The real condition of economic dislocation, social vulnerability and wealth inequality may partially be the result of globalization, partly the result of tax policy and partly the result of robotics. But in any case, it’s a new and different economy, by a lot. And it is going to become more so. By a lot more.

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Trump’s prescription — of a rail car loaded with miners with coal-dust-encrusted faces crossing a rust-colored waste-slurry of heavy-metal-contaminated runoff pooling in mine-tailings where a clear stream used to run — is simple madness masquerading as policy.

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And whether or not robotics has yet had decisive impact on the new economy, it is going to soon enough. The combination of advanced robotics and advanced artificial intelligence is poised on the threshold of another major wave of disruption. Start with an entire swath of truck-driving jobs replaced by self-driving vehicles, and follow those vehicles out to every corner of a soon-to-be massively automated economy. When people extol “disruption,” all I can say is we ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Jobs? Look out. Incomes? Look out. Supply and demand? Robots have no demands.

Robots may look like the ideal employees, but they are the worst-case consumers. Just try upselling one of them a cooler pair of shoes.

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And so where does this take us? What is the proper prescription? We will try everything else first, but eventually we will come around to the now-inconceivable. Let me skip over all of the other wrong treatments we will try first and go straight to the spoiler alert:

Universal Basic Income. That’s right. Free money, just for being a person. I won’t make the case for it here any further than I already have. Today anyway.

I leave it to you to contemplate the problem, and sooner or later, most likely later, you will come to the same conclusion.