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Agreed about VAT. However, has there been any historical precedent to taxing automation? Up until about 100 years ago, a huge percentage of the population was
by illumin8 10y ago
Agreed about VAT. However, has there been any historical precedent to taxing automation? Up until about 100 years ago, a huge percentage of the population was agrarian. Somehow we still managed to employ or re-employ all of those people, and I don't believe we tried to put a tax on the few farmers remaining to pay for the societal costs.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago> Somehow we still managed to employ or re-employ all of those people Modulo a world war, a revolution in a major country, a Great Depression and its accompanying famines, another world war, another revolution in another major country, multiple revolutions in multiple minor countries, and multiple localized famines in minor countries. Oh, and repeated genocides. There was no comfortable transition from pre-industrial agrarianism to social democracy. There was horror, pain, and death at levels to which we've now learned to say, "Never again."
- mattnewton 10y agoI'm not sure how automation caused this, or more to the point how taxing it can update have changed the outcome in any way. Are you suggesting that if we taxed the steam and internal combustion engines we could have avoided WW2? Or are you just saying the transition was painful before and we ought to do something to help with the current one (without saying whether this tax is necessary)
- illumin8 10y agoGood point, but I'm not sure correlation = causation here.