Re: Robotopia - Tax the Robots, live free.

The Trucker wrote:
On Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:19:09 -0400, Les Cargill wrote:

The Trucker wrote:
On Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:44:42 -0700, forbisgaryg wrote:

On Aug 5, 5:55 pm, jmh <jmh...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2008-08-05, forbisga...@xxxxxxx <forbisga...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Aug 5, 10:20 am, "Rod Speed" <rod.speed....@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Your problem. It is the best way to tax those with more capacity
to pay more than those who have very little capacity to pay.
That's just not true. Why does someone with $1,000,000 in the
bank at the beginning of the year have less capacity to pay than
someone who makes $1,000,000 during the year?
If the one with the net worth of 1 million has
no other source of income then you're clearly
taxing the productive base of that person while
only taxing the income stream of the other.
If the person with the million cannot use it productively
then our society would be better off with that million in
other hands. It seems to me that income streams
indicate the markets judgement of the economic
value of the products sold. The cost of the goods
sold indicate the markets judement of the economic
value of that which contributed to the production.

Natural resources exist independent of human activity
and yet they have a market price. To the extent that
control of natural resources is the limiting factor on
efficient production systems to free up control will
increase society's efficiency.

I would be very happy living in a society where
well judged labor was nearly the total cost of
goods sold. Limited resources lead to limited lives.
In the real world you get your wish: Labor is the total
cost of goods whether they are sold or not. Rent is
what we pay for the use of scarce resources. But we pay
with labor. Every time. There is naught with which we
can pay but with labor. For all goods and all stores of
wealth are accumulations of labor. The problem with Marx's Labor theory of value is the insinuation that labor is the
only measure of value and that value is "labor". Labor and
value are two different things as cost and value are two
different things. Measuring value in units of labor does
not mean that value is labor/cost any more than measuring
value in dollars means that value is dollars. IMHO labor is much less of a rubber ruler than is dollars.


Resources are almost always a materials science problem. I
say "almost" because oil is not something that's easily
substitutable for. And labor yields to automation. The
hard part isn't making stuff; it's figuring out who to make
it for.

Why do you have this aristocratic view of economics?

I don't. I have a dynamic view of it. Materials and labor
both get cheaper day by day - with exceptions for hot
skills and hot materials.

People want stuff and
they want freedom and they want comfort. They give labor (the cost) to get
the stuff and the freedom and the comfort. That is a very simple
observation.

It is. Indeed, one of the reasons people are freer is that
stuff gets cheaper.

I know I want to make stuff for __ME__. Why do you have
this ridiculous notion that I want to labor and give the stuff to someone
else?


I don't have any such notion.

--
Les Cargill
.

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