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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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?
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.