Automation, capitalism, universal basic income, and the ethically responsible state

Watkins, Lloyd 2024. Automation, capitalism, universal basic income, and the ethically responsible state. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This thesis presents a political theory based on the normative moral argument as to how to logically make the most of humankind’s scientific and technological advancements in the fields of automation, robotics, and autonomous systems to lay the groundwork towards a utopian state. This thesis contextualises the role of the evolutionary state and its acting government(s) to protect, provide, and invest in its citizenry in relation to the paradoxical crisis from technological automation on modern advanced capitalism. In doing so, this thesis analyses the paradoxical role of the labour theory of value (LTV) and technological automation on contemporary advanced and late-stage capitalism. From this impending crisis provides the necessary case for citizens to enter an agreeable, fluid, and legally expressed social contract with their state. An expressed social contract with an ethically responsible state would ensure citizens are recipients of a fair, fully fundable and sustainable basic citizens income that gives access to better lives brought about through a contract to guarantee receipt and a range of sustainable policies for government(s) to retain a basic income and amend the inequalities of modern capitalism. The role of the ethically responsible state would ensure protection, provision, and investment in return for dutiful contribution from citizens to achieve a sustainable retention of a basic income. This work implements a framework that sets out why a basic citizens income is necessary before the adoption of a fully universal basic income can take place following policy adaptations to the capitalist model permitting a more financially equal society that harnesses technology to enable post-scarcity utopias within an ethically responsible state.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Modern Languages
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	7 October 2024
Last Modified:	04 Nov 2024 15:59
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/172645

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