Comment by graycat

9 years ago

Yes, there is an old slogan, "Machines should work. People should think."

Or now maybe

"Machines should work. People should enjoy life."

Or, there is the old

"Machines should work. People should get a guaranteed basic income. If anyone wants more, then they can work for more."

All the ballpark US national arithmetic I did says that we can't yet afford a guaranteed basic income.

E.g., for something simple, supposedly Bezos is now worth $100 billion. But if divide that by the US population of, say, 333 million, then get just $300 per person, just once, and have confiscated all of the Bezos wealth. Point: Not even Bezos is rich enough to provide a guaranteed annual income for everyone in the US, not for a year and not even for just one month just once.

But, maybe when computing is doing enough of the work, then, for a simple solution for the needed revenue, tax the computing, processors and Internet data rates and nothing else. Maybe.

Or, maybe, people should manage computers that manage computers ... that manage computers that do the work for everyone. Okay -- apparently we're not there yet.

For the issue of housing costs, housing is expensive close to where there are good jobs. And there the costs are for the limited real estate close to the jobs and high taxes for K-12 schools, police, roads, etc. And the high housing costs eat up nearly all the income from the jobs because the jobs pay just enough to cover the most important employee expenses, e.g., housing.

But if get out to rural areas, then housing costs can be much lower. If people are going to have a guaranteed income, then they may want to live in areas without much in jobs and with lower housing costs.

But there is a flaw in Sam's proposal: People will still form competing interest groups, e.g., political parties. Then too many of the groups would rather fight for the interests of their group and not join for the good of all. That is, too many groups would rather fight for a bigger piece of the pie they like than for bigger pies for everyone.

In times past, such interest groups could fight in the streets. Then the ancient Greeks invented democracy: Do the fighting at a ballot box. Since a big winner at a ballot box would likely also win in the streets, it's in everyone's interests just to go with the results from the ballot box instead of shedding blood when the outcome is already known.