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A nation of slaves

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Re: A nation of slaves

#31

Post by Theodores »

bausson wrote: post #17
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #2

An unconditional basic income[1] would speed up a paradigm shift from the current "work or starve" society. Maybe our grandchildren will look back to this time and make funny jokes about digging and filling holes... [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

Basic income mean huge changes: For example, salary may still be partially driven by necessary education / experience, but physical, tiresome or stressfull works would requireask for way higher salaries (because you get up at 4AM to collect garbage when you have no other choice, or when you think it really is worth it, and those jobs would still be necessary) The same way, some companies will have huge problems filli…

You mention garbage collection, this is actually an interesting job for those that do it in Reading, UK. Reading has had the benefit of 'negative unemployment', as in more jobs than people, so how do you recruit people to collect the garbage?

It actually works out well for some that do it, by starting at '4 a.m.' they finish early afternoon, around about lunch time and can be around when their kids get out of school. They also get paid rather well, as in £40K, which is well above minimum wage. They are also working, whereas chances are that 'Microsoft', 'Vodafone' or any of the other big-brand, knowledge economy employers of the area probably would not employ them. The garbage collector in Reading is quite likely to want to hold onto his/her job as it makes a lot of life possible, even if it does come with the 'stigma' of being in the 'recycling business' (okay, being a bin man!).

I must say that the situation in Reading is an anomaly, it may not even exist any more, but five years ago it was a cushy number, I had friends doing it.

Compare this situation to collecting the garbage in a rural no-jobs area. Here the job pays minimum wage and nobody sticks at it for very long. There is no benefit in doing it as the money is barely any more than income support and any overtime is swallowed up by tax. Consequently there is a high amount of churn as people give it a go to get off the employment register and prove to the government that they are willing to work, then, one way or another, they jack it in.

So how would that work out in a 'basic income' economy in some rural town where there are no jobs? I think it would still work out rather well, even if the pay was £10K after tax + Basic Income. It would make the difference between having a subsistence style existence and one where one could cook nice meals for the kids and buy them all the things they need. Even a holiday could be afforded, subject to budgeting ability.

Re: A nation of slaves

#32

Post by Ygg2 »

vijayr wrote: post #28
mjmahone17 wrote: post #14

One of the biggest views I see in my parents and grandparents: work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure. This is really hard to respond to, especially with people who have spent 50 years working with this mindset, because they feel "invalidated" or "worthless" if their life's worth isn't measured by their work output. I don't think that's necessarily a…

work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure Regardless of age, I guess most people feel this way (not just the previous generations - even the people in their 20's and 30's today). What is the alternative to this? If not work - what is important? what makes one person a success and another a failure, and what gives purpose and dignity to life, in your opi…

Which is completely opposite from Antic times, during which work was considered demeaning, because, hey we got slaves to do that stuff. Going out to the field and harvesting was looked upon same as now is rolling in shit. You could do it but highly degrading. Arts and philosophy were all the rage.

Re: A nation of slaves

#33

Post by nbouscal »

vijayr wrote: post #28
mjmahone17 wrote: post #14

One of the biggest views I see in my parents and grandparents: work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure. This is really hard to respond to, especially with people who have spent 50 years working with this mindset, because they feel "invalidated" or "worthless" if their life's worth isn't measured by their work output. I don't think that's necessarily a…

work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure Regardless of age, I guess most people feel this way (not just the previous generations - even the people in their 20's and 30's today). What is the alternative to this? If not work - what is important? what makes one person a success and another a failure, and what gives purpose and dignity to life, in your opi…

This depends heavily on what you mean by work. If by work you mean a minimum wage job at a McDonalds or Walmart, that isn't exactly what I would call purpose and dignity. For a meaning of work that included intellectual/artistic exploration without a guarantee of economic return on investment, but excluded economically viable but degrading labor, I could agree.

Re: A nation of slaves

#34

Post by beat »

tomp wrote: post #16

> Why should we not divert some of our growth into growing our leisure time, rather than growing our physical wealth? Because not everyone was created equal. Some professions are completely worthless (e.g. ad creators) and add nothing net to the society. Others, e.g. doctors, are so valuable, and so few people can do them, that they simply can't afford to work less (educating more doctors so that they can work fewer…

As Bob Black pointed out in The Abolition of Work, if a job is worth doing, someone would do it, whether or not they got paid to do it. Charlie Stross made that point in his essay - he'd continue to be a writer even if he didn't need to write for a living.

The same is true of doctors. And farmers. And firemen.

Re: A nation of slaves

#35

Post by hnnewguy »

bausson wrote: post #17
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #2

An unconditional basic income[1] would speed up a paradigm shift from the current "work or starve" society. Maybe our grandchildren will look back to this time and make funny jokes about digging and filling holes... [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

Basic income mean huge changes: For example, salary may still be partially driven by necessary education / experience, but physical, tiresome or stressfull works would requireask for way higher salaries (because you get up at 4AM to collect garbage when you have no other choice, or when you think it really is worth it, and those jobs would still be necessary) The same way, some companies will have huge problems filli…

>But education industry (and universities) would have to change their methods, because nowadays peoples are willing to commit 100,000's of $ to get a well paying job, this incentive would be gone, the better paying one being the physical labor, with low education requirement.

Why would the incentive disappear? A basic income means that people don't make zero when they don't work; filling jobs would still be based on supply/demand, hence, implicitly, ability.

Re: A nation of slaves

#36

Post by cstross »

gregpilling wrote: post #27
molsongolden wrote: post #8

This is a stressful topic that gets overwhelming quickly. Things are shifting but it's a slow shift and one that is going to be extremely painful before it gets better. Some interesting work going on with worker coops, parecon, post-scarcity economics, etc... As one of the linked comments noted "Looks like we've built higher-phase communism accidentally. Ooops." The Keynes article he briefly touches on is fantastic h…

While having a beer last week with some friends, the topic turned to the old question "What would you do if you suddenly had $20 million dollars handed to you?". This is an old question of course, on HN it would be called F U money, but it had been asked that day by a customer of my friend Kevin. Kevin makes jewelry tools. His immediate response was "I could buy more tools and machines!", which was my basic response…

That mirrors my response to the $20M question, too. Congratulations: you have a vocation, not a job.

(Me? I'd finish off my existing more-for-money-than-for-love contracts, because I owe my customers. (I get paid a huge deposit in advance.) Then I'd get a lot more picky about what projects I tackled going forward; more willing to tackle not-obviously-profitable ones and less willing to do uninteresting stuff that merely puts bread on the table. Oh, and I'd hire a full-time copy-editor/proofreader, and PA to handle my expenses and travel arrangements. Then I'd move out of my apartment for 3 months and get it thoroughly remodelled, from the plasterwork up, because it's overdue to be rewired, could use a modern heating system, and I might as well redecorate while I'm about it. But apart from that, not a huge amount would change ...)

Re: A nation of slaves

#37

Post by ZeroGravitas »

tomp wrote: post #16

> Why should we not divert some of our growth into growing our leisure time, rather than growing our physical wealth? Because not everyone was created equal. Some professions are completely worthless (e.g. ad creators) and add nothing net to the society. Others, e.g. doctors, are so valuable, and so few people can do them, that they simply can't afford to work less (educating more doctors so that they can work fewer…

Strangely I was just discussing this in another thread, but there's a shortage of doctors because the doctors have a union that ensures that is the case, as that is a benefit to their members. Any attempt to relieve this pressure, such as allowing qualified nurses to undertake more work, is strongly resisted by the doctors themselves. And they will fight automation too, for the very same reasons, and with many of the same soundbites.

Re: A nation of slaves

#38

Post by fidotron »

This looks like a lot of words to disguise the fact it's neo-luddism.

With technological progress worker roles are eliminated, but the idea is that the market has demand for new currently non-existent things and as the progress enables those things to come into existence creating new jobs as it goes.

The much larger problem is people are genuinely getting conditioned to receiving a lot for nothing, and this has distorted the market in terms of what activities are most highly rewarded. For example, easy credit means selling to people that don't have the money (or the means) is actually very lucrative, so you get a lot of otherwise smart people engaged in activities to extract money from those with easy credit as opposed to applying their talents to contributing more positively to the system as a whole.

Re: A nation of slaves

#39

Post by ansible »

happyscrappy wrote: post #7
levosmetalo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income would be just a step up to the ultimate goal of Star Trek style economy. I guess that having basic income would help cut on those 'bullshit jobs' that don't actually benefit anyone and are just a net negative for the society.

What are these bullshit jobs? If cutting them has no effect then there is a profit to be had.

Telemarketers. Door-to-door cable TV sales. Most of the paper-pushers in the USA's medical care system (assuming we go to single payer system as well). A large percentage of retail workers (in the USA we have way more retail space than is really necessary). Most of the mid-level managers in most of the large corporations. Any place that has strict union work-rules is usually overstaffed to my eye.

Much of the administration of social services (Social Security, Food Stamps, etc.) in the USA (to all be replaced by that basic living stipend).

I can think of more.

Re: A nation of slaves

#40

Post by TausAmmer »

mjmahone17 wrote: post #14

One of the biggest views I see in my parents and grandparents: work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure. This is really hard to respond to, especially with people who have spent 50 years working with this mindset, because they feel "invalidated" or "worthless" if their life's worth isn't measured by their work output. I don't think that's necessarily a…

You need others to validate your beliefs, then impose your beliefs on others. So you can believe these made-up beliefs yourself. In rare cases you can believe yourself if no one agrees to you. How fragile we are as humans.
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