4 ms·

Life cannot be sustained without effort. Does real freedom entail freedom from the demands of reality? The question I have is, whose obligation would you say

by dcraw 13y ago

Life cannot be sustained without effort. Does real freedom entail freedom from the demands of reality? The question I have is, whose obligation would you say it is to provide a job that you consider good enough?

enraged_camel 13y ago
>>Life cannot be sustained without effort. In this day and age, sustaining life should not require 40+ hours of work per week. As a society we are producing a ridiculous amount of surplus, and then conditioning ourselves to consume that surplus so that we can produce even more. Where does it end?
- dsbmac 13y ago
  It ends in global financial collapse. Then rises again! The US will gradually fade from dominance as every other leader before it. I wouldn't be surprised if we're witnessing it's decline right now. I don't see how it gets out of the major systemic mess it is in. Detroit, Louisiana, etc. is how it begins. A first world country bit by bit reverting to third-world status. Until some place has a successful anarchic-type revolution (a la Spain & Paris) without an outside power coming in to overthrow them we're stuck with this legacy economic/political system and the best we can do is civilize it with prudent regulation (which we can barely do because it's been systemically corrupted).
  - rphlx 13y ago
    Corruption and regulation are fast friends which usually encourage each other.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - tomp 13y ago
      Only because without regulation, corruption cannot exist by definition; if killing is not illegal, mafia is not corruption, it's just evil.
dsbmac 13y ago
Perhaps society and its culture as a whole. Directly, it could be the community you live in or perhaps government. Two examples: 1) I read an article where the writer took a job somewhere in the Pacific or Southeast in a non-heavily developed area. When he gets to the village he has no place to stay. How will I live? What happens, which as a Westerner he did not expect, was that soon the community gathered at a spot and over the next few days built him his house! It was simple but in line with the community standard. The expectation was that when someone else had a need (maybe a house) he would return the favor. 2) In the scandinavian model, I believe you get schooling paid for until you find a job and then you have to pay the gov't back. Which is sort of the reverse in NA where you pay upfront and hope to recoup the cost yourself. With that model it seems the gov't has incentive to ensure there are enough jobs so that they can recoup costs.
- chii 13y ago
  > What happens, which as a Westerner he did not expect, was that soon the community gathered at a spot and over the next few days built him his house! It was simple but in line with the community standard. The expectation was that when someone else had a need (maybe a house) he would return the favor. how is this different than borrowing money from a bank to get a house built? In the village, the westerner had a debt - sure it was verbal, but it is a debt never-the-less. This method don't work when the size of the village grows beyond a certain point (because you cannot keep track of more than about 100 people without needing written records and formalizatin). Fast forward a few hundred years, and you end up with what we have right now - a system of money, credit and work. Its exactly the same, except with way more indirections so that the participants don't have to directly know each other and keep tabs on each other.
  - lgieron 13y ago
    The difference is that (presumably) the villagers won't kick you out of the house they built for you once you become ill/disabled and thus unable to repay the debt.
  - dsbmac 13y ago
    Well for one thing, in my anecdotal scenario, such transactions acrue no interest. It was the kind of debt anyone could incur and payback. Money lenders aren't under any obligation to give you a loan of any size. In that village there was a self-perpetuating obligation to provide the debt. As for how it would scale, I don't know. Is the structure and culture of western urban society the only form possible?

by dcraw 13y ago

enraged_camel 13y ago

>>Life cannot be sustained without effort. In this day and age, sustaining life should not require 40+ hours of work per week. As a society we are producing a ridiculous amount of surplus, and then conditioning ourselves to consume that surplus so that we can produce even more. Where does it end?

dsbmac 13y ago
It ends in global financial collapse. Then rises again! The US will gradually fade from dominance as every other leader before it. I wouldn't be surprised if we're witnessing it's decline right now. I don't see how it gets out of the major systemic mess it is in. Detroit, Louisiana, etc. is how it begins. A first world country bit by bit reverting to third-world status. Until some place has a successful anarchic-type revolution (a la Spain & Paris) without an outside power coming in to overthrow them we're stuck with this legacy economic/political system and the best we can do is civilize it with prudent regulation (which we can barely do because it's been systemically corrupted).
- rphlx 13y ago
  Corruption and regulation are fast friends which usually encourage each other.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomp 13y ago
    Only because without regulation, corruption cannot exist by definition; if killing is not illegal, mafia is not corruption, it's just evil.

dsbmac 13y ago

Perhaps society and its culture as a whole. Directly, it could be the community you live in or perhaps government. Two examples: 1) I read an article where the writer took a job somewhere in the Pacific or Southeast in a non-heavily developed area. When he gets to the village he has no place to stay. How will I live? What happens, which as a Westerner he did not expect, was that soon the community gathered at a spot and over the next few days built him his house! It was simple but in line with the community standard. The expectation was that when someone else had a need (maybe a house) he would return the favor. 2) In the scandinavian model, I believe you get schooling paid for until you find a job and then you have to pay the gov't back. Which is sort of the reverse in NA where you pay upfront and hope to recoup the cost yourself. With that model it seems the gov't has incentive to ensure there are enough jobs so that they can recoup costs.

chii 13y ago
> What happens, which as a Westerner he did not expect, was that soon the community gathered at a spot and over the next few days built him his house! It was simple but in line with the community standard. The expectation was that when someone else had a need (maybe a house) he would return the favor. how is this different than borrowing money from a bank to get a house built? In the village, the westerner had a debt - sure it was verbal, but it is a debt never-the-less. This method don't work when the size of the village grows beyond a certain point (because you cannot keep track of more than about 100 people without needing written records and formalizatin). Fast forward a few hundred years, and you end up with what we have right now - a system of money, credit and work. Its exactly the same, except with way more indirections so that the participants don't have to directly know each other and keep tabs on each other.
- lgieron 13y ago
  The difference is that (presumably) the villagers won't kick you out of the house they built for you once you become ill/disabled and thus unable to repay the debt.
- dsbmac 13y ago
  Well for one thing, in my anecdotal scenario, such transactions acrue no interest. It was the kind of debt anyone could incur and payback. Money lenders aren't under any obligation to give you a loan of any size. In that village there was a self-perpetuating obligation to provide the debt. As for how it would scale, I don't know. Is the structure and culture of western urban society the only form possible?