It is unfortunate that this anti-work rhetoric often comes off as outrageous, when in reality it isn’t. I don’t know if the people doing it are intentionally trying to be controversial, or if they just are not good at communicating.
When we complain about work, this doesn’t mean that we are asking for a world where we lounge all day at home, and expect that food, shelter and entertainment are magically delivered to us without any regard to how it happens. No, anti-work is not about a blind sense of entitlement. But that is how a lot of these posts come off as, even if their authors don’t intend it.
Anti-work is a recognition that the working class works way too damn much; so much more than we need to to have a functioning society with everyone living happily and having their needs met. There’s so much inefficiency in capitalism, with aims to drive more capital to the wealthy, and working around other stupidities of capitalism (check out the book “Bullshit jobs” for examples). The ruling class holds hostage the world’s resources, and requires you to give them a large portion of your life to get even the minimum needed to sustain your living. Now that is outrageous.
I think a lot of people have trouble understanding the difference between “I don’t want to contribute anything to society” and “I don’t want to spend half my waking life laboring for peanuts so that my boss can get rich”.
Obviously, we should contribute according to our means, but we need to be compensated for those contributions accordingly.
…but we need to be compensated for those contributions accordingly.
This is the part they object to, thanks to the proliferation of Econ 101 thinking. Market wages are, after all, competitive by definition. For someone that hasn’t gone beyond basic economics, what you’re paid for the work you do is fair compensation.
The anti-work rhetoric is, first of all, incredibly misleading for people who take things at face value. But more important, the underlying theory for why market wages aren’t fair is different for each person you talk to. There is no coherent, rhetorically forceful reasoning for why people should be paid more. And separate messages that arrive at the same conclusion aren’t really effective at scale.
Getting paid better would be nice, but that will just bring the middle class closer to poverty. I’ve been a part of this community for a few years now and I have been fighting for better wages this whole time. But the biggest pain to me is inflation. Things keep costing more and more, but I keep making the same amount of money. Wouldn’t price regulations be a better solution to all of this to all of this? Not trying to start a fight, but looking for a slight skew from the topic.
Getting paid better would be nice, but that will just bring the middle class closer to poverty
This is not how math work. If you add 10% to wage for everyone, then nothing will change(with few exceptions that will become more affordable, mostly some sorts of taxes). But if you add 100$ to wage for everyone, then rich become sloghtly less rich, poor will become relatively richer and middle class will be slightly richer.
But the biggest pain to me is inflation. Things keep costing more and more, but I keep making the same amount of money.
The biggest problem is not inflation itself, but that capitalists when increase price of product will not increase wage of worker. If there is deflation, then capitalist will cut wages, but keep prices high
Regulations for everything would not allow the greedy pigs to make their own rules. What you’re asking for is that they gain some sort of heart and start valuing something other than their products. That won’t happen. I really think regulation is a better plan because it’s creating laws that cap profits. Then we can hit em with their own medicine and up the minimum wage too. Maybe even put a maximum wage out there.
Maybe I’ve seen too much star trek and I’m believing that the socialist/communist utopia exists out there someday. Maybe I’m crazy. All I know for sure is I don’t like the hand I was delt and it’s way too hard to fold.
Maybe even put a maximum wage out there.
Reminds me Savateev’s proposed education reform. Cap school directors’ wage at something like 2x-3x of lowest of top-60%(below median) teachers’ wages in conjunction with banning overtime more than 50%(hard cap work time at 150% of normal, currently over 200% is common practice which is really bad).
Wouldn’t price regulations be a better solution to all of this
What would that solve though?
I mean say, a loaf of bread is price regulated at $3/loaf. Do we treat it like the minimum wage and let it sit there for 15 years at $3? What about bread producers? After a few years, they’re certainly not getting paid the market price for their production. Is that justified to ensure that bread remains at $3?
The problems of price controls are demonstrated quite convincingly with rent controls versus just building affordable housing: the former doesn’t increase the housing supply which means, even if rent is affordable, some people remain homeless.
Idk, how are thinking about it?
After a few years, they’re certainly not getting paid the market price for their production.
Why not? When monopoly sets price it is market price, but when monopsony-like actor does same it is not?
versus just building affordable housing: the former doesn’t increase the housing supply which means, even if rent is affordable, some people remain homeless.
I recommend you to watch Rossmann’s walks around NYC where he just shows places that can be rented, but nobody does for 10 years. It is not because there is not enough supply, there was oversupply even before pandemic, just a lot of companies prefer to let place rot, then rent at
fairliterally market price because it will bring down rent on other places. Well, for housing there is also ban of everything that is not single-family shed or humant colony.
You are responsible for negotiating your compensation. You allow yourself to be paid peanuts.
It will always be peanuts, regardless of negotiating.
There are always jobs elsewhere, though it’s hard to see that for those who are complacent. I could apply for a job that would give me a 200k/yr raise, but I don’t because I enjoy where I work and I believe the job I’m working at now will benefit me in the long run.
Like your thesis that capitslism is inefficient. I agree! It is efficient though solving a problem, it’s just the wrong one (money instead of happiness as the x).
Never thought about it that way
I was born in a comunist society and can wholeheartedly tell you (I presume you are from US or a western country): you don’t even know or can imagine what inefficient is :)
Coming up with something even more inefficient isn’t a win.
But that’s kind of the point here. There hasn’t been any win. So far no proposed system has been able to beat capitalism in terms of efficiency. Right?
I am not from the US or Western, and I understand and can imagine it well. Socialism is still the answer. I’d be happy to discuss this further with you, but I’ll keep it at that otherwise.
A good start might be not calling the movement Anti-work, as that seems to be an all or nothing type of negative name, to those who feel everyone should put in their fair amount of work to earn the rewards from society.
Perhaps smart-work or fair-work or right-work would have been a better name for the movement, less of a blockage / hurtle for others to get over.
The thing of such names is they cannot be hijacked as fas as I know. You simply can’t do anti-work-washing or create yellow anti-work union. Distorted anti-work is worse for capitalism than real anti-work because supporter of distorted anti-work will not agree to work at all.
You have a good point. Although I doubt it’s worth the trade off. I think pirate party movements vs environmental movement is a good comparison. Pirate party-ism kind of died. Environmentalism lives on. Not saying it’s necessarily because of naming. But, I don’t think sounding like you’re “pro theft” helped.
Pirate party-ism kind of died.
Wouldn’t say so. They got more popular, they are just not as often mentioned in news as before.
In Russia for example Pirate Party was frozen becase during Putin’s reign it is unsafe(as in you will be killed or imprisoned) to register opposition. So currently PP works as Roskomsvoboda(PP’s project like EFF).
Although I doubt it’s worth the trade off.
Could you elaborate?
The negative connotation that you mention is the point of the trade off. On one hand it makes the message less appealing - because it’s using a symbolic name with a negative connotation.
On the other hand - the negative connotation makes it less likely that the symbols will be hijacked by opponents.
By example:
- Green movements don’t have symbols with such connotation. Opponents use green washing to hijack the movement.
- Pirate party movements do have names and symbols with negative connotations. If you’re working with intellectual property you don’t want to be associated with piracy. There’s no such thing as pirate-washing…(?) However, open source movements is a related phenomenon and a counter example. There have been examples of open source-washing. Companies that pretend to be open but they really aren’t really. Android and openai comes to mind.
When a movement is formed there is a possibility to build a narrative that is more or less desirable to hijack. Making it less desirable to hijack might make it less desirable overall. That’s the trade off.
The thing of such names is they cannot be hijacked as fas as I know. You simply can’t do anti-work-washing or create yellow anti-work union.
Actually that’s usually the number one way if somebody combating you where they want to “kill the messenger”, they hijacked a term and make it mean something different than it should be.
For example being a liberal used to mean one thing and then conservances painted it in a different light, and now it has a negative connotation in our society to centrists.
Distorted anti-work is worse for capitalism than real anti-work because supporter of distorted anti-work will not agree to work at all.
I honestly read this four times, and just literally do not understand the point you’re trying to make.
If you can elaborate on it so I can see what you’re trying to tell me I’d appreciate it.
Fundamentally the point I was trying to make is that “anti-work”, when people hear that they think “this person doesn’t want to work for their living and carry their weight in our society”. It’s a very strong negative connotation, and usually it shuts somebody down from listening to you and to your ideas right at the start.
If your goal is a fair work philosophy then you should state that in the tldr name for it. If otherwise you truly mean no work, then ‘anti-work’ has a tldr name that matches that philosophy better.
I certainly agree. I never liked the term anti-work at all. I prefer to just cut to the chase and explain what I’m about. Or call myself a socialist. That may have its own baggage to unpack as well, but at least its not a core semantic flaw in the term.
Anti-work is extremely unfortunate. We really named a movement after a strawman criticism of leftists by boomers.
Now say that in 160 characters. Brevity is the capitalist way.
Capitalism bad. Hope that’s short enough for you to comprehend.
Zinger!
Good lord this community is cringe most of the time.
I don’t get all the people who are here that clearly aren’t anti-work.
like why are they here? Isn’t this a community for anti work and not against it?
IMHO there’s two main groups
-
“Wage labor is inherently unfair, we need to build a new economic system.”
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“fuck work amirite guys?”
those groups definitely over lap though.
Significantly though? You can find many groups with an overlap that doesn’t really mean anything.
In this case, I am in the group that over laps which is why I mentioned it.
Same here, I think both venting and discussion of solutions are helpful.
Totally agree.
The former moved to “workreform”, at least on Reddit. The latter group are the dog walkers that stayed put.
Work reform are liberals who don’t want a new economic system. For example they want a higher minimum wage, with wage labor still existing. Maybe they’re a little bit of the latter, when it’s not too impolite.
-
why are they here?
Because it shows up in my home feed as “active”?
“Stop interrupting my echo chamber”
Yup, they want to live in fantasy land where they benefit from other people’s work, but do none themselves. They’re still children, but most of them will eventually grow up.
The rest will become communists, which is something I’ve been seeing a lot of on Lemmy.
Let’s not forget that communists do work. Not saying you said otherwise, just a reminder.
Someone should tell the wannabe communists that they’d still have to work.
Yeah the 40+ hours of manual labor I do producing 3 $25,000 machines in a week while being paid $1000 is totally not work at all.
Critiquing a system of exploitation is only possible if one is lazy and worthless, not something that typically and historically comes from those most oppressed under a given system.
Refusal to blindly submit to coercive hierarchies is a sign of immaturity, while blind obedience to that system makes you a real man. Only people who blindly accept their and the exploitation of their friends and family are adults.
What’s the plan then?
So go start your own business producing these $25,000 machines if it is that easy. Go on then. Clearly you have everything figured out. Your are supposedly worth $75k a week but you’re only getting paid $1k a week. Start your own company and even if you have yourself 10x the salary, you’d still have one of the most profitable companies on the planet.
If it’s that easy, then why aren’t you doing it?
Is it maybe because there are dozens of other people involved in building these machines? It is because the labor to build something doesn’t cover the cost to design and engineer it. And test it. And logistics. And the costs for any regulator certification these machines must go through.
Loving hearing people with all the answers only to find out they really have no answers.
Maybe because have a gigantic money head start is basically a must and not something that the mere mortal can have because of the actual thing that they are criticizing it?
You can be rich, put that money somewhere where someone “manages” it for you, fuck off to a desert island for 5 years and when you come back you are richer than before. And you didn’t do jack shit for that money. Do you think that is fair? And most importantly where do you think that money “is coming from”? The answer is that it is skimming from all the hardworking people that generate profit for the company while only getting paid a small fraction of that.
Good lord you have the mind of a 6 year old who has no idea how the world works.
Great comment
Right back at you
LOL
holy fuck you’re clueless.
You keep insinuating people are children but yet it doesn’t seem like you are that interested in actually telling them they’re wrong, and repeating how its not that easy. So care to enlighten these “kids” or are you just gonna keep acting like an ass?
I’m in a community labeled anti work and every other post is about some new lazy ass who wants endless handouts, and I should waste my time explaining anything to the commies in here?!
I have built my own business, however it was impossible to run equitably under current structures of regulation, so I sold it.
But no, there are not dozens of people involved in building the machines at our 10 person company. There are 2. There are 2 involved in designing them, and three involved in ongoing support for the units, a cost which is itself covered entirely through service contracts. The majority of our revenue is taken by the corporation that bought the company with the entire crew together, including management, receiving less than 50% of the money made post costs for our efforts. Our revenue supports the multi billion dollar stock buybacks the owning corporation does each year, and the $4 million dollar salary of their chief executive.
You obviously don’t work in manufacturing, because regulatory certification costs are one time payments done at the inception of each model, not an ongoing cost for each unit.
Exactly. This is what I chose to do, I took a small loan of seven million dollars from my father and started my own business, and that’s what everybody should do in my opinion.
Hey dum-dum, people get real bank loans to start their businesses literally every single day. If the commies in here spent 1/2 of the time and effort to write snarky comments as they did a business plan or on educating themselves and learning a skill, they wouldn’t be stuck living in their mommy’s basement making barely enough to survive.
I was agreeing with you! If they weren’t such dum dums they could be a success story like me and then we could all sit around and do nothing instead of working. It’s not hard!
Complete strawman. No one wants to sit around and do nothing.
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fucking about and doing whatever I want!
That doesn’t sound like doing nothing ;)
Hold my beer.
I love to sit around every once in a while, nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I sit in quiet contemplation for days at a time, other times I just go golfing or fishing or take a vacation to Bora Bora to sit on the beach and drink. If you want to do these things it’s not hard, start a successful business or make a smart real estate investment!
If you want to do these things it’s not hard, start a successful business or make a smart real estate investment!
Exactly!
Nice trolling
Strawman? You either want to work or you don’t. Which one is it?
Of course I want to work. Saying people just don’t want to work is absurd.
Saying people just don’t want to work is absurd.
I’m glad you understand the problem
Your assumption that the antiwork movement is just made of lazy assholes who don’t wanna do anything? Yeah, that’s a problem.
the antiwork movement is just made of lazy assholes who don’t wanna do anything?
It’s not an assumption. It’s literally in the name. It’s literally the entire content of OP’s submission. Where do you think you are?
You obviously don’t have the slightest idea what communism is
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live without working. I already do this as a landlord and a business owner/investor. Maybe when you grow up you will be successful like me and understand the virtues of not grinding away all day to make somebody else rich, instead, let other people make you rich.
Or you could try reading what was actually said properly, rather than making up something different that wasn’t said by anyone except you.
So they will stay children forever because that is what a communist is someone who is emotionally stunted
So spot on, dude.
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Id love life if I could work 4 or 3 days a week. I’m mostly productive for 3 days anyway
I think at this point it should be 3 six-hour days per week. 100+ years of technological progress increasing productivity, and the number of people’s needs that can be covered by the same amount of work.
One main reason for keeping the pressure in the system is that whichever global superpower exploits their population the most effectively has the upper hand in most fronts. If there wasn’t a competition for world dominance then we could all relax a bit more. Til then we are forced into vigilance.
This sounds like something I would hear in Russia. Those who have at least fraction of functioning brain will ask question “If every citizen will be grinded in name of superpower then what everyone will get? 2 by 2 in the nearest forest and a wooden cross.”
When state acquires its own will that contradists of majoroty of own citizen, it is not a state. Maybe it is Prutin’s mafia, maybe it is China’s puppet, but not a state.
“Hello, I would like to benefit from society without contributing to it”
there are ways to contribute that aren’t 40+ hours a week.
If your position is simply that people need to work less, you’re doing a very bad job of relaying that, and thus shooting yourself in both feet.
I hate to admit this, but I agree. My qualm isn’t with the message that we ought to work less. That’s smart. Why shouldn’t we live in a society where we can have a fulfilling lifestyle without endless soul crushing work?
My qualm is with the wording. The implication is that one should consent to work, but really work is a fundamental truth. Take away the facade of society and all we have is our struggle to survive the elements and find food, i.e. work.
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It’s called helping each other.
The AntiWork movement already peaked so I’m not sure what the Lemmy instance is trying to accomplish.
Yes, owners do this.
So like a CEO?
Nah, like a land lord. The CEO of my company is a very productive person.
Work vs labor
It is very unfortunate that posts like the OP portray the anti work movement in that way, but anti work does not mean that. I think this other commenter summarized it better: https://lemm.ee/comment/3155176
When I say I’m tired of working for a living I don’t mean that I don’t want to work, I meant that I don’t want to work for other people doing something I don’t care about so someone I don’t care about can better achieve something I don’t care about just so they pay me money for it. I’m happy to work when that goes directly goes toward my own well-being and that of my family and local community. I just get so tired of doing work that I have no personal investment in beyond “it makes me money so I can then give that money to other people.”
So I play Rimworld and dream of what it would be like to have a role in a small community where everyone does their part for the direct benefit of the community and it isn’t all just about money.
Pretty sure in the old days, when there were fewer people, you could just fuck off into the forest and build yourself a cottage. If your feudal lord found out you’d be in trouble, but they didn’t have satellites or whatnot to track you down.
We have this weird unwritten assumption that the cost of technological advancement (esp medical) was our own domestication. That we sacrificed freedom and privacy for health and safety. I wonder if that’s really the case, or if it’s some bullshit post hoc justification
You’d still have to work for your living in said scenario.
Nobody is gonna bring you chicken tendies three times a day in your hidden cottage.
Uncontacted hunter gathered tribes work, it’s right there in the description. Not 40 hours a week, sure, but you can live a much simpler lifestyle in the wilderness on a similar work ethic.
Labor is an intrinsic requirement of human life.
Working for your own reasons is fundamentally different than laboring and having part of what you produce taken from you by an employer
You can work for your own reasons right now. But you don’t have the right to just grab any piece of land and confiscate it for your own use. There are too many of us for that.
Thats why we should adhere to the principles of public ownership of land. Which used to be the case dating back to prehistoric mines shared between different factions and groups.
Examples of this are all over in the past and some rural communities but all because some powerful duts decided that human kind is inherently selfish and everyone would automatically overuse the land breaking the system. The example given is a farmer who increasingly claims a bigger part of a field to get a bigger flock of sheep or orchards.
All of it completely ignores that companies sucking the planets resources dry to the bone for profit while a farmer in a rural community has no need to increase flock if not to make profit. Proper use of public land is in the interest of everyone.
Not saying you’re wrong, I’m just pointing out that private ownership of farmland was probably encouraged as a way to incentivize farmers - work the land yourself, do it for your self as number one beneficiary, you’re more likely to work better, and not clock out (as much as possible for something like farming). Whereas people working state owned land might just say ‘feck it, not my problem’, picking the path of least resistance as it were. It’s entirely possible that companies exploiting this came about as an unintended (initially) consequence.
There’s also a situation currently where multiple small land owners rent out their land to be worked by a single well-equipped group of farmers and get paid on the yield minus whatever labour costs. This is in order to combat the inefficiency of working your own small plot of land with less powerful machinery or avoiding to invest too much in your own equipment (farm machinery is very expensive). Now the fairness of that trade-off is still questionable, but probably more than the current overall exploitation, if you have trustworthy folk.
Back to your point, human beings are incredibly selfish. You either do it for yourself and yours, or are taken advantage of by somebody doing just that. It’s always the interest of everyone, it’s just the definition of ‘everyone’ that differs
Ideally, I think public land should not be owned by anyone, not even the state. Land belongs to whomever makes use of it (and no, making use of it does not mean fencing it up and letting weeds grow because it’s not profitable) and that may very well change from year to year.
But then you’re gonna have to pay taxes to fund the military industry regardless. But at least you get more than the crumbs of your work
you don’t have the right to just grab any piece of land and confiscate it for your own use
Maybe not just any piece of land, but there are enormous swaths of empty land in this world that OP can fuck off to, if they’re that determined to not be a member of a society. Of course, they’re not interested in that because pioneering is to much work. 🙄
It’s the kind of work that makes you feel fulfilled and accomplished though. I bet OP would be better off mentally in 2 years if he fucked off to alaska and built himself a cabin. Hell, I bet I would too.
This corporate wage slavery is so fucking detrimental to my well-being. I want to solve challenges and make decisions of consequence. I want to have agency in my life.
I bet OP would be better off mentally in 2 years if he fucked off to alaska and built himself a cabin. Hell, I bet I would too.
Go ahead then. What’s stopping you?
Land is expensive and you still have to pay taxes on it.
There are co-op/commune options but that’s probably not what OP is looking for either. Unfortunately or not “no man is an island” really is true and we’re all inherently interconnected. We all share the same resources and space, and should all have input into how those resources and spaces are used.
TBH if someone wants to go out into the wilderness and survive with little/no creature comforts I think that should be perfectly fine and they should be allowed space to do that; I also think healthcare and some sort of UBI/food allowance should exist so that a person won’t starve or die of an easily prevented disease, or to make sure the person really wants to go be alone and isn’t just experiencing an untreated illness.
By all means if you want a Corvette or that lifted F150 you should have to work for it but if you’re happy eating squirrel and beans and reading books from the public library? You should be allowed to do that.
I’m already too dead inside to muster up the energy
I hate the corporate grind too. So I only work for businesses small enough that I’m on a first name basis with the owner.
It’s all very romantic living in a cabin in the wilderniss but there’s a reason no one that has a choice lives that way.
Those are both subcategories of work. You still work in either, it’s just in one case you get everything but you must do everything and in the other case you don’t get what you worked for but you instead get luxuries from society.
What was invented was unemployment and underemployment, both of which are unnecessary.
Wrong, people do bring me whatever sort of food I ask for, and I don’t have to work for it. That’s because I’m a successful landlord and business owner, so maybe you should stop complaining about having to work and just become successful like me and then you will realize the truth, nobody has to work if they don’t want to. Just be a success and you can enjoy a life of leisure.
You could try. But there’s 2 problems with that. Firstly surviving on your own is extremely difficult. Subsistence farming is hell and without a community often ends in death after a single drought or bad crop.
And secondly the medieval era didn’t have that much empty, unclaimed land that could support either farming or hunting. There were farming communities everywhere there was open space. And old forests in Europe are pretty much entirely man controlled by this point. Poaching was a serious crime because of population control and logging was also controlled.
What I’m saying is, no man is an island and very few could survive as one. There’s a reason we developed society.
It’s a good point, perhaps we were freer before. Then again, 90% of the European population were basically slaves during the dark and middle ages, and I also enjoy not dying from dysentery.
Have you ever died from dysentery to compare? Maybe you’d enjoy it more than you think.
I’d like to try some death, please.
I’d like my death on the side please, I’ll have it later at home.
It’s not just bullshit.
Soon after we invented agriculture we began to lose survival skills, and it got progressively worse until we reached the point of grocery stores.
This was our choice. We stopped roaming to stop and grow, harvest, and store grain to be sure we had food stocks in reserve for low yield months. This gave us time to create and learn which led to civilisation.
Before agriculture, we were no more than bands of maybe 50, probably territorially killing each other on discovery much like Chimps do.
I don’t think I’m entitled to someone else’s labor, no. I would like fair compensation for mine is all.
It made sense when working meant providing for families, and even in the industrial revolution where it meant making mass goods for large amounts of people to enjoy.
But what happens when we get the ability to produce more than we need with only a relatively small amount of humans to do it? If we have the resources where we can easily give everyone on the planet a cell phone, why not do it?
We are already there with some goods: for example, we currently produce enough food to feed 1.5x the world’s population. We may very well reach a point in the next 20-30 years where we can produce everything market wants with 50% or perhaps even 25% of adult humans actually working. Our solution so far is creating artificial scarcity, but that’s only going to patch the system for so long.
Already we’re eschewing traditional factory jobs for service industry jobs like meal delivery. But we’re not far off from autonomous delivery vehicles automating that away, too. With the rise of AI, we can expect a lot more jobs to be augmented or superseded by automation over time.
Capitalism rests on the premises that we can always produce more and that people’s value is tied to their labor. But in a post-scarcity, heavily automated world, these premises break down, and suddenly this system doesn’t really work anymore.
Short of a communist revolution, I think we are going to need to start trialing measures that divorce benefits from labor. Most of the world already has healthcare coverage separated from labor (USA is the glaring exception,) and the next step would likely be universal basic income.
Not sure which came first though - capitalism or human nature. Capitalism creates artificial scarcity but it also capitalizes on human nature, namely those who want to be ‘better’ than others.
In some places, people keep telling their kids ‘go to college so you’ll have a good life and be educated, not like those laborers’. As a consequence, today there might be less skilled electricians, plumbers and the like. And those jobs pay better, and are arguably less boring than, say, working in a bank with a college diploma. Point being, just like a college diploma is a sign of status, so is the iphone and some random brand-name knick-knack or eating caviar.
For society to advance to the stage you’re proposing, we first have to get over our inflated egos and our need to be better than the rest, in whatever random field we manage to, be it food, clothes, tech, cars or diplomas. I’d want a world in which the garbage man has it as good as the university professor. Not sure the university professor would, though? But they both provide valuable services to society at large.
Honestly, there aren’t that many changes we’d need to get there. For example, instead of working one person 60 hours we can work two people 30 hours. If we divorce benefits from full time status, companies won’t have to pay all that much to make the system work.
With universal income, people could opt to work part of the year, or work for a few years and take time off, or however else they want to do it. There would still be an incentive to work, just not to work to death.
https://youtu.be/zZSLFlAbycE?si=-vC3tldC5jFP-IP0
“Human nature” is just a meaningless buzzword.
A good listen and all, if a bit overly optimistic. Let me explain. The video concludes basically that humans aren’t intrinsically bad or good, but that human nature is shaped by social conditions. Agreed. But those social conditions didn’t just manifest themselves. They were willed into existence and shaped to become what they currently are.
The Empire in the video? Humans and human nature. One does not build what can be described as an evil system purely by accident. Fascism and slavery didn’t happen as whoopsies. Slaver ships didn’t accidentally discover some stowaways and decided to roll with it. Decisions were made and actions were taken with clear intent.
And responsibility for evil in society extends far beyond those that are the face of evil. Everyone who is OK with it happening is to blame. The person who views the iphone as a status symbol couldn’t care less about suicides in Apple factories. If you were to give everyone an iphone, there’s a pretty high chance that person would oppose it - what about their status symbol? Sure, they’d mask it as ‘what about those that worked for the money to buy it?’ - see the whole student debt forgiveness debate.
I am probably emphasising evil here, but given a room with a bouquet of lillies in it and a pile of shit, which would you turn your attention to first?
Is there potential for good as well as for evil in humans? Sure. People come together when there are natural disasters. Localized. Small groups of people in the grand scheme of things.
What did it in for me was the covid pandemic. A truly global scale phenomenon. At the start I really thought we could do this. Isolate for a month ish. Stay indoors was all we had to do to limit spread. We couldn’t even do that proper because people were worried about their freedom. If that’s not selfishness, I don’t know what is.
Then remember the toilet paper panic buying? No making sure everyone has some. Fuck you, got mine. Then the vaccines came out and we got a significant amount of people questioning them and actively pushing against them.
The video is a nice story and has a very nice speaking voice attached to it, but it’s way too optimistic in my view. And I feel it does a disservice by shifting blame to the conditions imposed by society as a separate entity from the members of said society. People watch it and say ‘hey, we’re inherently good. we help each other in times of floods’ so they’re less prone to reflection (which the video, to its credit, does state as a source of good).
The video does not ignore that humans have a hand in creating our material conditions… you can’t state that as a flaw in the reasoning when that point is kinda central to the whole argument. Yes, we created these systems, and the argument given is that it reflects human nature. This video refutes that argument.
Yes. And that is where it falls apart on a naively optimistic note.
How can you separate people creating the social conditions from the social conditions themselves? It is human nature that brought upon those conditions. Humans made it happen and I’m pretty sure nobody said ‘hey let’s set aside our nature of being good for a moment and do this evil thing real quick, I promise it’ll be fun!’. Active or passive participants, we’re all participants.
Furthermore, you cannot just say ‘we did some bad stuff, but it’s because of the conditions around. we’re actually good people that happen to be in a tight spot’. Those are by definition not good people. Everyone can be a nice person if the times are good. Actions, rather than intent, are the indicators of one’s alignment.
Asked to do something you don’t want to or find morally reprehensible but you do it anyway (usually because of fear of consequences if you don’t)? Not an inherently good person, as I suspect is the case for most of us.
How can you separate people creating the social conditions from the social conditions themselves
I don’t.
It is human nature that brought upon those conditions.
Human nature isn’t a thing.
Humans made it happen and I’m pretty sure nobody said ‘hey let’s set aside our nature of being good for a moment and do this evil thing real quick, I promise it’ll be fun!’. Active or passive participants, we’re all participants.
No, of course not. I have to assume you didn’t even watch the video I sent. And being a participant does not make you a willing participant.
Furthermore, you cannot just say ‘we did some bad stuff, but it’s because of the conditions around. we’re actually good people that happen to be in a tight spot’.
That’s not what I or the video I sent have said. Such an absurd strawman. You have already mentioned that it concludes we aren’t inherently bad or good.
Those are by definition not good people. Everyone can be a nice person if the times are good. Actions, rather than intent, are the indicators of one’s alignment.
Hot take, bro.
Asked to do something you don’t want to or find morally reprehensible but you do it anyway (usually because of fear of consequences if you don’t)? Not an inherently good person, as I suspect is the case for most of us.
Cool, but you’re not knocking down anything I’ve said with that take.
I am puzzled as to what exactly you mean. I watched the video until min 17 out of 19, then realized it’s got no deeper message beyond that point so stopped it. Lad spoke about philosophies, how different philosophers thought people were good or others thought they were bad then had a weird intermezzo blaming imperialism. The weird part was the style change not the actual blaming, mind you - that’s all valid, but still serves to prove an actual human nature.
Spoke some stuff about look at all cultures in Africa being friendly, and then babbled on about how humans aren’t good or bad but they are victims of their circumstances.
Overall a mediocre video from an argumentation standpoint, but figured hey, why not give it a shot?
I never said we’re all willing participants. Active or passive participants - willing or unwilling. Still participants. Maybe it clears it up, hm?
Paraphrasing the video it does indeed say that humans aren’t bad or good, but their actions are due to the social environment. Do tell me how this is completely disconnected from what I said? I took it a couple of steps further.
Social environment bad (somehow, not tied to human nature because social environments come into being by themselves and exist even without humans, if I’m understanding this as you mean it - cause otherwise, if people were responsible, they would be bad people. but the video tells us there are no bad people);
BUT people not bad or good means it’s basically not their fault for anything cause they aren’t bad if they do bad stuff. But look people are good because they come together sometimes.
I honestly don’t understand what point you are trying to make. If it is that human nature isn’t a thing and that’s it, well… best of luck to ya. Is it not in your nature to argue with random people on the internet?
Maybe if you are trying to make a point don’t just drop a youtube link and expect people to understand the same thing as you did or expect them suddenly be enlightened. Did you understand it? Care to elaborate on what you understood from it? I did. Let’s compare notes.
Edit: Obligatory I’m not your bro, guy.
I mean there’s a lot of wilderness and open space in the US. No one is stopping you from going out there and starting from scratch. Go ahead and do it
Yeah, if that’s an option then I respect people who do that, but if you want the comforts of modern society then you need to contribute.
Imo anti work is about pushing back on the ridiculous expectations of companies, and ensuring that employees receive some of the benefits of automation to ease the load on them.
This tweet strikes me as the “but I want everything for freeee!!!” person who makes anti work look bad. Like that idiot Reddit mod who went on Fox News or whatever news station it was.
Yeah I don’t mind working honestly, but I’d love to be able to live as well. Everything revolves around work, and there’s this constant race for improvement and efficiency. There won’t ever be a enough, and that makes me sick.
At some point I’d like to live too. If we’ve gotten so fucking efficient why can’t we cut down the amount of hours of work needed?
No instead we build machines that can perform creative endeavours so all the writers, artists, and the like are freed up to do menial labour instead.
I don’t argue the benefits of society but I still hate it. It’s like an abusive relationship, codependent and toxic. Ugh.
If you are more efficient then you probably need to work at hiding that from your employer and finding a way to spend the hours you save doing something beneficial for yourself. You employer pays you for a certain amount of output per hour, if you can do 8 hours of expected output in 1 then that’s your business.
If you are more efficient then you probably need to work at hiding that from your employer and finding a way to spend the hours you save doing something beneficial for yourself
I can get away with this at like office jobs but if you work on your feet, I don’t see that happening. I never had extra time in the service industry.
Yeah there isn’t much room for hiding efficiency and repurposing recovered hours there, maybe pivot into management?
Yeah, it’s just about pushing back on ridiculous expectations.
If you work and do your part you should get shelter, medical care and all the other necessities, as well as time to live your life. Then, if you work hard you get a bigger house and more luxury items etc.
But we’ve ended up in a situation where you have to work hard and you don’t even necessarily get the basics anymore. Home ownership is a pipe dream for a lot of people in my country.
Meanwhile, people like the one in the tweet just want stuff for free. They don’t actually want a society where people get what they deserve, really they just wish they were born to a rich family and don’t have to work.
So, people with disabilities that prevent labor shouldn’t get shelter, medical care or other necessities? Do you not see how tying peoples worth to their productive capacity has inherent eugenic arguments associated with it?
If we’re going to discuss doing ones part, should we discuss the uncompensated labor which modern society depends on? Should we define what counts as contributing in a way that encompasses these forms of labor? Should we be counting Exxons corporate lawyers as doing their part when they lobby to prevent meaningful actions to combat climate change?
Our society has a profoundly perverse rewards system, which results in nearly inverted compensation compared to contribution. Pedagogy is inarguably one of the single most necessary and important aspects of society, yet educators are compensated poorly and their work devalued.
Antiwork isn’t just “if I work hard I should be rewarded”, it’s “One shouldn’t have to sacrifice their body and mind in service of subsistence wages” and also “my value is not determined by the profits I can produce for a private corporation.” And even “Uncompensated labor is a form of exploitation upon which all economic activity depends, and should be treated with the foundational importance it has, rather then dismissed as valueless or insisted upon as is often done through traditional gender roles”.
Seems like you’re looking for an argument and using me as a straw man, considering I’ve said none of that and actually agree with the points you’re making.
If you work and do your part you should get shelter, medical care and all the other necessities, as well as time to live your life.
Someone’s part is whatever they’re able to do. If they have disabilities that mean they can’t contribute in a work environment then they’ve essentially already done their part.
There needs to be a base level that means everyone is protected and has what they need. And in an ideal world I’d like to see people like teachers and doctors being among the highest paid/rewarded for what they do.
Meanwhile, people like the one in the tweet just want stuff for free. They don’t actually want a society where people get what they deserve, really they just wish they were born to a rich family and don’t have to work.
I gave you an upvote cause I agree with a lot of what you’re saying but a lot of people in the comments seem to be applying a whole lot of meaning to that tweet that isn’t really there.
All it says it that they didn’t consent to the bullshit we currently deal with. Isn’t that what the anti-work movement is? We’re all sick of the 9-5 bullshit 40+ hour a week grind in order to live?
I mean… just looking at it I agreed cause yeah, I didn’t fucking consent to this shit.
That doesn’t magically mean I don’t want to work ever. It means I want to work in different ways.
The original anti work community on Reddit was more about the abolition of work, before being co-opted by work reformists. It wasn’t about just “pushing back”, but about abolishing the modern concept of wage labor under capitalism.
Money doesn’t need to exist, so your complaint about them just wanting things for free is ludicrous and strikes me as capitalist apologia.
I recommend reading The Abolition of Work to better understand the concept. At the very least, it would allow you to form actually compelling arguments against the idea so that you don’t have to continue showing your ignorance.
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Actually, the person in the tweet is saying they don’t want to work. If you go based off that, then they don’t want to be a part of any society, they just want everything for free.
If you want to be part of society, then you work and contribute. Otherwise, you’re just a leech. Whether you’re a billionaire or a poor one.
Actually, the person in the tweet is saying they don’t want to work
where did they say that?
No there isn’t; it’s all claimed by various people or national parks or something.
The idea that one can go out to the woods and build a new society unhindered is pure fantasy.
That would be Freedom ©®™
You absolutely could try. It would be fine until the already established hierarchies feel you’re becoming a threat to their monopoly of power. Then they will come up with some reason to go out and shoot you or lock you up.
But I do think most of the people who say shit like they want to live in a wilderness commune would last two weeks before giving up and going back to running water, paved roads and grocery stores.
There’s the tiny problem of me not being American though.
Yeah. Dunno about elsewhere but while you can totally set up camp and do whatever, the local government here in Sweden will come with machinery and tear it down if you don’t have sufficient permits or own the land.
Hell even if you own the land there may be codes preventing you from setting up shelter without the right permits.
Du råkar inte vara från Halland eller?
Nope. Ursprungligen från Stockholm. Bott i Sörmland större delen mitt liv, flyttar till Östergötland om ett tag.
You did not specify that. So how was I supposed to know?
Ah yes. USA defaultism. Never fails to entertain.
Ok
You weren’t. Don’t assume that everyone lives in the US by default.
Ok
Life is based on assumptions. It’s a good assumption to assume people online speaking English is from America
No, it is a terrible assumption. English is the de facto lingua franca (wow, four non-English words on a row) of the world, and specially on the Internet.
Yes they are, moron.
Taxes are hardly optional, and they WILL punish you for seeking independence.
Yeah no, that’s actually literally illegal. You might be able to get away with stealth camping, but you can’t just set up a homestead in a fucking forest or something. That shit would be knocked down, you’d be fined, and then you’d be jailed when you fail to pay the fine.
“Yet you partecipate in society. Curious! I am very intelligent.”
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How? This is exactly the type of “arguments” this meme is making fun of.
Person A: Maybe we should improve society.
Person B: If you don’t like society why don’t you leave it and go live in the forest?
Not doing any work is not improving society
How I see this problem is that we aren’t given to tools to help us decide how we want to live our lives. Work sucks and is a waste of time. Contributing to society is valuable and something I want to do.
During the 2020 epidemic and lockdown bunches of people were furloughed and we all got to acquaint ourselves with extended cabin fever. Many of us picked up new hobbies and some of those could ne monetized and were better than the (often toxic, underpaid) dayjobs.
It was a conspicuous phenomenon now called the great resignation. Our capitalst masters compain how no one wants to work, but it’s evident to the rest of us that it’s the toxic underpaid conditions we don’t like, and we’d be glad to work if conditions were better.
I suspect laziness isn’t a real character flaw or deadly sin so much as the desire to not suffer as we work. (There is avolition, a symptom of mental illnes such as major depression, and this is what drives people to couch-potaro for weeks or months at a time.)
I think that modern work is something done to us, as a form of violence. We’re told to go here, do this, and in return we get just enough to get by. Humans are definitely not lazy, but we do have a problem with slavery.
I also want to do that. I do not want five of my days eaten per week in service of that though. I want to have a life.
I actually think we should work towards a 20-hour work week or less. Our kids and civic duties suffer for our lack of time and energy, making for intergenerational mental illness and an general civic incompetence (facilitated by the gutting of public education programs)
That’s the goal. But I can’t reject the fact that I need to work. It’s gotta happen. And I also don’t want to be depressed all the time. My comment is kind of about learning how to keep doing what I need to do without being sad and or angry about it all the time.
I’ve always been envious of those people who grew up knowing what they wanted to do with their lives and then they did it. It seems like what we want is incongruent with what is available. It’s like they were born into something that was designed for them, but I think at least part of it is parenting and education. Doesn’t help that our world is kind of fucked up though. Hard to close my eyes to that and be excited about choosing a career. That and* we’re kind of serfs.
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The end of work is not the end of labor. The goal of ending work is better described as destroying work as it exists now, with the exploitation and coercion required to make people work.
Then you need a new slogan
There already is. It’s “work reform.”
And yet here we are on “antiwork” talking about how you didn’t consent to work…?
You also need to define the word work. For some theories there is a distinction between work and labor, each having different undertones and nuances.
I’m all for abolishing Work completely, but labour must still be done, and will be done through natural stimulation
Socialism is when nobody works.
- Karl “CORAL!” Marx
Let the disabled starve?
Allow for bonded servitude?
Perhaps you might want to elaborate.
No and no? There you go bro
There’s a lot of intersection between the set of folk who believe in obligatory work and who believe in culling undesirables.
Having been called lazy all my life (despite having had lifelong major depression) I’m more than wary of when people like to suggest, as Thessalonians advises The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.
When my symptoms were most severe I was so unwilling to work I spent nine months in my bed, barely able to crawl to the kitchen or bathroom. I had no will to work or play or watch TV, or lift my limbs.
So, yeah when someone opines a work mandate, I get spooked.
Whatever gets you off
Actually, that one’s on me guys, sorry. I just said we were all okay with it and honestly thought you’d all be fine with it…? Anyway, my bad.
Honestly, I have more of an anarchist mindset. You shouldn’t have to work, at least not a job. I’d rather build my own house and grow my own food. Everything I do directly benefits me and my family, not the rich. But I need money to buy the land…
In general, I agree with you and I understand what you mean. But building your own house and growing your own food - don’t underestimate that. It is an amazing idea (and feeling) to work for your own direct benefit. But it is an awful lot of work. My uncle in law lives like that in Ukraine. They have a small house in the middle of a nowhere village. The only money they get is from biking (!) with some of their crops to the next town to sell them. That’s a nice life but they have to work hard work from dawn to late evening every single day. No sick days. No weekends. No evenings off. No running water. No warm showers. No plumbing. You poop outside, in the cold, in a little wooden house with a bucket. They kind of chose to live like this (his other siblings moved away, he didn’t want to give up their parents’ land) but it is a hard life that tears on you. It breaks your bones, literally. As much as we all hate working for corporate here - for obvious reasons that demand all the support we got - be cautious of over-romantisizing this kind of self-sufficient lifestyle in the countryside.
I’d like to have my own house built, not just a wooden cabin. Run off of well water for water, and solar panels for electricity. I know that with the way that Modern Industrial Society is, I’d have to buy the land, couldn’t just off grid it.
I actually want to become an android developer within this society. I’m aware that my career wouldn’t define me at all, and I don’t really care about titles. I get to work remotely which makes being in the country easier, and would make decent money to buy the land and equipment needed, and maybe get some degree of help.
Alaska is your best bet, just dont vote like you do in continental america (if you are american). Alaska and the interior of Canada are the last true frontiers in the west.
Whether you like it or not, you live in a civil society. You are not alone, which is why we have rules on how we interact with eachother. I guart you, take away those rules and it’ll get a lot worse for all of us. Calling yourself an anarchist at 20 is fun and edgy, doing it at 30 is just anti social and ego centric and at 40 it’s just plain sad.
You have to work because we all do. You have to eat, use electricity, drink water. Why do you thinnei we pay taxes?
I just don’t think anyone agreed to waste 40 hours of their life at this.
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I mean I guess you can go all Fountainhead and just live in the woods. Of course, you’ll probably die if you don’t do any work, but you definitely have a choice.
No, you actually can’t do that. You’ll go to jail when they catch you. Unless you have a shitload of money to buy property and cover the taxes on it for the rest of your life, you can’t just leave society and live in the wilderness and expect not to be persecuted for it.
do you think it is possible to make a genuine choice under such coercion?
I think that when you deny individuals agency by assuming they are brainwashed, then it’s difficult to have democracy.
And I think when you don’t butter your bread, the sandwich tastes shit and dry
Now, are we finished making irrelevant statements?
You should get a bread maker.
i don’t see how this answers my question
and under which conditions can we even have genuine choice?
in general, we can make genuine choice when we are presented with several good options and there’s minimal pressure to choose a specific one. (i know the term “good” is vague, it depends on the specifics of the situation.) in the context of what we’re talking about, a genuine choice could be made if people didn’t depend on their job for housing, food, or healthcare.
it’s not only about choosing between working and not working. it’s also about giving people more flexibility to choose a job they would like to do. workers have much less control over their working conditions when they’re effectively forced to always have a job.
For the literal sense, yes, I do remember consenting work for livelihood. Now, that work actually is being made into servitude, I don’t remember. Livable work is really scarce, servitude and selling-out isn’t.
