What could people possibly offer, when all the things they're capable of making can be produced at zero cost?
I'm not being snarky, this is something I genuinely worry about. I think Universal Basic Income is the only reasonable answer.
The answer is simple, protection from them taking it by force. This is literally the reason for liberal democracies.
Dictatorship, feudalism, and other forms of authoritarian structure always come with the downside that the ones at the bottom are trying to get the ones at the top. Thus if you are at the top, you live in worry and fear of a rebelion, revolution, a coup, from your family or friends to betray you, etc.
In that scenario, your day job becomes maintaining your power and authority at all times. Which like any other job, is taxing, tiresome, and hard work. So even though on paper it seems you've got all the goods and services at zero cost, there's a tremendous cost to yourself to maintain that position when others are trying to steal it from you.
That's why, the "right to property" is fundamental. You want a society which can guarantee that right, and give you piece of mind that what you own is yours and no one is going to take it by force. So you can relax and enjoy the fruit of your labor (or inherited factories output).
One solution for this is to create a system that is governed by the rule of law, where no players is in such a bad state that they could be willing to risk it all to steal your piece of the pie. Thus a balance must be struck, where everyone can find satisfaction, even if some get to have a lot more than others.
So its way better to willingly agree to participate in a tax scheme, than being at risk of beheading from masses or poison in your drink.
There are other schemes, but it's always the same idea, you need to keep people happy enough and satisfied so they don't come for your stuff. That way, you can enjoy it in peace.
Edit: Well assuming a liberal democratic taxation system. Otherwise taxes can be a way to take even more from people at the bottom, like in feudalism, where land owners tax their labourers for the right to use their land.
Is it really willingly agreeing when there is no option to opt-out?
If you're interested in a more theoretical (and less bourgeoisie oriented) discussion of the tensions between a social contract justification for punishment and our practical inability to leave the state, I would recommend "Legal Obligation and the Duty of Fair Play" as well as "A Theory of Justice", both by John Rawls, as well as "The Principle of Fair Play" by A. John Simmons. You may know the second as a standard component of any introductory political philosophy curriculum, and the first and third were parts of a philosophy of law class I took, taken from a textbook by Frederick Schauer. They are quite interesting.
The conclusion I have come to is that we are morally bound by the laws of a state in proportion to the degree that they benefit us in comparison to other possible bodies of law. This approximates our willingness to agree to a given scheme of rules if we were presented with free migration between all possible states, and the extent to which we would prefer the state we are actually in, we should be considered to have willingly agreed to their laws even if that did not happen in reality.
As though taxes, government and broader social organization has nothing at all to do with why the roads are paved and there's a municipal sewer system. Or why it seems like it's so hard to find a body of land on Earth where you aren't subject to another, possibly much worse government (military is funded by someone...)
If moving somewhere you wouldn't have to pay taxes always seems like it would be too hard, maybe think on that.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Jr.#1900...
What if you have a factory that produces superior robots that can repel any uprising against you?
You could just not go outside, but at that point with the onset of depression from complete lack of socialization and Vitamin D you'll eventually kill yourself, yourself.
No force can stand against an infinite amount of drones, to name just one thing. Those who own the means of production that no longer require workers will also own all means of warfare. Few people own more and more, faster and faster. This will not magically wrap around to the opposite.
I asked, "If it costs someone literally nothing to save lives, but they can't profit from it either, how can I CONVINCE them to do it?"
And your answer is, "They shouldn't have to. We should militarize the police to protect their rights to be heartless."
I don't even know how to respond.
No, that's not the right answer.
Rather that it could be gainful for the owners of the factory to give out part of its produce to provide stability and hence protect the factory.
As for the forms of control they will exert, I can think of a few options: media, access to healthcare, and employing you to be a useless drone just so you don't rebel--or to stroke their ego by beating you in a video game, like the link below:
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/clive-thompson-future-of-work-...
Even if we land in a UBI world where people don't have to work any more and enjoy a "good" life from their UBI, economic mobility will still be extremely reduced, so gaining relative wealth will become much harder. That alone is quite dystopian.
Wow, that's quite dystopian indeed.
Now, when we get to increasing longevity, genetically engineered humans etc, that might change. But then it would also change the parameters of the equation... these future humans won’t resemble the humans of today.
However, there are two conditions for that to happen: 1. That there are enough resources to build factories for everyone 2. Everyone have access to the knowledge and means to create those factories.
The way I see it, space exploration is vital in guaranteeing the first condition, and having an open forum of knowledge sharing and research is needed guarantees the second condition.
Crypto was such a shit show.
There's been a social experiment going on here at the moment (Australia) - everyone has had UBI for a while in the form of unemployment for everyone who needs it, and paid at a rate that you can live on.
They're finding it hard to get people to pick fruit and so on - it used to be done by back packers who aren't coming because travel isn't happening. Strangely, no one thinks to pay people more to pick fruit and stop it from being a shitty job, instead they lowered the amount they're paying for unemployment. UBI effectively creates a new minimum wage, there are still a lot of jobs no one wants to do, so techtopia will have to wait a while imho.
I mean really one answer here is: maybe we as a civilization don't actually need mass-farmed fruit, because it's not actually cost-effective to produce and consumers clearly don't actually value it very highly.
The point of UBI is a grand solution to stop us having goods and products which depend on creating a defacto underclass.
What are you trying to say/ask?
Even if that's not possible, that's what we should strive for
As soon as there is no personal incentive (or real ability) to improve things, the tech sector starts to stagnate and fall behind the rest of the world.
With renewable energy, etc, the country shouldn't fall apart like USSR did, but it is almost certain to fall prey to more entrepreneurial/militaristic neighbors, sooner or later.