Hmm this meme makes me think. I am a socdem and was thinking of what the difference between communism and social democracy is and the answer i got to is that communism shares resources equally while socdem shares enough resources that everyone can lead a life but more resources are locked behind more work. In communism you get the best phone that everyone can get while in socdem you get a feature phone and you have to work to get a better one. I am not very qualified for deeper discussions about things like this but id like to see other peoples opinions. To me and most working class people i think this sounds like a more appealing system. I THINK(emphasis on I and think) that this leads to more innovation and a faster economy which, at the end of the day, does trickle down in a proper socdem system. Also i think european countries should have right to healtcare in the constitution and the right to food and housing is also healthcare because you need it to be healthy. Other things i think should be rights is transportation and communication for example. I guess those are similar to right to job but not the same and not mutual. Last time i tried to have a discussion it was on hexbear and everyone called me a a stupid capitalist pig but this is world so i hope someone whos even more to the left than me can add to this discussion. In the end we are more so allies than enemies.
Hey, fellow communist here and Hexbear enjoyer.
Communism isn’t really when all workers get the same regardless of the work done, the difference with social democracy is in who owns the factories and buildings and machines and computers that we work with, who decides how and what work is done, and who decides the prices and the salaries.
In social democracy, people maintain the right to own capital (i.e. to privately invest their money in a business expecting a return, and to hire others through this ownership of capital). In communism, workers collectively (whether directly through coops or indirectly through the state) collectively own the factories and buildings and computers that are used to actually produce goods and services).
This doesn’t just translate to formal ownership, but to actual decision making in the workplace and to salaries. In capitalism (social democracy is a type of capitalism), a company owner will only hire someone if they can profit from it, which means they’re getting a part of the worker’s production and appropriating it for themselves, which communists call by the word “exploitation”. In communism, since the capital is owned collectively, so are the fruits of labor. This doesn’t mean everyone earns the same, it’s not the case in theory nor in practice. If workers elect a manager to direct some things at the company, the manager may make more in the form of for example increased production bonuses, or if a worker exceeds the quota, they can also very bonuses, as well as salary increases with different positions and level of training, studies and experience. As an example, a university professor in the soviet union made maybe 3 times as much as an entry level job at a supermarket. If you care about salaries per profession, Albert Szymanski’s “human rights in the soviet union” does interesting analysis of the evolution of salaries by sector in th USSR over the 50s and 60s.
Regarding innovation I have to disagree. In my opinion, innovation is mainly led by the investment in innovation that you make and how you manage the investment. Most innovation in the world for example already comes from the public sector: universities, research institutes, military, space agencies… It’s just that when some publicly researched concept gets profitable after all the research, a company will pick it up, make some improvements through investment, patent it, and live the good life of the monopoly. Then again I’m a communist and that’s my view, but looking at things like the transistor, the internet, the space sector, medicine, biology, astrophysics, material science… Most of those are advancements and disciplines either completely or overwhelmingly public funded in their inception and still today. It’s just that we experience a bias in consuming technology ultimately researched by companies because we live in a system where almost all we consume is by definition made by companies. Research and innovation can happen, in my opinion arguably better, under communism than capitalism.
Regarding the basic material needs as you mentioned: healthcare, housing, nutrition, even energy for heating and cooking, mobility with public transit, fuck, the right to work! All of those should in my humble opinion be guaranteed for everyone. Again, I could point to historical examples like the Soviet Union: housing costed 3% of the average household income on average and homelessness was entirely abolished, healthcare and education were completely free to the highest level and of excellent quality, especially for the level of development; public transit never changed prices from the 40s to the 70s, basic foods were heavily subsidised and very affordable, entertainment and sports were widely available through unions, everyone had paid vacation, the retirement age was 60 for men and 55 for women… My point with this isn’t “all hail Stalin”. My point is, if a socialist system born from the violence of tsarism and World War 2 such as the soviet union achieved all of that by 1970, what the fuck are we doing?
I could go on to talk about the problems with social democracy and imperialism in the third world, but I think this is a long enough comment. Please let me know it you find it interesting or wanna discuss anything inside
a right to a meal? a succulent, Chinese meal?!
This is Democracy Manifest!
Get your hand off my penis!
And you, sir, are you ready to receive my limp penis?
I personally find it easier to sidestep the rights issue and just say “we CAN ensure everyone has healthcare, so we should do that”. Whether people have a right or not is sort of irrelevant if you see government as having a duty to materially improve people’s lives.
A lot of people think that specifically is not the government’s duty, though. You’d have to first convince them that the government’s duty isn’t simply to defend against invasion, or enforce the will of the people, or whatever else they believe.
We have the right to lofe liberty and the persuit of happiness.
Not having proper healthcare coverage is literally against that right.
While I would love to agree with you, the way I read the 14th amendment is that the government can not do anything (or pass any laws) that would deprive you of those rights. It does not imply (in my opinion) that they are required to do things to ensure you have those rights.
Congrats, you just discovered strict vs. loose interpretation.
But trans people would get healthcare too and we can’t have that. /s
But but but then THOSE people will have them, too, and we can’t abide THOSE people having nice things.
If you think people have a right to live, then because to be able to live they have to work, eat, and have a roof over their heads, then yes they should have a right to all of those things.
You don’t have to work to live. It facilitates the others, but they can be facilitated other ways.
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. You have a right to all those things.
Historically speaking the elites weren’t that fucked up. In the Middle Ages and the Ancient era in many places the nobility were seen as also being stewards of the underlings and HAD to make sure they didn’t completely fall into shit.
Even the original robber barons funded medical research, and built theaters and libraries and other cultural stuff for the society they lived in. Going farther back, a lot of the beautiful artwork we see made in the Renaissance period was commissioned entirely by some of the most ruthless, murderous bastards in human history.
What we are seeing now is not the greediest of bastards, but simply the most unlettered, the most uncultured, and the most barbaric of them. They live and work and think exactly like gang leaders and brigands who reached a point where they can destroy the restrains against them. They would be content to live in vulgar shit and not enjoy life despite their unimaginable wealth, as long as the rest of the world around them burns. I don’t think even Hitler held the land and the earth and humanity in general with that level of contempt.
The difference is that, before, decisions were made by individuals, and generally no matter how greedy, most people have at least a sense of compassion for other humans. Nowadays decisions aren’t made by people, there’s algorithms pushing for the infinite increase of stock value, and whoever doesn’t do that is eaten alive. That’s the problem: in capitalism, companies need to be vile and have absolutely no sense of morality, or they will be outcompeted.
In the Middle Ages and the Ancient era in many places the nobility were seen as also being stewards of the underlings and HAD to make sure they didn’t completely fall into shit.
This strikes me as a touch revanchist.
Middle Ages / Ancient Era nobility operated on a patronage system for their courtiers and military officers, sure. But they obtained the surplus to satisfy the duties of the patrician class by looting and pillaging neighboring city-states or by taxing the working people inside their domain.
Even the original robber barons funded medical research, and built theaters and libraries and other cultural stuff for the society they lived in.
They bought bread and built circuses for the artisan class that they sought to cultivate in their immediate vicinity. But their largesse was very geographically limited. The farther from the center of power you got, the more you suffered and the less you benefited.
Communities on the periphery were as heavily exploited then as they are now. Only the limits of technology kept that frontier relatively close by, with innovations like Roman roadways and early Medieval shipbuilding technologies pushing those frontiers outward.
The Vikings were not funding medical research in Angland. The Romans were not building libraries in the Black Forests along the Danube. The Columbian Era Spanish were not bringing Renaissance art and culture to the Aztecs and Incas or sending over architects to build beautiful stained glass churches in what would be Texas and Florida.
I don’t think even Hitler held the land and the earth and humanity in general with that level of contempt.
The Scorched Earth tactics of the World Wars were pioneered a century earlier. General Custard and King Leopold II absolutely employed wholesale destruction of the agricultural basis of local communities as a means of enslaving or exterminating native people.
The English and Portuguese would employ opium addiction as a means of expanding their empire along the Pacific Rim. The French would make an industry of trapping and killing wild game that wiped whole species out of the New World. Their commercial farming practices in Africa and Southeast Asia would obliterate local biomes for private profit.
This is just more of the same short-term profit oriented expansionism. The machines are bigger and the damage more expansive, but the intent and the incentives are all the same.
looting and pillaging neighboring city-states or by taxing the working people inside their domain.
It’s worse today
They bought bread and built circuses for the artisan class that they sought to cultivate in their immediate vicinity. But their largesse was very geographically limited. The farther from the center of power you got, the more you suffered and the less you benefited.
Same today
Only the limits of technology kept that frontier relatively close
Correct, that’s what made it better
The Scorched Earth tactics of the World Wars were pioneered a century earlier. General Custard and King Leopold II absolutely employed wholesale destruction of the agricultural basis of local communities as a means of enslaving or exterminating native people.
More than a century, it’s called scorched earth because you would literally light a fire. And in the same vein is salt the Earth
Brief reference
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_the_earth
The English and Portuguese would employ opium addiction as a means of expanding their empire along the Pacific Rim. The French would make an industry of trapping and killing wild game that wiped whole species out of the New World. Their commercial farming practices in Africa and Southeast Asia would obliterate local biomes for private profit.
Same thing goes on today
This is just more of the same short-term profit oriented expansionism. The machines are bigger and the damage more expansive, but the intent and the incentives are all the same.
Yes the lack of technology made it better, though you’re covering a wide time period
The biggest difference is the wealthy realized religion isn’t real (not that it ever mattered: see Catholic ban on ranged weaponry) and no one is going to remember you so bloodline/country doesn’t matter
The biggest difference is the wealthy realized religion isn’t real
The proletariat realized religion isn’t real. Or, at least, the religious demagogues realized there’s no longer a point to evangelizing to the impoverished. Bourgeois still cling to it, though. The ranks of Opus Dei and the Mormon Church are thick with mega-millionaires. Religious indoctrination is one of the ways you get “in” with the upper echelons of the western oligarchy, whether its through Focus on the Family or some Silicon Valley AI cult.
Idk, Canada is a lot more religious now than in the 20th century
It’s takes a second to differentiate someone telling you they have a religion and they aren’t saying they’re gay
It’s prejudice and I try not to hold it against them but a life of being raised prejudice makes me think for a moment
Idk, Canada is a lot more religious now than in the 20th century
https://madeinca.ca/religion-statistics-canada/
Based on answers in the 2021 census, 53.3% of the Canadian population identify as Christians. That means over 19.3 million Canadians reported belonging to a Christian religion. However, the proportion of Christians is falling rapidly in Canada. In 2011, 67.3% of Canadians identified as Christians, while in 2001, the percentage of Christians was 77.1% of the population.
…
The number of Canadians who say they have no religious affiliation has more than doubled since 2001 when 16.5% of the population had no religious affiliation. By 2011, the percentage had risen to 23.9% and in 2021, 34.6% of Canadians had no religious affiliation. 34.6% is approximately 12.6 million Canadians.
Perhaps the existing Christian base is getting louder, but the raw number of Christians is falling. Meanwhile, no affiliation seems to be filling in the gap. Canada isn’t filling up with Muslims or Satanists or whatever the current ForwardsFromGrandma email chain might suggest.
I stand corrected on a lot of stuff. But I was referring to the imperial core of those people’s rule. Like without the United States most billionaires would not exist, but they are doing less nothing. They are stripping everything for parts. That is what stands different. The British build Britain up (even if it was socialist leaning policies that elevated most poor out of poverty) at the expense of everyone else, they didn’t simply have niche enclaves where they had everything but left the rest of the country/cities into as much shit as is happening now.
Like without the United States most billionaires would not exist
I mean… maybe? The US is ground zero for this aggressive wealth aggregation. But Russia and Germany and India and the Kingdom of Saud and Qatar and even the Evil CCP have a fair share of billionaires. It certainly isn’t impossible to do wealth aggregation outside the US. Hong Kong alone has 67 of them.
The British build Britain up
I gotta say, I disagree. Balkinize Britain. It had 500 years to fuck around. Maybe time to do a bit of Finding Out. Liberate Ireland. Independence for Scotland and Wales. Let London become one of those dystopian Charter Cities, like what they did in Singapore and Hong Kong and Panama and what they’re planning for Gaza, and allow the rest of England to wither on the vine.
Then British refugees can flee to Spain and France, where they can reintegrate with the mainland and rejoin modern Europe when they’re ready.
while there’s good points, the last sentence is out of place.
That guy was contempt manifest. In the end he ordered the destruction of the oh so beloved country
I am aware. When the Nazis were defeated Hitler basically said ‘I was wrong, the Germans are not the master race and they all deserve to be exterminated’.
This is why I don’t understand the love that they have for Hitler. Hitler’s alleged ‘love’ for Germans and his people was extremely conditional. Also he believed in ‘quality’ of genetics over ‘quantity’ and while there is no end to the amount of white supremacists who whine about birth rates, Hitler believed that if his policies resulted in a population decline that would be better because the ‘quality’ would be superior to more dumbasses.
And also when Hitler lost the war, yes, he did have the Nero Decree. I don’t understand why they think someone who was totally fine with the complete destruction of the German ‘aryan’ race is a good role model. If Hitler came back to life (and as he was physically in 1925) he would hold pretty much all neo-Nazis in absolute contempt and wonder why the fuck the Germans are still alive.
At least some of those old murderous bastards patronized the arts and the sciences.
Current murderous bastards actively seek to destroy them and ‘at most’ they will share or create memes.
Worst elites ever.
What we are seeing now is the rich are Noah’s Arking us to climate change they have known was going to happen since the 70s, and have been preparing for it this whole time. Which is why we haven’t made any real progress with climate change in the first place and has been the Republican goal this whole time - they will just kill most of the people on earth to reduce carbon emissions and then continue as they have been with a smaller pool of people but bigger pool of money.
Is this extremely stupid, cruel, and shortsighted and ignores how people work together in societies to make and build stuff?
Yes.
But look at the Titanic submarine. The rich literally believe they can bend science to their will. They literally think they can force the world to their delusions. And they will bet their lives and their kids’ lives on that.
There’s a reason Trump is building death camps and selling people to other countries. There’s a reason Assad was saved and sent to Russia, as one of the most sophisticated death camp operators in modern times.
And what is fucked is that this also consistent with the actions of many elites. When the going got tough for a lot of major leaders of formerly rich and powerful nations, their course of action was to pack up their valuables and flee.
In Ancient Rome when the empire was declining, many Roman nobility just took their valuables and their slaves/servants away from the cities and started their own self-sufficient villas where they still tried to draw a salary from the empire while not giving a damn to pay taxes back. This is how the feudal system and serfdom as we know it started in some places. During the Fourth Crusade when the crusaders sacked Constantinople the emperor at the time expected his subjects to fight… but fled with his treasury behind him.
Even today with the withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan, the US-backed puppet they put in power spoke about never surrendering, but then fled to the UAE with 150 million dollars with him.
They’re all like this shit. I wonder if even trying to win is even feasible at times.
Edit: The titanic submarine is the perfect example of that. These people weren’t just violating the laws of physics, but they also were talking about submarine travel as if they invented it, when it has been around since the 19th century. Their arrogance is unbelievable.
Why is your wealth and power more important than everyone else’s right to simply exist with a basic level of comfort? Let’s put you on a desert island alone and see you create your empire. You can’t, because you NEEDED people and society for everything you have. You stole most of the benefit from our labor and pretend you are entitled to it. Fuck your broken system.
Its almost as if having what one needs to live is called basic nessesities for a reason, something capitalism does not provide.
Nobody asked to be born into this capitalist hellscape you cunt
And they’re making damn sure that keeps happening.
Why stop there?
Bro you haven’t even started there
lmao
Yeah dude that’s basically the idea
I have no idea who this is, and thought It was just some dude saying some based shit… Then I read the blurb at the bottom…
I’m guessing he meant this ironically?
He is a former republican congressman. He’s not maga, so I give him that. I think he has a podcast too. His name escapes me at the moment.
This was a capitalist whining about how ridiculous the idea sounds. But little does he know that he’s in the minority…
Uh yes. So little self-awareness here.
Yes to all but a right to a job. People shouldn’t have jobs. It’s not natural.
This. As automation increases, fewer of us should have to work. A significant issue with the Soviet Union and their legendary inefficiency is that every one had the right to a job even if there were no jobs to be done. Leading to them creating unnecessary intermediary positions at every level of the system.
Basic income, sure. And people should be educated. But beyond that, encourage the people who don’t need to work to pursue art or other ends. Get them involved in community activities. But work towards a society of leisure if possible.
the Soviet Union and their legendary inefficiency
You said it yourself: the soviet union’s inefficiency is largely that, a legend. This isn’t to say there weren’t problems or that it was almighty, but there’s no serious study or metric by which it was more inefficient than capitalist countries. In fact, the post-soviet republics, 34 years after the dismantling of the country, struggle to regain on average the GDP levels of the communist era, with some countries like Russia barely managing to equal it, and others like Ukraine not being able to recover (including pre-war).
even if there were no jobs to be done. Leading to them creating unnecessary intermediary positions at every level
Again, not historically accurate. The soviet union didn’t need to make up positions, because it ran under permanent labour shortage. When labour becomes a useful resource for society, it gets optimised and used up as much as any other, and allocated according to very calculated plans, which while imperfect, for the most part didn’t create jobs out of a need to create employment. There was chronical labor shortage that reached close to 10% in the 70s (one in ten positions being open for lack of workers). This has to do with leftover mindset from the Stalin years of the soviet economy in which extensive investment in order to mobilise as much of the workforce as possible, massive investment in capital created enormous economic growth, which proved to stagnate as a model after the 70s for a variety of reasons, including literally running out of people to work all the jobs you created. If you want some numeric and nuanced analysis I highly recommend “Farm to Factory” by Robert C. Allen, great book as an overview of the history of the Soviet economy.
I think we view work with disdain because we live in capitalism and 1) working in capitalism sucks 2) not working in capitalism arguably sucks harder. People should have shorter workweeks doing things that help their communities and the society as a whole with their basic needs guaranteed, I’d love to work in such a society
The flip side of Soviet “everyone must work” inefficiency was the prediction of American economists that we’d have so little work to do thanks to automation that our biggest problem would be filling our free time.
Instead we found more and more work to do, and now work even longer hours. And it’s because people didn’t want to do the hard work of figuring out a new way to run society and just stuck with what they knew.
We see the same thing happening with remote work. It causes some problems, yes, but it’s way better for a lot of reasons. But instead of moving forward and solving those problems organizations are just insisting on doing things the traditional way.
And it’s really sad how many people in this thread can’t see that they’re doing the same thing.
If you’re interested on a brief analysis of the “Soviet inefficiency” you may be interested in reading my previous comment in this thread
They would have been far, far more efficient if they weren’t so anti-computer. The first attempts at creating a computer system actually dates back to the 1930s during the Stalin era, but Stalin didn’t like it and shut it down (in the West computers were just starting to be invented) and in the early 60s they could have let OGAS be aggressively developed. This would have resulted in an economic boom for the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 80s instead of a downturn. On top of that, the internet as we know it would have been a hell of a lot more different AND better developed if that was the case.
Do you remember on how Sputnik and the Soviets sending a man into space sent the US into a massive tizzy to try to outdo the Soviets in space? Can you imagine if the Soviets also made the first internet and networked computer system that actually ran well? Imagine the pace and the priority given to that instead of the bullshit that was the Vietnam war at the time.
But also distribute work as much as is reasonable so everyone contributes maybe a few hours to the necessary work and not just a few thousand randos working 140hr/week
Exactly. I studied coding and I could have been interned and further taught whatever the hell they needed me to learn. But nope, gotta have 10 years experience for a language that only existed for 5.
Humans find jobs for themselves and their community all the time, but not fucking bullshit jobs like data entry technician or call center technician.
I fucking hate cleaning, but I will happily help a friend or family member clean their house or their apartment because we thrive in a community.
Not getting the humanity squeezed out of us for a few cents more.
Those are chores, and caring for your loved ones. They are not “jobs.”
I think it could be argued that you have a right to a “purpose”. For some people that may be a job. And some may choose to not have a purpose. But no one should be denied a purpose if they want one - even if it involves goals they will never succeed at.
Almost as if that mazlow guy had a point or something
That sounds like a hobby, not a job
If you want to do something but don’t have to in order to survive, that’s a hobby.
IMO hobbies are different. I do a hobby because I enjoy the activity, but it doesn’t necessarily give me purpose. A job (or more specifically a career) gives me purpose even if I don’t always enjoy the day to day work. At a higher level I do enjoy my job, and it gives me a reason to get up each day and tackle problems I otherwise wouldn’t seek out.
I’ve often said if I won’t the lottery and didn’t need to work to survive, I’d still take a job (or at least full time volunteer) because it’s not natural to sit around and just do whatever activities attract your attention each day. It’s important to be challenged and pushed to do things you otherwise wouldn’t tackle.
I dropped my IT career to work at a hardware store. That was my retirement plan, and I’m in no shape to quit working, but I had to do something to get out of my rut. Depression was killing me, body and mind. Pay sucks, and no I’m not dying to get dressed and go in, but my physical and mental health is quickly improving.
Also, I’m learning new skills, learning more about how the world works, and best of all, learning from talking to customers about their projects. Hell, I can wander over to lumber and my coworkers will school me all day long on the projects I need to build.
LOL, my manager and I, in our 50s, are literally throwing rocks while the 20-something pudgy kids stand around staring. Guess who’s moving up, getting respect and perks?
It’s great that you’re doing better, but your survival and mental wellbeing should never have been conditioned on employment in the first place. What you did - switching to a new career that gave you a sense of fulfillment - is something that countless others have extreme difficulty doing because the threat of homelessness and destitution is held over our heads like a sword of Damocles.
You shouldn’t have had to take a pay cut to find happiness.
Lots of hobbies have times where you don’t enjoy the work, or you screw something up, or something just won’t work and you walk away in frustration. Video games are basically designed to be frustrating so you feel accomplishment.
If we didn’t need to work we could have bigger, more complicated hobbies, with more opportunities for frustration.
But if we didn’t have to do them in the first place why would we call them jobs?
Yep. These dumbasses that think no one should have to work should be stranded on a tropical island, à la “Lord of the Flies”. LOL, they’ll either be working a “job” or they’ll get their asses beat or thrown in a volcano.
You replied to the wrong comment, but you’re totally wrong about how the Lord of the Flies actually panned out in real life. Turns out the children worked together to divide the work needed to survive between each other, so nobody did too much. The kids survived for fifteen months and even cared for one of them when they broke a leg.
I don’t disagree that some work needs to be done: If I want a snack I’ll need to walk to the kitchen. But it should be as little as is necessary. If someone can automate themselves out of a job they should get their salary for life and a million dollar prize, because it means nobody has to do that work anymore.
Plus the only thing most political parties agree on is more jobs and that makes it immediately suspect to me.
If you haven’t read it already, a book for the idler:
https://files.libcom.org/files/[Tom_Hodgkinson]_How_To_Be_Idle(Bookos.org).pdf
I will have read it soon, thanks for the tip!
I developed complex alarm systems.I bought a timer plug, and set it to turn on my coffee maker and also the record player, on which I had placed my loudest record, It 's Alive by The Ramones
This is me but it was “Stunt” by Barenaked Ladies, which opens with this
You’re contesting by posting the real-life version of events vs. the fiction I posted? One of these things is not like the other.
Yes, I posted in the wrong thread. Sorry.
Someone has to grow the food. That’s a job.
Farms are actually one of the industries seeing some of the most automation. The biggest issue right now is just harvesting.
Gardening is totally something people do for free.
Subsistance farming is not what I would call gardening. The amount of planting, tending, harvesting and canning required to feed a family of 4 is a full-time job during the growing season. Nevermind all the other homemaking chores.
So get robots to do it. I never said anything about subsistence farming. But if we keep up with the idea of everyone needing a job we’ll never get to a place where nobody has to work.
We’ve already automated so much of it that just 1% of the population farming grows more than enough food for everyone.
I’m with you, and I agree. But the 1% doing all the hard work are going to have a real problem with the communists choosing “art therapy” as their activity. I think automation is the future.
Okay, so reduce it by another order of magnitude and everybody does a long weekend farming every ten years
Jobs are fine. It’s for-profit companies that’s the problem. Why does a company need profits (outside of maybe emergency capital)?
No company needs to profit by billions/trillions.
Jobs are fine
For you maybe
Actually yes. I love my job. ❤️
I love mine, too.
I’d still rather not be doing it. Why else do they give us vacation time?
Okay, then why weekends? Why ever leave our jobs if we love them so much?
You need jobs to have public services, public infrastructure, and both essential and nonessential goods. The overexploitation of workers and the lack of democratic ownership of the workers in businesses is the problem. Profit can still be made and go towards wages and back into the business, even better when subsidies and workers protection/rights are guaranteed federally. We can’t have a functioning society without jobs
Either nothing humans do is natural, or everything is.
Democracy and human rights aren’t natural. Capitalism isn’t natural. Or they both are.
People do like to work, the caveat being that they generally don’t want to work with virtually nothing to show for it. The modding community is massive, and they almost never get paid. People love to bake, or draw, or garden, or volunteer, all without fiduciary compensation.
But when people make it where they have to “get a job” to survive, the love of the labor disappears.
Costco has a low turnover rate because they’re paid a living wage. Hell, even (ugh) Chick-fil-A pays their teenage employees decently.
I agree that most people absolutely want to work; the two most important factors are choice of labor and not being treated like shit - either by compensation or other mistreatment.
Those are hobbies, not jobs. That’s why they recommend them to retired people.
You’re so close to to the point.
So are you.
Who’s going to provide your food, shelter and clothing if no one is working?
Yes, if you want to live in a society, you must contribute. Even if you live in a village with no government or economic system, people have to haul water, catch fish, grow crops, make charcoal, weave baskets, 1,000 other jobs.
And to care for the people too elderly or disabled to care for themselves, you must work harder than merely providing for yourself.
Oh, were you thinking rich people could just give us money? Where do you think they get that money? Hint: It comes from our labor, which you propose shouldn’t exist.
If you don’t like any of that, go homestead. Dick Proenneke left for Alaska in his 50s, single-handedly built a nice cabin and lived there alone for 30 years.
Ol’ Dick didn’t have a filthy job, unless you count survival. If a middle-aged man can do it with 60s tech and gumption, so can you!
Who’s going to provide your food, shelter and clothing if no one is working?
It’s amazing humans were able to build civilization without anyone providing food, shelter, or clothing. We’re so lucky we evolved on a planet full of microwave TV dinners and polyester pant suits and ranch homes with durable vinyl siding.
If you don’t like any of that, go homestead.
That’s the plan.
They did all that by completing jobs. Explain how to do all that with no one working as was the request.
They did all that by solving problems. As any gamer knows, solving problems is not necessarily work.
They weren’t forced to be somewhere, at some time, to complete a task dictated to them by someone else, with no say in how it’s done or when it’s done, or any reward for figuring out how get the same result automatically, under threat of not being able to feed, house, or clothe themselves.
And I’d have a lot less of a problem with all of this if they’d let me feed, house, and clothe myself without needing to own property.
Don’t forget the magical machines we found to shitpost! I found mine in a creek, all natural PC and software to go with it.
Free internet too! OK, there were some guys to lay the cable line, and admin the network, and handle customer service, and pull permits so we’re not living in anarchy, and… I can’t go on.
It’s a miracle! No one worked to provide any of this! And if they did, I’m sure they loved every moment of it.
Signed: Guy who broke his ass bringing y’all the first cable internet installs and updated software for Y2K so you can laugh about it being no big deal.
Given enough time nerds would have invented the internet just to argue with each other, with or without financial compensation
Neither is the Internet or the computer you are using, or the highly developed efficient language you are speaking, nor the clothes on your back, the medical care you’ve received, the worldwide logistics that enable you to have a nice miso soup, or maybe a slice of cheese every once in a while, or even the engineering, math, and, science that allow anything and everything to exist in our world, yet people throughout history have worked very hard to make those things for you.
If you don’t want to contribute back, that’s totally fine, just know that the rest of humanity is working hard to keep you alive even if you don’t.
Someone has to dispose of your trash, and it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna be you.
Do not assume I am here because I wish to be
Yeah sure, but unlike a job, the Internet and computers are the en vogue method of communications, access to which is absolutely essential.
Who do you think built all of it? It didn’t just magically appear for us to consume. Throughout history people have worked hard to make all of this.
People work without being exploited. Nice things can be done without money exchanging hands.
Is that the argument? Because the person I responded to said ‘people shouldn’t have jobs’
If you are arguing for an anti capitalist (or what appears to be an anti commerce) position, it’s almost entirely irrelevant.
No matter what, people will have to work, whether it is homesteading or a global network of logistics, food has to be grown and since we have a generally global society, goods and services need to be provided all around the planet, regardless if people are getting paid or exploited to do so.
I’m arguing that we have rights to our collective infrastructure. You seem to be incorrectly correlating infrastructure existing to infrastructure being owned or something? Or having to require some specific person to create or maintain it?
Work can and will get done without remuneration.
We don’t need servitude to an organization, which is what a job is.
Sooo, what do we call the thing that is a collection of work in which someone is expected to complete it? Maybe a jobby instead?
I mean I don’t really get what the argument is here, are you mad at the word job? No matter what, the role of ‘farmer’ will exist and will be a full time [collection of work that the person in the role is expected to complete] in which other people will be dependant on them doing. You can call it a shmackadoodle if you want, it doesn’t change it’s existence.
A job is a collection of work, sometimes for pay, sometimes not, but really this is idiotic pedantry, if the argument that op was making is that communism is great, or, I don’t want to work, or people should not have to work to survive, then they should have stated that. But claiming jobs aren’t natural is just stupid, conceptually, they are just as natural as anything else humanity has developed since basic agriculture.
And besides all of that, the point doesn’t make sense anyway, the right to a job is a great thing, rights are not obligations, fundamentally the right to a job doesn’t mean you have to have one.
Fascists: You have no rights, your sole purpose is to enrich the oligarchy with your very life.
Democrats: We disagree with the Fascists, but we aren’t gonna do fuckall about it. Sorry.
bOtH siDeS
Where is the lie? What did democrats actually do to prevent fascism?
Wrong question.
Democrats have voted and even implemented plenty of good into the country (ACA, Inflation Reduction Act, CFPB), despite heavy opposition.
Ask the fascists why they’re being fascists.
Ask why conservatism maps so cleanly to fascism.
Ask why 75+ million fascists voted for a fucking fascist and his Nazi friends.
Do they owe us a living?
Of course they do, of course they do.
Owe us a living?
Of course they do, of course they do.
Owe us a living?
OF COURSE THEY FUCKING DO.
