What if I don't build the actual factory. What if I just have the idea about how to improve the process and publish a paper about it. Then someone else actually builds the factory?

Then who pays the tax?

What if I invent a whole new product category that obsoletes a whole industry? Not a lot of people manufacturing typewriters anymore.

What if I invent a cheaper way to ship goods from China making it easier to shift manufacturing there? Who pays the tax then?

What if I'm an employee at the factory and I figure out a better way of doing things so that I can take on additional responsibility so when Bob (the guy next to me) retires we don't have to hire a replacement? Then do I pay?

And how long does this tax last? Forever? Are people still paying taxes for all the farmers we don't have to have anymore?

How confident are you that you can really write tax rules that make sense for the infinite number of scenarios via which productivity is enhanced in a modern economy?

I said myself that implementation wouldn't be practical, so this is more of a thought experiment. But in all these cases, I think the person who profits from the change should also bear the cost it has on others. So if you invent a way to increase productivity, there is no need to pay; but if your employer uses it to make their workers redundant, they should provide for their continued livelihood. Of course this doesn't really work when a different industry is obliterated (which is why this is impractical).

> And how long does this tax last? Forever? Are people still paying taxes for all the farmers we don't have to have anymore?

Assume for a moment that being a farmer were hereditary and they couldn't do anything else anyone would find of value. Then when you replace all of them by machines, you make huge profit, but also leave hundreds of people without income. In such a case, I think it only fair that the farmers and their descendants be provided for indefinitely.

That this tips the scale against automation is not exactly bad: if the farmers have to be provided for anyway, additionally maintaining machines to do work they could do just as well is a further cost that should be weighted against the benefits.

However, in reality most people can learn to do other work, so automation can still end up a net positive, even when the needs of the displaced workers are taken into account.

I guess the problem will solve itself when workers will either employ themselves as revolutionaries and looters, or the beneficiaries of automation pay the equivalent of this tax to prevent this from happening.

Wow! Gotcha! Turns out modern economies are complex. Who knew?

But our economic system is literally grinding to a halt, which means it's not exactly perfect. I for one welcome suggestions, even if they're only slightly less imperfect.

how about a flat tax for re-education for obsolete workers instead?

There's a slight problem with the labor force such that if you let people select their own major, there are currently about twice as many state-U education major grads as there are K12 openings per year, at least in my state. This is why you can hire a newly graduated teacher for $17K/yr while still turning away all but the upper half of applicants.

Of course you could only fund the re-education of certain job fields, centrally controlled economy style, but that never worked well for the Soviets and you'd likely end up with political goals like flooding the programming market with really bad programmers who none the less work for $7.25/hr (or less) because of the "shortage". It might be possible to actually destroy economic sectors by flooding them with unqualified people. Would you go to the hospital if you knew the doctors were intentionally uneducated?

The problem with re education is it isn't likely to be any more successful in the long run than non-re education. Its the same people with the same brainpower operating off the same observed signals. If a quarter of the population was improperly educated the last time they went to school, the result of re-education is virtually certain to be a quarter of the population being differently improperly educated. Its sort of like handing out money to rebuild housing in flood plains, you know you're just going to be handing out more money to the same people in a couple years.

If we automate most of the manufacturing and other low skill jobs then you will be left with part of society that do not have predispositions/are not smart enough for creative/high skill jobs. And this accounts for a LOT of people. Education will not help in that, this are the people that couldn't get through education system in the first place, that's why they don't have any/low education.

A lot of service jobs are driven out by high cost of doing business; entrenched existing businesses are the source of re-election funding.

My neighbor bakes nice cookies. I have programmer money. You can guess whats supposed to happen here, but legally can't happen. Some education might help a little with WRT food safety, but it doesn't matter because the purpose of the government is to prevent her from going into the cookie baking business and compete with existing processed food factories.

The ultimate micro-brew isn't some multinational corporation spending lots of money on branding, but its the guy down the block. That of course is incredibly illegal, because the multinational corporation decides whats legal or illegal.

My wife's favorite hairdresser became unemployed due to the cost of health insurance; for awhile she cut hair at home on the side, but the .gov comes down heavy on that for obvious financial reasons.

Some sort of ideal world for lower IQ / lower functioning people would require better government. Rather than the government existing solely to protect Nabisco Inc sales, you'd have to refocus it entirely on safety and small business support services so my neighbor can sell cookies.

If my neighbor did all the homemade baked goods for my entire subdivision, I'm not entirely sure she's be poor, either. If she ran a 50% profit margin and everyone in my subdivision dropped $2/day for baked goods service (like she'd hand deliver you a hot loaf of bread every day?) that would be 6012500*0.50=$180K profit per year, not bad for an area where the median household income is a hair under $60K. Of course the purpose of the government it to annihilate small businesses in favor of large businesses.

Your examples are poorly chosen, but the general argument that government regulations exist to protect entrenched business interests is nonsense. Regulations exist for consumer protection, and regulatory compliance is highly unlikely to be the biggest barrier to entry in any business category.

They may have originally been created to protect consumers, but they've been manipulated and lobbied for so long that they now exist to protect entrenched business interests.

Repeating the argument does not make it more correct. If you're trying to contradict the idea that government regulations are not a large barrier to entry you might show some evidence, preferably in the form of a peer-reviewed study. Your study should also compare the externalized costs of not having said regulations. Even better would be to admit that you've been drawn into a ridiculous position and exit the conversation with as much grace as you can muster.

"contradict...not...barrier" is a triple negative, too much work for me.

Samuel Johnson springs to mind, but if you'd like, substitute "contradict the argument of my previous post". I would prefer that phrasing, but I've often been disappointed at the tendency of people to take issue with small ambiguities or details at the expense of the actual argument.