Nowadays, I believe that capitalism will eventually lead to a total automation where workforce will largely be consisted of robots, therefore an abundance of goods where most are treated like air, abundant enough to be practically free where people are highly equal in sense of access to them. So paradoxically capitalism will near end capitalism. :)

After then, our concern will probably be population control where best shot is habitating another exoplanet. And considering we'll have more time, dedicated people and labor to work on such stuff (instead of spending it with conflicts and simply working) things may get easier than we thought. Well, they may even discover practical immortality, I'd love to be around when they did. :)

Nowadays, I believe that capitalism will eventually lead to a total automation where workforce will largely be consisted of robots, therefore an abundance of goods where most are treated like air, abundant enough to be practically free where people are highly equal in sense of access to them. So paradoxically capitalism will near end capitalism. :)

After then, our concern will probably be population control where best shot is habitating another exoplanet. And considering we'll have more time, dedicated people and labor to work on such stuff (instead of spending it with conflicts and simply working) things may get easier than we thought. Well, they may even discover practical immortality, I'd love to be around when they did. :)

Have you ever read the Culture series by Iain Banks? It talks a lot about post scarcity societies, which I think is very fascinating. Basically everyone has access to everything, so there's very little to actually do, so most people pursue artistic and creative things, or in general do whatever. I believe that we are going in that direction, eventually of course.

I got to thinking about the problem of automation, employment, and its relationship to capitalism. I made a big post here a few months ago about "The problem with Capitalism" to share my initial hypothesis and test my claims. In his parting remarks, Obama said that automation is more responsible for job loss than jobs being lost to overseas competitors. I agree, and I think it's going to be an increasing problem in the decades ahead. The fundamental nature of work is changing and we need to adapt our economic systems or we'll face an eventual massive economic collapse. Here is an inspired epiphany I had on my walk home this evening. It borrows heavily from the idea of "Basic Income", but has a lot of additional modifiers to it. Take a look at my bullet points and let me know if they sound reasonable, what you'd add, what you think needs work, and whether its feasible. There's nothing like healthy scrutiny to vet a crazy idea :)

Base Income System (note: not "basic" income, but a "base" income)

* Everyone makes a base income of $15,000 / year, no matter what. This is very much like "basic income".

* The implementation would have to be gradually phased in. In the first phase, everyone gets a basic income of $10 / month. This is just to get the systematic groundwork laid out. Gradually, we ramp up the payout amounts. This is also to prevent everyone from quitting their jobs enmass and bankrupting the system before it becomes sustainable.

* If you get a job, your base income increases to $25,000 / year. This is to incentivize people to work.

* The employer only needs to pay the difference between what they offer and what the employee makes. So, if the employer offers $30k per year salary, the employer only pays out $5k and the remaining $25k is the base income. This means that the operating costs for employers becomes nicely subsidized, which incentivizes hiring more employees. You *could* offer $25k and have $0 operating costs. And this is okay!

* Employee hours are CAPPED at a set level, starting at 60 hours per week. If this limit is reached, the employer needs to hire another staff member and halve the hours. Gradually, this weekly hourly cap will be reduced and work weeks will shorten. Eventually, it will be illegal to work more than 35 hours (hint: hire more employees)

* If an employee can automate a system, their base income receives a permanent lifetime bonus, proportionate to a percentage of labor hours saved. There is a vetting and certification process to prevent abuse.

* Taxes are raised to pay the base income, but a lot of business operating costs will be reduced. Taxes may end up being higher, but profits will increase due to lower employee overhead costs.

* Welfare and social security will become obsolete, so those programs can be shut down and the money can be reappropriated to the base income fund.

* NOT working is 100% OKAY, and will become increasingly normal as the fundamental nature of work changes in the future. This is the ultimate objective.

* Homelessness and poverty will be eliminated because we have a baseline.

* As industries become increasingly automated, we increase the base income proportionately. It is in EVERYONES interest to see increases in automation. For example, if a large factory becomes 90% automated, all citizens get a $5 raise in base income.

* We should create a "Department of Entreprenuership" which gives stipends, grants and mentorship to entrepreneurs, proportionate to reached business milestones and business valuations. We want to encourage people to create new businesses and help them thrive.

----Why is this needed?----

* The biggest source of job loss is the increases in automation. Automation is *good* because it is an increase in efficiency. Automation should be incentivized with rewards.

* The system of capitalism will cause itself to eventually become obsolete

* Communism is also a failed system because it lacks the proper incentivization

----Biggest challenge----

* Balancing the financing on the backend with taxes. Can this be entirely self funded in a sustainable way, or do we have to pull currency value out of thin air?
* IF currency value has to be created, then we need inflationary controls in place. We can't have a $100 loaf of bread.

Tentatively, I think as work becomes increasingly voluntary in an automated society, the pursuits and passions of people will turn towards arts and leisure. More people will write stories, paint pictures, create video games, and create works of cultural output. Game dev itself would eventually become fundamentally different in terms of audience engagement and industry culture. With illegal overtime, crunch time would be non existent...

I can see this working, but the problem is that initially this is extremely tough to implement, mainly because taxation will be very high and benefits won't show immediately, even if we phase it in. That and the sheer political willpower required to implement this system. There's no political willpower left in at least the US to do anything on this scale.

It'll have to happen eventually though, because there is no way to guarantee jobs with automation becoming a thing. Capitalism will ultimately be obsolete.

* Communism is also a failed system because it lacks the proper incentivization

Just a note : "Communism" basically means the "means of production" are socially and not privately owned(and also the state has a minimal, administrative role). Personal property(items such as a house, a TV, a car, a phone, an XBox - the kind of things the vast majority of mankind who is not an employer owns today) is still a thing, and it's not necessary that "everyone receives exactly qual pay", as I assume you think. With the basic necessities of life guaranteed for everyone, and with the means of production socially owned, increased productivity can be incentivized simply by rewarding more productive individiuals with more luxury items/services. You're just not rewarded with money which you can accumulate and eventually use them to employ other people, thus re-introducing capitalism and the severe wealth inequality that follows it.

Other than that, what I'm worried with this plan of "base income" is that society will be split into 2 : a 15-20% that has jobs that can't be automated in the forseeable future(surgeons, scientists, skilled engineers/programmers/etc) which will receive the lion's share of the produced wealth, and with their children receiving top-notch education in order to follow in their footsteps, and a bottom 80% which is defacto thrown completely outside production, not even working as manual labourers, and barely survives on this basic income, with very little chances of them or their children moving into the upper 20%, since that will require a quality of education they can't afford. Society will probably reach an "equbrillium" that way, with an "elite" of skilled professionals that still have jobs and the "plebs" completely on the sidelines, just surviving on this basic income which are given just so they don't revolt against the "elite", and also so they can still consume and buy products...it just won't be very pretty and probably not what you envision either.

* Communism is also a failed system because it lacks the proper incentivization

Just a note : "Communism" basically means the "means of production" are socially and not privately owned(and also the state has a minimal, administrative role). Personal property(items such as a house, a TV, a car, a phone, an XBox - the kind of things the vast majority of mankind who is not an employer owns today) is still a thing, and it's not necessary that "everyone receives exactly qual pay", as I assume you think. With the basic necessities of life guaranteed for everyone, and with the means of production socially owned, increased productivity can be incentivized simply by rewarding more productive individiuals with more luxury items/services. You're just not rewarded with money which you can accumulate and eventually use them to employ other people, thus re-introducing capitalism and the severe wealth inequality that follows it.

Other than that, what I'm worried with this plan of "base income" is that society will be split into 2 : a 15-20% that has jobs that can't be automated in the forseeable future(surgeons, scientists, skilled engineers/programmers/etc) which will receive the lion's share of the produced wealth, and with their children receiving top-notch education in order to follow in their footsteps, and a bottom 80% which is defacto thrown completely outside production, not even working as manual labourers, and barely survives on this basic income, with very little chances of them or their children moving into the upper 20%, since that will require a quality of education they can't afford. Society will probably reach an "equbrillium" that way, with an "elite" of skilled professionals that still have jobs and the "plebs" completely on the sidelines, just surviving on this basic income which are given just so they don't revolt against the "elite", and also so they can still consume and buy products...it just won't be very pretty and probably not what you envision either.

Well, the thing is that the basic income idea is more of a transition until there's plenty of surplus where everything is completely managed by machines, or a post scarcity society, as denoted in sci-fi terms. That and the idea is that since everything is automated, everything will be super cheap anyways, so while there will be some really skilled top tiered types, the rest won't miss out by that much since efficiency has really lowered the amount that products cost.

Any system moving forward really needs to consider how and where people live. Any system that does not address the issue of people not having direct control over their home or any food/water will continue the risky cycle of marginalization that we have today.

On top of the idea of a universal base income we need programs to encourage settlement and construction of rural high density zones. Solar passive homes that are nearly townhouse in nature that produce a sizeable chunk of food for those living on them, and laid out in planned developments such that they can easily run and access transit. Build them along corridors and establish more nature reserves surrounding human habitat zones.

Encourage the creation of long lasting goods, or at least reliable and efficient reuse/recycling. Phase out products like MDF and particle board, and encourage the production of things like desks made of real wood and can last generations. It is all well and good if your robots can make a million desks a day, but it doesn't mean a lot in the long run if we need that many in replacements after only a year or two.

Build a society where people know that they're going to be sleeping in comfort, know that they're going to have food to eat, and provide them with ready access to tools and materials, and they will create and build.

Well, the thing is that the basic income idea is more of a transition until there's plenty of surplus where everything is completely managed by machines, or a post scarcity society, as denoted in sci-fi terms. That and the idea is that since everything is automated, everything will be super cheap anyways, so while there will be some really skilled top tiered types, the rest won't miss out by that much since efficiency has really lowered the amount that products cost.

That is where you are wrong though I think. Those few top tier people will be in a way footing the bill for the rest of the jobless masses. Most will not do that out of the goodness of their hearts. They will want some kind of special compensation for their efforts. No matter what kind of political system this new world has there will be ruling elite who want better things then the few people who still work get. There is going to be a divide between the have and the have-nots. While the have-nots will have a much better life then your average communist country everybody will not be equal. When things aren't equal then there is friction and friction ends up catching fire. But at this point in time people are so completely dependent on the system they created there is nothing to do but eat their daily Soylent Green rations and make more pots nobody cares about because billions of other people are making the same generic pot.

While UBI is probably the future as more and more things become automated. I really have my doubts it will be a Star Trek utopia that everybody wants it to be. I see it being more like a world wide communist Russia. You just have to take a look through Facebook comments and anything remotely political. People aren't interested in working together. They are more interested in forcing everybody else to think like them. Now you are going to have billions of people who have nothing but free time. Maybe if the process is slow enough people's attitudes will change but good luck getting people to support the huge "welfare state" during the transition and not to mention that in 100,000 years of history large groups of humans generally don't coexist very well.

I don't disagree that the top tiered programmers etc will be at the top and have more at least in a near future type society. What I'm saying is that these people won't be ridiculously far off from UBI type folks, cause mass automation will make things cheaper in general. And yes, obviously there will be haves and have nots and there will be basic differences that one cannot overcome yet at least. But again, I feel that this is more of an interim solution until automation can take over more of the tasks (such as programming for example). The idea is that as there is less and less to do, stuff should just be cheaper in general, so they won't need too much money to live on.

Star Trek, or my preferred analogy of the Culture society from Iain Banks series, is still a very long ways off. Thing is that there's no real solution to the problem of what the hell do people do otherwise. Not everyone can be a programmer or high tech worker, so what do they do?

A part of the goal is to get people to NOT work, because it won't be necessary for survival anymore. If you try to imagine a highly futuristic utopia type of society which exists 1000+ years from now, do you envision masses of people grinding away at a job to scratch out a living, just with better technology? Or does society and work itself change? I think the ideal is that most work is voluntary and it is incentivized with a higher standard of living. But, ideally, a lot of people will say, "You know what? I'm actually quite comfortable and happy, this is good enough, I don't need more, and it is more important for me to spend my lifes time pursuing activity X." Maybe the base income value isn't $15,000 annual salary, maybe its $20k or $30k, but there needs to also be enough of a divide in lifestyle quality between those who work and those who don't so that work continues to be properly incentivized, and the increases in automation are both a personal boon and a societal boon. If you did something phenomenal which could automate so much that it results in a $100/month raise for everyone globally, you'd be having ticker tape parades thrown in your honor and even if your base salary is permanently increased to $100k / month, it would be worth it: The receiver of money will eventually die, but the benefit of automation will last forever.

And, if you have the top elite of 20% of super skilled workers who are programmers, scientists, surgeons, etc, who decide to work because those jobs can't be automated, and they sacrifice their lifes time by dedicating it to work, then they should deserve the huge increase in a quality of life, prestige, status, etc. The other 80% can live a "good enough" lifestyle and be happy. If you wanted to, you could spend the next five years of your life doing nothing but playing World of Warcraft and working out, and that would be just fine.

The "political will" will be a problem, particularly the perception of the system and how it's received, so it would have to be pitched to everyone in such a way that everyone sees greater benefits out of it than downsides.

A part of the goal is to get people to NOT work, because it won't be necessary for survival anymore. If you try to imagine a highly futuristic utopia type of society which exists 1000+ years from now, do you envision masses of people grinding away at a job to scratch out a living, just with better technology? Or does society and work itself change? I think the ideal is that most work is voluntary and it is incentivized with a higher standard of living. But, ideally, a lot of people will say, "You know what? I'm actually quite comfortable and happy, this is good enough, I don't need more, and it is more important for me to spend my lifes time pursuing activity X." Maybe the base income value isn't $15,000 annual salary, maybe its $20k or $30k, but there needs to also be enough of a divide in lifestyle quality between those who work and those who don't so that work continues to be properly incentivized, and the increases in automation are both a personal boon and a societal boon. If you did something phenomenal which could automate so much that it results in a $100/month raise for everyone globally, you'd be having ticker tape parades thrown in your honor and even if your base salary is permanently increased to $100k / month, it would be worth it: The receiver of money will eventually die, but the benefit of automation will last forever.
And, if you have the top elite of 20% of super skilled workers who are programmers, scientists, surgeons, etc, who decide to work because those jobs can't be automated, and they sacrifice their lifes time by dedicating it to work, then they should deserve the huge increase in a quality of life, prestige, status, etc. The other 80% can live a "good enough" lifestyle and be happy. If you wanted to, you could spend the next five years of your life doing nothing but playing World of Warcraft and working out, and that would be just fine.
The "political will" will be a problem, particularly the perception of the system and how it's received, so it would have to be pitched to everyone in such a way that everyone sees greater benefits out of it than downsides.

Well political willpower is only gonna come when we are passed the political shitstorm in the globe right now, but that's a different topic. Really it'll be tough to sell this to people who are very ingrained in ideology, especially the notion of capitalism vs socialism.

The other thing is that this isn't just a political issue, but a cultural and societal one, which would require massive changes, and while it has happened, it's still an obstacle. The other thing is that this would have to happen on a global scale or not at all. Would everyone even except this system? I mean stupid programmer pointe out one reason, but there's also the notion of people who are just a general pain in the ass.

I think that people would still do some work, but even then it'd be mainly done out of volunteer to help the system, or be explorers, or peacekeepers or something. Remember that if there's literally nothing to do, what do you do? So perhaps there'd be no need for an incentive to work to program the systems other than sheer boredom. Ultimately even that wouldn't be necessary.

It's definitely doable, and probably what the future will be assuming some cataclysmic event doesn't happen, but there's still a tone of obstacles in the way.