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Comment by atemerev | Hacker News Reader

We have direct democracy here in Switzerland. Anybody can propose a federal law: just collect 20,000 signatures for it (100,000 for some radical changes). Iron a few wrinkles, and it can be put to vote in one of the next federal referendums (we have one about every two months).

So far, there were about 2 or 3 unconditional income law proposals in the last 10 years, and they were all voted "no". Thankfully. Because "unconditional income" will not magically appear from nowhere, it will be provided from my salary. And my company's income (at this point, I have to pay around 18,000 francs per year even if my company doesn't do anything to finance all social programs already there — so much for "unconditional income"). And I have to pay another 6,000 francs per year for obligatory medical insurance in Switzerland. And I won't be able to receive this "income" anyway, as I am not a Swiss citizen — I just live here and have a company here, and I have to pay _a lot_ for this.

Money don't grow on trees. It always have to be sourced from somewhere. And not from some nameless "rich corporation" — it will be sourced from my already struggling business. And from yours. And from your salary.

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> Money don't grow on trees. It always have to be sourced from somewhere. And not from some nameless "rich corporation" — it will be sourced from my already struggling business. And from yours. And from your salary.

Productivity, gained through software and automation, can be used to deliver quality of life improving services at zero marginal cost.

I'm not going to spend this entire comment rehashing the ongoing debate over how much of the world's economy is going to get eaten by this, but suffice it to say I roll my eyes _hard_ now when someone says money doesn't grow on trees.

With enough effort, you can automate every job out of existence. Its just a) how much effort you choose to exert and b) the order in which you do so. Can't these productivity benefits be distributed through consumer excess, and in a roundabout way, be used to deliver a basic income? And if someone complains about their hard earned $fiats, what's to say their job isn't next to be obsoleted?

You are envisioning a world of ultra-rich capitalists (who own every mean of production, both in material and knowledge economy), occasionally giving "bread and circuses" to the rest of the world, who can't produce because their "jobs" are worthless.

Incidentally, this was exactly the reason of demise of the Roman Empire. Instead of robots, there were slaves captured in military conquests (slavery is morally wrong, of course, but it was "sustainable" and there were no significant slave uprisings). But it didn't end well.

> You are envisioning a world of ultra-rich capitalists (who own every mean of production, both in material and knowledge economy), occasionally giving "bread and circuses" to the rest of the world, who can't produce because their "jobs" are worthless.

I am envisioning a world where ultra-generous industrialists give away their wealth to help the world. You cannot say it cannot happen; it has/already is happening.

Indulge me for a moment, but isn't Bill Gates (along with Warren Buffet) giving away almost all their entire net worth in a very results-driven way to help raise the quality of life for the very worse off? And did Elon Musk (no fan boy comment here, just truth) not give away (really, offer to license at a very small cost) the patents necessary for existing vehicle manufacturers to make better electric cars?

Not everyone is greedy. Not everyone is an ultra-rich capitalist.

Bill Gates' fortune (that he hasn't gave off yet, BTW) is around $80 billion. OK, imagine that he actually put all of it to charity, all 80 billion. Say, to finance the basic income in the US. Let's assume $1000 per month will be enough for the US (the Swiss are rich poor bastards). So, for how long it will last?

The answer is ONE WEEK.

Throwing Buffet, Musk, Zuckerberg and all other rich ultra-generous industrialists in the equation will probably extend the runway to several months, perhaps a year. But that would be it.

The bulk of purchasing power in capitalist countries is still produced by working middle class.

The top 0.1% has a lot more wealth than you're giving credit for.

The US has about 300 million people (well, more, but math is easier if you round it). At $1000 per month, that's a total cost of $300 billion / month, or $3.6 trillion dollars a year.

The US government spent $3.5 trillion in FY2014, according to Wikipedia.

It is $6 trillion. Will last for less than two years.

That's assuming there isn't a loss of value in being forced to liquidate $6T in holdings, which there certainly would be. For every seller there has to be a buyer and most eligible buyers would be having their assets seized by the government.

Right, which is significantly more than the parent indicated.

I'm not claiming that simply taking all the billionaires' wealth is any kind of solution, but that doesn't justify obscuring the facts.

The parent indicated "perhaps a year". In fact, "slightly less than two years". Not a big difference.

Twice as much is not a big difference?

No. Because these $6T are not liquid money. Once you cash these assets out, you'll get $3T if you're very, very lucky.

It's obviously not $6 trillion in cash...

[citation needed]

This can't be repeated enough.

When politicians start talking about taxing the rich more, they are really talking about the upper-middle class in the US. Otherwise there just isn't enough money higher up the income ladder to make it work.

I remember the NDP in Canada being asked who the rich were (back in a 1990's election). The said a family of 4 making more than $60,000 per year.

I have to give them credit for being honest.

What if its not "taxing the rich more" and instead, is "preventing them from capturing all of the productivity gains the economy is realizing"?

Because then we get into this real uncomfortable argument, don't we? About what ownership is? Because when you're taxed, people will say that's theft of what they've "earned". But the wealthy don't earn like everyone else. They earn as rentiers, of either land, capital, or intellectual property.

I'm suggesting the entire ownership model is going to need to be turned on its head. Otherwise, those who own what the rest of the world needs will continue to siphon wealth out of the economy, to the detriment of everyone else.

Most of that $1000 will be injected back into the economy (people will spend it), the money does not evaporate. It is more sustainable than you think.

Got numbers to back that up?

The only missing number here is the US population (320 million). Basic income per month of $1000 gives $320 billion per month, or 4 Bill Gates fortunes.

Also interesting because the ~$80bn Gates fortune isn't exactly like tomorrow he could have $80bn cash, with the intent of spending it, like basic income would provide. I don't think there are many billionaires with even $100m cash. So, the effects of 1000 people having $1000 vs 1 person having $1,000,000 are very different, and for this reason I find comparisons of the illiquid wealth of an individual to basic income propositions incongruent.

And this is the future, at the rate we're going.

You are envisioning a world of ultra-rich capitalists...

You probably meant "corporatists".

Pessimist.

Future of capitalism is worker owned cooperatives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

Advances like universal health care and basic income enable self-organizing democratically governed means of production. Where the surplus (profit) is shared amongst the participants, vs gobbled up by the executive class.

I agree with you very much on this, but the key is, how can you streamline the process for creating such organizations? And make it easier for autonomous teams to find its participants and collaborate? And ensure the fruits of the activity are shared equitably? (I think Buffer leads in this regard; transparency first).

These are all problems that are going to need to be worked out, but I have hope they will be!

If no workers are needed, I don't see how you have worked owned cooperatives.

Ya, legit concern. The race to zero marginal cost worries me. My hope is that people will still value (economically) authenticity, fashion, locally sourced goods, etc. And maybe there's industries which are too small to bother automating.

> Future of capitalism is worker owned cooperatives

Oh, please, go run a business with 20+ employees for ten years and then come back to this comment. You'll see juat how ridiculous it actually sounds. Until then, please stop thinking you understand how a business runs, 'cause you don't.

My job is, in a very real sense, to automate jobs out of existence. How much $fiats were you proposing to pay me, again?

I think automotion is the crux of the basic income argument. If mass automation was going to happen the way many people predict, basic income would make more sense. I don't think it will, and I think most jobs will be difficult to automate than people think. (Most factories are still manned by humans; manual jobs require interacting with the physical world, which machines can't do well at all; most professional jobs have significant non-routine components).

Foxconn is replacing as many workers as possible with robotics. As robotics get better, the tipping point for each job (where the economics make sense to automate) comes closer to the present.

So did Ford in the world 1920's. Or Microsoft word and IBM did replaced most secretaries. Or the tractor etc.

Automation isn't necessarily the end of all jobs.

It was in Detroit.

If you assume that automation begets more automation exponentially, then the end game of automation is the elimination of all jobs. Assuming this, the question is when, not if. So either we keep inventing fake work faster than we invent automation, or we decouple the idea of work from the idea of being human and let people do what they truly want to do.

The electronics factories we work with are empty: large buildings filled with (Japanese and German) machines and a handful of people 'operating' them. A few years ago there were many people doing that same work. So sure there are some people manning them but a lot of jobs gone. Automation does not have to replace all jobs but it will and does replace most repetiti ve ones. So sure professional jobs stay for a while yet but what % is that? That is really not what most people do or are able to do. Like the biggest employ in the US is truckdriving: you really think that exists in 50 years? And what can a truckdriver do instead generally?

Most light manufacturing remains human-operated, though - I'm thinking the 200-person widget factories in Shenzhen or 50-person tailoring shops in Vietnam. They don't typically make a small range of products on a mass scale, but many slightly varied products on a small scale, with an irregular schedule of orders. My guess is the electronics factories, car factories and the like, found machines were a worthy investment to improve precision and quality control. For many industries, a semi-skilled human at developing country wages is a better deal than a robot.

Even lower-middle class professions like teaching, nursing, policing, office admin, etc are much less routine than people realise. (Tech is obsessed with the idea of, e.g., replacing teachers with e-learning software, but what usually happens is that the teachers end up using the e-learning software as another tool to do their job).

Vehicle automation is one large area I can genuinely see becoming automated (possibly the success in this area is because the AI doesn't need to manipulate the environment, just navigate through it). There are still many blue collar jobs which are really hard to automate - cleaning, gardening, building maintenance, etc, etc.

(Honestly, I see the most likely outcome being that first world countries develop a grey-market, third-world economy, where low-income people work cash-in-hand, below-minimum-wage jobs running cheap food stalls, cleaning laundry, or offering other convenience services on the cheap. It's not as utopian as everyone getting a basic income and using their unlimited free time to paint watercolours, but it works out as a more robust social safety net).

Not just anything repetitive, but anything rule based. Accountants are very likely to get automated away, as are many lawyers.

You underestimate the widespreadness of "creative accounting". If you try to follow all the rules by the book, you will be broke in no time. Same goes for law. So, in fact, these two professions will be one of the last to disappear.

With automation, already, a lot of these jobs have disappeared and will do so more. Not all accountants & lawyers disappear; there are just a lot less of them needed aka one person can do the work of many already and certainly in the future.

Maybe it's different in Switzerland, which I doubt, but in other countries in the EU you don't 'go broke' if you just follow the rules blindly. Many people actually do that with their companies and they do fine. It is true you could be making more with creative accounting but at a risk; going broke if you don't is a bit too strong imho.

Have you tried to run a business? Any business? In any European country or the US?

Probably the only European country that can follow the tax/accounting rules to the book is Denmark. They have high taxes, but very simple tax code. The rest (and the US) are the maze of regulations, exceptions, exceptions to exceptions, applicable limits and human interaction. People are safe from machines here. Sadly.

I ran businesses for the past 25 years in NL, DE, UK, PT and ES. I agree the regulations are a maze if you want to maximize profits when it comes to taxes. I cannot agree you need that to run a healthy company; you do not. Following the base rules (which can be automated and we do) is fine; sure you pay too much compared to navigating the maze but it is clear. The worst countries (paperwork wise) I operate in are Spain and Portugal but even there things can be simple if you overpay a bit (like sometimes just not ask for VAT back because it takes more time to fill the required paperwork than it is worth). None of that is endangering my operations; If it would I would be concerned about my business viability and the margins I am making... Why would I even start such a business in the first place?

I don't think this particular comment gets enough coverage

"With enough effort, you can automate every job out of existence."

The example I've used has been self scanning checkout lines at grocery stores. They replace 16 cashiers at $10/hr with one "supervisor" at $16/hr. The additional margin goes to the grocer. If instead the productivity went to a basic income program then, the price of groceries would be the same, the grocer's income would be the same, but now there would be money "appearing out of thin air" for a basic income program. But what is really happening is that you've automated a human job, captured all that GDP in the process.

If you think about it that way, it changes how you see automation, and productivity gains.

In Australia we have a supermarket chain called Coles. After they brought in self checkouts, they started bringing in new bakeries, cafes, etc _into_ the stores. I am not sure the number of staff went down by all that much.

That's a red herring. It's not the absolute number of staff in a particular supermarket that we're talking about, but the ratio of people employed to work done. Using their lowered operating costs to expand their business doesn't negate the fact that their checkouts are operating with less human labor.

Productivity gains mainly happen when there is a profit motive to create them. What incentive is there to create self scanning machines if you can't sell them for a profit? Why would a grocery store buy them if they don't gain from the purchase. It's all the same to the store: employ 10 people or use robots and pay more in taxes so those 10 people get basic income and don't work.

Well, the government could increase the tax to levels that force the matter: automate or get no profit. However, I dont think this could be stomached in the US (by both politicians and self-sabotaging voters).

Automation is inevitable, but unfortunately for the American working class, all of the benefits of improved efficiancy will be going to a few (shareholders), just because you were conditioned to think 'socialism' is a bad word. I already see the sentiments being expressed here on HN rehashing the 'welfare queen' argument. I tell you what: a whole lot of you will be arguing for basic income when they automate your job, but it will be too late then. Good luck finding another job that's yet to be automated and pays anything in the same ballpark as your old one.

The machines also break, use electricity (possibly more than the clerks with their registers and belts and lights), require infrastructure to support (e.g. price changes must now also be updated in their possibly-separate pricing database, also consider stores labeling prices by hand or only on the shelf), and can't immediately replace 100% of cashiers (some customers will prefer human interaction, some states e.g. require that liquor is sold not by a machine, etc).

It does also create needs for different jobs. Instead of 10 cashiers @$10/hr, you now need 1 supervisor @$16/hr + a consulting company to install and integrate the machines @$300/hr + technicians to re-stock the machines and service them @$90/hr + customer support to help with software bugs in the new pricing system etc etc. Of course, you can then go and automate all of those jobs as well, but it seems a bit fractal until we have AI strong enough to build more AI where it's needed and consolidate existing AI, which I guess is what people are supposing leads to the extinction of humans since we're so inefficient.

> With enough effort...

The effort often is significantly outweighed by the cost and benefits realized.

The difficulty of fully automating anyone who services your home for instance. Plumbers, electrician, firemen, inspectors, hvac, carpenters, window replacers, roofers, etc etc etc.

Right now we are automating things which are overhead and easily repeatable, not things which require creative solutions and unique problem solving within a specific domain (eg A pipe broke and water is pouring into my basement, how do I fix this as fast as possible with the least property damage, and then ensure cleanup is done properly so dangerous molds dont arise?)

I belive you to be wrong. Nothing you say is anything new. For 200 years people have been repeating 'all the jobs will go away' because of automation. It has never actually happened.

People always find new ways to employ their skills and we are richer because of it.

Im not against basic imcome proposles but you argumnet is still a terrible one. I think basic income would be a easy way to help those who for whatever reason can not provide for themself.

Basic income is a new way of organising the social safty net, and does not alter the fundamentals of the capitlaist society.

> For 200 years people have been repeating 'all the jobs will go away' because of automation. It has never actually happened.

This looks like a good example of the Normalcy bias logical fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias

That it hasn't happened in 200 years doesn't mean it won't happen now.

It is obvious you have never started and run a non-trivial business or you would know what you are saying is utterly ridiculous.

Unless Switzerland has no form of welfare already - then you're already paying for it, just through a far less efficient means. This may cost more, definitely - or it may cost less when you're no longer making people jump through the welfare hoops to get what they need (food/shelter/whatever). In the US, the amount of paperwork overhead for things like section 8 housing, food stamps, etc, would probably cover soemthing like this. Or at least start to.

Yes, I am already paying _a lot_, and I don't want to pay more.

I haven't looked into the details of this referendum but the way it's normally pitched is that this will replace all the other welfare.. in that those old systems will go away.

Does the current proposal add without removing?

Even if it doesn't, it must add much more than it removes.

depends how costly the (currently) needed bureaucracy around it is

Re: bureaucracy

If it was truly universal - no exceptions, no means-testing, etc - then the "bureaucracy" around this one is negligible.

While I'm intrigued by a Basic Income approach, I don't think the bureaucracies would be willing to give up the power that they have to shape and influence people and society as a whole. It is exceptionally rare in human history that a government has given up power.

I think that is what will kill most of these Basic Income proposals, not even considering the math of taxes.

To be perfectly blunt: too bad. At the rate automation is occurring, either a basic wage becomes a thing, or society is going to collapse. Our populations cannot shrink enough to make up the gap between jobs taken by automation and new jobs created in other market segments. IT will be the next industry to get hit, and it's going to get hit HARD.

Probably capitalism will collapse (hopefully). Society is strong and resilient, and will likely be just fine. The real question is whether there will be a way to issue in the next iteration of societal order, or if it will regress when the capitalist empires of the world are destroyed.

If capitalism collapses, then we're going to have to figure out a new way to incentivize production, transport, and distribution of food real quick.

I think many people naturally see ways that society can be improved and are wiling to work on them.

It's hard to make this point without going into all aspects of socialist thought. However, in basic, the reason most people produce now is to have enough to buy food and housing. The incentive for people to do above and beyond is to get wealthy for a big payout of some sort. However, while that does incentivize entrepreneurship, I think it's hard to argue that most of the ideas that come out of those efforts are socially beneficial.

I would argue it would actually require relatively little work in order to provide a high quality of basic necessities to all people (food, housing, healthcare), which would allow people to spend more time focusing on building out things that would be beneficial for society.

Just curious, how will the IT industry will be the next to get hit and what makes you say it will get hit "HARD"?

It's already happening. All those "server and tape monkeys" that were getting middle class salaries at large corporations are finding themselves downsized as companies move to more XaaS platforms for their mission critical apps, and the rise of AWS/Azure.

It's the tip of the iceberg at this point (in my opinion). Not to mention, as people move to AWS, what happens to all of the sales reps, sales engineers, implementation engineers, support staff, etc. at all of the major hardware manufacturers? Those jobs just go away...

You make it sound like there aren't any humans involved in maintaining such huge platforms and eco-systems as AWS and Azure.

The number of humans involved is a FRACTION of the number involved otherwise. That's part of how they command the margins they do.

But you are talking only about one section of the IT industry (Servers and Hardware). The apps that are moved to those saas platforms have to be developed and maintained by someone. What about development? research? security? consulting? etc...? I remain skeptical...

Do you have any evidence for your 'society is going to collapse' theory? Because the rate of automation was much higher when all the farming jobs were replaced. Since then, many times over jobs were created and destroyed.

I could take a article from a birish newspapers, 200 years ago, replace 'maschines' with 'robots' publish it in the NYT and most us Progressives would not notice it.

The arugment is the exact same, and it has been for 200 years.

Why is it different 'this time'? The computer has existed for a long time, it has replaced many jobs already and society did not collapse.

The pridiction that IT will be crushed is also not knew, I remember the 'all the jobs will move to India' crap. No to mention all the ink spilled on 'runable specifications'.

What's different this time is there may not be any replacement job categories for those automated out of their current job.

Especially not one that produces enough economic value for the employer to be able to offer a living wage from a strictly capitalist valuation.

Where did the majority of farming and manufacturing jobs go after their respective revolutions? The services industry. Do you really think it can hold that many more jobs? And if not there, where? Creative pursuits? Most people just aren't cut out to be artists...

As a non Citizen, can you propose a law or vote on them? Cause as much as I value your opinion, you don't speak for Swiss if you're not a Citizen. Most form of socialism is generally problematic for external capital, which seems to be the business you're in, having a company in another country. So it's really unsurprising to me to hear you critique this.

Though, external capital is actually a good point to consider. Whatever social program I think a country decides to adopt, it need to consider a structure where it will remain attractive for capital investment. So as long as there is still a win/win situation between investor and the country's Citizens, I think it's fine, but if that's broken, like in full communism, it's generally a bad outcome for the long term prospect of a country.

It does seem unfair if non-citizens have to pay for this. Done properly, the average person should break even. Of course, few people are average.

"Taxes are the price we pay for civilization."

  --  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Why are you in Switzerland? If the taxes are too high, you should migrate to somewhere more "business friendly." Why not Somalia, for instance?

The price is far higher than it needs to be, though. Historically normal tax rates were around 10%, not the ~40% typical for most industrialised nations today. From around 1910 to 1950, there was a massive push to centralise control of economies, move nations off the gold standard and onto fiat currencies, expand credit as a means to reduce poverty, and massively increase state spending. The "normal" state of affairs now is largely a creation of specific government policies at that time.

Somalia's a crime-ridden hellhole - I'm not an anarcho-capitalist and I believe that freedom requires the rule of law. Hong Kong and Singapore are two places which remain close to the pre-WWI classical liberal ideal of genuinely free economies with the rule of law, and both have income tax rates of around %10 IIRC. I'm strongly considering relocating to the latter if the UK continues on its current trajectory.

You lost me at "gold standard".

Here, read a little bit more about your paradise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Singapore

Of course I've already read up on Singapore. It's a paternalistic, de-facto one party state, on a model common in East Asia. They make a different set of tradeoffs to Western nations - harsh law enforcement to achieve low crime rates, etc. I've lived in China, which does have a shitty government, but even China's problems are exaggerated in Western media.

The only things on that list I have a real problem with are freedom of speech and LGBT rights. Capital punishment and caning shock Westerners, but Singapore's legal system is actually fair and efficient; it's not like the procedural trainwreck which is the US justice system where countless criminals walk free and countless law-abiding citizens are rotting in jail.

Conscription is pretty much necessary for a micro-state sandwiched between two nations which historically hated their guts. Migrant workers aren't forced to be there (and unlike Qatar or Dubai, they're not generally lured in under false pretences). Even the freedom of expression rules are very similar to the de-facto/de-jure hate speech rules which exist in the West, and they exist for a similar reason - Singapore wants to minimise Chinese/Malay tensions.

EDIT: I just remembered that this HN user - https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=frenchieinsg - initially piqued my interest in Singapore. Might be of interest to others of similar mind.

Taxes in Somalia can be close to 100%, unless you have bigger guns than whoever calls themselves the government this month. :)

Somalia has taxes. Both income and sales taxes. Perhaps other types of taxes as well.

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