The Intangibles Era: Reshaping Social Policy, Education, and Governance in a Revolutionary Economy

The podcast, featuring economist Rohinton Medhora, delves into the profound shift from a tangible to an intangible economy, where value is increasingly derived from things that are not easily seen or felt. This transition necessitates a re-evaluation of traditional economic distinctions like goods versus services and poses significant challenges for social policy. Medhora argues that the rapid pace of technological change is creating a revolutionary era, fundamentally altering labor markets, education systems, and the very concept of human rights and privacy. A central distinction made is between "job-centered" and "person-centered" social policies. In the past, education was front-loaded, and careers were often singular and lifelong. However, the intangible economy demands a shift towards policies that allow benefits like health and pensions to move with individuals across multiple careers and diverse work arrangements, rather than being tied to a specific employer. The discussion also highlights the difference between utilitarian social policy (creating good workers) and a broader aim of enhancing human capabilities for better citizenship. Medhora suggests practical policy responses to these challenges. One significant proposal is the implementation of Universal Basic Income (UBI) or, at minimum, the public provision of essential services such as transport, education, and health. To finance these initiatives, he proposes a greater reliance on taxation of economic rent, profits, and the concentration of wealth, rather than traditional consumption or income taxes, recognizing where wealth is increasingly stored in the intangible era. The broader implications extend to fundamental questions about societal structure and governance. The rise of monopolies alongside technological shifts and the absence of a robust global governance framework create a complex and uncertain future. The episode underscores that the current period is profoundly revolutionary, suggesting that future generations will look back at today's practices with disbelief, emphasizing the urgent need for adaptive and forward-thinking policy frameworks to navigate this new economic landscape.

When a good falls on your toe, it hurts. And when a service falls on your toe, you don't even feel it.

Intangibles are things that matter a lot, but we barely see them. We barely feel them, and yet they're all around us.

The second aim of social policy is to beef up human capabilities to just make us better, stronger people. Not just so that we're more productive, but because we're better human beings.

The skills that we learn in school and college and university are not going to last us throughout our lives.

Many of us may never have a single full-time job at any given point in time. And yet, many of the social policy features are kind of job centered when we want them to become person centered.

Universal basic income, where the the s of range and grabag of social programs is combined into a single entity so that every citizen in a country has a basic income level below which they will not fall.

Increasingly wealth is stored as economic rent and that profits taxes might play a larger role going forward than consumption or income taxes.

Monopolies coming together at the same time that we're dealing with changes in education systems and in labor markets and the fact that we don't have a global governance backbone. We really are living in a pretty revolutionary time.

If we look back on our lifetime 20 years from now, we won't believe the kinds of things we were doing today and we will be doing then.