Email or username:

Password:

Forgot your password?
Scott's posts Post Back to profile
Top-level
wakame

@evysgarden @scottsantens

I think the central question is: "Will people work without (some kind of, likely 'tangible') reward?"

If you believe the answer is "Yes", then there is no (little) need to restrict the "free stuff" to essentials.
(Btw: I strongly believe that "Yes" is the answer.)

Most ideas about universal basic income, free healthcare, monetary support, etc. somehow seem to assume that the answer is "No", that people need to be forced to work.

Which makes total sense for our society, but IMHO only shows how bad we treat ourselves and each other.

"Kissing up and kicking down" is a result of rationing living essentials. So the good news (in my perspective) is: Even if we only provide for basic needs (for everyone, without hidden "punishments"), this whole sick capitalist ideology will unravel itself.

26 Nov 2023 at 21:29 | Wall-to-wall | Open on tech.lgbt
7 comments
Evy the Demon

@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".

26 Nov 2023 at 21:39 | Open on chaos.social
LisPi
@wakame @scottsantens @evysgarden While the answer is an obvious yes for a large number of things, I do wonder about that work which is both unpleasant but very much necessary.

Like waste management.

For plumbing you can probably find someone who just enjoys it and/or who gets something other than money out of it. But I wouldn't imagine there are enough people who *enjoy* waste management to actually provide for the amount necessary.

I could be wrong though, as I am necessarily biased by the lens of those things which I can assume people would find enjoyable (which also completely breaks down with the notion of service jobs as I find them quite unpleasant and yet some people tell me they actually enjoy them).

In the event I'm not wrong that there are particular jobs for which additional motivation is needed, I wonder what form this would take.
@wakame @scottsantens @evysgarden While the answer is an obvious yes for a large number of things, I do wonder about that work which is both unpleasant but very much necessary.

Like waste management.
26 Nov 2023 at 21:40 | Open on udongein.xyz
zombiecide

@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.

27 Nov 2023 at 1:58 | Open on polyglot.city
wakame

@zombiecide @evysgarden @scottsantens

I would argue that the main problem of capitalism is "encouraging inequality". Like with "Monopoly", capital is used to bring existing systems out of sync.

Even with a completely local, independent economy (e.g. a village with farmers, craftspeople, bakers, butchers), capital allows you to either expand your business or lower your prices, driving competition into ruin, then have a de-facto monopoly that you can use to raise prices and accumulate more capital.

(This is of course a toy example. Large economies work... worse?)

In my opinion, exhausting resources is simply an easy way to maximize profit. Which is why I think that using any kind of non-renewable, non-recyclable resource should be too expensive for any company.

In that regard, bitcoin is actually a pure form of capitalism: Burning resources to create meaningless numbers.

@zombiecide @evysgarden @scottsantens

I would argue that the main problem of capitalism is "encouraging inequality". Like with "Monopoly", capital is used to bring existing systems out of sync.

Even with a completely local, independent economy (e.g. a village with farmers, craftspeople, bakers, butchers), capital allows you to either expand your business or lower your prices, driving competition into ruin, then have a de-facto monopoly that you can use to raise prices and accumulate more capital.

27 Nov 2023 at 2:38 | Open on tech.lgbt
zombiecide

@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.

27 Nov 2023 at 2:55 | Open on polyglot.city
zombiecide

@wakame My ideal would be: take all renewable resources available in a year, take away 10% as a security factor and allocate the rest divided by all humans currently living, with exact resources based on region plus sensible trade
for non renewables, any use must be recyclable with <1% loss and potentially benefitting all people (or vulnerable people in particular)

pollution, emission and environmental impact put into renewable if below 90% of what is removed in a year

@wakame My ideal would be: take all renewable resources available in a year, take away 10% as a security factor and allocate the rest divided by all humans currently living, with exact resources based on region plus sensible trade
for non renewables, any use must be recyclable with <1% loss and potentially benefitting all people (or vulnerable people in particular)

27 Nov 2023 at 3:04 | Open on polyglot.city
zombiecide

@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.

27 Nov 2023 at 3:09 | Open on polyglot.city
Go Up