June 7, 2026
Tax me softly? The comments said no
We Need VAT and UBI
Author says tax shopping, pay everyone — commenters say “absolutely not”
TLDR: The article argues that automation is breaking the link between jobs and survival, so everyone should get basic income funded by a tax on purchases. Commenters were far more interested in dragging the tax idea, calling it punishing to ordinary people and demanding land taxes or billionaire taxes instead.
A fiery blog post on Wilson’s Blog tried to pitch a big fix for the modern economy: give everyone a basic income and pay for it with a value-added tax, basically a tax added onto what people buy. The writer’s argument is that automation keeps replacing jobs, society keeps inventing new ones, and some of those jobs feel increasingly pointless. So instead of making work the only way people get money, the proposal is simple: give people cash just for existing, then fund that system by taxing consumption.
But the comments? Total food fight. The loudest reaction was that taxing purchases is a terrible way to help ordinary people, because poorer households spend most of what they earn while richer people can sit on wealth. One commenter called value-added tax “the most regressive tax since inflation,” while another came in swinging with “the author doesn’t know what the hell he’s writing,” plus the classic internet drive-by: maybe it’s “AI-generated slop.” Ouch.
The alternative-tax crowd also showed up ready for battle, pushing taxes on land or on billionaires borrowing endlessly against their assets instead. And then there was the accidental comedy gold: one user’s rant about “infinite loans” spiraled into a glitchy loop like their keyboard was having a crisis in real time. Even the practical people joined the pile-on, warning that this kind of sales tax creates a paperwork nightmare for small businesses. So while the article wanted a calm, mechanical fix, the community turned it into a full-on showdown over who really gets squeezed when prices go up
Key Points
- •The article argues that automation has reduced the role of labor as the main channel through which people obtain income to participate in the economy.
- •It says highly productive sectors supplying basic necessities require relatively little labor, while economies create replacement jobs in other sectors.
- •The author identifies economic brittleness, lagging job creation, and the questionable usefulness of some new jobs as reasons to change the system.
- •The article proposes universal basic income as an unconditional and administratively simple way to distribute purchasing power.
- •The article proposes funding UBI with a value-added tax, arguing that VAT and UBI function as complementary mechanisms affecting consumption and redistribution.