Stephen Monrad

Imagine a world where robots are capable of doing all of the work and planning that is needed to produce the things we need. We no longer do work for pay. The only limitation on economic production is the availability of energy and other natural resources. How should goods and services be allocated in this world?

Incentives don’t matter anymore. Financial rewards don’t need to be connected to effort because no human effort is needed. Prices will still be needed because energy and raw materials are scarce. People can’t consume unlimited quantities of goods and services. Let’s assume for now that economic output can be priced in some sensible way to account for scarcity. In this post, I want to think about how money should be distributed amongst the population.

If all that matters is access to energy and raw materials, the most obvious answer is that the people who control the sources of energy and raw materials should get the output. Over time, however, it would become clear that there isn’t any good reason why particular people are allowed to control resources. They add no value. Rules could easily be put in place that would even out any differences that exist. Inheritance taxes as they exist today would do the trick.

The simplest solution in this world would be to give everyone exactly the same amount of money. It would be fair and easy to justify. The result would be perfect equality. Unfortunately, the simplest solution has problems. For example, sick people may need more resources to manage their illnesses. Nobody would want people to die because they couldn’t afford the health care they needed. Exceptions would be needed to account for things like serious illness.

If I lived in a world like this, I would want everyone in the world to have the same basic income. I would then want the government to develop programs to deliver services like health care that cannot or should not be counted as part of the normal costs people pay for. Everyone is equal unless there is a good reason to make an exception.

In today’s world, people have to work to produce goods and services. While incentives need to be created to get people to work, I still think that the principles in the robot economy described above should be maintained as much as possible. Incomes should be equal unless there are good reasons to make exceptions OR incentives are needed to get people to work. Other factors should have little impact on how wealth is distributed.