In light of the upcoming 2020 US Presidential Election, I thought it would be fun to read a book by one of Trump's (now former) challengers, Andrew Yang. Throughout the debates, I was always interested in his POV on things because his campaign seemed considerably more moderate than many of his left-wing competitors and the problems he discussed seemed so much more relevant than what we typically hear from politicians.
As a disclaimer, this post is not meant to push his viewpoint or anything political like that; it is merely another review of one of my (hopefully) 52 books for the year!
THE WAR ON NORMAL PEOPLE | ANDREW YANG
The book's full title includes a subtitle: The Truth about America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income is our Future. Everything about this title is provocative! It is challenging the current way we understand our changing economy and suggesting a completely different economic system (i.e., replacing the idea that money is the measure of a healthy economy with the idea that healthy people are). Yang divides the book into three main parts: 1. What's happening to jobs? 2. What's happening to us? 3. Solutions and Human Capitalism.
The first section discusses automation and how the "normal" American will be affected by it. Honestly, I expected to hear more about Amazon in this section as that is what Yang spends the bulk of his speeches discussing. First, he describes what exactly he means by "normal:"
"The normal American did not graduate from college and doesn't have an associate's degree. He or she perhaps attended college for one year or graduated from high school. She or he has a net worth of approximately $36K--about $6K excluding home or vehicle equity--and lives paycheck to paycheck. She or he has less than $500 in flexible savings and minimal assets invested in the stock market. These are median statistics, with 50 percent of Americans below these levels."
As is typical throughout the book, Yang showed considerable data supporting these claims in the form of graphs, charts, and quotes from experts. Reading about the "normal" American really did a lot to open my eyes to my own affluence and privilege. I have felt very average as far as academic or economic success, but as a family with 2 master's degrees and a home I can see we live in a different world than a lot of other Americans. For a lot of my life I have felt like people who can't afford a $500 expense need to improve their money management skills, but this notion of "normal" helped me see things from a different point of view.
My biggest take away from this sections was his analysis of how the 5 largest occupations in the US--office and administrative support, sales and retail, food preparation and serving, transportation and material moving, and production--which employ 68 out of 140 million Americans (i.e., 48.5 percent) are going to be impacted by automation. Many of these jobs are comprised of tasks that are "highly repetitive and automatable."
The main job category Yang is concerned about is the 3.5 million-worker trucking industry. With self-driving trucks less than a decade away, Yang argues that trucking is not long for this country. What's worse, is that "as many as 7.2 million workers serve the needs of truck drivers at truck stops, diners, motels, and other businesses around the country." That is a total of over 10 million people who would be devastated by this kind of progress in automation. Imagine a world where these jobs dry up in under a year or two as companies make the changes necessary to save money and increase their bottom line!
I was surprised to continue reading about the potential for automation to impact even white collar jobs, such as counseling, practicing medicine, financial advising, etc. Honestly, in the grim world Yang is depicting, it seems as though the only jobs that are safe are technology development.
In part two, Yang discusses how these changes are and will impact humanity. Among other things, he discusses the consolidation of the wealthy in six major cities and the impact of unemployment and underemployment--particularly on men; however, what stood out most to me was his discussion on mindsets of scarcity and abundance.
"Scarcity has a profound impact on one's worldview. Eldar Shafir, a Princeton psychologist, and Sendhil Mullainathan, a Harvard economist, conducted a series of studies on the effects of various forms of scarcity on the poor. They found that poor people and well-off people perform very similarly on tests of fluid intelligence, a generalized measurement that corresponds to IQ. But if each group was forced to consider how to pay an unexpected car bill of $3,000 just before taking the test, the poor group would underperform by the equivalent of 13 IQ points, almost one full standard deviation. ... Activating scarcity through a hypothetical expense was also found to reduce correct responses on a self-control test from 83 to 63 percent among the less well-off participants, with no effect on the well-off. A mindset of scarcity is more than just 'stress'--it actually makes one less rational and more impulsive by consuming bandwidth."
I think seeing this study, along with several others he included, in concert with his definition of who the statistically normal American is really convicted me of some judgments and prejudices I have held toward people who are poorer than I am. What do you think about these ideas?
The final section of The War on Normal People discusses some of Yang's solutions to these problems: Universal Basic Income (AKA the Freedom Dividend), Medicare for All, Social Credits, and Human Capitalism. His main principles guiding this plan are 1) Humanity is more important than money. 2) The unit of an economy is each person, not each dollar. and 3) Markets exist to serve our common goals and values. I think these three principles could be developed a bit for clarity, but on the whole I support the premise of elevating the value of a human above the value of dollars. While some of his strategies and solutions are very interesting to me, as a fiscal conservative, I still have a good deal to wrap my mind around. In conclusion, Yang exhorts us:
"The age of automation will lead to many very bad things. But it will also potentially push us to delve more deeply into what makes us human. ... Through all of the doubt, the cynicism, the ridicule, the hatred and anger, we must fight for the world that is still possible. ... What makes you human? The better world is still possible. Come fight with me."
This book left me feeling a bit grim about the future to be honest; however, it also left me with a sense of urgency to love and serve those around me and to seek out and support elected officials who want to do the same.
Conclusion: Would read parts again for reference. Would recommend to a select audience. 7/10.
I'm thinking of reading Milton Freedman's Free to Choose next to get a conservative perspective on the economy. You know what they say... "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him." Proverbs 18:17
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