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Comment by imtringued | Hacker News Reader

If a robot can replace your job then just buy a robot (or indirectly through investments).

A perfect solution for those who will have jobs and money after most do not.

Well in a world with no human jobs, Universal Basic Income boils down to the fact the wealth of those who own robots will be redistributed to those who don't have them. So why not make it so that everyone has some share of robots?

Communist!

Yes, maybe Marx was right all along, just 150 years too early.

His critique of capitalism seems pretty spot on, but I'm not so sure about his solutions to the problem.

Here's a (mercifully short) article on the subject by Chris Hedges: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/karl_marx_was_right_2015...

>Well in a world with no human jobs, Universal Basic Income boils down to the fact the wealth of those who own robots will be redistributed to those who don't have them

It would be interesting to see this proposal work out. Capital is movable whereas people are mostly not. How would you prevent the robots moving (or built and run) where there are no taxes on them? I don't see how this be preventable without all nations agreeing on it. It doesn't work even with tax havens within the EU so why should this work world wide?

Someone else will always have better robots than you, your unemployed robots will sit in your garage.

Unless we were overpopulated, it would still work out. That is, if everyone could go out and find a plot of land to live off.

Better yet, all the people without access to automation could in form an entire economy among themselves. They would live like we do now, or like we have done at some point in history. Even without any support from the more developed society, they could develop like we do now.

Good luck outbidding rich folks for land.

What do you mean? The premise was that there would be plenty of land to go around for everyone. Unfortunately, we have put ourselves in a position where land has become a scarce resource.

In the past resources were tight, and population was often controlled by fighting over land...

It's just a finance problem. An analogous thing to look at is mules v. tractors.

I know right. Why don't poor people just get more money?

The poor in developed countries are still far more wealthy than the average citizen in a country like india. What the poor here really need is financial security, not just some benefits that they lose immediately as soon as they earn too much. There are already some small scale programs that incentivise them to save by matching their savings with additional $0.50 for every dollar saved.

In reality saving is the engine of the economy. Consumer debt only temporarily increases the GDP. Especially in the form of payday loans it is not only bad for the individual but terrible for the rest of the economy.

Depends on how you define poor. Poor in developed countries may have more material wealth. But if it comes to knowing where your next meal is coming from, then maybe they are about the same.

> What the poor here really need is financial security, not just some benefits that they lose immediately as soon as they earn too much.

I know right. Why don't poor people just get more money?

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