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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The logical conclusion of
is that
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?
You know you can get people to do this without threatening them with starvation and homelessness right?
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 ...
Then you missed the whole point.
*they
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.
Who coerced you by threats?
No one in particular. But I am coerced into working as are you.
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.
I thought of another good argument so I'm posting it here.
Saying that I can stop working anytime and eat dirt is not really selling me on your ideas.
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.
Okay I'm confused. I thought we were talking about corrosion. What does your reply have to do with corrosion?
I never said anything about stopping work. But I do think if humanity can produce enough, we should work less relative to how much we can produce.
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.
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 <.<
I think you missed the point if my comnent.
Thats the fun stuff, but theres lots of stuff that has to be done in a society thats not fun.
It cannot be! People are working for fun:
"love what you do and you would not work a day" , right!? /s
Pure capitalism without rules is bad, sure.
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.
People like being alive, no?
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
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.