Give Workers 10,000 Pound To Survive Automation, British Top Think Tank Suggests (huffingtonpost.co.uk)

Britons should be able to bid for 10,000 pound (roughly $14,000) to help them prosper amid huge changes to their working lives, a leading think tank suggests today. From a report: The Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) has released research proposing a radical new sovereign wealth fund, which would be invested to make a profit like similar public funds in Norway. The returns from the fund would be used to build a pot of money, to which working-age adults under-55 would apply to receive a grant in the coming decade.

People would have to set out how they intend to put the five-figure payouts to good use, for example, by using the cash to undergo re-training, to start a new business, or to combine work with the care of elderly or sick relatives. It would be funded like the student grant system and wealthier individuals could be required to pay back more in tax as their earnings increase. Ultimately, the RSA paper suggests, the wealth fund would finance a Universal Basic Income (UBI) as the world of modern work is turned upside down by increased automation, new technology and an ageing population.

Comments

Hysterically inadaquate

[Maxo-Texas]

What workers needed is free industry funded training.

It has to be free because for the next few decades, entire job categories are going to collapse repeatedly.

Just as we have free public schooling, we need free job training or else you'll see violence.

In any case, I'm retired on a fairly tight budget and own my own house (so no rent) and that amount of money wouldn't last me one year. The only way I could survive on that would be to eat really unhealthy food, not buy anything new, walk most places, relying on public transportation only for job interviews and I'd have to go without heat in the winter and cooling in the summer.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[alvinrod]

There's two problems with this. First, we don't necessarily know what jobs to train them for, either because they don't exist yet or we're not anticipating demand for them. There's also a side issue that any job you train someone for may also become unavailable before long as well. The second is that it assumes that all people are equally competent and capable of any job, which isn't true either. Eventually you reach a point with any person where they're incapable of doing anything economically productive due any number of factors including age, mental capability, health, etc.

It's probably cheaper to just give them some money to live off of contingent on them not running around committing crimes. People seem to think that a basic income like this would be completely detrimental, but I think it's preferable to alternatives. First, if people are being replaced by machines, it means overall labor capacity has either increased or remained the same at a lower cost so it isn't going to economically ruin the economy. Second, I believe that people left to their own devices will do a better job of finding supplemental or new employment better than any government planning board that thinks it can predict or direct the economy. The only other policy you'd need would be similar to China's one child policy so you don't have unproductive individuals spawning large numbers of children they're probably not well equip to care for either and I don't see a problem with just subsidizing the existence of people who aren't capable of finding new jobs. Yes, some people will choose not to work ever again, but if they want to go read books in the park all day, it's better than them turning to crime in order to try to get by.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[ShanghaiBill]

First, we don't necessarily know what jobs to train them for

A common policy is to offer tax incentives or other subsidies to employers to hire less skilled workers and train them for real jobs. The obvious employer response is to take the subsidies and apply them to people that they would have hired anyway, or to even fire existing workers to replace them with effectively cheaper "trainees".

There is little evidence that government programs to encourage training are actually effective ... but there is also little evidence that automation is actually causing job losses, so training subsidies are a bad solution to a problem that may not even exist.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Just as we have free public schooling, we need free job training or else you'll see violence.

Bring on the violence, please. English citizens don't have guns. What are they going to do? Throw rocks and Molotov cocktails at the police? British soccer hooligans are good at whipping up a wee bit of mayhem, but when the police and army return fire with SA80's . . . the hooligans will hatch a new plan and return to the Winchester for the night.

"The Crown" will have no qualms about slaughtering their own citizens if their regency feels threatened. That Prince William may have a nice smile, but he's got that true bloodline of despotic dictators in him. This experience with the Brits is why the Founding Fathers of the US decided that they needed liberal gun laws.

But thankfully won't come to this. The same thing was supposed to happen during the industrial revolution in the late 1800's . . . and none of those dire prophecies became reality. Human beings are like weeds and toenail fungus: incredibly resilient. Folks will adjust to the new environment and find new jobs.

“Man is a singular creature. He has a set of gifts which make him unique among the animals: so that, unlike them, he is not a figure in the landscape — he is a shaper of the landscape.” Jacob Bronowski

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[alvinrod]

I'm not proposing training subsidies, just some form of UBI. Some recipients will use that money to educate themselves or will seek out training for work because they want the additional money that comes in the form of finding a job. Some will probably spend more time producing art, which doesn't have much economic value in and of itself, but does give them something to do and an opportunity to gain income through selling their works or services and keeps them out of trouble due to having a base level of income that's not attached to anything. A UBI is beneficial because you'll never find a government jobs program that's aimed at training people to be a drummer or to increase the number of wood carvers.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[AmiMoJo]

English citizens don't have guns. What are they going to do?

Same thing as American citizens are gonna do when their rifles come up against an A1 Abrams tank or an F35 dropped laser guided bomb.

I.e. realize that armed uprising hasn't been viable for at least 100 years.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[Kjella]

Eventually you reach a point with any person where they're incapable of doing anything economically productive due any number of factors including age, mental capability, health, etc.

Only a few heavily handicapped people are actually completely incapable. The rest may not be employable on commercial terms, but if you're the government you don't care since they're on your "payroll" anyway. That's what happen to everyone under 30 on our "last resort" program here in Norway. You don't get to play PlayStation or work black labor, you'll do community service all day and in return you'll get a subsistence wage. Basically unpaid interns but only for a limited time per workplace and obviously if they find work they're gone. So if you need any sort of skill or experience it's better to employ them, it's only if you need a revolving door of totally unskilled - and in some cases, unreliable and unmotivated - labor that they actually replace an employee.

First, if people are being replaced by machines, it means overall labor capacity has either increased or remained the same at a lower cost so it isn't going to economically ruin the economy.

Only if the economy is a closed loop and robots are an international market. If I fire my local cleaning lady and replace her with a robot from China that could be very detrimental to the local and national economy.

The only other policy you'd need would be similar to China's one child policy so you don't have unproductive individuals spawning large numbers of children they're probably not well equip to care for

Actually Europe is far below a stable reproduction rate, Japan too. We actually need more people willing to pop out 3+ children to avoid de-population issues. The world is now very close to "peak child" as Hans Rosling called it. The remaining population growth is mainly the current population aging and "filling out" the age pyramid.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[rea1l1]

We should be doing our best to flood the market with high quality healthcare providers. Pump out doctors & nurses, offering free full ride scholarships, and watch the costs drop.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I.e. realize that armed uprising hasn't been viable for at least 100 years.

In the US, in 2014, actually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

If the ranchers and their pals hadn't been armed to the teeth, the Feds would have just hoovered them up off the land with Soylent Green Scoopers. A wise Fed realized that a shootout with them would have been seriously bad news, and decided to draw down.

A federal court later decided in favor of the ranchers. Please note, if the ranchers had not been seriously armed, the case would have been swept away under the rug, and the ranchers would have never had a chance to present their case before a court.

I'm not exactly thrilled with all the civilians in the US walking around with guns . . . but I am even less thrilled at the thought of local or federal government having a monopoly on guns either. American law enforcement officers have quite a dubious record. They are not your cheerful British Bobbies.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[Anonymous Coward]

A UBI never works. Was tried in the US, but failed, called "the dole". Socialism always fails, and we can point to Venezuela as a place where socialism is alive and well, especially trading recipes for one's pet cat/dog/rat.

We spent decades ridding ourself of that poison; it will not be brought back, no matter how many people beg for it.

People forget... who pays for the UBI?

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[ShanghaiBill]

I'm not proposing training subsidies, just some form of UBI.

Before proposing a solution, you need to establish that the problem exists. Are people actually losing jobs to automation?

Countries that have extensively automated include America, Western Europe, and Japan. Countries that have not include Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Haiti. Are the 2nd group better off because they avoided the "productivity catastrophe"?

In the past, automation has caused some dislocation, but has resulted in higher living standards, and greater demand for labor. This is an example of Jevon's paradox, but it really isn't a paradox at all. If you are a factory owner, and you are installing machinery that can double the production of each worker, and double your profits from each worker, would you fire half of them, or hire more?

Some people claim that "this time is different" because the change is happening faster. The evidence says otherwise. Productivity growth is slowing down. The easy-to-automate manufacturing jobs are already automated, and service jobs, which are now 80% of the economy, are proving much harder to automate.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[mikael]

You need constant retraining in the tech industry. They say you will have five to eight different careers in your life. Career #1 is going to college/university as a student, or industry as an apprentice/intern. Then you become fully qualified as Career #2. That might last two to ten years, then you are in management, contracting or consultancy (Career #3). Some people might just leave the field altogether, go into another profession or back to university to do a MSc or PhD (Career #4). Then they do academic research work or back into industry (Career #5). Some people go back and do a MSc every five years, or whenever they can't find a job.

The tricky thing now is that in the UK is that there is a shortage of "senior software engineers". Companies have the project managers, team leaders and contractors, but they can't find "senior" developers to do the project management/mentoring/pair programming/training for juniors. Practically they want someone with every skill they are using, which is a unique combination of 10+ skills ranging from things like embedded C/microcontrollers to UNIX/big data/R/Scala or Windows/C#/C++/STL/Boost/Visual Studio/multithreading/TBB/Intel compilers. Unity/Unreal/CryEngine is mandatory for game development.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[prisoner-of-enigma]

If you are a factory owner, and you are installing machinery that can double the production of each worker, and double your profits from each worker, would you fire half of them, or hire more?

While I agree with the rest of your premise, this one deserves more scrutiny. For example, if GM could double production capacity of all its plants would that equate to a doubling of demand for its products and/or services? This assumes pricing remains constant, of course. A decrease in pricing might stimulate demand, but pricing could only be decreased if labor costs were decreased due to automation or wage cuts, both of which negatively impact the wage earner. Without a decrease in pricing, doubling of capacity is only feasible if there is pent-up demand. In the case of GM, that's not true; there's lots of unsold inventory. One can assume similar production/demand relationships exist in other industries. I mean, would Apple sell more iPhones if it could double capacity? Doubtful. In most (profitable) industries production/demand is fairly balanced. An unbalanced production/demand relationship either drives prices up due to shortages -- which naturally tamps demand down to equalize with production -- or an overproduction produces lower prices and/or unsold inventory which naturally bankrupts companies that persist in doing it.

It also assumes the raw materials for such production can supply what's needed for the doubling without increasing prices itself, something dependent upon it's ability to be automated. Can steel mills use automation to double their supply to GM? Can iron ore mines use automation to double their output to supply the mills? Can the transport industries use automation to double their transport capacities to carry all this extra stuff to and fro? There are a lot of moving parts to consider here if the whole "double production and don't lay anyone off" argument is to be used. Which, I think, makes it the weaker argument. Automation will instead be used to reduce "common" human labor which means layoffs and/or wage cuts.

The thing to fixate on here is the worker displaced by automation and new workers entering the workforce. The former needs to adapt to the new labor market and focus on skills associated with designing, building, installing, and maintaining the automation. The latter needs to anticipate the new skills dynamic and get an education that focuses on the same thing. This is the only solution to the situation. Progress cannot be stopped. It's been tried before during the Industrial Revolution and look how successful stopping that progress was. Not adapting or anticipating is equivalent to stopping economic evolution, a sure-fire recipe for a stagnant or regressive economy, unemployment, and lower standards of living.

We're moving towards an economy where brainpower is going to be much more valuable than muscle power. I'm reminded of a passage from Isaac Asimov's Robot novels where one of the characters states that the lowest position a human can actually hold anymore is "supervisor" since robots do all the actual labor. For people who lack supervisory skills and are unwilling to develop them, they're digging their own economic graves.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[ScentCone]

No, the right to bear arms was included in the British Bill of RIghts in the year 1680.

Funny how that manifested itself as the British taking away their American colonists' guns (and swords, for that matter), and making it a crime for them to have them. You do remember that part, right? No? I see.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[Maxo-Texas]

yes, large numbers of older people are being displaced and an increasing number are simply committing suicide because life is so bleak.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[alvinrod]

I'm not in favor of it just as a matter of helping people as a result of job loss due to automation, but as a replacement for other forms of government welfare. Essentially, treat it as a replacement for social security, medicare, food stamps, etc. We're already spending that money and replacing it with a single system cuts out loads of bureaucracy and results in a system that's more flexible and adaptable to people's needs.

Ideally a UBI serves as a reasonable safety net for people and not a means for people to live without trying to contribute value to society in some way or at least not be a detriment to it. I think that it shouldn't be more than enough to subsist if they lose a job, whether as a result of automation or not. Increased automation makes a UBI more feasible because it reduces costs for labor or results in increased productivity.

Ideally, it would also reduce crime to some degree which would help it to pay for itself. Housing prisoners is expensive and if I have a choice between paying someone $6,000 a year to not cause problems and paying $30,000 or more to keep them in prison, I think the former choice is preferable in that it means people who need to serve as prison guards can do something more productive instead.

Obviously, I don't think we can just implement a form of UBI while leaving everything else in place. Other government systems would likely need to change as well, but I think that most people would agree that the current welfare system is a mess.

Re: Hysterically inadaquate

[Anonymous Coward]

the ai robots?

Re: Hysterically inadaquate

[houghi]

The reason for all this is simple. The number of jobs is finite. Some people will get hired as AI maintainers, but less then are replaced. Otherwise using AI and robots would mean higher cost.

Re: Hysterically inadaquate

[Maxo-Texas]

No, of course the number of jobs isn't finite.
New jobs are being created all the time.

The problem is jobs will temporarily be destroyed for 20-30 years at a much higher rate than they are created.

Getting thru that period can be very rough.

Re: Hysterically inadaquate

[ShanghaiBill]

The number of jobs is finite.

Lump of Labor Fallacy

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[havana9]

Or better pfund public schools in technical enginnerig that make evening courses. Make a nominal fee, like 100$/semester and make the end exam a legal one.
In ITaly they're called ITIS Istituto tecnico industriale statale: State industrial technical institute or ITGS State surveyor technical institute and the thing works. There are some private (christian catholic schools mainly, especially due the fact that some priests stated trade schools in 1800 like st. John Bosco) ones. They cost a lot more. There are also evening schools for learning lagnuages (bot computer and natural) and so on... Help people to restart to go to school or make teens to go at high schools effectivley.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[houghi]

Remember that Indian guy? No violence was needed. But it will be a long time till it gets that far, with or without violence, As long as people are fed and have their entertainment, not much will change. Panem et circenses.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[Hognoxious]

The remaining population growth is mainly the current population aging and "filling out" the age pyramid.

Eh? Are you saying that when a person passes 50 he suddenly becomes 1.3 people?

I mean I know I've put a bit of weight on, but ...

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[Hognoxious]

The families would of course be temporarily housed on guarded bases. For their own safety, of course.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[Hognoxious]

That's why Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq have been RESOUNDING VICTORIES for the US.

Those were invasions. He said uprisings.

Clue: One requires foreigners.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[Hognoxious]

A wise Fed realized that a shootout with them would have been seriously bad news, and decided to draw down.

You seriously think that's because they would have lost the battle and not because it would have been bad PR?

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[Hognoxious]

I don't see why one precludes the other.

After all, you can't be trusted with them, can you?

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[JesseMcDonald]

You seriously think that's because they would have lost the battle and not because it would have been bad PR?

Of course it was because of the PR aspect, and not because they were afraid they'd lose the fight. So what? It was only a PR nightmare for them because the people on the other side were armed, and thus capable of resisting. An unarmed group could have been evicted without drawing nearly as much attention.

Even if you don't stand a chance of winning the fight, there is value in forcing your opponents to exert themselves and, in doing so, reveal their true principles and priorities for everyone to see.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[Maxo-Texas]

On the other hand... We are about 4 billion over the carrying capacity of the planet in terms of raw resource usage (like chromium, manganese, etc.); water problems are popping up. We can't indefinately increase the amount of energy per person at the current rate. Actually, if we do (ignoring global warming and just looking at the earth's ability to radiate raw heat away) continue to increase at this rate, the surface temperature of the earth will be over 212 degrees within 500 years (again- ignoring global warming).

There is a risk of being in a behaviour sink tho- Calhoun's rats suffered breeding rate problems and in the presence of plentiful space, food and water they went extinct.

So while we have too many, we don't want to overshoot either.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[Hognoxious]

But that's still relying on teh gubmint to play nice. A proper dictator like Saddam or Stalin would just have levelled the place.

Thus, against actual tyranny, no use at all.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[JesseMcDonald]

A proper dictator like Saddam or Stalin would just have levelled the place.

Sure, but even in that case the rest of the world is looking on. Saddam or Stalin might not care, but others will—if the story gets out, which is more likely when tyranny encounters concerted opposition rather than passive acquiescence.

Besides the PR aspects there is also value in making tyranny as expensive as possible. Even an absolute dictator is constrained by limited resources, and the more expensive it is to subdue each source of opposition, the less there is left over to go after the others. In this way you might lose nearly every battle but still eventually win the war, by bankrupting your opponent. In the meantime you force them to dedicate their efforts to quelling rebellions rather than oppressing the rest of the population.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[wyHunter]

Of course.

UBI

[AK Marc]

Looks like the answer will be UBI, or an armed revolution by the underclass. The powered elite are gauging how long they can put off the revolution, and how little of a UBI would provide bread and circuses, and not looking at how to solve the underlying equity that's been the downfall of almost every civilization that's ever existed. Maybe this time they'll put it off longer, but they can never stop it, without addressing the actual issues.

Re:UBI

[Anonymous Coward]

The "underclass" are morons. These are the idiots that demanded Brexit and elected Trump in the US.

They want the opiates of their generation - TV, drugs, alcohol, sex and guns.

Marie Antoinette would have survived if she had ACTUALLY distributed cake.

Re:UBI

[Anonymous Coward]

To suppress an armed revolution by the underclass, you need a loyal cadre of guards. But you can't recruit them from the underclass, because they'll sympathise with their own. You need a poor population willing to do violence on your behalf, without a shared sense of identity with your existing peons ...

Oh, look! Refugees!

Re:UBI

[AHuxley]

Thats not the "cake" that most people think of.

Re:UBI

[gweihir]

We may still get that uprising even with an UBI. It is clearly necessary, but people need meaning in their lives and for most that comes from their job.

Re:UBI

[AK Marc]

UBI doesn't end jobs. People generally still choose to work. UBI just eliminates the need to have a job to eat. Give the people their bread and circuses. Right now, we are closing on circuses without the bread, and people are getting restless.

Re:UBI

[Hognoxious]

We all saw what happened to Greece, and you still think Brexit is a bad idea?

The EU was the icing, but there was a considerable cake underneath and the main ingredients were internal corruption & ineptitude.

Greece was an economic joke before it even joined.

Re-training fairy tale

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if one spent the money on something marketable, employers don't hire folks without experience. So unless the retraining money is tied to employer incentives to hire inexperienced new grads, it'll be a complete waste.

And start a business? OK, in what? Too many people go off half-cocked starting businesses only to get into something that's has saturated market or something that has no demand.

Politicians are so clueless.

let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Joe_Dragon]

let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a better idea.

Let's just stop letting kids take out fifty thousand dollar loans to get a degree in women's studies as expressed through dance.

Put them through a trade school instead.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[alvinrod]

They could be if the government would stop subsidizing them. Banks shouldn't be required to lend people money and I suspect if student loans didn't have government backing the banks would be far more picky about who they loan money to. Of course, everyone needs to go to college these days, even little Timmy who had a 2.3 GPA in high school and plans to major in philosophy. That's just as good of a financial risk as little Suzy who was the class valedictorian and wants to go into biomedical engineering.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[PolygamousRanchKid]

let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

Oh, that plan worked out just grand with the sub-prime mortgage industry.

When a bankruptcy occurs, the debts don't simply disappear. Someone ends up loosing money on them or paying for them.

In this case, it will end up being the general taxpayers . . . again.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[AmiMoJo]

We need a lot of graduates. There are skills shortages. Okay, there are problems with employers not wanting to pay enough, but at the same time if the available supply is too expensive to make the business case for hiring... And especially in the UK we want to stop most of the immigration so can't rely on that.

We also can't expect children to make great life decisions at that age, and can't realistically expect them to dedicate years of their lives to subjects they have little interest in. That's not necessarily a problem if we recognize that a philosophy degree is valuable for the skills it teaches - writing, rhetoric, self study, time management, project management, self motivation. Being able to convey ideas and convince people of your arguments is a pretty useful skill in many businesses.

Education is a lot like infrastructure. Universal service is a good thing, we want everyone to be able to get post or have a phone or have access to a public road, within reason. If our society becomes about nothing more than the corporate bottom line it will be even more awful than it is already.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised you didn't choke on the dust and die while constructing all those strawmen.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[nonBORG]

Banks have a low bar for lending. Basically they make money though lending money and if they lose 1 in 100 it is still worth flowing the money out and gaining the interest.

A friend of mine asked the bank not to lend any more money to his son who already has $12k borrowed, no assets, only a part time job and no drivers license (he lost his license.) Even with him not making payments on the existing loan they were going to lend him more, not sure if they did or not.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[alvinrod]

You're assuming that you can just take any particular person and turn them into a doctor, engineer, or other highly skilled profession. There are some people who lack the intelligence, aptitude, or desire to participate in any of those fields. Devoting resources towards getting blood out of a stone is wasting them when they could be better spent on those who are capable and willing.

I also think you're assuming that all degrees are capable of producing value which I don't believe is this case either and I don't believe that a degree is philosophy necessarily imbues skills in self study, self motivation, time management, or project management any more than any other degree. Subsidizing degrees in philosophy, art history, religious studies, etc. is not going to provide the taxpayer with a good return on their investment. Wanting those degrees to be useful doesn't make them so, and allowing the large number of individuals to who choose to major in them and end up in a cycle of perpetual debt due to lack of job prospects is pure folly on the part of society.

If you removed government subsidization of student loans, banks would figure this out in a hurry and would largely stop loaning money to people who try to major in those fields. much like they're not going to provide a home loan to a crack addict with a history of arson. This naturally drives people towards the fields of study where there is a possibility of doing something economically viable and prevents people who are always going to end up working as a cashier, builder, or some other job that requires no college education from running up six figure loan debts that they have no real hope of paying off. Instead they can entire the workforce sooner, begin earning sooner, start acquiring job skills sooner, and likely be able to afford a house and build up capital that they would not otherwise be able to do if they're taking out expensive student loans.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Hognoxious]

I thought it was the other way round.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Maxo-Texas]

When batteries can be discharged in bankruptcy then banks will stop lending insane amounts to young, ignorant people.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Maxo-Texas]

You are misreading the situations.

Banks adore the current situation. Large tuitions due to loans require large loans which you can't escape for life. It's a guaranteed income stream and virtual slavery for an entire generation of young people.

It absolutely kills our economy since they can't ever afford to take risks or retrain until huge debts are paid off.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Hal_Porter]

Mao had a rustication program where students were sent to countryside to live with the Proletariat and abandon their bourgeois ways

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

On December 22, 1968, Chairman Mao directed the People's Daily to publish a piece entitled "We too have two hands, let us not laze about in the city", which quoted Mao as saying "The intellectual youth must go to the country, and will be educated from living in rural poverty." In 1969, many youth were rusticated. High school students were organized and assigned to the countryside on a national level.

The modern equivalent would be Trump sending all the SJWs from rich families who think they're Marxists from Berkeley and NYU to trade schools in a red state for re-education by the workers. This would cause them to abandon their heretical identity politics and adopt working class values and class based politics.

Class warfare : it works for the right too.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[AmiMoJo]

You're assuming that you can just take any particular person and turn them into a doctor, engineer, or other highly skilled profession.

No, quite the opposite. To create the most doctors and engineers we need to give everyone the opportunity to have a university level education, and not write them off too early if they happen to have a bad couple of years at school.

Subsidizing degrees in philosophy, art history, religious studies, etc. is not going to provide the taxpayer with a good return on their investment.

Only if you consider anything non-technical to be worthless. Personally I don't want to live in a cultureless, philistine society. And actually these days a large part of the UK economy is creative services. It's going to have to grow massively too because we are about to lose more manufacturing and financial services.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Hal_Porter]

The issue is not whether or not you should read Greek and Roman authors - you most definitely should. The issue is whether you should go $85K into debt to go to a US university to major in philosophy.

Especially as if you did they'd probably regard Plato as a 'dead white male' who had views on sex, race and politics that were - horror of horrors - not the same as those HuffPo writers living in a blue state hold in the 21st Century.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-witte/plato-on-the-dead-white-m_b_10633342.html

Not that Plato's Republic is a good model for a government - it's always seemed to me it was modeled on Sparta. Athens is more analogous to a modern liberal democracy, though modern democracies are representative and not direct and that makes a huge difference. Sparta always seems like what would happen if the US Marine Corps was the whole of America. Athens is what would happen if UC Berkeley was the whole of America - moronic mobs and a handful of intellectuals. Some of whom will, with the benefit of hindsight be seen as very, very far ahead of their time.

Still it's interesting reading Plato and Thucydides because it's weird how far ahead of the rest of humanity they were. Criticizing them for not being modern enough is missing the point that they wrote >2400 years ago in a societies that were really, really different from anything around today. You shouldn't complain that they're not modern enough but rather marvel at how modern they are. If you read Tacitus and Cicero you definitely get the sense that they knew that the Late Roman Republic and Early Roman Empire was a major step back from the ideals of the Greeks. And they were right - things were getting worse. Rather like they are now in US academia where 'safe spaces' are seen as being more important than teaching material from 'dead white males' with views modern Millennials might find a bit shocking.

I'd say get a degree you can get a decent ROI on and then try to read up things that are interesting but not particularly commercial in your own time.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Hognoxious]

We need a lot of graduates.

Not in Feminist Folk Dancing and Interdisciplinary Whining..

There are skills shortages.

Tell me about it. I went to buy a basket the other day and they only had ones that were woven on land.

We also can't expect children to make great life decisions at that age, and can't realistically expect them to dedicate years of their lives to subjects they have little interest in.

Not sure what that's got to do with anything. There's no rule that says you have to go to university before you're 25. I've known a few slow burners/late bloomers and they did OK.

if we recognize that a philosophy degree is valuable for the skills it teaches - writing, rhetoric, self study, time management, project management, self motivation.

Does it, these days? At Oxford and the like, maybe. I suspect those at Fulchester University (formerly Outer Westumbria Polycollege) are just regurgitating lecture notes.

And there are other ways of gaining those skills. Indeed, I don't recall anyone I was at uni with who didn't already have most of them when they arrived. Yes, even the engineers.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Hognoxious]

To create the most doctors and engineers we need to give everyone the opportunity to have a university level education

So if 1,000,000 graduates includes 50,000 doctors, and we need 75,000 doctors, we can achieve that simply by having 1,500,000 graduates?

not write them off too early if they happen to have a bad couple of years at school.

Entirely different issue. Ever heard the expression mature student? # ToDo: joke goes here.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[nip1024]

I didn't work through college and pay off my debt so you can get a free ride. If you didn't get a degree worth more than minimum wage, you screwed up. The rest of the country doesn't need to shoulder your poor decisions.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Hal_Porter]

Well back when I was choosing a degree I looked up a list of majors by salary, found Electronic Engineering was number 1 and decided. But to be honest I'd probably have done it anyway. You can usually do OK if you're willing to contract doing software and some hardware knowledge comes in handy if you're doing low level stuff.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[wyHunter]

And the flip side of this is, there's little to no incentive for colleges and universities to try and contain costs. Indeed, it's the other way around; dorms that are as fancy as 3-5 star hotels, incredibly lovely college campuses - this is great, in theory, but it has to be paid for. Me? I went to a 'meh' environment state school, didn't pay a lot for it, and worked my way through > half my education. Again, nothing in life is free; I could have spent 4 years in school and had tens of thousands in debt, or 9 years in school while getting work experience andhave almost no debt.

Spend the money on housing

[Anonymous Coward]

Build more houses and make it possible that someone on the minimum wage can get a mortgage instead of being in social housing, Also a robot tax and foreign labour tax so that it's more expensive to employ them.

captcha:automata

Is this once or every year

[OrangeTide]

Because if it's just a one time payout, it seems inadequate. It's not going to support someone long enough to get a 2 or 4 year degree for example.

Re:Is this once or every year

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Then you will have college grads flipping burgers. Most of the jobs that exist today does not need college degrees. Unless more jobs that need college degrees are created, creating more graduates will not help.

It is like making more stoves and utensils when there is a famine and shortage of food.

Re:Is this once or every year

[Richard_at_work]

No. Please can we get away from the idea that a degree will solve everything - they don't.

I've worked with degree holders who couldnt string a sentence together - the fact that they had a degree didn't mean they could actually survive in the real world, it just showed that they could survive the academic world.

What we need is a populace with a good grounding in logical and critical thinking, literacy and numeracy and only then can we move forward with actual domain specific skills that can be learned during an apprenticeship.

I rarely use Facebook - I opened an account in 2007 and never used it, never posted etc. Since moving to a new country, I started using Facebook groups to access the local "buy and sell" markets. Jesus H Christ, I wasn't prepared for the dross I encountered.

Here on Slashdot, if you browse at above 1 or 2 then you generally get fairly decent literacy - decent spelling, good use of paragraphs and layout, sentences that are well developed.

I hate to sound elitist, but we are not the norm. The norm reads like it was written by 5 year olds. It was seriously shocking to see just how poor these posts on these groups were - and it never ends.

So no, we don't need degrees - IMHO most people wouldn't be able to achieve one because they don't have the basic literacy and numeracy skills they need in the first place, so thats what we need to pivot to.

As an aside, give out a chunk of money and a large proportion of the British public simply won't use it to improve themselves, or pay off debts or anything similar.

Several years ago the benefits system changed, and the change was designed to "empower" the benefits recipients - housing benefit no longer went directly to the landlord, it was paid to the benefit recipient so they could feel "in control".

Today, most private landlords won't take tenants who are reliant on housing benefits, because a huge proportion of those recipients simply stopped paying the rent - they got starry eyed with the numbers in their bank accounts and went and bought TVs, cigarettes and alcohol instead. They got into huge arrears, were evicted and the landlords never got their back rent paid, so nowadays anyone on housing benefit is pretty much excluded from the private market.

Re:Is this once or every year

[OrangeTide]

Then you will have college grads flipping burgers.

If I can hire college grads for 10% less than I do now, because increased supply. Would I not use this additional capacity to improve the output of my business?

Your analogy is nice, but do we have a famine? Is our storage anything other than artificial?

Re:Is this once or every year

[OrangeTide]

No. Please can we get away from the idea that a degree will solve everything - they don't.

Enriches people's live. Provides them new skills to adapt to a changing world. Access to new industry connections. I can go on.

I've worked with degree holders who couldnt string a sentence together - the fact that they had a degree didn't mean they could actually survive in the real world, it just showed that they could survive the academic world.

I've met with people without degrees that had no prospects except liver failure. Lots of different kind of people in the world.
Your counter example doesn't speak of trends or effects on the whole of society.

Here on Slashdot, if you browse at above 1 or 2 then you generally get fairly decent literacy - decent spelling, good use of paragraphs and layout, sentences that are well developed.

Most posts on Slashdot are not written for the purposes of formal submission to an esteemed journal. They are just people casually bullshitting about bullshit.

So no, we don't need degrees - IMHO most people wouldn't be able to achieve one because they don't have the basic literacy and numeracy skills they need in the first place, so that's what we need to pivot to.

The day we say people shouldn't learn, grow and educate ourselves is the day we should roll over and die as a species. I totally understand that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. But if the opportunity presents itself for someone to learn and the only barrier is time and a little money, why the fuck not?

As an aside, give out a chunk of money and a large proportion of the British public simply won't use it to improve themselves, or pay off debts or anything similar.

Sadly true. Most people take free money and do something irresponsible with it. But on the other hand it is not up to you or me to say how a person should go about improving themselves or if they should even bother improving themselves. We not here to lord over those we deem inferior. Giving away money might sound like a nanny state to you, but deciding for other people what they are and are not capable of is worse.

Present the opportunity, and be satisfied if even a small percentage make use of the opportunity. The system right now is you get the opportunity because you were born into the right family under the right circumstances. That's elitism.

Re:Is this once or every year

[Anonymous Coward]

I post on Slashdot with libertarian stuff, mainly to get good counters to it (especially the callous attitude versus the people not of their class and how they view a 5.56 round per capita is an effective way to cure poverty in the US). For the most part, the replies on Slashdot are to the point and when someone presents a brain-dead argument, it is pointed out almost immediately, and the post losing any credibility.

The writing on Facebook, Nextdoor, and other sites is how the "real" world is. The worst Slashdot troll would be a star compared to the drivel posted on social media. In fact, most social media posts are not posts. They are shares from someone else, retweets, moving along someone's picture, or other crap. At least on Slashdot, people post lucidly, and the ones that don't tend to drop to the -1 sludgepit quickly.

Re:Is this once or every year

[houghi]

It might be enough if it is on top of the other things they get, like unemployment benefits. Also depends if it is before or after taxes.
Having say 250GBP (280 EUR 350USD) extra per month for a period of 50 months (just over 4 years) would help a LOT. For 50 months it would be 12500. 200GBP for 50 months would be 10.000.

In most cases it will mean the difference between starving and living.

Re:Is this once or every year

[OrangeTide]

For centuries the intellectual elite have railed against the ignorant masses. But I wonder how many Slashdotters that believe they are part of the elite are really only marginally above average?

at least it can fix the you need a piece of paper

[Joe_Dragon]

at least it can fix the you need a piece of paper to get a job part and for some people do you really want to spend 10K+ (more with an loan that) on that risk?

Under 55s Only

[Sesostris III]

I couldn't see anywhere why this was restricted to the under 55s. *Retirement age is now 66+).

Which is a bit of a bummer as I find myself (ahem) ineligible!

(BBC article - less ad-laden for those of us in the UK: £10,000 proposed for everyone under 55.)

Re:Under 55s Only

[SNRatio]

Especially considering how much more difficult it is to get a job as you get older even if you already have experience in the field.

Good Use

[PPH]

People would have to set out how they intend to put the five-figure payouts to good use

Keep me from having to rob old people living in council flats.

Top British Think Tank.

[Nutria]

LOL

They're expert at thinking how to suck more from the government teat.

Re:Top British Think Tank.

[AmiMoJo]

Actually it's a very well respected organization that has done a lot to improve Britain over the centuries (it was founded in 1754).

Re:Top British Think Tank.

[Hetero]

Replying to yourself again? Sounds like a pretty stanced opinion.

On that note, a reputation that might have been solid three hundred years ago has had plenty of time to falter.

Re:Top British Think Tank.

[Nutria]

Is the National Endowment for the Arts expert in how to improve education in Chemistry and Physics? No.

Is the American Chemical Society expert at teaching art appreciation? No.

Then why in the hell should we give any special regard to what the Royal Society for the Arts says about economics?

Correct! There is no reason. That's why your reply -- while certainly true -- is meaningless in this context.

(No, I take that back. Your comment is meaningful, but only insofar as displaying your bias.)

Re:Top British Think Tank.

[mikael]

Social Economics is an arts degree. It really covers the priorities of government spending. Do they reduce taxation for corporations or do they keep taxes the same and provide free education to people.

Re:Top British Think Tank.

[Nutria]

Social Economics is an arts degree.

Please clarify that, since, in the US at least, getting a Bachelor of Arts degree does not mean that you got an "arts" degree.

How is that going to fix things?

[rsilvergun]

It'll just delay the disaster. The trouble is there aren't going to be enough jobs to go around for people who aren't math whizes. It's like when the manufacturing jobs went overseas and everybody was told to retain for biotech. We just don't need that many rank and file in that industry.

Re:How is that going to fix things?

[AHuxley]

The cost of living is going to change a lot in interesting ways.
Rent, food, transport, medical cost will all have to be covered.
Take more money from the few productive workers in the private sector.
How many citizens then get the payment before the payment becomes too much to cover every year for everyone?

Re:How is that going to fix things?

[gweihir]

Indeed. "Work" is over for many people, probably a majority. It will just take some more time to become blatantly obvious. But money (an UBI is without any alternative) is just one aspect of the problem. People need something to do in order to have meaning in their lives. That will be a lot harder to provide.

I know what people can do with the 10k pounds...

[religionofpeas]

They can pay off the 10k extra taxes that they get to finance the whole scheme.

Sigh

[edittard]

Britons should be able to bid for 10,000 pound

Perhaps the editors could use it to learn how to write amounts properly.

Before any amateur grammarians spout up, yes, "a thirty pound prize" or "a twenty pound note" are correct, but that's not the construction here.

Re:Do anything to stimulate the economy

[AmiMoJo]

I don't see how sandbagging people with 10,000 lbs is going to help anyone.

Presumably the editors couldn't figure out how to type a £ symbol on Slashdot.

Or....

[Texmaize]

Or perhaps don't go to a $30,000 a year university and major in something like trans-generdered sheep dance theory. It is not my fault that you made such a remarkably bad life decision. Stop asking me (and other tax payers) to pay for your bullshit.

Before you say anything about privilege or other SJW crap, my family was very poor. I went to a state school and majored in a STEM field, so that I had a reasonable chance of finding a job when I was done. I had to work through school to pay for my tuition, which was possible because I CHOSE not to masturbate my ego and go to an elite school that I could not afford.

The bald fact is that the tuition for fours years at your local state school is likely the cost of one year in whatever school that you went to. Otherwise, there is almost no way you are begging for loan forgiveness or bankruptcy, since the costs are just not that high at State U.

Now, before you comment that you majored something better than whatever "#studies" major that you really did, let me call bullshit. While it is true that recent graduates have faced a tough job market, it turns out that those who graduated with a challenging major with a good GPA fared very well. So, if you can't pay your loan, you are either (1) cosmically unlucky (2) a dumbass who chose a stupid-assed major at an expensive place (3) an entitled douche who can't stop being an asshole for the 15 minutes it takes to do an interview or (4) had a shit-poor GPA despite being at private school that probably grade inflates.

So in any case, no matter if its your ego, your inability to take life seriously, or because you are an ass-hat, the fact is that YOU purchased something. Your tuition went on to pay people's salaries and maintain buildings etc. It was not play money. It was not free. The government did not force you to make bad choices. YOU DID. Own it. Don't expect other people to make sacrifices in their lives because of your personal bullshit.

Re:Or....

[maeka]

So much anger, so little understanding of the world.

Re:Or....

[Maxo-Texas]

My degree cost me $360 a year in 1986. Even adjusting for inflation, there is no need for costs to be as high as they are.

We can provide a decent quality college level education for the cost of public educaiton.

Even state schools tuitions are crazy these days (like $5000 a semester.)

$360 a year was roughly 72 hours minimum wage.

Re: Or....

[guruevi]

How does 72 hours of pay for teachers cover 4 years of education? You paid for a fake degree? Even $5k/year or $50k/year doesn't cover the cost of running an educational establishment.

What is 10,000 Pound

[darthsilun]

Is that anything like £10,000?
If it is, why not just write that. The author(s) should learn how to use the features in their computers that let them write things that aren't on their keyboards; like the £ sign. Or learn how to cut-and-paste from some other document FFS.
And if nothing else at least write Pounds. Nobody writes or says 10,000 dollar either.
For FSM's sake, it's the 21st Century.

Re:What is 10,000 Pound

[ledow]

Pound signs haven't worked for me on this website for many years. I have a UK computer, UK keyboard, standard browser, nothing unusual.

Maybe they fixed it.

Let me have a look:

£

yeah right

[fourbadgers]

When I was a student, the system was you could get a loan to cover tuition costs, books and misc for the year. Almost everyone I knew spent the lot within a month of starting on Drink, Pizzas, TVs, computers etc. This will be the same, 99% of people likely to be replaced by machines will invest heavily in booze and cigarettes.

Bankrupt

[Citizen of Earth]

Or, we could always wait for AI to actually start causing big employment dislocations before voluntarily bankrupting every developed country with a Basic Income or the like.

£10k???!!!

[TJHook3r]

Bid for a paltry sum of money and hope that you and enough of your fellow entrepreneurs can support the mass unemployed? In the UK, the tuition fees alone are £9k, so £10k is a drop in the ocean. Plus, something tells me lecturers aren't going to be the obvious first choice for arriving at paradigm-shifting solutions.

Duck Tales Inflation Lesson

[Hal_Porter]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Biased to white collar middle class

[plopez]

I guess in Britain the distinction is "O" level vs. "A" level. I would think "O" level would have a harder time applying for grants. They are not as socialized into the paper chase as much as "A" levels. Anyone with a few years of college would have a distinct advantage. Unless some of the educated classes were hired to to coach the others. Which would create jobs for them.

Re:Biased to white collar middle class

[plopez]

Everything I know about it is from "Trainspotting"

Re:Sounds Like Something ...

[AmiMoJo]

"Arts" in English refers to science and engineering too. That meaning is less common today but the RSA was founded in the 1750s. In fact it's full name is the "Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce."

They should be popular with the Slashdot crowd, having previously worked on projects like re-thinking intellectual property rights from first principals. Their membership includes Tim Berners-Lee and Steven Hawking.

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy

[mspohr]

College should be free

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy

[gravewax]

nothing is free. What you probably meant is college should be funded by working individuals through tax. Personally fuck that, college should be funded by those that utilise it, perhaps through extra tax post graduation but still by those utilising the system. Many should be being steered away from college to a trade school.

Finance to the rescue

[manu0601]

The returns from the fund would be used to build a pot of money, to which working-age adults under-55 would apply to receive a grant in the coming decade.

In other words, the initiative will be dead on next financial crisis. Too bad, since this will be the time where such mechanism would help recovering.

Because everyone will put the money to good use?

[Ol Olsoc]

So what is the plan after 70 percent blow through the money? A massive cull?

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptc

[mspohr]

College should be funded by rich people and corporations. They have lots of money, they just got a big tax break and they will benefit from an educated proletariat.

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy

[rtb61]

As a principle education is required to be free, else the citizenry is extorted with access to knowledge being denied which prevents them from any kind of equal access to democracy or justice. By the principles of Democracy, the State is required to educate the electorate in ALL facets of Democracy. A country is not democratic when that democracy is based upon ignorance and lies, it is an autocracy controlled by the tellers of those lies, hmm, much like US Democracy, which is probably why you don't recognise anything wrong, you are an American. Perhaps you will be more informed now but probably not. One comment does not a quality education make and you need a quality education to properly participate in Democracy.

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptc

[Anonymous Coward]

without any problem lol the government struggles to fund what it does already. Those few more years are exponentially more expensive and for many have exponentially less benefit.

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptc

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US it is currently estimated it would cost DOUBLE the current education budget to fund the CURRENT amount of college students, if that went to a free system you would see that number skyrocket. So maybe 150 billion or roughly 5% of the entire tax revenue. just another debt to pile on the credit card I guess.

If you actually want some of this shit you need to make sacrifices elsewhere, especially military spending and other social programs or you need to pay more tax.

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankrupt

[guruevi]

That's the way it currently is. Rich people and their kids fund colleges. Then they go about bitching that it's too expensive.

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptc

[Hognoxious]

Those few more years are exponentially more expensive and for many have exponentially less benefit.

I think if more money is spent on eduction it should definitely be focussed towards mathematics.

Who's gonna pay for it?

[RogueWarrior65]

You can't tax a robot.

Necessity is the mother of invention

[nip1024]

They don't need to be paid. They need to find new jobs. Become qualified or explore new opportunities, but the whole country shouldn't pay them silly amounts of money simply because a stamp-licking robot took their job.

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankrupt

[mspohr]

Rich people send their kids to (overpriced) private schools.
Most middle class students go to more reasonably priced state schools and end up with large education loans which will take forever to pay off.
Rich people and corporations just got a huge (unnecessary) tax break. It's time for them to pony up for public education.

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankrupt

[guruevi]

Private schools? There may be some of those, but truly private education nearly doesn't exist in the US. All of it, even the "private" Universities are largely tax funded. Running the numbers for a couple of nearby Universities and State colleges, the "true cost" of running a place seems to be ~$300k/year/student with the tuition generally being about 10-20% of that number and that's before tax funded scholarships, financial aid and sub-inflationary loans.

Even a top place like Harvard: $4B operating costs, 22000 students averaging $43k tuition per year (63k with room and board) or about 25% revenue from tuition.

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy

[wyHunter]

Last I noted this described every nation on earth, yes?

Re:I remember him

[wyHunter]

Yeah we can see how well that worked, yes?