Business Bias towards jobs
Technology is spreading in every field, and with automation, it’s bringing along semi-automated workforces with a grudge towards their technology counterparts.
We see this in the burger flipping story of Flippy at a major restaurant chain and soon to be other locations. It’s a tough job not many want and with a lot of wastage that can be saved. This kind of automation improves quality and brings better control over production but with the downside is that staff feel the struggles of being forced into working like a robot themselves. With these robots costing between $60–100k each it soon recoup its cost and bring more profit which is where there should not just be a VAT charge but also a perceived value charge based on the staff and humans it would take to do a similar role.
This may be an odd way of thinking, technology over the years have improved all our lives and given us faster and easier ways to do things but I believe with a time-based perceived value charge (PVC) which runs at the current rate of technology adoption we will see a steady growth in automation and waste reduction while slowing the decline of jobs in industries we feel are too big at this time to address.
This also creates jobs for the overseeing of all industry and I believe we need to move towards having jobs which require more oversight and transparency.
We will likely need a basic income but this should not be universal and based more in reality, we should offer it those that lose their jobs to automation not to re-train but as a stepping stone into oversight roles that involve their profession if it interests them or as a dividend based on the PVC created based over time from their job. Those that work with automation will also benefit from a similar payment which would cover basic needs and increase when productivity increases.
It is likely businesses will not voluntarily enter such a system so it must be unionized so that workers know their rights and the technology/automation industry should be closely monitored by agencies to know where this needs promoting. Businesses may not like unions but requiring them once automation hits a certain PVC will ensure we don’t have workers left out.
Ex-workers will have share status in what now is their pension plan with these businesses which will automatically accrue PVC dividends for them. Those that receive too little will be subsidized by the government until further work can be found but encouraged to join oversight commissions and industry expos to explain the status of automation in their industry.
Once technology levels rise that automation has replaced the majority of workers we will need proposals for how we move forward with a universal basic income but I believe this would give a great stepping stone in the right direction for the current state of business bias towards jobs.
