This article is an essay about three possible future scenarios: one of technological wonderment, another of resource scarcity and anarchy, and finally a third middle way where humans can have subsistence while only needing to work a few hours per day and can spend the rest of their time enjoying the bounty of life. The essay argues this is only possible with a basic income. The author says, “If jobs keep disappearing, and we do not institute a basic income guarantee, then we may have the cruellest irony imaginable: a marketplace of unlimited supply without consumers capable of shopping.”

 

Tom Streithorst, “The Economics of Mad Max and Star Trek”

Tom Streithorst, “The Economics of Mad Max and Star Trek”

Tom Streithorst, “The Economics of Mad Max and Star Trek”. Los Angeles Review of Books. June 21, 2015.