4 ms·

why? i strongly believe that there are enough people who want to be productive, and that the means of production offer enough leverage, that there is more than

by zem 14y ago

why? i strongly believe that there are enough people who want to be productive, and that the means of production offer enough leverage, that there is more than enough spillover for people who want to be idle to be idle without harming anyone. if it is possible for those people to lead a pleasant life (including participating in the basic consumer economy) without improving their lot, why not support that?

kevinskii 14y ago
As of the 2010 census [1] there were approx. 100 million households in the US. Let's say that 1% of them decided to be idle, and that we decided to give them each $40,000 a year to do so. This would be just enough for them to live pleasant lower-middle class lives. This would cost $40B a year, which comes out to roughly $400/year for each remaining household that chooses to carry the burden. To a lot of families, that's a lot of money. Is it moral to forcibly take it from them and give it to someone who is willfully idle? Also, would the idleness rate really be 1% as in this example? I think it would be much, much higher. [1] http://www.census.gov/2010census/ http://www.census.gov/2010census/
- zem 14y ago
  the families to whom $400 was a lot of money would not, in any sane progressively-taxed system, be expected to pay that $400. the people to whom $400 was pocket change would. consider this: there is a factory. it employs 100 workers, generates some amount of value which is split between worker salaries and profits for the owner. now someone invents a robot which can replace 90 of those workers, and cost the less to run and maintain than those workers' salaries. should the factory owner make the switch? of course he should, it's insane to make humans work when a machine can do their jobs. but now what about the people who were working there? they could be forced to retrain and find new jobs (not always possible). they could be kicked out to fend for themselves (what happens now). or the government could tax the means of production highly enough that it could pay them in welfare what they were making in salaries. the factory owner would be no worse off, the workers would be better off, and the government would have corrected for the fact that wealth tends to pool in the hands of the people who already have it, because they are the only ones who can afford to acquire the means of passively generating income. in terms of morality it seems better than making person A "forcibly"[0] labour for person B simply because person B happened to start out with a lot more money. [0] no one is putting a gun to his head, but if it's either work or starve you cannot call it uncoerced.
  - mh- 14y ago
    >the families to whom $400 was a lot of money would not, in any sane progressively-taxed system, be expected to pay that $400. the people to whom $400 was pocket change would. but then it wouldn't be $400 per family...
    - zem 14y ago
      read this: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequalit... there's a lot of money pooled at the top, where it's pretty much doing nothing.
  - kevinskii 14y ago
    Using your analogy, let's say someone worked in the factory for a year before they were replaced by the robot. Are they entitled to completely stop working and earn that same salary for the next few decades? A year?
    - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
      Ideally the use of a robot is supposed to bring down prices on what the factory makes, which redistributes the new wealth to everyone in society. In real life, we've been shifting ever-more-steadily towards a rentier economy as actual production grows more and more efficient.
      - igorlev 14y ago
        Something about your comment really struck me. In most sci-fi utopias, increasing automation was assumed to lead to cheaper marginal prices that gave everyone more leisure time. In reality the benefits from increasing automation (and globalization) have instead been naturally captured by those with the means (capital) to achieve them. Sounds a lot like we're either back on the road that Marx described where the few have all the capital or we're able to escape that fate by lowering the capital needed to gain those efficiencies (cloud computing, 3d printing)...
- lilsunnybee 14y ago
  $40000 a year is well-off in most parts of the US. $10000 i could see as a basic income.

by zem 14y ago

kevinskii 14y ago

As of the 2010 census [1] there were approx. 100 million households in the US. Let's say that 1% of them decided to be idle, and that we decided to give them each $40,000 a year to do so. This would be just enough for them to live pleasant lower-middle class lives. This would cost $40B a year, which comes out to roughly $400/year for each remaining household that chooses to carry the burden. To a lot of families, that's a lot of money. Is it moral to forcibly take it from them and give it to someone who is willfully idle? Also, would the idleness rate really be 1% as in this example? I think it would be much, much higher. [1] http://www.census.gov/2010census/ http://www.census.gov/2010census/

zem 14y ago
the families to whom $400 was a lot of money would not, in any sane progressively-taxed system, be expected to pay that $400. the people to whom $400 was pocket change would. consider this: there is a factory. it employs 100 workers, generates some amount of value which is split between worker salaries and profits for the owner. now someone invents a robot which can replace 90 of those workers, and cost the less to run and maintain than those workers' salaries. should the factory owner make the switch? of course he should, it's insane to make humans work when a machine can do their jobs. but now what about the people who were working there? they could be forced to retrain and find new jobs (not always possible). they could be kicked out to fend for themselves (what happens now). or the government could tax the means of production highly enough that it could pay them in welfare what they were making in salaries. the factory owner would be no worse off, the workers would be better off, and the government would have corrected for the fact that wealth tends to pool in the hands of the people who already have it, because they are the only ones who can afford to acquire the means of passively generating income. in terms of morality it seems better than making person A "forcibly"[0] labour for person B simply because person B happened to start out with a lot more money. [0] no one is putting a gun to his head, but if it's either work or starve you cannot call it uncoerced.
- mh- 14y ago
  >the families to whom $400 was a lot of money would not, in any sane progressively-taxed system, be expected to pay that $400. the people to whom $400 was pocket change would. but then it wouldn't be $400 per family...
  - zem 14y ago
    read this: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequalit... there's a lot of money pooled at the top, where it's pretty much doing nothing.
- kevinskii 14y ago
  Using your analogy, let's say someone worked in the factory for a year before they were replaced by the robot. Are they entitled to completely stop working and earn that same salary for the next few decades? A year?
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    Ideally the use of a robot is supposed to bring down prices on what the factory makes, which redistributes the new wealth to everyone in society. In real life, we've been shifting ever-more-steadily towards a rentier economy as actual production grows more and more efficient.
    - igorlev 14y ago
      Something about your comment really struck me. In most sci-fi utopias, increasing automation was assumed to lead to cheaper marginal prices that gave everyone more leisure time. In reality the benefits from increasing automation (and globalization) have instead been naturally captured by those with the means (capital) to achieve them. Sounds a lot like we're either back on the road that Marx described where the few have all the capital or we're able to escape that fate by lowering the capital needed to gain those efficiencies (cloud computing, 3d printing)...
lilsunnybee 14y ago
$40000 a year is well-off in most parts of the US. $10000 i could see as a basic income.