If robots and machine intelligence threaten to render many white-collar jobs out of date, then what is going to folks do for cash? Enter the idea of a ‘common fundamental earnings’, a flat sum paid to all no matter your current wealth or capability to work. It is among the uncommon concepts that has help from each the libertarian proper — which favours tearing up the welfare state — and the left wing. In France, Benoit Hamon has emerged because the shock Socialist candidate for April’s presidential election first spherical, on a radical programme that features such an earnings — to be funded partly by a brand new tax on industrial robots. Nationwide or native governments in different nations similar to Finland, the Netherlands, Canada, Scotland and Brazil are already evaluating how such a income would possibly work in follow. Finland is furthest down the highway. On January 1 it began a two-year trial to offer 2,000 unemployed Finns a month-to-month unconditional cost of $590. At least, advocates argue, a fundamental earnings may change the thicket of unemployment advantages at present on provide in lots of superior economies. (yahoo.com)