Economy Entitlements (aka welfare) and the working poor: lazy or other factors involved?
- Thread starter deficiT
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I was responding to ateliers comment big guy. I already got my point across, it just goes over your head.
You should take that "addicts are selfish" shit back to the bodybuilding forum cause its pretty lame.
Deru
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^ This, 100%. What really bothers me the most about the trades, and labor positions in general, is the constant need to work overtime, overtime, overtime. People think they're making good money because they clear $100k/year, but guess what happens when the overtime is taken away... It becomes completely unhealthy and unrealistic to sustain.
Lux Exterior
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Yeah, exactly and that's if you happen to work for an established company, if you happen to be self-employed or working for a local ma's n pa's it's even worse, that's like working for an agency and sitting on your ass all day waiting for a call, which I have done. On another note, what really pissed me off about working for them is that they made it so you had to to get a 'DBS check' if you wanted more work which is essentially a background check, that's like paying to get less work if they happen to find that you have a record.
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Can confirm, at my job we get off when the job is done, not after 8 hours. Working 5-6 days adds up after a while. I don't think that humans have to work to have value. People do work naturally, it is flawed to think that people won't work if they're given a choice. The nature of work in modern capitalism is inherently authoritarian. If it was to be restructured we would have more of a chance to pursue our ambitions and self actualize. Instead we all labor endlessly and pick up the scraps Bezos and crew think we deserve.
Bezos and every other billionaire owes me a fat check.
Xorkoth
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Interesting question regarding this topic: what happens when machines and computers take over a lot of our simple jobs, and we have far less jobs for humans than we do now? And likely more humans than we have now, too. At that point, we will still be producing just as much GDP and getting just as much stuff done as we are now, or even more probably since machines don't get tired and need to sleep, or have lives. What will we do? It seems likely that a universal basic income would be necessary, unless we do something stupid and pointless like just require people to do full time busy work that has no value, just for the sake of saying you "worked" so you can get paid.
Maybe more people would get a chance to pursue the things they're passionate about with their time, instead of grinding away at some job that is now done by a machine. Maybe we'd start paying musicians and artists of all kinds more and realize the value they bring to society. Of course, there would still be plenty of skilled jobs that would require humans. But only so many of them. So what about everyone else?
Maybe more people would get a chance to pursue the things they're passionate about with their time, instead of grinding away at some job that is now done by a machine. Maybe we'd start paying musicians and artists of all kinds more and realize the value they bring to society. Of course, there would still be plenty of skilled jobs that would require humans. But only so many of them. So what about everyone else?
Lux Exterior
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If that ever happens they should let us get a hold of our own robots that'll go to work instead of us, installing diploma chips would make them qualified for better jobs. Then it would really become a competitive market
Do you actually believe this? So if there was no reward and people could just do whatever they want we’d still have electricians and bank tellers? Bezos doesn’t owe you anything, if what he did was so easy do it yourself and you wouldn’t have to ask him for a handout
December Flower
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Yeah if you'd want to have a system like that, you'd have to get rid of all the jobs nobody wants to do. Who's going to be a Garbage Man, if you don't even get paid?
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Yes, we would. And I'd argue that better work would get done too, because work would be getting done as is necessary, and not simply to satisfy profit motive.
Of course he doesn't owe 'me' anything. He owes ALL of us.
I'm not asking for a handout, I'm willing to work and do so constantly, I'm asking for a fair share of what is rightfully mine as a contributing member of the human race. I don't have such a limited view of humanity as to think that poverty, famine, and war can't be alleviated. In order to do that, people like Jeff Bezos are going to have to start forking over the obscene amount of wealth they've hoarded.
I didn't say he shouldn't be compensated or that he hasn't done anything valuable. But if you think we owe a single entrepreneur billions and billions of dollars, then you should probably reevaluate what exactly he's done to deserve 1000x more than any common worker. Because I promise you, he wouldn't be where he is today without the millions of people that work and/or buy stuff from him.
Billionaires aren't useful or necessary in society, and the massive amount of wealth inequality is an indictment of our current economic system. If you are content to toil away for scraps while aristocrats are given the entire world on a silver platter, then I'm sorry. You should want more for yourself.
This reeks of a lack of knowledge in regard to actual reality.
The game is rigged, man. The haves and the have nots. It was created/designed to remain this way. In a "for me" only society - as in the US - evreyone cannot work the higher skilled/paying jobs as the system would collapse from a lack of a menial labor pool.
Ahhh, nevermind... it's all gonna collapse under it's own wight/burden anyway. I am outta here.
Peace
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I'm sure quite a few people would sign up to be garbage men, because otherwise there'd be garbage everywhere. I mean you don't get paid to take out the trash, do laundry, and wash dishes at your house right?
It's a common held belief that life would somehow stagnate if work wasn't a biological imperative. But it's quite the opposite, humanity would be able to work together to do what really needs to be done instead of working to create artificial monetary value just to stay alive.
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I mean no one got paid fiat currency to hunt elk and gather plants in prehistoric times. Best believe people still ate though. That's because we aren't as atomized as modern capitalism wants us to be. We are naturally a communal and cooperative species.
December Flower
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I like the system of unconditional income some of our upcoming political parties in my country are pushing. Our major political party is losing shitloads of power, so there's many out there with some interesting ideas atm.
It's an amazing system. You just get an unconditional income as long as you make under 80.000€ or so per annum. They're still debating about the numbers, but apparently somewhere between 1.500€ - 3.000€ per month. And then you can still choose to work on top and earn more money. I like this, because it's enough money to give you the opportunity to save it and make your own business.
I like this system especially, because it doesn't kill our entire monetary system. There's a reason we use money, because if I have Oranges, and my neighbour has Fish - he wants Oranges, but I don't want Fish, what's he gonna give me for my Oranges?
Also I own a company, and I don't have a networth to scoff at, even though my bank would suggest otherwise atm
so I would prefer to keep my assets, and not let the company I poured my blood(not literally) into be worth as much as a part-time job at the restaurant of your choice. I'm no stranger to 60+ hours of work per week, and it cost us years of planning, figuratively ripping our asses open, and 25,000€ + another 25k in order to afford this opportunity of having our own business.I've had weeks where I only slept 3 hours a night for my company, I've literally hallucinated at work because I was so sleep-deprived, I've done everything in my power for this company, and a system like that would drop all my effort to 0.
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Making sure everyone is taken care of wouldn't destroy free trade or sink everyone to a peasant. In a perfect world, you would have more of a chance to self actualize and follow your aspirations because you are not tied down to one thing to make sure you have the bare minimum. The minimum is provided to you, and you would be free to make whatever money you please. We just don't need to have billionaires anymore. Does anyone really need to be one? I say no.Also I own a company, and I don't have a networth to scoff at, even though my bank would suggest otherwise atm
I've had weeks where I only slept 3 hours a night for my company, I've literally hallucinated at work because I was so sleep-deprived, I've done everything in my power for this company, and a system like that would drop all my effort to 0.
This might sound radical or utopian to some, all I'm saying is that we can have a better world for everyone, not just for corporate overlords and government bureaucrats. It's not magical thinking either, this argument is ultimately what moves the wheel of history. Many americans are perfectly happy with being a nationalist pawn, cheering on our imperialism. I consider my allegiance to my fellow humans before country.
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December Flower
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My entire business exists because of millionaires and billionaires :D
The people who buy from us are usually hotels or restaurants where the dinner costs 800€, and that's not counting the alcohol.
I'm all for a certain sense of equity, definitely. But I think devalue-ing work in such a krass manner is too much. I'm all for an unconditional income, and to tax rich people much higher, but I think without the reward system of work = money, this whole society would be fucking doomed, at least at the excessive rate we're living right now.
Sure, if we all lived in the forest, I guess, but in a city. There's a power outage, but the chief electrician just wasn't feeling it today. If there's no penalty for missing your job, people will not stay motivated enough to do it reliably, I just can't wrap my mind around that concept. It's illogical, that with our dopamine-motivated mind, we would do something we don't like which we don't have to do. I think that's humbug, I'm sorry. Especially police is such a fucking unthankful job, that's deadly and makes people hate you for no reason. If you don't even get a pension for risking your life, why would you?
This would only work in a strong society that works together and has some kind of "purpose" or political message.
Honestly, the first time I heard this socialist pitch of "everyone gets everything they want", I thought it was meant as a joke.
I'm still astounded how popular it is. I think everyone should get what they need to survive for free, but what we want, we should have to work for.
The monkey sees the banana on the tree and climbs up.
The human sees the banana on the tree and waits until the banana falls.
I like this metaphor for the "human spirit". We make everything as easy as possible for us(as a people), easy way out, always the easy way out. Always faster, and easier to master. We don't cook rice, we cook prepared rice, that only needs to cook for 3 minutes. We don't teach our kids instruments, we teach them "specific instrument" hero. You cannot believe that lazy-ass humanity would work for free.
Short of: "Automatons are doing all the work" I just can't see it happening, man, as much as I try to. I really am trying
December Flower
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@deficiT don't get me wrong, I think your scenario would work, if it would have been the way it's always been. Imagine it now, happening tomorrow, effectively. If I say 35% of people are unhappy with their job, or the fact that they've been working it for X years, with only Y amount of vacation, you agree that's a low calculated number, right? But just imagine 35% of people, especially those in low end jobs, are not going to work tomorrow or this entire month for that matter. Haha, wow. That thought gave me a brain zap, literally.
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That's what I don't understand. Why the insistence that humans are lazy? Have you seen the shit we make and work on every single day? Have you looked at productivity numbers rising every year? Humans are perfectly capable of running things. You don't need millionaires to fund your business, you just need people.
When feudalism ended labor became much more specialized. Everyone doing one task. Before that if you needed a tool, you built it yourself. You learned how to do a little bit of everything, because you had to survive. I'm hardly saying we should return to feudalism, but the specialization of labor has turned everyone into a unthinking cog in the machine of global capitalism. Unless you own your business, you have little control over your work.
What I'm ultimately getting at, is that people do not need the threat of poverty to work, because they are already being threatened by the outcome of them not getting shit done. You know what happens when your electrician calls out? Someone else steps up and learns how to do it. Why?? Because they need electricity to live.
I am not saying people should all be held to a bare minimum standard. You can have your business because you'd just be serving the working class instead. You might even learn something new with all the extra time you have.
How much do we produce that just goes in the trash? Or the ocean? How much food? Just imagine what could happen if all that wasted labor was actually harnessed to benefit society as opposed to magic paper the State tells you is valuable.
Sure, maybe we won't see a perfect world in our lifetime. But believe me, we need to start working on something. Because that automation shit IS coming and millions will be unemployed. If we don't step up and start to understand the nature of work and productivity in a more nuanced fashion, we are all going to be starving. It starts with trade unions and workers rights. But it can't end there. This is crucial stuff.
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If those low paying jobs don't serve a purpose then why do it? If it needs to be done, someone will do it. Our productivity outsizes our demand so much that if 35% of people didn't work tomorrow, we would still produce way more than we could possibly use.
Humans rely on each other to produce the needs of society. We don't need a managerial class to run our workplaces and government. We're perfectly capable.