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Translator: Sebastian Betti
Reviewer: Gisela Giardino
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I have good news and bad news for you.
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The good news is that in the future
we all will need to work fewer hours.
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The bad news --
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(Applause)
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We started with the right foot.
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(Applause)
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The bad news is that in the future
we will have fewer jobs.
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30 years ago,
when I was studying engineering,
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my first two jobs were amazing,
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were drawing soil resistance curves
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in a soil mechanics firm,
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and counting doors and windows
on a large architecture plan
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in a construction company.
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Today those two jobs no longer exist;
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or, rather, they exist
but are done by a computer.
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I'm not a futurist guru.
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I can't tell you what the jobs
of the future will look like.
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I wish I could, having
so many students with us today.
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But what I can tell you
is that those jobs
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will not be the ones we have now,
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and they will be fewer.
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If I could put myself in the guru's shoes
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to tell you something about the future,
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I would probably tell you
that I see two divergent timelines,
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two futures.
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One future of abundance
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in which technology teaches us
to produce more with less resources,
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including less work,
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and in which we are all wealthier,
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not only in material objects
but also in time,
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in our power to choose
what to do with our lives.
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I also see another future, kind of
the negative of the future of abundance:
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a future where technology
replace the worker
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and inequality continues to grow.
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A future with many spectators
but a few protagonists.
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Which of these two futures
do you think is the most likely?
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Today no one denies that
technology substitutes labor.
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First, the more routine and
mechanical tasks, for instance,
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the ATM replaces the cashier;
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the email replaces the postman;
smartphone apps replace the secretary.
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And this is just the tip of the iceberg,
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because many more jobs are substituted
in the production line:
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weavers, technical operators, cobblers;
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the list is long.
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And, if at the beginning the most
"human," "handmade" occupations
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are protected,
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the machine learns
and shortens the distance.
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And we already have online
translators and accountants,
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robots that cook and deliver,
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programs that diagnose diseases,
write the news
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and manage investment funds.
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And we all are in the line of fire,
in principle.
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In fact, a recent World Bank study
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that looked into the issue
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of technological substitution
in the Latin American neighborhood
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found that, for Argentina,
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60 percent of present jobs
were exposed to automation.
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60 percent of our jobs
will soon be competing
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with a machine or a program.
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Now, if a machine can do for ARS 5
what I can do for ARS 10,
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I have two options:
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work for ARS 5, that is,
for half of the income
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or leave my job to the machine.
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This implies that, if left alone,
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technological progress generates
ill-distributed abundance.
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It produces a lot for very few.
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Because although
it increases productivity,
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so that we produce more with less,
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these productivity gains raise
the income of the owner of the machine,
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the robot, the program,
the remaining worker.
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It does so at the expense of the income
of the rest of the workers,
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who work for less, or do not work.
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And that's only the beginning
of this timeline.
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An old anecdote, apocryphal
as usually anecdotes are,
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tells us that Henry Ford II, then
the owner of the automaker Ford,
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invited Walter Reuther,
the historic leader
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of the American auto workers' union,
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to visit his recently automated factory.
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At the end of the walk, Ford stopped,
put a hand on Reuther's shoulder and said,
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with a dose of sarcasm
and pointing at the machines:
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"Walter, I am worried
about how you are going
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to get these new 'workers'
to pay the union dues?"
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Reuther, unmoved, answered:
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"What worries me, Henry,
is how you're going to get them
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to buy your cars."
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Let's take this anecdote to the extreme:
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let's imagine a world where
all the goods and services are produced
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by machines, robots and programs
owned by the 1 percent of the population,
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the "Henry Fords of this world."
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The natural question is:
If the remaining 99 percent
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work for less or are unemployed,
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who consumes what these machines produce?
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Now, if no one consumes,
what do the machines produce for?
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What’s the point
of technological progress?
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Economists have long known
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that the rich consume
a smaller share of their income.
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The intuition is fairly simple:
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As they have everything, they satiate.
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And they save: for retirement,
for the children, the legacy, for power.
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Then what happens?
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If income concentrates in a few rich,
consumption drops.
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And if consumption drops,
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the economy not only
becomes more unequal;
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it stagnates.
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And technological progress takes
a pause. And everyone loses.
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I know what you are thinking.
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"It's Saturday! Enough downers!"
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(Laughter)
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"Where is that 'TEDx moment'
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that makes us laugh and moves us
to reconcile with our lives?"
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Well, I have good news
and bad news for you.
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The bad news is that this is not
that kind of TEDx talk.
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(Laughter)
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The good ones, as we said at the
beginning, another future is possible.
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Almost 100 years ago,
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more precisely in 1930,
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the British economist John Maynard Keynes
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imagined the future of his grandchildren;
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that is, more or less our present.
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Like us now, it foreshadowed that the
machines, the increase in productivity,
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technological progress would generate
lots of goods with little work.
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But, in addition, he also predicted
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that we would all work 15 hours a week
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and would devote the rest
of our time to creative leisure,
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aesthetic appreciation
- Keynes was an aesthete -
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or to come here to the TEDx talks.
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In principle, it makes sense.
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In fact, when I mentioned this
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at the beginning of the talk,
several of you
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probably thought: "Less work,
what can be better than that?"
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If we worked fewer hours,
we created many more individual jobs,
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everybody has at least some work,
everybody is happy.
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What we would label the "leisure society"
in the new sociology.
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What's missing in this rationale?
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Imagine that tomorrow at work
we tell our boss:
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"Starting today I will work
four hours a week instead of eight --
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or a day, rather.
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Just do the maths.
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Most likely, our boss would say:
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"Starting today, you will be paid
about half your wage."
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What does this mean?
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That, if we reduce work hours,
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we distribute the remaining working hours
among more workers.
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If everybody work fewer hours,
there are more jobs.
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But this at the expense that each
individual worker receives less income;
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unless the owner of the machines,
the robots, the programs,
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unilaterally, spontaneously,
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chooses to distribute
his own income among his workers
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an outcome that, a priori,
looks rather improbable.
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Reducing working hours only
distributes scarcity;
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but it does not alter
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the way income is shared between
workers and capitalists.
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In this light, the distance,
the bridge that goes
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from the future of inequality
and stagnation
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to the future of shared prosperity,
to the Keynesian utopia,
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essentially requires
that we learn how to distribute
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the fruits of technology progress.
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And the good news is
that this bridge exists,
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and it borrows an idea that is
at once old and innovative:
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a universal basic income.
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What is it?
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In a nutshell, it would be a monthly
sum of money on behalf of the State,
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that complements the income
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from a job of fewer hours and less salary.
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Defined in this way, it sounds
suspiciously simple, but it is not.
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For starters, it costs money.
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True, we can think that,
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if technology makes the owner
of the machine richer,
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this would lead them to pay more taxes,
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which would ultimately be used
to pay for a universal income.
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At any rate, if we want to fund
a universal income scheme
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we need to collect taxes
in a different way,
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we need a more progressive tax system.
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And that's not the only problem.
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A universal income opens some
delicate moral dilemmas, for instance,
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should it be paid only to those
who have a registered job,
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as a reward and incentive to the effort,
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or to everyone, even to those
who never intended to work?
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In the first case, we would be
excluding informal workers
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that cannot verify their jobs.
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And we would also be excluding
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volunteers in soup kitchens,
workers in the social economy;
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and homeworkers,
housewives and househusbands.
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In the second case,
the one independent of having a job,
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we would include all of above,
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as well as all the poets,
authors, vocational athletes.
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And yes, also bums and hooligans.
Everyone.
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What would be fairer? Everyone or
only those who have a formal job?
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And what do we talk about when
we talk about work in this context?
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Frankly, I do not know
which option is the best.
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And that does not worry too much,
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because no option is perfect,
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given the reasons I've just explained.
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And, besides, this debate has just begun.
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What I do know is that,
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whatever the variety of universal income
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that we choose to promote,
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Argentina is in a privileged position
to move forward with this idea.
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For many reasons,
both positive and negative.
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On the negative side,
we have an employment problem.
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Also, our workforce,
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our current and future workers,
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are mostly from a background --
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low- and medium-skilled,
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precisely the ones most exposed
to technological substitution.
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And we don't have a lot of
technology yet, let's be honest,
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we haven't imported
much technology so far.
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When this process starts in earnest,
it'll hit us harder than other countries.
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Hence, the 60 percent
of the World Bank study.
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But there is also positive reasons.
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Among them, perhaps the most important
is that we are not that far away.
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We have universal child allowance
and universal pension,
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and family allowances
and unemployment insurance.
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Universal income would be
the natural continuity of a decade
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in which we learn how to raise
our standard of social protection.
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Argentina is, more than many other
countries, including many developed ones,
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better prepared culturally
to embrace this idea.
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The idea has several advantages.
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For example, from an economic standpoint,
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it draws an almost perfect circle.
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Simply note that what we are doing
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is using part of the dividends
from technological progress,
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transferring this resources via taxes
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to workers, whose demand,
whose consumption is essential
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to sustain technological progress.
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But also, and I believe more importantly,
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universal income responds
to a moral problem:
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What's the use of technological progress
if it creates abundance
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that concentrates in the few hands
who already have everything?
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(Applause)
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I know that many of you may think
that this idea is premature,
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or even delirious.
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To address these concerns, it is always
useful to resort to History.
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For example, in 1889 German Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck introduced
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the pension system and
was labelled a "socialist."
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The word "socialist"
is today innocuous, but back then
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and for a hard-core conservative
like Bismarck was a serious insult.
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"Communism" was marginal in those days,
otherwise they would have called him that.
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And the same happened when U.S. President
Franklin Roosevelt attempted to create
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the pension system in 1935,
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in the midst of economic depression.
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Even in the face of a depression
the pension of old age was resisted.
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Well, universal income
is as "delirious" today
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as the pension system
was just 100 years ago.
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Nor is it delusional to think
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of turning technological
progress into leisure time.
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In fact, if we resort
once more to History,
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the technical revolution
of the late 19th century,
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reduced the average weekly hours worked
in developed countries from 70 to 45.
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In the coming decades,
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technological progress could cut
that average by half,
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if combined with a universal income.
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We said at the beginning:
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The good news is that in the future
we will work fewer hours;
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the bad news is that in the future
we will have fewer jobs.
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The universal income offers a bridge
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to cross from the bad future
to the good future,
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a bridge to share prosperity.
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It does not eliminate the option to work,
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so important to many of us;
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it gives us the option of time.
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"The government should guarantee
a minimum universal income
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funded by taxes."
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How much do you agree
or disagree with this?
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This is what we asked
a few weeks ago to 500 people,
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on an online survey we run with the help
of Mariano Sigman and Guillermo Solovey.
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The answers, naturally, varied a lot
with the ideological preferences,
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a theme that could take
another TEDx talk.
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For this talk, the relevant result
is the following:
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more than half of the respondents,
specifically 77 percent --
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with varying degrees of agreement,
supported that proposition,
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that universal income funded with taxes.
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Now I am asking you:
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A universal income funded with taxes.
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How much do you agree
or disagree with this?
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You don't need to answer right away.
Think about it.
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Think about all the pros and cons
that I mentioned.
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Take your time,
talk it over with friends.
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There's still time.
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For now, this is just a delirious idea
for an uncertain future.
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For now.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
