Philosophy, Economics, and Virtue.
“Flourishing manifestly requires external goods in addition, just as we said. For it is impossible or not easy for someone without equipment to do what is virtuous”
Aristotle
“Do Well by Doing Good.”
Benjamin Franklin
Part 2
Dispossession and Compensation
An economy exists, as Aristotle noted, to facilitate human flourishing and as our own American sage Ben Franklin put it in more modern language, to do good. It is the art of virtuous equipage but how does one flourish in pursuit of the virtuous life, how does one do well by doing good, if one has been dispossessed entirely from the economic milieu without redress? One is compensated for damages, damages in employment possibilities, damages in wage income, damages psychologically.
Obviously the responsible party is the steward, the “owner” of record, of the runaway draft horse, the robot, that did the damage.
In possession of compensation for such damages, not as a class action suit, an exception, but an overhead cost of doing business in the polity assessing, collecting, and distributing that compensation, one becomes an agent of demand. Participating in markets, discovering prices (only now price = utility +/-), directing production by purchases and incidentally creating surpluses, windfalls, and shortages for arbitrage to move.
How is such a transfer of wealth from robot labor to human prerogative accomplished? Pragmatically the possibility of the human species growing fat on the sweat of robots exists but getting there requires new analysis. It is an obvious solution but how is it to be accomplished?
The Mechanism of Transfer
Compensation Assessed;
Compensation Delivered
The government exists for the purpose of guaranteeing reasonable compensation among other things; national defense, promoting the general welfare, and regulating commerce. This falls under guaranteeing compensation and regulating commerce. It is legitimate to extract compensation from robot labor and bestow it on those damaged.
However I find the popularity contests that characterize democracy dangerous under that rubric. I would much rather see a GSE, government sponsored enterprise, a corporation, brought into being for that purpose as a robot registry. Structuring it in a manner the Founding Fathers would appreciate, with checks and balances, it might function effectively for generations.
Such a GSE, issuing one voting, dividend bearing, non-transferable share of stock to each citizen and one nonvoting, dividend bearing, non-transferable share of stock to each minor citizen with blocks of stock going to the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve as a check and balance on the processes of assessment as fees on registered robots and tariffs on the produce of unregistered robots and the distribution of those fees and tariffs as dividends.
The Putative Calculations
Given at least a million robots on production lines in 2027 doing work that would pay a human $25-35/hour with a brutally low cost of less than $3/hour.
(600 working hours/month/$10,000 CapEx/5 years depreciation+ maintenance and power)
That leaves an opportunity cost savings of $22-32/hour subtracted directly from aggregate demand. That will result, in 2027, in a significant demand insufficiency, a recession, unless a transfer of wealth from robot labor of at least $12-16/hour to human prerogative is effected. We either grow fat on the sweat of robots or we starve in poverty collectively. Those are the stark options driving this argument.
Do Well and Be Well
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