NEIL ARMSTRONG, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins returned from humanity鈥檚 first visit to the moon on 24 July 1969. Two weeks later, US president Richard Nixon took another giant leap by proposing a wholly new way of organising society, one adapted to a world without scarcity, in which citizens were guaranteed regular cash payments.
Through a blizzard of competing headlines about the moon landing, the civil rights movement and the war in Vietnam, few people noticed. But writing in 麻豆传媒 on 28 August 1969, technology journalist Rex Malik called the idea a historic move comparable to the moon landing and expressed astonishment that it came from 鈥渁 man not usually noted for his powers of imagination鈥�.
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The spur for this innovation was a new arrival in the workplace: the computer. 鈥淭he computer of the next decade can already be foreseen, and so can the distinct 鈥榡umps鈥� in its development which will make drastic change possible and likely,鈥� Malik wrote. That would have far-reaching consequences. 鈥淔ull automation could already sweep away most manual and clerical jobs, and as work becomes scarcer wages will become divorced from the job done.鈥�
At the heart of 狈颈虫辞苍鈥檚 address was a proposal by the economist Milton Friedman that higher earners should pay taxes to the government, while the government pays money out to those who earn less. Thus, the fruits of automation could be shared and the job of government made quicker and cheaper.
狈颈虫辞苍鈥檚 was 鈥渉edged in by qualifications and assured of a stony reception in Congress鈥�, Malik wrote. Indeed, the plan was quashed by Democrats opposed to Nixon in the Senate in 1971.
Today, we are engaged in another bout of soul-searching about the effect of automation on jobs. The idea of a universal basic income has seen a revival, championed by the likes of former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and tech titans Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt.
鈥淭he first steps towards a society in which large numbers can materially exist without working for gain or possession have already been taken,鈥� Malik observed in 1969. Fifty years later, we continue to tiptoe, with painful slowness, towards a wageless future. Simon Ings
