GOOD-centric Fairness in Economics
"We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Moore’s law: the overall processing power for computers will double every two years. AI will take over jobs faster than the educational system can retrain dislocated workers. Not every dislocated worker will be retrainable for the jobs of the future. Many jobs of the future will be temporary, freelance, or gig in nature without employment security or healthcare benefits. The number of jobs is likely to be reduced, perhaps dramatically:
No matter what the starry-eyed futurists may tell you, corporations are not going to create millions of new robot-repair and oversight positions to fill the void that is being created. Nor will there be enough positions for software designers and managers to maintain a middle class. Companies are not going to pour resources into automation while at the same time creating jobs for displaced and downsized workers—doing so would negate the very profits they seek. (John Nichols, Can Automation Turn Fewer Jobs into Better Ones?)
The World Economic Forum also backed up Professor Vardi's fears with a report released last month warning that the rise of robots will lead to a net loss of over 5 million jobs in 15 major developed and emerging economies by 2020. (Oscar Williams-Grut, Robots Will Steal Your Job: How AI Could Increase Unemployment and Inequality)
What should be the fair response offered by GOD-centric and GOOD-centrics? Equalize access to jobs by reducing work hours for non-freelance workers, increasing fairness in compensation, and strengthening the healthcare safety net.
Equalizing Access to Jobs by Reducing Work Hours
While freelance and gig jobs will likely become a larger percentage of the economy in the future, there will still be full-time workers for a single employer. With the overall number of jobs decreasing, we may want to explore redefining “full-time” to a reduced # of hours. If there were 1,000 hours of work available to employees working a 40-hour week, then 25 workers would be needed to complete the task. If there were 1,000 hours of work available to employees working a 30-hour week, then 33 workers would be needed to complete the task: 8 additional people would have a job.
Oh, I can hear the thrashing of corporate honchos now: “We can’t survive or thrive while reducing hours and adding workers!” Yes, I imagine there was a similar outcry when the 40-hour work week was established in 1940; yet, corporations survived and thrived. A 30-hour work week would allow employees more balance and freedom in their lives which would increase happiness, reduce stress, and likely improve the quality and productivity of work offered in those 30 hours.
Increasing Fairness in Compensation
In 1974, my 3rd grade teacher told the class that by the time we grew up, computers would be doing most of the work so we would probably work 30 hours a week and have plenty of time for leisure. I took her at her word and have felt aggrieved that my work week has never reflected this projection. Of course, a 30-hour work week in today’s economic climate would mean a wage reduction of 25% and the loss of healthcare benefits. Leisure doesn’t look so good given that reality. Of course, GOOD-centric people would have embraced simplicity so their material desires would be reduced; however, ends would still have to meet and that broken limb would still need to be reset.
How could people survive financially while working only 30 hours per week? The easy answer is that they could survive if they earned more per hour. How about equalizing our pay structures by establishing a maximum wage limit which would offset the cost of increasing other wages? Perhaps CEO’s and other top brass could earn no more in wage and incentive packages than 100 times the wage of the lowest paid employee. If no more money were to be spent on wages overall, then prices would not need to increase which is the most common argument against raising the minimum wage.
Bertrand Russell recommended: “In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.” Why do we get paid what we get paid? Is “the market” God or good? Rather than kowtowing to an amoral marketplace, why not tie wages to social benefit? Teachers and nurses would earn more than hedge fund managers and football players? I don’t know how that could work; but, it is a compelling thought which I hope will inspire good people cleverer than me.
Strengthening the Healthcare Safety Net
Employer-based healthcare insurance was always a ridiculous arrangement: If you are seriously ill, you cannot work the full-time hours necessary to earn healthcare coverage. One of the reasons that more jobs are going gig is because employers do not want to have to provide healthcare coverage to their employees because doing so puts them at a competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace. Companies want to make money and so they should as long as they do so ethically. The healthcare industry also wants to make money but can it do so ethically? Most healthcare is not paid for directly by the consumer because most consumers could never afford the price of healthcare. Healthcare is paid for by insurance companies and insurance companies make more profit if their consumers don’t actually consume healthcare.
Let’s stop this madness! Healthcare is a public good and its provision should come from public funds. Public funds are not limitless so we should also encourage the wise use of healthcare resources. This is an issue far too large to be covered thoroughly in this modest volume; however, the guidepost is that healthcare is a good for the public, not just that portion of the public which is rich or which is fortunate and healthy enough to secure the increasingly smaller percentage of jobs which offer healthcare insurance. Healthcare should be publically funded.
