Happy No Labor Day!

Labor Day [note] may as well be called No Labor Day or No Work Day, as we celebrate it by not working. We glorify labor, extol its value, and cherish its fruits. And yet we have labored steadily less in the past few hundred years. People used to work from sunrise to sundown almost every day throughout a year and still occasionally suffered from hunger or even famine. But technology has improved. People have worked less and lived better. In the second decade of the 21st century, even the number of people needed to work for the benefit of all the people has sharply dropped. We celebrate this progress as if humanity has finally crossed the threshold of work that meets the demand for sustainable existence.

Except that humans are unhappy again, with the too-good-to-be-beneficial advancement of science and technology. With high efficiency and productivity but with not much more people than in history, some people are bound to be idle, not producing wealth for the nation. Unemployment is a great achievement of sophisticated civilization, and at the same time is a bane to the people affected. What should a moral, responsible, civilized society do to those unemployed people who are largely not needed to produce wealth?

When Andrew Yang ran for US president, he argued that America’s decline of manufacturing industry and loss of jobs was primarily due to automation, not, for instance, unfair trade relations with other countries. His solution was Universal Basic Income (UBI). At that time I didn’t give much thought to it. Now it seems to be a logical corollary from the realization that high productivity by minimum human labor inevitably leads to surplus workers, given relatively unchanged population. To achieve maximum happiness for the people in the country, a sufficiently wealthy nation ought to distribute wealth to all the people in the country. To achieve maximum fairness with the least controversy, UBI may be the best choice. Allocation of a fixed amount to a rich person makes little difference to his life. But that same amount to a poor man greatly raises his standard of living, with desired collateral consequences such as less property crimes, higher social stability, among others.

I frequently travel to Kuwait (for personal reasons), a small oil rich country at the corner of the Arabian peninsula. Kuwaitis appear to live a happier life than Americans and yet work much less. Some people simply do not have a stable job. While there is no UBI per se, significant government subsidies on energy and other essential goods and social welfare make life so easy that even without a stable job, you can live a life almost considered luxurious by the standard of a large part of the world. The country is extremely safe (maybe not due to car accidents, I’m not sure). Burglary or robbery is unheard-of. No shooting deaths. No DUI (DWI). It would definitely not be so without extensive aid to the people from the government. If America cares enough about its own people, UBI is the solution. Critics may say, Why should people who work share the wealth they created with those who do not? The answer is the same as that to the question Why is tax payers’ money used to build highways a poor citizen not paying taxes can also drive on? Poor people need money, rich people need safety. UBI is one stone to kill two birds.

Having said that, we shouldn’t celebrate unemployment with no regard to its cause. Misalignment of business needs and job candidates’ skill sets is one true problem among others. But no matter how much we optimize the management of this issue, high productivity, now aided by AI, will increasingly be a factor contributing to surplus man power or unemployment, and UBI is one of the most important solutions that are both humane and responsible.

Happy No Labor Day!

[note] For those not in the US, Labor Day, September 1 for this year, “is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday of September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements in the United States.” (Wikipedia)

2025-08-30

Posted to:
https://medium.com/@yong321/happy-no-labor-day-abf1802bd400
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/happy-labor-day-yong-huang-tbsvc/


Chinese version at https://weibo.com/1938059975/Q2iNf1s4j

不劳动节快乐！

劳动节[注]不妨称为不劳动节或不工作日，因为我们用不工作来庆祝它。我们赞美劳动，颂扬劳动的价值，珍惜劳动的成果。然而，在过去的几百年里，我们的劳动却在稳步减少。人们过去一年四季几乎每天从日出至日落劳作，但偶尔仍会遭受饥饿甚至饥荒。但技术进步了，人们工作更少，生活却更好。在21世纪的第二个十年，甚至为了全民利益而需要工作的人数也急剧下降。我们庆祝这一进步，仿佛人类终于跨过了满足可持续生存需求而工作的门槛。

然而，随着科技的进步，人类再次感到不快乐。效率和生产力很高，但人口数量却没有比历史上多多少，有些人注定会闲着，不为国家创造财富。失业是先进文明的伟大成就，但同时也是受影响的人群的不幸。一个道德、负责任、文明的社会应该如何对待那些基本上不需要创造财富的失业者？

杨安泽（Andrew Yang）竞选美国总统时，他认为美国制造业的衰落和就业岗位的流失主要是由于自动化，而不是比如与其他国家的不公平贸易关系。他的解决方案是全民基本收入（UBI）。当时我并没有过多考虑这个问题。现在看来，这似乎是基于以下认识的逻辑推论：在人口相对不变的情况下，以最少的人力实现高生产率必然会导致工人过剩。为了实现国民幸福最大化，一个足够富裕的国家应该将财富分配给所有国民。为了在争议最少的情况下实现最大程度的公平，UBI或许是最佳选择。向富人分配固定金额的财富对他的生活几乎没有影响。但对穷人来说，同样的数额却能大幅提高他的生活水平，并带来一些意想不到的附带结果，例如减少财产犯罪、提高社会稳定性等等。

我常去科威特（出于个人原因），这是一个位于阿拉伯半岛一角的石油资源丰富的小国。科威特人的生活似乎比美国人更幸福，但他们的工作时间却少得多。有些人根本就没有稳定的工作。虽然科威特没有字面意义的UBI，但政府对能源和其他生活必需品的大量补贴以及社会福利让民众的生活变得如此轻松，以至于即使没有稳定的工作，你也能过上以世界大部分地区的标准来看几乎算得上奢侈的生活。这个国家非常安全，入室盗窃或抢劫闻所未闻，没有枪击致死事件，没有酒驾。如果没有政府对人民的大力援助，这一切绝对不会发生。如果美国足够关心自己的人民，UBI就是解决方案。批评者可能会问：为什么劳动者要向不劳动者分享他们创造的财富？答案与“为什么纳税人的钱被用来修建高速公路，让不纳税的穷人也能开车上路”的问题相同。穷人需要钱，富人需要安全。UBI可谓一箭双雕。

话虽如此，我们不应该无视失业的原因而庆祝失业。例如企业需求与求职者技能的不匹配是诸多真正的问题中的一个。但无论我们如何优化对这个问题的管理，如今在人工智能的助力下，高生产力将日益成为导致人力过剩或失业的因素，而UBI是最重要的、既人道又负责任的解决方案之一。

不劳动节快乐！

[注] 对于不在美国的人来说，今年的劳动节（9 月 1 日）“是美国的一个联邦假日，在 9 月的第一个星期一庆祝，以纪念和表彰美国劳工运动以及劳动者为美国的发展和成就所做的工作和贡献。” （维基百科）