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If you tried to achieve a 19th-century standard of living on twenty hours of work per week, you would face three problems. First, many aspects of the 19th-cent
by dkarl 18y ago
If you tried to achieve a 19th-century standard of living on twenty hours of work per week, you would face three problems. First, many aspects of the 19th-century standard of living would be quite cheap nowadays, but are illegal. 19th-century-quality housing, sanitation, food, and medical care can't be legally provided today. Second, if you did manage to live a 19th-century lifestyle, you would probably be psychologically unable to cope with having a lifestyle so materially inferior to the people around you. Being denied comfort and medical care enjoyed by other people when you were in distress would offend your dignity. Third, even if you did manage to cope psychologically, you would be unable to participate meaningfully in society, because other people would draw conclusions about your strength of character or mental stability.
The only way to achieve Marx's dream would be to make a society-wide decision to apply productivity gains toward leisure instead of towards the material standard of living. But guess what: most people like to work, and everyone needs to feel productive to be psychologically healthy. I'm sure that was easy for someone like Marx to overlook when pondering the plight of people who were brutally overworked, but it changes the equation quite a bit. Plus, productivity translates into power, and everyone has a certain appetite for power.
- davidmathers 18y agoBut guess what: most people like to work, and everyone needs to feel productive to be psychologically healthy. I'm sure that was easy for someone like Marx to overlook... Actually that is Marx's point. That when people are free of labour they will fill their lives with productive work that they enjoy. The conservative anti-Marx viewpoint is that no, people are by nature bad and lazy and need to be forced to be good and productive. work != labour labour: doing something you don't want to do leisure: doing something you want to do work: being productive (orthogonal to labour/leisure)
- dkarl 18y agoLiking or enjoying something does not mean it cannot be labor. It is labor as long as I would rather be doing something else. Anyway, look at the picture Marx painted: "to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind." This is dilettantism, a reaction against work. Not many people would find this satisfactory as a life's occupation. This is the image of life a person finds appealing when he is overworked. Marx himself would have found such a life intolerable.
- windsurfer 18y agoI find that, personally, if I like something, but then get paid for it, I like that activity significantly less while I'm getting paid. I think it has something to do with the obligation and lack of free-will.