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Yep. It's really as simple as a progressive income and capital tax. Not only is it difficult to define the surplus gains from automation, the societal problem i

Yep. It's really as simple as a progressive income and capital tax. Not only is it difficult to define the surplus gains from automation, the societal problem is not automation, but the inordinate accumulation of wealth and power. Of course passing more progressive tax laws are impossible because you're asking the most rich and powerful to curtail their own wealth. Gate's proposal has any traction whatsoever because it won't touch old money. Asymmetric growth between those with and without capital (automation/AI) will only worsen. Add in a few more upcoming innovations such as human genetic and cybernetic modification, and a highly segregated (if not fully biologically divergent) world society seems unavoidable. The poor will no longer be lower castes by social fiat, they will truly become physically and mentally inferior. Revolution, which was possible in a time when the oppressed had equal capabilities and access to relatively competitive weaponry, will become impossible.

int_19h 9y ago
"Capital" is the key word here. Old man Marx was right when he said that capitalism is inherently self-contradictory... it's just that it took a while for that to fully manifest, and it is not in a way he expected. Consider what capitalism is, again, from a Marxist perspective. It is an economic mode of production that has two main classes: the capitalist class, which is characterized by the ownership of the means of production (aka capital); and the worker class, which is characterized by the lack of said ownership. The capitalist class, by virtue of owning the means of production, also owns any surplus value created using them. However, because your average capitalist has too much capital to be able to utilize it to its full extent, in order to maximize the surplus value generated from that capital, they need the workers. So, they effectively rent out the means of production to the workers (note: this includes the entire managerial chain involved, up to CEOs, and even owners themselves to the extent that they operate in a managerial capacity), who generate the actual surplus value, but then pay most of it back to the owner of the capital as rent. On the other hand, the workers, without access to means of production, cannot generate surplus value for themselves. So they have to go and rent those means from the capitalists who own them. The resulting arrangement manifests as employment and wages, and that's how we nominally describe it. But fundamentally it's all about rent and rent-seeking. The reason why this arrangement works in practice is because, within this established framework (i.e. unless you dispute legality of ownership of capital), both classes need each other to get any value out of it. Consequently, the reason why it's breaking apart with advent of widespread automation is because it breaks the dependency of the capitalist class on the workers. Automation is essentially capital that generates surplus value all by itself. This means that the entire production/consumption cycle that drives the economy becomes contained to the capitalist class. Simply put, if you have a robot that can do X for free, and the other guy has a robot that can do Y for free, and both of you need X+Y, then you only need to trade between each other. You don't need to trade with (e.g. hire or contract) anyone who does not have any robot that does anything useful. Effectively, everyone who doesn't own any means of production - i.e. the majority of the population in modern societies - become economically redundant in all respects, and cut off from the economy as a result. This is the point at which the question of who owns the capital - i.e. the automation - becomes paramount. The existing owners can try to avoid pressing that point by willingly taking a part of the surplus value that automation generates for them, and sharing it with all those that don't have any capital of their own, as a direct wealth transfer. This is UBI and other similar schemes. It's probably where we're heading in the medium term, but I doubt it would be a stable arrangement for too long - there's just too many inherent questions about fairness here, and such a scheme would also have basically zero social mobility between the have-automation class and the have-nots, that would further accelerate resentment. Longer term, we're probably looking at some form of shared ownership of the means of production. Which, combined with the post-scarcity that automation should result in, would, in fact, be communism in the strictest definition of that term. If we do get there, it would be the ultimate irony in that it would be capitalism as a socioeconomic system, rather than socialism, building the road there, for all the efforts of the latter and the indifference of the former...
- Applejinx 9y ago
  The worrying thing is how intelligent people spend their time devising financial instruments. It's beyond automation: too much financial sector trickery is capital that generates CAPITAL all by itself: this makes automation look inefficient. In that case, anyone that doesn't already have the most capital is also redundant and cut off, even if they're all set up with automation.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    I'm not too worried about that kind, because, while it is wasteful, it is also self-defeating in the long term - it's the kind of capital that is only capital through collective make-believe of our society. Take that away, and it turns into a bunch of useless and meaningless papers overnight. Not so with automation - it represents real capital, the kind that produces surplus value because it can supply the things for which any living being has a demand of.
    - Applejinx 9y ago
      Missed this at the time, apologies: the trouble is, capital IS only capital through the collective make-believe of our society. That's fundamental to the concept of abstracted money. Automation makes for a hell of a good barter system—you can basically give people golems in exchange for whatever you like, it can be extraordinarily valuable. But we're not talking about barter systems, we're talking about speculative capital, which is even more make-believe than fiat capital.
- sooheon 9y ago
  Well said. My worry is that reaching post-scarcity and shared ownership of capital is only a relevant goal so long as the Capitalists and the Redundant have biology and sociology in common. It may be that the classes diverge enough in a short enough time frame that the Capitalists no longer feel a kindred humanity to the Redundants, and would no longer see a reason to include them in the communist plan. I mean we already see this empathetic disconnect between the ultra rich and dirt poor in today's society. Capitalists who achieve post-scarcity may look around and see "high" humans, beneficiaries of advanced biotech, and masses of apparent troglodytes, with whom they have less in common than we do with dogs.

int_19h 9y ago

"Capital" is the key word here. Old man Marx was right when he said that capitalism is inherently self-contradictory... it's just that it took a while for that to fully manifest, and it is not in a way he expected. Consider what capitalism is, again, from a Marxist perspective. It is an economic mode of production that has two main classes: the capitalist class, which is characterized by the ownership of the means of production (aka capital); and the worker class, which is characterized by the lack of said ownership. The capitalist class, by virtue of owning the means of production, also owns any surplus value created using them. However, because your average capitalist has too much capital to be able to utilize it to its full extent, in order to maximize the surplus value generated from that capital, they need the workers. So, they effectively rent out the means of production to the workers (note: this includes the entire managerial chain involved, up to CEOs, and even owners themselves to the extent that they operate in a managerial capacity), who generate the actual surplus value, but then pay most of it back to the owner of the capital as rent. On the other hand, the workers, without access to means of production, cannot generate surplus value for themselves. So they have to go and rent those means from the capitalists who own them. The resulting arrangement manifests as employment and wages, and that's how we nominally describe it. But fundamentally it's all about rent and rent-seeking. The reason why this arrangement works in practice is because, within this established framework (i.e. unless you dispute legality of ownership of capital), both classes need each other to get any value out of it. Consequently, the reason why it's breaking apart with advent of widespread automation is because it breaks the dependency of the capitalist class on the workers. Automation is essentially capital that generates surplus value all by itself. This means that the entire production/consumption cycle that drives the economy becomes contained to the capitalist class. Simply put, if you have a robot that can do X for free, and the other guy has a robot that can do Y for free, and both of you need X+Y, then you only need to trade between each other. You don't need to trade with (e.g. hire or contract) anyone who does not have any robot that does anything useful. Effectively, everyone who doesn't own any means of production - i.e. the majority of the population in modern societies - become economically redundant in all respects, and cut off from the economy as a result. This is the point at which the question of who owns the capital - i.e. the automation - becomes paramount. The existing owners can try to avoid pressing that point by willingly taking a part of the surplus value that automation generates for them, and sharing it with all those that don't have any capital of their own, as a direct wealth transfer. This is UBI and other similar schemes. It's probably where we're heading in the medium term, but I doubt it would be a stable arrangement for too long - there's just too many inherent questions about fairness here, and such a scheme would also have basically zero social mobility between the have-automation class and the have-nots, that would further accelerate resentment. Longer term, we're probably looking at some form of shared ownership of the means of production. Which, combined with the post-scarcity that automation should result in, would, in fact, be communism in the strictest definition of that term. If we do get there, it would be the ultimate irony in that it would be capitalism as a socioeconomic system, rather than socialism, building the road there, for all the efforts of the latter and the indifference of the former...

Applejinx 9y ago
The worrying thing is how intelligent people spend their time devising financial instruments. It's beyond automation: too much financial sector trickery is capital that generates CAPITAL all by itself: this makes automation look inefficient. In that case, anyone that doesn't already have the most capital is also redundant and cut off, even if they're all set up with automation.
- int_19h 9y ago
  I'm not too worried about that kind, because, while it is wasteful, it is also self-defeating in the long term - it's the kind of capital that is only capital through collective make-believe of our society. Take that away, and it turns into a bunch of useless and meaningless papers overnight. Not so with automation - it represents real capital, the kind that produces surplus value because it can supply the things for which any living being has a demand of.
  - Applejinx 9y ago
    Missed this at the time, apologies: the trouble is, capital IS only capital through the collective make-believe of our society. That's fundamental to the concept of abstracted money. Automation makes for a hell of a good barter system—you can basically give people golems in exchange for whatever you like, it can be extraordinarily valuable. But we're not talking about barter systems, we're talking about speculative capital, which is even more make-believe than fiat capital.
sooheon 9y ago
Well said. My worry is that reaching post-scarcity and shared ownership of capital is only a relevant goal so long as the Capitalists and the Redundant have biology and sociology in common. It may be that the classes diverge enough in a short enough time frame that the Capitalists no longer feel a kindred humanity to the Redundants, and would no longer see a reason to include them in the communist plan. I mean we already see this empathetic disconnect between the ultra rich and dirt poor in today's society. Capitalists who achieve post-scarcity may look around and see "high" humans, beneficiaries of advanced biotech, and masses of apparent troglodytes, with whom they have less in common than we do with dogs.