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>When a plumber gets satisfaction from a good day's work of fixing piping in people's houses, do they get their purpose in life / sense of being needed and usef

>When a plumber gets satisfaction from a good day's work of fixing piping in people's houses, do they get their purpose in life / sense of being needed and useful (note: not the same thing!) from an authority figure? Hell no, unless you think clients are authority figures. >But they are getting this sense from their work. I guess I wouldn't say that self-employed professionals have a job. I think of it as a self-employed versus wage-labor distinction. >Full employment can offer such a social framework (if done right, of course), while a UBI can't (no matter how it is implemented). Who are you to deny this to other people just because they're different from you? This is, of course, where we actually disagree. I think that while a UBI is by no means a perfect solution to human worth or psychological needs, it's a much better solution than "full" employment to people's material needs, while many many alternatives remain besides employment for the psychological needs. It's a continuous tradeoff made under uncertainty, and we should talk about where we believe the tradeoffs are.

nhaehnle 10y ago
How does UBI solve any psychological needs at all?
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  Anxiety over your material needs is a psychological affliction. These aren't such different things.
  - nhaehnle 10y ago
    That's a bit of a cop-out, isn't it, because you're only talking about psychological needs which are inextricably linked with material needs, and there was never any argument about the fact that UBI does solve those. If that's really the best you can come up with, I think it's safe to say that UBI doesn't offer any solutions for human worth or psychological needs. (I also partially get it; solving material needs is easy compared to psychology.) And it's funny, I never see UBI supporters propose actual solutions for those. It's always just hand-waving, like they are prepared to give lip-service to the issue, but they're not really interested in solving it. It's self-serving politics by an elite who already has all the frameworks for solving their own psychological needs, as long as the material ones are satisfied. At least you have to give the full employment/Job Guarantee folks credit for actually trying to come up with something. For what it's worth, it's not like those things are in conflict anyway. UBI and full employment are complementary policies, they don't contradict each other.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      >And it's funny, I never see UBI supporters propose actual solutions for those. It's always just hand-waving, like they are prepared to give lip-service to the issue, but they're not really interested in solving it. It's self-serving politics by an elite who already has all the frameworks for solving their own psychological needs, as long as the material ones are satisfied. At least you have to give the full employment/Job Guarantee folks credit for actually trying to come up with something. I guess I don't give so much credit because I'm a weirdo who doesn't get a lot of his psychological self-worth from his work. Yes, work can be interesting and engaging sometimes. So can any number of other things in my life, none of which pay me wages. I also don't think that assembly-line jobs ever actually provided for people's psychological needs. That's part of why the '60s and '70s had so much wildcat worker militancy: people found that while they were glad to have their material needs met, they had absolute psychological needs beyond what their jobs could ever meet. So to turn it around: I think that "jobs for everyone" is likewise the self-serving politics of an elite who already gain far more life-satisfaction from their professional work than the masses ever will from manufacturing or services. >For what it's worth, it's not like those things are in conflict anyway. UBI and full employment are complementary policies, they don't contradict each other. Very true, and we should probably support both.

nhaehnle 10y ago

How does UBI solve any psychological needs at all?

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
Anxiety over your material needs is a psychological affliction. These aren't such different things.
- nhaehnle 10y ago
  That's a bit of a cop-out, isn't it, because you're only talking about psychological needs which are inextricably linked with material needs, and there was never any argument about the fact that UBI does solve those. If that's really the best you can come up with, I think it's safe to say that UBI doesn't offer any solutions for human worth or psychological needs. (I also partially get it; solving material needs is easy compared to psychology.) And it's funny, I never see UBI supporters propose actual solutions for those. It's always just hand-waving, like they are prepared to give lip-service to the issue, but they're not really interested in solving it. It's self-serving politics by an elite who already has all the frameworks for solving their own psychological needs, as long as the material ones are satisfied. At least you have to give the full employment/Job Guarantee folks credit for actually trying to come up with something. For what it's worth, it's not like those things are in conflict anyway. UBI and full employment are complementary policies, they don't contradict each other.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    >And it's funny, I never see UBI supporters propose actual solutions for those. It's always just hand-waving, like they are prepared to give lip-service to the issue, but they're not really interested in solving it. It's self-serving politics by an elite who already has all the frameworks for solving their own psychological needs, as long as the material ones are satisfied. At least you have to give the full employment/Job Guarantee folks credit for actually trying to come up with something. I guess I don't give so much credit because I'm a weirdo who doesn't get a lot of his psychological self-worth from his work. Yes, work can be interesting and engaging sometimes. So can any number of other things in my life, none of which pay me wages. I also don't think that assembly-line jobs ever actually provided for people's psychological needs. That's part of why the '60s and '70s had so much wildcat worker militancy: people found that while they were glad to have their material needs met, they had absolute psychological needs beyond what their jobs could ever meet. So to turn it around: I think that "jobs for everyone" is likewise the self-serving politics of an elite who already gain far more life-satisfaction from their professional work than the masses ever will from manufacturing or services. >For what it's worth, it's not like those things are in conflict anyway. UBI and full employment are complementary policies, they don't contradict each other. Very true, and we should probably support both.