Labor Is a Market Distortion, we need VAT and UBI • Hacker News Board

Re: Labor Is a Market Distortion, we need VAT and UBI

#31

Post by freefaler » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 4:50 AM UTC

jmclnx wrote: post #7

What is needed are enforceable laws that force companies to pay a living wage. The wage paid is based upon the cost of living in various US metro regions. The wage must be updated every 6 months. And we need a single payer health system. Plus a type of tax that forces the ultra-rich to pay, if needed, a wealth tax that some countries are enabling.

All businesses run on a profit margin. It's a resource game, thinly veiled by the money layer as means of exchange. If you make the price of buying labor by decree, the owners of the business will either buy less of it (supply/demand ratio), automate it, raise the price to offset the increased cost or close the business down, because the costs are too high.

Businesses are shaky constructions and when you regulate them out of existence who will be generating the taxes for the government to redistribute?

About the "single payer health system", it's not a panacea. Many countries struggle with single payer systems, because there are also problems there too. The best working example for a medical system is Singapore. Compulsory medical saving account with government subsidies in that account for the poor. All prices are transparent and patients pay from that account and have premiums over the basic treatments, thus creating the market dynamics needed for the market to work and still requiring personal responsibility, by making sure the patients sees the costs and chooses himself.

Re: Labor Is a Market Distortion, we need VAT and UBI

#32

Post by Wilsoniumite » Sun, Jun 14, 2026, 1:39 PM UTC

julienreszka wrote: post #12

the diagnosis has data behind it, but the proposed mechanism doesn’t, by your own admission

I have a new version that uses US and Finnish consumption data to model the mechanisms effects.

https://wilsoniumite.com/2026/06/14/labor-pressures-causing-...

Re: Labor Is a Market Distortion, we need VAT and UBI

#33

Post by Wilsoniumite » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 9:47 AM UTC

kjshsh123 wrote: post #20

Wilsoniumite wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, I think the real problem is a liiiiittle more nuanced than just the great stagnation. But that's the graph people know. The issue can be read out in more detail from other graphs too, I'm working on an updated piece. I mention georgism at the end of the piece as well. But do you agree with the theoretical framing? People not being able to not work forces them to find something. It's like an iron ore depo…

I don't really. It smells to me like the lump of labor fallacy. Labor participation results from supply and demand and it going down does not necessarily indicate less demand, but can also indicate less supply. That's what you'd expect as countries and the world become wealthier. Leisure is a normal good.

I have a better response now.

The ability to take leisure is still conditioned on labor. To take time off, you have to save up. To save up, you have to work. Labor is distorting the real value of leisure if the production of that leisure needs less labor (leisure time still requires you to be fed, housed, and more if you go on holiday, travel, or consume to keep yourself entertained or educated).

Re: Labor Is a Market Distortion, we need VAT and UBI

#34

Post by kjshsh123 » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 1:04 PM UTC

Wilsoniumite wrote: post #33

kjshsh123 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really. It smells to me like the lump of labor fallacy. Labor participation results from supply and demand and it going down does not necessarily indicate less demand, but can also indicate less supply. That's what you'd expect as countries and the world become wealthier. Leisure is a normal good.

I have a better response now. The ability to take leisure is still conditioned on labor. To take time off, you have to save up. To save up, you have to work. Labor is distorting the real value of leisure if the production of that leisure needs less labor (leisure time still requires you to be fed, housed, and more if you go on holiday, travel, or consume to keep yourself entertained or educated).

That's not a distortion, that's just what the choice is.

When a new gaming console comes out and someone works extra shifts to afford it sooner, that's not a distortion.

I think your mistake, based on how you're talking about the "real value of leisure" is thinking there is a single value of x. That's labor theory of value era thinking. There is only marginal utility and marginal rates of substitution.

Trading leisure for consumption via labor is the choice, not a distortion.