Here are a few comments I have received (thanks) and some commentary about them:
The only route I see is taxation, which means the general public needs to be educated. Tax the sale of the robot, the purchase of the robot, the parts that go into the robot, the use of the robot. But what do we do with the new people coming into the labor market if there are eventually no jobs?
In my scenario, the taxes are generated by the work the robots do, just as income taxes today are generated by the work people do. The company basically hires the robot and pays it a wage. Part of the wage goes to the RMWP to support displaced workers, and part goes to an income tax to support the country, state, municipality. The rest goes to the company that builds and maintains the robots. Presumably whatever the robot user does with it generates a profit out of which taxes are paid. The bottom line is that we try to maintain a capitalist democracy with a different structure.
As far as new people entering the labor market lets think about that. As I stated in the scenario - The goal is for everyone to eventually receive the wage ... I think this will take time to evolve but the problem is not insurmountable. The initial options for those entering the workplace would be:
- to further their skills and education to get the best jobs which would probably be in robotics and artificial intelligence. We are already there.
- to seek education and training in other areas where wages are higher than the RMWP and robots are not likely to replace workers (High school education could play a role in this process)
- to work at jobs that have not yet been replaced but will soon be ... and thus move into the RMWP
As the RMWP phases in over a period of time, the benefits should be expanded to cover those who work but do not initially qualify. This process needs to be designed into the scenario. More discussion and research required.
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In the scenario you described there would be jobs in that factory to service and monitor the robots, these are skilled positions that would require training. If robots eliminated the majority of non skilled labor we would also need education and training for the entire population as there would be very few non skilled positions available. I wonder how we could go about training the masses and keep the majority motivated and happy in their work?
I think the goal would be to encourage more and more part time employment is fields related to care and service of each other. I know this sounds utopian but let's look at it this way. If you could receive the RMWP for basic needs and work 3 days a week as a housekeeper or massage therapist for extra money, wouldn't you be inclined to spend that extra time and money getting a massage or having someone clean your own home while you go to the beach?
Motivation is an important discussion to have. Some have commented to me that this idea is crazy because everybody would just sit around, get fat and drink too much. Yes some would, and many do already in our society. The object of the exercise may be to steer the education system towards a scenario where motivation itself is rewarded, not solely with money or prizes, but with pride and self worth. Many of us (me included) are happy at our work and not motivated by accumulating more money than we need to obtain our goals and lifestyles. Perhaps we can brainstorm a reward system that encourages happiness in the workplace.
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The problem is how to still keep price competitive with places like Mexico, who have ‘human’ robots. That is more complex. Countries who want to sell us cheaper stuff will just ‘enslave’ robots. Same old problem.
This one is complicated and hard to solve. It is already a reality so any progress we can make towards a solution is better than anything we are doing at present. Building walls and imposing tariffs is not a solution in my world. Without global participation in the evolution of society we will be hard pressed to make any headway. Global participation necessitates open discussion and joint participation. That means we need to look at how better to share the resources native to each country with each other to the benefit of all sides. What if we all decided that trade with each other could only be done on equal terms. And the measure of equal, instead of money, is man/robot hours (just throwing this out there). So, in this scenario, lets say one truckload of avocados from Mexico is worth 100 man/robot hours. Then a fair trade for that may be two truckloads of Georgia peaches because robots are used in the harvest. For sure, we need to investigate different ways of measuring the worth of trade if we are to get past the worship of cash and greed. I haven't answered this one but maybe someone reading this will put forward some thoughts.
Please take a moment and comment with your impressions. Could it work? I’d appreciate 2 points of view. Your first impressions and thoughts (positive or negative) followed by the opposite argument. If the first impression is positive (this could work because) then the second should be a rebuttal to the first (this will never work because).
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