Many apparently desirable strategies, like a Universal Basic Income, are probably unaffordable now and might become even less so depending on how AI implementation plays out. The most promising approach is shortening the work week. This is feasible because AI is inherently labour saving. Experiments here and overseas suggest that office workers can often maintain productivity despite dropping to a four-day week.
The Government would need to subsidise the shorter work week in some cases so that workers retained the same level of pay, the report suggests. This would effectively subsidise the sharing of a wide variety of high-value, well-paid work. It would also address metrics which show that New Zealanders overwork when compared to other comparable developed countries.
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“Basic Income Would Allow Us to Gain a Social Base That Is Essential to Defeat Fascism”
Interview with Daniel Raventós.
We begin, as always, with a brief explanation of what Basic Income is and its defence from a republican perspective: Basic Income is a public, monetary, unconditional and universal allocation. It is the shortest definition of all. The most important thing, what differentiates it from the existing misery in the Kingdom of Spain and here in Catalonia, the Minimum Vital Income and the Guaranteed Income of Citizenship, respectively, are the conditions of access and, of course, that these two are not universal.The Basic Income has two big questions. The first is, is this proposal fair? And the second, if it is fair, how can it be financed?