To Tax or Not To Tax

 

To Tax or Not To Tax

A tax is a license to go about one's business in a given polity but it's framed in a manner referencing the existential power of the state, essentially the power to tax is the power to destroy as United States Chief Justice John Marshall phrased it in 1819. Accordingly it should be used as infrequently as possible with restraint and wisdom. The existential power of autonomous trainable and capable machines in the labor market is beginning to be recognized and is obviously subject to the existential power of the state but are taxes the best approach to funding a UBI, a UBI which is the best redress to that existential threat?

They may not be the best approach at all. Economically, not morally or ideologically, the effect one wishes to produce with such a levy is a support for aggregate demand commensurate with the profound loss in aggregate demand caused by robots making robots of semi-skilled capability. The best way to accomplish that is a fee per hour of operation which is how depreciation is figured. Could that be a tax? It could be. It could also be a registration fee required for robots to work in the polity, a much clearer logical arrangement not particularly referencing the power to destroy, the power of the state, but rather a simple regulatory authority over smart and potentially dangerous machines requiring a responsible legal actor and registration fees such as is the case with working animals. That appears to me a better alternative.

Taxes tend to be instruments of social engineering which is not the primary purpose of a UBI. The purpose primarily of a UBI is support of aggregate demand by a transfer of wealth directly from robot labor to human hands. Taxes also require international cooperation to prevent capital flight, essentially creating a tax cartel. As game theory demonstrates, the best strategy in a cartel is to cheat. Taxes bring too much baggage to what needs to be a clean transfer.

Creating a licensing authority to license autonomous trainable machines and autonomous trainable systems of machines to do business in a polity for a fee in order to fund a UBI makes much more sense, especially if it is a GSE corporation issuing non-transferable voting stock to citizens.

In these times, post labor theory of value, value = scarcity x utility yet I am proposing a relationship between robot labor and the value of money. What is the value of robot labor in the marketplace? It amounts to nothing, some metal, some plastic, some electricity, relative to flesh and blood labor which is the focus and the foundation of economics. It is worth nothing until one assesses a fee upon it, a fee for doing business in the polity, a fee for damages, existential damages, inflicted upon human labor, blue and white collar, through the mechanism of robots making robots. Then it's worth something as a reference for the human value of money, its utility and its consequent scarcity. Then the fee helps manage the money supply in a post productivity age.

The next component of money management is a protective tariff for fee paying robots. Unilaterally tying tariffs to robot labor fees calculated per hour of operation in the manner of depreciation, when commercial robot labor is at significance, by the baseline necessity of funding a living UBI for human citizens will prevent offshoring and will possibly result in similar arrangements in other polities but may breach trade agreements. Tariff revenues would help fund a UBI and help define the money supply.

Robots making robots should be dealt with technically by a direct non-ideological transfer of wealth from robot labor, made humanly valuable by fees assessed upon it by a licensing authority, to human purview in order to support aggregate demand. The economy will collapse in a chaos of demand insufficiency without it.

Do Well and Be Well