Inequality in the Digital Economy

This book will make the case for the introduction of a universal basic income (UBI). The structural logic of the digital economy as presently constituted widens inequality and, through its use of automation for increasingly complex, as well as mundane, tasks, threatens jobs. The book will investigate the extent of this disruption to traditional labour markets and of individual livelihoods, and argue that alternative means of supporting people financially, like UBI, can mitigate the digital economy’s most baleful impacts. The book will also highlight the positive social and environmental benefits that would accrue from the introduction of UBI, as unconditional financial support would reduce workers’ anxiety in insecure labour markets, and the expending of valuable resources would be lessened if energy consumption was determined by society’s needs rather than by the requirements of labour markets tasked primarily with maximising employment. An explanation as to why arguments against its introduction on the grounds of cost and its supposed encouraging of idleness, are, while superficially compelling, ultimately without foundation, will form the centrepiece of the concluding political argument for UBI.