It made sense when working meant providing for families, and even in the industrial revolution where it meant making mass goods for large amounts of people to enjoy.
But what happens when we get the ability to produce more than we need with only a relatively small amount of humans to do it? If we have the resources where we can easily give everyone on the planet a cell phone, why not do it?
We are already there with some goods: for example, we currently produce enough food to feed 1.5x the world’s population. We may very well reach a point in the next 20-30 years where we can produce everything market wants with 50% or perhaps even 25% of adult humans actually working. Our solution so far is creating artificial scarcity, but that’s only going to patch the system for so long.
Already we’re eschewing traditional factory jobs for service industry jobs like meal delivery. But we’re not far off from autonomous delivery vehicles automating that away, too. With the rise of AI, we can expect a lot more jobs to be augmented or superseded by automation over time.
Capitalism rests on the premises that we can always produce more and that people’s value is tied to their labor. But in a post-scarcity, heavily automated world, these premises break down, and suddenly this system doesn’t really work anymore.
Short of a communist revolution, I think we are going to need to start trialing measures that divorce benefits from labor. Most of the world already has healthcare coverage separated from labor (USA is the glaring exception,) and the next step would likely be universal basic income.
Not sure which came first though - capitalism or human nature. Capitalism creates artificial scarcity but it also capitalizes on human nature, namely those who want to be ‘better’ than others.
In some places, people keep telling their kids ‘go to college so you’ll have a good life and be educated, not like those laborers’. As a consequence, today there might be less skilled electricians, plumbers and the like. And those jobs pay better, and are arguably less boring than, say, working in a bank with a college diploma. Point being, just like a college diploma is a sign of status, so is the iphone and some random brand-name knick-knack or eating caviar.
For society to advance to the stage you’re proposing, we first have to get over our inflated egos and our need to be better than the rest, in whatever random field we manage to, be it food, clothes, tech, cars or diplomas. I’d want a world in which the garbage man has it as good as the university professor. Not sure the university professor would, though? But they both provide valuable services to society at large.
A good listen and all, if a bit overly optimistic. Let me explain. The video concludes basically that humans aren’t intrinsically bad or good, but that human nature is shaped by social conditions. Agreed. But those social conditions didn’t just manifest themselves. They were willed into existence and shaped to become what they currently are.
The Empire in the video? Humans and human nature. One does not build what can be described as an evil system purely by accident. Fascism and slavery didn’t happen as whoopsies. Slaver ships didn’t accidentally discover some stowaways and decided to roll with it. Decisions were made and actions were taken with clear intent.
And responsibility for evil in society extends far beyond those that are the face of evil. Everyone who is OK with it happening is to blame. The person who views the iphone as a status symbol couldn’t care less about suicides in Apple factories. If you were to give everyone an iphone, there’s a pretty high chance that person would oppose it - what about their status symbol? Sure, they’d mask it as ‘what about those that worked for the money to buy it?’ - see the whole student debt forgiveness debate.
I am probably emphasising evil here, but given a room with a bouquet of lillies in it and a pile of shit, which would you turn your attention to first?
Is there potential for good as well as for evil in humans? Sure. People come together when there are natural disasters. Localized. Small groups of people in the grand scheme of things.
What did it in for me was the covid pandemic. A truly global scale phenomenon. At the start I really thought we could do this. Isolate for a month ish. Stay indoors was all we had to do to limit spread. We couldn’t even do that proper because people were worried about their freedom. If that’s not selfishness, I don’t know what is.
Then remember the toilet paper panic buying? No making sure everyone has some. Fuck you, got mine. Then the vaccines came out and we got a significant amount of people questioning them and actively pushing against them.
The video is a nice story and has a very nice speaking voice attached to it, but it’s way too optimistic in my view. And I feel it does a disservice by shifting blame to the conditions imposed by society as a separate entity from the members of said society. People watch it and say ‘hey, we’re inherently good. we help each other in times of floods’ so they’re less prone to reflection (which the video, to its credit, does state as a source of good).
The video does not ignore that humans have a hand in creating our material conditions… you can’t state that as a flaw in the reasoning when that point is kinda central to the whole argument. Yes, we created these systems, and the argument given is that it reflects human nature. This video refutes that argument.
Yes. And that is where it falls apart on a naively optimistic note.
How can you separate people creating the social conditions from the social conditions themselves? It is human nature that brought upon those conditions. Humans made it happen and I’m pretty sure nobody said ‘hey let’s set aside our nature of being good for a moment and do this evil thing real quick, I promise it’ll be fun!’. Active or passive participants, we’re all participants.
Furthermore, you cannot just say ‘we did some bad stuff, but it’s because of the conditions around. we’re actually good people that happen to be in a tight spot’. Those are by definition not good people. Everyone can be a nice person if the times are good. Actions, rather than intent, are the indicators of one’s alignment.
Asked to do something you don’t want to or find morally reprehensible but you do it anyway (usually because of fear of consequences if you don’t)? Not an inherently good person, as I suspect is the case for most of us.
How can you separate people creating the social conditions from the social conditions themselves
I don’t.
It is human nature that brought upon those conditions.
Human nature isn’t a thing.
Humans made it happen and I’m pretty sure nobody said ‘hey let’s set aside our nature of being good for a moment and do this evil thing real quick, I promise it’ll be fun!’. Active or passive participants, we’re all participants.
No, of course not. I have to assume you didn’t even watch the video I sent. And being a participant does not make you a willing participant.
Furthermore, you cannot just say ‘we did some bad stuff, but it’s because of the conditions around. we’re actually good people that happen to be in a tight spot’.
That’s not what I or the video I sent have said. Such an absurd strawman. You have already mentioned that it concludes we aren’t inherently bad or good.
Those are by definition not good people. Everyone can be a nice person if the times are good. Actions, rather than intent, are the indicators of one’s alignment.
Hot take, bro.
Asked to do something you don’t want to or find morally reprehensible but you do it anyway (usually because of fear of consequences if you don’t)? Not an inherently good person, as I suspect is the case for most of us.
Cool, but you’re not knocking down anything I’ve said with that take.
I am puzzled as to what exactly you mean. I watched the video until min 17 out of 19, then realized it’s got no deeper message beyond that point so stopped it. Lad spoke about philosophies, how different philosophers thought people were good or others thought they were bad then had a weird intermezzo blaming imperialism. The weird part was the style change not the actual blaming, mind you - that’s all valid, but still serves to prove an actual human nature.
Spoke some stuff about look at all cultures in Africa being friendly, and then babbled on about how humans aren’t good or bad but they are victims of their circumstances.
Overall a mediocre video from an argumentation standpoint, but figured hey, why not give it a shot?
I never said we’re all willing participants. Active or passive participants - willing or unwilling. Still participants. Maybe it clears it up, hm?
Paraphrasing the video it does indeed say that humans aren’t bad or good, but their actions are due to the social environment. Do tell me how this is completely disconnected from what I said? I took it a couple of steps further.
Social environment bad (somehow, not tied to human nature because social environments come into being by themselves and exist even without humans, if I’m understanding this as you mean it - cause otherwise, if people were responsible, they would be bad people. but the video tells us there are no bad people);
BUT people not bad or good means it’s basically not their fault for anything cause they aren’t bad if they do bad stuff. But look people are good because they come together sometimes.
I honestly don’t understand what point you are trying to make. If it is that human nature isn’t a thing and that’s it, well… best of luck to ya. Is it not in your nature to argue with random people on the internet?
Maybe if you are trying to make a point don’t just drop a youtube link and expect people to understand the same thing as you did or expect them suddenly be enlightened. Did you understand it? Care to elaborate on what you understood from it? I did. Let’s compare notes.
Social environment bad (somehow, not tied to human nature because social environments come into being by themselves and exist even without humans, if I’m understanding this as you mean it
I’ve said this three times: neither I nor Andrew said societies are not created by people.
if people were responsible, they would be bad people. but the video tells us there are no bad people);
They are indeed bad people. I don’t know why you think i would disagree, or that the video suggests people can’t be bad. Of course they can.
What??
But look people are good because they come together sometimes.
Stick to your point. You were first claiming it said people aren’t inherently bad or good. That’s right. Then you slipped it to people can’t be bad or good. That’s a totally different statement no one claimed. Now, somehow the claim has morphed to saying that people are inherently good.
What?
Maybe if you are trying to make a point don’t just drop a youtube link and expect people to understand the same thing as you did or expect them suddenly be enlightened. Did you understand it? Care to elaborate on what you understood from it? I did. Let’s compare notes.
I can’t decide if you’re trolling or genuinely incompetent. It’s not hard to understand.
Human nature is not a fixed concept. It’s a buzzword thrown around by people trying to sell their philosophy to you. People do what they can based on their material conditions. We are not inherently pulled toward being pro social or anti social.
Honestly, there aren’t that many changes we’d need to get there. For example, instead of working one person 60 hours we can work two people 30 hours. If we divorce benefits from full time status, companies won’t have to pay all that much to make the system work.
With universal income, people could opt to work part of the year, or work for a few years and take time off, or however else they want to do it. There would still be an incentive to work, just not to work to death.
Pretty sure in the old days, when there were fewer people, you could just fuck off into the forest and build yourself a cottage. If your feudal lord found out you’d be in trouble, but they didn’t have satellites or whatnot to track you down.
We have this weird unwritten assumption that the cost of technological advancement (esp medical) was our own domestication. That we sacrificed freedom and privacy for health and safety. I wonder if that’s really the case, or if it’s some bullshit post hoc justification
It’s a good point, perhaps we were freer before. Then again, 90% of the European population were basically slaves during the dark and middle ages, and I also enjoy not dying from dysentery.
Soon after we invented agriculture we began to lose survival skills, and it got progressively worse until we reached the point of grocery stores.
This was our choice. We stopped roaming to stop and grow, harvest, and store grain to be sure we had food stocks in reserve for low yield months. This gave us time to create and learn which led to civilisation.
Before agriculture, we were no more than bands of maybe 50, probably territorially killing each other on discovery much like Chimps do.
You could try. But there's 2 problems with that. Firstly surviving on your own is extremely difficult. Subsistence farming is hell and without a community often ends in death after a single drought or bad crop.
And secondly the medieval era didn't have that much empty, unclaimed land that could support either farming or hunting. There were farming communities everywhere there was open space. And old forests in Europe are pretty much entirely man controlled by this point. Poaching was a serious crime because of population control and logging was also controlled.
What I'm saying is, no man is an island and very few could survive as one. There's a reason we developed society.
You’d still have to work for your living in said scenario.
Nobody is gonna bring you chicken tendies three times a day in your hidden cottage.
Uncontacted hunter gathered tribes work, it’s right there in the description. Not 40 hours a week, sure, but you can live a much simpler lifestyle in the wilderness on a similar work ethic.
Wrong, people do bring me whatever sort of food I ask for, and I don’t have to work for it. That’s because I’m a successful landlord and business owner, so maybe you should stop complaining about having to work and just become successful like me and then you will realize the truth, nobody has to work if they don’t want to. Just be a success and you can enjoy a life of leisure.
You can work for your own reasons right now. But you don’t have the right to just grab any piece of land and confiscate it for your own use. There are too many of us for that.
Thats why we should adhere to the principles of public ownership of land. Which used to be the case dating back to prehistoric mines shared between different factions and groups.
Examples of this are all over in the past and some rural communities but all because some powerful duts decided that human kind is inherently selfish and everyone would automatically overuse the land breaking the system. The example given is a farmer who increasingly claims a bigger part of a field to get a bigger flock of sheep or orchards.
All of it completely ignores that companies sucking the planets resources dry to the bone for profit while a farmer in a rural community has no need to increase flock if not to make profit. Proper use of public land is in the interest of everyone.
Not saying you’re wrong, I’m just pointing out that private ownership of farmland was probably encouraged as a way to incentivize farmers - work the land yourself, do it for your self as number one beneficiary, you’re more likely to work better, and not clock out (as much as possible for something like farming). Whereas people working state owned land might just say ‘feck it, not my problem’, picking the path of least resistance as it were. It’s entirely possible that companies exploiting this came about as an unintended (initially) consequence.
There’s also a situation currently where multiple small land owners rent out their land to be worked by a single well-equipped group of farmers and get paid on the yield minus whatever labour costs. This is in order to combat the inefficiency of working your own small plot of land with less powerful machinery or avoiding to invest too much in your own equipment (farm machinery is very expensive). Now the fairness of that trade-off is still questionable, but probably more than the current overall exploitation, if you have trustworthy folk.
Back to your point, human beings are incredibly selfish. You either do it for yourself and yours, or are taken advantage of by somebody doing just that. It’s always the interest of everyone, it’s just the definition of ‘everyone’ that differs
Ideally, I think public land should not be owned by anyone, not even the state. Land belongs to whomever makes use of it (and no, making use of it does not mean fencing it up and letting weeds grow because it’s not profitable) and that may very well change from year to year.
you don’t have the right to just grab any piece of land and confiscate it for your own use
Maybe not just any piece of land, but there are enormous swaths of empty land in this world that OP can fuck off to, if they’re that determined to not be a member of a society. Of course, they’re not interested in that because pioneering is to much work. 🙄
It’s the kind of work that makes you feel fulfilled and accomplished though. I bet OP would be better off mentally in 2 years if he fucked off to alaska and built himself a cabin. Hell, I bet I would too.
This corporate wage slavery is so fucking detrimental to my well-being. I want to solve challenges and make decisions of consequence. I want to have agency in my life.
Land is expensive and you still have to pay taxes on it.
There are co-op/commune options but that's probably not what OP is looking for either. Unfortunately or not "no man is an island" really is true and we're all inherently interconnected. We all share the same resources and space, and should all have input into how those resources and spaces are used.
TBH if someone wants to go out into the wilderness and survive with little/no creature comforts I think that should be perfectly fine and they should be allowed space to do that; I also think healthcare and some sort of UBI/food allowance should exist so that a person won't starve or die of an easily prevented disease, or to make sure the person really wants to go be alone and isn't just experiencing an untreated illness.
By all means if you want a Corvette or that lifted F150 you should have to work for it but if you're happy eating squirrel and beans and reading books from the public library? You should be allowed to do that.
Those are both subcategories of work. You still work in either, it’s just in one case you get everything but you must do everything and in the other case you don’t get what you worked for but you instead get luxuries from society.
Human nature, regardless of political systems, dictates that one and their family must provide trade-worthy value to receive trade-worthy value. There are plenty of exceptions to that thanks to charity (at any scale) and social policies that allow for some to provide little trade-worthy value and still receive essential benefits (for example, those with disabilities). But if there were an option to provide no trade-worthy value and receive completely satisfying goods, accommodations, and freedoms in return, then productive people would naturally feel foolish for spending time working any more than they like to. There is some point where there wouldn’t be enough people to maintain the benefits for the non-workers. Although people would offer to work as good will, labor and supply shortages would be far more frequent or constant. So should we allow the option, but only a limited amount so that the threshold of value-produced to value-consumed is never met? It’s unlikely that there would be good relations between the class of people in society that would be gifted with that option and those that aren’t.
Does “human nature” “dictate” that nuclear families are a central organizational structure within society, or are there plenty of exceptions, in the sense of societies following systems and cultures very different from the one under which you live?
Why the FUCK do you think you’re entitled to get the free labor of bakeries working hard to make bread, farmers farming to create food, and people building technology to make your life easier?
No, you don’t have to work. Go live in the forest and farm your own food. Maybe then when a lion attacks you you’ll realize the value of modern civilization.
That’s true, but the whole point of technology and modern civilization was to make us lazy and somehow people are working even more? Except for like 5 people.
Most people can live without teeth and with cancer killing them, while eating cheap ramen for the whole month staring at a wall, sitting naked on the floor, in a house without a roof and walls.
You ARE working much less. Have you tried working in a farm for 12 hours a day? You wanna compare serving coffee in Starbucks with farming for months then losing it because there’s frost?
Who TF is working on a farm 12 hours a day? What’re you watching grass grow? My mom’s family has a farm and I have worked there before and it’s pretty fun actually and all the usual work is done by 2 pm. Feeding animals, cutting grass for them using a spinny wheel thingy. Getting eggs from chickens, milking cows, ploughing the fields is done by tractors and only thing you have to do is throw seeds around. And it’s not like you’re doing the same thing for 8 hours straight. So yeah I’d say it’s more work. I’d much prefer doing that over graphic design for 8 hours. As for the frost, well, just grow shit where it’s not cold I guess.
Im pretty sure 95% of farmers would aggressively disagree with you. Lots of farmers in my country burn out from over working. Unless you are talking about a hobby farm for personal use
Unless if they’re slave farms you’re talking about. Then i haven’t seen any other farms like that, maybe it’s just a country to country thing. And it’s not a hobby farm it’s a proper farm, they sell milk eggs and and the field produce. Even got mango trees. Sure it’s a lot of work but it’s not overwhelming and they take a lot of breaks and even chat with neighbours for hours. And my grandma’s 80 and still milks the cows and walk them in the field and stuff. Not because someone tells her to, but because she likes it.
It’s the way of the world. To eat, to live, work must be done. The most fair is way to divide up the work which must be done is by capacity. The fruits of those labors should be distributed first according to need, second according to whomever produced them.
This is not how things are done now, of course. Now, the neediest work hardest, and the fruits of that labor flow to those who have the least need.
So you expect others to just hand you stuff for free? Is that it? I mean, the world does require people to work to, you know, make goods that we consume… Or did you think that Mac Donald’s hamburgers are just magically willed into existence? Police are just NPC computer characters?
Actually, yes. Yes I do. Because it already happens, and because that’s how it used to work. My neighborhood couldn’t afford to repave our streets, but it happens anyway. Farmers certainly couldn’t afford to plant all the corn they do, but they do anyway because of government subsidies. Medieval peasants worked far less than we have to and enjoyed far more freedoms, and here we are toiling away despite the fact that one farmer now could feed a whole kingdom. What you’re missing is our dollar and economy are not tied to actual, physical things. There’s this whole imaginary line graph in the heads of certain people that has to keep going up at all costs.
I think I understand better than you do what goes into a McDonald’s hamburger judging by your spelling of it. I also work with my local PD on a daily basis, and I can tell you to them it’s just a way to collect a paycheck to live.
In sesame street? Have you ever opened a history book on any place in the world?
Medieval peasants worked far less than we have to and enjoyed far more freedoms
Yeah now I know that you’re drunk or 5 years old. Medieval peasants either were slaves, worked as a semi slave for a lord who could squeeze them out, or worked for themselves and were unprotected from the “funs” of the time. ALL of them had to work sun up to sun down to be able to survive. This fantasy where you are living in where medieval peasants had more free time than any of us is just bullshit, there is no other word for it. We actually have 8 hour work days and 2 free days per week (soon will become 3, then 4). Peasants had a 7 day work week, pretty much. Ah, if they were lucky the Sunday church visit would spare them an hour.
one farmer now could feed a whole kingdom
Oh god where do you get your info from? Or, what have you been smoking and please don’t give me any of that, I want my brain cells.
You heard some things about “capitalism bad because some rich guys” and apparently really think that that is how the world works. Abuse of capitalism is bad, yes. But the core of it is literally what allowed you to have a mobile phone in your hands so that you can bitch about the evils of capitalism. Grow up.
I think I understand better than you do what goes into a McDonald’s hamburger judging by your spelling of it.
Ah the famous “You made a typo, so I’m right!” argument
Look, I get it, you’re on an “antiwork” sub, but you really don’t understand how this world works. If you think that something like communism is the solution oh boy do I have a bridge to sell you! Maybe you should open up a history book. Actually, go to wikipedia, search for famines in the last century. Hint: The fun ones are communist! All of it. Maybe look up communist chekist. Watch the movie, crawl in a fetal position for 2 weeks and maybe then you have some idea about how fucked up shit can be and that capitalism, with all its flaws and failures, maybe really isn’t that bad.
What do you mean “for a living hell no”? You think ancient humans didn’t have to work to survive? You think life is some gift to you and you deserve it? Survival is work. You just want free food and shelter while others are working to provide enough for themselves and for you? If surviving is too much work for you, don’t do it. No one is forcing you.
Your point is invalidated by the invention of the combine harvester, among other things. I’d also be happy going to the fields and helping out, or tending my own garden with my neighbors. It’s actually already in my to-do list over the next few years. Also is that a “kill yourself” veiled in your last sentence? Certainly seems like it to me.
You do understand that Elon musk is full of shit, right? AI isn’t going to take away all jobs within the next year.
We automate the crap out of stuff but without humans, the system is dead within days and that isn’t going to change for decades to come, still.
You can put up your hand to beg but people aren’t going to give you stuff just because you’re too lazy or too naive about the world. Maybe 20 years from now there will be universal income because both automation and AI became good enough to really take away jobs. But until then, get your ass back to work, like everybody else
AI isn’t going to take away all jobs within the next year.
AI is not automation, it doesn’t do a shit.
We automate the crap out of stuff but without humans, the system is dead within days and that isn’t going to change for decades to come, still.
From the top of my head: steel plant. Just bring whatever needed to automatic loader and ship whatever stuff comes out with occasional taking of samples to check against desired specs.
Secong thing from top of my head: CNCs. They have been around for at least 50 years.
AI is a subset of logical systems that can control hardware. You know, fly a plane, bake cookies in a factory, that sort of crap. Computer programming does everything.
From the top of my head: steel plant. Just bring whatever needed to automatic loader and ship whatever stuff comes out with occasional taking of samples to check against desired specs.
Yeah, and drawing a photo realistic horse too is done by drawing a circle and then drawing the rest of the horse. Seriously, “ship whatever stuff comes out”… Do you have any idea what goes on in a steel plant? Do you really think that there is no automation going on there now? Do you really think that a steel plant doesn’t require humans to do what is done right now?
I don’t really know what you are trying to say with the street cleaners? Sometimes loads of cheap people are used because then at least you got peopoe with a paid job?
Except if we go into that age without economic reforms made beforehand, then it will become feudalism.
There you go. Something that sounds remotely reasonable. I don’t worry too much about feudalism. If you want reforms, start with the government (I suppose you are in the US). Get rid of the “winner takes all” elections so that you start having many more political parties that now spread the power and have to cooperate. This gives more political stability. This over time will push to more economic stability as well, more tax on rich, less divide between rich and poor.
Sorry to disappoint you, but my work gets to me. That’s called remote work.
So you don’t “get” behind your computer? Either way, you still work, then.
AI is a subset of logical systems that can control hardware. You know, fly a plane, bake cookies in a factory, that sort of crap.
Eeeyp. Control “logic”.
Computer programming does everything.
Nope. Computer still need devices that will do actual shit. Do YOUR gaming pc with NNs and raytracing bakes cookies? Relay computer from 70-ies hooked up to oven does.
Do you have any idea what goes on in a steel plant?
It seems I oversimplified and took not good example. CNCs are better example. My point is a lot of stuff can be automated, a lot of stuff already was automated and it has nothing to do with certan billionare because he crawled or wasn’t even born when automation started. And it doesn’t require AI.
If you want reforms, start with the government
I think it is part of much broader problem with monopolies. We see start that does not exists, we don’t see end, but it exists. Everything should be fixed, there is no “let’s fix one thing and everything else will work because of it”.
(I suppose you are in the US).
No, but where I am has all bad stuff from US. coughcorruption, oligarchy, Putincough
Get rid of the “winner takes all” elections
Monopolies, monopolies everywhere.
so that you start having many more political parties that now spread the power and have to cooperate. This gives more political stability.
I don’t think stability has its value in itself. If everything stable junk, stable corruption, stable irremovable “great leader”, there is no point in stability.
So you don’t “get” behind your computer? Either way, you still work, then.
You got me, I still “get” to workplace. Sadly, getting from work is harder, unless I knock myself unconscious.
you should have to work (to make money, transactionally, anything not valued by capitalism and rich people doesn’t even count, if you don’t or can’t fit this model it doesnt count) to make a living
is that
if you don’t work (with the previous very large caveats for what counts as ‘work’), you deserve to suffer and die
A lot of people don’t think about the implications of that statement when they make it, but that is the logical end point. My experience is that most people - at least if they aren’t stressed from the existing model - absolutely want to do things, often sharing them for free, without coercion.
But even if not, do you think people should be miserable and die if they can’t or even won’t “work for a living” (for a very particular narrow definition of work that can gain you money under the current system, when stuff created and donated is often more valuable than things payed for due to lack of perverse incentives - e.g. FOSS ^.^).
I’m not even starting on how the current model of labour provides perverse anti-automation incentives. Automation should be liberating, but the way our society values people based on labour (e.g. Protestant Work Ethic) actively forces people (and the non-capitalist class as a whole) to avoid tools or processes that should improve our collective lives :/ - imo this is one of the most fucked up things about capitalism.
And who is working to build that automation, who is working to integrate that automation? Who is building the mechanic stuff, the electric stuff the robots and linear tranfer axes, the PlCs and the sensors?
I asked sapient_cogbag who would do the automation work he likes to be implemented? Because someone has to get up in the morning and actually do that work, it doesn’t grow on it’s own.
And you’re asking me about threats of starvation and homelessness … I don’t get it …
The current way we coerce (by threatening starvation and homelessness) is not the only way to make people do things. I agree that free everything forever with sprinkles is probably not going to work or allow us to maintain our current quality of life (I too like pop-tarts medicine, and computers). It’s not a binary. There are options in between that can be used to motivate people to do even unpleasant things.
I think we coerce way to much and I think a lot of coercion that we do benefits only a few people and not the many.
I’m not coerced, I choose to. I could very well live off the land. The only difference would be the life standard and what I can afford, but hey smartphones, internet and restaurants are a first world luxuries not real life needs.
Oh my bad. I did realize you’re one of the 12ish people that can do that. Can you imagine not having that ability and sympathize with people who don’t have that ability? If not, we don’t really have any common ground to stand on.
And I’m not trying to sell to you anything. I never said you can stop working. I never said you can eat dirt.
You can stop working only if someone else has already worked for you accumulating value so you can consume now. Even a big business if going forward only through work. The work of you or of your forefathers that you consume now but someone, sometime had to work.
The people who want to? I mean loads of people like developing infrastructure, hell, I am very much included in that number (more FOSS/software stuff and I’m not always the most effective for various executive dysfunction reasons but still)
People don’t need to be threatened with starvation to do stuff, and not having that threat enables people to do stuff they think is valuable rather than what some rich arsehole wanting to fuck over everyone else thinks is valuable or what will happen to make money <.<
Capitalism is also THE most successful system in our history. Without capitalism you’d be dead. Me too. Without capitalism the would wouldn’t be able to sustain more than a few hundred million people. Do not underestimate all the processes we have in place that make it that you have your Hamburger.on your place to eat and survive. Hospitals would cease to function without it.
So let’s call capitalism a necessary evil of you like. I know there are loads of communist types around here that live in the fantasy world where communism can do this and we’ll, it can’t. If you want, just even look at the history of Communism over the entire world. Every single communist government has failed and has caused only pain and suffering on the practical level.
I fully agree with you that you don’t just want to ket people die so that is the solution?
I’d say a limited capitalist system where we place hard limits on what companies can do, hard limits on sizes and incomes and what people can own through -for example- taxes. The more you earn, the more you pay until taxes reach 100%
With that huge income you finance a socialist state where all the basics are free. Free healthcare , free education, etc. Food and housing is paid with Universal income so that everyone can at least afford a basic nice level of living. Anyone who wants extra can work extra in the capitalist system and earn extra if they want, but not need.
That just my 2 cents, but you’ll still need capitalism. Take that away and you’ll destroy the world and kill millions.
define success and what systems you’re comparing it to. it may come as a surprise to you but many people don’t value the supposed benefits of capitalism the way you do or even agree with the statements you’re spouting as if they are facts. note communism isn’t generally the system people propose as alternatives today due to its centralized nature. not the mention the changes to a capitalist system you made would make it not a capitalist system as you’re putting restrictions on the market. and capitalism is based on a ‘free’ market. which is both impossible to have and easily corrupted.
Like it or not, most scientific advances we have today are because of capitalism. It’s because we have the resources available to research more. In the old Sovjet Union it was done with force and well, if you fail you die (Stalin was fun!) and I’m sorry, I don’t think that is good.
Every communist country so far has failed. Want a definition? They were poverty ridden shitholes where you had no rights. If you didn’t like the system, you could rot and be tortured in jail. I call that a failure. All communist countries were dictatorships because you can only run communism by force. Watch the Russian movie “the chekist (1992)” I dare you.
Communism is fun!
Pure capitalism is pretty bad too, few will deny that. However, in basic it’s successful. Measure success? The USA. Why is the USA so powerful? Because of its economy.
The problem is that the USA has been, als lately is getting more extreme in its capitalism. Companies get more power, politicians less, rich get Richter, poor get poorer.
If you want to solve that, limit captialism. Take the Strength of capitalism (the freedom for people to buy and earn how they like)and limit the rest. Companies cannot buy other companies. Companies cannot grow beyond, say, 1000 persons. Income tax goes up and up and once 1 person earns toward (for example) 10 times the lawful minimum wage, the rest over that gets taxed at 100%.
This would create a society that does have Capitalism to make a strong economy, it has freedom, but it also has a huge capital available to make a social system on top of that. Use that money for free schooling, free healthcare, universal basic income, etc.
A system like that is much more doable and just a little more than currently being done in many European countries.
While at it, redesign your cites to no longer be car centric. 15 minute cities are awesome look at the Netherlands. Great public transportation and you can pretty much bike anywhere. Electrical bikes made this tenfold better even, there is no reason for car centric cities that keep people in poverty.
you attribute a lot to capitalism without any real evidence its actually the cause. the rest of your post is an uninformed rant about communism which I’m not even going to bother addressing because its your straw man; I’ve made no argument in favor of communism.
you’re entire argument seems to be ‘US is capitalism; everything they do is a result of capitalism’ which is fundamentally not the case our schools where the majority of research happens are publicly funded. most companies engaged in research receive public funding. that’s not capitalism mate.
you want to change capitalism yourself because its a fucking horrible system and you know it deep down; you just can’t articulate why.
All I said is pretty public knowledge and it isn’t that hard. Where do you thing western capital for their research, schools, medical system, and war machine comes from? Why do you think the western world is by far the biggest and most dominant player in the entire world ever since WWII?
Capitalism and democracy
And I’m not saying it’s great, I’m not saying capitalism doesn’t have parts that need major improvement but if you look at why the west is so extremely powerful, that is the answer. Capitalism makes for enormous economies which then are used for a large lost of things. Where do you think the money for public funding comes from? Even poor people in the US have it multitudes of times better than the average person in Africa.
All I said about communism is spot on as well. If you don’t like it then I guess you Don’t like communism.
If you have nothing to say about any of it then I guess you simply don’t have an answer to give
why the west is so extremely powerful, that is the answer.
again you cite something without any evidence to back it up. its not capitalism that granted the west dominance. its geography. post world war 2 every country not in the americas was absolutely gutted economically, culturally. the ‘west’ (i.e. capitalism) came to true prominence during this era when literally every other country was in tatter the USs economic engine was basically pumping on full cyclinders. it just happens that the US was also practicing capitalism at the same time; china which is not a capitalist country rivals the US in economic power today.
the US protected from most of the devastation of the war due to the oceans protecting it borders was the only country able to support rebuilding and retooling the rest of the world. its pure dumb geography that lead to this situation not any intrinsic merits of capitalism. not to mention during the war the US had more characteristics of a centrally planned economy than a capitalist one. go figure.
Of all political systems, democracy is the best because it gives people freedoms. Democracy still sucks, but the rest is way way worse.
Of all economical systems, capitalism is the best in the way of generating resources because it gives people freedoms to trade directly and find ways themselves to find the most efficient ways of producing goods. Yeah, it sucks too and has lots of failures that CAN be addressed but nothing comes even close to it.
Evidence? Look at all capitalist countries, look at non capitalist countries. Look at Russia for a nice communist example. Communism was implemented and promptly they had a famine. That is on too of all the torture and killing requires to keep its citizens in line. The why you can look ip yourself. Watch the movie "the chekist 1992, always a fun demo. It stayed a shit hole that kept torturing it’s citizens in golulags to keep them in line intil it fell apart in the 90’s, and went to a capitalistic economy and promptly Russia started growing. That is until mobster boss Putin got his greedy little claws on it but that is a different story
When Europe was in shambles it rose back up within a decade thanks to the Marshall plan which pushed capitalist economy back in running. Because of capitalism Europe is the second most powerful block in the world.
Look, capitalism on itself sucks. I fully agree. But you can’t deny it’s power. So you do what Europe does, use the power, limit it, and use the output to give a nice socialist society.
Honestly, I have more of an anarchist mindset. You shouldn’t have to work, at least not a job. I’d rather build my own house and grow my own food. Everything I do directly benefits me and my family, not the rich. But I need money to buy the land…
In general, I agree with you and I understand what you mean. But building your own house and growing your own food - don’t underestimate that. It is an amazing idea (and feeling) to work for your own direct benefit. But it is an awful lot of work. My uncle in law lives like that in Ukraine. They have a small house in the middle of a nowhere village. The only money they get is from biking (!) with some of their crops to the next town to sell them. That’s a nice life but they have to work hard work from dawn to late evening every single day. No sick days. No weekends. No evenings off. No running water. No warm showers. No plumbing. You poop outside, in the cold, in a little wooden house with a bucket. They kind of chose to live like this (his other siblings moved away, he didn’t want to give up their parents’ land) but it is a hard life that tears on you. It breaks your bones, literally. As much as we all hate working for corporate here - for obvious reasons that demand all the support we got - be cautious of over-romantisizing this kind of self-sufficient lifestyle in the countryside.
I’d like to have my own house built, not just a wooden cabin. Run off of well water for water, and solar panels for electricity. I know that with the way that Modern Industrial Society is, I’d have to buy the land, couldn’t just off grid it.
I actually want to become an android developer within this society. I’m aware that my career wouldn’t define me at all, and I don’t really care about titles. I get to work remotely which makes being in the country easier, and would make decent money to buy the land and equipment needed, and maybe get some degree of help.
Alaska is your best bet, just dont vote like you do in continental america (if you are american). Alaska and the interior of Canada are the last true frontiers in the west.
Whether you like it or not, you live in a civil society. You are not alone, which is why we have rules on how we interact with eachother. I guart you, take away those rules and it’ll get a lot worse for all of us. Calling yourself an anarchist at 20 is fun and edgy, doing it at 30 is just anti social and ego centric and at 40 it’s just plain sad.
You have to work because we all do. You have to eat, use electricity, drink water. Why do you thinnei we pay taxes?
No. I was born. I went through elementary school, middle school (junior high for my Midwestern peeps) and high school and then being like 'well, shit. I guess i have t work now."
It is unfortunate that this anti-work rhetoric often comes off as outrageous, when in reality it isn’t. I don’t know if the people doing it are intentionally trying to be controversial, or if they just are not good at communicating.
When we complain about work, this doesn’t mean that we are asking for a world where we lounge all day at home, and expect that food, shelter and entertainment are magically delivered to us without any regard to how it happens. No, anti-work is not about a blind sense of entitlement. But that is how a lot of these posts come off as, even if their authors don’t intend it.
Anti-work is a recognition that the working class works way too damn much; so much more than we need to to have a functioning society with everyone living happily and having their needs met. There’s so much inefficiency in capitalism, with aims to drive more capital to the wealthy, and working around other stupidities of capitalism (check out the book “Bullshit jobs” for examples). The ruling class holds hostage the world’s resources, and requires you to give them a large portion of your life to get even the minimum needed to sustain your living. Now that is outrageous.
I was born in a comunist society and can wholeheartedly tell you (I presume you are from US or a western country): you don’t even know or can imagine what inefficient is :)
I am not from the US or Western, and I understand and can imagine it well. Socialism is still the answer. I’d be happy to discuss this further with you, but I’ll keep it at that otherwise.
But that’s kind of the point here. There hasn’t been any win. So far no proposed system has been able to beat capitalism in terms of efficiency. Right?
I think a lot of people have trouble understanding the difference between “I don’t want to contribute anything to society” and “I don’t want to spend half my waking life laboring for peanuts so that my boss can get rich”.
Obviously, we should contribute according to our means, but we need to be compensated for those contributions accordingly.
…but we need to be compensated for those contributions accordingly.
This is the part they object to, thanks to the proliferation of Econ 101 thinking. Market wages are, after all, competitive by definition. For someone that hasn’t gone beyond basic economics, what you’re paid for the work you do is fair compensation.
The anti-work rhetoric is, first of all, incredibly misleading for people who take things at face value. But more important, the underlying theory for why market wages aren’t fair is different for each person you talk to. There is no coherent, rhetorically forceful reasoning for why people should be paid more. And separate messages that arrive at the same conclusion aren’t really effective at scale.
Getting paid better would be nice, but that will just bring the middle class closer to poverty. I’ve been a part of this community for a few years now and I have been fighting for better wages this whole time. But the biggest pain to me is inflation. Things keep costing more and more, but I keep making the same amount of money. Wouldn’t price regulations be a better solution to all of this to all of this? Not trying to start a fight, but looking for a slight skew from the topic.
Wouldn’t price regulations be a better solution to all of this
What would that solve though?
I mean say, a loaf of bread is price regulated at $3/loaf. Do we treat it like the minimum wage and let it sit there for 15 years at $3? What about bread producers? After a few years, they’re certainly not getting paid the market price for their production. Is that justified to ensure that bread remains at $3?
The problems of price controls are demonstrated quite convincingly with rent controls versus just building affordable housing: the former doesn’t increase the housing supply which means, even if rent is affordable, some people remain homeless.
After a few years, they’re certainly not getting paid the market price for their production.
Why not? When monopoly sets price it is market price, but when monopsony-like actor does same it is not?
versus just building affordable housing: the former doesn’t increase the housing supply which means, even if rent is affordable, some people remain homeless.
I recommend you to watch Rossmann’s walks around NYC where he just shows places that can be rented, but nobody does for 10 years. It is not because there is not enough supply, there was oversupply even before pandemic, just a lot of companies prefer to let place rot, then rent at fair literally market price because it will bring down rent on other places. Well, for housing there is also ban of everything that is not single-family shed or humant colony.
Getting paid better would be nice, but that will just bring the middle class closer to poverty
This is not how math work. If you add 10% to wage for everyone, then nothing will change(with few exceptions that will become more affordable, mostly some sorts of taxes). But if you add 100$ to wage for everyone, then rich become sloghtly less rich, poor will become relatively richer and middle class will be slightly richer.
But the biggest pain to me is inflation. Things keep costing more and more, but I keep making the same amount of money.
The biggest problem is not inflation itself, but that capitalists when increase price of product will not increase wage of worker. If there is deflation, then capitalist will cut wages, but keep prices high
Regulations for everything would not allow the greedy pigs to make their own rules. What you’re asking for is that they gain some sort of heart and start valuing something other than their products. That won’t happen. I really think regulation is a better plan because it’s creating laws that cap profits. Then we can hit em with their own medicine and up the minimum wage too. Maybe even put a maximum wage out there.
Maybe I’ve seen too much star trek and I’m believing that the socialist/communist utopia exists out there someday. Maybe I’m crazy. All I know for sure is I don’t like the hand I was delt and it’s way too hard to fold.
Reminds me Savateev’s proposed education reform. Cap school directors’ wage at something like 2x-3x of lowest of top-60%(below median) teachers’ wages in conjunction with banning overtime more than 50%(hard cap work time at 150% of normal, currently over 200% is common practice which is really bad).
There are always jobs elsewhere, though it’s hard to see that for those who are complacent. I could apply for a job that would give me a 200k/yr raise, but I don’t because I enjoy where I work and I believe the job I’m working at now will benefit me in the long run.
Like your thesis that capitslism is inefficient. I agree! It is efficient though solving a problem, it’s just the wrong one (money instead of happiness as the x).
A good start might be not calling the movement Anti-work, as that seems to be an all or nothing type of negative name, to those who feel everyone should put in their fair amount of work to earn the rewards from society.
Perhaps smart-work or fair-work or right-work would have been a better name for the movement, less of a blockage / hurtle for others to get over.
The thing of such names is they cannot be hijacked as fas as I know. You simply can’t do anti-work-washing or create yellow anti-work union. Distorted anti-work is worse for capitalism than real anti-work because supporter of distorted anti-work will not agree to work at all.
You have a good point. Although I doubt it’s worth the trade off. I think pirate party movements vs environmental movement is a good comparison. Pirate party-ism kind of died. Environmentalism lives on. Not saying it’s necessarily because of naming. But, I don’t think sounding like you’re “pro theft” helped.
The negative connotation that you mention is the point of the trade off. On one hand it makes the message less appealing - because it’s using a symbolic name with a negative connotation.
On the other hand - the negative connotation makes it less likely that the symbols will be hijacked by opponents.
By example:
Green movements don’t have symbols with such connotation. Opponents use green washing to hijack the movement.
Pirate party movements do have names and symbols with negative connotations. If you’re working with intellectual property you don’t want to be associated with piracy. There’s no such thing as pirate-washing…(?) However, open source movements is a related phenomenon and a counter example. There have been examples of open source-washing. Companies that pretend to be open but they really aren’t really. Android and openai comes to mind.
When a movement is formed there is a possibility to build a narrative that is more or less desirable to hijack. Making it less desirable to hijack might make it less desirable overall. That’s the trade off.
Wouldn’t say so. They got more popular, they are just not as often mentioned in news as before.
In Russia for example Pirate Party was frozen becase during Putin’s reign it is unsafe(as in you will be killed or imprisoned) to register opposition. So currently PP works as Roskomsvoboda(PP’s project like EFF).
The thing of such names is they cannot be hijacked as fas as I know. You simply can’t do anti-work-washing or create yellow anti-work union.
Actually that’s usually the number one way if somebody combating you where they want to “kill the messenger”, they hijacked a term and make it mean something different than it should be.
For example being a liberal used to mean one thing and then conservances painted it in a different light, and now it has a negative connotation in our society to centrists.
Distorted anti-work is worse for capitalism than real anti-work because supporter of distorted anti-work will not agree to work at all.
I honestly read this four times, and just literally do not understand the point you’re trying to make.
If you can elaborate on it so I can see what you’re trying to tell me I’d appreciate it.
Fundamentally the point I was trying to make is that “anti-work”, when people hear that they think “this person doesn’t want to work for their living and carry their weight in our society”. It’s a very strong negative connotation, and usually it shuts somebody down from listening to you and to your ideas right at the start.
If your goal is a fair work philosophy then you should state that in the tldr name for it. If otherwise you truly mean no work, then ‘anti-work’ has a tldr name that matches that philosophy better.
I certainly agree. I never liked the term anti-work at all. I prefer to just cut to the chase and explain what I’m about. Or call myself a socialist. That may have its own baggage to unpack as well, but at least its not a core semantic flaw in the term.
Anti-work is extremely unfortunate. We really named a movement after a strawman criticism of leftists by boomers.
How I see this problem is that we aren’t given to tools to help us decide how we want to live our lives. Work sucks and is a waste of time. Contributing to society is valuable and something I want to do.
That’s the goal. But I can’t reject the fact that I need to work. It’s gotta happen. And I also don’t want to be depressed all the time. My comment is kind of about learning how to keep doing what I need to do without being sad and or angry about it all the time.
I’ve always been envious of those people who grew up knowing what they wanted to do with their lives and then they did it. It seems like what we want is incongruent with what is available. It’s like they were born into something that was designed for them, but I think at least part of it is parenting and education. Doesn’t help that our world is kind of fucked up though. Hard to close my eyes to that and be excited about choosing a career. That and* we’re kind of serfs.
I actually think we should work towards a 20-hour work week or less. Our kids and civic duties suffer for our lack of time and energy, making for intergenerational mental illness and an general civic incompetence (facilitated by the gutting of public education programs)
During the 2020 epidemic and lockdown bunches of people were furloughed and we all got to acquaint ourselves with extended cabin fever. Many of us picked up new hobbies and some of those could ne monetized and were better than the (often toxic, underpaid) dayjobs.
It was a conspicuous phenomenon now called the great resignation. Our capitalst masters compain how no one wants to work, but it’s evident to the rest of us that it’s the toxic underpaid conditions we don’t like, and we’d be glad to work if conditions were better.
I suspect laziness isn’t a real character flaw or deadly sin so much as the desire to not suffer as we work. (There is avolition, a symptom of mental illnes such as major depression, and this is what drives people to couch-potaro for weeks or months at a time.)
I think that modern work is something done to us, as a form of violence. We’re told to go here, do this, and in return we get just enough to get by. Humans are definitely not lazy, but we do have a problem with slavery.
I think at this point it should be 3 six-hour days per week. 100+ years of technological progress increasing productivity, and the number of people’s needs that can be covered by the same amount of work.
One main reason for keeping the pressure in the system is that whichever global superpower exploits their population the most effectively has the upper hand in most fronts. If there wasn’t a competition for world dominance then we could all relax a bit more. Til then we are forced into vigilance.
This sounds like something I would hear in Russia. Those who have at least fraction of functioning brain will ask question “If every citizen will be grinded in name of superpower then what everyone will get? 2 by 2 in the nearest forest and a wooden cross.”
When state acquires its own will that contradists of majoroty of own citizen, it is not a state. Maybe it is Prutin’s mafia, maybe it is China’s puppet, but not a state.
For the literal sense, yes, I do remember consenting work for livelihood. Now, that work actually is being made into servitude, I don’t remember. Livable work is really scarce, servitude and selling-out isn’t.
Instead of choosing to work less and live a life of leisure, freedom and the pursuit of happiness, we kept working at the same or an increasing rate to make more money, or rather, those who own(ed) the capital and technology that makes it so did.
It’s a bit of a pithy answer in an online comment but I genuinely believe humanity as a whole would be happier with less if it meant we got to live life on our own terms by default. Ever growing consumption way past the point of necessity comes with a host of problems (power and wealth imbalance, climate change, destruction of nature, etc) but by far the biggest one is the sheer waste of our few laps around the sun.
I think this is easily represented by the fact that technology keeps improving, things get automated but somehow we are still working the same, if not more.
Every square inch of the earth is owned. I cannot fuck off into the woods, build a cabin, grow vegetables, hunt food, etc. I’m forced to be a part of society. Laws say I cannot provide for myself by natural means, there for society is required to provide for me within its system.
A major problem with our society is that everything is framed conceptually as debt. A world where you are not born into debt is seen as unjust because your basic needs must be provided by others, and that can supposedly only be a financial transaction.
But from a purely logistical and motivational perspective, it’s easy to imagine not threatening people with homelessness and death for not working. Everything is heavily automated. The large majority of people used to be subsistence farmers, now the proportion working in agriculture is less than 2% and we produce way more than is actually needed for human survival. You only need a little bit of labor provided beyond transactional compensation to make it happen. As for why anyone would choose to do so, it would be for all the same reasons people already work other than the threat of death; status, money, luxury, desire for purpose and fulfillment.
The only question is whether it is morally good and acceptable to allocate resources to someone without demanding payment. And it is; just stop thinking of debt as inherently right and required, and recognize that it’s better not to force debt on someone just for being born and having basic needs.
There’s more to life than food, most of which requires work. But even in just the food realm, that food needs to be shipped, processed (unless you want to start slaughtering your own animals) and delivered. All of which requires people.
Then, sure, some farming is automated but the materials that are automated? Yup, they have to be extracted, refined, assembled, and shipped. Not to mention y’know, designing those. And of course the people who have to fix them when they break.
All of which requires other industries, people to maintain roads, people to generate the power required to move the food along the roads, people to oversee the distribution etc.
Debt isn’t required but that works both ways, why does the world owe you stuff for being born?
What I’m saying is that there is no need to think of it in terms of anyone owing or being owed anything, and in fact it is better not to do so.
As for the rest of it, no matter how you stack it it’s a basic fact that per-capita productivity is many times higher than in the past when sustained survival was the focus of the majority of work. Most work today is not done for that, or is done inefficiently (ie. meat production). There is no reason it should be logistically impossible to make basic needs a guarantee using a fraction of economic output.
What I’m saying is that there is no need to think of it in terms of anyone owing or being owed anything, and in fact it is better not to do so.
So why are these people whom you intend to have working the farms (and all the other people required to make those farms work, as explained earlier) going to just give you their food while you take a nap?
As for the rest of it, no matter how you stack it it’s a basic fact that per-capita productivity is many times higher than in the past when sustained survival was the focus of the majority of work.
And infant mortality is many times lower, life expectancies are way longer, basic comfort (say, being able to read at night, or even read if you are one of the many people who needs glasses) etc. All of which require a large coordinated system. Is your suggestion that doctors (for example) should spend decades training for the heck of it while you hang out on a beach? Or that heck with it, we don’t need no stinkin’ doctors?
Maybe it would help if someone could answer the question, “What exactly are you advocating?”
All I’m pointing out is that food doesn’t just get to your table on its own. A lot of people have to make that happen. Either you’re expecting they give it to you out of the goodness of their hearts or they owe you food for being born. In other words, the point seems to be “I don’t want to owe anyone for food but everyone owes me food!”
So why are these people whom you intend to have working the farms (and all the other people required to make those farms work, as explained earlier) going to just give you their food while you take a nap?
I covered that earlier. They get payment, recognition, and generally everything people want out of careers (except for survival, which is guaranteed regardless).
Is your suggestion that doctors (for example) should spend decades training for the heck of it while you hang out on a beach? Or that heck with it, we don’t need no stinkin’ doctors?
Universal free healthcare is reality in many countries and does not entail the enslavement of doctors. I do think lowering the requirements and expense of becoming a doctor and practicing medicine would be a good idea though.
As for all the trappings of consumer society that people consider part of a normal life, it doesn’t all have to be on the table. I think plenty of people would happily do more things for themselves and give up non-essential comforts if it meant freedom from wage slavery. People can cook their own food, they can learn to fix their own sinks, or earn money to pay for that stuff.
What I’m saying is that there is no need to think of it in terms of anyone owing or being owed anything, and in fact it is better not to do so.
They get payment, recognition, and generally everything people want out of careers
Those are all repayments of debt. That’s literally how payment works. I work at a hospital, hospital is in debt to me for however many hours I worked.
If I don’t have to work to have my needs met, why would I work on a farm? Those are hard hours (by necessity, talk to a farmer, it’s wild.) If we’re going to give them payment and recognition, there need to be things to purchase with that payment that are worth it. Those things don’t come from thin air.
If the choice is wake up and go to work or hang out, bliss out on drugs and chill, how many people are going to take the former?
Universal free healthcare is reality in many countries and does not entail the enslavement of doctors.
True, we have universal healthcare in my country. We also have to work and pay heavier taxes to pay for that. It’s a fair trade. But it takes up a huge chunk of the budget. If a large chunk of the workforce doesn’t feel like working AND we’re paying them not to, well the system doesn’t really work.
they can learn to fix their own sinks
Ahhh groovy, a million untrained plumbers and electricians surely won’t cause problems!
Anyway, I’m just not cut out for this sub. I stumbled on it using all and frankly, this just reminds me of the silliness we used to vehemently discuss when I was stoned high schooler. The world is way more complex than any of us understood at the time. I don’t think the system as it exists is perfect but this “counter” feels like a pretty silly rebuttal.
Ahhh groovy, a million untrained plumbers and electricians surely won’t cause problems!
I don’t think I’m being flippant by saying this. I’ve lived an extremely minimal lifestyle for my whole adult life and do all of the maintenance and repairs on my home. Some things are unsafe to do without professional input, but the majority of services people pay for are things they could realistically have learned to do themselves instead or gone without. Food preparation deserves a special mention here, most people spend a ridiculous amount not cooking for themselves.
Those are all repayments of debt. That’s literally how payment works. I work at a hospital, hospital is in debt to me for however many hours I worked.
Sure, but keep my first statement there in context. What I’m saying isn’t about an employment contract. It’s about applying the framework of debt to the birth and existence of a person. To think of their survival needs as a debt they owe to whoever has worked to provide those. That isn’t a healthy way to extend the metaphor, your life is not a financial contract and should not be treated as one.
True, we have universal healthcare in my country. We also have to work and pay heavier taxes to pay for that. It’s a fair trade. But it takes up a huge chunk of the budget. If a large chunk of the workforce doesn’t feel like working AND we’re paying them not to, well the system doesn’t really work.
Knowing what tradeoffs most people are comfortable with I strongly believe a majority would feel like working. The tradeoff is worth it because the current reality of effectively forcing people to work at threat of death is just that bad morally, and causes a variety of other serious problems that would resolve themselves if we stopped doing that. For instance, people in abusive situations being financially unable to escape.
I feel like the objection people have normally isn’t really about whether people actually would really react by lazing around and not working, but a sense that it is unjust if this is an option for them. I don’t have a way of persuading anyone to feel differently about that, but I will point out that a UBI would also give people who work more freedom and negotiating power because it means they can say no.
Anyway, I’m just not cut out for this sub. I stumbled on it using all and frankly, this just reminds me of the silliness we used to vehemently discuss when I was stoned high schooler.
Hey, I’m a grown adult and only mildly stoned :) Anyway I’m not a regular in this sub either, this is my first time posting here afaik and a lot of common views here I really disagree with, so don’t take what I’m saying as an indication.
and a lot of common views here I really disagree with
Well, that makes two of us!
I meant to apologize, I was pretty dismissive (I mean, goddamn, some of the children in this sub are caricatures of a younger dumber me) but then once I blocked the sub lemmy wouldn’t show me my old posts/comments.
It’s about applying the framework of debt to the birth and existence of a person.
Again, you are applying debt, just the other way. Instead of the person working to sustain themselves, society is now indebted to someone for being born and owes them food. If people don’t want to provide anything to society but society has to provide for them, that’s just incurring a debt, just from society to the person who doesn’t feel like working.
your life is not a financial contract and should not be treated as one.
Your life has requirements whether you want them or not. You need to eat, drink, sleep etc. In a society or on your own, those are requirements regardless of your choices (except to end your life, which, totally fair, I got no issue with that.) Everything that lives has requirements about working. Animals are always working in that they are being hunted or finding food for the vast majority of their existence. We have progressed so have cushier lives but I don’t see why someone who doesn’t want to do anything to promote their own survival is owed anything by anyone else to keep them surviving.
If we solved almost every other problem, I think sure, those who don’t want to work shouldn’t have to. But in reality, resources/cash is limited. If we can change the system such that we have unlimited goods, sure. But, given reality, the notion of taxing more of those working because some of the most well off humans who have ever existed don’t want to work their historically cushy jobs? Ehhhhh… And while we could and definitely should change some of our priorities, I could list a hundred or so priorities that would come first. Off the top of my head (from Canadian perspective) doctor/nurse shortage, world hunger, climate change, war and civil strife, shortage of educators, expand national dental care, finish and completely subsidize childcare, healthcare in the developing world, housing etc etc etc.
I think this one also touches a nerve because frankly, at least in Canada, for your bare needs, you’re pretty much okay. We have soup kitchens that feed all who come. We have shelters that have space. It’s not glamorous, it’s sleeping in a gigantic dormitory where you’re not allowed to use drugs or alcohol. But considering the demand here is that folks shouldn’t have to work, well, that seems reasonable. You aren’t going to starve to death here.
I get that there are some unfortunate situations but my heavens, there are way more serious situations/issues that are important and need to be addressed.
I feel like the objection people have normally isn’t really about whether people actually would really react by lazing around and not working, but a sense that it is unjust if this is an option for them.
There is something morally weird about subsidizing people who can work who simply don’t want to. I’m all in favour of social safety nets for those who can’t work (even for those with substance issues, though living in Vancouver I certainly have some reservations about that. You can only watch elderly people in your life be assaulted by junkies so many times before you start to rethink your position), free education (be it technical schools, post secondary, apprenticeships etc) and the like. But to have to work extra so that someone, who is one of the most privileged humans on Earth (and historically, lives better than all but a tiny fraction of a percent of humans before them) who doesn’t want to work doesn’t have to? Especially when we have trouble paying doctors, nurses, teachers and the like? No, that doesn’t feel right at all.
Your life has requirements whether you want them or not.
Yes, but this is not debt, it is something more fundamental than debt. Humanity will die if it does not take care of itself. But that is not connected by any natural law to a balancing ledger of impersonal financial obligations. A person may act to help others for reasons that are not their personal survival, and frankly I think most valuable work that is done is already done mainly for reasons beyond just the money. Sure, we will all die if we all choose not to help each other, but is that really something to be afraid of? If enough people stop caring, I think that happens anyway, enforced obligation to work or no.
those are requirements regardless of your choices (except to end your life, which, totally fair, I got no issue with that.)
I have a big issue with it. I don’t think you’re right about modern life being incredibly comfortable (though I do live in the US, so my perspective might be a little different). There are large numbers of people experiencing severe alienation and financial pressures, expected to spend large portions of their lives covering mandatory expenses that have risen way beyond what they ever were historically. That leads naturally to a cultural thread of suicidal ideation; that if what you are working for is a society that seems to regard your problems with contempt and dismissal, holds little meaning, and your reward is a life forced into more of the same, then maybe death is the better option. And people do actually kill themselves over feeling trapped financially, it’s a common reason. In the past this line of thinking also made sense to me; given the options that seemed to be available, life seemed like a questionable choice. I see this as a failure. As a society we are failing these people.
But that is not connected by any natural law to a balancing ledger of impersonal financial obligations.
Again, in nature, if you don’t work and find food, you die. No animal with a consciousness just hangs out and survives. Similarly, I don’t see any reason why a person just gets to chill because they don’t want to work while others work to feed and provide for them. But maybe I’m not understanding what you’re trying to say.
There are large numbers of people experiencing severe alienation and financial pressures, expected to spend large portions of their lives covering mandatory expenses that have risen way beyond what they ever were historically.
??? Are you kidding? For most of human history people have worked way longer hours for more days than we do now. In the feudal era, the vast majority of people didn’t own much besides a shirt or two. They would build a shelter (which was technically owned by whomever owned the land it wase on) often a single room structure without a proper chimney so it was smoky, smelly and filled with a large number of children (as well as the multitude of pests that lived in the thatch roof, which generally leaked.) The large number of children was necessary because the land needed more hands to work it from dawn to dusk and most of those children died incredibly young. Even though someone would work the land all year, the food they grew wasn’t theirs and they could be killed for eating it instead of providing it to their lord.
And that was a VAST improvement from the plebians and slaves that made up the majority of people in empires before them. You think the folks who built the pyramids were on vacation?
Heck, during the industrial revolution, people were housed in large dormitories where they would trudge to work 70 hour work weeks and in return, earn just enough to keep them alive, maybe a bit extra for gin.
There’s a reason the Myth of Sysyphus (Camus) starts by stating “There is but one serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”
Life has been unpleasant for most people for most of human existence. And it’s not wildly better across much of the world. Ask the children who lost their limbs mining the cobalt in our phones, or the ones working 12 - 14 hours a day (and occasionally burn to death doing so as it’s easier to lock fire escapes to prevent people from escaping) every day, to make our cheap clothes. Or any Ethiopian how the last few years have been.
Yes, society could and should be better. Like I said, there are lots of serious issues. But providing for everyone who simply chooses not to work? Not in my top hundred priorities. To paraphrase George Carlin, some rich (globally speaking) fuck doesn’t want to eat? Fuck em. Don’t eat. I don’t give a shit.
My heart bleeds for those unable to work, whether because of trauma, mental or physical issues. We need to support those folks and we need to do it better. But this whiny, I didn’t ask to be born and I don’t want to work? Nope, you’re not special and don’t get to skip the work life that everyone else has to deal with. Especially when there are people dying literally every day just for a chance to work a worse job for less money. It’s mind bogglingly, I dunno if you’d call it selfish, self centered or just ignorant but I have no respect for it.
No, I’m not. If you want to get an idea of how things have changed to become more financially constraining, I recommend the book Walden by Thoreau, which offers financial specifics which can be compared to modern circumstances (the cost of housing relative to labor is of particular interest). If you want to consider more distant history, I highly recommend the book Debt: The First 5000 Years.
But this whiny, I didn’t ask to be born and I don’t want to work? Nope, you’re not special and don’t get to skip the work life that everyone else has to deal with. Especially when there are people dying literally every day just for a chance to work a worse job for less money.
I’ll just point out that what I’m talking about is Universal Basic Income, not the sort of program that is sometimes described as ‘Basic Income’ that is means tested and only pays people who are very poor but where benefits rapidly drop off if they start earning money. The main beneficiaries of UBI are working people, especially if the program is designed as a remedy to wealth inequality, and has a funding mechanism that focuses on large concentrations of wealth rather than clawing back job income.
I don’t think Walden is really the best choice if you’re going to look at human history… I mean, it’s written by a white guy who was one of the 2% or so of people who had a post secondary education who was only able to build his house because he was squatting on his buddy’s land… Were someone willing to grant you the land, you could buy the same materials he used for about the same price, if not cheaper. (As long as you were willing to spend however many years building and convincing others to help you build as he did.) And besides that, it’s in a somewhat unique point in history/space where the United States had plenty of land and was rapidly expanding, that’s fairly unusual in human history. (At that point, it was far more common to live in large shared housing rampant with rats and disease. You might look at The Condition of the Working Class in England, which noted that almost half of all children died before age 5.)
I’ll put it very simply, would you say that your life is better or worse than the average person in the feudal era? Or the Roman times? Or Greek? Or Egyptian? Or during the industrial revolution?
The main beneficiaries of UBI are working people, especially if the program is designed as a remedy to wealth inequality, and has a funding mechanism that focuses on large concentrations of wealth rather than clawing back job income.
Yeah, I’d much rather an extremely progressive tax system wherein the wealthy are taxed significantly and we can use the revenue to support the working poor (subsidizing housing, expenses etc.) None of this is a reason why someone should be able to declare they don’t want to work but society is still indebted to them and owes them housing and food.
Were someone willing to grant you the land, you could buy the same materials he used for about the same price, if not cheaper.
That’s not the same as being able to build something you can legally live in. And I’m not referring specifically to his circumstances, the book goes into what costs were for people in general (dramatically lower for housing, clothes and food were more of a bottleneck, but clearly a more flexible one). Even considering a greater availability of habitable land, it doesn’t account for the difference. It should be clear from things like the ratio of wages to productivity and measures of wealth inequality that especially in recent history the bulk of people are getting squeezed, and their agency over their lives and how they are spent has been in decline for a long time.
None of this is a reason why …
Maybe not, but it’s a reason why appealing to a comparison with the struggling working poor makes no sense. Those people would also be lifted up, and to a greater extent; the most elegant aspect of UBI is that by granting workers the ability to say no, it gives them a negotiating power that would be more flexible, effective, and has fewer negative externalities than specific employment regulations might. Any jobs that are unsafe, have an abusive work environment, etc. will need to find some balance of improved conditions and higher pay, being no longer being able to prey on desperate people forced to sell themselves. The OP framing of this as being about consent is absolutely correct, and I think there exists no other hypothetical measures that could possibly solve these issues as cleanly, because all issues of poverty are inherently about a lack of agency and safety, and restraining employers does not itself grant a worker agency. Giving them money not tied to employment does.
I’ll happily answer the rest but you keep focusing on the account of one of the most privileged people of the time (again, only 2% of the population had the luxury of a post secondary education.)
I keep asking a simple question and getting no answer, but I’ll try again:
Simply put, would you have rather been an average person from say, 0 BC to 1800? If so, where/when?
I don’t think his level of privilege has much bearing on the approximate accuracy of the numbers he cites, which are what is relevant to my argument. I don’t think he was making that stuff up.
would you have rather been an average person from say, 0 BC to 1800? If so, where/when?
No, my own life has gone well enough, I got what I wanted. What I’m advocating for isn’t anything I need for myself. But when I talk or read the accounts of people who feel financially trapped, particularly young people, there isn’t any realistic advice to offer. What worked out for me isn’t reproducible and isn’t available to them. I don’t have a deep enough knowledge of history to talk about specific times and places. But for someone who resents the life that has been chosen for them and doesn’t want it, sure, why wouldn’t they be better off rolling the dice with historical circumstances? The specific malaise affecting them now was not there, and maybe whatever hardships would be faced instead would be more tolerable to them. But there’s no reason that should be the standard anyway. We are so rich in resources compared to any other time, there is no justification for anyone to be trapped like that. Everyone can be free to do what they want, and so they should.
I think I have said all I have to say on this. It bothers me that you seem to think it’s acceptable to let people who find their work intolerable to fall into despair and kill themselves, but you’ve made some valid arguments and it’s refreshing to discuss this with someone who does not seem to be a property rights absolutist, so thanks for sharing your perspective.
Edit: One last thing I want to mention, beyond making a point about whether the progress of civilization is a strict improvement, Debt: The First 5000 Years is also a comprehensive critique of the moral logic of debt. If it seems strange to reject that logic, I again recommend that book.
The world has resources, countries have public resources or resources that should be publicly owned, like every source of energy. It shouldn’t be difficult to have a built-in buffer that means everyone’s going to be okay, from public sources of income.
And no child chooses to be born. The world even complains that not enough people are being born, demanding more. Bringing children into the world should mean responsibilities, not just for the parents, but the society that insists on it.
And no child has to stay. You always have an exit.
The world doesn’t you things just because you exist. And frankly, there are millions of starving folks who do work hard who are probably more deserving of stuff than some of the most privileged people in human history complaining “I don’t wanna work!” We have it better than all but a tiny fraction of a percent of all the humans who have ever lived and still we complain about having to work occasionally to live our lives of comparative luxury.
Yes, a whole lot of people work hard, and don’t get meaningfully compensated for it. But it’s not about people on small amounts of welfare vs. the working poor (who also might be on welfare), that’s not where you’re going to find the wealth that’s been stolen.
You’re missing the concept completely. It’s not about not perfoming labor, it’s about eliminating work.
Labor is performing tasks that need to be done to meet the needs of the individual and the community. That’s not what work is. Work is exploitation. Work is about financial profit for the benefit of the powerful few at the expense of the worker.
Work is parasitism. It forces us into a life of ruthless, competitive struggle and leaves the loser majority in miserable, pointless servitude. Labor is an act of necessity and generosity, not a commodity. It has purpose and serves the whole, which then serves the individual. Labor creates, supports, and improves the community, while work domineers it and drains it for the profit of others.
In your vision, how do we get anything non-essential? For example, lemmy. The folks who design server hardware, the folks who work on the circuit designs that power your computers, the folks who spend hundreds of hours coding the boring OS that powers your computer etc. If there’s no profit motive, does Intel just spontaneously arise from the head of Zeus/the people?
Or how do you renumerate the doctors who have to spend decades studying so they can keep you alive? Give them shiny badges and say an extra special thank you? Because we tried clapping pots and pans back in 2020, not many doctors with whom I spoke gave two shits about that.
Why would we not have those things? Are you incapable of conceptualizing having motivations for creating and doing things other than for financial profit? Why, in your estimation, can’t we have a system were people do things because they care about those things and they’re worth doing because they benefit everyone?
Money is an artificial construct serves no real purpose other than to consolidate power and resources into the hands of a few by depriving the many and keeping them in servitude. Removing money as a motivation, if something is worth having, people will want to have it, which means that some of those people will still choose make/do that thing for their own benefit, which in turn benefits everyone.
If the point of working for money is to use that money to obtain goods and services, there’s no reason to just get rid of the money aspect and just make those goods and services available directly. The only thing that really changes is that we stop over-working ourselves to over-produce frivolous bullshit for the sake of generating more wealth for the wealthy while being denied the fruits of that work.
Why, in your estimation, can’t we have a system were people do things because they care about those things and they’re worth doing because they benefit everyone?
Because I’m not 13 anymore?
if something is worth having, people will want to have it, which means that some of those people will still choose make/do that thing for their own benefit
Let’s just think that through in the most basic of necessities, food. Even ignoring the craziness with meat production, we’ll just assume everyone is a vegetarian.
Mass food production requires several inputs including heavy machinery and fertilizer. Fertilizer requires a bunch of chemical inputs as well as a stunning amount of electricity and heavy industry. Most of it comes from abroad. The heavy machinery similarly requires a lot of fabricated metals, circuitry etc. So at this point, we need people to get together independently to run: several different types of mines for the chemical and metal components, build intricate heavy factories, then ship the results over seas for long distances on the hopes that someone else will do something nice for them eventually.
Okay, now lets say these inputs get to the fertilizer/farm equipment factories, which other kind people spend time operating again, on the hope that someone will do something nice for them. Cool. Now, those inputs need to get to the farms, which are probably not located next door. So, we need the intricate processes for building trucks, moving those trucks, distributing goods from those trucks and of course roadworks on which to move said trucks.
And we haven’t even gotten to the hassle of transporting and distributing the food. (“Oh boy, I’ve always wanted a chance to stock groceries!”)
Another way to think of it, even in a scenario where we have money, we don’t have enough people acting as teachers and nurses, you think people are going to volunteer to give random old people sponge baths for the heck of it?
This is so silly that it almost feels like you’re trolling.
My bad. I didn’t realize I was talking to someone stupid enough to look at the state of the world and still be able to cling to the idea that large-scale industrialism has a viable place in the future of society.
I’m not going to be nice to people who insist on keeping the world a dying, dystopian shithole, and it’s not my job to think for them. If people refuse to take a moral stance in the face of societal destruction, they can go fuck themselves and deserve to be belittled.
You misunderstand me. I don’t care if you’re being silly at me, I’ve been a camp counsellor and had similar children make fun of me, it’s adorable more than anything else.
I mean you haven’t made a sensible point. I mean, the world as a dystopian shithole? Jesus, how ignorant and privileged can you be? Infant mortality is at an all time low, life expectancies at an all time high, working hours are almost lower than they’ve been in human history, the number of people starving to death is lower than almost ever before in modern history, the number of human slaves is lower than ever before, the percentage of folks dying to war/conflict is lower than ever before. But yes, in your monumental ignorance and privilege, sure it’s worse than ever before because your parents had it slightly easier.
Almost anyone from almost any point in human history would give their left arm to be you, even if you choose to whine about it like a first world child crying because they didn’t get the latest toy.
Your silly insults are adorable but also a sad reminder of how fucking myopic and self centered people can be.
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