The only way to get capitalism to work is to shift the tax base from economic activity to the liquidation value of assets, and set the tax rate to the interest rate used to calculate liquidation value.
But no one with wealth wants that to happen even though just about everyone who has high incomes would want it to happen. So, due to political economic considerations, capitalism cannot be made to work. This is not to say that socialism can be made to work, since in order to do so it would require that the liquidation asset interest collected by the government be dispersed equally to all citizens, no "means testing". Socialists want to figure out how to spend your dividends for you because they're so smart and all. In other words: All fall down. My 1992 white paper<http://mysite.verizon.net/res10kjcq/ota/others-papers/NetAssetTax_Bowery.txt> introduces an early version of the idea. The impetus for it came from my work to privatize government technology development programs in space<http://www.oocities.com/jim_bowery/testimny.htm> and energy <http://www.oocities.com/jim_bowery/BussardsLetter.html>. Charles Murray of the CATO Institute later wrote a book on an idea related to the citizen's dividend<http://www.aei.org/press/society-and-culture/poverty/in-our-hands-press/> . And, yes, this problem has been known well over a century. On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 8:48 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > noone noone <[email protected]> wrote: > > I am all for vertical agriculture, but I am totally opposed to a global >> basic income. I do not support socialism or communism. >> > > Socialism, communism and capitalism are all based on ordinary people > trading labor for money. In a few decades human labor will be worth > nothing. All economic systems will be obsolete. > > See: > > http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ > > > >> With cold fusion technology, the price of everything will go down. Even a >> job at McDonalds will be capable of paying for a nice house, nice cars, etc. >> > > Even today we have automobiles capable of driving in California traffic. > That is a more difficult task than any job at McDonald's. It is just a > matter of time before all jobs such as this will be done by robots. A robot > the replaces a person (or the entire staff) will cost McDonald's a few > thousand dollars a year. you cannot buy a nice house were nice cars with > that kind of money. > > The most difficult job at McDonald's is human language: cashiers have to > understand what the customers are ordering. Cashiers can easily be > replaced today by having most customers enter the order by touchscreens, > and pay with credit cards. This would be like the self checkout lines at > grocery stores. In the near future, computers will understand speech well > enough to take verbal orders. > > McDonald's has not installed touchscreen ordering devices for the same > reason the US automobile industry did not install robots in the 1960s. The > government and labor organizations are putting pressure on McDonald's not > to automate. McDonald's is one of the biggest employers in the US. Walmart > is another huge employer that could easily replace much of its staff with > robots. I'm sure that it will within 20 years. Robots capable of stocking > shelves are already available. At present people are cheaper for an > environment such as a Walmart store, but people are not becoming twice as > fast and far cheaper every few years. At places like Amazon.com, and the > newest university libraries that still handle paper books, robots do the > inventory work. > > - Jed > >
