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.

Focuses on the structural deficiencies of the digital economy Deploys International Labour Organization statistics on global employment and wage growth Argues for a universal basic income (UBI) as a response to structural problems in the digital economy

Auteur

Andrew White is a Senior Lecturer in Culture, Media & Creative Industries at King's College London. He has previously worked at Queen's University Belfast, the Ulster University and Oxford Brookes University. From 2007 to 2020, he worked at the University of Nottingham's China campus, serving as the head of the School of International Communications from 2016 to 2019.

Contenu

I. The Digital Economy, Inequality and Work.- 1. The Digital Economy's Role in Widening Inequality and Increasing Economic Insecurity.- 2. Towards a New Philosophy of Work in the Digital Economy.-II. Is the Universal Basic Income The Answer to Precarity in the Digital Economy?.- 3. A History of UBI.- 4. Contemporary Schemes and Proposal Models of UBI.-III. The Transformative Social, Environmental and Economics Effects of Introducing a Universal Basic Income Into Contemporary Societies. -5. The Social and Environmental Benefits of UBI.- 6. Overcoming Objections and Making the Political Argument for UBI.- 7. Conclusion.