In some ways, 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang's book The War on Normal People is a book for his campaign. In many others, it is a book about, as its subtitle suggests, "The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future."
Yang begins the book by talking about a concept he dubs "The Great Displacement," which involves the loss of jobs because of automation and artificial intelligence. He opines that automation will eliminate millions of well-paying jobs (including white collar jobs) and that technology will make "normal people" as Yang calls them totally redundant.
To combat that, Yang argues, a Universal Basic Income (UBI) program is necessary to ensure peoples' basic needs are met. To create and pay for this program, Yang believes that a 10% value added tax be added on all goods and services.
In the book, Yang also rebuts more libertarian and conservative thinkers like Thomas Friedman, who believes that America's economy will transformed in a way that will allow Americans to become "lifelong learners." Yang disagrees and points to people like Martin Luther King Jr., uber Libertarian economist Milton Friedman, and Republican President Richard M. Nixon who all advocated for UBI principles in one way or another.
