We live in an age of technological wonder and plenty. One person can today do the work of hundreds in the past, when it comes to agriculture and food production. Despite this, the number of people who genuinely want to perform labour far exceeds that needed to sustain our society at its current level of plenty.
The human species has evolved to live and thrive, and it is through the labour of producing food, shelter, and family that human beings live. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that such an organism would have evolved to take great personal pleasure in useful labour. And that is exactly what we see. Put a human being in a useful job, and so long as they can live comfortable and take some ownership of their labour value, they are immensely happy. Put a human being in a useless job, and they are miserable. Under current capitalist conditions it is estimated that 50% of people currently work jobs that provide no benefit to society. And yet our species is still alive.
If we were to eliminate capitalism and focus our labour on solely useful pursuits, such as production, education, love, support, logistics, and planning, then we would have far more than we have today. And if we were to do such a thing there would be no requirement that everybody work, just as there is no requirement at our current level of production.
The human race can easily, EASILY survive on the labour of just those who wish to work of their own free will. Of those who would get bored sitting around all day. So as to those who actually want to sit around all day - why not let them?
To force someone to work is slavery. That is the very definition at its most fundamental. And I for one do not wish to live in a society founded upon mass slavery. Especially not when we have the means to do otherwise.
End compulsory work.
True. Family and food are the most important things in life. We’ve built our culture on greed and the results have shown themselves.
I think this is the true essence of the anti-work movement. “I should be able to have the things I want, without working for them, because somebody else will be willing to do the work for me. People should have an ownership of their labor, but I expect that they’ll use that ownership to give me to product of their labor for free.”
There’s a word for people who expect to get the product of other people’s labor for free, slave owners.
Huckleberry coming in with the hot take that all children are slave owners 💯 🧠 💯
The ones in wealthy countries where they don’t get sent to the cobalt mines at 7 sure seem to be.
