That’s why Nobel laureate Paul Krugman concluded that productivity isn’t everything – but in the long run it is almost everything. Mr Hammond has been forced to alter course because his party’s reckless policies had jeopardised the long-term improvement in the national standard of life. Consider the introduction of driverless vehicles, which Mr Hammond said would mean a million people who drive for a living having to find new jobs. A few winner-take-all entrepreneurs ought not to be able to monopolise all the profits of technology while workers’ wages stagnate. There’s a good case for a universal basic income for humans, if vassal robots take all the jobs.

Source: The Guardian November 24, 2017 19:22 UTC