Abstract
Technological unemployment is what happens when automation eliminates jobs and not enough new jobs arrive to employ everyone, leaving part of the workforce permanently unemployed. Who owns the money that used to pay them? Business owners will argue that it’s theirs. I will argue that it’s not. I consider and refute several arguments for their claim, and then argue that this money is collective property. Because it’s collective property, we can use it to fund basic incomes for the technologically unemployed without violating anyone’s property rights. Moreover, it is equal in amount to the total incomes lost to technological unemployment, and therefore big enough to fund a decent standard of living for the unemployed, no matter how numerous they are. This is a new kind of collective property, distinct and different from other collective properties, such as the natural world, employment rents, and social capital.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Automation Creates a New Kind of Collective Property That Can Fund Basic Incomes, Equal in Size to the Total Incomes Lost to Automation
- What is the Essential Difference Between a Basic Income and an Income-tested Benefit System?
- Equal Opportunity Left-Libertarianism and a Basic Income Guarantee
- Evaluating the Sustainability of the Productive Effects of a Universal Cash Transfer in Rural Uganda: Do Impacts on Savings, Investment, Production and Labour Persist After Program end?
- Guaranteed Income: A Policy Landscape Review of 105 Programs in the United States
- Green Basic Income: Evaluating the Bolsa Verde Project in the Brazilian Amazon
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Automation Creates a New Kind of Collective Property That Can Fund Basic Incomes, Equal in Size to the Total Incomes Lost to Automation
- What is the Essential Difference Between a Basic Income and an Income-tested Benefit System?
- Equal Opportunity Left-Libertarianism and a Basic Income Guarantee
- Evaluating the Sustainability of the Productive Effects of a Universal Cash Transfer in Rural Uganda: Do Impacts on Savings, Investment, Production and Labour Persist After Program end?
- Guaranteed Income: A Policy Landscape Review of 105 Programs in the United States
- Green Basic Income: Evaluating the Bolsa Verde Project in the Brazilian Amazon