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I find the analysis of the popular attitudes toward work very resonant. We (as a society) do treat the unemployed or unemployable as morally suspect. We do puni

by fernly 12y ago

I find the analysis of the popular attitudes toward work very resonant. We (as a society) do treat the unemployed or unemployable as morally suspect. We do punish people for needing welfare. Many receive the idea of Basic Income with suspicion nearing to revulsion not on economic grounds, but on moral grounds: people would use it to "be lazy". This, I think, is a particularly telling summary of the connection between Christian doctrine and attitudes to work: "The underlying idea is that you’re endlessly undeserving – that reward, ie happiness, will always be contingent on the endurance of some unpleasant activity (eg “hard work”). Again, we could trace this notion to early moral ideas – eg original sin and redemption through suffering ..." However I see two shortcomings in this essay. First, he doesn't make what should be the obvious economic connection. True, any job has value; this is evident from the fact that the employer pays for it to be done. There is a market in labor. However, the religion-derived morality that makes it deeply wrong not to work tends to drive down the price of labor. People will accept shittier jobs for lower wages than they would otherwise, when they also accept the belief that it is evil to be unemployed, and virtuous to have work regardless of the type or satisfaction of the work. Thus the societal attitudes ably described in the essay serve the interests of the employers and work against the interests of the workers. If the workers didn't buy into this zeitgeist, they might not not-work, they might even work the same shitty jobs, but they would be more willing to drop them, and would demand higher pay in line with the shittyness. The necessary jobs would still get done (ya want fries with that); but the employers would have to pay more and provide better conditions because the workers would feel morally free to be more choosy about pay and conditions. The second thing wrong with the essay is that it ends without even sketching a solution, or a direction that society might take if "antiwork" gained traction. It seems to be an empty term.

wes-k 12y ago
To your first point, I completely agree. I've noticed that for myself and my peers who are confident in finding work, we all can, and for the most part do, demand better wages and benefits. I've seen others not in this situation and they put up with outrageous employers and contracts.
quanticle 12y ago
>True, any job has value; this is evident from the fact that the employer pays for it to be done. Value to the employer != value to society != value to the laborer. We're using one word to describe three concepts, and running headlong into the confusion that results.
- raincom 12y ago
  Yeah, when the reference (and the concept) of a word shifts, it becomes a fallacy of equivocation.
- fernly 12y ago
  True. And I think that's the point of the subject essay: that "work" is surrounded by attitudes and mythologies that distort everyone's perceptions of its value.
nickstefan12 12y ago
And what makes you so confident people wouldn't use universal income to be lazy? The default behavior of young people who have lots of free time is basically what college students do: drink and copulate haha. Lowest common denominator there would be plenty of people who would use it to be lazy. Sure the ones with families now would spend more time with theirs, but the generations coming up it would have unintended effects I think. Think about the invention of the internet. Sure some people use it to learn and connect meaningful. But what do most people use it for? Cat pictures, YouTube celebrities and Facebook stalking.
- WorldMaker 12y ago
  First of all we have scientific studies of an actual experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome Second, the great thing about mincome is that it makes the Labor "market" an actual market with actual liquidity. Sure, you will get people that finally have a choice to never work again. Finally companies would have to compete against each other and that option to not work to make people want to work. Businesses already pride themselves on their efficiency and productivity metrics about how much work they can squeeze out of as few people: this puts their money where there mouth is. Thirdly, a basic income means that jobs and activities without a steady paycheck become much easier to try and live as a lifestyle. Think of the music, art, writing, acting, and other fine arts we might see if musicians/artists/writers/actors didn't need a 9-to-5 to pay rent and eat. Even things like "stay-at-home parent" start to become easier and better for everyone involved. We're in an economy now where most households both parents need to work a full time job to raise a kid. Who is raising the kids? Finally, what's wrong with drinking and copulating? If people want to spend their time doing such things which don't impact you at all who are you to condemn them for that?
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > The default behavior of young people who have lots of free time is basically what college students do: drink and copulate haha. Also: network, engage in three million different hobbies, travel, volunteer, learn new skills, build stuff, do art. Beer and sex tend to get boring quickly - every stereotypical college student I knew eventually found something useful to do with his or her free time. > Think about the invention of the internet. Sure some people use it to learn and connect meaningful. But what do most people use it for? Cat pictures, YouTube celebrities and Facebook stalking. I'd say that is what people with jobs do to procrastinate/relax. Again, who do you think writes Wikipedia articles? Or creates those cat pictures? Or the programming tutorials you grew up on? Often, they are the high-schoolers and students and unemployed - people who have free time to do things that don't bring in profits. I used to contribute to Wikipedia and write programming tutorials and code games when I was in secondary and high school, and at the university - basically, when I didn't have to work most of the day for a living. Now I'm stuck at a shitty webdev job (believe it or not, programming jobs can also be shitty and boring as hell) and I barely have time to do anything useful or interesting for people around me or the world at large. It's soul-crushing. God help me escape this madness before I have kids. Frankly, I find this stereotyping of people offensive. All that drinking and sex and sitting in front of TV is what humans do because they can't really afford to do anything else. Every single human being I met has some dreams, passions and interest, but they can't follow any of them because there is not enough hours during the day. You can't, unless you have super-strong willpower, really engage in any meaningful activity if you spend 8+ hours at work every day and come home tired. So people don't. My best friend used to write a lot; she studied journalism and wanted to be a reporter and a writer. After university she got caught in the cycle of shitty jobs. Mind you, she's not lazy - she's actually the most hard-working and professional person I have ever met in my life. But years of working 8-10 hours a day, six days a week, on bullshit jobs under abusive bosses, made her almost unable to write a single sentence. And constantly asking herself, "will I ever write that book?". So in TL;DR: no, I don't think most people would use universal income to be lazy. They would use it to do meaningful things with their lives. And honestly, if some group of people really decides to spend their lives drinking wine and singing, I say let them. Because if they can and it costs us nothing, why keep everyone enslaved so that some people won't get do things we find unworthy?

by fernly 12y ago

wes-k 12y ago

To your first point, I completely agree. I've noticed that for myself and my peers who are confident in finding work, we all can, and for the most part do, demand better wages and benefits. I've seen others not in this situation and they put up with outrageous employers and contracts.

quanticle 12y ago

>True, any job has value; this is evident from the fact that the employer pays for it to be done. Value to the employer != value to society != value to the laborer. We're using one word to describe three concepts, and running headlong into the confusion that results.

raincom 12y ago
Yeah, when the reference (and the concept) of a word shifts, it becomes a fallacy of equivocation.
fernly 12y ago
True. And I think that's the point of the subject essay: that "work" is surrounded by attitudes and mythologies that distort everyone's perceptions of its value.

nickstefan12 12y ago

And what makes you so confident people wouldn't use universal income to be lazy? The default behavior of young people who have lots of free time is basically what college students do: drink and copulate haha. Lowest common denominator there would be plenty of people who would use it to be lazy. Sure the ones with families now would spend more time with theirs, but the generations coming up it would have unintended effects I think. Think about the invention of the internet. Sure some people use it to learn and connect meaningful. But what do most people use it for? Cat pictures, YouTube celebrities and Facebook stalking.

WorldMaker 12y ago
First of all we have scientific studies of an actual experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome Second, the great thing about mincome is that it makes the Labor "market" an actual market with actual liquidity. Sure, you will get people that finally have a choice to never work again. Finally companies would have to compete against each other and that option to not work to make people want to work. Businesses already pride themselves on their efficiency and productivity metrics about how much work they can squeeze out of as few people: this puts their money where there mouth is. Thirdly, a basic income means that jobs and activities without a steady paycheck become much easier to try and live as a lifestyle. Think of the music, art, writing, acting, and other fine arts we might see if musicians/artists/writers/actors didn't need a 9-to-5 to pay rent and eat. Even things like "stay-at-home parent" start to become easier and better for everyone involved. We're in an economy now where most households both parents need to work a full time job to raise a kid. Who is raising the kids? Finally, what's wrong with drinking and copulating? If people want to spend their time doing such things which don't impact you at all who are you to condemn them for that?
TeMPOraL 12y ago
> The default behavior of young people who have lots of free time is basically what college students do: drink and copulate haha. Also: network, engage in three million different hobbies, travel, volunteer, learn new skills, build stuff, do art. Beer and sex tend to get boring quickly - every stereotypical college student I knew eventually found something useful to do with his or her free time. > Think about the invention of the internet. Sure some people use it to learn and connect meaningful. But what do most people use it for? Cat pictures, YouTube celebrities and Facebook stalking. I'd say that is what people with jobs do to procrastinate/relax. Again, who do you think writes Wikipedia articles? Or creates those cat pictures? Or the programming tutorials you grew up on? Often, they are the high-schoolers and students and unemployed - people who have free time to do things that don't bring in profits. I used to contribute to Wikipedia and write programming tutorials and code games when I was in secondary and high school, and at the university - basically, when I didn't have to work most of the day for a living. Now I'm stuck at a shitty webdev job (believe it or not, programming jobs can also be shitty and boring as hell) and I barely have time to do anything useful or interesting for people around me or the world at large. It's soul-crushing. God help me escape this madness before I have kids. Frankly, I find this stereotyping of people offensive. All that drinking and sex and sitting in front of TV is what humans do because they can't really afford to do anything else. Every single human being I met has some dreams, passions and interest, but they can't follow any of them because there is not enough hours during the day. You can't, unless you have super-strong willpower, really engage in any meaningful activity if you spend 8+ hours at work every day and come home tired. So people don't. My best friend used to write a lot; she studied journalism and wanted to be a reporter and a writer. After university she got caught in the cycle of shitty jobs. Mind you, she's not lazy - she's actually the most hard-working and professional person I have ever met in my life. But years of working 8-10 hours a day, six days a week, on bullshit jobs under abusive bosses, made her almost unable to write a single sentence. And constantly asking herself, "will I ever write that book?". So in TL;DR: no, I don't think most people would use universal income to be lazy. They would use it to do meaningful things with their lives. And honestly, if some group of people really decides to spend their lives drinking wine and singing, I say let them. Because if they can and it costs us nothing, why keep everyone enslaved so that some people won't get do things we find unworthy?