Writing the book also pushed me to consider what could be done in the face of unprecedented technological changes. You go very quickly from “what are the truckers going to do?’ to ‘what is the meaning of life?’ Not that I figured out the latter, but the more you consider what automation means, the more human the question becomes. I was prepared to discover anything – I consider myself a very evidence and fact-based human. As I did research for the book, the facts got worse and worse. It was staggering. We’re not at the beginning of the automation wave – we are in the middle and things are set to speed up. It is driving many of the other problems we are experiencing. I'm very proud of this book. I was filled with unease about what is happening to our economy and society. I asked myself, “Why am I so sure that we are heading toward unprecedented problems?” Many of my friends in SF and New York were working on the cutting edge of technology and finance, which were having outsized impacts on communities around the country. I tried to make connections and convey what I was seeing while also digging into the facts. Donald Trump’s election only heightened my urgency. UBI and Sovereign Money represents the best consistent policy proposal.My new book, The War on Normal People arrives in bookstores on April 3rd. It’s a preferable solution to increased taxation, which would have the further effect of reducing aggregate demand. The high-tech, high automation structure of modern economies does need a basic income to supplement or replace wage, both to sustain people’s living conditions and to create aggregate macroeconomic demand.īut the same arguments lead to a matching proposal for sovereign money, ie debt-free government money issued up to the level of full potential output GDP, which can fund UBI and other social welfare programs. Yang presents basic income (UBI), funded by VAT, new creative use of time, and reformed US health and education services as the set of answers. Personal and social living conditions for communities of ‘normal people’ suffering economic exclusion are dreadful.Ī civilised society with immense productive capacity due to automation can achieve better, fairer outcomes. This ‘Great Displacement’ is more widespread and more far-reaching than previous waves of technology. He shows how automation threatens incomes across a range of employment from clerical administration, through retail, food and catering, manufacturing, trucking, insurance, accountancy, medicine and law.
Andrew Yang who created and leads the ‘Humanity Forward’ movement, presents a widely-researched, intelligent, and very readable depiction of the plight of mid-America as technology reduces jobs and incomes.
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