How to stop robots from taking all our jobs

Assuming the answer isn’t to smash the machines, or at least unplug them, what can we do to create an economy that provides plentiful jobs and rising incomes? The good news is that the right policies to deal with technological acceleration are pretty much the same as if you’re combating technological stagnation. Brynjolfsson and McAfee offer a list of ideas, mostly centered around education and entrepreneurship, that work either way and could appeal to both the left and the right.

Among them: 1) pay teachers more so better students want to become teachers; 2) hold teachers more accountable for performance by eliminating tenure; 3) encourage more high-skill immigration; 4) create special visas for entrepreneurs; 5) teach entrepreneurship throughout higher education; 6) create a database of “startup-in-a-box” templates; 7) lower governmental barriers to starting a business; 8) upgrade the nation’s transportation, energy, and communication infrastructure; 9) increase government funding for basic research such as that carried out by DARPA and NIH; 10) resist efforts to regulate hiring and firing; 11) lower payroll taxes; 12) decouple benefits, such as health insurance, from jobs; 13) don’t rush to rush to regulate new innovation business structures such as crowdsourcing; 14) eliminate inefficient, crony capitalist distortions such as the home mortgage deduction and the Too Big To Fail big bank subsidy; 15) shorten copyright periods and increase the flexibility of fair use.