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The shift toward automation is about to create a tsunami of unemployment. Not in the distant future, but now. One recent estimate predicts 45 million American workers will lose their jobs within the next 12 years —  jobs that will not be replaced. In The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang paints a dire portrait of the American economy. Rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics and automation software are making millions of Americans' livelihoods irrelevant. The consequences of these trends are already being felt across communities in the form of political unrest, drug use and other social ills. Yet the author imagines a different future — one in which having a job is distinct from the capacity to prosper and seek fulfillment. At this vision's core is Universal Basic Income, the concept of providing all citizens with a guaranteed income, which Andrew Yang proposes as an essential step toward a new, more durable kind of economy — one he calls "human capitalism."

Andrew Yang is an entrepreneur, and has worked in startups and early-stage growth companies as a founder or executive for almost 20 years. In 2011 he founded Venture for America, a national entrepreneurship fellowship that places top college graduates in startups for two years in emerging US cities including Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Baltimore to generate job growth and train the next generation of entrepreneurs. It has helped create almost 3,000 jobs throughout the country. Mr. Yang was named a Presidential Ambassador of Entrepreneurship by the White House and a Champion of Change for his work with Venture for America. In his book, The War on Normal People, he explains the mounting crisis of the automation of labor and makes the case for policies to progress to the next stage of capitalism. Mr. Yang is a graduate of Brown University and Columbia Law School.