Why taxing robots is not a good idea
<i>Particular workers may suffer by being displaced by robots, but workers as a whole might be better off because prices fall.</i><p>May... might... this is the argument?<p>Let&#x27;s be clear: robots disrupt the supply side and help the demand side. Full stop. Let&#x27;s not conflate the two in our arguments.<p>Yes, lower prices help the consumer. They also squeeze producers. See Amazon wage slaves -&gt; kiva robots, or Apple FOXCONN factories -&gt; robots, or Uber drivers -&gt; self driving cars, etc etc etc.<p>When the producer is a human we have added constraints, whose cost goes up every decade and century: we want the human to...<p>+ Not starve... and now have a choice in good nutritious food from all over the world<p>+ Have access to water ... which is clean, potable and is pumped to their faucet automatically<p>+ Have healthcare ... that utilizes all the advancements of modern medicine to reduce child mortality etc.<p>+ Have primary education ... with multimedia on iPads instead of a huge backpaack of heavy books<p>+ Not be homeless ... while having their own  apartment with enough living space to be comfortable<p>+ Utilities ... inclding broadband internet and a basic cellphone plan.<p>etc etc.<p>These demands are larger than, say, in medieval times, when serfs worked the land. We also have quite more wealth as a society thanks to advances in automation and information, and just building upon previous results.<p>Thus we can afford to get the basics taken care of unconditionally for all members of society.<p>It doesn&#x27;t have tk be Unconditional Basic Income. A better method is Single Payer Systems, which we already have in many countries. Single payerfor education, public schools, healthcare, etc.<p>NOTE: this is not the same as government provided housing, education, etc. There shohld be vouchers that let people choose the provider. And it would only cover the basic service. Providers would compete to offer that basic service to the huge pool of buyers - WHO DO NOT COMPETE WHEN IT COMES TO THE BASIC SERVICE LEVEL. This is the key. Consumers compete on how much they pay, that&#x27;s it. The single payer sets the price for the basic level. Prices therefore go down. (See eg Medicare or single payer systems around the world.)<p>For example a &quot;Food Stamps for All&quot; program where the first $100 a week is loaded onto SNAP cards for everyone, including millionaires. After that they are free to do whatever they want. We might even require (LOCAL!!) ID to use the card for food, to prevent ID theft. To starve, a poor person would have to explicitly sell their last food aftr buying it. Same with &quot;Medicare for all&quot; and &quot;Housing for all&quot;.<p>This can be done on a local level. Everyone in NYC or SF gets taxed and gets $1000 a month in housing vouchers which landlords would be free to accept, or not. Most would, just like most doctors choose to accept insurance.<p>Where will that money come from? That&#x27;s a silly question. People ALREADY have to pay for food if they live in a city. This simply makes the whole thing cheaper by squeezing the producers further. The producers may introduce robots, pay less to CEOs, or whatever, in order to get access to all that volume. But the one thing they won&#x27;t be able to do is raise prices because some buyer might defect and pay them (shout out patio11). They can do that for premium services but never the basics. That is a GOOD thing for everyone because everyone needs the basics. Bill Gates said the burger still tastes the same when you are a billionaire.<p>So the end result is cheaper for the consumers, not more expensive. It is just a question of how to get from here to there. Being able to phase it in on a city level and really try it is a good feature of any program.<p>If you&#x27;re a Conservative, consider that you most likely already support this in Primary School Education (vouchers and single payer for all) but for some reason oppose it in Healthcare etc.<p>If you&#x27;re a Libertarian or Anarchist: listen, I&#x27;m a minarchist! I want to get government down to one thing: taxing and running single payer systems for thins we all need. Maybe that includes the army but nowhere near the amount the US has now. What I would like to see is single payer systems for basic levels of every thing people have come to expect.<p>The argument that someone is getting something for nothing is an even sillier argument.<p>We all live in the 21st century people!! Just by being born at a certain time we get things that even kings could only dream of, for nearly all of human history. Many people <i>already have</i> single payer systems.<p>And you are jealous that someone lives in the 21st century has a safety net, so if they don&#x27;t work they don&#x27;t starve?<p>You are jealous someone doesn&#x27;t live as a serf on the land, who doesn&#x27;t eat if he doesn&#x27;t work?<p>You have the same protection! The same equal opportunity. Many of them are jealous of you for having been born in a more wealthy place.<p>Stop the jealousy. Single payer allows equal opportunity for all. It allows us to abolish minimum wage. Let people learn new skills, make contributions to copyleft &#x2F; patentleft, discover new drugs, spend time raising their children well, instead of working a dead end uber driver or macsonalds job which will be automated soon. That&#x27;s the real solution. If you&#x27;re going to do anything, ensure everyone has the minimum first.