A_Tax_on_Robots

NATIVE INTELLIGENCE:

A Column By

Jack D. Forbes

Topic:

A TAX ON ROBOTS

Everywhere workers are being replaced by machines, and not just blue-collar workers. Now it is the white-collar employees who are being sacked because of the widespread robotization of office work, banking, quality-assurance checking, telephone answering, and retail sales of products. The search for ever greater profits has led corporate businesses to seek the elimination of labor, in so far as possible (or the substitution of extremely low-paid overseas labor).

Now “smart” machines and robots are being developed, often with subsidies from our tax-dollars, which will replace even greater numbers of workers. Ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren may soon be unemployable. (That’s what prisons are all about, I guess!)

I have a suggestion for dealing with the threat of robotization (which, incidentally, is probably the greatest threat that we, as human beings, currently face). I propose that we adopt a tax on every machine which replaces a human being. The tax will be equal to the average annual salary of those who are replaced during the first year and then gradually decline to half of that figure after five years. A machine replacing only one human will be taxed at 100% of the above, but a machine replacing five humans would be taxed at 500%, reduced to 250% after 5 years. A machine replacing only 1/2 of a person would be taxed at 50%, declining to 25% after 5 years, and so on.

The money collected by the Internal Revenue Service under the above formula would be placed in a trust fund to be used for unemployment payments, worker re-training, worker relocation expenses, and worker education. Existing unemployment contributions by workers and employers would also go into the same fund. Except for the payment of unemployment, which would continue to be a direct federal payment (and to which all classes of workers would be eligible), the fund would be equally disbursed to states, tribes, and territories each year following a formula based upon the percentage of unemployment in each jurisdiction.

My second proposal is to declare a world minimum wage of at least $1.00 per hour which will be mandatory for all goods imported into the United States, manufactured or agricultural. If workers are paid only 10 cents per hour by the overseas manufacturer, then 90 cents in tax will be collected in the United States. If 25 cents per hour was paid to the worker, then 75 cents will be collected in tax, in all cases bringing the product’s cost up to the equivalent of $1.00 per hour labor. (The U.S. Department of Labor will be required to calculate the hours of labor, on the average, contributed to each product offered for sale).

Of course, this latter idea is probably prohibited by both NAFTA and GATT and thus it will be necessary to obtain a global agreement on the proposed “world minimum wage.” The funds realized from this tax should, in any case, be utilized by the U.S. Department of Labor (or an international agency) to support the formation of worker-run cooperatives, labor unions, credit unions, and educational programs.

My proposals may seem far-fetched to some but the tax on machines is absolutely essential so long as the workers in a corporation receive no share of ownership of the machines which their labor helps to pay for!

We must take control of our economic futures or we will soon all be helpless slaves in a corporate-run world which has no place for most of us. That world is bound to be repressive and totalitarian in order to control all of the unemployed and to protect the rich from the poor.