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What is 'work', anymore? In context of capitalism/communism (and the old industrial economy), 'work' had basically meant a 'worker' getting paid to do some tan

by ap22213 13y ago

What is 'work', anymore? In context of capitalism/communism (and the old industrial economy), 'work' had basically meant a 'worker' getting paid to do some tangible, quantifiable task. E.g. I pay you $5 to move those 100 widgets. Or, maybe you get a loaf of bread if you move those 100 widgets. But, in terms of the modern, knowledge economy, work means something different. I don't need someone to move widgets. What I need is more content, better design, more aesthetics, more culture, more entertainment, more research and development. None of these are quantifiable or fungible. Work today should be viewed more like a potential to produce some value. In the startup world, we give lots of money to lots of companies, with the understanding that most will fail. We hope that a few will succeed and produce a new products or services that will work. But, we don't know. We have to spread the money around to get those results. I have a sister who makes probably a few thousand a year. She's a very high-IQ person, who just happened to take some wrong turns in life. She's gifted and very crafty and creative. But, 95% of her time is taken up by the logistics of life - trying to pay the bills, keep the water running, etc. I would much rather have her be able to focus on creating things and inventing. But, as her brother, I'm not willing to fund her completely, because even with her innate creativity and intelligence, I'm unsure what will result. It's too much risk, for this one individual. But, on the other hand, everyday, the majority of the value that I get is from things that are 'free': product reviews, blog articles, questions answered on IRC, people posting cat videos. There is a shit ton of work being done, but it's not quantifiable. How much is it worth for someone to read a book and edit a wikipedia page? We're certainly not willing to pay people to do that type of work. But, in aggregate, it's incredibly valuable. Anyway, my thought is that if we can give people basic freedom from the inane logistics of life, they will free themselves up to do other things. Very few people will do nothing. I can't even imagine nothing. Even the stereotypical images of bums drinking 40oz out of bags - it's not nothing. They're creating something - new words, new art, conversation that ripples. Maybe they go to the library and post their thoughts online - that turn into other ideas. But, of the hours a day that they do things, we can't quantify that value. Labeling things as capitalism/communism, left/right doesn't seem to do much to help the problem. We should all agree that we're past the 20th century, past the 19th century. We need new ways of thinking about these issues. We need a system where people who have been born with the competitive gene, and who want to conquer and acquire trophies, are free to compete and be rewarded for it. But, we should also recognize that most people don't have that gene, and that it can't be taught easily. But, those other people should be given some basic income to allow them to explore the infinite space of Human knowledge and creativity.

vbs_redlof 13y ago
You raise an interesting point on 'work'. The value of work is increasingly less atomic in context of a knowledge economy. Ideas, research, art, sports--these are typically either completely ignored or wildly successful. Marginal differences in 'work' and effort are inconsequential. This is unfortunate because like you've noted, many skilled people will never get what they deserve in winner take all markets on the off chance their choices do not work out. The incremental differences between the top 0.01% and 0.02% are negligible but often lead to disparate rewards. I disagree with your arguments that we lack a system for competition. Markets do (did) a pretty job of deciding whether an idea or invention is truly valuable. The problem is that most markets are relatively zero-sum, and people are dictated by myopic concerns like bills, quarterly earnings, etc. What this means is that ideas tend to cluster along similar branches as players react to one another rather than engaging in truly 'free-form' exploration of ideas. Basic income will help in this respect, however for every ambitious dreamer there is a gluttonous, entitled individual who blows his money on himself and contributes very little. Coming from a econ/finance background, I can tell you that people can be very selfish in contrast to the comparatively idealistic tech and research community. Unfortunately, current economic systems are obsessed with the stability of quantifiable targets such as inflation, unemployment, etc; i.e. we have a system that promotes incremental growth rather than a system that is more likely to experience creativity/innovation shocks.
whatevsbro 13y ago
> Anyway, my thought is that if we can give people basic freedom from the inane logistics of life, they will free themselves up to do other things. Very few people will do nothing. I can't even imagine nothing. You need to realize that all money has to come from somewhere. If you're some 3rd-party observer and want to hand money out to some people, you'll have to take it from others, and you have no business doing that, nor does anyone else. We're all trained to think about economics from a central planning perspective. People drone on and on about what should be done to an economy, or how whatever should be arranged, when in reality, it's all about people interacting and engaging in voluntary exchanges and investments and so on. Capitalism is just people pursuing their personal gain, which is something they'll do regardless of what kind of "system" you'd like to place upon them. It's important to realize that Capitalism itself, as I've just described it, is not a system. It's not a model for economic behaviour that's imposed on people, it's what people do in any case. Scarcity is a fact of nature and life. This planet's resources are scarce - there's just a certain, finite amount of them out there, and that's it. Our time as human beings is scarce too, there's no way around that (for now). It's pointless to wax poetic about "post-scarcity" and what should be done about it. If we get there, we get there. But until then, we'll have to work within the confines of scarcity and that's fine. We're all responsible for our own well-being, we're all pursuing our personal goals all the time, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's just how we're biologically wired to behave. The only problem with economies in the world is coercion, ie. other people intentionally affecting your choices in the market, compelling you to do something else than you'd otherwise do. Perhaps the most massive example of this is fiat currency. Without taxes being collected in dollars and euros etc, no one would use those currencies.

by ap22213 13y ago

vbs_redlof 13y ago

You raise an interesting point on 'work'. The value of work is increasingly less atomic in context of a knowledge economy. Ideas, research, art, sports--these are typically either completely ignored or wildly successful. Marginal differences in 'work' and effort are inconsequential. This is unfortunate because like you've noted, many skilled people will never get what they deserve in winner take all markets on the off chance their choices do not work out. The incremental differences between the top 0.01% and 0.02% are negligible but often lead to disparate rewards. I disagree with your arguments that we lack a system for competition. Markets do (did) a pretty job of deciding whether an idea or invention is truly valuable. The problem is that most markets are relatively zero-sum, and people are dictated by myopic concerns like bills, quarterly earnings, etc. What this means is that ideas tend to cluster along similar branches as players react to one another rather than engaging in truly 'free-form' exploration of ideas. Basic income will help in this respect, however for every ambitious dreamer there is a gluttonous, entitled individual who blows his money on himself and contributes very little. Coming from a econ/finance background, I can tell you that people can be very selfish in contrast to the comparatively idealistic tech and research community. Unfortunately, current economic systems are obsessed with the stability of quantifiable targets such as inflation, unemployment, etc; i.e. we have a system that promotes incremental growth rather than a system that is more likely to experience creativity/innovation shocks.

whatevsbro 13y ago

> Anyway, my thought is that if we can give people basic freedom from the inane logistics of life, they will free themselves up to do other things. Very few people will do nothing. I can't even imagine nothing. You need to realize that all money has to come from somewhere. If you're some 3rd-party observer and want to hand money out to some people, you'll have to take it from others, and you have no business doing that, nor does anyone else. We're all trained to think about economics from a central planning perspective. People drone on and on about what should be done to an economy, or how whatever should be arranged, when in reality, it's all about people interacting and engaging in voluntary exchanges and investments and so on. Capitalism is just people pursuing their personal gain, which is something they'll do regardless of what kind of "system" you'd like to place upon them. It's important to realize that Capitalism itself, as I've just described it, is not a system. It's not a model for economic behaviour that's imposed on people, it's what people do in any case. Scarcity is a fact of nature and life. This planet's resources are scarce - there's just a certain, finite amount of them out there, and that's it. Our time as human beings is scarce too, there's no way around that (for now). It's pointless to wax poetic about "post-scarcity" and what should be done about it. If we get there, we get there. But until then, we'll have to work within the confines of scarcity and that's fine. We're all responsible for our own well-being, we're all pursuing our personal goals all the time, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's just how we're biologically wired to behave. The only problem with economies in the world is coercion, ie. other people intentionally affecting your choices in the market, compelling you to do something else than you'd otherwise do. Perhaps the most massive example of this is fiat currency. Without taxes being collected in dollars and euros etc, no one would use those currencies.