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In a word, redistribution. With a rising share of income going to robots (capital) rather than humans (labor), there needs to be a stronger social safety net.

In a word, redistribution. With a rising share of income going to robots (capital) rather than humans (labor), there needs to be a stronger social safety net. This means guaranteed health insurance, health care, retirement benefits, and even a minimum income. That safety net will have to be paid for via some combination of taxes on wealth, profits, and investment income.

hyperliner 10y ago
I guess a question is: where would the income (that is supposed to be "redistributed") come from, in a world where the customers of every commercial entity cannot earn an income to pay taxes and contribute to the pool to be redistributed? I guess a country could always wage war against another and take their resources or enslave their people. Is that the ultimate outcome? Not trying to stir politics here, just to find the theoretical limit of an economy where all actors can be automated.
- susan_hall 10y ago
  > where would the income come from You are confusing money with wealth (stuff people want). The money would come from the government, which can simply print it. Take a hypothetical situation where robots cause the total amount of wealth (stuff) created, in one year, to increase by 100%. Now assume the government prints enough money to increase the total amount of money by 100%. In this case, wealth has increased by 100%, and money has increased by 100%, so people's ability to get stuff has increased 100%, with 0% inflation. In the real world, things never work out so cleanly, but the above offers a simplified model of what could happen.
  - hyperliner 10y ago
    Why would there be zero percent inflation, if the money supply doubled?
    - zamfi 10y ago
      At the risk of being simplistic, because so did the "stuff" supply. Inflation is when the money supply increases without the stuff supply increasing, so each dollar is worth less stuff.
      - susan_hall 10y ago
        It is worrisome that the posts which are factually accurate are getting downvoted. This raises a question about economic literacy on Hacker News. Presumably the people downvoting this comment simply don't understand how the economy works.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
You're making an assumption here that no higher level jobs would arise. History tells us that is a fallacy. In 1800s more than 70% of the workforce was engaged in agriculture. Today it's 1-2% in the US. However, the others are not just sitting on their asses. There are jobs available today which simply were not conceivable back then (programmer, animation designer yadda yadda).

hyperliner 10y ago

I guess a question is: where would the income (that is supposed to be "redistributed") come from, in a world where the customers of every commercial entity cannot earn an income to pay taxes and contribute to the pool to be redistributed? I guess a country could always wage war against another and take their resources or enslave their people. Is that the ultimate outcome? Not trying to stir politics here, just to find the theoretical limit of an economy where all actors can be automated.

susan_hall 10y ago
> where would the income come from You are confusing money with wealth (stuff people want). The money would come from the government, which can simply print it. Take a hypothetical situation where robots cause the total amount of wealth (stuff) created, in one year, to increase by 100%. Now assume the government prints enough money to increase the total amount of money by 100%. In this case, wealth has increased by 100%, and money has increased by 100%, so people's ability to get stuff has increased 100%, with 0% inflation. In the real world, things never work out so cleanly, but the above offers a simplified model of what could happen.
- hyperliner 10y ago
  Why would there be zero percent inflation, if the money supply doubled?
  - zamfi 10y ago
    At the risk of being simplistic, because so did the "stuff" supply. Inflation is when the money supply increases without the stuff supply increasing, so each dollar is worth less stuff.
    - susan_hall 10y ago
      It is worrisome that the posts which are factually accurate are getting downvoted. This raises a question about economic literacy on Hacker News. Presumably the people downvoting this comment simply don't understand how the economy works.

maverick_iceman 10y ago

You're making an assumption here that no higher level jobs would arise. History tells us that is a fallacy. In 1800s more than 70% of the workforce was engaged in agriculture. Today it's 1-2% in the US. However, the others are not just sitting on their asses. There are jobs available today which simply were not conceivable back then (programmer, animation designer yadda yadda).