Concentrated wealth concentrates political power too. For democracy to work; even a hybrid one with a representative government, the concentration of wealth need be de-escalated. Taxing the very rich 60% would accomplish that and roll back the power of plutonomy slightly.
What to do with the income? Just two things. Pay off the public debt and compensate and support Americans unable to find meaningful work because of changes in the economy from products of the rich like A.I., robotics, other technology and/or social persecution.
The entire structure of the economy may need to be overhauled soon because of economic, environmental and demographic challenges. A more egalitarian allocation of national income would make it politically possible for needed political adaptation to occur. And that requires much higher taxes on the rich.
One of the troubles of making meaningful political change to the political establishment is the existence of broadcast and paid professional media that panders to select elites on the left and right, and that perpetuates the existence of elites on the left and right running government rather than a more egalitarian selection of society.
Artificial General Intelligence is an upgrade from the present standard of Generative Artificial Intelligence made with large learning models. It is looming on the horizon and should make an initial appearance in a year or three. Artificial intelligence may not only replace most human occupations of an intellectual nature, when combined with continuously improving robots it will eliminate the building trades preponderantly too.
Smart robots with far greater intelligence than an ordinary human worker will be much cheaper to repair by repair bots than humans with injuries or illness. They also work 24-7 without complaint or breaks. Obviously at perhaps $50,000 a robot pays for itself in a few months in comparison to human workers being paid as much and working only a third as many hours annually, if they are even healthy. These aren’t new facts. What is often not considered is the effect on the concentration of capital involved with artificial general intelligence. Since everyone wants the best product, the smartest A.G.I. will be the most valuable. No ordinary citizen will ever be able to afford one, unless they are made so cheap that one can install them for nothing on a laptop, the wall of a tent or wherever they may reside in the future. For the time being the logical extrapolation is that the most rich- like Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg for instance, will own the A.I.s that dominate the world that is part of the west rather than BRIC Block’s establishment rising presently.
The wealth of the west is already concentrating. When A.I. runs everything in a decade or two, those that own the A.I. will be a vanishingly tiny, few plutocrats. They will effectively have established a firm and unchallengeable plutocracy rendering democracy entirely obsolete except as a facade opiate for the masses. The masses may consider expropriating the A.I. opium for-themselves of course, and an avalanche of defenders will appear to explain how having a few A.I. owners run their lives for them is necessary and the best of all possible worlds.
Because artificial intelligence needn't be located on the planetary surface of the Earth, and would do equally well in space, the development of technology to directly convert solar power, as well as nuclear reactors, are likely to arise to create electricity for artificial intelligence in orbit and on the Moon and other locations where super-conduction is feasible right away with the near absolute zero temperature of most off-whirld sites. A.I. will download intelligence to Earthers from orbit- perhaps using system's like Starlink satellites to users. That will free up the Earth from the need to supply the insatiable energy demands of A.I.
