Is this were we start talking about "basic income" again? Where the few that work are taxed almost all of their income to pay for the rest that isn't?
Basic income is more about charging rents on the commons, and in the "jobless future" those rents are mainly in the form of taxes on capital ownership than on "the few who work". (Pretty much reversing the present status quo, where taxes fall heavier on those who work than those who hold capital.)
- As more work becomes automated, it is more likely the owners of productive capital who would bear the brunt of the tax burden, not the minority of full-time laborers.
- Many valid forms of productive work do not necessarily pay a salary (raising children being the most obvious example, but also community service, open source projects, or rolling the dice on a startup). These still create value for society in ways that our current economy measures poorly.
- In a basic income environment, there is no reason for a minimum wage to exist. This would open the doors to many jobs that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive, whether people do it for the extra income, or for the other intangibles of employment.
If it ever happens, I can see people eventually fighting for more, because it can't support a family of 4.
On top of this, it just creates a culture of dependence, which politicians love..because why would you vote against your own free handouts?
1. Many people have an innate desire to do something productive. I might get paid to sit at home and do nothing, but in all that spare time I have been tinkering with electronics and now I've just invented a new robotic vacuum cleaner. Now I have a business and I'm making big money.
2. How much money and time and resources do we spend forcing people to work when they don't want to? There are people whose entire job revolves around forcing people to work, ensuring they're doing adequate work, and distributing government money to them anyway because their income from their forced job doesn't cover the bills. Why bother?
3. There are many things that would motivate a person to find a job, or find a better job. Not being able to support their family is one of them. Give them enough money to get by and if they want more they have to work. There's your motivation.
4. We already have a culture of dependence. What's wrong with that? Everyone depends on everyone else in a well-functioning society.
Why do freeloaders bother people so much? You can get paid to not work right now. I've done it, I've been on unemployment and food stamps when I legitimately needed the help. That's why I have no problem supporting the next person who needs help too. It's not a culture of dependence, it's a culture of support. And for the few who just don't want to work... who cares?
Because -- as research has shown is generally true of humans -- your satisfaction function is driven significantly by relative affluence, not solely by absolute affluence.
> Minimum wage exists now and is raised every couple of years. You don't think the same thing will happen with basic income?
I'd expect it to generally rise with productivity, and consider that to be a generally desirable result.
> If it ever happens, I can see people eventually fighting for more, because it can't support a family of 4.
And why shouldn't they argue for more? At the same time, people would argue against it because of the taxes it would take, and the people whose narrow short-term economic self interest was driving the latter advocacy would have a lot more resources to use to promote their argument.
> why would you vote against your own free handouts?
For one thing, because someone convincingly makes the case that short-term increases will be unsustainable over an extended period and result in collapse.
Try not working. Boredom is unbearable. Most people would do some kind of work even if they have enough money to spend the rest of their lives doing nothing.
I'm not one such person, even though I'm much more of a consumer than a producer (I read 4-5 books a month, watch probably 15-20 hours of TV a month and 2-3 movies a month), but I know people that watch 4-5 hours a night! It doesn't even have to be good content. Instead of going "I've seen this movie/show, or it's not very good," turning it off and doing something productive, they watch the lest boring thing on, even if it's a movie they've seen 3 times, and it's halfway over. It boggles my mind.
Basic income proposals offer a very minimal income. Most people will want more. Do they want to visit far away places, or drive a nicer than minimal car, or live in a larger home. There are many motivations to continue to work even if one has access to a basic income.
And can only really (barring better production technology) only support that. If it targetted much more than minimal income now it would drive runaway inflation until the level at which the BI was set would represent only minimal income. The sustainable level of BI, in terms of the actual standard of living supported, is a function of productivity.
Others have mentioned that the economy will just create new, even more mindless, tasks for us to be paid for. I don't believe that because there is no incentive for companies to employ people for jobs machines can do cheaper.
For example, there might be an increase in housemaids. It's a fairly simple job, although some tasks might be too hard for a machine to do (eg. "Please feed the dog and make sure that it eats its pill").
Also, assuming that those with jobs would have a smaller work week, then there might be a rise in tourism and entertainment industries (people have got to do something in their free time). I'm not really sure what new jobs might appear in this area though.
Of course, this is assuming that we don't end in a dystopian future with 80% of the population unemployed, homeless and begging on the streets. I'm expecting that suply and demand will force these new jobs to appear and everything will work out in the end.
Education is basically already free, and free education is on the way to being as good as paid education. Information reproduction costs are near zero.
You are stuck in the pre-free-labor mindset.
Your point remains though -- basic income will raise its head more often whenever the specter of automation is invoked.