who needs a cash register job anyway

[blackjedii]

Amazon Go: We’re All F**kedIf you haven’t heard, Amazon just launched a promo for a storefront that sells meal kits and grocery basics with no checkout lines. It’s based in Seattle and currently open to Amazon employees, with the public launch set for early 2017. While Amazon hasn’t explained their “Just Walk Out” technology that powers the

Comments

[elenbarathi]

Universal basic income plus a comprehensive national health service (including dental) could eliminate the need for all means-tested aid programs, and the expensive, inefficient bureauocracies that implement them.

However, in order to make universal basic income work, we'd have to have a Youth Service - not connected with the military - where young people serve from the time they leave high school till they're 21. It would have to be mandatory for all, so the billionaires' kids are wearing the same uniforms, eating the same food and doing the same productive work as the slum kids.

Without such a Service, what happens? Kids leave high school with no job skills, in an economy where robots do the unskilled labor - give them a Basic Income, so they don't have to work, and how are they going to spend their time? Not very productively.

There would be other benefits. No more run-away or throw-away teenagers living on the streets or in abusive situations. A kid who couldn't stand it at home, or who'd hit the wall in academic studies could go straight into Service, have a place to live, three meals a day, and a wide choice of jobs. No need for Vo-Tech schools; let them learn by doing the real work. It would be so much cheaper than the programs we have now, that deal so inadequately with youth at risk.

After completing Service at age 21, having acquired a great many useful skills, the citizen gets a minimum basic income sufficient to live on, plus generous financial aid for either college or a business start-up. Some might prefer to stay on with the Service, or to join the military. The point is, they wouldn't just be freeloaders on the system; they'd have paid their way.

[meadowphoenix]

i'd rather they be freeloaders on the system, tbh. A "youth service" is ripe for governmental abuse

[lied_ohne_worte]

That sounds... problematic. What about people who don't do their work properly, or who refuse to work at all? Or people who would really prefer to start studying/learning a trade right now? Once you start sanctioning people who don't comply, it would move into forced labour territory really quickly.

[amw]

Personally I kind of like the idea of national service. Not because I believe in nationalism (in fact, I am aggressively internationalist), but the idea of doing some kind of work for the community as a part of education just feels right to me somehow. It should be seen as an extension of civics or social studies. I also think organizations like the Peace Corps are fundamentally a good idea. But there are definitely risks and there is a strong ideological argument to be made against any kind of state-sponsored national service.

Unless you are the coldest, meanest libertarian, however, I don't think there is a compelling argument to be made against Universal Basic Income. It is coming.

When I visited Namibia earlier this year it struck me how clean and tidy the place always was. Then I noticed there were several people employed to do a job that in more developed countries would not even be a job at all. Stuff like raking dirt by the side of the road into nice little furrows. I am sure these sorts of jobs are created with the best of intentions, but at the end of the day it is just busywork.

But it's not just in developing countries that you see this. I have worked for 15+ years in the tech industry in several economic powerhouse nations. There are countless jobs - there are even entire companies - that produce nothing of any tangible value. They just push paper around for some other companies to push paper around so that some paper can be pushed around. A huge chunk of the white collar world is just capitalism eating itself.

We have taught generations of people that they are worthless if they don't have a "real" job, and in some countries like America people are even taught to feel guilty if they take a sick day, or a vacation, or maternity leave, or whatever. Part-time workers are seen as less-than, even if they are on their feet all day providing tangible services to the rich. But a full-time white-collar worker is respected, even as he produces absolutely nothing of value to anyone. This is total insanity.

At some point the other shoe is going to drop. Forcing human beings to do work that we don't need to do because technology got there 50-100 years ago is some kind of wackadoodle idea of progress. The only solution to avoid the complete collapse of society is going to be the Universal Basic Income. Imo it is not a question of if any more, it is a question of when.

I read a fairly interesting article that is related a few days back: https://aeon.co/essays/what-if-jobs-are-not-the-solution-but-the-problem

[mutive]

Agreed with all your points.

And a lot of countries do have mandatory national service. Honestly, it seems like a great idea on a lot of levels. Teens get job training, typically, and are forced to branch out in a way they might not in their normal environment. (One of my MBA classmates did his national service in a Holocaust museum in the US where he perfected his English, which I suspect helped him in his later very international career in SE Asia. Needless to say, he picked up a number of other languages along the way.)

[evildevil]

I just want three policies: Workers' Coops, Universal Healthcare, and a Universal Guarantee Basic Income (No string attach to it, otherwise it will be abused). That's it.

[evildevil]

Oh, and free education.