this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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Antiwork
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We're trying to reduce the numbers of hours a person has to work.
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We talk about the end of paid work being mandatory for survival.
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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.
This is just silliness.
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?
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.
Because I'm not 13 anymore?
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.
Well, if you can't make your point with logic, name calling always works!
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.
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.
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?
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?
What exactly are you advocating?
I covered that earlier. They get payment, recognition, and generally everything people want out of careers (except for survival, which is guaranteed regardless).
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.
UBI
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm struggling to understand why you're struggling to understand this.
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!"
I don't buy that you actually think this
Okay.
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.
Heya, just a heads up, I think you meant to respond to someone else's comment!
Didn't want to leave that other person hanging.