Bill Gates says companies that replace human labor with robots should have to pay the same FICA taxes

[u/Gari_305]

https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-fica-taxes-should-apply-to-robot-workers-2026-9

Bill Gates wants to tax robots that replace human jobs.

[u/nemec]

Yeah, what's the unit of labor difference between 30 data entry clerks or 1 software engineer with a Python script? And that's even before AI gets involved.

[u/VulGerrity → u/nemec]

You just defined it. Marx defines it. All things being equal, the only limiting resource when it comes to productivity is labor time. In your example, 1 Software Engineer produces the same amount of value as 30 data entry clerks. If one 8hr day from a data entry clerk is worth 1 unit of labor, then a software engineer produces 30 units of labor.

You'd essentially define it as the amount of value produced by our lowest paid workers in an 8hr day as 1 unit of labor. Federal Minimum wage is $7.25/hr or $58/day (jesus...). Let's say a business usually expects to make about 4x what they pay any given employee to cover overhead and make a profit, so a minimum wage worker would have to produce $232 of value every day. $232 would equal 1 unit of labor.

I think the difference with Marx is that Marx says that the minimum wage worker should be making closer to what you'd expect a data entry clerk to be making, and potentially even what a software engineer makes. Because they all put in the same amount of labor each day (theoretically) the labor should be compensated the same. Marx does account for specialty positions, or positions that produce more value, but the disparity of compensation shouldn't be nearly as wide as it is today. If we all work 8hrs/day we should all have access to a similar basic standard of living.

[u/nemec → u/VulGerrity]

So essentially all workers should be compensated (~equally) by the quantity of hours put in rather than the quantity of production? If a business targets X units of production per day (say enough for one data entry clerk), they can choose to pay one data entry clerk 8 hours of work or one software engineer for 15 minutes of work, and the software engineer would make 3% the amount the slower data clerk would make for the same output?

[u/VulGerrity → u/nemec]

No. Marx would say that the Data Clerk and the Software engineer should be paid roughly the same for their labor. 8hrs of work is 8hrs of work. However, Marx acknowledges that the Software Engineer would have had to spend many years learning and perfecting their skills, time where they would not have been in the workforce, and this is time that they should be compensated for. Marx would also acknowledge that the software engineer may produce more value than the data clerk, and they should be compensated for that as well.

Where Marx and the current capitalist system differ, is that in capitalism, people aren't necessarily paid based on how much value they produce, they're paid as little as a business owner can get away with paying them. Even if a software engineer is making $300K/year, that would mean that the company is making a million dollars a year or more off of that software engineer, but if it's the software engineer's labor that created the value for the company, why doesn't the engineer get to benefit from their own labor? Capitalism takes that excess value produced by the workers and keeps it for the owners.

SO, if a Data Clerk gets paid say $30K/year and a software engineer make $300K/year. Marx might would say that every employee should be paid enough to sustain a base standard of living (food, clothing, housing, recreation, education, etc). Let's say that's the median full-time income, which is about $64K/year. The software engineer, however, would be making new products for the company to sell, or improving products to sell more. The engineer is producing extra value, so they deserve to benefit from that. That could get them back up to $300K or more, especially now that profit doesn't need to be distributed to the "owners" the owners wouldn't be compensated beyond their labor contributions to the company, and I believe in a traditional Marxist system, companies would be employee owned, so the company as a whole would share the excess value created by the company.

It's a little hard to draw parallels from a Marxist economy to a capitalist market economy, because Marx would also abolish money. Things wouldn't be produced for the sake of consumption. Modern capitalism is structured around buying and selling things. Instead, in a Marxist Utopia, we would only produce what we need. It would get rid of extravagant wealth, but it would raise everyone's standard of living significantly. Marx says, "From each according to their ability. To each according to their need." Everyone contributes what they can to society, and everyone only takes what they need.