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"Like many entrepreneurs shaking up the world of work, Zipcar co-founder and former CEO Robin Chase talks enthusiastically about the myriad virtues of the \u201Ccollaborative economy.\u201D Unlike most, she also worries about those who will invariably struggle to make ends meet as things change.\n\u201CI have these two hats that I put on,\u201D Chase says of her simultaneous embrace of technological change and concerns about what it may bring.\nAt the Global Drucker Forum in Vienna last week, Chase called for a \u201Cbasic income\u201D for all citizens\u2014enough to provide a decent place to live, food on the table, and healthcare.\nIt is an idea with a long and rich history that defies easy partisan pigeonholing. Chase touched on the need for such a \u201Clong-term answer\u201D in her book Peers Inc, and she is now becoming increasingly outspoken about offering such a safety net in scores of speaking appearances across the globe.\n&amp;nbsp;\nChase is not at all a pessimist. She celebrates the way that companies like Apple \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAAPL\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t and Google \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tGOOG\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t have produced tremendous value by opening up their platforms to legions of independent app developers. And she is excited about the opportunities being generated by platform creators such as Airbnb, which have turned excess capacity\u2014in its case, people\u2019s spare bedrooms\u2014into peer-to-peer networks that are now competing with traditional corporate giants.\nChase is confident that these new business structures are rapidly accelerating and, before long, capitalism as we\u2019ve known it will be totally remade. \u201CI see what is happening and the pace of what is happening,\u201D she says.\nIn all of this, Chase finds amazing benefits. With each new platform on which people can share and collaborate, society wastes a lot less stuff. Consumers are treated to far more choices. And workers participating in this new ecosystem have a chance to enjoy more freedom, fulfillment, and flexibility than they do in many old-line occupations.\nYet Chase doesn\u2019t leave it there. She readily acknowledges\u2014indeed emphasizes\u2014that many of those displaced from their current jobs by this oncoming wave will have great difficulty in landing new employment. Others will earn far less money than they used to.\n\u201CHordes of people will be left behind,\u201D she says.\nTechnology, meanwhile, is exacerbating both the pluses and minuses. For example, in the sector Chase knows best\u2014transportation\u2014she believes that self-driving cars will be fairly commonplace within a decade or so. (She is also the co-founder and chairman of Veniam, which builds and operates wireless networks of vehicles and of other moving things.)\nCombine that with a system of shared vehicles, which are constantly on the move, and one set of results is bound to be wonderful: fewer accidents, unclogged roads, cities freed up of parking problems, and declining air pollution.\nBut another is troubling. There will be little or no demand for truck drivers, bus drivers, and cabbies (or Uber drivers, for that matter). Car manufacturing, Chase says, will plummet over time. Millions of people will be cast out of their jobs.\nOne school of thought is that most of them will get new jobs, some of which we can\u2019t even imagine today. \u201CPeople say that one door closes and another opens,\u201D Chase notes.\nBut to her, that\u2019s largely a \u201Cpipe dream.\u201D Many will not easily find employment. And, as much as Chase touts the power of platforms, she says it\u2019s ridiculous to assume that workers with limited skills will, in the face of such large-scale automation, be able to quickly uncover wholly new ways to earn a living by selling crafts on Etsy or plugging in to some other such outlet.\nIn this regard, Chase is an outlier\u2014though not unique. Tech executives don\u2019t tend to spend a lot of time discussing what some call the \u201Cprecariat\u201D\u2014a class of workers whose lives are marked by incessant instability and insecurity. When the entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen was asked recently at the Fortune Global Forum about whether technology is exacerbating income inequality, he snapped: \u201CDid I stumble into an International Workers Party conference?\u201D\nI must confess that when I heard Chase speak from the stage in Vienna, I felt like I was listening to Walter Reuther, the head of the United Auto Workers, making a plea for a \u201Cguaranteed annual wage\u201D in 1955.\nChase, whose position has been influenced by the research and advocacy of Scott Santens, suggests that $1,000 a month might be an appropriate amount for a basic income. But she concedes that in some locations, significantly more would be required for people to be able to obtain even the bare essentials.\nThe bigger issue is how such a policy might be paid for, and whether the public has the stomach for it. Chase is encouraged by what\u2019s happening with basic-income proposals in Finland, Switzerland, and a few other spots. But in many places\u2014the United States, among them\u2014it\u2019s virtually impossible to see how something like this could move forward in the current political climate. In any event, the U.S. tax system would likely need a total overhaul to accommodate the kind of cash assistance that Chase supports.\nAt this stage, Chase hopes that, if nothing else, American cities may be able to run some basic-income pilots, giving the nation as a whole a chance to engage in a serious conversation about the concept. \u201CLet\u2019s talk about this now,\u201D she says.\nWith the collaborative economy, Chase is convinced\u2014and quite convincing\u2014that \u201Cwe can have way more happiness. People can follow their passions.\u201D She\u2019d simply like them to be able to afford an occasional sandwich, too.\n\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n&amp;nbsp;\nRick Wartzman is the executive director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University. The author or editor of five books, he is currently writing a narrative history of how the social contract between employer and employee in America has changed since the end of World War II."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://fortune.com/2015/11/14/zipcar-co-founder-tech-basic-income/>