Seriously, we're talking about having such advanced technology that people don't have to work. We'd be getting into a situation where trying to make everyone productive is just hard.
Seriously, we're talking about having such advanced technology that people don't have to work. We'd be getting into a situation where trying to make everyone productive is just hard.
As for reproductive rights, that could be a problem that goes away on its own. I don't mean in the bad way. This TED talk [1], at least, makes a reasonably convincing argument that the world population is heading for a maximum of 10 billion simply due to falling birth rates all over [the peaceful regions of] the world.
[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies.h...
In a true socialist system the robots will eventually fail (like all machinery) and the spare-parts will either be broken themselves out of the factory, will get stolen, or the service-repair people will not be motivated enough to do a proper job. Source: the guys that actually built the Sputnik at one moment in time (and other great technology), and then failed miserably.
Basic income guarantees are the "Pirate Party" social-democratic response to automation.
And what has happened? Yes, everyone can reach everyone, and everyone is equal, _in principle_. But the removal of competitive barriers makes the winner-take-all effect ("power-law") is stronger than it has been in _any_ context, ever. As robotics becomes more prevalent, this will happen in the physical world as well. The income disparity between the richest and the average will become a lot larger.
I am not sure that this in itself is a problem, though. But it is essential that we are able to develop the political and social innovations required to ensure that _power_ doesn't go along with money. Because the money distribution will be more lopsided than at any other point in human history.
Moreover, I can actually find them and communicate with them now - growing up, I simply couldn't. I was a science-fiction fan and didn't even know there was such a thing as fandom. Now, almost automatically, I'm a Facebook friend with one of my early favorite authors (becoming an actual friend with time), I talk to publishers and fellow fans on a regular basis - they exist. They are part of my community. There is no winner-take-all effect at all, and in fact, I think I probably don't even know what you mean by it.
The income disparity simply won't matter. Money won't matter (much). Clearly it'll matter if you want to travel, for example, or buy something you can't get locally - but there will be a whole lot more available locally.
http://www.appolicious.com/tech/articles/9654-top-20-percent...
Also, that informal survey asked for the total of income, so it's heavily biased towards companies which started earlier.
As I've been pointing out for a long time now, Norway de facto has a system like this with the welfare state already (primarily due to high petroleum incomes). If you are a Norwegian citizen and somehow unable to make a living (low skills, illness), the government will pay you a small but sufficient amount of money. This is what we will eventually need to institute across the whole world - tax the richest and use the proceeds to give a "guaranteed salary" to everyone. For instance, through negative taxation where below a certain income the government pays _you_. This is the only good way to ensure basic human needs for everyone in a world where technological leverage makes everyone but a small amount of very skilled workers redundant.
Eventually, the social stigma of recieving such benefits will vanish, since a significant part of the population will not do enough work to cross the threshold.
> Eventually, the social stigma of recieving such benefits will vanish, since a significant part of the population will not do enough work to cross the threshold.
That will only work if the government is able to raise sufficient taxes from the shrinking proportion of the population who are paying them. If trends towards income inequality continue, there will be few, wealthy taxpayers. But the larger their share of the burden, the more they'll use tax avoidance schemes, whether legal or illegal. That has already been seen in countries where very high taxe rates have existed.