7 ms·

I'm curious what a modern society that didn't need to work would look like. Especially a heterogeneous society like the US without a single driving culture. Wou

I'm curious what a modern society that didn't need to work would look like. Especially a heterogeneous society like the US without a single driving culture. Would it be a golden age of philosophers or one of ever more insane (and violent) cults? After all, people with a lot of free time, guaranteed "income" and a lack of driving goals seems the perfect candidate pool for cults.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
RodgerTheGreat 6y ago
What makes you think the spoils of a society that doesn't need labor would be distributed evenly? Today, most of us are controlled by our need to work to live. "Guaranteed income" would mean the people who control us today lose some of that control. Do you think they will give that up without a fight?
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Bingo. Billionaires and large corporations are what's holding us back from the future Keynes envisioned, where we'd be working ~15 hours a week. The reserve army of labor is necessary to keep the numbers going up and to the right, and our financial paperclip maximizer overlords can't be bothered to see it any other way.
  - gamegoblin 6y ago
    Is it not the case that we could work 15 hours per week and maintain the lifestyle that was prevalent during Keynes' day? That is, isn't our inflation-adjusted total compensation more than 3x what it was in the mid 1930s? The average inflation-adjusted salary in 1935 was only in the realm of $10,000 (in 2020 dollars). So you could work 15 hours per week at that standard of living if your take-home wage was $13/hour. Of course, there are other obstacles to making this work. You can't, for instance, get housing for as cheap as was possible then due to increased construction standards. But that (and other similar obstacles) are not the result of some cabal of billionaires. Some costs in the US, medical being the primary example, are more expensive than they should be due to financial and political scheming. But most things are not. I'm from the state of Arkansas, where housing is quite cheap. When I lived there (until 2014), my total cost of living was around under $800/month (rent+utilities+food). This comes out to $9600/year.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      It is not possible. Housing, medical care, movie tickets, college tuition, prescription drugs, and a host of other things have gone up in price far faster than inflation since then. You can't even buy a house that was around when Keynes was for the inflation adjusted price it was then. What would your cost of equivalent housing have been in Keynes' day?
      - gamegoblin 6y ago
        A typical house in the 1930s cost between 50-100K in 2020 dollars. Houses can be had this cheap all over the country. To use my hometown as an example, consider this 1948 house that Redfin believes is worth $30K: https://www.redfin.com/AR/North-Little-Rock/707-Gardenia-Ave-72117/home/82955744 https://www.redfin.com/AR/North-Little-Rock/707-Gardenia-Ave... It's 3 miles from the downtown of a half-million person metro area. If you're willing to go up into that $50-100K range, you will find plenty of fine houses in mid-sized cities throughout the Midwest/South. The apartment I rented was an 1100 square foot, 2 bedroom townhouse a block from the bus stop -- $350/month.
        pmiller2 6y ago
        But, that's not the "typical" house anymore. You're equating the very cheapest houses and apartments today with the median/typical house from then. You can't even live where you could in 1930 for the same money you could then. You can't rent for what you could in 1930. You can't go to the doctor. You can't buy a car. You can't send your kids to college. There are more things you just can't do today on 1930-equivalent money. Need I go on?
        gamegoblin 6y ago
        To re-iterate my original statement: "Is it not the case that we could work 15 hours per week and maintain the lifestyle that was prevalent during Keynes' day?" I'm explicitly talking about living as if it were the 1930s. No internet. No cable. No air conditioning. No eating at restaurants multiple times per week. Small house. No college. Maybe no car. So you say I am equating the cheapest houses today with the median back then, which is absolutely correct. That is exactly what I am trying to say. You can live a median 1930s lifestyle for dirt cheap today. That house was built in 1948 and is basically the same as most other middle class houses built in that time period. In 1930, fewer than 1% of people graduated from college. So if you want to live a median 1930s lifestyle, you probably don't have to worry about sending your kids to college. You don't need college to command the $13/hr wage that is necessary to live this lifestyle anyway. Only 48% of households owned a car in 1930, so if you want a median 1930s lifestyle, that may involve not owning a car. And if you do own a car, a used car from 2005 can be had for $1000 and trounces any middle class 1930s car from that era in every metric.
- tayo42 6y ago
  Who is they?
  - jariel 6y ago
    'They' is the 'magical evil ruling class' that is the bane of every such fantastic ideology. There really isn't much of a 'they' trying to 'control you'. Frankly, mostly, rich people are more conscientious, and just want to 'make money' for the most part. The most cynical I think we could be would be to say that 'they' - meaning the business community at large - want you mostly to 'consume stuff'. But the level of irrational cynicism here is a little disturbing, a see a lot of people who might be depressed and could be reaching out for help. Notes on the creation of the consumer economy in the US towards the start of 1900's [1] [1] https://www.ushistory.org/us/46f.asp https://www.ushistory.org/us/46f.asp
- tengbretson 6y ago
  > "Guaranteed income" would mean the people who control us today lose some of that control. Do you have more control over the dog you feed every day or the wolves that feed themselves?
hh3k0 6y ago
I'd wager that it'd most likely be a less violent society, considering that poverty is closely linked to violence.
kaycebasques 6y ago
> After all, people with a lot of free time, guaranteed "income" and a lack of driving goals seems the perfect candidate pool for cults. From my own experience with a borderline cult, the people most vulnerable to cults are ones that have had trauma of some sort. Economic prosperity was kind of all across the board, now that I reflect on it. I do agree that "lack of driving goal" is a big factor. Not an expert on this topic; I just think it's an interesting tangent: what exactly are the biggest factors that make someone susceptible to joining a cult?
kgin 6y ago
Humans don't need work as we know it in the 21st century, but humans don't do well without work in the general sense. There are plenty of things to do that could even be useful to society that aren't modern wage work.
djsumdog 6y ago
Insane violent cults. I use to believe in UBI, but I'm really not so sure now. I think it would be less Star Trek and more The Expanse. You take away peoples' agency and people degrade. We also haven't solved resource scarcity, so you do have to have a production cycle (or find a way to totally close the production to recycling loop) before you can really worry about a work-less society. But I go back to the underlying theme of the original Star Trek series with Kirk and Spock. Countless times they were presented with paradise, only to find humans were not quite ready for it. Even in a Federation which had solved resource scarcity, removed money and harvested limitless energy, the desire to explore and seek out new life, and even new dangers and disaster, could not be quenched.
solatic 6y ago
A man without work will produce evil, on his lips a fire will burn. - Proverbs 16:27 (more commonly know by translations like "idle hands are the Devil's workshop, his lips make the Devil's mouthpiece") Economic engagement is not, shall we say, as "pure" in outcome as direct civic engagement / volunteering / philanthropy. The question for a post-scarcity society is how to motivate civic engagement, even without the prospect of financial reward.
schwartzworld 6y ago
> After all, people with a lot of free time, guaranteed "income" and a lack of driving goals seems the perfect candidate pool for cults. I think there's a pretty decent argument to be made that most people who are working don't have time for real personal goals. The realities of life often take priority over personal pursuits. In a world without mandatory work to survive, people would be free to pursue frivolous interests. If everybody who wanted to play guitar could just play guitar all the time, the world would be full of music.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

RodgerTheGreat 6y ago

What makes you think the spoils of a society that doesn't need labor would be distributed evenly? Today, most of us are controlled by our need to work to live. "Guaranteed income" would mean the people who control us today lose some of that control. Do you think they will give that up without a fight?

pmiller2 6y ago
Bingo. Billionaires and large corporations are what's holding us back from the future Keynes envisioned, where we'd be working ~15 hours a week. The reserve army of labor is necessary to keep the numbers going up and to the right, and our financial paperclip maximizer overlords can't be bothered to see it any other way.
- gamegoblin 6y ago
  Is it not the case that we could work 15 hours per week and maintain the lifestyle that was prevalent during Keynes' day? That is, isn't our inflation-adjusted total compensation more than 3x what it was in the mid 1930s? The average inflation-adjusted salary in 1935 was only in the realm of $10,000 (in 2020 dollars). So you could work 15 hours per week at that standard of living if your take-home wage was $13/hour. Of course, there are other obstacles to making this work. You can't, for instance, get housing for as cheap as was possible then due to increased construction standards. But that (and other similar obstacles) are not the result of some cabal of billionaires. Some costs in the US, medical being the primary example, are more expensive than they should be due to financial and political scheming. But most things are not. I'm from the state of Arkansas, where housing is quite cheap. When I lived there (until 2014), my total cost of living was around under $800/month (rent+utilities+food). This comes out to $9600/year.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    It is not possible. Housing, medical care, movie tickets, college tuition, prescription drugs, and a host of other things have gone up in price far faster than inflation since then. You can't even buy a house that was around when Keynes was for the inflation adjusted price it was then. What would your cost of equivalent housing have been in Keynes' day?
    - gamegoblin 6y ago
      A typical house in the 1930s cost between 50-100K in 2020 dollars. Houses can be had this cheap all over the country. To use my hometown as an example, consider this 1948 house that Redfin believes is worth $30K: https://www.redfin.com/AR/North-Little-Rock/707-Gardenia-Ave-72117/home/82955744 https://www.redfin.com/AR/North-Little-Rock/707-Gardenia-Ave... It's 3 miles from the downtown of a half-million person metro area. If you're willing to go up into that $50-100K range, you will find plenty of fine houses in mid-sized cities throughout the Midwest/South. The apartment I rented was an 1100 square foot, 2 bedroom townhouse a block from the bus stop -- $350/month.
      - pmiller2 6y ago
        But, that's not the "typical" house anymore. You're equating the very cheapest houses and apartments today with the median/typical house from then. You can't even live where you could in 1930 for the same money you could then. You can't rent for what you could in 1930. You can't go to the doctor. You can't buy a car. You can't send your kids to college. There are more things you just can't do today on 1930-equivalent money. Need I go on?
        gamegoblin 6y ago
        To re-iterate my original statement: "Is it not the case that we could work 15 hours per week and maintain the lifestyle that was prevalent during Keynes' day?" I'm explicitly talking about living as if it were the 1930s. No internet. No cable. No air conditioning. No eating at restaurants multiple times per week. Small house. No college. Maybe no car. So you say I am equating the cheapest houses today with the median back then, which is absolutely correct. That is exactly what I am trying to say. You can live a median 1930s lifestyle for dirt cheap today. That house was built in 1948 and is basically the same as most other middle class houses built in that time period. In 1930, fewer than 1% of people graduated from college. So if you want to live a median 1930s lifestyle, you probably don't have to worry about sending your kids to college. You don't need college to command the $13/hr wage that is necessary to live this lifestyle anyway. Only 48% of households owned a car in 1930, so if you want a median 1930s lifestyle, that may involve not owning a car. And if you do own a car, a used car from 2005 can be had for $1000 and trounces any middle class 1930s car from that era in every metric.
tayo42 6y ago
Who is they?
- jariel 6y ago
  'They' is the 'magical evil ruling class' that is the bane of every such fantastic ideology. There really isn't much of a 'they' trying to 'control you'. Frankly, mostly, rich people are more conscientious, and just want to 'make money' for the most part. The most cynical I think we could be would be to say that 'they' - meaning the business community at large - want you mostly to 'consume stuff'. But the level of irrational cynicism here is a little disturbing, a see a lot of people who might be depressed and could be reaching out for help. Notes on the creation of the consumer economy in the US towards the start of 1900's [1] [1] https://www.ushistory.org/us/46f.asp https://www.ushistory.org/us/46f.asp
tengbretson 6y ago
> "Guaranteed income" would mean the people who control us today lose some of that control. Do you have more control over the dog you feed every day or the wolves that feed themselves?

hh3k0 6y ago

I'd wager that it'd most likely be a less violent society, considering that poverty is closely linked to violence.

kaycebasques 6y ago

> After all, people with a lot of free time, guaranteed "income" and a lack of driving goals seems the perfect candidate pool for cults. From my own experience with a borderline cult, the people most vulnerable to cults are ones that have had trauma of some sort. Economic prosperity was kind of all across the board, now that I reflect on it. I do agree that "lack of driving goal" is a big factor. Not an expert on this topic; I just think it's an interesting tangent: what exactly are the biggest factors that make someone susceptible to joining a cult?

kgin 6y ago

Humans don't need work as we know it in the 21st century, but humans don't do well without work in the general sense. There are plenty of things to do that could even be useful to society that aren't modern wage work.

djsumdog 6y ago

Insane violent cults. I use to believe in UBI, but I'm really not so sure now. I think it would be less Star Trek and more The Expanse. You take away peoples' agency and people degrade. We also haven't solved resource scarcity, so you do have to have a production cycle (or find a way to totally close the production to recycling loop) before you can really worry about a work-less society. But I go back to the underlying theme of the original Star Trek series with Kirk and Spock. Countless times they were presented with paradise, only to find humans were not quite ready for it. Even in a Federation which had solved resource scarcity, removed money and harvested limitless energy, the desire to explore and seek out new life, and even new dangers and disaster, could not be quenched.

solatic 6y ago

A man without work will produce evil, on his lips a fire will burn. - Proverbs 16:27 (more commonly know by translations like "idle hands are the Devil's workshop, his lips make the Devil's mouthpiece") Economic engagement is not, shall we say, as "pure" in outcome as direct civic engagement / volunteering / philanthropy. The question for a post-scarcity society is how to motivate civic engagement, even without the prospect of financial reward.

schwartzworld 6y ago

> After all, people with a lot of free time, guaranteed "income" and a lack of driving goals seems the perfect candidate pool for cults. I think there's a pretty decent argument to be made that most people who are working don't have time for real personal goals. The realities of life often take priority over personal pursuits. In a world without mandatory work to survive, people would be free to pursue frivolous interests. If everybody who wanted to play guitar could just play guitar all the time, the world would be full of music.