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Of course. Wrong tax. Tax is there to free up people for the public purpose, so you tax firms on their use of manpower in your jurisdiction. That encourages t

Of course. Wrong tax. Tax is there to free up people for the public purpose, so you tax firms on their use of manpower in your jurisdiction. That encourages the use of automation, which is what we want, and we can then turn competition up to 11 (ie anti-trust/competition legislation) which is what keeps corporate profits under control and prevents hoarding and gouging. Beardsley Ruml told us in the 1940s that taxing profits is the wrong target. http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/RUMLTAXES.html http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/RUMLTAXES.html

notahacker 3y ago
Of course, what everyone wants is for the tax system to encourage firms to lay off all their local employees! Because once the government has offshored all the nation's industry and private sector jobs, the public can go and build dams for the government for freshly printed dollars, and there are absolutely no downsides to this...
- derelicta 3y ago
  If thats the only issue, may I suggest taking over the said companies then? Transform them into worker-cooperatives as the next step, so that people take pride in what they create, for now they own the full produce of their labour.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Companies exist because we collectively allow them to. There is nothing special about a company, like fiat and wealth in general they are a shared delusion. If the rules aren't working to encourage the desired collective outcome, the rules can change.
    - derelicta 3y ago
      Fully agree
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      Pretty sure there will be no agreement on what the desired collective outcome should be. The better avenue might be to inquire if really innovation of the corporate form is done - there has be strikingly little progress over the last few hundred years (and perhaps longer if we don't look to closely).
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Enacted legislation is the agreement. Strongly agree with your second statement.
        RandomLensman 3y ago
        To enact legislation you need some sort of agreement (other than in autocracies) - I think that will be tough to get in quite a few places.
        toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Fully agree. Lifetimes of work ahead.
  - notahacker 3y ago
    If the government is taxing firms on manpower at levels intended on discouraging firms from actually using manpower, employees are going to have an even bigger problem funding the takeover of the firm than usual...
    - derelicta 3y ago
      Oh no, I meant nationalising companies instead of simply trying to rely on taxes to solve whatever issues you need to get solved. Gotta attack the root causes instead of the mere symptoms.
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        With very few examples, that route didn't work out well much, and in way the "successful" national or state sponsored enterprises where not necessarily nice. That isn't to say public utilities cannot be successful, but starting them by trying to modify something existing instead of devolved (where applicable) and bespoke entities that don't hold the power of the state as such might be a nicer way.
        derelicta 3y ago
        > With very few example that route didn't work out well much, and in way the "successful" national or state sponsored enterprises where not necessarily nice. Republics come and go, it doesnt mean democracy in itself is a failure. All I am advocating for is the extension of our democratic norms to the economic and production apparatus.
        RandomLensman 3y ago
        Not sure I understand your connection between nationalized corporations/SEEs and republics. We do have a fair amount of countries with more than just shareholder representations in boards, for example. That said, assuming that just extending democratic norms (TBD) into corporations will help - not sold, why would large and potentially uninformed decision making help?
  - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
    This has been tried and has always been 110% successful everywhere it has been tried /s. You do realize what you are proposing is 100% legal today but for some reason doesn't work out well.
    - derelicta 3y ago
      It would have been (and would be) certainly more successful if foreign powers didnt try to disrupt them. But it's only fair I guess. After all, absolute monarchies saught to disrupt newly born republics around them, as to prevent nasty ideas to spread to peasants.
      - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
        > It would have been (and would be) certainly more successful if foreign powers didnt try to disrupt them Ah the same old excuses Why aren't they successful in the US today or USSR previously? Or North Korea or China today? You do realize even China's top companies are not cooperatives.
        derelicta 3y ago
        Ever heard of the alphabet agencies?
        boeingUH60 3y ago
        Wow, I guess the CIA is now disrupting co-ops after getting bored of toppling countries..
      - Nasrudith 3y ago
        There is no getting around this. If a system of government cannot withstand foreign powers it is flat out a /bad system for a government/, no matter how well it works/could work at a smaller scale or different context. Corporations may work well economically but there is a reason that among all of the desperate reform attempts nobody decided to incorporate an entire nation and make it publicly traded.
  - psychlops 3y ago
    I think that would quickly degenerate into whomever could work the least and also maximize profits. Also, not everyone is creating something in which they can take pride. Most jobs are just jobs for money to pay for things that people really want...like more free time.
- neilwilson 3y ago
  "Of course, what everyone wants is for the tax system to encourage firms to lay off all their local employees!" That's exactly what you want - otherwise there is nobody for government to hire - which is the point of taxes. They won't lay off all their local employees, just enough. And if they lay off too many, then you reduce taxes... Government will then hire them, and the wages paid goes to the firms in exchange for the produce they sell to government workers. Government needs people to do the tasks it has been elected to do. It has to stop the private sector hiring them instead. It does that by taxing. The tax incidence literature shows the most efficient way to reduce the number of job offers is to tax the employers on the wages paid to employees.
  - notahacker 3y ago
    Seriously, you can take economic contrarianism too far. Take a deep breath, forget all the rabbit holes you've been going down and go look at who governments actually hire, at what rates, and to do what. They're not recruiting civil servants or police or nurses or economists from the dole queue, or from people whose skillset is in imminent danger of being rendered obsolete by an algorithm. Just like the private sector, they have the remarkable ability to hire people that already have jobs or good job prospects by offering them more money (or more flexible work and better pensions, or a fancier title, or something that interests them more) Government has exactly the same ability to hire people as the private sector (more actually; it has a broader revenue base, can offer more unique privileges and actually has near monopsony hiring power in many areas... and no, people don't train to become NHS healthcare practitioners because the local supermarket is replacing people with kiosks!) and does not need to create unemployment to be able to man its offices. Quite the opposite actually, when unemployment shoots up governments in most developed countries have the obligation to pay lots of people unemployment benefits for , not working for them, and generally that's about the time it starts cutting the size of its own departments.
    - neilwilson 3y ago
      "Government has exactly the same ability to hire people as the private sector" Yes, by paying more. What you're saying is that government should just be another market player. Which causes inflation. That's a fallacy of composition. Government is too big to do that. There's nothing contrarian in what I'm saying. What I'm saying is look at it from the other point of view. If government increases the taxes on employers at a particular salary band then it will not be able to hire so many staff at that salary band. They will then take the government's shilling at the price on offer. Which is how you solve the staffing problem in the NHS. By taxing the private healthcare providers at the relevant salary band until the NHS becomes fully staffed. "more actually; it has a broader revenue base" Government doesn't have a revenue base at all. Governments spend by printing money and tax by shredding money. The little silver coins going into a big chest mental model isn't how it actually works. There are no little silver coins and there is no chest. It's just debits and credits. "when unemployment shoots up governments in most developed countries have the obligation to pay lots of people unemployment benefits for , not working" Well there's a simple solution to that. Pay them to work instead. Backwards to what you are suggesting. Which will then, remarkably, start acting as a spend-side auto stabiliser which means we can dispense with interest rate changes...

notahacker 3y ago

Of course, what everyone wants is for the tax system to encourage firms to lay off all their local employees! Because once the government has offshored all the nation's industry and private sector jobs, the public can go and build dams for the government for freshly printed dollars, and there are absolutely no downsides to this...

derelicta 3y ago
If thats the only issue, may I suggest taking over the said companies then? Transform them into worker-cooperatives as the next step, so that people take pride in what they create, for now they own the full produce of their labour.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Companies exist because we collectively allow them to. There is nothing special about a company, like fiat and wealth in general they are a shared delusion. If the rules aren't working to encourage the desired collective outcome, the rules can change.
  - derelicta 3y ago
    Fully agree
  - RandomLensman 3y ago
    Pretty sure there will be no agreement on what the desired collective outcome should be. The better avenue might be to inquire if really innovation of the corporate form is done - there has be strikingly little progress over the last few hundred years (and perhaps longer if we don't look to closely).
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Enacted legislation is the agreement. Strongly agree with your second statement.
      - RandomLensman 3y ago
        To enact legislation you need some sort of agreement (other than in autocracies) - I think that will be tough to get in quite a few places.
        toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Fully agree. Lifetimes of work ahead.
- notahacker 3y ago
  If the government is taxing firms on manpower at levels intended on discouraging firms from actually using manpower, employees are going to have an even bigger problem funding the takeover of the firm than usual...
  - derelicta 3y ago
    Oh no, I meant nationalising companies instead of simply trying to rely on taxes to solve whatever issues you need to get solved. Gotta attack the root causes instead of the mere symptoms.
    - RandomLensman 3y ago
      With very few examples, that route didn't work out well much, and in way the "successful" national or state sponsored enterprises where not necessarily nice. That isn't to say public utilities cannot be successful, but starting them by trying to modify something existing instead of devolved (where applicable) and bespoke entities that don't hold the power of the state as such might be a nicer way.
      - derelicta 3y ago
        > With very few example that route didn't work out well much, and in way the "successful" national or state sponsored enterprises where not necessarily nice. Republics come and go, it doesnt mean democracy in itself is a failure. All I am advocating for is the extension of our democratic norms to the economic and production apparatus.
        RandomLensman 3y ago
        Not sure I understand your connection between nationalized corporations/SEEs and republics. We do have a fair amount of countries with more than just shareholder representations in boards, for example. That said, assuming that just extending democratic norms (TBD) into corporations will help - not sold, why would large and potentially uninformed decision making help?
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  This has been tried and has always been 110% successful everywhere it has been tried /s. You do realize what you are proposing is 100% legal today but for some reason doesn't work out well.
  - derelicta 3y ago
    It would have been (and would be) certainly more successful if foreign powers didnt try to disrupt them. But it's only fair I guess. After all, absolute monarchies saught to disrupt newly born republics around them, as to prevent nasty ideas to spread to peasants.
    - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
      > It would have been (and would be) certainly more successful if foreign powers didnt try to disrupt them Ah the same old excuses Why aren't they successful in the US today or USSR previously? Or North Korea or China today? You do realize even China's top companies are not cooperatives.
      - derelicta 3y ago
        Ever heard of the alphabet agencies?
        boeingUH60 3y ago
        Wow, I guess the CIA is now disrupting co-ops after getting bored of toppling countries..
    - Nasrudith 3y ago
      There is no getting around this. If a system of government cannot withstand foreign powers it is flat out a /bad system for a government/, no matter how well it works/could work at a smaller scale or different context. Corporations may work well economically but there is a reason that among all of the desperate reform attempts nobody decided to incorporate an entire nation and make it publicly traded.
- psychlops 3y ago
  I think that would quickly degenerate into whomever could work the least and also maximize profits. Also, not everyone is creating something in which they can take pride. Most jobs are just jobs for money to pay for things that people really want...like more free time.
neilwilson 3y ago
"Of course, what everyone wants is for the tax system to encourage firms to lay off all their local employees!" That's exactly what you want - otherwise there is nobody for government to hire - which is the point of taxes. They won't lay off all their local employees, just enough. And if they lay off too many, then you reduce taxes... Government will then hire them, and the wages paid goes to the firms in exchange for the produce they sell to government workers. Government needs people to do the tasks it has been elected to do. It has to stop the private sector hiring them instead. It does that by taxing. The tax incidence literature shows the most efficient way to reduce the number of job offers is to tax the employers on the wages paid to employees.
- notahacker 3y ago
  Seriously, you can take economic contrarianism too far. Take a deep breath, forget all the rabbit holes you've been going down and go look at who governments actually hire, at what rates, and to do what. They're not recruiting civil servants or police or nurses or economists from the dole queue, or from people whose skillset is in imminent danger of being rendered obsolete by an algorithm. Just like the private sector, they have the remarkable ability to hire people that already have jobs or good job prospects by offering them more money (or more flexible work and better pensions, or a fancier title, or something that interests them more) Government has exactly the same ability to hire people as the private sector (more actually; it has a broader revenue base, can offer more unique privileges and actually has near monopsony hiring power in many areas... and no, people don't train to become NHS healthcare practitioners because the local supermarket is replacing people with kiosks!) and does not need to create unemployment to be able to man its offices. Quite the opposite actually, when unemployment shoots up governments in most developed countries have the obligation to pay lots of people unemployment benefits for , not working for them, and generally that's about the time it starts cutting the size of its own departments.
  - neilwilson 3y ago
    "Government has exactly the same ability to hire people as the private sector" Yes, by paying more. What you're saying is that government should just be another market player. Which causes inflation. That's a fallacy of composition. Government is too big to do that. There's nothing contrarian in what I'm saying. What I'm saying is look at it from the other point of view. If government increases the taxes on employers at a particular salary band then it will not be able to hire so many staff at that salary band. They will then take the government's shilling at the price on offer. Which is how you solve the staffing problem in the NHS. By taxing the private healthcare providers at the relevant salary band until the NHS becomes fully staffed. "more actually; it has a broader revenue base" Government doesn't have a revenue base at all. Governments spend by printing money and tax by shredding money. The little silver coins going into a big chest mental model isn't how it actually works. There are no little silver coins and there is no chest. It's just debits and credits. "when unemployment shoots up governments in most developed countries have the obligation to pay lots of people unemployment benefits for , not working" Well there's a simple solution to that. Pay them to work instead. Backwards to what you are suggesting. Which will then, remarkably, start acting as a spend-side auto stabiliser which means we can dispense with interest rate changes...