift of work to Mexico under NAFTA

Unifor’s fight to secure jobs at Cami highlights the shift of work to Mexico under NAFTA

Striking Cami workers march Friday in a rally outside the Ingersoll plant. As the dispute nears its fourth week, there’s no end in sight. GM Canada and Unifor remain “far apart,” says the union representing the 2,800 workers. The two sides are to resume bargaining on Tuesday. (BRUCE CHESSELL/Sentinel-Review) It’s a microcosm of a larger fight.

As the strike by 2,800 workers at Ingersoll’s Cami assembly plant nears its fourth week, the standoff underlines what’s happened to Canada’s auto industry under the North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA) and why the stakes are so high, especially with a tough-talking Donald Trump […]

AUSTRALIA: Alfred Deakin Institute Policy Forum – The Future of Work and Basic Income Options for Australia

AUSTRALIA: Alfred Deakin Institute Policy Forum – The Future of Work and Basic Income Options for Australia

Jon Altman and Eva Cox. Credit to: Alfred Deakin Institute (Deakin University, Melbourne)

The Alfred Deakin Institute at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, hosted a forum on the 17th and 18th August discussing the concept of a universal basic income.

Workshop co-convenor Jon Altman (Deakin University and ANU) suggested that part of the impetus for the workshop was the sense that discussion of UBI in Australia was not as advanced as it was in other countries. As evidence of this he cited the comment made by Chris Bowen (Shadow Treasurer for the Labor party), who said that UBI was “a […]

Tech & future of jobs: Time to incentivise human capital

Tech & future of jobs: Time to incentivise human capital

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) has already started to impact the jobs market. How do these changes matter to us, and specifically how do they impact entrepreneurs?

Twenty years ago, there was no Google. The founder of the world’s largest social media network Mark Zuckerberg was a 13-year-old teenager, probably trying to find his bearings between being a Bar Mitzvah and a prodigy in middle school. While Elon Musk, at 26, was already on his way to making millions that would set him up to dream bigger.

The fact that so much has changed in […]

Plan for the dispensable human

Plan for the dispensable human

Governments have to formulate suitable policies to protect ‘human’ interests over ‘machine’ interests.

Steam engines, electricity and computer-mediated communications technologies drove the first, second and third industrial revolutions, which progressively transformed the workplaces and radically altered our lives. However, irrespective of the magnitude of the technological evolution, machines always stayed imbecile and, therefore, required humans to instruct and run them.

But for the first time in human history, we are staring at the prospect of the emergence of cognitive machines that have the potential to edge out humans entirely from the workplace. Workplaces the world over, whether they are […]

The Paradox of Worry About Job-Taking Robots in an Environment of Labor Shortages

The Paradox of Worry About Job-Taking Robots in an Environment of Labor Shortages

The big idea that has captured much of our collective imagination is that the robots are coming to take our jobs. Well, maybe not our jobs – as higher ed people seem convinced that no A.I. could ever do what they do. But everyone else’s job.

At every academic / educational technology conference that I attend we always end up talking about robots. Those of us who work at liberal arts colleges actually feel pretty good about the future of robots, as we think that our broad education in communication, collaboration, and creativity will withstand automation. Still, even the liberal […]

Why international trade matters for Illinois

Why international trade matters for Illinois

Illinois will need more foreign investment, and major reforms to the state’s business climate, in order to get off the weak economic path it now treads.

Gov. Bruce Rauner has just returned from an eight-day trip to Japan and China – his administration’s first international trade mission.

Illinoisans should hope the governor can help bring international job creators and investment to the state to stimulate a lackluster employment picture. Rather than being a burden on Illinois families, international trade has largely served as a blessing, and has the potential to jumpstart the Land of Lincoln’s sluggish growth. State of the state […]

Who wields AI, and how

Who wields AI, and how

Devoid of an urgent push by the government to frame policy on AI, Indian labour will face a deep crisis.

Automation, a product of recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), has been recognised as a harbinger of a different era of socio-economic relations. Studies by Deloitte in UK and McKinsey in the US are estimating that currently demonstrated technologies will kill from a third to a half of all jobs within a decade. In this scenario, what should be India’s national policy towards AI?

Devoid of an urgent push by the government to frame policy on AI, Indian […]

Guarantee every American a basic income? The U.S. can’t afford it

Guarantee every American a basic income? The U.S. can’t afford it

Concerns have been raised about the technological revolution now underway, particularly the potential for jobs to be replaced by automation. We now have robots in warehouses and factories, self-checkout cashier stations in stores and ordering kiosks in fast-food restaurants.

Some tech luminaries are predicting this will lead to massive layoffs, and they want government to provide a universal basic income as compensation.

Silicon Valley billionaires have become the most vocal proponents of a universal basic income. Elon Musk, founder of Space X and Tesla, predicts millions of workers will be replaced by automation in the next 30 years. “I think we’ll […]

Minimum wage increases: The opposite of helpful

Minimum wage increases: The opposite of helpful

Like so much of the legislation that comes out of Sacramento, the hike in California’s minimum wage has been touted by Democrats as helping the poor while assuring businesses won’t be harmed. But, like much of that legislation, it’s likely to do the opposite.

In 2014 California’s minimum wage was $8 per hour. Today it is $10.50—a 31 percent increase in just three years. It’s scheduled to increase again in January to $11 an hour followed by annual dollar hikes until it reaches $15 an hour in 2022. That’s an 88 percent increase in the cost of unskilled labor in […]