An important concept: "Robot tax"

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_tax

In just about every setting where I talk about the future of automation and its role in the transition of society, I warn that without intervention, our current system of capitalism would use automation as an increasingly-efficient means of funneling all money, resources, and power into the hands of the already-ultra-rich. I.E., those who are rich can afford the overhead necessary to purchase, distribute, and install automation, which will allow them to replace their human employees, who tend to cost more overall in wages, training, and benefits. The human ex-employees, however, still have to purchase the means to live (until we fix that requirement), meaning that any money they may have saved must now go back into the very companies which fired them, without gaining any income in return. It's a fast track to the collapse of society, as the bottom drops out of it from the bottom-class dropping like flies. Even more than they/we already do.

There are a few methods of intervention which could be used to prevent this funneling, or at least to slow it down. The more of them are adopted, and the more agressively they intervene, the better a chance we have at preventing that collapse.

Abolish capitalism:

Get rid of money entirely. But that's the whole overarching theme of this blog, so I won't go hugely into detail here.

Universal Basic Income:

This would make it so that even the ex-employees would still have some money to spend on food and other necessities. It does not prevent that money from being funneled, but it would keep a lot of people from dying. The source of the UBI funds, of course, is often up for debate, but it seems to me as though it ought to be drawn from the collected pools into which the funnels point- the inconceivably-huge amassments of wealth collected by the richest people and corporations in existence.

Robot tax:

Admittedly, today marks the day I first heard a name for this concept, but I'd been bouncing it around for a while. Here's my proposition: Say you're a big corporation, employing hundreds of thousands or millions of employees, and making billions or trillions of dollars. *coughAmazoncough* You want to increase your profit margins even MORE. You've found (or developed) a technology that can do the jobs of half your employees. It costs a fair bit in overhead, and a fair bit in upkeep, but nowhere near what those human employees are costing you right now. Let's use some small, simple, round numbers to illustrate my proposal, which may actually be quite different from the contemporary discussions around Robot Tax, since I haven't actually finished my research on it just yet...

Say you have 100 employees about to be replaced by automation and other advancing technologies. Each of those employees is currently making 10 dollars an hour (which is actually quite generous, considering the current federal minimum wage in the US is $7.25), totalling $20,800 per person per year, before taxes, for a total of $2,080,000 per year for the whole group you're about to kick to the curb. The technology you intend to replace them with, however, does not have a minimum wage, nor indeed an hourly one- there hasn't been any need to mandate wages for robots, since they can't die of starvation, exposure, etc. Sure, the purchase and setup of this tech is going to cost you a decent chunk, but you can cover it, and it'll be worthwhile. After all, those 100 humans were, in all their inefficiency and fallibility, doing work that brings in a net income of say, $8,000,000 per year, meaning that after they get their cut, you still have $5,920,000 worth of their labor per year to work with. But these robots! They'll do all that, practically for free! It's estimated they'll only cost about $500,000 per year in increased electrical requirements, maintenance, and upkeep. Meaning you'll be able to reap the benefits of $7,500,000 per year, a difference of $1,580,000 increased profit every year. Even if the purchase, installation, and calibration of those robots costs a couple billion in overhead, it'll pay for itself in less than two years. And the best part? That's 100 fewer W2s you have to generate every year. After all, robots are just a tool, and you can write them off on YOUR taxes. Or something. I don't actually know much about how corporations are taxed.

Here's my proposal for a robot tax. Take that $1,580,000 increase in yearly profits, and split the difference. You're still upping your profit intakes by $790,000 (meaning your overhead will pay for itself in 2.5 years, oh NOOO), while your ex-employees get the other half: $7,900 per year for each of them, or $3.79 per hour. Forever, until they die. Or at least, until something huge fundamentally changes the structure of society. After all, your robots are going to be saving you this much for as long as you want, so long as you do actually put in that $500,000 each year in maintenance. They're in for the long haul, and as far as you know, so were your employees. So why should your stipend be any different?

Yeah, for the ex-employee, $3.79 an hour is not going to be enough for you to live off of (heck, your $10 per hour wasn't really enough to live off of, either). But, you'll keep getting it, even if you go find another job that'll hire you on. Even if you go to school and learn some new skills. Even if you get a NICE job, or a crappy job, or another job that winds up replacing you with automation too, adding another few dollars per hour to your Robot Tax stipend. I figure, these things may very well snowball until they're enough to live off of, effectively proving that you have done your due diligence to serve society, and are now allowed to relax, because your boss(es) made the smart choice to replace you with robots.

Of course, this all requires that corporations are honest in assessing and reporting the profit margin increases, and actually PAYING the robot tax. And I know that's probably more than we can hope for, so it'll probably need auditors out the wazoo. Regulation and all that.