The Reality of Substitution
We recognize that machines are faster and more connected than human biology. This is not just about robots on assembly lines; it is about AI systems that can perform cognitive tasks, coordinate logistics, and generate content.
As tasks (not just jobs) are automated, the share of national income going to labour will fall, while the share going to capital (owners of the machines) will rise. Without intervention, this leads to extreme inequality and immiseration of large numbers of people.
“Imagine boat after boat arriving, each carrying thousands of brilliant workers willing to work for almost nothing. They take local jobs but hardly consume anything, no food or lodgings, and much of the pay they earn is shipped back overseas. Behind them come more boats carrying smarter workers, and behind them come even smarter workers again, but these are bringing robots.” — jnt discussions
The Great Displacement
Projected workforce demand across — Australian occupations, weighted by current employment. Based on AI-generated task erosion analysis using a Cumulative Task-Substitution model.
Hover over the chart to explore projected AI capability milestones by era. Explore individual occupations at Job Threat Analysis.
Our Solution: The Human Utility Subsidy
Taxing the Machine Economy
We propose a transaction tax on the machine economy (Internet of Things) specifically compute. The engine of productivity of automated capital. This revenue is not used for a "dole" or UBI, but to fund a Negative-Payroll-Tax which encourages enterprises to find useful work for employees. As the machine economy and the GDP grows larger, this tax rate would decrease.
Incentivizing Human Employment
We will use a Floor-and-Trade mechanism to create tax offsets for hiring humans. By making humans cheaper to hire than robots for specific roles, we utilize market forces to find and preserve employment wherever human connection is valuable or desireable. This is not just confined to care, education, community safety, and craftsmanship.
Why Retraining Isn't Enough
Traditional parties promise to "retrain" workers for "jobs of the future." This is a rear-view mirror strategy. "Technological unemployment" means discovery of labour-saving means outruns our ability to find new uses for labour.
We are seeing two linked disruptions:
- Automation of Capital: From dumb machines to autonomous intelligent systems.
- Commodification of Labour: The shift from full-time jobs to "contingent" gig work, where tasks are specified so precisely they become training data for the AI that will replace the worker.