I thought of something today on my break and you seemed like the best person to run it by... basically it is a way to reconcile my belief that laissez-faire capitalism is the best economic system with my belief that everyone deserves food, shelter, etc. So! As population, and thus demand, increases, automation becomes more and more necessary to generate the requisite supply. However, people still need to make money, and being replaced by a machine sucks. So what I propose is that a worker (or group of workers) put a large portion of their salaries (leaving enough to live on) for a year or two towards buying their automated replacement... the company they work for then rents the machine from them. If industrial robots are more expensive than I'm thinking (they probably are), then the workers could put a smaller portion of their salary towards it, and have that same portion taken from the rental fees for a while after as well (ideally, the rental fees that they would be making would be equal to or greater than their original salaries). Do you see any glaring holes in this idea?
Why would the company rent a robot from employees, rather than buy it outright? It doesn't seem like employees would be able to buy a robot less expensively than the company could, so I don't see what the advantage for the company would be.
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-03 10:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-01 04:34 pm (UTC)basically it is a way to reconcile my belief that laissez-faire capitalism is the best economic system with my belief that everyone deserves food, shelter, etc.
So!
As population, and thus demand, increases, automation becomes more and more necessary to generate the requisite supply. However, people still need to make money, and being replaced by a machine sucks. So what I propose is that a worker (or group of workers) put a large portion of their salaries (leaving enough to live on) for a year or two towards buying their automated replacement... the company they work for then rents the machine from them. If industrial robots are more expensive than I'm thinking (they probably are), then the workers could put a smaller portion of their salary towards it, and have that same portion taken from the rental fees for a while after as well (ideally, the rental fees that they would be making would be equal to or greater than their original salaries).
Do you see any glaring holes in this idea?
no subject
Date: 2003-09-03 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-03 04:18 pm (UTC)