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> Maybe it's time to tax automation? 1000% yes; I work in industrial mobile robots and it's obvious that governments need to find a way to capture some of the

> Maybe it's time to tax automation? 1000% yes; I work in industrial mobile robots and it's obvious that governments need to find a way to capture some of the value which is being created there, particular when it's a more-or-less direct trade of a wage-earning employee for a one-off capital investment. Are there are any major proposals yet for how this might work, or has already worked? The "existing" section on this suspiciously-OR Wikipedia article is pretty scant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_tax#Existing_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_tax#Existing_laws

TeMPOraL 6y ago
> Are there are any major proposals yet for how this might work, or has already worked? I don't know of any direct proposals, but I know of one thought: if you look at it, tax on fuels is partially a tax on automation already - machines use energy (be it electricity, heat or pressure), so there's a tax here that is proportional to use of machines. Of course it seems very low if treated as "tax on automation", and it's going to be easy to work around with off-the-grid, local power generation.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  Interesting idea, but I don't think that's a realistic proxy, particularly when you look at the automation-per-dollar "efficiency" of computers relative to other industrial processes— like, how much compute do you get for the power that it takes to boil water or weld together a car or something? Or what about a case like a self-serve till at the grocery store? The power those consume is probably actually comparable to the power consumed by a till with a person operating it. There are good reasons to tax energy and carbon, but critics are right that it ultimately is a tax on everything. An automation tax needs to find a way to specifically tax the gains made by putting humans out of a job, similar to what organized labour achieved for a generation of longshoreman when containerization killed their industry in the 60s and 70s (as documented in Marc Levinson's excellent book The Box).
marcus_holmes 6y ago
UBI is the only one that makes sense to me. There has to be a domestic market of people buying stuff for the rest of the economy to exist. If all the people are automated out of jobs, then that domestic market has to be provided by UBI. The funds for that provision have to come from corporate taxes. Probably a tax on capital spending or depreciation - if you're replacing labour with capital and the government relies on taxes on labour for its revenue, then the government has to switch to taxing capital. If there was a way of not involving the government in this, that would probably work better. The dream, of course, being The Culture - no government at all, just people acting in their enlightened self-interest in a post-scarcity world.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

> Are there are any major proposals yet for how this might work, or has already worked? I don't know of any direct proposals, but I know of one thought: if you look at it, tax on fuels is partially a tax on automation already - machines use energy (be it electricity, heat or pressure), so there's a tax here that is proportional to use of machines. Of course it seems very low if treated as "tax on automation", and it's going to be easy to work around with off-the-grid, local power generation.

mikepurvis 6y ago
Interesting idea, but I don't think that's a realistic proxy, particularly when you look at the automation-per-dollar "efficiency" of computers relative to other industrial processes— like, how much compute do you get for the power that it takes to boil water or weld together a car or something? Or what about a case like a self-serve till at the grocery store? The power those consume is probably actually comparable to the power consumed by a till with a person operating it. There are good reasons to tax energy and carbon, but critics are right that it ultimately is a tax on everything. An automation tax needs to find a way to specifically tax the gains made by putting humans out of a job, similar to what organized labour achieved for a generation of longshoreman when containerization killed their industry in the 60s and 70s (as documented in Marc Levinson's excellent book The Box).

marcus_holmes 6y ago

UBI is the only one that makes sense to me. There has to be a domestic market of people buying stuff for the rest of the economy to exist. If all the people are automated out of jobs, then that domestic market has to be provided by UBI. The funds for that provision have to come from corporate taxes. Probably a tax on capital spending or depreciation - if you're replacing labour with capital and the government relies on taxes on labour for its revenue, then the government has to switch to taxing capital. If there was a way of not involving the government in this, that would probably work better. The dream, of course, being The Culture - no government at all, just people acting in their enlightened self-interest in a post-scarcity world.