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When technologies like my example come about, we get to choose how widely people benefit from it. Automation replacing factory workers certainly could and shoul
by feoren 6y ago
When technologies like my example come about, we get to choose how widely people benefit from it. Automation replacing factory workers certainly could and should benefit people besides the factory owners, but my entire thesis is that the American economy is currently set up to almost entirely benefit the factory owners and shareholders, while being unbelievably heartless to the people being replaced. Sure, prices might fall for everyone, but monopolies and principal-agent problems make that harder. Note that the factory owners likely did nothing to reap that enormous benefit; they simply waited for technology to advance. Universal basic income is about recognizing that exponentially increasing automation is an amazing, unprecedented benefit to society and trying to make sure that benefit is widely shared instead of being hoarded by existing capital owners.
And can you please not replace my comment about taxing the rich more with some hyper-extreme 100% wealth tax? Nobody is suggesting that, so you're arguing with a straw-man. 100% is clearly insane. What are you even referring to, the French Revolution?
- babesh 6y agoSuppose you tax wealth at 70% for anything over say 4 million. Now do that annually or at least periodically. What ends up happening is that unless that person’s wealth grows at greater than 70% for that period, you end up taking all their wealth above the 4 million. Your 70% tax is really a 100% tax minus 4 million. It’s just math. .30^n as n goes up approaches 0. Do it once and you take 70%. Do it twice and you take 91%. Do it 5 times and you have taken about 99.75% of their wealth. The factory system as you call it is generating most of the growth in the economy. The rest of the system is increasingly inefficient. Go look at education, healthcare, media, etc... Those are where costs have increased the most for decreasing benefits. Your approach slows down the growth of the pie and reallocates it into leeches in the system, entrenching them further. Notice how there is suddenly zero talk of decreasing healthcare costs or making education work better as a whole? Those industries hopped onto the bandwagon and are all for printing money which indirectly go to them. I am actually for some UBI. My opinion is you create an AMT on revenue and use that to fund UBI. Also, I am for a higher estate/death tax. It resets the playing field but keeps the incentive structure for people to create wealth.