Today, in a referendum, the Swiss rejected the proposal that all their citizens should have a basic income.

The idea behind it was that as machines take over more and more of the work then we have a problem in what to do with those people who are displaced. In Capital 101 the theory is that they will be displaced from one job and thereby freed up to take up employment in other more productive fields. In reality things don’t seem to be working out just so neatly.

In Flint Michigan car workers were not displaced by machines; the machines were moved south – they were displaced by Mexicans who had no Union rights and worked for a small fraction of what the US worked took home.

Those who owned the capital did much better under this arrangement. And under our system they had no responsibility to those who had helped create the wealth in the first place. Twenty years later those folks who, for whatever reason, hadn’t been able to move out of Flint were being poisoned by the lead contamination in the public water supply that was being sourced from a polluted river to save money. They were mainly black and poor.

I tweeted a response to the report of the Swiss referendum thus; “Daft idea. Those who own the capital employing the machines should reap the benefits. The rest should learn to swim.” I was trying for irony – implying that their redundant citizens might become boat-people. All I got was a “like” from an outfit promoting swimming as a sport rather than survival.

The very idea that Swiss people – or you and me, could become economic migrants, drowning in a desperate attempt to get to a place where we could earn enough to support our families seems ludicrous. After all we’re not black and poor.