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World According to Capitalists
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this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Antiwork
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A community for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.
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This server is no longer working, and we had to move.
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Date Created: June 21, 2023
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The Anti-Work Library 📚
Essential Reads
Start here! These are probably the most talked-about essays on the topic.
- The Abolition of Work by Bob Black (1985) | listen
- On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (2013) | listen
- In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (1932) | listen
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I guess my point with the "optimal" thing was a little misleading. I don't believe do or die meritocracy is a good goal to strive for, so I don't believe we should force people to be able bodied. The point is that one doesn't need to make themselves able by society's standards because they can be happy as they are.
Work should be something one does to get the nicer things in life, not something one does to live. This is the only way to make people economically free. This will only be accomplished through violence, preferably through the state, exercised on the very wealthy. (When I say violence I mean laws. All laws have to be backed by threat of violence, otherwise they're just recommendations.)
They may have stacked the deck in their favor, but like you said, if you believe it's not possible you'll never succeed. You choose to believe you can make a good life through capitalism. I can see that the game is becoming increasingly unfair, and choose to believe that state power can be used to eventually make government mandated human rights a reality. I believe liberalism can, in theory realize a future where work is optional. We just need to sacrifice the economic liberties that only the rich can actually use. This doesn't mean the state should do everything, unions and non profit NGOs are essential, but state power is necessary as only it can do certain things.
As far as capitalism goes, it will eventually push small players like you out of the game if left unregulated. That's why if capitalism is to continue to exist as a thing the average person can buy into, we need a minimum of massive reform and social programs and a redistribution of the wealth held by the stupid rich. If liberal democracy is unable to deliver this, people will tear it down and there's no guarantee the succeeding system will be democratic. This is why we must enact this change with haste.
That's the issue with global capitalism and why most nationalistic attempts at communism couldn't be successful. The system of global capitalism is enabled by mechanisms the US supports and upholds. The system wouldn't suddenly collapse if the US stopped upholding it, but it would need to adjust. The free flow of capital is what allows it, so the free flow of capital would need to be crippled. Other strategies like agreed upon tax rates for companies made by most large governments could also improve things. Ultimately it does require global class consciousness and global cooperation.
When it comes to regulating capitalism, we need to do more than we currently do. The tide of deregulation must be halted and reversed in many complex ways I don't have time to get into. This will probably require a constitutional amendment or reform of the courts the restore the power of regulatory agencies.
When it comes to our current welfare spending, most of it comes from Medicare and social security, both popular programs that do a lot of good. Expanding Medicare to cover everyone would raise taxes for everyone, but it would save everybody money and actually give people more disposable income. Social security could theoretically be expanded, effectively budgeting for everyone's retirement, but we really don't need to touch it anytime soon.
If every last dime was taken from the very wealthy, then it wouldn't just be withdrawing money from a bank account, it would involve distributing more stock in companies to the workers. This is the role that unions and non government collectives could play. Ideally, it would involve restructuring companies so they worked more democratically and CEOs and executives would be elected by workers rather than chosen by people with capital who have no stake in the company besides profit. This would need to happen in tandem with everything else, and it would be a gradual transition away from capital investments to worker owned companies. Taking from the wealthy isn't a long term strategy, but a technique used to transition away from capital ruling over everything.
Eventually, there would be no ultra wealthy, but taking from them will no longer be necessary. That democratization of business and workers would be the socialist element that would need to be enabled by the government. Workers would be able to switch industries by earning stock with them that they could switch to a new industry through currency. Then, when they feel like retiring, they could live off that stock for a while. If we expand human lifespans and reverse aging, it might even be cyclical where people would spend years in retirement, and then come out of it to work before retiring again.
It's radically different, but it would allow people to carve out existences in the system. People who never retire because they enjoy work would support those who worked only to earn bonus comfort, and automation would make much of society run without much work. It's a futuristic goal, but it honestly isn't that unrealistic technologically. We have slowed aging in mice and expanded their lifespans already, even reversing the age of human cells, and automation through ai has made huge breakthroughs recently. Look at how much tech has changed life in the last 100 years. Is this change really so far fetched?
Unfortunately most people, even people who are self proclaimed socialists, don't think through what seizing the means of production means. It means that the capital that is owned by a class of people who do little labor for it, is given back to the people who labor. Another reason people don't describe the system is that many different versions and strategies exist to accomplish this goal. I'm not an economist by any means, so I'm not wed to that plan.
It's ultimately about accomplishing the goal of economic equity where anything beyond the necessities is earned through labor, not ownership. The current system where you gain wealth primarily from owning capital leads to people getting impractical sums of wealth. Scarcity means that those impractical sums are allocated in a way that lets people suffer and die needlessly.
Additionally, many people who are merely social democrats don't want capitalism to go away so long as people aren't left behind. I'm not determined to destroy capitalism at all costs, making me a bit of a social democrat. However, I don't care if capitalism is destroyed so long as the goal is accomplished.
It's easier to unite people behind the mentality of making the economy more fair than to nail down a solid plan that everyone agrees to. Most people will never need to understand how the intricacies of the system work beyond how they interact with it. So why make sure everyone fully comprehends anything beyond the input and the output? I don't know exactly how my computer works, but I can use it. So long as the information is available to everyone and the basics are common enough knowledge, we can have people informed enough to vote and fight for it.
I'm getting tired, and this will probably be my last response, but I will say that the current Amazon stock purchase plan is missing the point. Almost all the capital is owned by shareholders who don't work at the company, so owning the stock gives workers little say over company decisions or ability to realize the full profits. The point is to give all that stock back to the workers or a democratic government. There's still room for executives who make decisions, but they are only representatives. The role of CEO would probably be similar in name and public relations only. It would be like calling Biden the king of the US. The system being owned by workers isn't a choice, but the main feature of such a system.
Part of the reason the ACA has problems is because it needed Republican and moderate Democrat support, leading to compromises that hindered it. The fact that the senate is an elected position necessitates the removal of the filibuster to get things done.