this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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Antiwork/Work Reform
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A community for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.
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Date Created: June 15, 2023
Date Updated: July 17, 2023
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Essential Reads
Start here! These are probably the most talked-about essays on the topic.
- The Abolition of Work by Bob Black (1985) | listen
- On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (2013) | listen
- In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (1932) | listen
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It costs money to produce food.
The more people you want to feed, the more money it costs.
Food production is not free. Food distribution is not free.
If you have an alternative to capitalism, I'm open, but you can't just stamp your feet and go "but it should be free!" It's not, someone has to pay for the seed, irrigation, fertilization, equipment fuel and labor involved in production and distribution.
p.s. Is it just me or is it the same people wanting $20+ hour minimum wage who also think food should be free?
First, I don't think they ever said food should be free. Second, capitalism and communism and all the isms are the inventions of people - humanity makes the rules. Third, there is an awful lot of wiggle room between today's food prices and "free". Put it all together, and you might realize that feeding everyone doesn't have to mean food is free and farmers and distributors go bankrupt.
You call into question whether there are any alternatives to capitalism as if nobody has ever proposed any, and you call out people who want a $20/hour minimum wage as if minimum wage hasn't been falling behind inflation and cost of living for decades. It kinda sounds like you want to pin society's problems on the failure of individuals and don't see anything wrong with "the system".
I don't think anything less than a collective effort to support the vulnerable and dismantle the rotten parts of the system has any hope of improving our situation.
Then it should be a task of the State, as "feeding people" is, quite obviously, a task Too Big to Fail. And, as such, the State can (and should) just automatically print the money needed to reward the work done. Feeding the hungry should not depend on a "budget". A budget is basically putting a price on human lives.
Great, you just caused hyperinflation for everything else and destroyed the economy.
https://www.netsuite.com/portal/resource/articles/business-strategy/hyperinflation.shtml
Of course, but maybe destroying the modern economy is a good thing. Things like serving essential needs causing hyperinflation showcases that modern economy is purposefully built to make people lose. No matter what you try to do to help society, something (or rather, someone) counterplays you.
IMO the real solution is that things that are essential, like food and health, should not depend on money exchange to be provided, period. Sure, producers of food and providers of health should be paid for their work, but that payment should not have a codependence with the fact that the hungry or unhealthy person get the attention they need.
The problem with that is the people providing the food and health services still need to survive.
Doctors need to pay their rent. Farmers need to buy feed, seed, and fertilizer. Everyone pays for water.
So once you go down the road of making it impossible to charge for services that need to bring in money to literally keep the lights on, you collapse the economy, and no, that's NOT a good thing. That road leads to chaos and death.
Le eCoNoMy muh gDp
those leeches can fuck off
I'm not saying doctors et all should not be paid for their work. I'm saying it should not depend on a money transaction on the afflicted citizen. I think it's perfectly feasible to, for example, have the State pay for things that are essential, it's kind of the entire role of the State after all. Or even better, give doctors and providers of those services the same treatment as in not collecting from them for stuff.
Also, if there's such things as "companies Too Big To Fail should be handed over to the State", then that also applies to Tasks Too Big To Fail. Like, you know, keeping your citizens alive. I insist: the core task of the State is to keep the Country alive.
If that collapses the economy, IMO that's an indicative that the economy model is not good, or perhaps even unethical.
Then just take money away from the rich, ezpz
It does however get considerably cheaper to produce more food when production is scaled up. If enough people got together on the "free food" they could potentially do it cheaper than what capitalism provides.
The issue however is that capitalism has already made food really fucking cheap. It's actually too cheap. And that is because someone else is paying the true cost of providing it. Obviously the animals who sacrifice the their lives, but also the human workers who also sacrifice their lives, just to bring food for everyone. Everyone eats, nobody gets paid, except for the owners who also do none of the work.
On a per capita basis, yes. But the Doritos that sell for $6 a bag come out of a multi billion dollar organization (Frito Lay, part of Pepsi).
Individuals coming together to produce a single bag of Doritos aren't going to be able to do it for $6. They need the infrastructure of that multi billion dollar corporation to get there.
Yes, exactly. The problem is to get local produce cheaper than importing global crap. Distribution is a huge part of it. It shouldn't be cheaper to transport crap food globally than for a domestic producer to deliver quality food, but it is.
The thing is, you can't source enough local produce to support any significant population. I live in a town of 641,162 (2021 numbers), you're not going to deliver 1,923,486 meals a day, 702,072,390 meals per year, using only local resources. It simply can't be done.
Even on my property, for two people, I would not be able to produce 6 meals a day every day. I have to bring in outside resources.
It cost to feed people so let's let them starve instead. Nice one.
https://www.scribbr.com/fallacies/slippery-slope-fallacy/
Brooklynman fallacy
Food should be free though - the basics at least. The same with clothing and housing. These are 3 essential things that any civilised society should be able to provide to all of its citizens.
Beyond that, people will want nice things. People will work for money to buy those nice things. There's this whole fiction about benefit scroungers that doesn't really ring true, very few people spend their entire lives reliant on social welfare, rather it allows them to pick themselves up and make money to improve their position in life.
If people are without food, clothing or shelter they run the risk of basically turning feral. No one should want that for anyone else.
"Our labor has conquered scarcity"... Bro they've conquered scarcity now? I didn't even know! If someone has conquered the universal reality of scarcity they can ask whatever they want as minimum wage. π€£
Quick, somebody tell the Playstation and Xbox fans... "Naw, naw, it's cool... we conquered scarcity..." LOL.
Yes, you are correct, food is not free. So does that mean it is good (per your morality) that people starve? The military is super expensive, but that hasn't stopped us from deciding all Americans need protection and making that happen.
Capitalism has done some good stuff, but it has also done some bad stuff too. It's not an all or nothing proposition. I think if the majority of us agree everyone should have access to food, money should be a detail to solve, not a barrier.
The question is, do you think food should be free? Have you ever thought about it seriously?
Morality doesn't enter into it. If you want something that somebody else puts effort into producing, they need to be compensated for their effort, materials, etc. etc.
I guess you could phrase that as a moral demand. You don't have free access to the results of someone elses effort.
You want to eat without paying someone? Grow your own food. Nothing stopping you. Oh, but you'll have to pay for the land, seed, water, fertilizer, animals. Learn how to slaughter and butcher on your own because you can't pay someone else to teach you those skills. You could learn to hunt, but then you'd have to make your own weapons because even re-loading supplies cost money.
Wait, what?! Morality doesn't play into it?! Well, then why do people need to be compensated? You can just stab them after they make the thing you want.
I'm almost afraid to tell you that bullets are cheaper than most things you can get by shooting people who carry said things.
Also, "grow your own food". Sure, on what land? Is no one going to stop me from uprooting crops on land owned by others so I can grow my own? What tools will I use? Do I make my own from sticks and rocks, or do I take the tools owned by others?
What your proposing is insane. I think you need to touch some grass.
People need to be compensated otherwise they will stop producing.
Let's say you own a bakery and you make really good donuts. Maybe the best donuts in town. Every day you get up at 5 AM to make a fresh batch and put them out for sale.
And every day, every single one of them gets stolen.
How long before you just stop making donuts?
https://youtu.be/petqFm94osQ
Most people don't own a bakery.
"Let's say you are a king isn't feudalism awesome?"
Sorry, I deleted my comment because I realized that I misread the post I was replying to.
To respond to this post, yes, that is problematic if you care about the workability of the system, but if you have morals, then weather or not the system works is moot.
And, again, morals don't enter into it. People deserve to be paid for the work that they do, and it doesn't matter what that work is.
Isn't that what the whole "anti-work" is about? Paying people what they deserve to be paid, right? Why do you think people involved in food production or distribution deserve any less? They work as hard, or harder, than you or I do. Nobody should expect them to work for free "because food should be a right, man!"
Ok, but why do people deserve to get paid for their work? That seems like a moralist statement. Is there deeper rational supporting that statement, or is that a moral imperative for you?
Edit: to be clear I'm not disagreeing with the premise, I just want your reasoning for arriving at it.
Super simple. My time is valuable to me, if you ask me to contribute my time for something that benefits you, I need to be compensated for my time.
I can choose to donate my time, but doing so comes at a cost to me and if I contribute too much of my time, then I can't pay bills, my electricity gets turned off, I get evicted, and so on.
Do you value yourself so little that you work for free? If so, I've got some housework you can do!
So, one has to pay for the means of production including the land, which is just sitting there and required nobody to go to any effort?
You see the problem there?
Yes, because if you don't own the land, you have no right to trespass on it to work that land.
Now, here's the correct way to do it:
Buy the land and do what you want with it.
Contact the owner of the land and work out an agreement. Maybe they'll let you use it for free, maybe they'll take a cut of whatever you produce there, whatever is mutually agreeable.
You don't have the right to just do whatever you want, and, further, once you put the effort in to do something with that land, nobody can just take it from you because they feel your work has no value.
For example...
I have a fence that faces a busy road. It's on my property and just sits there, it provides privacy for my home.
Someone asked if it was OK to hang carpets on my fence and try to sell them.
I told them "Sure, kick me 5% of the sales and you can do what you want."
Never heard from them again. If they hadn't asked me, I'd have trespassed them. If they wanted to negotiate, I'd have been open to that too.
Interesting that you say people should grow their own food yet want to prevent them from having the means to readily do so like this. It's sad really and kinda evil.
Nothing prevents them from having the means to grow their own food. The trick is being able to do it sustainably for a long period of time.
My house sits on 0.16 acres, 6,970sqft. I could turn that land over to growing food. But the problem is, growing food is a full time job and if I spend all my time growing food for my wife and myself, I'm not making money to pay the mortgage, and soon I have nothing.
I could pay someone else to grow my food, they aren't going to do it for free, but if I'm going to do that, I may as well keep my property as it is (not much you can grow on 0.16 acres) and just buy my food at a store.
Go and plant your crops on someone else's land and see how you go.
There are such things as community gardens, but there are also rules for said gardens.
Ok, so it sounds like in your case, the market is morality, if I am understanding you. So you would be cool with buying and selling slaves and paying hit men to kill people? All that would be good because everyone was paid?
Have you though about this stuff seriously?
You're making a disingenous slippery slope argument. The law isn't about morality either, it's about what is and is not legal.
Slavery isn't illegal because it's immoral, it's illegal because one person doesn't have the right to take away another persons self determination. You can choose to hire them, and they can choose to work for you, but you can't force them to do anything.
By the same reason, you don't have the right to take another persons food without paying them for it. That's theft.
No, I am not making a slippery slope argument. I am just trying to understand your moral framework, or see if you have any.
Yes, lets talk about laws, maybe that will help. Ok, laws are not just some magic thing that happens, they are developed by society, right? In fact you can argue that laws are related to morality. In a truly democratic society laws would derivative of morality, right?
Humans develop constructs like laws and capitatim to help us do things. So it is important for us to not derive our morality from existing structures, because if we did, we could never evolve them in a way to help us do more/better things. I know this is kind of abstract and I am sorry about that.
So you are using existing laws and economic systems to argue for the correctness of the current laws and economic systems. Using this approach I could argue that that Feudalism is pretty awesome because it is way better than the stone age, etc...
This is why I am wondering if you have given any thought to your moral frame work, or if you have just accepted the status quo and are trying to justify it because you don't have a framework.
No, laws have absolutely jack all to do with morality, and when they do (prohibition for example) they inevitably fail.
Laws exist to define which rights supercede other rights.
So, for example, in my state there are three cases where I can use lethal force:
So, I see a dude walking down the street swinging a machete (I live in Portland, it's not as crazy as you'd think.)
I don't have the right to just plug the guy. That would be illegal. He has the right to be in public, swinging around a machete.
Now, if he's swinging it AT ME or someone else, or chasing them or threatening them, then it's a different deal and my right to be safe in a public space supercedes his right to wave his arms in the air like he just don't care.
Again, laws are not present to pick moral winners and losers.
I completely disagree. Why are there laws to prevent people from killing each other? Why would we as a society bother to make that a thing? It's morality. It's the basis of everything.
If the most common moral framework didn't hold that human life is valuable. Then we wouldn't make those laws. It wouldn't make sense for those laws to be on the books.
And yes the laws do and should pick winners and losers. If you are a serial killer, the laws are not in your favor, your a loser.
There are laws against killing because you don't have the right to deprive another sentient being of their right to live and potentially contribute something to society as a whole (even if that contribution is merely to serve as a bad example.)
Again, laws are not moral or immoral, that's not why we have laws. Cheating on your significant other is immoral, it's not illegal. There are a whole host of things people consider to be immoral based on their own upbringing or religion that are not illegal.
Attempting to legislate morality is a fast way to failure. See the 18th and 21st amendments to the Constitution.