this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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Who’s going to take care of you?
Are we owed anything simply by being born?
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
????? 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You are not owed a damn thing, the universe is a cold, uncaring bitch.
That said, we humans are nothing if not an ingenious bunch. We've come up with all sorts of ways to work more efficiently. The amount of work that once bought an hour of light now buys 51 years of it
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.
Thanks for the summary.
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.
In actual civilization, yes, we are.
Basic accommodations are a human right according to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Jesus had a few things to say about feeding the hungry, but Paul didn't fully agree.
Arguably, yes, you are owed a debt to AND from society for its forced participation.
We have built a system I cannot easily escape without first participating in it for decades