
So About That Whole Tech-Eating-Jobs Thing - zhuxuefeng1994
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/04/so-about-that-whole-tech-eating-jobs-thing/
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orionblastar
Corporations used to hire typists that could use a typewriter to type up
copies of letters and memos. They'd have a room of 100 typists all typing away
all day for 8+ hours a day for five days a week.

That is until the Word Processor and Laser Printer caught on and then they
only needed 1 person to press 100 copies on the Word Processor after typing up
the letter and memo. Learning how a PC works and how a Word Processor works
requires a higher level skill than a typewriter.

I used to work for a law firm IT department. I was given a series of tasks to
automate forms into electric forms that were ASP web based and use Crystal
Reports to export to RTF, PDF, XLS format etc. I did my job and the people who
used to do the reports by hand got fired. They got replaced with an web app
that worked 24/7 for free and stores data on a MS-SQL Server database.

I felt really bad that what I wrote had cost jobs.

Consider web sites that work 24/7 selling items, they put retail stores to be
closed and people who work those retail jobs to be fired. Macy's closed down
stores near my house and fired people, and my wife orders her dresses from
macys.com instead of going to a store now.

Now you might say you need to learn some IT skills to service and support
websites and technical issues, but they offshore that work to India and China
for cheaper labor. Anything needed on US soil they can hire H1B Visa Workers
for cheaper than US citizens to work those jobs. So yes jobs are being
created, but some of those jobs goes to foreign workers who can work for a
lower cost of labor.

Yes we need a basic income and support it by taxing corporations who use
automated programs, AI, and robots to do the jobs that human beings used to
do. Also tax the companies that use foreign labor to save on costs. It is
because those companies cost native jobs when they do that.

Unemployment only counts those on unemployment insurance, not those who lost
unemployment insurance because it ran out or those who ended up on welfare or
disability because they couldn't find work.

We have a lot of qualified IT workers with student loan debt who cannot find a
job in this country. But they are refused to be hired for silly reasons, or
considered overqualified to hire H1b Visa Workers instead.

~~~
dwiel
how do you tax based on the use of automated programs, AI and robots? Robots
are sort of the easiest, maybe you tax their purchase? Or some kind of yearly
'property' tax on them. What is a robot though? A fax machine? A dish washer?

Taxing automated programs and AI doesn't make any sense to me. You mention
that they should be taxed on jobs they've replaced. But what if those jobs
never excited in the first place? Should google pay taxes based on how many
people it would take to browse the entire internet all the time and track the
changes in websites they find?

I'm not completely opposed to the idea of some kind of tax, but I just don't
see how it can be reasonably framed. Do you have any specific ideas?

~~~
JesperRavn
Current taxation (e.g. income tax) should be completely fine. The government
needs money to redistribute to people who are not doing well financially for
any reason. But there is no particular reason to be more generous to people
whose poverty is due to technological advancement. As you say, having a job at
a given time is a very poor rationale for deserving that job in the future.

We know that technological growth increases the total amount of wealth to go
around. If it didn't, companies wouldn't adopt new technologies. The only
problem is when technology widens wealth disparities, which is what taxation
is there fore in the first place.

~~~
ende
Taxing income only hurts those who do have jobs. The solution is a Land Value
Tax.

~~~
JesperRavn
But tax has to hurt someone, and having a job is the least discriminatory way
to assign this. Income is a measure of how fast your wealth is growing, and so
by taking a proportion of your income, the government takes a proportion of
your wealth.

I don't have time to argue (just like you probably don't have time to present
a full argument for your side) but the Land Value Tax is based on outdated and
wrong economics. Unfortunately because land value tax is so far from the
mainstream, there is very little work in mainstream economics directly
critiquing the land value tax.

I can only summarize the reasons for it as follows

\- Economic theory suggests that the most efficient tax is income tax, because
income tax is the least discriminatory.

\- Some people like Piketty also recommend a wealth tax, and I agree that a
wealth tax might also be useful.

\- A land tax would immediately impact the price of all land, since that land
will have to pay tax in the future. Therefore the people who bear the impact
of the land tax, is whoever owns land when the tax is introduced. That doesn't
seem reasonable or fair.

~~~
BENJIIIIIIII
Only taxes on produced factors can distort the incentive to produce.

As Land by definition is all that is not produced by human effort, a 100% tax
on its rental value cannot therefore lower aggregate wealth and welfare.

Indeed, by putting owner occupiers on the same economic footing as renters,
Land is only ever occupied by the Capitalist able to put it to its highest
productive use.

So, unlike damaging taxes on income and capital, a LVT actually raises
economic output.

Fundamentally, this is because shared land rent is the only fair way of paying
for the services we share.

Not only is taxation of income/capital theft, but so is occupation of valuable
Land without compensating those excluded.

Also, occupying valuable land is by choice. So, a LVT aligns incentives
because it is paid by choice, unlike taxes on income/capital which distort
incentives because they are based on coercion.

Any changes to the tax system produces one off winners and losers. This is not
legitimate argument against change . Else we'd still suffer institutions like
slavery.

Hope this helps.

~~~
JesperRavn
_Hope this helps._

Was that intended to convey that you are speaking authoritatively and I'm
uninformed? If so, what is the basis for your authority on this topic? The
vast majority of economists recommend income, consumption or value-added
taxes, not land value taxes.

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analog31
What I don't understand is where robots will get their jobs if nobody can
afford the stuff that they make. Consumption by poor and middle class people
is needed in order to spur development of the technologies that the rich
enjoy. If there are only 1000 people who can afford an iPhone, or to drive
cars on roads, there will be no way to finance the development of iPhones
(plus infrastructure) or roads. This could be the Medieval economy, where the
rich were really barely richer than the poor by today's standards. If the rich
want sustainable wealth, in the long run, they have to figure out how to
maintain consumption by the poor, either by coming up with new labor-intensive
occupations, or providing basic income.

~~~
ams6110
The whole driver of an economy is creation of value. Handing someone a basic
income does not create any value, it just transfers it. It's unsustainable.

~~~
Retra
Counterpoint:

The whole driver of an economy is the transfer of value.

(See, it's easy to say vapid things and not back them up.)

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jwatte
Society-wide, technology is a human output multiplier. Over time, people
without jobs will find or create new jobs, and overall output increases. The
question is not "how many jobs does technology destroy," but "how nimbly will
this new resource of human time be harnessed?"

