Computers should pay Taxes, too

This article is one of those finds that I got used to expect from Dr. Lilly Evans who seems to have a special sensor for gold dust on the web. It is written by software developer Dean Vantari who talks about Four Cornerstones: Cybernetic Democracy, Financial Justice, Ecological Harmony, Peace and Non-Violence.

Since “cybernetic democracy” is one of my dreams, I put his article here:

Since the advent of the microprocessor in the late 1970’s, the science of CAD/CAM has revolutionized manufacturing and lead to great advances in process automation and logistics. Inflation has abated since then because of the new economics of computer assisted manufacturing and process automation.

Using intelligent computer technology embedded in machine tools and manufacturing controls has lead to a vast reduction in labor costs, but it has done so at the cost of millions of jobs. Capitalism seeks to reduce costs in order to increase profits. Manufacturing costs are in essence wages and salaries paid to human beings. Computers and machine tools do not get paid, they are slaves of capitalist corporations, providing them with ever increasing profits for essentially nothing.

While manufacturing costs have been going down since the 1980’s, wages have remained stagnant and manufacturing work has become scarce. We have allowed the capitalist system to develop by it’s own accord, for it’s own purpose, not for the benefit of life and humanity, but for the private accumulation of profit from the exploitation of labor.

While costs have been reduced, the prices consumers pay for most items have not gone down in the same proportion. Consumers pay what they are used to paying for most products, even though the cost to produce them has gone down due to technology and outsourcing. We still pay $29.- for a toaster, even though their cost has been reduced from about $19.- to maybe $2.- per unit. The new $17.- profit that has been generated by technological innovation and outsourcing goes directly to pay for the C-class’s (CEO class) exorbitant lifestyles. The use of CAD/CAM technology has eliminated real jobs, from real people that now must find work in other occupations or who have been forced into sub-employment in the informal economy.

However, each new process that is automated saves a finite number of employee/hours. This is known in the financial world as the ROI, or return on investment. If the new process eliminates 100 jobs, all of the wages and benefits of these workers accrues to the ROI equation in evaluating the purchase of the process automation involved. These accounting figures are well known by financial analysts, they can and should be reported to the fiscal authorities in determining the social costs of automation.

If an automated process has a ROI that is derived from a laying off a known number of workers at known pay-scales, we can surely implement a social tax structure that returns the social cost of the worker’s layoffs to the social funds, i.e. to the social security fund, the universal medical insurance (Unimed / Medicare) and the unemployment insurance fund. Automation would then pay it’s fair social cost, not human beings left out in the cold.

For each worker that looses his/her job due to the introduction of process automation, their former employer must pay a fixed tax to the FICA fund, representing the loss of that job’s social contribution to the health and welfare of the People. These costs must be equal to the sum of the FICA contribution for each lost position, along with the Unimed (Medicare) deduction, both for the employee and the employer contribution, at the pay-rate that the worker was assigned at the time he/she was terminated.

By implementing a “computer tax” that computers, not humans, pay, we will be able to maintain social harmony and financial justice well into the future. We will have in effect eliminated the fiscal pressure on the social security system, by collecting FICA taxes from both human beings and machines. In the future we will be able to say that for every retiree there are at least 3 people and 6 computers contributing to the system.

Let computers pay taxes too, by all means, let them take over our tedious jobs, but let us not fall into the trap of lowering our standard of living for the sake of a global nobility that lives far above the rest of us, using technology to exploit us. This is an issue that would certainly merit discussion in an open and democratic society, but one that sadly will remain “under the radar” until such time as we are truly free from the fetters of power and it’s control over our political discourse on the mainstream media. Yes we can, if we can debate the merits of this idea in the open. Controlled democracy is an oxymoron.

Dean Vantari
www.vantari.com
Atlanta, GA
May 19, 2008