In the first eight chapters of his book, Oxford economist Daniel Susskind tells a story of the history of automation and technological unemployment. He tells it succinctly and well. It is an enjoyable read, even for those familiar with the literature. In the remaining four chapters, Susskind examines a controversial topic: how to respond not only to “a world with less work” but also to “a world with less paid work.”

Years ago, workmen typically believed that machines would replace workers, leaving them unemployed. British economist David Schloss in 1892 identified this as a fallacy. The belief assumes there is a fixed amount of work to be done, which is not true. Humans have enough intelligence to learn new skills and change occupations. Schloss called this the “lump of labor fallacy,” a term that persists in economics to this day.

Susskind effectively illustrates the impact of technological change in the twentieth century with the example of introduction of tractors on farms in the United States. Figure 7.3 (p. 120), taken by Susskind from Manuelli and Seshadri (2014, p. 1371), plots the number of farm tractors, which increased from nothing in 1910, slowly at first, then rapidly to 4.7 million by 1960. Tractors on farms replaced horses and mules, which peaked at more than 26 million in 1920 before declining to about 3 million in 1960. The number of farm workers is not plotted, but it fell dramatically too, from nearly 12 million in 1910 to about 6 million in 1960, as the output of agriculture soared. Horses and mules have few options for employment, so became economically useless after the introduction of tractors in agriculture and the use of motor‐powered rail and road transportation in the rest of the economy. Excess farm labor moved first to manufacturing, and later to jobs in the service sector. The idea of a fixed lump of labor was applicable to horses, but not to humans.

Susskind argues convincingly that, over time, the lump of labor fallacy has itself became a fallacy, which he calls (p. 126) the “’Lump of Labor Fallacy’ Fallacy,” or LOLFF. “The lump of labor fallacy involves mistakenly assuming that the lump of work is fixed. But the LOLFF involves mistakenly assuming that that growth in the lump of work has to involve tasks that human beings—not machines—are best placed to perform.” In the twenty‐first century, intelligent humans—like horses of the twentieth century—will be replaced by machines.

The prospect of producing an increasing amount of output with machines means that the economic problem—the struggle for subsistence—can be solved with a high per capita income and a much higher output per worker. On the other hand, many humans will lose their jobs and become, like horses, unemployable. Cambridge economist John Maynard Keynes (1931) predicted, in an essay he wrote at the beginning of the Great Depression, that this would happen within a hundred years. He even used the term “technological unemployment” in his essay. In a capitalist system, a high per capita income with high unemployment implies misery for many, unless income is distributed more equally among the population. Keynes paid little attention to the problem of income distribution, other than to suggest work sharing, with standard “three‐hour shifts or a fifteen‐hour week,” and a “return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue,” especially the principle that “love of money is detestable.” He did not mention whether reduced hours of work might be accompanied by a cut in the weekly pay of workers.

Susskind, like Keynes, is optimistic regarding a prosperous future with less work and more leisure but tackles seriously the problems of unemployment and income distribution. He devotes an entire chapter to education, concluding that “more education” cannot solve the problem of technological unemployment because there is not enough work for everyone. He then examines deficiencies in the existing system of taxation and welfare (redistribution of income to the working poor and unemployed) before turning (on pp. 180–183) to the idea of universal basic income (UBI). He describes the UBI correctly as “a regular payment that the government provides to everyone, whether or not they are employed,” glossing over the important facts that payment is provided regardless of income or wealth and that it is included in taxable income. It is one of those rare proposals that is popular across political ideologies: “Conservatives like the UBI because it is simple, promising to do away with the inefficient complexity of existing welfare systems, while liberals like it because it is generous, promising to get rid of poverty altogether.”

Susskind, nonetheless, dislikes the UBI. “To deal with technological unemployment,” he writes (p. 183), “we will need what I call a conditional basic income—a CBI, for short.” I suspect that his dislike of UBI stems primarily from a literal interpretation of universality, thinking that “any visitor could drop by a country with a UBI, pick up their payment, and head back home with a fatter wallet.” This is inconceivable. Canadian provinces provide universal healthcare, but visitors from abroad do not receive free healthcare. Eligibility requires citizenship or lawful permanent residence in addition to physical presence in the country for at least six months in a calendar year. The result, not coincidentally, is a requirement to pay provincial and federal income tax. Similar conditions could apply to a UBI, but it would still be universal income for those who qualify.

The UBI, Susskind (p. 187) admits, solves the distribution problem, but he worries that it ignores the contribution problem. To address this, he would like to add membership requirements to convert the UBI into a CBI: “If some people … cannot make an economic contribution, they will be asked to make a noneconomic one in its place. We can speculate what these tasks might turn out to be; perhaps certain types of intellectual and cultural toil, caring for and supporting fellow human beings, teaching children how to flourish in the world.”

In his final chapter, the most difficult of the book, Susskind makes the case for creation of a “Meaning‐Creating State” to implement the CBI. For many people, work is meaningless and miserable, so they would welcome freedom from work. For others, though, work has an important social dimension, which “may partly explain why the unemployed often feel depressed and shamed, and why their suicide rate is about two and a half times the rate of those in work” (p. 219). As Keynes (p. 368) put it, “there is no country and no people, I think, who can look forward to the age of leisure and of abundance without a dread. For we have been trained too long to strive and not to enjoy.” In Susskind's Meaning‐Creating State (pp. 226–228), educators may no longer need to teach skills but will have to teach students to flourish through leisure instead.

Susskind seems to welcome the freedom that comes with the high productivity of advanced technology. He stresses, for example, on p. 232 that with a basic income some people might choose to “pursue more leisure” while others “might want to retreat to some activity that looks more like work, though not in direct pursuit of a wage.” But on the next page he goes on to explain his CBI “is a UBI, but one that requires its recipients to do something in return. If it is adopted, … the daily lives of those without work are likely to be divided in two: not between leisure and paid work, but between activities that they choose and others that their community requires them to do.”

This book is a joy to read, but the last part disappoints. Why, in a society with an abundance of goods and services and a scarcity of paid jobs, should anyone be forced to perform community service in order to qualify for a basic income? Something like that was tried before in England, with poor laws and workhouses. The results of that social experiment were unfortunate, as famously expounded by Charles Dickens. We can do better in the twenty‐first century, especially if people learn to enjoy leisure activities.

牛津大学经济学家丹尼尔·萨斯金德在书的前八章中讲述了自动化和技术失业的历史。他讲得很简洁。即使对于那些熟悉文学的人来说，这也是一本令人愉快的读物。在其余四个章节，萨斯坎德检查一个有争议的话题：“这个世界上，怎么少不仅应对“世界上有更少的工作”，但也付出。作品”

几年前，工人通常认为机器会代替工人，使他们失业。英国经济学家大卫·施洛斯（David Schloss）于1892年将其认定为谬论。这种信念假定要完成的工作量是固定的，这是不正确的。人类拥有足够的智力来学习新技能和改变职业。施洛斯（Schloss）将此称为“劳工谬误集结”，这一术语在经济学中一直持续到今天。

Susskind以在美国农场引入拖拉机为例，有效地说明了20世纪技术变革的影响。图7.3（第120页），由Susskind取自Manuelli和Seshadri（2014，p。1371），绘制了农用拖拉机的数量，该数量从1910年的零开始缓慢增长，然后迅速增长到1960年的470万。农场上的拖拉机取代了马匹和les子，在1920年达到顶峰时已超过2600万，然后下降到大约2600万。 1960年为300万。农场工人的数量未作图，但也急剧下降，从1910年的1200万下降到1960年的600万，原因是农业产量猛增。马和mu子几乎没有就业选择，因此在农业中引入拖拉机并在经济的其余部分使用机动的铁路和公路运输后，在经济上变得毫无用处。多余的农场劳动力首先转移到制造业，然后转移到服务业。固定劳力的想法适用于马匹，但不适用于人类。

Susskind令人信服地指出，随着时间的流逝，劳动谬论的itself节本身就变成了谬论，他称之为（第126页）“劳动谬论的谬论”（LOLFF）。“劳动谬论的总和涉及错误地假设劳动总成是固定的。但是，LOLFF错误地认为，工作量的增长必须涉及人类（而不是机器）最适合执行的任务。” 在二十一世纪，像二十世纪的马一样，聪明的人将被机器取代。

用机器生产出越来越多的产出的前景意味着，可以通过人均收入高，人均产出高得多的方式解决经济问题（为生存而斗争）。另一方面，许多人将失去工作，像马一样失业。剑桥经济学家约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯（1931年）在他在大萧条初期写的一篇文章中预测，这种情况将在一百年之内发生。他甚至在论文中使用了“技术失业”一词。在资本主义制度中，高人均收入和高失业率意味着许多人的痛苦，除非收入在人口中的分配更为平均。凯恩斯很少注意收入分配问题，除了建议按标准的“三小时轮班或每周十五小时轮班”和“回归某些最肯定和某些宗教和传统原则”来建议工作共享。美德”，尤其是“爱金钱可憎”的原则。他没有提到减少工作时间是否会伴随着工人每周工资的减少。

像凯恩斯一样，萨斯金德（Susskind）对繁荣的未来充满信心，他希望减少工作量和增加休闲时间，但会认真解决失业和收入分配问题。他在整整一章中都提到了教育，认为“更多的教育”不能解决技术失业的问题，因为每个人的工作量都不够。然后，他在转向普遍基本收入（UBI）之前（第180-183页），研究了现有税收和福利体系中的缺陷（收入分配给在职穷人和失业者）。他正确地将UBI形容为“政府向所有人提供的定期付款，无论他们是否受雇”，掩盖了无论收入或财富如何都提供付款且应计入收入中包括付款的重要事实。

尽管如此，Susskind不喜欢UBI。他写道（第183页）：“为了解决技术失业问题，我们将需要有条件的基本收入，简称CBI。” 我怀疑他对UBI的厌恶主要源于对通用性的字面解释，他认为“任何游客都可以通过拥有UBI的国家来回国，领取付款，然后用一个较胖的钱包回家。” 这是不可想象的。加拿大各省提供全民医疗保健，但是来自国外的游客无法获得免费医疗保健。资格要求在一个日历年中至少有六个月的时间在该国居住并具有公民身份或合法永久居留权。结果并非偶然，而是需要缴纳省级和联邦所得税。类似的条件可能适用于UBI，

Susskind（p。187）承认，UBI解决了分配问题，但他担心它忽略了贡献问题。为了解决这个问题，他想增加成员资格要求，以将UBI转变为CBI：“如果某些人……无法做出经济贡献，将要求他们在其经济地位上做出非经济贡献。我们可以推测这些任务可能是什么？也许是某些类型的智力和文化劳动，照顾和支持同胞，教孩子们如何在世界上蓬勃发展。”

在书中最难的最后一章中，萨斯金德（Susskind）提出了建立“意向创建国”以实施CBI的理由。对于许多人来说，工作是没有意义且痛苦的，所以他们会欢迎自由工作。但是，对于其他人而言，工作具有重要的社会意义，“可以部分解释为什么失业者经常感到沮丧和羞耻，为什么他们的自杀率是工作人员自杀率的两倍半”（第219页） 。正如凯恩斯（第368页）所说：“我认为，没有国家，也没有人，他们可以期待休闲和富足的时代，而不必惧怕。因为我们受训练的时间太长，无法奋斗和享受。” 在Susskind的“创造意义的状态”（第226-228页）中，教育者可能不再需要教技能，而将不得不教学生通过休闲来发展。

Susskind似乎欢迎先进技术的高生产率带来的自由。例如，他在p上强调。[232]有了基本收入，有些人可能会选择“追求更多的休闲”，而另一些人“可能希望退缩到某种看起来更像工作的活动，尽管不是直接追求工资。” 但是在下一页上，他继续解释了他的CBI“是UBI，但要求其接收者做些回报。如果采用的话，……那些没有工作的人的日常生活可能会分为两部分：不是在休闲和有偿工作之间，而是在他们选择的活动和社区要求他们从事的其他活动之间。”

这本书很有趣，但是最后一部分令人失望。为什么在一个拥有大量商品和服务，缺乏有偿工作的社会中，为什么任何人都必须被迫从事社区服务才能获得基本收入？类似的东西以前在英格兰曾尝试过，法律和工作场所都很差。查尔斯·狄更斯（Charles Dickens）著名地阐述了这一社会实验的结果是不幸的。在二十一世纪，我们可以做得更好，尤其是当人们学会享受休闲活动时。