I've found myself thinking about this a lot lately. I don't know about corporate law, but I can certainly see many jobs becoming obsolete in the not-so-distant future. Automation is advancing and accelerating like never before, and that is a good thing. Of course, this means fewer workers are needed. Factor in population growth, and this quickly becomes a major issue.
I've seen people bring up basic income when such concerns are raised. I myself am undecided on how effective it would be, but it seems like now is a good time for conversation on the matter to begin.
One place to look for that discussion is Switzerland. They collected over 130,000 signatures on a law proposal for basic income. So now there will be a direct vote on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Switzerland
After the swiss people voted against an extension of mandatory vacation, from four to six weeks, recently, I highly doubt that this law has a chance to pass. However, it sure will be an interesting and passionate discussion that will force everyone to ask the right questions. In fact its already going on. If you speak German you can e.g. read the comments on all the major newspaper articles, like here
http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/schweiz/schweizer-koennen-wohl-ueb...
(I suppose the same is true for French and Italian.)
PS: This is the best HN thread in a long time. There are opposing views and intelligent, passionated discussion about what could be boiled down to the question "What is the meaning of life?" for each participant.
I've seen people bring up basic income when such concerns are raised. I myself am undecided on how effective it would be, but it seems like now is a good time for conversation on the matter to begin.
So am I. It's a fascinating idea that could be the most important improvement to our economy since the introduction of the labour market, drastically reducing poverty and increasing socioeconomic mobility.
Or it could cause widespread inflation and tank the GDP. I'm not sure anyone really knows which way it would go. I think the only way to know is to try it out on a small but representative subset of the population (e.g. 1%), then a larger subset (e.g. 5-10%), before doing a full roll-out.
Yeah, I can see it swinging either way. However, the alternative of not doing anything could be just as catastrophic. Politicians always talk about creating jobs as if it were the goal. Jobs are just a means to an end, and creating jobs for their own sake is not only inefficient, but something that can't hold out in the long run.
I've seen people bring up basic income when such concerns are raised. I myself am undecided on how effective it would be, but it seems like now is a good time for conversation on the matter to begin.