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The title should be "Fine for Now". Maintaining Sweden’s social safety net also requires that the public continue to pay tax rates approaching 60 percent for t

by MollyR 9y ago

The title should be "Fine for Now". Maintaining Sweden’s social safety net also requires that the public continue to pay tax rates approaching 60 percent for their current amount of displacement. If automation starts to displace a huge number of people, and there is no job to transition, the social contract will break. I'm really hoping we hit a star trek style utopia (especially in terms of energy and food) before we get close to social contract breakage. I fear we won't though, we already seeing severe signs of the social contract breaking in the United States.

hydrox24 9y ago
> star trek style utopia Utopia and dystopia may be a fine line, but I like the theory that Star Trek is a dystopic, culturally desolate future. [0] [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1Kju_-1sYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1Kju_-1sYM
- johnchristopher 9y ago
  I am in a ds9/voy binge watching and I agree the federeation isn't the utopia as it's often mentionned but the arguments in the video are pretty weak (and uninformed).
maxxxxx 9y ago
Seems this is an experiment in the direction of UBI.
Dylan16807 9y ago
> If automation starts to displace a huge number of people, and there is no job to transition, the social contract will break. Break because of what? If a job is stupendously productive because of automation, it can support stupendously high taxes too.
- MollyR 9y ago
  Only if the people pay, it sounded like the one of Swedish economists from the article think there is a limit to what you can tax people before the social contract breaks. I'm assuming this applies to individuals and populations.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    If their take-home pay is still increasing, I'm not sure there can be all that much objection to higher taxes.
    - ehsankia 9y ago
      In theory, yes. In practice, it's almost a branding issue. Knowing that 60% of your money is being taken away from you is generally a bigger takeaway for people than the total amount being bigger.
      - QAPereo 9y ago
        Maybe they’re bright enough to see that it’s not taken and wasted, but becomes the foundation of their incredibly successful state. Not everyone in every country is blinkered by the ideology of the greediest, in the hope of joining them.
        yazaddaruvala 9y ago
        I agree and disagree. In a state with a single worker, that single worker is almost guaranteed to be a sociopath. They likely don't care about other people. You'd have to frame it for them differently. Perhaps the glory of an immortal title? Maybe the admiration of the populace? Something like that.
        emacsgifs 9y ago
        God King Emperor of Eternity? I can see an egomaniac going for that.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
fao_ 9y ago
> seeing severe signs of the social contract breaking in the United States. The problem in the US is that the higher echelons don't believe that they should be part of that social contract. the social contract doesn't slip if everyone pays their fair due -- including those rich desk pigs who prefer to fatten their bonuses instead of upping their worker's salaries.
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  In the United States people making 250k plus, ~the one percent, pay ~54% of the income tax [1]. Poor people, approximately the bottom third, pay nothing in income tax. I too want poor people to earn and have more money but it doesn't seem true that the rich aren't paying their fair due. 1 - https://taxfoundation.org/new-irs-data-wealthy-paid-55-percent-income-taxes-2014/ https://taxfoundation.org/new-irs-data-wealthy-paid-55-perce... Edit: To the people downvoting me, please clarify why. From my perspective I'm directly addressing a point in the conversation with a legitimate source. I don't see why this should be downvoted, so please clarify for me.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Only if you define income taxes to only include a subset of income taxes and ignore social security. Further, income taxes are only a subset of the overall tax load and you need to take earnings with a grain of salt as multi generational wealth can accumulate without being considered as 'income'.
    - ImSkeptical 9y ago
      If you look at all federal taxes, as this analysis of CBO numbers does [1], then it seems that the top 1% take 18% of income and pay 28% of all federal taxes. So, you are right that the portion of all federal taxes is not as great as I made it seem in my parent comment, that comment only takes into account federal income tax. But, I believe the overarching point and conclusion still stands. 1 - https://www.factcheck.org/2008/05/top-1-what-they-make-and-pay/ https://www.factcheck.org/2008/05/top-1-what-they-make-and-p...
stale2002 9y ago
I don't ever remember signing a social contract. How about we just get rid of it, or at least call it something different. Calling something a "contract" implies that other people agree to it. But in reality, the "social contract" that we follow now was created by people who are hundreds years dead, and never asked anyone else if they wanted to join it or not. Maybe it is good that this "contract" is ending.
grondilu 9y ago
> If automation starts to displace a huge number of people, and there is no job to transition, the social contract will break. Can't we hope that the transition is progressive, so that the unemployment rates are compensated by lower prices, leading eventually to everything being cheap as dirt?
neilwilson 9y ago
Sweden is a sovereign nation with its own currency and a free floating exchange rate. Therefore when the Swedish state spends money, people earn more from the production that induces. The machines are run for longer and more is made. Taxes then automatically recover that. Extra Spending causes extra taxation. The analogy is straightforward. If you have an advanced electrical economy you have to supply more power into the grid than is consumed to handle the phase shift of advanced inductive power plant. That extra power is then taxed back by the electrical grid 50 times a second. You have to generate that extra power, and have wires big enough to take it, even though it is never actually used. If you don't supply it, then the motors just don't create as much real power. To get the correct amount of real power out of a modern mechanised economy, the currency issuer has to spend more into that economy as reactive power and that then returns to the source as taxes and additional savings in the currency every cycle. Mechanisation reduces the power factor of an advanced economy - requiring more reactive power, government spending, to be supplied to maintain the optimum level of real output.

by MollyR 9y ago

hydrox24 9y ago

> star trek style utopia Utopia and dystopia may be a fine line, but I like the theory that Star Trek is a dystopic, culturally desolate future. [0] [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1Kju_-1sYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1Kju_-1sYM

johnchristopher 9y ago
I am in a ds9/voy binge watching and I agree the federeation isn't the utopia as it's often mentionned but the arguments in the video are pretty weak (and uninformed).

maxxxxx 9y ago

Seems this is an experiment in the direction of UBI.

Dylan16807 9y ago

> If automation starts to displace a huge number of people, and there is no job to transition, the social contract will break. Break because of what? If a job is stupendously productive because of automation, it can support stupendously high taxes too.

MollyR 9y ago
Only if the people pay, it sounded like the one of Swedish economists from the article think there is a limit to what you can tax people before the social contract breaks. I'm assuming this applies to individuals and populations.
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  If their take-home pay is still increasing, I'm not sure there can be all that much objection to higher taxes.
  - ehsankia 9y ago
    In theory, yes. In practice, it's almost a branding issue. Knowing that 60% of your money is being taken away from you is generally a bigger takeaway for people than the total amount being bigger.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      Maybe they’re bright enough to see that it’s not taken and wasted, but becomes the foundation of their incredibly successful state. Not everyone in every country is blinkered by the ideology of the greediest, in the hope of joining them.
      - yazaddaruvala 9y ago
        I agree and disagree. In a state with a single worker, that single worker is almost guaranteed to be a sociopath. They likely don't care about other people. You'd have to frame it for them differently. Perhaps the glory of an immortal title? Maybe the admiration of the populace? Something like that.
        emacsgifs 9y ago
        God King Emperor of Eternity? I can see an egomaniac going for that.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

fao_ 9y ago

> seeing severe signs of the social contract breaking in the United States. The problem in the US is that the higher echelons don't believe that they should be part of that social contract. the social contract doesn't slip if everyone pays their fair due -- including those rich desk pigs who prefer to fatten their bonuses instead of upping their worker's salaries.

ImSkeptical 9y ago
In the United States people making 250k plus, ~the one percent, pay ~54% of the income tax [1]. Poor people, approximately the bottom third, pay nothing in income tax. I too want poor people to earn and have more money but it doesn't seem true that the rich aren't paying their fair due. 1 - https://taxfoundation.org/new-irs-data-wealthy-paid-55-percent-income-taxes-2014/ https://taxfoundation.org/new-irs-data-wealthy-paid-55-perce... Edit: To the people downvoting me, please clarify why. From my perspective I'm directly addressing a point in the conversation with a legitimate source. I don't see why this should be downvoted, so please clarify for me.
- Retric 9y ago
  Only if you define income taxes to only include a subset of income taxes and ignore social security. Further, income taxes are only a subset of the overall tax load and you need to take earnings with a grain of salt as multi generational wealth can accumulate without being considered as 'income'.
  - ImSkeptical 9y ago
    If you look at all federal taxes, as this analysis of CBO numbers does [1], then it seems that the top 1% take 18% of income and pay 28% of all federal taxes. So, you are right that the portion of all federal taxes is not as great as I made it seem in my parent comment, that comment only takes into account federal income tax. But, I believe the overarching point and conclusion still stands. 1 - https://www.factcheck.org/2008/05/top-1-what-they-make-and-pay/ https://www.factcheck.org/2008/05/top-1-what-they-make-and-p...

stale2002 9y ago

I don't ever remember signing a social contract. How about we just get rid of it, or at least call it something different. Calling something a "contract" implies that other people agree to it. But in reality, the "social contract" that we follow now was created by people who are hundreds years dead, and never asked anyone else if they wanted to join it or not. Maybe it is good that this "contract" is ending.

grondilu 9y ago

> If automation starts to displace a huge number of people, and there is no job to transition, the social contract will break. Can't we hope that the transition is progressive, so that the unemployment rates are compensated by lower prices, leading eventually to everything being cheap as dirt?

neilwilson 9y ago

Sweden is a sovereign nation with its own currency and a free floating exchange rate. Therefore when the Swedish state spends money, people earn more from the production that induces. The machines are run for longer and more is made. Taxes then automatically recover that. Extra Spending causes extra taxation. The analogy is straightforward. If you have an advanced electrical economy you have to supply more power into the grid than is consumed to handle the phase shift of advanced inductive power plant. That extra power is then taxed back by the electrical grid 50 times a second. You have to generate that extra power, and have wires big enough to take it, even though it is never actually used. If you don't supply it, then the motors just don't create as much real power. To get the correct amount of real power out of a modern mechanised economy, the currency issuer has to spend more into that economy as reactive power and that then returns to the source as taxes and additional savings in the currency every cycle. Mechanisation reduces the power factor of an advanced economy - requiring more reactive power, government spending, to be supplied to maintain the optimum level of real output.