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Poverty shouldn't exist. For anyone. Ever. Too often I hear 'No one with a job should live in poverty.' True. But let's go further. No one should live in poverty, job or not. Jobs should be a ticket to more than just survival. Think thriving, not surviving; buying fun, not life. 19 comments
 @scottsantens poverty is a feature of capitalism, not a bug. If people can survive without a constant struggle to distract them, theyβre gonna start asking difficult questions the powers that be donβt wanna answer π Techno global tribal socialism for all, money is a scam perpetrated on the poor by the wealthy. I want someone to cook me a burrito because they adore cooking, and then I teach them to program because I tolerate programming. I think often about what the incentive to work is if it's simply to survive? How did we convince ourselves this was enough? @scottsantens this then leaves out those that cannot work, from having fun. think children, the elderly, disabled folks, etc i think we should take it even further, and just provide everyone with what they need and want (within reason), and those that want to work can do so to help achieve this goal for everyone's sake, no exploitation required @scottsantens i first read "property shouldn't exist". ngl it intrigued my leftist self. On the whole poverty thing. I think a job should not be something one needs to stay alive or partake in society. @scottsantens while i generally agree with your sentiment, I don't like the idea of "job for fun, not life". Of course we could just provide everyone with basic needs like a home, food and water. @wakame @scottsantens agreed. The answer to the "should jobs be necessary?" question is pure speculation. And it's a good thing that some countries are moving towards concepts like Universal Basic Income. My personal opinion is that jobs are an inherently capitalist concept. You get rewarded if you have a job and do it well. But if you can't do that, you get punished by social segregation. There are many people who struggle with work environments and are not "thriving".  @wakame @evysgarden @scottsantens I've been thinking about how money is used to exchange labour for resources, as is the basis of capitalism. How this forces labour to be continuously depreciated and resources exploited to exhaustion, because that's the only way the system can remain somewhat stable. So my idea would be to divide labour/renewable/non-renewable, have UBI resource allocation + labour exchanged at equal value, plus some labour for community for those who currently need extra help. @wakame Yeah, I condensed it a bit. Like, if you exchange access to resources for labour, and the resources are limited but labour is basically renewed overnight, and you want the capital to mostly remain in the hands of who has it already (for power/system stability), then today's labour has to be worth less than yesterday's, and preferrably you'd want to increase the amount of resources whereever possible ('reserves'), usually making renewables into non-renewables via exploitation. @wakame And I'll never not marvel at how Monopoly was created to show how capitalism sucks but instead was turned into teaching rentier capitalism to children. I agree with the inequality thing, and want to point out that it wouldn't make sense to amass capital with the goal to then just lose it again. Capital is a power base - like land plus title in feudalism - and systems using it need to try to consolidate and grow it to be able to function.  @scottsantens yes! @scottsantens (But I understand that you are campaigning for UBI and that is obviously based on money... - as a Swiss voter, I'm still angry at the electorate for missing their once in a lifetime opportunity) |
Gregory's Server
@scottsantens Agree. I thought this was true 45 years ago and it makes even more sense today. My reasons might be different from yours but I arrive at the same policy place.