EDITORIAL: California official proposes a tax on robots

California’s progressive policymakers seem to find endless inspiration in “Taxman,” the 1966 Beatles tune penned by George Harrison.

The lyrics — “If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street; If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat; If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat; If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet” — criticize the British government’s punitive tax policies, but politicians in the Golden State have clearly taken them to heart in their effort to extract tribute from everything that moves.

On Monday, The Associated Press reported that a San Francisco supervisor is pushing a statewide tax on robots.

The fear, of course, is that technology will make it more difficult for humans to find employment as more tasks are assigned to machines. Ironically, San Francisco and other liberal bastions have rushed to embrace a $15 wage floor for low-skilled workers, which only hastens the possibility that jobs in certain industries will be lost to automation.

In fact, the rationale behind a knee-jerk levy on “robots” doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. As The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, the e-commerce assault on traditional retailers hasn’t created the economic doomsday scenarios envisioned by those pushing to tax automation.

“The brick-and-mortar retail swoon has been accompanied by a less headline-grabbing e-commerce boon that has created more jobs in the U.S. than traditional stores have cut,” the paper noted. “Those jobs, in turn, pay better because its workers are so much more productive.”

This is a pattern with long historical antecedents.

The Journal continues: “This demonstrates something routinely overlooked in the anxiety about the jobs-destroying potential of robots ... and other forms of automation. Throughout history, automation commonly creates more jobs than it destroys. The reason: Companies don’t use automation simply to produce the same thing more cheaply. Instead, they find new ways to offer entirely new, improved products” and thus need more workers.

The reality of new technologies is more nuanced than many critics acknowledge. Remember that many observers predicted ATMs would be the end of the bank teller. But while the number of tellers at individual branches dropped as customers began using ATMs, the increased efficiencies led banks to open more branches. Today, there are more bank tellers than there were in 1980, the Journal notes.

Yes, rapid advances in technology and automation tend to quicken the pace of creative destruction necessary in a free society to constantly replenish the forces of innovation and entrepreneurship. That may indeed be disruptive and uncomfortable for certain workers. But arbitrarily taxing all “robots” will likely do more harm than good and risks further undermining economic opportunities for those touched by such technological displacement.

A California robot tax would have one benefit, however. It would be another gift box for Nevada economic development officials seeking to lure Golden State businesses drowning in an ever-expanding sea of levies and red tape.