Summary of "WISE CITIES & THE UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME" Report
The 21st century is witnessing significant shifts in income distribution systems due to advancements in digitalization, robotics, artificial intelligence, and genomics - marking the 4th Industrial Revolution. This shift poses a challenge to the sustainability of employment and the social organization of work, leading to an unprecedented wave of scientific and technological progress. Policymakers, businesses, academia, and civil society worldwide are increasingly focusing on these developments due to the potential disruption they pose to the current capitalist system's social structure.
Key Points:
- 4th Industrial Revolution: Challenges employment sustainability and social organization of work.
- Unprecedented Inequality: High levels of inequality and unemployment are prevalent globally, impacting social cohesion in cities, regions, and countries.
- The Precariat: The income of the precariat is declining and becoming more volatile, exacerbating social issues.
- Retirement Subsidies: Minimum wage laws, tax credits, means-tested benefits, and workfare are insufficient to address chronic insecurity.
- Job Creation vs. Destruction: New technologies may both destroy and create jobs in the long run.
- Guaranteeing Basic Services: Cities must ensure access to essential services to maintain social cohesion.
Wise Cities and Universal Basic Income (UBI):
- Emergence of Wise Cities: These cities serve as a human-centric development paradigm that fosters interdependent, creative, and knowledge-based economies alongside predistribution policies.
- Predistribution Policies: Focuses on creating shared prosperity by addressing inequality, fostering resilience, and ensuring sustainability.
- Challenges: Traditional Smart Cities assume that increased smartness correlates with higher living standards, but without rigorous monitoring, this may lead to inequality, especially during economic turmoil.
- UBI Concept: An old idea gaining renewed relevance, originally proposed to combat poverty and inequality, now seen as a solution to the 4th Industrial Revolution's challenges.
- Finland Pilot: A case study in Finland demonstrates a pilot program for an unconditional basic income, aiming to promote work incentives, freedom, and self-determination while addressing bureaucratic complexities and poverty reduction.
Conclusion:
Wise Cities and the UBI offer innovative solutions to tackle the challenges posed by the 4th Industrial Revolution, focusing on creating sustainable, equitable, and resilient societies. Through the implementation of predistribution policies and the introduction of UBI, cities aim to address inequality, poverty, and social exclusion, ensuring that technological advancements benefit all members of society.