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> How will those non-rich people buy consumer goods if they have no money? How will those rich people sell consumer goods if the poor don't have money? > Our

> How will those non-rich people buy consumer goods if they have no money? How will those rich people sell consumer goods if the poor don't have money? > Our current economic system does not work in an age of increasing automation. The gains in wealth are being further concentrated in the hands of a few. Absolutely true. I'd like to think that you and I are both as clueless as the agrarian citizens at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. And maybe we are. But something about this wave of automation seems quantitatively different than the last one—as though there's no new economic sectors to replace those that are being automated away > There is an answer to this dilemma -in the form of a guaranteed living income for all - but we seem to be rapidly moving in the opposite direction. I like to frame that as a negative income tax, rather than a guaranteed income. It seems like less of a "government program", which might help it sell. The beauty of a negative income tax is that it can be easily† adjusted as needed to suit an evolving economy. It's not a separate program that is established and lives on. If (US) brackets are [10, 15, 25, 28, 33] (i think?), the new brackets could be [-50, -10, 0, 10, ...], with a 20k starter. So if you do absolutely nothing, you get 20k. If you make an additional 5k a year on the side, you'd be "taxed" at -50 on that and end up with 27.5k. At some level as your earnings increase, the subsidy fades off and is replaced with taxes. †Technically-speaking, maybe not politically. But then again, this whole thing is a pipe-dream at present.

zanny 11y ago
> as though there's no new economic sectors to replace those that are being automated away Before, it was always "I'd like to build houses / learn to plumb / build widgets in a factory, but I need food, so I'm tilling land". Now its "I'd like to do pretty much anything, but nobody will pay me to do it, because the robots are better at everything I can do". Unless your labor is intellectual, your function in society as a bag of meat with limbs and a bunch of neurons that make you very easy to program instructions into is going the way of the horse in the early 20th century.
rdtsc 11y ago
> How will those rich people sell consumer goods if the poor don't have money? But how will the poor have any money if they have to pay money to the rich in order to afford basic necessities. Also, if they had money they wouldn't be poor, now would they? Another way to look at it is, just look at what happens at extremes -- really poor in developing countries. Well, lucky for the rich and powerful, it turns out the poor have kidneys, muscles, blood, the can work for the rich, they can sell their bodies to the rich. So have no fear, the rich will figure out a way to take advantage of the poor even after the poor don't have any pieces of green paper or stamped metal circles left.

zanny 11y ago

> as though there's no new economic sectors to replace those that are being automated away Before, it was always "I'd like to build houses / learn to plumb / build widgets in a factory, but I need food, so I'm tilling land". Now its "I'd like to do pretty much anything, but nobody will pay me to do it, because the robots are better at everything I can do". Unless your labor is intellectual, your function in society as a bag of meat with limbs and a bunch of neurons that make you very easy to program instructions into is going the way of the horse in the early 20th century.

rdtsc 11y ago

> How will those rich people sell consumer goods if the poor don't have money? But how will the poor have any money if they have to pay money to the rich in order to afford basic necessities. Also, if they had money they wouldn't be poor, now would they? Another way to look at it is, just look at what happens at extremes -- really poor in developing countries. Well, lucky for the rich and powerful, it turns out the poor have kidneys, muscles, blood, the can work for the rich, they can sell their bodies to the rich. So have no fear, the rich will figure out a way to take advantage of the poor even after the poor don't have any pieces of green paper or stamped metal circles left.