The difference is someone has to do the labor to stop you from being homeless and starving. So, either you will do labor that can compensate them- or you should do the labor to stop yourself from starving. Starvation is the natural state of humanity
No sufficiently sophisticated political ideology is against labor (capitalist work is not synonymous with labor). On the contrary, most anti-capitalist ideologies are extremely pro-labor.
The question isn’t whether we need labor, that’s reductive and (currently) we obviously do. The question is how should labor be treated. Right now labor is a commodity to be bought and sold by capitalists. If we instead setup a system that decommodified labor, outlawing renting of humans (just as we have with buying humans), then even in a market-based economy you have far better compensation for labor.
Market-value for labor in a capitalist society is done as a commodity as I’ve previously said, so the goal is to reduce the price of the commodity as far as allowable for the business owners. This means a viable path towards profitability is reducing the labor force, or cutting compensation. This is why layoffs happen when companies are doing incredibly well, to increase immediate profits.
If instead there was a democratic assembly of workers that held their interests in common, there’d be no reason to just layoff a bunch of great workers during times of good business.
In short, we don’t need two different classes with two different relationships to capital. Instead of allowing one class to rent the other, compensate them as little as possible, and pocket the surplus value, outlaw that commodification of humans and allow the market to properly compensate workers.
This isn’t an end all solution, but market socialism is a massive improvement over capitalism, and once we dismantle the parasitic owner class (capitalists, landleeches, cops, etc.) we can focus on more interesting discussions about the merits of markets in certain situations (e.g they’re good at reacting to consumer desires, they’re bad at accounting for externalized costs like climate change, etc.)
With respect to climate change, it has more to do with the property relationships of the current economic system than the market itself. If natural resources were commonly owned and people had a recognized right to their value, polluters and other people harming the environment during production would have to pay citizens collectively proportional to the social costs. Then, prices would accurately represent the social cost of pollution involved in the production of the product
Starvation is the natural state of the individual. Society separates us from that. You will find that other things are also fairly natural, such as death, disease, and exposure.
Morally, everyone has an equal claim to products of nature and the value they add to production. Today’s economic system denies people their equal claim. If society secured people’s equal right to natural resources and their value, the notion of coercion in the post would be reduced. Therefore, the economic system’s structure causes this coercion not just nature
Starvation is the natural state of the individual. Society separates us from that.
How so? Isn’t the point of this meme that you have to work in society (in general) to not starve?
work in society (in general) to not starve
No. Capitalism requires that we ‘work’. I.e. provide output that is valuable to the capitalists. In a normal society, there are other forms of value that merit the person existing.
But also, we’re human. One of the reasons I want people to not starve is that I’m not a sociopath. So sometimes the value a person provides to society is that they’re not starving in the middle of the street. There’s value in that.
Some societies have figured out how to care for people better than other societies.
Unfortunately, for the support that manages to feed people, work must be done, and not every job can find enough people that want to do it sincerely to avoid some people hating their job.
That doesn’t mean employers should get away with being exploitative and abusive, or that reform isn’t needed. But the philosophy “no one should ever have to do something they don’t want to do” is unrealistic.
Agreed. Now imagine if the people doing the work they don’t enjoy, do it because the compensation outweighs the hardship. Rather than creating systems that both compensate disproportionately less for some roles in society AND ensure there is enough labour through coercive means.
Lets say everyone gets free college education, and there is no bias in the system for who gets to work where. No one wants to be lets say… a technician for utility lines, or work in maintaining sewage systems because there are easier jobs.
Should we a) increase compensation or b) make it difficult for people who work there transition to other work.
Universal healthcare, unemployment income, free education, universal child care, universal housing etc. all undermine the societal ability to keep people at work that is difficult but underfunded.
I agree that there should be rewards for doing undesirable jobs. It would improve coordination.
We could have a society without employers. Everyone could be individually or jointly self-employed as in a worker coop. Such a society would give workers control rights over the fruits of their labor, which employer-employee relationships inherently deny. This denial makes being an employer by itself exploitative and abusive. We need to abolish the property relationships of work not reform
So make a self sustaining commune that lives up to your principles. I think you will find that to be more work than your average 9-5 however.
Very much a ‘you dislike society yet you participate in it. Curious!’ sort of a response. Additionally, OP problem was that they hated their work, not that there was too much of it. But I’d expect as much from my mortal foe.
It’s illegal to homestead in the United States without first buying the land from whoever owns it already, even if the land is entirely unused. This means you need a massive injection of capital, the kind of capital that would mean you’re in the top 10% of Americans (at least) in terms of wealth, exactly the kinds of people who aren’t looking to escape society. This isn’t even mentioning the kinds of building permits and other stamps of approval from the government you’d need to do this, also requiring capital and often licensing by a trained professional.
Of course you can just find unused land and roll the dice on getting caught. A lot of communes have done this successfully, but not everyone is comfortable doing something that is technically illegal.
A lot of people in the top 10% are still working class, and would benefit from a dismantling of capitalism, but they’re not so poor that leaving society is favorable, just reforming society.
For the people who would benefit from leaving society, they’re coerced to stay via laws written by and for the powerful (enforcing private property rights for example, denying access to unused lands).
You don’t need a lot of personal capital if you fundraise prior to starting your commune, and have everyone pitch in the equity from sold homes/cashed out 401(k)s etc
Also you don’t have a right to someone’s property simply because they aren’t using it at the moment
A lot of Americans have negative net worth, so everyone cashing out would likely mean you’re still in debt, which is one of the ways our society keeps people trapped.
There’s a difference between legal rights and moral rights. Legally you’re correct, but 150 years ago people legally had the right to buy slaves, but they didn’t have the moral right to.
Similarly, people have the legal right to buy hundreds of acres of land and hold onto it until it increases in value, and then sell it later. This is immoral though, it’s scalping. We all understand scalping is bad when it’s through the lens of GPUs or consoles because we weren’t raised hearing about how “smart investors” invested in GPUs, we just heard about “investing” in housing or land.
If you have a solid argument why scalping houses or land should be permissible and even praised, while scalping GPUs/consoles should be impressible or at least scolded, I’d love to hear why.
I’d assert that scalping necessities is actually worse than scalping luxury goods.
The moral rights are more complicated when the property is in something that includes natural resources such as land. Land isn’t the fruits of anyone’s labor, so everyone has an equal claim to it. There are a variety of ways this equal claim could be recognized, but one that has been proposed is requiring active occupancy and use to retain ownership of land. Another is a 100% land value tax whose revenue is distributed as a social dividend to citizens, which would give people some capital
I kind of feel like both are true.
The threat of starvation and homelessness is a pretty strong coercion to keep working at all…
…but nobody’s really stopping you from job-hunting if you really hate this particular job rather than the concept of having a job at all.
I’m not going to sit here and be like “just go back to school, get certifications, blah blah blah” because seriously fuck that. You and whose fuckin’ Time Turner?
That said, even looking for a less-awful workplace doing the same thing you’re already doing could be an improvement in your overall mental health and life situation. A small step, maybe, but I know from myself and people around me that it can be a step.
You need to be very certain though. What if the new job doesn’t work out and they decide 6 months later they don’t need you after all? Having a job, as shitty as it might be, is stability. Changing a system always comes with risks.
(Never mind that a different job needs to even be available without moving your whole life elsewhere)
Your current shitty job could do the same thing.
You should always be casually interviewing. Your current employer should be passively fighting to keep you (with the conditions and comp and growth your are experiencing there). If another job offers more, off you should go.
True, it could also happen to my current job. But then I haven’t actively done anything to cause it. I haven’t gone out of my way to change the situation and thus made it worse. That’s a big factor in why people are afraid of change, the risk of actively and inadvertently making it worse, instead of passively enduring.
(Disclaimer: I’m on disability so I don’t have a “current job” and I also live in a place with decently sane labour laws)
but nobody’s really stopping you from job-hunting if you really hate this particular job
Yes and no. It might be extremely difficult to get an interview due to the hours you’re currently working.
How is it a weak ass excuse? If you’re scheduled to work during the hours that interviews are available, what the hell are you supposed to do?
Nobodys stopping you but having a miserable job can take its toll and can affect your job hunt. At least it did for me. After years of failed job hunts and a difficult battle with MDD and alcoholism my Dr signed me off sick until I got a new job. In a short period I had 3 job offers.
3months off with full pay. Spent a couple days a week job hunting. Rest of the time went walking in the national parks with my dog. At the end I had a 60% better paying job, no more commute, no more being voluntold to drive around the country to tasks I had zero training for and much better colleagues. One of my best times of my life.
I agree with you to an extent. From my personal experience, working at a string of shitty companies, some industries don’t provide better opportunities. In service jobs for example you usually can only choose between being treated like “a piece of shit” or “a human who is also a piece of shit”.
Additionally, working 8 hours as a punching bag, plus 1 hour unpaid overtime, plus 2 hour commute doesn’t leave much energy to write applications.
I also managed to get out of it eventually, but I’ve always been overqualified for the service industry and always had problems with authority, which made it easier for me to question the way I was treated. Still it was way harder than it had to be.
That feels like a musical chairs approach to this issue, where people who find a good job are lucky and sit in that and the rest shuffle between the shitty job leftovers. I recently found a decent job and it‘s only cause the guy retired after 30 years. Now I can only hope they will keep me on, or else I get to participate in that awful game again. Or maybe it will turn shitty for some other reason, like how there is no raises and my rent keeps going up anyway.
We even got unions in my country, and still we ended up like this where a lot of people switch jobs every few years to try and keep up with inflation. I’m not saying don’t take that step though. Sorry, I got no point I think? Just a rant your comment inspired in me.
This same logic could be used to argue that the government forced people to get the covid vaccine.
I think they mean that particular job, not just any job.
