Technology Justice: Taxation of our Collective and Cumulative Cognitive Inheritance

As artificial intelligence and robotic technologies accelerate economic transformation, outdated property and tax laws will increasingly fail American workers with ordinary skills that perform routine job functions. Because technology may render millions of workers redundant, U.S. policymakers must make significant social, economic, and legal structural changes to (1) improve the lives of average workers, (2) support the economy, and (3) maintain political stability. Inspired by Thomas Paine’s Agrarian Justice, this twenty-first century Article argues that “Technology Justice” requires that humans benefit from the cognitive endowment created by our ancestors’ minds. Specifically, it asserts that our collective and cumulative cognitive inheritance constitutes valuable property—an asset class—that should be taxed for the benefit of all.

It then advocates that Technology Justice requires future-focused democracies to invent and implement an integrated property and tax paradigm. This modern paradigm will pre-distribute the economic bounty of our shared cognitive inheritance throughout the community—inspired by Paine’s guaranteed minimum income proposal—so that everyone may reap and enjoy the blessings of human progress.