One day, a spaceship full of robot aliens arrives at Earth. It has several million peaceful robot aliens. They are all very smart, very strong, and very fast: they can do anything you can do better. They can do anything better than you.
And they do everything. Due to being very fast, and there being millions of them, they are able to do 99% of the jobs on the Earth, and do it cheaper and better than any human.
Hold on, you say. If no one has a job, then everyone will work for pennies, right? But you still have to pay for rent. You still have to buy food. A mother working as a bank teller in California still has to pay for $3000 in expenses on her $2000 salary, or whatever.
Since these robot aliens work very fast, they still have some leisure time. People build giant amusement parks, built by the robot aliens, of course, in which the robot aliens pay huge sums for some entertainment. Importantly, these amusement parks take up lots of land. Rich people are continually buying up more land and making more of these amusement parks.
This drives up land costs and the price of rent. Not only is 99% of the human population still out of work, but they are having to spend their savings even faster to avoid becoming homeless.
There are two solutions to this dire situation: the first is to tax the robot aliens and redistribute the money. The additional spending that results could even create jobs for a few humans.
The second solution is to find some way of getting the robot aliens to work less.
These two solutions are also the ones we find in real life. Except that in real life, the hard-working robot aliens don't like being taxed and pay lobbyists to lobby for lower taxes, spend money on advertising that says that higher taxes are bad, and are numerous enough to vote for lower taxes.
That leaves getting the robot aliens to work less.
And they do everything. Due to being very fast, and there being millions of them, they are able to do 99% of the jobs on the Earth, and do it cheaper and better than any human.
Hold on, you say. If no one has a job, then everyone will work for pennies, right? But you still have to pay for rent. You still have to buy food. A mother working as a bank teller in California still has to pay for $3000 in expenses on her $2000 salary, or whatever.
Since these robot aliens work very fast, they still have some leisure time. People build giant amusement parks, built by the robot aliens, of course, in which the robot aliens pay huge sums for some entertainment. Importantly, these amusement parks take up lots of land. Rich people are continually buying up more land and making more of these amusement parks.
This drives up land costs and the price of rent. Not only is 99% of the human population still out of work, but they are having to spend their savings even faster to avoid becoming homeless.
There are two solutions to this dire situation: the first is to tax the robot aliens and redistribute the money. The additional spending that results could even create jobs for a few humans.
The second solution is to find some way of getting the robot aliens to work less.
These two solutions are also the ones we find in real life. Except that in real life, the hard-working robot aliens don't like being taxed and pay lobbyists to lobby for lower taxes, spend money on advertising that says that higher taxes are bad, and are numerous enough to vote for lower taxes.
That leaves getting the robot aliens to work less.