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American Equity

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: American Equity

#311

Post by rdtsc »

Yes. That would seem to be a better UBI (Universal Basic Income).

The problem with UBI is not just logistical, it's also psychological and cultural. It might work in other countries, but it won't work well in US. For many reason, some good some bad, many people here would not accept receiving what they see is a "hand-out". First they won't accept others receiving it but many would not even justify getting it themselves.

So it would have to be a UBI disguised as something else. A share in the GDP is brilliant I think and solves this issue. It is a bit like they have the oil payment in Alaska, people seem to accept that as valid and well earned income. The GDP dividend would be the same in a way.

I think the shares should be equally divided. Everyone gets a share if they are a citizen of the country or lived here for X number of years for example. Sam Altman gets the same number of shares as Steve the Carpenter, Jane the Software Developer, and Irene the Newborn Baby.

Re: American Equity

#312

Post by alphonsegaston »

gehwartzen wrote: post #222
chimeracoder wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This idea is basically UBI couched in capitalist terms "Universal Basic Income" is already a radically capitalist idea. It's often discussed using terminology borrowed from Marxism and socialism, but it couldn't be any more capitalist of a construct. We're just not used to hearing it discussed with that language.

Could you clarify what you mean? a UBI seems like pretty straight forward wealth re-distribution which I generally don't see described in most capitalist philosophies. Everyone gets $10k. Obviously not everyone is going to pay $10k in taxes otherwise the system would be pointless and we could instead just eliminate taxes altogether. Those at the bottom would benefit, those at the top would pay more in taxes, and some…

It’s fundamentally Capitalist because its intent is to prevent workers from abandoning the authoritarian hierarchy of modern day corporate structures (which have served many quite poorly) and moving towards worker ownership through unions or other means. It’s paying off the poor and disenfranchised to prevent revolt against Capitalist ordering principles.

Re: American Equity

#313

Post by ubernostrum »

cperciva wrote: post #255
vkou wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly, it happened in a country which forced people off their land at gunpoint, into urban poverty, where they provided a huge supply of cheap, fungible, and utterly disposable factory labor. But that would run counter to the neo-liberal narrative... After all, the rule of law serves to protect investments , not the peasant forced off his land. Where was the rule of law to protect said peasants? Perhaps th…

Urbanization was certainly important in the development of industrialization, in that urbanization is essential for all forms of specialization; but I would dispute the notion that having a large supply of cheap labour was important. To the contrary, since industrialization is the process whereby capital is invested in order to increase worker productivity, it is less useful where there is a cheap workforce, not more…

Remember also that at the time, breach of employment contract by the employer was a civil matter the employee would have to pursue out of his or her own pocket. Breach by the employee was a criminal matter (see the Master and Servant acts, which essentially perpetuated feudal norms into the industrial age). It was also illegal for workers to "combine" -- band together to say that either all of them would get a higher wage, or none of them would work -- and organizing such a "combination" was also a criminal offense.

Like several major sectors of the US economy at the time (and later), Britain's "revolution" was utterly dependent on coerced labor, viciously enforced by the power of the government. But some people still like to think of those times as the good old days of "laissez-faire" and government "staying out of the market".

Now, you can argue that this was a "rule of law", just a brutally repressive one which systematically granted special rights to certain classes of people, but then you're on much shakier ground.

Re: American Equity

#314

Post by thaumaturgy »

balozi wrote: post #266
thaumaturgy wrote: post #165

Corporations have been operating under the mistaken belief that they are legally obligated to maximize shareholder returns for a couple of decades now, to the detriment in general of labor and the overall quality of goods and services provided. I would expect something similar to happen to here: this would incentive massive changes in attitude towards national infrastructure and services. Take NASA for example: it's…

I would really like to know which school produced the idea that maximizing shareholder returns IS NOT the primary imperative of any commercial enterprise. Note the vast majority of corporations are not public and their only shareholders are the individual owners. So, maximizing return on their capital and labor is not based on some "mistaken belief", it is a basic existential requirement. Show me someone that doesn't…

I had the words "legally obligated" in there on purpose, to try to avoid a pointless ideological argument in favor of objective fact. And on that point, the Supreme Court says you're wrong: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...

Re: American Equity

#315

Post by WalterBright »

maxerickson wrote: post #24
jacquesm wrote: post #16

People already have a share in the GDP. That's what it is, the total domestic product, the sum of all the little parts. The problem is not that people don't have share in it (and this goes for every country, not just for the USA), but that they have a disproportionate share in it. Bill Gates' (to name a random American citizen) has a far larger share in the GDP than most other Americans. If you want to solve that rai…

The problem literally is that many people don't have an adequate share of the GDP. The footnote proposes to tax capital the same as labor. An interesting thing about Bill Gates is what a tiny sliver of GDP he managed to capture over almost 40 years. Something like $0.1 trillion out of several hundred trillion dollars.

Wealth is not the same thing as income, like speed is not the same thing as distance traveled.

GDP is the national income.

Re: American Equity

#316

Post by askafriend »

gaadd33 wrote: post #185
KirinDave wrote: post #76

Or... and I know this is crazy... why don't we make these benefits much more valuable by taking the total pool of money an negotiating collective strategies for services every human needs to varying degrees. Like health care, transportation, housing, food, and network connectivity. What if it was as easy to start a private small business in the US as it was in the UK _for the individual_.

What's the difficulty in starting a private small business in the US? Most states permit incorporation/LLC formation online pretty quickly and you can always do business as a Sole Prop. What's easier in the UK?

Yes if your goal was to simply start a business on paper, you can form one online pretty quickly. But that's an incredibly naive way of looking at it.

Starting a business for many people who aren't already wealthy is a massive risk in so many ways that aren't just monetary.

For example, let's consider healthcare.

I have to think about healthcare before I plunge into starting a new business. How do I take care of myself and my family? "Then don't do it if you can't afford to take care of yourself" you say. Sure. I won't do it then. But that's one less attempt at a new enterprise in America.

In the UK, it is a different story. If I fall deathly ill, I know that at some basic human level - I will be cared for. So I can go ahead and start that business. That's one more attempt at a new enterprise in the UK.

Now tell me which is better for the world - a world which is quickly being automated at all levels.

Small businesses are one of the only remaining ways in which people can build something great for themselves while leveraging the automation in this brave new world for their benefit (think Shopify, AWS, etc).

Re: American Equity

#317

Post by free_everybody »

pnathan wrote: post #310
koolba wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bill Gates' (to name a random American citizen) has a far larger share in the GDP than most other Americans. If you want to solve that raise your taxes on the rich and lift up those that are at the lowest end of the scale. That will have a lot more effect than some fiction where you get to do a bunch of make-believe bookkeeping. Or go a step further do what nobody has the balls to do: tax wealth That's what all the…

I'm persuaded that wealth taxes and maximum income are the appropriate solution: after X million per year, you don't get more money, and after you and your family heap up Y million of _fluidly defined_ assets, you get taxed on what you hold/control/manage-via-tax-shelter. Obliterate the tax shelters, obliterate the tax havens, bring the money back home under threat of criminal law. I'm not saying you can't be a fat c…

How can you implement such a practice when our politicians and leaders are fat cats (or aspiring fat cats)? Only vote for people below a certain wealth line?

Re: American Equity

#318

Post by chucksmash »

I really like the core idea here. I also like when people take big swings. This bothers me because I think it's too big of a swing though - YC is influential and Sam is singularly positioned as a 30-something to put this forward but publishing idle thoughts at this scale is firmly in the realm of fantasy.

A Senator couldn't make this happen. The President couldn't make this happen. I'm gratified to have thought about this for a moment and don't want to detract from the core idea but it is very much an idle musing. Even for someone in Sam's unique position, this is just a "Wouldn't it be nice if?" post.

Re: American Equity

#319

Post by alphonsegaston »

maxxxxx wrote: post #11

He could start with his companies giving out a much larger share of equity to their employees. I always find it fascinating when VCs advocate for things like UBI or this American Equity plan while at the same time being a major contributor to income equality. They could do a lot right now bit instead they make some vague proposals while keeping their money.

Well, that’s the point of schemes like UBI. Pay people off to avoid any sort of fundamental change in ownership or control.

Re: American Equity

#320

Post by kgwgk »

dnautics wrote: post #295
kgwgk wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The salaries do go up as well.

No, they don't. That's by design. https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/the-case-for-hi... It's right there in plain English: Inflation exists as a policy to screw "workers" out of the value of their wages. Workers is a nicer way to say lower classes. It doesn't include investors, financial sector, etc, who strongly benefit from inflation.

What he says is that high inflation makes posible for real wages to adjust (without cutting nominal wages) when such an adjustment is required. The price of labor fluctuates as the price of everything else, including capital, and when there is unemployment (lower demand of labor) wages would need to go down but they are “sticky”. These are cyclical adjustments.
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