The hardest thing for any society to do is to avoid oppressing its least advantaged people. Politics everywhere is an insider game: people with political, economic, and social advantages make policy for their own benefit not just neglecting outsiders, but oppressing them. Most theories of justice understandably want to eliminate this insider-outsider problem by building a consensus around a true “social contract” or an undeniable sent of “natural rights.” Unfortunately, you can never get everyone to agree to anything. How can you eliminate the insider-outsider problem, if you can’t bring every outsider into consensus?
More than 200 years ago, Immanuel Kant gave the world an overconfident solution that, I would like to argue, has helped justify oppression ever since: create a basic social-political structure that, in Thomas Scanlon’s words, “no one could reasonably reject.”
Obviously, no matter how fair and just social arrangements are, some unreasonable people—call them recalcitrants—will reject them because of their selfishness, irrationality, or ignorance. But if we create a social structure that truly incorporates everyone’s needs or rights or concerns, we can effectively eliminate the insider-outsider problem even without a literal consensus. Any reasonable objectors—call them dissenters—will have been brought into the coalition.
If you could do such a thing, the social contract would resemble (if only superficially) an insider contract. Some people—call them the ruling coalition—would establish a basic structure. Other people would object. The ruling coalition would say that the objectors were unreasonable, and they would be right. The coalition would speak for the recalcitrants, truly bringing them inside the contract, knowing that if they were rational they would know (and if they were reasonable they would admit) that they are not really outsiders.
If the social contract of the reasonable looks so much like an insider contract, how will we know which it is? Most theories of justice try to bypass this how-do-we-know question by focusing on the what-do-we-do question. If we thought there were reasonable objections, we would change the basic structure to one that had no reasonable objections. Many philosophers have written extensive theories about the kind of structure that they believe could not reasonably be rejected.
Great. But then we’re in the same situation where the ruling coalition says its reasonable. How do we know that the ruling coalition is the one that’s reasonable and the objectors are the ones that are unreasonable rather than the other way around? No one is infallible. Philosophers make mistakes. So do ruling coalitions. One could reasonably characterize all of recorded history as the March of Folly of ruling coalitions. So, if we’re fallible, how will we know when and whether we’ve succeed in this great and worthy quest to create social arrangements “that no one could reasonably reject?”
Unfortunately, I want to argue that virtually all contemporary theories of justice are based on the overconfident assumption that the theorist who wrote it actually knows how to solve the insider-outsider problem.
Immanuel Kant
The danger of a theory based on that piece of overconfidence is revealed by the answer to this question, who must we convince that we’ve created a structure “that no one could reasonably reject”? The only possible answer is that the ruling coalition only has to convince itself. They have to treat potential objectors well enough to keep them from rebelling, but they don’t really have to justify the structure to anybody; they don’t have to get objectors to agree to anything, because they can dismiss them as “unreasonable.” My reading of recorded history indicates that insider coalitions can be incredibly unjust without doubting their own reasonableness or creating a serious risk of rebellion. (For example, the Texas state legislature once passed a resolution claiming, “the servitude of the African race … is mutually beneficial to both bond and free.”)
Modern philosophers can reasonably claim that they are far more reasonable than the 1861 Texas Confederate state legislature, and they can propose a structure that gives voice and concern to many out groups, but they are dangerously overconfident if they ignore this observations that I believe our obvious: A privileged majority can never speak for an underprivileged minority. A male-dominated government can never claim to speak for women. A white majority can never speak for black or any other non-white minorities. A Christian majority can never claim to speak for non-Christian minorities. A secular majority can never claim to speak for religious minorities. A heterosexual majority can never claim to speak for queer minorities, and so on and so on.
The insider majority must give out-groups voice and try to accommodate their concerns, but the majority also has to rule, and they will make mistakes that advantage insiders over outsiders. The job will never be done. Justice is in the pursuit of accord, not in the assumption that we’ve done enough, and objectors are just unreasonable.
My latest academic article, “The Pursuit of Accord: Toward a Theory of Justice with a Second-Best Approach to the Insider-Outsider Problem,” discusses this issue at greater length. It gives ten reasons to believe that all ruling coalitions are insider coalitions rather than true “social contracts.” It discusses four strategies to create consensus, and argues that although they must be tried, they’re likely to fall short of establishing a genuine consensus even if everyone is reasonable.
Finally, it discusses an alternative theory called “justice as the pursuit of accord” (JPA), which offers a second-best approach to the insider-outsider problem under the working assumption that consensus is impossible to achieve even if everyone is rational and reasonable. The ruling coalition has to make the laws, but it can never presume to speak for dissenters. It must both try to get as many people into accord as possible and try to minimize negative interference with people who can’t be brought into accord. Basic Income plays a significant role in the minimization of negative interference and other aspects of JPA. My earlier book, Freedom as the Power to Say No, outlined JPA’s theory of freedom. My article (“The Pursuit of Accord”) and the future book I’m hoping to develop from it will discuss JPA as an overall theory of justice and outline its accompanying property theory.
What does the future hold, an unemployment ridden wasteland or a leisure based post-work society?
Whereas Harari’s former works were focused on the past of humankind or toward its future, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” investigates the most pressing issues of our times. Professor Harari finds 21 topics which embody the plethora of uncertainties surrounding our present and immediate future, and then, with the past history of our specie well in mind, suggests his thought-provoking vision about them. His unique timeliness is due to his unparalleled ability to reframe the past in order to investigate the present.
In the second lesson, “Work,” Harari talks about automation, Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and the impact they will have on the labor market and society as a whole. In order to avoid collapse, deep change is required, a true renovation of our social models.
And Universal Basic Income (UBI) may be one of the answers.
The pace of automation
It is unclear how the labor market will look in the long run. What is certain is that it is undergoing change. The advances in Information Technology (IT), machine learning and robotics will bring on a wave of automation, the author said.
But it is not the first time in human history that society measures itself with automation, as we already faced similar events, most notably with the industrial revolution. And the fear of mass unemployment was proven unjustified. Thus, in Harari opinion, we have to ask whether this time will be different.
Are our concerns about a jobless future legitimate? Or are we exaggerating the magnitude of the phenomena? Do we incur in the risk to act like modern luddites?
The situation of the nineteenth century was different, Harari mantains. When industrialization hit, it is true that many jobs were appropriated by machines, but at the same times many new jobs were created and the quality of life was profoundly improved.
As humans have two kinds of abilities, physical and cognitive, during the industrial revolution machines competed for only one share of the things humans could do, the physical one. When jobs in the industrial or agricultural sectors were automated, they opened the door to jobs requiring a cognitive skill set, the category of jobs we commonly associate with the third sector.
What is happening is due to the fact that the AI revolution is not just embodied by the evolution of computers, becoming faster and more “intelligent,” but it’s closely related to other fields; the momentum of the revolution is shouldered by advances in biology and social sciences, Harari said.
As more is understood of the underlying biological mechanisms controlling the emotive dynamics of humans, the more computers become able to analyze human behavior, foresee human decisions, and take their place in a number of jobs. In addition to delivering results, these AI tools tend to keep other significant processes in mind as well. In many cases, managing IT services effectively and improving them requires more than manpower alone. There are times when IT professionals might take time to learn what is CMDB in ServiceNow or other relevant topics. Nevertheless, an AI-specific tool can decipher complex terms and provide results quickly. .
Advances in neuroscience and behavioral economics revealed that our choices do not depend on free will as much as on the calculations of the neurons in our brains, assessing probabilities at enormous speed, the author writes. Human intuition can be considered “hacked” as it was revealed to consist of pattern recognition, the ability to identify recurring patterns and use them to create models and make predictions. And AI can become very good at pattern recognition. If intuition is no more than assessment of probabilities and creation of predictive models, it should not come as a surprise that machines can take our place, given that our very functioning is imperfect and prone to errors: it relies on circuits created through the evolution of our specie, in contexts far in time and place from those in which we try to apply them –the savannah is nothing like today’s cities.
Automation will not impact the entirety of fields, as some jobs are more susceptible to it than others, Harari writes. Jobs based on repetition will be more prone to automation, so if you want to stand out with your applications, consider working with an executive resume writer. Multifaceted activities and unexpected scenarios are still a no-go zone for machines. Where the jobs of many doctors, requiring diagnostics and prescriptions could be expected to be a no-brainer for AI, the job of nurses would prove more problematic, requiring a mix of personal relationships and physical activity. Caretaking will probably be one of the most difficult task to automate, and could very well be the activity in which most humans will be occupied in the future, Harari suggests.
The future of jobs
Harari sustains that talking about a jobless future is premature, as automation will allow for more time and resources to be invested in study and research, with the potential to develop new treatments, drugs and deepen our understanding of the biological world. There are jobs where machine automation is not desirable, such as many law-related jobs. Furthermore, there will be a place for human-machine cooperation.
Drones require many operators to work them, driverless vehicles require some form of supervision, and cybersecurity and maintenance will be needed. Some of the top cybersecurity threats aren’t simple to defeat – you can’t just set up a firewall, you need to actively fight against any hacks or viruses. With this being said, as we advance in technology the requirement for human intervention will become less stringent.
But the jobs we are talking about are knowledge intensive, which means that even if they were numerically sufficient to limit unemployment (and they are not), we would nonetheless be left with the problem of unemployment due to under-specialization. In Harari’s opinion, one of the main differences of this technological revolution from the precedent is the degree to which professions are interchangeable. When jobs are less specialized, it’s easier to switch from one profession to another, its often the same for machines. What we may find then is that jobs that machines will not be able to do interchangeably are most likely going to require a high degree of specialization from people. This alignment could pose the risk of facing “the worst of both worlds”: mass unemployment and lack of qualified workers.
And professor Harari notices how, even for those who are able to pursue a new career like in the example shown above, the rapid pace of technological advance or societal changes could make it obsolete in the matter of years. Not just professional development, but jumping from a field of study to another will become the norm in a volatile job market, as the ephemeralization of work will make the idea of formation for a career as an one-off effort laughable.
This should also be seen as an emotive cost for workers, the uncertainty causing a great strain in terms of mental health: if the unstable job market of the first decades of the twenty-first centuryproduced an explosion of work-induced stress, mental resilience to change will be among the factors skimming the employment market.
Societal change
Looking back at the history of the industrial revolution, Harari considers how the new social conditions – great industrial metropolis and the dynamic nature of the arising economic markets – could not be accommodated by the existing political, economic and social models. Institutions such as religion, monarchy and feudalism were no longer apt to direct society. A whole century of social unrest followed before an equilibrium was found, with liberal democracies, fascist regimes and communist regimes on the playing field. What automation will bring rests in the realm of speculation, but Harari highlights how there is potential for great societal disruption, and we cannot afford complacency at the risky of bloody revolutions following systemic unemployment, given the great destructive power of modern warfare.
Universal Basic Income
The author then goes on investigating the role governments will have to assume as technology advances, saying that they will necessarily have to intervene, both via the creation of a dedicated structure for permanent formation, and by providing a safety net for people as they face transitions between jobs. The mantra should be the one which Scandinavia is already applying: “protect workers rather than jobs.”
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is one of the potential models that could respond to the technological and economical revolution we are expecting, Harari says. Its focus on the provision of means to satisfy basic needs is aligned with the necessary imperative of protecting people and not jobs, and could help to preserve the social status and self-worth of humans in a work-lacking future.
Financed through progressive taxation, an UBI would act as a redistributive instrument in a world which sees growing polarization between the riches and the poor. An alternative idea, in the author’s opinion, is to rethink the meaning of work by taking into account the education of children and caretaking. Considering caring for others as work which should deserve a monetary compensation would help foster informal safety nets and strengthen communities. Doing so would help preserve the social fabric which could be disrupted by the upcoming AI revolution. Since it would fall upon governments to pay for such activities, this would not ultimately differ from UBI.
Given that UBI could prove itself a valuable instrument to build a model for the society of the future, Harari calls for a better investigation of its possible application; that is, minimum and universal need to be defined.
In a globalized world, where market and industries are interconnected and delocalization is the norm, the meaning of universal need to be ascertained. UBI experiments have always been of reduced geographical extension, and it is usually thought, in its largest declinations, as a country specific measure. But if it was applied at the national level, its locality would create a problem, as its redistributive effects would not affect those who need it the most. As the wealth appropriated through the world is concentrated in a few nations, a progressive taxation used to fund UBI would then redistribute wealth not globally, but to a lucky minority.
Ideally, a global government could work out a functioning form of global UBI, but at the cost of its feasibility: redistributing wealth globally could very well prove impossible, in the opinion of professor Harari.
If a minimum income has to be enough to accommodate one’s basic needs, we have to decide which needs are basic, and this could prove to be a difficult exercise: homo sapiens needs food and water to survive, everything else may be considered superfluous, the author says.
Today we may consider also shelter, healthcare and instruction as basic needs, but there is no certainty about what is going to be included among them in the future. Human needs depend very much on expectations, they are far from being objective, and so the definition of minimum will remain a fluid concept as society changes through time, Harari forecasts. This means that the mere access to an income will not per se suffice in making people happy, but UBI will have to be integrated with activities which makes people satisfied, from civic engagement to sport.
Harari suggests that his country of origin, Israel, could be thought of as a testing field for a satisfying life in a post-work world. There, half of the ultra-Orthodox Jews do not work, but spend their lives praying and studying the sacred tests, while receiving government subsidies and a share of free services. They derive their happiness from the strong ties they develop with the community they live in and from the fulfillment gained via their investment in religion, Harari mantains.
Even as they are looked at with contempt from the laic citizens of Israel, which see them as freeloaders, their example may very well provide a model for the society of the future: life will be spent in the search for purpose, which could be found through the development of a strong sense of community and by investing time studying and in the construction of social relationships. Those activities, combined with the economic safety net provide by UBI, can maybe provide a picture of the society of tomorrow.
Written by: Daniele Fabbri
More information at:
Yuval N. Harari, “21 Lessons For the 21stCentury”, Jonathan Cape, 30 August 2018
Yuval N. Harari, “Yuval Noah Harari on whatthe year 2050 has in store for humankind”, Wired, 12 August 2018
Al Jazeera invited me to participate in a panel discussion (on of all things) U.S. foreign policy. It didn’t give me the chance to talk about basic income or about “indepentarianism” specifically, but I think I made some good points. I said the campaign donors aren’t trying to get candidates elected, but to buy influence. I wish I’d said that this fact makes campaign contributions a form of legalized bribery. I said that when Trump says “America First,” he really means “Me First,” and that most of his foreign policy is to find some leader he can bully to make himself look like a tough guy. I wished I’d said that like he strokes White American’s egos, but delivers for himself not for them—much like most nationalist leaders around the world today and throughout history. I said that America is still acting like it’s 1945 when America was the only in-tact industrial economy. It’s overplaying its influence trying to impose unilateral sanctions on Iran and other places, and overplaying its hand like this will ultimately weaken not strengthen American influence in the world.
Next time I hope they put me on a panel where I can bring up basic income.
That is the ultimate question the new documentary named “Inherent Good” ends up asking. This film project, still ongoing, aims at exploring the Universal Basic Income (UBI) idea, particularly in small in-land communities in the United States of America, seriously hit by the latest financial crisis.
Los Angeles-based filmmakers are collecting funds for the Inherent Good project at the moment, with a release date aimed for Spring 2019. The documentary will accompany the launch of a basic income pilot experiment called The Magnolia Mother’s Trust. This experiment, organized by Springboard to Opportunities and in a partnership with the Economic Security Project, will dispense 1000$/month for one year to 15 families in Jackson, Mississipi, no strings attached. Accurately, the experiment does not equate to a basic income, since it is given to families, and not individuals, but the money is handed with no conditions on how it shall be spent. One particular aspect of the experiment is that these families are all “headed by an African American female living in affordable housing in the United States”.
The idea is, according to the film’s director Steve Borst, not only to “document the unveiling of this new pilot program, but [also] to help shift the poverty narrative by providing a platform that empowers these women to share their critical stories with the rest of the world.” The film will be starred by author and comedian Trae Crowder, and will go through his hometown Celina, a small rural town in northern Tennessee. Trae’s connection to this project is related to the “abject poverty” of his family when he was growing up in this region of the country.
The documentary will focus on personal stories of local people, local history and how the “extra cash could boost the local economy.” Moreover, the film also aims to address “common concerns about UBI, including the fear that people will stop working or misuse the money. Ultimately, the film is a meditation: on people, the future of America, and the inherent good within all of us that makes UBI an idea worthy of serious contemplation”.
The film’s project team include producers Rennie Soga and Chris Panizzon. A teaser can be watched in the following video.
If there is one presidential candidate who is the complete opposite of Donald Trump, it is Andrew Yang.
Yang is the son of two immigrant parents from Taiwan, graduating from Columbia University with his Juris Doctorate and Brown University with a degree in economics. In 2011, Yang started the non-profit Venture for America to help college graduates connect with startups throughout the United States.
Now Yang has thrown his hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination for president. What makes Yang stand out is his candidacy largely revolves around one issue: Universal Basic Income (UBI).
In fact, Yang has the opportunity to make UBI a serious issue in a US presidential campaign for the first time since George McGovern proposed a basic income style program as the Democratic nominee against Richard Nixon in 1972.
Nixon attacked the cost of McGovern’s basic income policy. Under scrutiny, McGovern abandoned the idea and still ultimately lost to Nixon. Basic income’s latest chapter in American political history is now being written, but it is up to Yang to prove he is politically savvy enough to write a different ending.
Yang’s campaign will try to win over skeptical voters with a mini basic income trial for one resident of both Iowa and New Hampshire. Yang said they are currently choosing the recipient from New Hampshire.
“The purpose is to have a demonstration of the fact that people’s lives improve and people do positive things with a thousand dollars a month,” Yang said.
When average voters hear about UBI for the first time, they treat the idea with skepticism, Yang said.
“We are programmed for scarcity particularly where money is concerned, and so most people have trouble conceiving of the fact that we can provide a basic income to all adults in America,” Yang said.
So far, Yang said he has not seen mainstream Democrats moving toward basic income. Instead, some Democrats are embracing the idea of a jobs guarantee program. Yang said a jobs guarantee would be a “bad idea,” because past government employment programs have low success in transitioning employees to the private sector.
His opposition to the jobs guarantee does not mean Yang will refuse to compromise. He said a Negative Income Tax (NIT) would be an “outstanding step in the right direction.”
NIT would provide a minimum guaranteed income but the government would phase out the stipend based on one’s market income. UBI would achieve a phase-out indirectly, since some recipients will be net receivers, and others will pay back more in taxes than they receive from a basic income. A negative income tax “would be a massive game changer for millions of Americans here and now,” Yang said.
Those familiar with Yang probably already know his views about basic income. In my interview with him, I wanted to know more about how he would formulate policies as president.
On the other issues in his campaign, Yang said he supports gun control, renewable energy, a carbon tax, and abortion rights. Gun control especially has taken a big stand among the candidates.
Before becoming president, though, Yang will have to fight a crowded field in the Democratic primary. With big hitters such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Yang may get lost in the field.
Bernie Sanders, who has flirted with basic income, holds similar views to Yang. For his part, Yang said he is “aligned” with Sanders on most policy issues, and he said some have called him the “younger Asian Bernie Sanders.”
However, Yang said how Sanders view of the modern economic system is “a little out of date.”
“(Sanders) believes that if we coerce companies into treating workers better then that will solve the problem. I believe that the relationship between corporate success and workers has fundamentally changed forever, where 94 percent of the new jobs created from 2005 to 2015 were temporary gig contract jobs which did not have healthcare benefits,” Yang said.
“The plain truth is that companies can now grow and succeed without hiring lots of people or treating them well,” he said. “So we need to build a new social contract that does not assume that work is going to look the same way it has over the last number of decades.
One of the criticisms of Sanders during the 2016 presidential campaign was his lack of clarity on foreign policy. Yang said he has a “number” of advisors who are helping to form his platform for foreign affairs.
On Yang’s diplomatic principles, he said that he would be “restrained” in his foreign policy.
“America has gotten itself into trouble by imagining it’s capable of doing things it may not be capable of and we need to be much more restrained and not succumb to grandiose visions for other societies,” Yang said.
Previously, Yang has stated he supports “status quo” policies toward China and Taiwan, which recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the legal representative of China, and acknowledges the PRC’s position that Taiwan is part of China.
Yang points out the “extraordinary” relationships between the US and Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. He said America should avoid the dynamic that China and America are inevitably going to be in opposition, and that our relationship with China is also critical since they are America’s largest trading partner.
On the trade war with China, Yang said the current environment with constant changes in tariffs has made it “impossible” for businesses to plan and operate. While he acknowledges trade imbalances with China, he said a trade war is not “constructive.”
And then there is the elephant in the room, how exactly does Yang plan to take on the master of media Donald Trump?
“The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes numbers,” Yang said. “There is a natural dynamic in American politics where the pendulum will swing in the other direction. From Donald Trump the pendulum is going to swing in my direction.”
