Is our economy totally screwed? Andrew Yang and I debate.

"The future without jobs will come to resemble either the cultivated benevolence of Star Trek or the desperate scramble for resources of Mad Max,” writes Andrew Yang.

Well then.

Yang is the founder of Venture for America, the author of The War on Normal People, and an outsider candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2020. His campaign is based on a grim view of the economy he sees coming: AI, automation, and globalization leading to mass joblessness. The only things that can save us, he says, are a universal basic income (UBI), a redefinition of what work is and how it’s compensated, and a redefinition of how we measure economic and social progress.

I’ll be honest. I’m skeptical of the robots-will-take-all-the-jobs thesis that’s took Silicon Valley, and much of the punditariat, by storm. Yang and I debate those doubts, as well as the different arguments for a UBI (and the various ways to finance it).

You want big ideas? Here they are.

Recommended Books:

Give People Money by Annie Lowrey (I promise I did not push Andrew to recommend this!)

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee

Squeezed by Alissa Quart