Signed
The War on Normal People - The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future
Inscribed first edition, 2018
Andrew Yang wrote The War on Normal People in 2018 as a warning, not a work of fiction, but the world it describes would be instantly recognizable to readers of dystopian literature. Yang, an entrepreneur who had spent years working with displaced workers through his nonprofit Venture for America, argues that automation and artificial intelligence are eliminating jobs at a pace that existing political and economic institutions are not equipped to handle. The people most at risk are not the poor or the unskilled in any simple sense, but ordinary working Americans whose jobs, whether in trucking, retail, call centers, or manufacturing, are being made redundant by software and robotics. Yang's term for them, "normal people," is deliberately inclusive and deliberately unsentimental.
The book's central proposal is a Universal Basic Income of $1,000 per month for every American adult, which Yang called the Freedom Dividend. He makes the case partly on economic grounds and partly on moral ones, arguing that a society which produces enormous wealth through automation has an obligation to distribute some of that wealth to the people displaced by it. The argument is grounded in data throughout, drawing on labor statistics, studies of job displacement, and historical precedents from Alaska's Permanent Fund to experiments in Finland and Kenya.
Yang's 2019 presidential campaign, though ultimately unsuccessful, brought these ideas into mainstream political discourse in a way they had not previously achieved, and the book became central to that effort. The campaign distributed promotional cards featuring Yang's face on a $1,000 bill, one of which is laid in this copy.
Inscribed copy. This copy is warmly inscribed by Yang on the title page: "Mika / Congrats on all you do for the country. / Andrew Yang." Signed by Yang at a town meeting in New Hampshire, November 2019, just after he filed for the New Hampshire primary.
One of a small number of non-fiction titles in the collection, included for its direct engagement with themes of automation, displacement, and the erosion of social order that run throughout dystopian literature.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. New York: Hachette Books, 2018. ISBN: 9780316414241. #10466.
Black remainder mark on top edge, else fine in fine dust jacket.
The book's central proposal is a Universal Basic Income of $1,000 per month for every American adult, which Yang called the Freedom Dividend. He makes the case partly on economic grounds and partly on moral ones, arguing that a society which produces enormous wealth through automation has an obligation to distribute some of that wealth to the people displaced by it. The argument is grounded in data throughout, drawing on labor statistics, studies of job displacement, and historical precedents from Alaska's Permanent Fund to experiments in Finland and Kenya.
Yang's 2019 presidential campaign, though ultimately unsuccessful, brought these ideas into mainstream political discourse in a way they had not previously achieved, and the book became central to that effort. The campaign distributed promotional cards featuring Yang's face on a $1,000 bill, one of which is laid in this copy.
Inscribed copy. This copy is warmly inscribed by Yang on the title page: "Mika / Congrats on all you do for the country. / Andrew Yang." Signed by Yang at a town meeting in New Hampshire, November 2019, just after he filed for the New Hampshire primary.
One of a small number of non-fiction titles in the collection, included for its direct engagement with themes of automation, displacement, and the erosion of social order that run throughout dystopian literature.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. New York: Hachette Books, 2018. ISBN: 9780316414241. #10466.
Black remainder mark on top edge, else fine in fine dust jacket.