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That doesn't subsequently mean "non-exploitive" alternatives would exist, it just means those customers/employees would have no options (not even "exploitive" o

That doesn't subsequently mean "non-exploitive" alternatives would exist, it just means those customers/employees would have no options (not even "exploitive" ones). The hidden assumption here is that producing the goods and services required to keep a single human being alive in relative comfort (fed, sheltered, educated, healthy) necessarily requires an expenditure of manual effort roughly equivalent to what that human being can do. Or, in other words, the assumption is that it is not and never can be the case that N people can be provided for by the effort of K people, where K < N. And yet that assumption is obviously false: we have, here and now, the ability to feed, shelter, educate and provide health care to every single human being on the planet, and the ability to do so without the need for many of them to work for it. In the western world this has manifested in the explosion of service-oriented industries and administrative roles, which are essentially make-work jobs to give society as a whole the feeling that people are "earning their keep". Even among these affluent, supposedly highly-skilled people, probably the majority of the jobs are simply unnecessary. What's needed is a realignment of our mentality about work: now that we have the ability to provide for everyone, we should simply do it regardless of whether everyone works or not. Will there be free riders as a result? Sure, but they're not actually a problem, and become less of one with every passing day (since the system that produces the necessary goods and services continues to grow in efficiency), and we just need to get over our fear that someone, somewhere might manage to have their needs provided for without working for it (we're already content to do this when someone inherits sufficient wealth to live without working, so this would just be an extension of that attitude: people living now and in the future will "inherit" the wealth of the past of the human species and be provided for out of it).

tysonjennings 11y ago
Or, in other words, the assumption is that it is not and never can be the case that N people can be provided for by the effort of K people, where K < N. This attitude is terrifying. As a matter of policy, you would have me work as a slave for someone else or in turn, benefit from the slavery of others? It would be total war first.
bardworx 11y ago
Isn't Communism very similar to your perfect world? All the people were provided for and they worked for everyone and everyone was equal. However, that didn't work out too well. In any system, some folk will always squatter and some will always attempt to gain power/advantage. Your world sounds too much like Atlas Shrugged.
- ubernostrum 11y ago
  The thing to realize here is that the number of humans who need to do work building/operating/maintaining the machinery that keeps everyone taken care of decreases over time. It's perfectly reasonable to expect a point in the future where most of the time, zero direct human work is required in order to provide for all humans. The issue is getting over the mental hurdle of enabling such a society. The technology is actually pretty straightforward, but the politics of it is full of people who just can't stand the idea of that filthy leeching parasite, he doesn't work as hard as I do, why does he get anything at all! He doesn't deserve it! Which in turn is an artifact of an economic system that's already firmly in the past of many developed nations (i.e., one in which all people needed to work constantly in order to produce enough to keep themselves alive). Of course this is a fundamentally irrational position to hold when one already lives in a society that's content to let people who never work a day in their lives have all their needs taken care of (see: inheritance). It also disregards the fact that many people who have everything literally handed to them from birth still feel a drive to try to do something meaningful with their lives. There are trust-fund parasites who don't do anything, of course, but it certainly isn't 100% of them. Plus, it's pretty well empirically established that humans do get bored and seek things to do even when they have no life-sustaining work left to perform (see: retirement).
  - taneq 11y ago
    I think we're already past that point, if we define "provide for all humans" as "provide shelter, food, and clean water." However, "provide for humans" is a moving target which is actually interpreted as "provide a living standards not significantly worse than average." These days that includes providing running hot/cold water, range of healthy food, air conditioning, electricity, TV, internet, some form of motorized transport, health care, clothing, etc. etc."
NoGravitas 11y ago
You are my favourite HN commenter. I frequently have the experience of reading a well-written, insightful comment, looking up, and seeing that it was written by ubernostrum.
ctdonath 11y ago
The reason "we have, here and now, the ability to feed, shelter, educate and provide health care to every single human being on the planet" is precisely because of capitalism: it's worth someone's time & resources to produce so much so efficiently. If those producers stopped, lacking incentive, global starvation would occur in about a week. A key point you miss: wealth is perishable. Food rots. Weeds grow. Machines rust. Buildings crumble. Durable money is inedible, useful only when exchanged for something perishable. You really need to read Atlas Shrugged. Comes a point when us producers get sick of you looters, and drop out of society. I'm already feeling enormous strain from my 30-50% tax bracket (most going to a welfare system you want), and debate switching lifestyle to the self sufficient farming I was raised on and which your utopia would receive 0% of.

tysonjennings 11y ago

Or, in other words, the assumption is that it is not and never can be the case that N people can be provided for by the effort of K people, where K < N. This attitude is terrifying. As a matter of policy, you would have me work as a slave for someone else or in turn, benefit from the slavery of others? It would be total war first.

bardworx 11y ago

Isn't Communism very similar to your perfect world? All the people were provided for and they worked for everyone and everyone was equal. However, that didn't work out too well. In any system, some folk will always squatter and some will always attempt to gain power/advantage. Your world sounds too much like Atlas Shrugged.

ubernostrum 11y ago
The thing to realize here is that the number of humans who need to do work building/operating/maintaining the machinery that keeps everyone taken care of decreases over time. It's perfectly reasonable to expect a point in the future where most of the time, zero direct human work is required in order to provide for all humans. The issue is getting over the mental hurdle of enabling such a society. The technology is actually pretty straightforward, but the politics of it is full of people who just can't stand the idea of that filthy leeching parasite, he doesn't work as hard as I do, why does he get anything at all! He doesn't deserve it! Which in turn is an artifact of an economic system that's already firmly in the past of many developed nations (i.e., one in which all people needed to work constantly in order to produce enough to keep themselves alive). Of course this is a fundamentally irrational position to hold when one already lives in a society that's content to let people who never work a day in their lives have all their needs taken care of (see: inheritance). It also disregards the fact that many people who have everything literally handed to them from birth still feel a drive to try to do something meaningful with their lives. There are trust-fund parasites who don't do anything, of course, but it certainly isn't 100% of them. Plus, it's pretty well empirically established that humans do get bored and seek things to do even when they have no life-sustaining work left to perform (see: retirement).
- taneq 11y ago
  I think we're already past that point, if we define "provide for all humans" as "provide shelter, food, and clean water." However, "provide for humans" is a moving target which is actually interpreted as "provide a living standards not significantly worse than average." These days that includes providing running hot/cold water, range of healthy food, air conditioning, electricity, TV, internet, some form of motorized transport, health care, clothing, etc. etc."

NoGravitas 11y ago

You are my favourite HN commenter. I frequently have the experience of reading a well-written, insightful comment, looking up, and seeing that it was written by ubernostrum.

ctdonath 11y ago

The reason "we have, here and now, the ability to feed, shelter, educate and provide health care to every single human being on the planet" is precisely because of capitalism: it's worth someone's time & resources to produce so much so efficiently. If those producers stopped, lacking incentive, global starvation would occur in about a week. A key point you miss: wealth is perishable. Food rots. Weeds grow. Machines rust. Buildings crumble. Durable money is inedible, useful only when exchanged for something perishable. You really need to read Atlas Shrugged. Comes a point when us producers get sick of you looters, and drop out of society. I'm already feeling enormous strain from my 30-50% tax bracket (most going to a welfare system you want), and debate switching lifestyle to the self sufficient farming I was raised on and which your utopia would receive 0% of.