The War On Normal People

Is Andrew Yang’s name familiar to you yet? If it isn’t it will be soon. He is in the large field of Democratic presidential hopefuls for 2020. I just finished his book titled The War On Normal People (2018, 244 pages) which presents his proposal for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) and human-based capitalism for our country.

It’s worth a read- it’s fast, compelling, and provides an alternate view of what the United States can look like in future years.

The first 1/3 describes his own experience as the child of immigrants and a successful entrepreneur whose focus was creating jobs. He is convinced we are in the beginning of huge economic and technologic change that has already eradicated millions of manufacturing jobs (it’s not the migrants or China, Donald!). Retail jobs are soon to disappear (how many places have self-check out now?), followed by truck driving jobs (driverless trucks are being tested), and then even white-collar jobs (computers can read radiology reports with greater precision than the human eye).

The second third describes what is happening to our society as the economy changes. We have “bubbles” in several areas in which there is thriving economy and society, but we have scarcity and poverty in cities where the manufacturing jobs have already disappeared. This part is depressing because if all the jobs are going as Yang predicts, then it’s easy to fear that our whole country will end up like Youngstown Ohio.

But don’t worry – there’s the final third which is much more optimistic and lays out Yang’s vision for our future. The bottom line need is that we need to shift from market-focused capitalism, which only values efficiency, to human-based capitalism, which values people, relationships and society.

A few of Yang’s ideas- he goes into more depth of course in the book:

• The UBI would apply to every adult in our country and would take the strain off of regions that lose jobs as workers are displaced by automation.
• People would earn credits for helping others that they could use for buying things or to pay others to help them.
• The healthcare system needs to be re-vamped and should not be tied to employment.

If you don’t think these things can work please give the book a try – Yang presents studies and statistics that support his hypotheses. Happy to lend you our copy (Greg got it as a Christmas gift!)!