this post was submitted on 12 Sep 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
Library copied from reddit:
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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Shareholders at least the ones beating the market have a different skill set to workers. Replacing them with other workers might have issues with long term success.
I think you'd be better off changing laws that suppress workers wages and laws that unnecessary increase their expenses particularly rent
Owning things isn't a skill, my dude. This is evident in the fact that almost the entire human race owns something.
Agreed on owning things I was talking about those getting an above market return.
Of what value is that to society? If there's no value and massive downsides, why should we ~~protect~~ reward them?
Yeah the premise of the system is that society is benefiting. In practice I would agree that's not always and maybe majorly not the case. In Australia there was a Henry tax review report that details a lot of changes to improve this situation unfortunately many have not been implemented. I'm sure the situation is similar worldwide.
This is kinda my point - I'm not interested in the empty arguments and spin - I'm interested in what's best.
Unfortunately, the Australian government has a habit of commissioning studies rather than taking action (we've risen to power under the status quo - why would we change it?) - The Henry review was probably taken less seriously than the Gonski report.
When the market is shaped by austerity politics, corporate welfare, and wage depression, then "getting an above market return" depends on austerity politics, corporate welfare, and wage depression (which still is not the same as the "skill set" of owning shares).
Your objection sidesteps the broader observations, of how the masses of workers are oppressed by the greed of the very few, who sustain a self-serving narrative.
That skillset would no longer be relevant; their jobs would be made redundant. Companies in this scenario no longer need to seek growth and increasing profit margins. They only need to earn enough to pay their own salaries. And, because the workers are the ones who collectively manage the company, they can democratically make strategic plans for future production, and logistical changes to increase efficiency and reduce the amount of work necessary and improve their working conditions.
In abstract sense, when you make profit, it means that you've made a sufficiently good path to some end for other people. Like in electrical engineering.
The more your "path-shortening" effect, the bigger your profit.
It's a system leading to optimization (in abstract).
While this isn't.
I'd be happy to see any idea aimed at improving human life conditions, general happiness and so on succeed. Just with leftist conversations it always looks like "the brakes and safety measures are making the car too expensive, let's get rid of them".
In an abstract sense, sure. But in reality, profit does not require you to do any good. If it's more expensive to dispose of waste ethically, for example, then waste will be disposed of unethically.
Yes, I can't argue that jobs exist that help other people.
Not necessarily. Insurance is one example.
In the abstract, I agree. But left to play out, monopoly and bureaucracy inevitably emerge.
Why not?
Okay. Me, too.
I really don't mean to be snide, but you have this backwards. Under capitalism, it requires the state to intervene to regulate it in order to, for example, add safety measures to cars. Socialist economies are, as I mentioned, democratic. The people need safety measures, and the people are in control of production, so safety measures will be in place.
It requires you to do something, and scale may make production cheaper, for example.
How so? Insurance is one of the most ingenious things I can think about which market economy allows. Leveraging probabilities to protect each separate participant from some event which would be too expensive without it.
That happens in planned economies just as well and worse.
Because with private\public companies there is some criterion by which a company is being optimized, it's profit (in general, though with public companies things already work more complex, which is how Apple\MS\etc look so weird).
With what you describe, first, the response is going to be slow, as it's democratic planning, second, every worker is going to vote in his own perceived interest. At best it's going to be just like public companies, at worst most of such companies are not going to be able to support themselves existing.
I mean, okay, it's going to have an element of optimization too (cause it's still going to be capitalist in essence), just possibly less efficient in general. But may bypass some of the traps for public companies.
Only to make them mandatory for everyone. And then see the following.
Not necessarily. But they are all bureaucratic.
What one needs, what one thinks one needs, and what one can choose from are three different stages, and then there's another stage of what one receives in response.
And these are managed by bureaucracies. Point being, with markets you at least don't have to build a bureaucracy for market operations per se.
You think a socialist economy is "not necessarily" democratic..? It is democratic by definition.
Actually every known one IRL is not.
If it's not democratic, it makes no sense to call it socialist.
I agree. As a major shareholder and successful business owner, I’m far better at relaxing on a beach in Bali than the lazy poors are. Our skill sets are not comparable.