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How do you distribute wealth in a world with no work?

What the **** do you think has been happening for years now

Guys like me, who continue to make more and more income with my wife, seem to pay a larger share of it every year

And most of our income is taxable at the highest rates

Now....we don't mind paying a fair share....but the definition of a fair share keeps changing

What percentage should we be able to keep? 50...40?

And we are both nearing retirement.....trying to build our nest egg so we don't have to rely on uncle Sammie and his social security program that may not be there

There comes a point when too much is too much......

We are nearing that for a lot of us in my predicament
IDK your age, but whatever it is, get out of debt totally first, then worry about building your retirement fund. Paying interest is often more damaging to your future that is paying taxes.
 
Short term fix, make the standard work week 35 hours.....with a minimum tax rate on overtime wages of 50%. Overtime will cease to exist, employers will have to hire more people.

Pay them the same as if working 40 hours. Employers won't pay any benefits, it should be up to the individual to take care of the health care expenses, the retirement plans, etc.

I'm with-ya on all of that.

One thing about the hourly pay, if unemployment is low enough (due to some sort of penalty against working long hours), then employers will have to pay more because they will have to compete harder for workers. And as long as we are producing more value per work hour (for whatever reason, assumably technology related), employers can afford to pay more.
 
Good point. The top income tax rate peaked during WW2 at 92%, and has pretty much been declining ever since, so you should be rejoicing that you are a 1%er (which you are if you are in the top income tax bracket), and that you don't have to turn over 92% of your top bracket earnings.

Not many are in the position where the effort, or risk, of making more money is considered worth it for an 8% maximum potential return. That may have been the on the books rate at one time yet I doubt that many actually paid that rate on a regular basis.

The 1% are obviously not a factor by virtue of their voting power but they have other ways of gaming the system (campaign cash?) thus 80% of our current federal income tax code is devoted to allowing some (of the 1%?) to "legally" pay less, than that advertised top rate, in taxes. ;)
 
Not many are in the position where the effort, or risk, of making more money is considered worth it for an 8% maximum potential return. That may have been the on the books rate at one time yet I doubt that many actually paid that rate on a regular basis.

The 1% are obviously not a factor by virtue of their voting power but they have other ways of gaming the system (campaign cash?) thus 80% of our current federal income tax code is devoted to allowing some (of the 1%?) to "legally" pay less, than that advertised top rate, in taxes. ;)

I don't disagree, all of that is correct.

I while back I read that the actual effective tax rate was around 60%. That's still quite a bit higher than the effective tax rate of the top 1% just two years ago, which was around 15%.
 
I don't disagree, all of that is correct.

I while back I read that the actual effective tax rate was around 60%. That's still quite a bit higher than the effective tax rate of the top 1% just two years ago, which was around 15%.

Yep. The problem is two fold; 1) getting congress critters, that depend on campaign cash, to bite the hand that feeds them and eliminate "loopholes" and 2) honesty about what is a practical tax policy to generate the required federal revenue without driving it away. The most mobile (globally) are the very rich since they can move their money (and income sources) often without even moving themselves.

If you ask some "tax the rich" folks how much a 100% income tax rate on the top 1.5% would yield they dive into the financial statistics books and begin calculating in a frenzy; everyone else simply and immediately says ZERO - nobody would continue to work or invest to make no return on that effort. .
 
How do you distribute wealth in a world with no work? QUOTE]

You don't "distribute" wealth. You steal it from those who have it and give it away to those who have not earned it.
 
.How do you distribute wealth in a world with no work?

You don't "distribute" wealth. You steal it from those who have it and give it away to those who have not earned it.


In a world where there is no need for human labor, no one has "earned it", thus it can't be "stolen".
 
IDK your age, but whatever it is, get out of debt totally first, then worry about building your retirement fund. Paying interest is often more damaging to your future that is paying taxes.


only debt we have is a mortgage

and that is the only reason i dont pay higher taxes than i already do

my mortgage interest credit, state taxes, and charity are the only real 3 deductions we get

just seems the more we make, and the harder we work, the more uncle sammie or his buddie (state of maryland) take
 
Competition based on what?

No work is necessary to produce anything. The old ideals about earning what you want are gone. How do people compete?
So you are telling me that labor is obsolete?

There will never be machines that do everything.
 
only debt we have is a mortgage

and that is the only reason i dont pay higher taxes than i already do

my mortgage interest credit, state taxes, and charity are the only real 3 deductions we get

just seems the more we make, and the harder we work, the more uncle sammie or his buddie (state of maryland) take
I hope you don't think that a mortgage is a good idea....paying interest is NOT better than paying taxes, no matter what the realtor tells you.
Print out an amortization table and see what you are paying in interest per year, you only get about 25% (assuming your overall tax bracket) back from Uncle Sugar. The early years, per the table, will be the ones to pay off.....typically you can pay a 30 year mortgage down to a 15 year mortgage just by paying the extra principle for those early years.

And the way the market is, having a mortgage just to have money to invest is criminally stupid. First time a broker suggested to me that I get a second mortgage so I can "leverage" and invest in stocks, I fired him. Good for him, of course, he gets paid well whether he wins for me, or loses for me.
 
So you are telling me that labor is obsolete?

There will never be machines that do everything.

Nor will there ever be a group of people who have been raised their whole lives looking at nothing but the shadows on a wall. Nor will a man fat enough to stop a runaway train ever find himself conveniently sitting on a bridge over the tracks as a runaway train approaches and you walk by. Nor will a cat ever be locked In a box with schrodingers deadly device. Yet the Allegory of the Cave, the Trolley problem, and Schrodingers cat are all worth pondering. The point of a thought experiment isn't to prepare for the possibility you may actually find yourself in such a predicament.

Yes, for the purposes of this thought experiment we are assuming a world where machines have made the vast majority of human labor unnecessary.
 
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So you are telling me that labor is obsolete?

There will never be machines that do everything.
I've just had my chimney repointed. I doubt if robots will be able to do that in the foreseeable future. I will now amuse myself by imagining that such a thing could happen, or will I go and chop some wood, without the aid of a robot?
 
Nor will there ever be a group of people who have been raised their whole lives looking at nothing but the shadows on a wall. Nor will a man fat enough to stop a runaway train ever find himself conveniently sitting on a bridge over the tracks as a runaway train approaches and you walk by. Nor will a cat ever be locked In a box with schrodingers deadly device. Yet the Allegory of the Cave, the Trolley problem, and Schrodingers cat are all worth pondering. The point of a thought experiment isn't to prepare for the possibility you may actually find yourself in such a predicament.

Yes, for the purposes of this thought experiment we are assuming a world where machines have made the vast majority of human labor unnecessary.
well we likely would evolve into something else. If all our labor is mechanized what need would we have for wealth?
 
Work is and always will exist....the robotics age has cut into the tedious, mundane, and dangerous work, but there is still plenty to go around.
The grass still grows, the leaves still fall, as does snow. Somebody has to deal with that, and it won't be a robot. Just because the technology
exists to do something doesn't mean it is economically feasible.
Robots haven't cut into farming much either. And construction, perhaps, if you want a community of boring ticky tacky houses that all look the same.
Every technical breakthrough has created jobs while killing off others. THe new jobs usually require more education for the few needed.
I used to be an electronics repair man, started in 1965....the job still exists, but only a small fraction of repair personnel are needed compared to 1965.

If you want job security, learn robotics, and even then, watch for changes within that might require you to retrain....

Its really not robotics this time. Its about AI. Its the thinking part that's going this time. Instead of a man operating the new machine, its a computer running the machine. A computer capable of making the kinds of decisions that required human input before.

And its not inconceivable that an AI could design the robots too.

Somebody upthread posited the idea that it COULD be wonderful. Mankind freed from labor. Free to be a human being instead of a worker. Where what "work" you do is because you want to do it instead of have to do it to survive.

But that would require the end of capitalism as we conceive of it. The piling money up til you have the most game will have to end.

And those who enjoy that game will do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen. And they have the resources to prevent it.
 
I've just had my chimney repointed. I doubt if robots will be able to do that in the foreseeable future. I will now amuse myself by imagining that such a thing could happen, or will I go and chop some wood, without the aid of a robot?

They could build you a heating system that takes away the need for you to chop wood.
 
some of these dire forecasts are for 40, 50, 100 years into the future

who the hell knows what the world will look like then...or what the workforce will be doing

there has been just a few changes in the last 100 years

i know that the human component will always be needed.......

and i will be long gone by that time anyway......
 
Its really not robotics this time. Its about AI. Its the thinking part that's going this time. Instead of a man operating the new machine, its a computer running the machine. A computer capable of making the kinds of decisions that required human input before.

And its not inconceivable that an AI could design the robots too.

Somebody upthread posited the idea that it COULD be wonderful. Mankind freed from labor. Free to be a human being instead of a worker. Where what "work" you do is because you want to do it instead of have to do it to survive.

But that would require the end of capitalism as we conceive of it. The piling money up til you have the most game will have to end.

And those who enjoy that game will do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen. And they have the resources to prevent it.
We don't have real intelligence in sufficient quantity yet, what makes you thing artificial intelligence is on the horizon?:2razz:
 
They could build you a heating system that takes away the need for you to chop wood.

I like the bone warming heat of a wood stove, and I'll be dead by the time heating system building robots enter the picture.
 
I'm a bit short on time, but the scope and limits of AI is one of my areas of expertise. It seems to me that a great many jobs could be replaced by AI. Back when I worked in the corporate world, I actually used excel spreadsheets along with Visual C+ and internal logic functions to do work that human beings had previously done. And if I can do that with such primitive tools, of course it will be possible to replace--at a guess--roughly 85% of all current jobs with AI.

But, AI has its limits, and no artificial intelligence will ever replicate some of the epistemic goods possessed by human beings. No AI will ever be able to make novel judgments, or understand a problem, or do anything those epistemic goods enable us to do.

The way the law is currently written, if I build and own a robot which, say, chops wood, I get to keep all the wood it chops (provided I also owned the rights to the trees which became wood). This, combined with the potential for AI to replace most jobs, will lead to a devastating economic situation. We are already beginning to see the effects this has--part of the reason the jobs aren't "coming back" is because the jobs that have gone are now automated. This is a situation that will only get worse, and it will affect all of us. This is yet one more reason we need to re-examine our most basic assumptions about the nature of property.
 
While automation is a definite part of the future, it isnt a excuse to force Leftist ideals onto everyone else. The Leftist seems to be only able to imagine a automated utopia that conveniently fits into their political agendas and ideologies.

What technology gives us is the chance to do more with better tools, not less. There wont be people sitting around playing just because there are robots. This isnt a cheap fantasy novel, in the real world humans have imaginations and are inventive. In the old days everyone used horses for transportation and hauling things. There was quite the industry centered around horses. Then there were trains. Everything was shipped by rail (over land ships for water). Then the automobile. Then planes. Horses and trains still exist but the industry that supported them has all but disappeared. They still exist but a ghost of their past. That progress was a good thing.


Whos to say tomorrows technological advancements will lead to idle work-less humans? Most likely we will still have work to do just that our fruits of labor will be different than now.
 
We are way off the deep end with this thread.

We can hypothesize that wealth would be measured differently in a world with no work, and further suggest that no known system of economics to date would function under a system in which humanity was not working in today's (or even historical) context. Monetary resources would probably not exist, resources pooled into wealth probably would not exist, and neither would ownership of them in a system in which production, distribution, and advancement of goods and services was handled by automation of some sort without human interaction.
 
Predictions about the future oft gang agley. Remember the "paperless office" prediction from about twenty years ago?
 
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