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> “work should be optional and the basics of life should be provided for all [via the work of others]” The answers to this are: provocative: work is already o
by turbinerneiter 5y ago
> “work should be optional and the basics of life should be provided for all [via the work of others]”
The answers to this are:
provocative: work is already optional for holders of large capital - if it works for them, why not the rest of us?
humanitarian: everyone deserves decency (and we have enough to go around)
utopian: we are/will be rich in everything we need, so we do not need to work for basics - we will only need to work for the betterment of ourselves, our culture and civilization
practical pessimist: if we don't give the poor enough to keep them on board of the system, they will oppose it and we will have civil war
practical optimist: if we give the poor what they need to live without a fight, they can focus on working on themselves to lift themselves up - it will be a win-win situation
practical realist: taxes (and exemptions) and benefits are so complex, it would be cheaper to use UBI and probably fairer as well
I'm in the practical optimism/realism camp, although my lizard brain sometimes gets angry at some of the "the poor deserve no better, it's a fair system - they just have to work"-people and will use the provocative argument.
- jokethrowaway 5y agoIt's not up to you to decide what to do with other people's money. Feel free to donate all your money to the poor who deserve better; if you will use threat of violence to get someone else money (no matter the cause) I'll call you immoral.
- moshmosh 5y agoThe threat of violence enforced the system that let them get the money (with a democratic government's name printed on it, mind you) to begin with. Was violence immoral when it enforced a system that shaped wages and the returns of capital in such-and-such way?
- tryonenow 5y agoThere's a massive difference between using threat of violence to ensure that people are able to secure the legitimately owned fruits of their labor, and forcibly taking their labor outputs and redistributing them among those who are not contributing to the same degree or at all.
- chii 5y agoviolence only enforces contracts, which are formal promises. Violence doesn't enforce market rates for wages, demand and supply and other market forces.
- moshmosh 5y agoIs this in your ideal system? Because that is really far from being true.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- turbinerneiter 5y agoI'm not deciding what to do with other peoples money and I am not threatening anyone with violence. We decide these things together through the democratic process. I know it is hard for people like you, who reject democracy and any kind of power anyone could have over them, it must feel terrible to not be able to escape a system you disagree with. But I also think that on the spectrum of systems we had, it is not really fair so scream "taxation is theft" and "social security is immoral" at democracy, if you consider what we had before.
- lorepieri 5y agoNice overview, I'm an utopian. :) I'm trying to speedup the transition to a post scarcity society, currently building a company to automate food prep.