>> To me, this sounds like a good case for a basic income guarantee
>Where will the money come from? The math doesn't work.
I'm assuming the OP is funding basic income from the businesses since they are replacing the human labor with automation. This could be a direct tax on businesses or a tax on dividends or something. I'm not arguing for or against this here.
The math does in fact work out if the cost of basic income is less than the productivity increase created by the increased automation.
> I'm assuming the OP is funding basic income from the businesses since they are replacing the human labor with automation.
Then he needs to do some math. There are just under 300 million people in the United States, for instance. He doesn't have to give all of them an income. Just tell me which demographic slice, and how much they're being given.
Either it's not "universal", or it's so low it's not income.
> This could be a direct tax on businesses or a tax on dividends or something.
Businesses would be asked to shoulder even more of the national revenue at that point. Unless you're suggesting that your $12,000/year universal income should be pissed away right back to the IRS... at which point it's not enough to survive on.
So they're shouldering all of burden of what used to be personal income tax, extra on top of it, and somehow will still have the money to buy the robots that will make it all happen?
The math just doesn't work.
> The math does in fact work out if the cost of basic income is less than the productivity increase created by the increased automation.
How do you intend to extract that extra revenue? Besides, this illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how it will all play out.
The increased productivity will happen simultaneously with a reduced demand (no one can afford to buy the products). We'll get all sorts of fluctuations, but eventually the robot owners realize that they don't need to sell things to remain wealthy. The robots are the perfect slave, and they turn raw materials (which the wealthy own) directly into luxury products. Why sell something for cash, to turn around and use the cash to buy luxury products that you can just have made to order?
This even avoids all sorts of taxes. If you have no income, there is no income tax.
A better way to envision this is to think "soon, the important and rich people won't need you at all". Well, maybe not the audience here at HN, I imagine there are lots of robot software types reading my comment. You guys have a few more decades, I think.
All this is based on the fact the the effectiveness of automation at a given price point is growing.
If I replace 100 employees with a machine that has a TCO of $100k yr and I was paying them each $30k. I am $2900k ahead, should the government require I supply $15k basic income for 30 people I would still be $1640k ahead, not to mention less overhead for HR, recruiting etc.
The real trick is in distributing this burden so the businesses benefiting from the automation are paying it.
>Where will the money come from? The math doesn't work.
I'm assuming the OP is funding basic income from the businesses since they are replacing the human labor with automation. This could be a direct tax on businesses or a tax on dividends or something. I'm not arguing for or against this here.
The math does in fact work out if the cost of basic income is less than the productivity increase created by the increased automation.
reply