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What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

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Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#71

Post by wott »

wildmusings wrote: post #6
jokoon wrote: post #5

There is a difference between a job you like, and a job you do because you believe "work sets you free" or because you believe work is a some sort of value or a necessary pain everybody has to take part in. I'm unemployed and I really don't think I have any duties to work in fast food or to deliver pizza because I must contribute. If I decide I can live poor and be happy with welfare, I will. I think it's a great thi…

> I'm unemployed and I really don't think I have any duties to work in fast food or to deliver pizza because I must contribute. If I decide I can live poor and be happy with welfare, I will. I think it's a great thing to be able to live a frugal life and still be healthy enough. Why do you think that you should have the right to live off of other people's work? Welfare checks aren't fairy money, they're money that ca…

For example, because half of other people's work is bullshit. Or because a third of other people's work output is used to take them from home to work. Or because the amount on the paycheck is totally unrelated to the value a worker produces. Or because a quarter of other people's work is not about creating value, but about destroying it and driving all of us always faster towards a catastrophe.

In short, because most of world organised around work is nonsense. So getting a bit of money to live poorly without work is not any more nonsensical. That's a way to see it.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#72

Post by belovedeagle »

Practicality wrote: post #17
crdoconnor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll have "enough" full time labor when everybody it fully satisfied with what they have and there's nothing more that they'd buy if they had more money.* Until then, if there's not enough jobs, that's an artificially induced shortage (e.g. austerity). * Excepting natural resources - e.g. "more" beachfront property.

"everybody it [is] fully satisfied with what they have and there's nothing more that they'd buy if they had more money." That's the idea. Let's for the moment, just assume that AI and robots and some other technologies are ridiculously productive sometime in the future and we solve all sorts of problems and have the resources to provide everyone with everything they want. At that point it's not a question of giving e…

> whether or not we decide to distribute our plentiful resources

You can already decide to do this today, and the government will even reward you for doing so. What you're really talking about is redistributing others' resources.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#73

Post by gf263 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #54
jokoon wrote: post #5

There is a difference between a job you like, and a job you do because you believe "work sets you free" or because you believe work is a some sort of value or a necessary pain everybody has to take part in. I'm unemployed and I really don't think I have any duties to work in fast food or to deliver pizza because I must contribute. If I decide I can live poor and be happy with welfare, I will. I think it's a great thi…

>"work sets you free" As a side note, recently there's been a drive to not normalize fascist slogans or ideas in mainstream politics. Among those, "arbeit macht frei" is a particularly offensive one, since it was written on the gates of Auschwitz. Just saying. When someone quotes this kind of phrase to us, we should remind them where they got it from and refuse to treat it as normal. >I'm unemployed and I really don'…

They're just words, no?

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#74

Post by gcheong »

wildmusings wrote: post #14
gambiting wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he thinks is irrelevant. The system is in place to allow people without jobs to survive. We either have to have that, or guarantee that everyone has a job - I come from a former communist republic that tried to do the later, it's not pretty. I would much rather live in a country that let's him live off welfare than in a country that tries to shove a job everyone's throat.

I'm not against welfare. I was responding to his assertion that he feels no obligation to work, even if jobs are available.

But isn't this idea that work is some kind of moral obligation to society exactly the problem if it's true that work is going to disappear? Do you think his contribution to society is zero or negative simply because he doesn't have a job? Perhaps it's just easier to measure if you have a job what your relative contribution to society is because you can place a dollar value on it.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#75

Post by henrikschroder »

crdoconnor wrote: post #32
henrikschroder wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying there's no way to reach post-labour before post-scarcity? Hmm, that's interesting, I hope it's not true.

I'm saying that austerity is being disguised as near-post-scarcity. Jobs are hard to come by in the US at the same time that infrastructure is crumbling. That's a lack of jobs not a lack of necessary work.

Got it.

It's a pretty flimsy disguise though. If people are simultaneously complaining about bad infrastructure and high taxes, then they are simply saying that they want their earned money themselves more than they want to use it for shared infrastructure projects. People would just rather have the latest iPhone than good highways. :-/

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#76

Post by visarga »

Today most people work for companies they don't own. In the future, the unemployed will become self employed and work directly to support themselves. Some have land, and can cultivate food. Others can make furniture, or give medical consultations, or teach children. Even owning a small solar farm could be a source of income.

All of them were formerly professionals, now jobless and moneyless. So they have to work directly for themselves and barter products and services. It will evolve into a bazaar of companies and professionals, offering products and services to each other, maybe even with its own currency.

We might not have money but we have work power and are not stupid, and are motivated to find a solution. If nobody will hire you or give you free stuff, what are you going to do? You got to work for yourself, like it's always been since there are people on this planet. But this time, after you earn some money, you can buy your own robot, or get your friends with a small fab to make one for you.

So, coming automation, people will migrate from employment into self employment. By relying on each other, maybe with some help from the government as well, people can make it.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#78

Post by Pica_soO »

wildmusings wrote: post #6
jokoon wrote: post #5

There is a difference between a job you like, and a job you do because you believe "work sets you free" or because you believe work is a some sort of value or a necessary pain everybody has to take part in. I'm unemployed and I really don't think I have any duties to work in fast food or to deliver pizza because I must contribute. If I decide I can live poor and be happy with welfare, I will. I think it's a great thi…

> I'm unemployed and I really don't think I have any duties to work in fast food or to deliver pizza because I must contribute. If I decide I can live poor and be happy with welfare, I will. I think it's a great thing to be able to live a frugal life and still be healthy enough. Why do you think that you should have the right to live off of other people's work? Welfare checks aren't fairy money, they're money that ca…

Because he is no longer living on the back of other people. He is living on the back of robots and machinery. Hating him for once personal live style choices (aka salary-man) in a world that that discards those daily by the dozen- seems- slightly envious?

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#79

Post by Animats »

We're there already. There are vast numbers of people who cannot make an economic contribution large enough to cover their costs.

Education won't help. Teach a human how to do something, and you have one human who can do it. Teach a computer how to do something, and you can have as many computers as needed doing it. The US has already hit "peak school" in terms of economic benefit. About half of college graduates take jobs that don't really require a college education. Trade schools do even worse.

The classic solutions are lots of poor people in slums and dying towns, and ethnic cleansing.

Re: What if jobs are not the solution but the problem?

#80

Post by cperciva »

daptaq wrote: post #70
cperciva wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trade and exploiting comparative advantages yields greater utility" is about as hard a law as any.

Not if you ask marxist-economists...

And if you ask biblical literalists, they'll tell you that there was no big bang but the world was instead created in six days. There are always some people with counterfactual beliefs.
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