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The Philosophy of Work [pdf]

ucl.ac.uk

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Re: The Philosophy of Work [pdf]

#5

Post by jokoon »

I was again, arguing about work on reddit. Someone said that even animals "work" to survive. I found that the comparison was not really good.

Food and shelter are abundant.

Technology improved the human condition, but it made humans be much much less social, which is the main cause of inequalities.

The individual car/kitchen/living room/bathroom generate exclusion. I'm an introvert, I want to have my safe space, but I don't need to cook alone, to eat alone, to work alone, or to be alone 99% of the time.

I guess that's what people criticize about current capitalism. It's not only the inequalities (that always were always present in civilization), but it's rather the individualism, the atomization, the complex logistics and mechanization of how everything is turned into money, without limits.

In earlier times, in hunter gatherer societies, food was scarce and work was important. But today, you cannot tell people that working in fast food or in customer support is mandatory to eat and have a roof on your head.

Re: The Philosophy of Work [pdf]

#6

Post by agumonkey »

jokoon wrote: post #5

I was again, arguing about work on reddit. Someone said that even animals "work" to survive. I found that the comparison was not really good. Food and shelter are abundant. Technology improved the human condition, but it made humans be much much less social, which is the main cause of inequalities. The individual car/kitchen/living room/bathroom generate exclusion. I'm an introvert, I want to have my safe space, but…

Would you mind sharing the link. I often think about efforts of primitive~ survival vs efforts in societies. It seems there's something egotistic about survival (like animals) that satisfies a sense of self (nobody ever said no to hunting when they're hungry)

Re: The Philosophy of Work [pdf]

#7

Post by [deleted] »

jokoon wrote: post #5

I was again, arguing about work on reddit. Someone said that even animals "work" to survive. I found that the comparison was not really good. Food and shelter are abundant. Technology improved the human condition, but it made humans be much much less social, which is the main cause of inequalities. The individual car/kitchen/living room/bathroom generate exclusion. I'm an introvert, I want to have my safe space, but…

[deleted]

Re: The Philosophy of Work [pdf]

#8

Post by neilwilson »

jokoon wrote: post #5

I was again, arguing about work on reddit. Someone said that even animals "work" to survive. I found that the comparison was not really good. Food and shelter are abundant. Technology improved the human condition, but it made humans be much much less social, which is the main cause of inequalities. The individual car/kitchen/living room/bathroom generate exclusion. I'm an introvert, I want to have my safe space, but…

"Food and shelter are abundant."

Only because somebody made them by working Monday to Friday. That somebody could make less by working Monday to Tuesday. Food and shelter would be less abundant and the person currently working a full week to produce the surplus would instead have the rest of the week to themselves.

The productivity, and the free time, would accrue to those expending the effort of production - as morally it should.

Now you have changed the frame of the question: how do you persuade those highly skilled people who have the capacity to operate machinery that produces the basic surplus to give up the free time that by right is theirs and produce that basic surplus?

We may have a magic money tree, but we don't have a magic porridge pot.

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