If you answer something like UBI, then you're just passing the buck and the obvious question is, "where does that money come from?"
This problem is secretly baked into the structure of the current crisis. More automation is inevitable, I'm not arguing about that, but it will only exacerbate the problem.
So an alternate path would be money is paid to companies by consumers, which are taxed, the tax money is redistributed to consumers again.
It seems a bit circular, but so does the first one.
I think money could be tied directly to people if we quantify human needs. Then fulfilling these needs of the population would be the source of money. The more needs a company fulfils - food, energy, housing, communication, health, child care, transportation, education, recreation, science, arts, sports, the more it earns. If it's not benefitting people, then it is should be worth nothing.
Let them compete in serving the population, instead of us competing for jobs. Keep those incentives aligned with our real goal - to exist. We don't exist for money, money exist for us. If we redefine money to represent 'fulfilled human needs', we fix the goal alignment and the equal distribution problems.
All land for skyscrapers, office buildings, etc -- all land would be taxed at a specific value, and that would also go into UBI.
Then we could also have a VAT instead of income taxes so all Americans are also tax payers but UBI puts everyone above poverty so no biggie if we all pay tax on our purchases.
Where consumer earnings come from in the future is crucially connected to how society decides who owns the robots.
The point of UBI proposals is that there is enough total value in our national economies to meet everyone's basic needs— the question of where the money/value "comes from" is simple, it comes from taking it back from where it's been concentrated over decades of inadequate taxation.
Printing money doesn't increase financial value it only increases liquidity.
> it comes from taking it back from where it's been concentrated over decades of inadequate taxation.
Again you're not increasing the financial value, you're changing how it's disbursed. Whether your fuel is in the form of gasoline or electricity you still have a finite amount of it and once you burn through it, it's gone unless you're adding more to the system.
"Moral" as a descriptor seems likely to derail the argument here. There's nothing immoral about delivering groceries; it's providing a genuinely useful service, and can be intrinsically rewarding as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of people volunteering to do it for free in the UK at the moment.
> But there isn't much value in people spending their lives driving delivery cars or bagging groceries either.
The parent is conflating different meanings for the word "value". The grandparent is talking economic value, eg receiving money for labor. Clearly there is economic value for delivery services since I'm happy to pay them and their drivers do infact get paid.
Therefore the parent must intend a different meaning of value. The most likely meaning (that makes sense in this context) is moral value. There may be great moral value in being a doctor for instance - saving the lives of others.
I am not saying that it is the case that there exists no moral value in delivery jobs or grocery. I am saying that even if it were the case that those jobs have no moral value they still have economic value.
(I would argue all work well done has moral value, but that's irrelevant)
In a UBI world where those people weren't working to avoid starvation and homelessness, it's likely that much of this bottom-tier work would start to look more like the kind of job a middle class teenager does while living with their parents— they're not there to survive, they're there to earn supplementary cash for a video game or prom dress. I'd expect then that:
- Employers would experience some frustration with the flakiness of non-desperate personnel, and would be willing to pay at least something of a premium for labour that sticks around.
- That premium and the promise of even greater reliability gains would lead to increased automation pressure at the bottom end.
- Poor people who used to work themselves to the bone just surviving (eg, Stephanie Land) actually have the time to take training programs and ready themselves for higher-value work.
That labor cost premium would have to be reflected in higher prices. I'm not paying a premium for marginal items. That's the whole definition of premium...
<- Poor people who used to work themselves to the bone just surviving (eg, Stephanie Land) actually have the time to take training programs and ready themselves for higher-value work.>
Not everyone is cut out for higher-value work, and the amount of higher-value work is also limited. Rembember Carlin's Axiom [1]
The reason these jobs don't pay very much isn't just because there's a large pool of people willing to take them. In fact, many menial job positions have a hard time being staffed because the labor pool is not big. The reason they pay poorly is because they have low economic value. They add little marginal value to a product or service.
For example, if I want a hamburger, I can cook one at home for approximately $1.50. A nice bun, 1/4lb of fresh meat, some condiments. If I get a Quarter Pounder from McDonalds, it's around $4. So I normally only buy one for convenience; when I'm too far from home, or too tired to cook. Now if that ends up $8, then I'll cook one at home every time I want one.
[1]George Carlin — 'Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.'
Conflict diamonds and non fair trade coffee are also cheaper than what replaced them. Obviously these kinds of ethical externalities exist on a scale, but the point is that it's more complicated than just arbitrarily declaring an item or class of labour as "marginal" and moving on.
> Not everyone is cut out for higher-value work...
The snide value judgment aside, lots of artists/writers/musicians/etc begrudgingly participate in the "low value labour" market as a means of staying afloat while they pursue their real passion on the side. Isn't all of this just a further argument for taking on as a society the obligation to meet people's basic needs? Do we really need to hold people's livelihoods hostage just so that upper middle class software professionals can still get a $4 hamburger whenever they want it?
And yes quite a few people want to be artists or musicians and can't. They should be able to try but also at some point we need a mechanism for them to realize they may need to try a different career path if it's not working out and they aren't creating value.
With UBI, you're just making a subset of the population pay for everyone else. Sometimes that tradeoff makes sense - food stamps - but when you end up just increasing inflation and hurting those who it's meant to benefit then it seems like tail chasing.
If you were out in the middle of the woods self-sufficient except for some bartering with your friends, you would still have to pay property taxes and your barter transactions would be subject to taxation, which you would have to pay with Federal Reserve Notes or the government could come and take your stuff and imprison you.
Before the income tax (1911) you could live in the countryside and you wouldn't even have to think about the federal government, just your state and local governments, unless you were importing things. People didn't even used to elect senators, that was the state government's job.
Instead of big banks getting bailed out over and over again, before the federal reserve, you'd just call up the local rich guy, like Rockefeller who would bail out your company out of his personal bank account. People didn't need the banks to survive to move things along. These days, if there was no income tax, and the fed, you'd probably just call up some fabulously wealthy venture capitalist every time you needed some money. The low taxes on venture capital QSBS and carried interest have led to this phenomenon to some extent.
And sometimes humans can even borrow money from robots, if they're really nice to them.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17353666
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubik
“Five cents, please,” his front door said when he tried to open it. One thing, anyhow, hadn’t changed. The toll door had an innate stubbornness to it; probably it would hold out after everything else. After everything except it had long since reverted, perhaps in the whole city … if not the whole world.
He paid the door a nickel, hurried down the hall to the moving ramp which he had used only minutes ago.
[…]
“I don’t have any more nickels,” G. G. said. “I can’t get out.”
Glancing at Joe, then at G. G., Pat said, “Have one of mine.” She tossed G. G. a coin, which he caught, an expression of bewilderment on his face. The bewilderment then, by degrees, changed to aggrieved sullenness.
“You sure shot me down,” he said as he deposited the nickel in the door’s slot. “Both of you,” he muttered as the door closed after him. “I discovered her. This is really a cutthroat business, when —“ His voice faded out as the door clamped shut. There was, then, silence.
[…]
“I’ll go get my test equipment from the car,” Joe said, starting towards the door.
“Five cents, please,”
“Pay the door,” Hoe said to G. G. Ashwood.
[...]
“Can I borrow a couple of poscreds from you?” Joe said. “So I can eat breakfast?”
“Mr. Hammond warned me that you would try to borrow money from me. He informed me that he already provided you with sufficient funds to pay for your hotel room, plus a round of drinks, as well as —“
“Al based his estimate on the assumption that I would rent a more modest room than this."
The people hoarding it.
Can anyone prove it? Do they need it?
Is a CEO with multiple mansions and private jets and billions in the bank more worthy of life than the guy working in the mines processing the raw materials of modern civilization but living from paycheck to paycheck and barely able to support a family?
What about the mogul who raises essentials prices during a crisis? Or the traffickers running prostitution rings? There are many ways to make money without "earning" it. Can you make sure that only the people who earned their money can have it?
The point of UBI is to not have to ask or try to answer these sorts of questions.
Sure, just follow their bank statements and other financial ledgers.
> Do they need it?
I dunno, 'need' is tricky to define. Could you list all of the needs that you think you have? Why do you think you are entitled to those needs?
> Is a CEO with multiple mansions and private jets and billions in the bank more worthy of life than the guy working in the mines processing the raw materials of modern civilization but living from paycheck to paycheck and barely able to support a family?
Certainly not. Are we talking about life or money?
> What about the mogul who raises essentials prices during a crisis? Or the traffickers running prostitution rings? There are many ways to make money without "earning" it. Can you make sure that only the people who earned their money can have it?
You make a fair point, there are many ways to collect money with questionably ethical methods. Does that matter? What about rich technology workers? Folks that own businesses that aren't spectacular, like car insurance companies, speed boat manufacturers, construction companies, etc?
The burden of proof is on you to show that they did not earn it.
> Do they need it?
Irrelevant. It's theirs whether they need it or not. And whether they need it is not for you to decide.
> Is a CEO with … billions in the bank more worthy of life than the guy working in the mines…?
No, they are equally worthy of life. Which has nothing at all to do with how much wealth each of them has earned. In any case these CEOs are rare outliers; as rich as they are, if you took all their assets combined and diluted them evenly among the rest of the population nothing would materially change, at least in the short term. In the long term, since you'd no longer have competent individuals administering things, the economy would implode and everyone would be far worse off.
What, you thought corporate shareholders hired CEOs and offered them huge salaries for administering their companies at a loss? The difference they make in the company's bottom line far exceeds their pay.
Moreover, if you actually liquidated those billions of dollars worth of shares in order to fund consumption then the companies and the productive capital they represent would rapidly cease to exist. Those few of us who survive can look forward to a bare subsistence standard of living in exchange for long, hard days of manual labor in the fields. But at least we'd all be equally poor, right?
> What about the mogul who raises essentials prices during a crisis?
Raising prices on scarce goods during a crisis is economically and socially productive. It ensures that these essentials will be saved for the situations where they are actually needed most and incentivizes the production of more essentials. If you hold prices low and pretend that it's just business-as-usual then you're going to end up with shortages.
> Or the traffickers running prostitution rings?
That's what the courts are for. But you'll have to prove it, not just throw around vague accusations.
> Can you make sure that only the people who earned their money can have it?
Guilty until proven innocent? That's not how this works.
> The point of UBI is to not have to ask or try to answer these sorts of questions.
That isn't really the point of UBI, and even if it were it wouldn't be a laudable goal. Solving the perceived problem of unequal outcomes at the expense of justice is not a trade worth even a moment's consideration—even if UBI actually had a chance of accomplishing that, which it doesn't.
> The burden of proof is on you to show that they did not earn it.
It was a response to "Didn't they earn it?" so the burden of proof is on them.
> Do they need it?
> Irrelevant. It's theirs whether they need it or not.
So why can't it be given to anybody else whether they need it or not?
You want to take what they have away from them, so the burden of proof is on you to justify that. No one is obligated to justify keeping what they already have.
> So why can't it be given to anybody else whether they need it or not?
The owner can give it to anybody else whether they need it or not. You are not the owner.
Do you want the "bottom rung" to just die off during every crunch and crisis like this?
I love the idea! You are welcome to support them with whatever means you have available. I won't, though.
> Do you want the "bottom rung" to just die off during every crunch and crisis like this?
No.
I'm not against that; the universe is.
What I am opposed to is the idea that it's acceptable for some people to take what they want from other people in order to avoid "having to constantly struggle for basic needs and comforts". Find a way to avoid the struggle without taking anything away from others and I'll be 100% on board.