this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Antiwork
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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 21, 2023
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The Anti-Work Library 📚
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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The biggest assumption made here is that people's financial literacy is 100% a choice and that it's solely their responsibility. If they make poor financial decisions, sorry, get good. Ignoring the fact that some people will always struggle with comprehending concepts in the best of circumstances, our mandatory education doesn't tell people how to even budget their salary, let alone how to save for retirement. Is it any wonder that many people of retirement age don't have any savings?
While the financial knowledge might exist for people that know to look for it, they need to know to look for it. If their parents and family lack this knowledge and can't pass it on to their kids, how are they supposed to learn the importance of it? This is a ripe system for perpetuating inequality of financial wisdom, allowing inequality to build generationally. By not distributing the basic knowledge required to not live in near or actual poverty in one's old age, our country ensures that we are farther from the meritocracy you seem to think exists.
When it comes to losing a job, you view things in an absolute sense and not a relative sense. Ergo, what does a financial loss mean for one's material conditions? Most people spend most of their salary on living, so most of that salary is not in fact something they have a choice in how to spend. If they lose a job, they might have a pittance that they were able to save and is still theirs, but if they have trouble finding a good job, they might have to give up even some of that. This is a big deal and people risk losing their homes, their health, and access to basic necessities.
If a big time CEO sees their stock price drop, even if it drops off the map, they might lose sleep, or get sad, but they probably aren't going to lose access to housing. They will still be able to go to their doctors. They won't fucking starve. They have so much wealth they could lose 99% of it and still be very well off. If they somehow end up in the place the average American ends up when they lose their job, idk, maybe they can get good?
How do things become common sense Bob? Someone needs to teach it to them. You're relying on people being taught not only financial information, but also how to problem solve. In case you haven't noticed, schools do a shit job at teaching problem solving and critical thinking as well, especially because it often isn't an explicit part of the curriculum.
That isn't the main issue though. Going back to something you said earlier
Ignoring the fact that A.I. might actually be able to actually do that soon, you have the classic attitude of personal responsibility being necessary for someone's life. Your life is your responsibility. While this may be true to an extent, in practicality people get screwed over by forces outside their control far too often for it to automatically be what one should assume.
This point of view is called an internal locus of control, and it is very useful in motivating people to keep trying to help themselves despite the odds. The insidious thing about our culture is how it is used to keep people from fully interrogating our unfair system. It's a foundational belief that is inaccurate on a few levels.
First, people are not in control of ourselves to a larger extent than we'd like to believe. Even Freud could tell that certain desires and impulses control our behavior more than our conscious mind. On one hand, things like fear and hunger can override our consciousness to make us act illogical. On the other, societal training and preconceived notions can cloud our perception and make us conform to societal notions we don't even support. Things like gut bacteria and environmental factors can totally change the way we think or what we want.
Bigger still, we are all biologically and neurologically different. Some people are born with a diminished capacity for controlling their impulses, understanding certain concepts, or thinking in certain ways. Some people just won't get financial management until the 100th time it's explained to them. Some people will have trouble getting themselves to do things they don't enjoy, even if they want to and hate themselves for not being able to. Some people are born dyslexic, have exceptional trouble doing basic math, or have other disabilities. There are way more of these people than you think, and without the proper resources, have trouble doing the things you seem to assume are within everyone's capabilities.
The thing is, most people with disabilities can be productive members of society, some even more productive than average. There's a fine line between disability and advantage. Some people are born unlucky, having a net lack of merit in a meritocracy. Under the current system only disabled people with a wealthy enough family can become high enough functioning to not fucking die from how they were born. Some people will always need help, that they currently only get if their family can support them.
When you were talking about small business owners struggling, you were missing my point. I wasn't talking about 95% of business owners. I was talking about the 1% of business owners who have the majority of the wealth. They may have capital, but they have more in common with the working class than the people lucky enough to win Monopoly. That is what we're playing with the free market capitalism, a game of Monopoly where eventually one person owns everything. Even people with the same start as the eventual winner can end up with nothing based on pure luck. The game was made by a socialist to demonstrate this truth, true fact.
The ultimate lesson is that luck defines most things, from your merit to your ability to even make choices. This doesn't mean we stop trying, it means we need to make a society where people without "merit" don't die for being cosmicaly unlucky. Where we use modern technology from teaching ideas to surgeries and drugs to make sure no one is left behind. We need to ultimately force the lucky to not let people needlessly suffer. This means redistribution. Fuck who earns it, no one fully earns so much power.
Oh, so common mental disorders that make it harder for someone to do everything needed for success are just excuses. Of course they need to work hard, but that doesn't mean they'll ever reach your level of success. You sound like you've worked hard to get to where you are, and all that work was necessary in the current system. But someone who finds doing the things you do twice as difficult, can't work twice as hard as you did. People have a finite capacity to work hard, and if you were working near the limit for an individual, how could someone with less luck ever be financially stable. ADHD for instance affects 1 in 20, and makes it very hard for people to learn and work. That's not the only condition that makes life harder, and any portion of people over 1% in America means millions of people. I go down that road because millions of people don't deserve to die for things outside of their control. It just isn't right when society can do so much more to help them.
Many people have this misconception about determinism meaning we should just give up and die. This couldn't be further from the truth. An important point in my outlook is that you might never be able to win a rigged game. If you're born with little economic merit and a limited capacity to gain more, then you will probably not win the capitalist game. Hell, you might not even be able to survive in it. That's why we must change the game, reform or rebuild the system to allow even the least economically productive people to have secure housing, food, water, and other necessities. So that everyone has economic security and any wages earned can be used for one's self actualization rather than for survival.
Another part of my outlook is that I see humans as machines. I don't believe people deserve human rights because of their immortal soul or anything like that, but I believe human rights are foundational to making a world worth living in. Therefore everyone must be given human rights, because otherwise all our rights are on the chopping block for profit. Therefore people starving in the richest country on earth is an existential threat for me.
I have the belief we all can improve and become better than our past selves, but that requires technology in the the form of ideas, and resources like time and energy. The internal locus of control and therefore the protestant work ethic are individually useful for motivation, requiring far less thought to get good results than what I believe is the truth. However, ignorance and an incorrect view will eventually lead us off course. So we should get a new tool, a new technology to lead us down a better path.
In order to not get crushed in hopelessness and depression, I turned to Buddhist philosophy mixed with classical Greek philosophy. If everyone is a product of luck and the circumstances that got them there, everyone is at all times trying their best. This might sound bad if one looks down on someone's best not being good enough, but if one sees the unknown value and potential that exists in such complex and awesome creatures, it lifts a burden off one's chest. People can be augmented with ideas and physical tech, allowing a blind person, a psychopath, or anybody with any deviation from "optimal" standards to live fulfilling lives that benefit everyone. The big point is that we just don't know for certain, and unless the cost would be so great as to jeopardize other people even more, we must try to give people the help they need.
I want a world where a younger you doesn't have so much anxiety about your financial security. Where the consequences of you making a mistake aren't so serious because you know you can always have a solid safety net you can fall into. What you worry about won't be existential, and as much is guaranteed for you as technology permits. Tech has boosted human productivity so far, that we need fewer and fewer people to provide everyone with necessities. The excess people power can be used on improving lives beyond that point. We just need to defeat the notion that the goal of humanity is to increase profits for a small elite. Society must serve people, not the other way around.
Honestly, you sound a bit like you're demanding the younger generations go through the same hardships you did simply because it'll make you feel like your struggles weren't meaningless. Your struggles and sacrifices were valiant and brave. Future people not having them does not make what you did any less impressive or noble. Besides, we have our own challenges and have to make our own sacrifices thanks to climate change and the fact that we still need to fix this system.
I guess my point with the "optimal" thing was a little misleading. I don't believe do or die meritocracy is a good goal to strive for, so I don't believe we should force people to be able bodied. The point is that one doesn't need to make themselves able by society's standards because they can be happy as they are.
Work should be something one does to get the nicer things in life, not something one does to live. This is the only way to make people economically free. This will only be accomplished through violence, preferably through the state, exercised on the very wealthy. (When I say violence I mean laws. All laws have to be backed by threat of violence, otherwise they're just recommendations.)
They may have stacked the deck in their favor, but like you said, if you believe it's not possible you'll never succeed. You choose to believe you can make a good life through capitalism. I can see that the game is becoming increasingly unfair, and choose to believe that state power can be used to eventually make government mandated human rights a reality. I believe liberalism can, in theory realize a future where work is optional. We just need to sacrifice the economic liberties that only the rich can actually use. This doesn't mean the state should do everything, unions and non profit NGOs are essential, but state power is necessary as only it can do certain things.
As far as capitalism goes, it will eventually push small players like you out of the game if left unregulated. That's why if capitalism is to continue to exist as a thing the average person can buy into, we need a minimum of massive reform and social programs and a redistribution of the wealth held by the stupid rich. If liberal democracy is unable to deliver this, people will tear it down and there's no guarantee the succeeding system will be democratic. This is why we must enact this change with haste.
That's the issue with global capitalism and why most nationalistic attempts at communism couldn't be successful. The system of global capitalism is enabled by mechanisms the US supports and upholds. The system wouldn't suddenly collapse if the US stopped upholding it, but it would need to adjust. The free flow of capital is what allows it, so the free flow of capital would need to be crippled. Other strategies like agreed upon tax rates for companies made by most large governments could also improve things. Ultimately it does require global class consciousness and global cooperation.
When it comes to regulating capitalism, we need to do more than we currently do. The tide of deregulation must be halted and reversed in many complex ways I don't have time to get into. This will probably require a constitutional amendment or reform of the courts the restore the power of regulatory agencies.
When it comes to our current welfare spending, most of it comes from Medicare and social security, both popular programs that do a lot of good. Expanding Medicare to cover everyone would raise taxes for everyone, but it would save everybody money and actually give people more disposable income. Social security could theoretically be expanded, effectively budgeting for everyone's retirement, but we really don't need to touch it anytime soon.
If every last dime was taken from the very wealthy, then it wouldn't just be withdrawing money from a bank account, it would involve distributing more stock in companies to the workers. This is the role that unions and non government collectives could play. Ideally, it would involve restructuring companies so they worked more democratically and CEOs and executives would be elected by workers rather than chosen by people with capital who have no stake in the company besides profit. This would need to happen in tandem with everything else, and it would be a gradual transition away from capital investments to worker owned companies. Taking from the wealthy isn't a long term strategy, but a technique used to transition away from capital ruling over everything.
Eventually, there would be no ultra wealthy, but taking from them will no longer be necessary. That democratization of business and workers would be the socialist element that would need to be enabled by the government. Workers would be able to switch industries by earning stock with them that they could switch to a new industry through currency. Then, when they feel like retiring, they could live off that stock for a while. If we expand human lifespans and reverse aging, it might even be cyclical where people would spend years in retirement, and then come out of it to work before retiring again.
It's radically different, but it would allow people to carve out existences in the system. People who never retire because they enjoy work would support those who worked only to earn bonus comfort, and automation would make much of society run without much work. It's a futuristic goal, but it honestly isn't that unrealistic technologically. We have slowed aging in mice and expanded their lifespans already, even reversing the age of human cells, and automation through ai has made huge breakthroughs recently. Look at how much tech has changed life in the last 100 years. Is this change really so far fetched?
Unfortunately most people, even people who are self proclaimed socialists, don't think through what seizing the means of production means. It means that the capital that is owned by a class of people who do little labor for it, is given back to the people who labor. Another reason people don't describe the system is that many different versions and strategies exist to accomplish this goal. I'm not an economist by any means, so I'm not wed to that plan.
It's ultimately about accomplishing the goal of economic equity where anything beyond the necessities is earned through labor, not ownership. The current system where you gain wealth primarily from owning capital leads to people getting impractical sums of wealth. Scarcity means that those impractical sums are allocated in a way that lets people suffer and die needlessly.
Additionally, many people who are merely social democrats don't want capitalism to go away so long as people aren't left behind. I'm not determined to destroy capitalism at all costs, making me a bit of a social democrat. However, I don't care if capitalism is destroyed so long as the goal is accomplished.
It's easier to unite people behind the mentality of making the economy more fair than to nail down a solid plan that everyone agrees to. Most people will never need to understand how the intricacies of the system work beyond how they interact with it. So why make sure everyone fully comprehends anything beyond the input and the output? I don't know exactly how my computer works, but I can use it. So long as the information is available to everyone and the basics are common enough knowledge, we can have people informed enough to vote and fight for it.
I'm getting tired, and this will probably be my last response, but I will say that the current Amazon stock purchase plan is missing the point. Almost all the capital is owned by shareholders who don't work at the company, so owning the stock gives workers little say over company decisions or ability to realize the full profits. The point is to give all that stock back to the workers or a democratic government. There's still room for executives who make decisions, but they are only representatives. The role of CEO would probably be similar in name and public relations only. It would be like calling Biden the king of the US. The system being owned by workers isn't a choice, but the main feature of such a system.
Part of the reason the ACA has problems is because it needed Republican and moderate Democrat support, leading to compromises that hindered it. The fact that the senate is an elected position necessitates the removal of the filibuster to get things done.