Passive income is already 30% of income, with the majority going to the "productive class" via capital income [0]. These people still find ways to be productive and contribute despite their free time. People become addicted to things precisely when they don't have meaning in their lives. If you remove the obligation of their time to meaningless work, you give them an opportunity to find meaningful productivity which can be of greater benefit.

The full quote is: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need!"[2]-Marx

  [0]https://medium.com/@MattBruenig/the-ubi-already-exists-for-the-1-d3a49fad0580#.ht5wz4ecy
  [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303420
  [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs#Origin_of_the_phrase

Many of those folks (typically called "retirees") are not currently productive. They have instead shifted consumption forward into the future - they were productive at age 30 but are now unproductive at age 70.

But I'm a bit confused what this has to do with the 1%, who typically gain capital income by managing companies that they own. How is that unproductive?

Which folks? Did you read the referenced article? 1% are those making most of the capital (passive) income so those were the productive passive earners I referred to. At this point, if they work, it's because they're choosing to - which is proof that passive income does not inherently slow productivity.

According to that article, 75% of capital income does not go to the rich. Significant chunks of capital income consist of (unrealized) increases in the appraised value of homes.

At this point, if they work, it's because they're choosing to - which is proof that passive income does not inherently slow productivity.

Is this really correct? Do you think that a trust fund baby would not become more productive if they lost their trust fund and needed to find a job? Do you really believe that exactly zero rich people choose not to work because they don't have to?

> Is this really correct? Do you think that a trust fund baby would not become more productive if they lost their trust fund and needed to find a job? Do you really believe that exactly zero rich people choose not to work because they don't have to?

He was arguing under your premise that passive income equalled productivity. If you now suggest that they would be more productive without their money, why should "having money" be rewarded like it is? An automated machine doing a job gives money to the person owning the machine, who does exactly as much work as the unemployed person who lost their job to that machine.

>According to that article, 75% of capital income does not go to the rich.

The article says 25% of all passive income goes to the 1%, but says nothing of what goes to the rich.

> Do you think that a trust fund baby would not become more productive if they lost their trust fund and needed to find a job? Do you really believe that exactly zero rich people choose not to work because they don't have to?

You're making a straw man argument using stereotypes. I only spoke of 1% as a group on average. Any group will have people that are not currently productive, even those forced to go to work.

> Do you think that a trust fund baby would not become more productive if they lost their trust fund and needed to find a job?

On average, I think that's true. Economic returns are concentrated in the high-risk, high-return gambits that a trust fund baby can afford to pursue and a labourer can't.

You don't have to do any managing to make capital gains, and I'm not convinced that it makes that much of a difference whether the person with the capital is personally making the decisions.

>Wealth is goods and services.

Wealth is matter, energy, information, and time arranged together in various ways. Leisure, the ability to spend time outside a "work or die" event-loop is a kind of wealth, one that most people have far too little of right now. You seem to be eliding leisure from your notion of wealth, and thus proposing that leisure be eliminated wherever possible.

A lot of people disagree with that.

What if it turns out that having more equal society and less of these demeaning jobs is better for everyone, including the productive people?

If you want to make the argument that a society with a leisure class and a working class is somehow better for everyone, go ahead and do it.

But that's unrelated to the argument I was making. I was simply disputing a claim that we don't have enough jobs. We do, people simply refuse to do them.