I didn't quite get your comment. Did you have a problem that I'm trying to avoid using labor at all costs to achieve my goals? I don't think its wrong to give everyone what they need to survive without them needing to work if I don't need labor to do it. Perhaps you could enlighten me?
I'm saying is that focusing your energies on trying to get location based cheap labour might not be the best use of your time. How am I arguing that people should starve?
I'm concerned that I'm maybe putting the wrong emphasis on some bit of what you said, because if I'm not then yes, I disagree with you.
There is no reason historically that people have not had to work to support themselves, and so to suggest that they not do this suggests either that you desire them all to become layabouts dependent on welfare or that you want them to stop working and die off. Please explain an alternate interpretation of this.
1. You want to not be compelled to do any work to meet your daily needs.
2. You aren’t prepared to be self sufficient so you also want others to render goods and services to you, for presumably no charge.
Are these contradictory? If work was optional for everyone, why would they work and give you goods and services for free?
Sure maybe in future everything can be automated away but right now do you think it’s reasonable to want to do no work and also not want to be self sufficient?
Of course - but the implication is enough people need to willingly do that - which is a negative right - you’re allowed to spend whatever time and money you want on feeding people. But as soon as you flip it - we just need everyone to do ____ - you’re describing forced labor. Hoping everyone would be good enough citizens to want to do the forced labor does not make the labor not forced.
Where does the 'basic level' of resources and comfort come from, if one does not work ? I agree that life shouldn't be all about work, surely some form of work is essential to be able to provide the basics, even if that work is farming your own land to grow your own food.
Anyone expecting even a basic level of anything without being willing to contribute at all is not demonstrating good behaviour within society.
Did you not look at the comic in the post you're replying to? The broader argument is that the topic at hand is not actually about labor to sustain yourself. It's about a system designed to actually deprive you of access to naturally-existing wealth and resources so that you are then forced to labor for someone else in order to gain sustenance.
In other words, there was at one point fresh water and land and berries and such just available in the world. People had to labor to get them, but they were there. We've made far more value for society overall such that we have resources to support far more people, and it's mostly from a long evolution of technology and science.
There's tons of productive things to do to keep things going. But since we have an attitude of "you deserve your share of resources only if you labor" we have a ton of make-work bullshit that people do that can even be counter-productive. We're not all working on things that actually add value to society. People who skim off the system such as high-speed traders get a huge share of the resources while laboring in ways that create no value whatsoever.
So, we need to get rid of the "work to eat" idea because it leads people to do whatever to eat when they are desperate. We'd do better if we focus on promoting things that provide the most value, and we get that better if we provide other motivations than "do whatever it takes not to starve".
Maybe when scarcity isn’t a thing working won’t be a moral imperative? Work is only moral because of scarcity. Maybe being someone’s slave for your food and shelter isn’t a writ from god.
Someone has to work for society to function. And you're taking those people's money, often against their will, and giving it to people who don't want to work. You see nothing wrong with that?
Are we there yet? Can we all stop working because we've arrived? Well, no.
The problem is that we're still at a place where, if we all stop working, soon we all starve. Sure, we can maintain are current non-starving state with less backbreaking labor than it took a century ago, but there's still a huge amount of work needed to maintain that state.
So keep your goal, and keep working toward it, because we're not there yet. If we keep working on it, the next generation may have less backbreaking labor - not none, and not no work at all, just less.
Giving people sufficient basic resources for survival doesn't stop them from working.
Everyone being paid more than a living wage is already choosing to do more work than they have to. Why do you assume that people would stop working, if they have a choice? It's already evident that people choose to work without coercion, if they are paid properly.
My point is that coercion via threat of personal destitution is bad and should be eliminated, not that work is bad.
If people avoided seeing labor as a problem and started looking at it as to what it is, a resource just like any other (petrol, energy, etc.), they would stop making comments like this.
Once you free humanity from a task, people will just do something more important.
To me it seems you imply that its OK to coerce certain people into taking certain work. I view the second paragraph as an attempt to justify that position, despite its conflict with basic humanist ideals.
Ignoring the hypothetical nature of your second paragraph, I think you miss the incentive to all "work", which depends on how much the worker thinks his work is worth.
Take my friend the farmer, who happily works on a tiny organic farm (hard physical work) for very little pay, because he feels his work is sustainable, and productive (helps others, provides food).
Also take my friend the construction worker, who would love to build houses for the rest of his life despite low wages, but won't, because he is unable to find employer that will enable his labor to bear fruit. Sure he could build mansions, and commercial monoliths to no end, embedding stone chipped from the Italian coastline into German upper class house-fronts, or build shopping malls. But he's not an idiot, he won't waste his life pouring his talent into luxury products and consumption infrastructure that won't help anyone in the end. He wants to build sustainable housing for people to live in, houses so cost effective everybody can have one.
Depending on coercion to motivate a work force, implies that the work to be done is actually detrimental to society.
So you prefer owning people? Or you just object to work? It's not clear what you are advocating for. We live in a world where people need three square meals a day, they want heating and transportation and energy, and other people have to work every day to provide those services.
It seems a bit entitled to be moaning about the fact that one must work to survive in life -- that's kind of how this whole life thing works.
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