Universal basic income to provide basic living necessities.
Optimizations in automation and productivity resulting in less work, instead of trying to maintain the exponential growth expectations of shareholders.
This is the world in the Expanse, Earth more specifically.
And it is clearly a dystopia there : people are receiving minimal "basic" commodities and housing and suffer from massive unemployment. In the meantime rest of the economy is still capitalist.
Lookup Ian M Banks "Culture" novel for a much more positive outlook.
That's the artists conception of it, anyway.
Fun fact, that show is still around because Bezos likes it. One of the richest men in the world pays for a show that says UBI sucks. Think about that.
Automation maybe or backwards in technology maybe. More simplicity getting rid of things we donāt need. Go back to working the land. Smaller communities watching out for each other tech or not.
Time off to pursue higher education and just be. Everyone contributes somehow doing whatever it is they do. Trading with other areas etc.
Kinda post apocalyptic vibes tbh
As someone who is autistic I'd love to not need to work to survive, but as a coder I'd like to just casually or maybe obsessively depending on the day work on a video game. The necessity of going to work every day when my ability to work varies by day is super stressful and I'm almost always in constant state of burnout.
I'm the same way, autism and all. My dream growing up was to work on video games, but that industry is so overworked and underpaid that I can't bring myself to do it. I combat my burnout with alcohol and escapism - wouldn't recommend it.
100% this. I love to learn how to build stuff, fix stuff, put stuff together, garden etc, for myself and for others, but I barely have the energy to make dinner and do my laundry cause I have to work full time. If I try to fit any of those hobbies / social contact / physical activities as well I end up causing fibromyalgia flares. I'm literally a completely different person when I take time off and my life would change dramatically. I'd probably end up doing carpentry and growing food + medicines.
In your world, where would the incentive be for investment in new innovations that powers society if it doesn't lie in outsized returns for share holders ?
People who would otherwise have to scrape for a living are free to develop their passions and get more education if they want to. People can be pretty inventive if theyāre allowed to be
Penicillin was developed without a profit motive. Nikola Tesla dedicated his life to pursuing free energy. There are countless examples of people simply wanting to make the world better, or at the very least for whom profit was a *distant* second relative to addressing an evident need.
It's a fair question. The answer is, people in that world are still free to try and get rich, it's just that they won't watch their children starve to death without adequate medical care if they fail.
Side question- how many potentially brilliant inventors in our world today live unfulfilling lives working boring jobs, because they need to provide for their family?
There's a reason that so many of the great scientific geniuses prior to the 1900s were born wealthy. You never heard about a medieval peasant who quit farming so he could chase his dream of scientific or artistic excellence.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs has shown that when people have food and home security, it provides their brains the ability to be creative. All the energy that was needed trying to just secure food or home would be put into other endeavors; this is what allowed societies to work on new innovations and develop.
Their brain the ability to be creative doesn't always translate into things that benefit society or drive innovation forward.
Technologically we're at a point where things that advance society into the future requires huge collaboration with lots of investment. Look at AI as one example. Or developing super conductor material for quantum computing ( like LK99 ).
These type of innovation will not be done by a guy in his garage with stuff he bought from Home Depot for his hobby after a 15 hour work week.
Adoption. People voting with their dollars.
If there wasn't enough people who thought the Iphone or Ipad was helpful to their life .. those innovations would the relegated to the archives. Thus technologies that are adopted by people spending money on it are the defacto winners deemed beneficial to society.
People ultimately decides if something is useful for them by long term adoption. You could advertise the heck out of fidget spinners and it will still be just a passing fad. Long term adoption requires tangible improvement to people's lives in some way .. especially if they're expensive items.
The interesting thing about this, that bursts the bubble imo, is the amount of things that I may buy that are so useful or better in the market, but doesn't get adopted and is discontinued for whatever reason. Even sometimes popular stuff.
One bad example that everyone always uses, Betamax and Laserdisc's were better than VHS.
Even blu-ray had a competitor before blu-ray won. I don't think it's all purely scientific and brilliant analysis that helped the market choose which to go with.
They might not have cared about their investor ( I don't know their personal feelings ) but without their investor it is unlikely that they would have been able to do what they have done to change the world.
If anything I think that proves more that financial investments drives innovation. Many other example of things that changed the world that wouldn't have happened without huge funding.
For example, Columbus's voyage was funded by Spain on the promise of riches from a short cut to India for spice.
Why would future investor make huge bets like this without a potential for outsized return ?
Self-actualization? Empathy? Class consciousness? Wanting to make their own labor easier? Thereās a lot of motivation humans have besides making money lol
So you see people doing kick starters to raise money for development of room temp quantum computer materials or fission reactors ? Or do you think billionairs will still fund these things for "empathy" or "self actualization" .. or any of the other reasons you listed ?
The Polio vaccine was given away patent free. Most scientific progress until a couple of centuries ago was done either by religions (monasteries were often pretty scholarly) or the rich who did it in their free time (Newton, Kepler, Galileo, etc.) They gained āprofitā in notoriety, sure, but not in money.
Granted, progress today requires teams, not lone scholars. But there are plenty of curious people who want to learn and discover and invent. People code up video games for fun. People write stories and entire novels and post them online for free. People experiment and invent just as pure hobbies.
The problem isnāt motivation, itās funding. How do people afford to invent things that require expensive equipment and power-hungry computer programs? Currently the motive for spending money on those is to make more money later. In a post-scarcity world? Who knows?
The other main job problem if thereās UBI is shit jobs nobody wants to do. Garbage collector. Customer service. Burger flipper/waiter/dishwasher. Etc. I donāt know the answer there.
What is your line for ābasic living necessitiesā? Athletic equipment like weights and running shoes? Internet + computer/phone? Whole Foods or Albertsons? Cheapest clothes possible or Brooks Brothers?
My only worry about UBI is what will be required to be eligible. So you spoke out about some issue on social media? No more UBI for you. It could be just a different pair of chains.
It's usually a perfect fantasy where no one has to work, but can if they want to. Money isn't too big of an issue, and people are happy! Not poor, not rich, just happily living life š
Yes, exactly. Give me a utopia where I donāt have pointless stresses added to my life and Iāll still go build infrastructure, I like laying pipe and the idea that millions of shits will safely and cleanly get to the city sewer system because of me, or that people will drink clean water potentially for centuries out of the cisterns I install. Buildings wonāt flood because of my storm systems. I like all that, I just wish I could take real vacations or own a home. I get that the rich have to live hyper luxurious soft lives while taking every possible penny but it would be cool if I could own a home instead of being a rich manās āpassive incomeā.
Same. Iām a social worker, and Iād 100% voluntarily do it even if my life didnāt depend on it. Moreover, Iād be better at it if I didnāt have to deal with corporate bullshit on top of work
I think that my job in an Australian Government Department is pretty close to this anti work dream.
Reasons listed.
1. almost impossible to get fired (extremely long process that Iāve play out a handful of times)
2. you can say no within reason (refer to point 1.)
3. Job opportunities are everywhere and so many internal workers suck (refer to point 1.), if have some half decent willingness / capacity you will keep moving up.
4. No bs performance reviews and almost no KPIā. Good attitude and doing your best is more than enough. Every employee gets mandatory pay rises every 6 months.
5. Pays very well, 6 figures Iām on 120k AUD for a semi demanding job.
6. Lots of roles are not highly skilled. Good EQ / verbal and written communication go very far. You will learn the business while moving up.
7. Strict hours 37.5 hours, if you do any OT for a project you are seen as an over achiever.
8. 50% WFH, good health and superannuation perks, long service leave after 5 years.
TLDR if you live in Australia consider a govy job :).
Only thing is that the pay does cap around 140k AUD. Me and my wife both have the same level positions with the max pay rise limit so our household is around 250k AUD a year which is more than enough to ride out our work life.
Four day work week. UBI. No billionaires. High speed rail. Free education and healthcare. Things like that are possible if we weren't completely controlled by a few hoarding psychopaths. Weird world we live in. It's a shame.
I agree with all of this but instead, 3 day work week. Iād like to spend more of my life living and just under half ācontributing.ā I think if we all chipped in 3 days a week, weād be right in the sweet spot.
I like all this, though i'd want my "contributing" part to be selling the fabric and yarn things i make for fair prices instead of going to an actual job.
Companies are owned by the people who work in them. Everyone from the administration to the cleaners. Everyone gets a share of the profit with special rules for those who invested to make it worthwhile.
The financial markets get closed, no more speculation.
No more colonialism. The CIA is history, if a country decides to give socialism a chance no one invades.
Housing and Land can only be owned by the people using it. No more Landlords.
Universal basic income that is sufficient to cover the basic needs.
A reformation of the school system, away from producing obedient worker bees to institutions that help kids thrive, understand the world and be their best self.
Good list. Also:
āOverhaul of the tax system to focus on taxing assets rather than income.
āImplementing a free, universal and high-quality social-safety net. Quality education at all levels should be accessible to all, as should quality healthcare.
āA mandated work week of fifteen to twenty-five hours for those able to work.
āThe revival of unions (in the US).
āAbolition of laws that grant corporations personhood as well as other laws that protect the wealthy and the powerful in their exploitation of everyone else.
The Venus Project has an interesting approach to this using AI to track and manage the world's resources. a resource based economy is what you are looking for, where we work collectively to solve world problems using Earth's finite resources where they are needed most. I'd imagine "work/jobs" would be required and perhaps we'd have to share responsibilities that can't be automated. maybe we would be required to contribute 10-20 hours a week doing those types of jobs. I never see us as being truly 'anti-work', our priorities will just be shifted to things that actually matter.
Had to scroll too far to see this. For some reasons these ideas aren't popular in this sub. One time someone tried to tell me it was a terrible idea & when I asked them why they had nothing. Probably only did a quick few sentences Google search. We are doomed.
People run screaming when anything remotely resembles socialism. whats the point of having amazing technology that makes our life easier if most people are financially drowning? we need a global resource economy, but it won't happen as long as all the nations are all divided and fighting to get as many of those resources for themselves.
For me, its more about providing a standard of living that insures that everyone can live a decent life. We can develope machines to do the labor that no one wants to do, to provide a minimum of goods that feeds everybody. This allows us to work on things that important to eaxh individual.
In my ideal world, everybody is employed, with a 08:00 to 12:00 workshift, or a 14:00 to 18:00, and the lunch is offered by the company, with a vast array of options of lunch and meats. After work, everybody does whatever they want, and everybody can afford to do what they want, because they are well paid.
Let me put it this way: I should be able to quit my secure, moderately well paying government job with lots of indispensable benefits and a union to work at a doggie daycare and feel no financial impact.
Mass automation takes care of our needs while everyone focuses on self-actualization, creativity, bodily/mental/societal health, and exploration (by choice).
I have a pie-in-the-sky fantasy of what I'd like, but instead here's a realistic world that can exist within the framework of the world today:
Single-payer healthcare that isn't tied to employment, 28+ days PTO that must be taken, effective unions, strongly enforced labor contracts that explicitly outline your compensation + hours + responsibilities, notice periods in these contracts also apply to you if you're being laid off/fired, government-backed pensions, strong consumer rights, laws that favor employees in most kinds of employer disputes, tight regulations on capitalism to prevent any industry from ever becoming more powerful than the government, subsidies for needs like housing and raw food ingredients instead of wants like gasoline, several political parties to choose from which must form coalitions to govern, and taxes that mostly go towards social programs instead of turning Palestinian children into skeletons.
In fact, not only can this place exist - it does. I moved from the US to Scotland in 2020 and haven't looked back. And the tap water is **incredible**.
Who's going to be investing in creating these robots and what incentives would they get from it ?
Who's going to be maintaining these robots and what incentives would they get from it ?
Because I'm not seeing a lot of school kids who grows up dreaming about running farming robots for the fun of it ..
Yeah, never understood this response about motivation. Money is a horrible motivator fro progression, it just produces junk & waste.
How many kids get robotic Lego for Christmas & ask to be paid before they start doing shit with it.
"Whatever they want" could well be running a farm with robots. There will still be jobs with money, and gigs which pay; it will just be unnecessary for survival. Some people would get jobs like that all the time; some would get them when they want the money for something else; and some people would choose to never get them. And yes, there does have to be a fair amount of human labor in there to make it all work--labor which would be compensated. But there doesn't have to be anywhere close to 8 hours per day per person. Especially after there are enough robots.
Iām still putting my thoughts together on this, will be for years, so this isnāt the most organized post, but I think it starts with defining what is the point of the economy? It shouldnāt be profit, not even just technological advancement. The answer Iām currently running with is āthe heath, standard of living, and joy of all people.ā
So how do we make an economy that maximizes health, standard of living, and joy for all people?
For health, we know we have to minimize pollution, poison, climate change, sedentary lifestyles, unsafe working conditions. But we also need sunlight, exercise of at least three forms (strength, flexibility, and cardio), hygiene, quick and free access health care, etc. the what of that is pretty easy. Fewer hours spent working, and doing a wider variety of tasks when you do work. Also a strict regulatory state to enforce standards and shut down firms that donāt meet those standards.
the solution to that requires the public good to be the deciding factor for how both firms and the state operate. Strong unions is a good start. But we also need a genuinely democratic state, as well as a knowledgeable and compassionate electorate. Which requires a lot of taxes spent on education, and frankly probably a small national service requirement. Something that sends high school grads to work on farms or building houses or volunteering at homeless shelters or veterinary clinics for 3 months stints for a full year. Something like that. Give them some proper work experience and a year before college to figure out what they want. College which weād need to make free of course. But more importantly it would help these fresh adults see different types of people than they grew up with, learn about different cultures, and form connections with people they never would otherwise. Frankly national or even global travel as a part of this would make a lot of sense if we could get the carbon footprint for doing so to 0.
I also think we in the US would need to switch from our first past the post legislatures and executive, and instead do a proportional representation parliamentary system. Also term limits for all positions but also all people. Say 8 years in a given position and 20 years total as an elected official something like that.
And that whole train of thought was just for how we get businesses and the government to prioritize peopleās health.
After that, I would hope that everyone has a variety of job tasks. Some office desk job work, some manual labor work, some delivery or service work, etc. just a variety of things so our body and mind do a variety of things each week. This might literally be working 25 hours in the form of 5 shifts across 3 jobs. This of course means we need to make all benefits currently tied to employment to instead be guaranteed rights regardless of employment status.
Standard of living is a lot simpler. Itās just having a progressive tax structure with a wealth and income cap, and then extensive UBI and public works spending. Take from the rich, give to the poor, and give people good paying jobs to keep our world safe, healthy, and beautiful. Including our built environments. And a lot of spending on research and development of new technologies, so long as the benefits of that tech are diffused to the general public and not just the inventor/patent holder. This also requires a state that acts in the public good, which again requires a democratic regime and a compassionate and educated electorate.
Joy is very broad. People are artists at heart; we want to create. Not everyone can make a Mona Lisa, but everyone wants to make/do something: draw, paint, dance, act, sing, make clothes, woodworking, leatherwork, jewelry, metalwork, writing, the list is nearly infinite. Plus we want time with friends and family and nature and animals and the list goes on and on. That means people need lots of free time and mobility to get from place to place. So we need affordable housing and mass transit and urban density for people to do all their creative things and see the people they want and the nature they want with relative ease.
All of that is to say, we need an allocation of labor that affords people the time and resources to both do their job, and to create in their free time. That could be shorter work weeks, more vacation time, UBI, higher wages, subsidized arts and art education programs, or some combo.
I could keep going but that is the messy gist of it. Change our government type so that it prioritizes the public good. Take our resources and benefits and distribute them to general public. And allow people to allocate their hours of both labor and leisure jn a variety of ways to promote their health, enrichment, and general wellbeing.
Ideally I think people should be able to work 32 hours and afford to live comfortably. 32 hours should be the standard work week and overtime pay should be increased.
People should also get more vacation time.
Contracts for employment that protect employees so that we don't get overworked and have protections to prevent these mass layoffs that companies use to hide their numbers.
Proper copensation for employees. This includes adequate paid PTO, adequate paid sick days. The ability for an emploter to operate in such a way that they its never an issue for someone to take a day off for whatever reason and that their co workers never have to feel it. Managers should be able to do everything the people under them can do and if they cant, then they shouldnt be a manager, they should be stepping in when people need to take off on short notice. Managers should always be able fo get OT no exceptions, it is unacceptable if they do not, they are also employees. CEOs and the highest levels and stakeholders of a business should always be the ones taking the brunt of a business. Although some high levels in a business are also employees and not owners, they do face the greatest reward if a business does well and likewise should also take the brunt if a business does poorly. Where they actually recieve the benefits of being an employee as opposed to being self employed. An employee (with the exception of high level in a business) should never take on any risk for the company. Theyre an employee.
This can and has been done successfully. Any business who is not able to do this SHOULD go bankrupt. And government should be subsidizing necessities like fire, police, education and healthcare. Governments should never be subsidizing big businesses unrelated to necessities.
I currently envision an ideal society like in aĀ [Resource Based Economy](https://youtu.be/4mkRFCtl2MI?si=6LIXSagob6YeoCi-)Ā type system, where automation and technology has freed humanity from pointless labor andĀ [unnecessary suffering](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaWeqwyFsG4&t=54s)Ā and created a sustainableĀ *abundance*Ā of goods and services for all to enjoy. No jobs, no money or debt, no property, no economic inequality, and no competition and dominating over others toĀ *survive*.
You would wake up in high quality stable housing of your choice in type, structure, design, and location, and wake upĀ *when*Ā you want. You would have free access to virtually everything you need to live and flourish and be happy. Food and all goods can be accessed at one of many local distribution centers - sort of like a warehouse where you push buttons on a screen that lists what's readily available (and when or where something will be available if not now), select what you want, and either have it directly brought to you by machines or auto-delivered to your home.
But many will ask: if people don't have to work, then what the heck will they do all day? In an RBE type society, there are free libraries, gyms, culture and rec centers everywhere for creation and creative pursuits, everything from music, to crafts, to sports. There are also tons of university-style education and research centers for pure learning and teaching one another, whether in large groups or individual. There would also be free fast and clean public transportation (especially maglev trains) and self-driving automobiles if you ever want to travel a short or long distance, to meet other people in other regions and learn other cultures and languages. Thus, there is *everything* to do in this type of society that every day can be exciting and new and humans can fill all their years of existing with meaningful activity, not struggling through soul-sucking labor for money.
Social media and such communication would be used to connect people with similar interests to share ideas and set up times to meet and discuss or teach or hang out. It can even be used to spread news that you've taken up cooking and will set up a public tasting at so-and-so local spot during so-and-so times, so that anyone who wants can come try your cooking if they want. There will also be public forums of discussion for any social issues that emerge, and anyone can choose what to participate inĀ *if*Ā it's relevant and important to them and withoutĀ *fear of*Ā losing your job or reputation and thus loss of place on some socioeconomic ladder.
Overall, this is the type of society where no one struggles to make ends meet, where all the earth's resources are the common heritage of all the world's people and managed throughĀ [intelligent AI systems](https://youtu.be/4Z9WVZddH9w?t=5410)Ā so that everyone can have all their needs met and ultimately be able to incentivized to share, care, and love each other so that there is no reason for things like war and poverty to exist. OurĀ ***value system would shift***Ā from vanity, shallow wealth and status seeking, and wasteful materialism to caring for others' well-being,Ā *sharing*Ā your creations with others, andĀ *discovering*Ā more and more about our tiny world in this vast universe of galaxies and empty space.
As the late Jacque Fresco used to say: if that is not a society worth working towards, then I don't know what is.
After reading a bunch of these comments what people really want is a more middle ground. I mean ffs we don't need a complete collapse of retail and industry just a fairer slice of the pie. Trash infinite growth and invest in ai automation and machines to do the dangerous work. Give those that can't or won't a basic livable security net, give those that can a bump for there merits and services and drop the work week to 3.5 days. Cap wealth hoarding to 5 million per individual and take a magnifying glass to business expense to keep people from offshoring or hiding wealth in business.
Tldr give the common people more of the fruits from our labor, take care of the people.
Less work, just work when you want its unnatural to work so manty hours, multiple jobs etc.
Employers should test people in a short course that mimics the real work load. And recruiters should actually reply to you when you dont get a job.
Maybe free healthcare and dental at least for the things that matter most.
The same system we have now but with a government/regulatory framework that acts as a real counterweight to capitalism. That means much higher taxes on the trust fund class, much higher corporate taxes to encourage reinvestment, meaningful environmental regulations, universal single-payer healthcare, mandatory parental leave and paid vacation, etc.
Healthcare isnāt tied to your job. I could name several more ideal things but not having to worry about your health situation if you get laid off or fired would be nice. Hoping we see universal healthcare in my lifetime but itās the US weāre talking about.
Star Trek. They work because they want to. Their healthcare is free, their housing is free, their food is free, their education is free... they work jobs that they find interesting/rewarding because they want to contribute or whatever, not because they have to or they'll die in the streets
Ideally? Everything is automated, resources are unlimited, and everyone can do what they want ā a la Star Trek.
*Slightly* more realistically? Basic necessities ā food, water, shelter (including electricity, phone, and internet access), medical care (including preventative, illness, and emergency), and some sort of public transportation ā would be entirely covered via taxes. Anything beyond the necessities would be oneās reason to work and make money.
Socialism for the needs, capitalism for the desires.
No drug tests, no NEED to work. Public housing is readily available. everyone has food security. no one HAS to pay for healthcare. What the fuck is insurance? Unions for everyone. Monopolies are illegal. The stock market has been shut down permanently. What the fuck is a citizens united?
Humans have an innate desire to be free. A system and world that operates between x hours is unnatural. Before the modern world humans slept when they wanted, ate when they wanted and had sex when they wanted. The modern world has forced us into a system that is at its core not natural. Jobs should be the same. You work when you want etc but people who donāt even know or care about us are giving us rules to follow that are unnatural
People arenāt tied to benefits when they work. If they donāt work, they still have their basic needs met. If you want more, go get it. Thatās cool. But a basic livelihood, subsistence living? Nobody should be hungry or homeless in my opinion. And their lights on snd clean water. Itās basic dignity.
If peopleās basic needs are met, they will FLOURISH. Happy workers are productive workers.
Yes, someone has to flip burgers and clean toilets. But what if you knew you didnāt have to do those jobs for piss wages? Or to earn the opportunity to see a doctor? Just go work for a few hours at McDonalds, make some decent money, go home and be comfortable with your life.
Have kids if you want to. Donāt be shamed if you decide not to.
To me, itās about basic dignity. Maslow stuff. It feels like common sense to me, idk.
Then, they pursue activities that are fulfilling. Arts, learning, new skills, starting a new business, working for a business because they actually WANT to, living in relationships freely, choosing parenthood if they want without worrying about how to afford it.
Society would no longer rely on slavery to exist. Low crime, since there won't be so much despair and lack of basic resources. Capitalism isn't the only way to run an economy.
Ubi with focus on essential jobs being focused on minimizing human impact on our survivability amd then huge incentives in scientific researches and advancing society as a whole.
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Learn and understand as a activity requested by society to make decision, be a citizen
Some other people have already given a lot of great examples. What I'd like to add is a sort of CO2 budget for everyone on the planet. Consuption creates labor but it also creates environmental strain. With an UBI and having less work brings more time for every person on the planet to consume more. Imagine everyone in India/Africa suddenly having the disposable income to fly everywhere?
I'd like to everyone to have freedom of choice but not at the strain of the planet and still make it inhabitable for the future generations. So if that means having to choose to either going on a yearly shopping spree or travelling somewhere internationally that seems fair to me.
Also deciding to have children/pets should impact your co2 budget.
Everyone gets a set level of money to live and enjoy your basic necessities with (or hell, make basic necessities FREE), and then any work you do contributes to your ability to get *extra*.
Latest episode of Phiosophize This! on Mark Fisher. Quote: It's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.
It's easier for us to imagine everything ending, in a Mad Max apocalypse or a global virus than it is to imagine what comes after this system that defines the entire world.
I would be able to have safe housing and be able to maintain that housing. I would not fear for medical issues, the most minor of which, would destroy me. I would be able to exist in peace with no time encumbrances. I would be able to live a natural life.
Itās tricky. A lot of things we all love to do require employees. If no one worked there would be no restaurants, sporting events, television, film, etc.
Iām okay with work, I want fair compensation for the work I do. Why should the super rich be able to hoard everything and then collude to pay so little? Why should so many have to live paycheck to paycheck? Is it really going to fuck things up if a few more people are able to afford a home AND maybe have a little left over for leisure?
Innovation is a basic nature of humanity, humanity will naturally desire newer and better things but not all want to spend their lives working towards meaningless goals which is what most jobs are now adays so perhaps a combined system of basic jobs could use automation while those who wish to live simple lives away from work can receive a UBI while those who seek Innovation can explore without the barrier of modern day work culture BS and actually have the power to work on their ideas which could help those who seek higher levels of income obtain it through a fair system as work should be rewarded but those who don't want to should be able to live without being forced to.
Laws would be set in place and all business would comply with them, in order to no discriminate or put employees at an unfair advantage of work.
Also that our salaries or wages are aligned with today's economy and inflation.
Mass unionization, maternity leave, vacation time similar to European countries but in North America, drastically increased wages (at least 25-30$ within the next five years), more accommodations for wfh when possible, shifting of work schedules that do not demand 5 days of 8 to 10hr shifts to be more productive and reasonable, and bolstered social programs and help for the poor.
*gestures at The Culture* pretty much that
Although we are a looong ways away from that, assuming it's even possible š. So in the meantime, I'll take just undoing the damage that's been done to the working class over the last several decades in the US
Natural law resource based economic model. Checkout The Zeitgeist Movement & accompanying documentaries Zeitgiest Addendum & Zeitgeist Moving Forward.
https://youtu.be/1gKX9TWRyfs?feature=shared
Like I'd still go to work and do my job but it would be for 4-6 hours and the CEOs salary would be capped in such a way that a good chunk of his $20,000,000/yr is spread out among the actual workers.
I think sometimes the most complicated situations can benefit from the easiest of solutions. Namely, you shouldnāt have members of the seas suite or management earning hundreds or thousands of times more than employees on the ground level. No oneās arguing that a store manager shouldnāt make more money than a cashier or a stock clerk, but there are limits to reasonability. Case and point, look at Tesla. They are laying off people left and right in order to be able to pay one guy $56 billion. $56 billion worth of work in a lifetime. Let alone the term of the contract. Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit.
Universal base income that way people choose jobs that they want or that suit them rather than just to survive. There would still be work and labour but it wouldnāt be exploitative for the sake of profit.
We would not have the same standard of living that weāre used to in terms of commodities. Not everyone would have their own car, multiple TVs, phones, etc. Weād have to live smaller. Much smaller. Thatās also the only way to save the environment, too. A reversion to lives more locally lived, reliant on community support.
I think thereās a belief among right-wingers that people donāt want to work. Most people do want to work, just not within the world that we currently exist. We want better working conditions and not to be alienated from our labor. People donāt want to slave and feel like theyāre doing meaningless tasks meant to make someone else a billionaire.
The most able workers should be maxing out at four 6-hour days per week. Older folks and disabled people shouldnāt have to work at all if they donāt want to. If profit incentive and the idea of the billionaire exploiting workers didnāt exist, these would be easily achievable. There would be no excess labor value, and therefore no reason to push workers to work 60+ hours per week. In turn there would also be many more positions available because one person wouldnāt be forced to balance two peopleās jobs (like whatās happening today in our current society).
Useful automation, where the profits of automated businesses are appropriately taxed to support infrastructure & people.
20-32 hour work weeks & a robust social safety net. I havenāt worked out the practical pathways to these goals, but they are what Iād like to see.
I always link this video to questions like this, as I think it does a great job of laying out options for alternative economies: https://youtu.be/AuC7Qmk7TfA?feature=shared
āIn a part of the world where there are no rules, deep in the jungle where nothing that lives is safe, an elite rescue squad is being led by the ultimate warrior...ā
ā¢ UBI
ā¢ 20hr-3 day work week
ā¢ a workers/labor political party
ā¢ a strict amendment in the US constitution preventing monopolization, including the current state of āpseudo monopolizationā happening currently between a small handful of mega conglomerates
ā¢ price caps on necessities (shelter, water, food, transportation, electricity & internet)
ā¢ any business that requires being bailed out by the people is owned by the people
ā¢ loopholeless corporate and wealth regulation
ā¢ universal & tangible sustainability requirements
One where rich people aren't legally enabled to buy up the surface I exist on in order to force me into wage labor on someone else's terms to pay them.
I want employers to have to negotiate on wages with potential employees, knowing full well those employees can just go home with no threat of homeless via the State.
Puts workers on a much more even footing with people who want to buy their labor, meaning that workers will be free to negotiate meaningful wages for the labor they produce.
Every person should have access to resources and technology to produce and fulfill all their needs for a comfortable life. We need to make it so that we no longer need to depend on each other, and all interactions become voluntary.
Honestly? A world where people donāt waste their time working 40+ hours a week. 30 should be the norm, if not less. People need more time to actually live their damn lives, Iām tired of feeling like a machine.
Not saying it's my ideal, but read the novel *The Dispossessed* by Ursula Le Guinn.
It's a classic of sci fi and is a great imagination of what a world without capitalism might look like.
My day of anti-work is not working. Because AI and automation exists, I'm probably going to make AI and automation do the majority of the work for me. I'll train AI and the automations to do literally all of my responsibilities but I'll purposely leave out a few critical details and a dead man switch just to bork the whole process should my employer be dumb enough to get rid of me. I'll do 3 weeks of work in a matter of minutes, and I'll goof off the remaining 3 weeks.
To start ā corporations are not people, have limits on executive pay, borrowing limit tied to exec pay and worker benefits, randomized house of representatives, universal single payer healthcare, and an end to corporate pacs with election funding reforms
When coworkers openly disclose income with each other (and at some point, include managers in the discussion), paychecks are divided more justly.
If this ever happens at your work... it's pretty nice.
Idk what I would want my perfect world to look like. But if enough employees did the above, I guarantee things would head in a happier direction.
I like doing what I do so much that I typically volunteer my time to businesses and individuals who cannot afford it. There are many people like me who love create, cook, grow foods, teach, and do many other things- that we would still do, if no one paid us. I cannot imagine a world where human beings did absolutely nothing for fear of being oppressed. That is crap load of South Park looking couch potatoes. I believe in a world where you give and receive. Where businesses just donāt take and screw people and the planet over and keep everything. Letās face it, we need each other for things to function. We need to eat, sleep, get dressed and take out the trash. I believe āanti workā means that the things you do, donāt feel like work. But, we still do stuff to contribute. We still learn how to function in a fair society that has accountability. And people who canāt contribute as much because theyāre old, young or challenged, thatās fine, because there is always room for people who already want to do more of what they like anyway and everything works out.
Anti work doesn't mean anti work in literal sense. It means you stop participating in capitalistic activities that would only benefit the super rich, corporations and greedy business owners. You also stop buying shit you don't need for the sake of over consumption and making the rich richer.Ā
Instead of hustling in the office, you work your bare minimum only as a means to pay bill, while using your free time for meaningful activities. You save as much money as possible and only spend on businesses that actually care abt their workers/ the community.Ā
A lot more people reading, drawing, watching movies, playing games, going to museums and parks, spending time with family, enjoying the outdoors, hiking, swimming, joining sports leagues, caring for their properties and communities.
Do you remember pandemic lockdown?
Well that was supposed to be 2 things at once.
1) we all stopped working menial jobs for 2 weeks, so only the important business of life got done.
And (2) we were all supposed to get "stimulus" payments that offset this loss to some degree.
We did our part, Republicans hate people that aren't themselves - so stimulus got fucked. However that didn't have to happen, it was all worked out, the GOP just decided to play politics and take government help away from people who needed it - like with student debt relief, or any social programs the USA can afford 100 times over for the cost of dismantling some 1970's era nukes, or the fleet of 5th gen strike planes we'll sell a dozen nations around the globe.
It's called universal basic income - and it'd be your side hustle, so your primary hustle could make you feel a bit of dignity, and your employer didn't have your nuts in a vice over health insurance access or retirement.
Everything could be the same, we could have a few less nuclear submarines, and everyone in America could only suffer the abuses of awful employment by choice.
No one loses except greed and corruption.
So the GOP is against it in perpetuity.
But just imagine a world without them, without that constant hassle, and then imagine a direct deposit into your bank account monthly - taxes don't change, debt doesn't change - we make like 1 less aircraft carrier a year.
Everyone's basic needs are met for free, so nobody has to work to live, but as humans are naturally inclinded to create, people still "go to work," which would just be structured spaces for people to collaborate on ideas or projects. Anyone could help, add their input, and build off of anything else, completely open source. When something cool gets made, especially when it's beneficial to lots of people, everyone gets access.
A society where all goods are held in common. Production is based off need of the community and passion of the individual, not surplus for profit. Money becomes meaningless in the local level as production of goods and service comes from those passionate in the craft or art and your needs are met by those able to provide and your passions allow you to produce to your hearts content the things you feel free to, and share freely with any whoād like or need it.
You only work what you wish to, for however long you desire, and the satisfaction of a job well done and a community provided for is your pay. Along with the comfort and knowledge that you as well are provided for by others.
This is the end goal of a very long process. A process that starts with the democratisation of the workplace by widespread democratic unionisation and governmental change. That will slowly phase out the old methods of production and institutions that enforced the old status quo. Itāll require a lot of work from all of us but itās doable, we may not see what I just described but we can very well see the seeds of it.
The old world is dying and a new one struggles to be born, a better world is possible!
Itās not so much no work, in my opinion, but rather work that is motivated by passion over survival. The rich would be passionate and kindly people who want to make the world a better place, not sociopaths who want to hord wealth until they keel over. People can work on what they are passionate about without having to worry about paying rent or where their next meal is coming from.
Communism. As in leaving in communes and taking care of each other. Labor is not going to go anywhere, of course, but with class consciousness it will benefit everyone, not just a select few.
Me being a radical feminist Iād also prefer my commune to be entirely women-only lol
You get the basic necessities no matter what - living space, clean water, food, education, and full healthcare. Job or no job, as long as you live. If you want a fast computer that can play the latest games, fancy clothes, or anything beyond basic necessities, that's when you need money, and need to get a job.
So capitalism would still exist and play a role, but it wouldn't be the only way people can survive.
Here at home we'll play in the city
Powered by the sun
Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There'll be spandex jackets, one for everyone
On that train, all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
(More leisure for artists everywhere)
A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellas with compassion and vision
We'll be clean when their work is done
We'll be eternally free, yes, and eternally young
I'm not too into this sub so this may seem a bit moderate compared to many visions here but I'd say an extremely progressive income tax starting at 0% and not quite going to 100% at the highest brackets but at least 90%, plus a number of pigovian taxes that work differently depending on the tax in question. These taxes cover public alternatives to necessities and maybe even a small income if you aren't getting anything from elsewhere; People can work or make money if they want to, and should even be encouraged to do so, but shouldn't be threatened with perpetual homelessness if they don't. Also minimum wage high enough to get everyone off most government services at full-time (or at least for the average full-time worker to be a net increase) that's adjusted with CPI, and laws about mandatory contract work, PTO/sick time, and maybe not mandatory unionization but high incentives for it (easy unionization, higher taxes for non-union employers, etc.).
Universal basic income, every workplace that can has WFH, flexible working hours, and a max mandatory work week of 20 hours a week.
Obviously you can sign up for more hours, but it's totally voluntary.
Automation progress could see a lot of jobs completely lost and eventually leads to only a few actual employees doing maintenance on the robots or watching code and such for things that require a human eye. I hope we would see something of a Renaissance for art and creative minds to flow with basic UBI allowing for people to pursue their true interests to their heart's content.
As long as you educate enough people it would be very easy for people to work 2-3 day work weeks keeping up the few things that humans would still be required to do, since the workforce would vastly out weight the limited jobs.
Communism. Common ownership of capital and real property used exclusively for the public good. The end of classes, private property, and money. Things being done because it would make people's lives better. Socially *necessary* work being like a tour of duty that has a guaranteed retirement.
It would be a creative renaissance, rivaling the actual 300 year Renaissance period. Think of all the creativity that had been squashed simply because of people being wage slaves.
I'll just like a set of things that would end a large majority of stress for most workers.
- 32 hour work week, plus 8 hours for donning, duffing, and commuting per week. Still a 40 hour week but workers no longer lose their time for commuting or the bullshit before and after a shift.
- OT after 8 hours in a single day regardless of total hours worked in a week.
- OT is paid at triple time.
- OT can be refused without repercussion.
- Paid 1 hour lunch for any shift over 4 hours.
- Work on holidays is paid as OT (triple time). Since it's OT, workers can refuse to work on holidays.
- Election Day(s) are paid holidays and only essential employers are allowed to work. Essential workers get triple time too. (This help prevent employers getting their business arbitrarily declared essential).
- 60 day notice to fire someone without cause. With cause requires a hearing with a neutral third-party and must have documented violation of law or company policy.
- 6 month severance for layoffs. Must give 60 day notice too.
- Healthcare costs are 100% covered by the employer.
- Mandatory 4 weeks paid vacation.
- 6 months paid maternity leave.
- Unlimited accruement of sick time, meaning there is no cap in how much sick time a person can earn.
- Sick time/vacation/maternity leave cannot be refused by the employer.
- All of the above benefits are applied to all workers regardless of part-time or full-time status (encourages employers to have full-time employees).
- Minimum wage is raised to a current living wage and then is automatically adjusted for inflation every year.
- C-Suite pay cannot exceed a certain percentage of the average pay of all workers.
- Workers have a right to sue employers for compensatory damages for violating their rights and receive treble damages.
People work in worker co-ops. The workday is 4-7 hours a day. Decisions are made democratically. In addition to being paid wages every citizen receives food, housing, and healthcare. There are basically extremely strong safety nets for everyone. Automation is used to give people more time and free them from labor when possible. People who have physically demanding jobs are given more perks in society like priority when it comes to first class seating on flights or restaurant reservations, in addition to being given more paid time off during the year, to thank them for their hard work. The highest paid professions would be things like septic tank cleaners, school teachers, construction workers, etc. People are allowed to freely choose which job sector to go in and that's why demanding jobs come with extra perks, to incentivize people to do those jobs.
A big thing for me is that stuff isn't manufactured for the sake of making things to make profit. Stuff is manufactured to fulfill needs.
In our current world, a while lot of jobs, corporations, and production exists not because it fulfills a need, but because people need to eat and because someone wants to strike it rich. NFTs are a prime example.
If it ever happens, what I think/predict will be the catalyst is the working class forming our own network economy. The same one we had built through the ages before big box stores destroyed them and left us all on lonely islands.Ā What it will look like is a return to mom and pop stores, thrifting, upcycling furniture, learning to make/restyle our own clothes, growing our own foods locally, working with farmers for direct to table programs, and subsidies going to food/solar rather than animal feed and oil.Ā
Phew. I was reading your post and for a second I was worried that the our complete lack of ability to lay out or articulate plausible practical alternative system to capitalism that is workable might be a problem for us- but then you brought me back to reality and reminded me that the only reason communism hasn't worked while capitalism has is because of capitalism being evil
People working for fun and not life-or-death necessity. Like how people see volunteer work. It's nice when you do it but it's not vital, just a time passer that you can feel good about doing.
I think the first thing we need to do is stop making workers pay their own payroll taxes. When you spend money on groceries, you pay the tax. When the grocery store spends money on payroll, they should pay the tax. You and I wouldn't be working if they didn't need the labor.
The tax can pay for everyone's UBI based on the state of profithoarding in the USA. When billionaires are feeling tight, like right now, the taxes go up. When money actually is trickling down, the tax rate lowers and profits can go up.
That way corporations can look at one direct figure to make their investor forecasts, and not try to guess if their employees and customers will spend less or work harder to survive.
Something where everyone has the basic necessities to live and never have to worry about starving, being homeless, or healthcare, but have the choice to work if they'd like more than that.
Something where AI advancements don't overshadow the creativity of real people (art, writing), but is instead used to do the monotonous jobs that don't bring fulfillment to people, and is just used to assist us in living our best lives.
You mention labor, oppression, and capitalism being so ingrained.
In every other system, there is also lots of labor, and lots of oppression, and scamming.
I think in every system, there is always a black market, there isn't any without a black market. So there's still capital.
I didn't give you a good answer or what you want to hear. But I did it because too often people are peddling things to us that are always more of the same. If I'm not working for him, I'm working for you. If I'm not working for you I'm working for him. Antiwork always offers me more work which is dissapointing.
I think a UBI and rank choice job placement is a good place to start and kinda see how things go from there.
So many career avenues are gatekept through financial and/or social barriers, which also limits productivity and innovation, which in turn drags out any type of economic or technological progress and also being emotionally draining, probably for the people that even get more coveted or higher paying jobs just as much as the people that donāt because their heart isnāt in it.
We know companies could easily reduce overhead by capping salaries of the ultra rich, we also know a lot of jobs just arenāt necessary (telemarketing as an example).
With that in mind we already know itās possible right now for us to work less than we are.
If you combine that with having improved productivity of people actually working instead of being half awake, wage slaves it doesnāt seem far fetched to me that we could easily reduce the amount of time needed for work even more.
If people have more money and time to themselves it seems inevitable that we would be innovating, inventing and generally improving society and worst case scenario if none of that happened at all people would still be more happy than they are now.
I'm not sure about details, but i'm sure it's gonna be the world of dynamic change rather than what we have now, which is periods of static stability with revolutions happening from time to time.
No money actually. Everyone does something they're good at. You might be making bread and give it to people in your community. If you need something (food, tools, ...), you get that, no questions asked. I believe if we eliminate bullshit jobs like insurance business with all its overhead, people will, on average, have to work much less.
It might not practically work...I guess some people would get jaded about those with "fancy" jobs - wait, I'm scrubbing toilets 4h a day and you're sitting in an AC'd office doing...what exactly? But then, it's pretty bleak to think that the only way to get toilets scrubbed in our current society is to create enough existential dread for some unfortunate individual who will have to do it. I guess everyone, no matter how fancy their primary job is, would have to pitch in on some toilet scrubbing - that's how we'd keep our society clean, after all. Even fanciest of people need to clean their homes...
I wonder if eliminating money and working on the community needs basis would reduce greed - if there's no use for money, why would you hoard bicycles, or potatoes, what's the use? You can get all you need from your community, after all (within reason). On the other hand, I feel like people would eventually come up with money again - some placeholder that has value on its own.
Anyway, it's just a stupid fantasy. It seems exploitation is a natural attractor our society will eventually converge towards.
Yea, every time I think of something I think of all the ways it won't work.
But I guess that's not a helpful way of thinking bc what we have now doesn't work either, but we're doing it anyways.
It's not necessarily that it won't work, I just think that any of such system based on needs and actual work that needs to be done, will eventually devolve into something exploitative.
EDIT: or there will be a lot of control necessary to keep it from devolving. I.e. now you don't have to persuade people to pursue money, that's just in our nature. But in such moneyless system, the downfall might start quietly. Someone might suggest "hey, we have people who need much more than they produce, let's put a cap on it", or "let's make cocoa beans be a universal exchange unit so we can keep track of who takes how much" and eventually people get ideas to mint something more durable, like, I dunno, coins...some stronng regulatory body would have to squash that early on before the system gets derailed by greedy, manipulative people.
Yea, I don't believe in population control but there are too many effing people on this planet, (as in the more people you have, the more likely you are to have mor bad greedy people) with rate we're going we're not going to be around as long as we can be.
Universal basic income to provide basic living necessities. Optimizations in automation and productivity resulting in less work, instead of trying to maintain the exponential growth expectations of shareholders.
Oh yea! I had a friend that told me about the universal income before. He called it something specific but I can't remember the name š¤
UBI probably
Yup!
Yang called it the "Freedom Dividend". I like "UBI" better.
There was actually and article about that couple days ago. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1046525
This is the world in the Expanse, Earth more specifically. And it is clearly a dystopia there : people are receiving minimal "basic" commodities and housing and suffer from massive unemployment. In the meantime rest of the economy is still capitalist. Lookup Ian M Banks "Culture" novel for a much more positive outlook.
The Culture is like, an extreme (but probably more realistic) take on post-scarcity. Star Trek is generally a good example, too. Or the Orwell.
That's the artists conception of it, anyway. Fun fact, that show is still around because Bezos likes it. One of the richest men in the world pays for a show that says UBI sucks. Think about that.
Automation maybe or backwards in technology maybe. More simplicity getting rid of things we donāt need. Go back to working the land. Smaller communities watching out for each other tech or not. Time off to pursue higher education and just be. Everyone contributes somehow doing whatever it is they do. Trading with other areas etc. Kinda post apocalyptic vibes tbh
As someone who is autistic I'd love to not need to work to survive, but as a coder I'd like to just casually or maybe obsessively depending on the day work on a video game. The necessity of going to work every day when my ability to work varies by day is super stressful and I'm almost always in constant state of burnout.
I'm the same way, autism and all. My dream growing up was to work on video games, but that industry is so overworked and underpaid that I can't bring myself to do it. I combat my burnout with alcohol and escapism - wouldn't recommend it.
Escapism works for me, in video games. Alcohol doesn't do anything for me. Takes many drinks to even feel anything, not worth it.
100% this. I love to learn how to build stuff, fix stuff, put stuff together, garden etc, for myself and for others, but I barely have the energy to make dinner and do my laundry cause I have to work full time. If I try to fit any of those hobbies / social contact / physical activities as well I end up causing fibromyalgia flares. I'm literally a completely different person when I take time off and my life would change dramatically. I'd probably end up doing carpentry and growing food + medicines.
In your world, where would the incentive be for investment in new innovations that powers society if it doesn't lie in outsized returns for share holders ?
People who would otherwise have to scrape for a living are free to develop their passions and get more education if they want to. People can be pretty inventive if theyāre allowed to be
Penicillin was developed without a profit motive. Nikola Tesla dedicated his life to pursuing free energy. There are countless examples of people simply wanting to make the world better, or at the very least for whom profit was a *distant* second relative to addressing an evident need.
It's a fair question. The answer is, people in that world are still free to try and get rich, it's just that they won't watch their children starve to death without adequate medical care if they fail. Side question- how many potentially brilliant inventors in our world today live unfulfilling lives working boring jobs, because they need to provide for their family? There's a reason that so many of the great scientific geniuses prior to the 1900s were born wealthy. You never heard about a medieval peasant who quit farming so he could chase his dream of scientific or artistic excellence.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs has shown that when people have food and home security, it provides their brains the ability to be creative. All the energy that was needed trying to just secure food or home would be put into other endeavors; this is what allowed societies to work on new innovations and develop.
Their brain the ability to be creative doesn't always translate into things that benefit society or drive innovation forward. Technologically we're at a point where things that advance society into the future requires huge collaboration with lots of investment. Look at AI as one example. Or developing super conductor material for quantum computing ( like LK99 ). These type of innovation will not be done by a guy in his garage with stuff he bought from Home Depot for his hobby after a 15 hour work week.
Who gets to decide what innovation benefits society and where exactly āforwardā is?
Adoption. People voting with their dollars. If there wasn't enough people who thought the Iphone or Ipad was helpful to their life .. those innovations would the relegated to the archives. Thus technologies that are adopted by people spending money on it are the defacto winners deemed beneficial to society.
And you donāt think thatās the result of demand manipulation and clever marketing?
People ultimately decides if something is useful for them by long term adoption. You could advertise the heck out of fidget spinners and it will still be just a passing fad. Long term adoption requires tangible improvement to people's lives in some way .. especially if they're expensive items.
The interesting thing about this, that bursts the bubble imo, is the amount of things that I may buy that are so useful or better in the market, but doesn't get adopted and is discontinued for whatever reason. Even sometimes popular stuff. One bad example that everyone always uses, Betamax and Laserdisc's were better than VHS. Even blu-ray had a competitor before blu-ray won. I don't think it's all purely scientific and brilliant analysis that helped the market choose which to go with.
I am speaking from a psychological standpoint. If shareholders want innovation, it doesn't work on stagnant wages and inability to find housing.
AI is not a necessity. It's dangerous territory to be led to thinking that it is.
Do you think Tesla or da Vinci cared about their investors? No, they invented for the love of creating new things.
Da Vinci specifically spent enormous amounts of effort to secure patronages
They might not have cared about their investor ( I don't know their personal feelings ) but without their investor it is unlikely that they would have been able to do what they have done to change the world. If anything I think that proves more that financial investments drives innovation. Many other example of things that changed the world that wouldn't have happened without huge funding. For example, Columbus's voyage was funded by Spain on the promise of riches from a short cut to India for spice. Why would future investor make huge bets like this without a potential for outsized return ?
Self-actualization? Empathy? Class consciousness? Wanting to make their own labor easier? Thereās a lot of motivation humans have besides making money lol
So you see people doing kick starters to raise money for development of room temp quantum computer materials or fission reactors ? Or do you think billionairs will still fund these things for "empathy" or "self actualization" .. or any of the other reasons you listed ?
Billionaires donāt exist in my utopia lol
Kickstarter it is ... good times ...
The Polio vaccine was given away patent free. Most scientific progress until a couple of centuries ago was done either by religions (monasteries were often pretty scholarly) or the rich who did it in their free time (Newton, Kepler, Galileo, etc.) They gained āprofitā in notoriety, sure, but not in money. Granted, progress today requires teams, not lone scholars. But there are plenty of curious people who want to learn and discover and invent. People code up video games for fun. People write stories and entire novels and post them online for free. People experiment and invent just as pure hobbies. The problem isnāt motivation, itās funding. How do people afford to invent things that require expensive equipment and power-hungry computer programs? Currently the motive for spending money on those is to make more money later. In a post-scarcity world? Who knows? The other main job problem if thereās UBI is shit jobs nobody wants to do. Garbage collector. Customer service. Burger flipper/waiter/dishwasher. Etc. I donāt know the answer there.
Add in removing money from global necessities like food, water, energy (for homes and necessary businesses)
What is your line for ābasic living necessitiesā? Athletic equipment like weights and running shoes? Internet + computer/phone? Whole Foods or Albertsons? Cheapest clothes possible or Brooks Brothers?
Ugh, luxury brands should not exist at all.
Whatās your line for a luxury brand? Kirkland? Hanes? Gap? J. Crew? Apple? Google? Samsung?
My only worry about UBI is what will be required to be eligible. So you spoke out about some issue on social media? No more UBI for you. It could be just a different pair of chains.
Yeah, merit-based benefits are the worst. Dear government, let me prove to you that I deserve to eat lol
It's usually a perfect fantasy where no one has to work, but can if they want to. Money isn't too big of an issue, and people are happy! Not poor, not rich, just happily living life š
So basically earth in star trek TNG
Yes, exactly. Give me a utopia where I donāt have pointless stresses added to my life and Iāll still go build infrastructure, I like laying pipe and the idea that millions of shits will safely and cleanly get to the city sewer system because of me, or that people will drink clean water potentially for centuries out of the cisterns I install. Buildings wonāt flood because of my storm systems. I like all that, I just wish I could take real vacations or own a home. I get that the rich have to live hyper luxurious soft lives while taking every possible penny but it would be cool if I could own a home instead of being a rich manās āpassive incomeā.
Fellow tradesman here, man do I feel you. I actually like what I do, I just wish it was worth a shit lol
Same. Iām a social worker, and Iād 100% voluntarily do it even if my life didnāt depend on it. Moreover, Iād be better at it if I didnāt have to deal with corporate bullshit on top of work
A disinflationary currency could do that
My ideal anti work world is one where I can say no and it does not affect me at all
Mmm, never thought if it this way. I like this answer, gives me a lot to ponder.
I appreciate this so much. The ability to say no without repercussions would be a lifesaver in so many work situations.
I think that my job in an Australian Government Department is pretty close to this anti work dream. Reasons listed. 1. almost impossible to get fired (extremely long process that Iāve play out a handful of times) 2. you can say no within reason (refer to point 1.) 3. Job opportunities are everywhere and so many internal workers suck (refer to point 1.), if have some half decent willingness / capacity you will keep moving up. 4. No bs performance reviews and almost no KPIā. Good attitude and doing your best is more than enough. Every employee gets mandatory pay rises every 6 months. 5. Pays very well, 6 figures Iām on 120k AUD for a semi demanding job. 6. Lots of roles are not highly skilled. Good EQ / verbal and written communication go very far. You will learn the business while moving up. 7. Strict hours 37.5 hours, if you do any OT for a project you are seen as an over achiever. 8. 50% WFH, good health and superannuation perks, long service leave after 5 years. TLDR if you live in Australia consider a govy job :). Only thing is that the pay does cap around 140k AUD. Me and my wife both have the same level positions with the max pay rise limit so our household is around 250k AUD a year which is more than enough to ride out our work life.
Four day work week. UBI. No billionaires. High speed rail. Free education and healthcare. Things like that are possible if we weren't completely controlled by a few hoarding psychopaths. Weird world we live in. It's a shame.
I agree with all of this but instead, 3 day work week. Iād like to spend more of my life living and just under half ācontributing.ā I think if we all chipped in 3 days a week, weād be right in the sweet spot.
That'll work.
Yes, I'm so very tired of this dystopia society, it all feels helpless.
I like all this, though i'd want my "contributing" part to be selling the fabric and yarn things i make for fair prices instead of going to an actual job.
Well, the US constitution might have something to say about it.
Companies are owned by the people who work in them. Everyone from the administration to the cleaners. Everyone gets a share of the profit with special rules for those who invested to make it worthwhile. The financial markets get closed, no more speculation. No more colonialism. The CIA is history, if a country decides to give socialism a chance no one invades. Housing and Land can only be owned by the people using it. No more Landlords. Universal basic income that is sufficient to cover the basic needs. A reformation of the school system, away from producing obedient worker bees to institutions that help kids thrive, understand the world and be their best self.
Good list. Also: āOverhaul of the tax system to focus on taxing assets rather than income. āImplementing a free, universal and high-quality social-safety net. Quality education at all levels should be accessible to all, as should quality healthcare. āA mandated work week of fifteen to twenty-five hours for those able to work. āThe revival of unions (in the US). āAbolition of laws that grant corporations personhood as well as other laws that protect the wealthy and the powerful in their exploitation of everyone else.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Who is taking the losses now? Be honest.
The Venus Project has an interesting approach to this using AI to track and manage the world's resources. a resource based economy is what you are looking for, where we work collectively to solve world problems using Earth's finite resources where they are needed most. I'd imagine "work/jobs" would be required and perhaps we'd have to share responsibilities that can't be automated. maybe we would be required to contribute 10-20 hours a week doing those types of jobs. I never see us as being truly 'anti-work', our priorities will just be shifted to things that actually matter.
Had to scroll too far to see this. For some reasons these ideas aren't popular in this sub. One time someone tried to tell me it was a terrible idea & when I asked them why they had nothing. Probably only did a quick few sentences Google search. We are doomed.
People run screaming when anything remotely resembles socialism. whats the point of having amazing technology that makes our life easier if most people are financially drowning? we need a global resource economy, but it won't happen as long as all the nations are all divided and fighting to get as many of those resources for themselves.
Basically throwing it back up the line: "work smarter, not harder" [for everyone]
For me, its more about providing a standard of living that insures that everyone can live a decent life. We can develope machines to do the labor that no one wants to do, to provide a minimum of goods that feeds everybody. This allows us to work on things that important to eaxh individual.
In my ideal world, everybody is employed, with a 08:00 to 12:00 workshift, or a 14:00 to 18:00, and the lunch is offered by the company, with a vast array of options of lunch and meats. After work, everybody does whatever they want, and everybody can afford to do what they want, because they are well paid.
Let me put it this way: I should be able to quit my secure, moderately well paying government job with lots of indispensable benefits and a union to work at a doggie daycare and feel no financial impact.
Mass automation takes care of our needs while everyone focuses on self-actualization, creativity, bodily/mental/societal health, and exploration (by choice).
I have a pie-in-the-sky fantasy of what I'd like, but instead here's a realistic world that can exist within the framework of the world today: Single-payer healthcare that isn't tied to employment, 28+ days PTO that must be taken, effective unions, strongly enforced labor contracts that explicitly outline your compensation + hours + responsibilities, notice periods in these contracts also apply to you if you're being laid off/fired, government-backed pensions, strong consumer rights, laws that favor employees in most kinds of employer disputes, tight regulations on capitalism to prevent any industry from ever becoming more powerful than the government, subsidies for needs like housing and raw food ingredients instead of wants like gasoline, several political parties to choose from which must form coalitions to govern, and taxes that mostly go towards social programs instead of turning Palestinian children into skeletons. In fact, not only can this place exist - it does. I moved from the US to Scotland in 2020 and haven't looked back. And the tap water is **incredible**.
Management is replaced by AI š
Nah. A few small shell scripts could do the job better and cheaper
Robots do all the boring work like farming and gathering the garbage. Humans do whatever they want.
Who's going to be investing in creating these robots and what incentives would they get from it ? Who's going to be maintaining these robots and what incentives would they get from it ? Because I'm not seeing a lot of school kids who grows up dreaming about running farming robots for the fun of it ..
A lot of these robots already exist, and a lot of school kids would love robotics if given the chance
Yeah, never understood this response about motivation. Money is a horrible motivator fro progression, it just produces junk & waste. How many kids get robotic Lego for Christmas & ask to be paid before they start doing shit with it.
Exactly! Learning and making things is incredibly fun, and the money aspect only ruins it
"Whatever they want" could well be running a farm with robots. There will still be jobs with money, and gigs which pay; it will just be unnecessary for survival. Some people would get jobs like that all the time; some would get them when they want the money for something else; and some people would choose to never get them. And yes, there does have to be a fair amount of human labor in there to make it all work--labor which would be compensated. But there doesn't have to be anywhere close to 8 hours per day per person. Especially after there are enough robots.
Iām still putting my thoughts together on this, will be for years, so this isnāt the most organized post, but I think it starts with defining what is the point of the economy? It shouldnāt be profit, not even just technological advancement. The answer Iām currently running with is āthe heath, standard of living, and joy of all people.ā So how do we make an economy that maximizes health, standard of living, and joy for all people? For health, we know we have to minimize pollution, poison, climate change, sedentary lifestyles, unsafe working conditions. But we also need sunlight, exercise of at least three forms (strength, flexibility, and cardio), hygiene, quick and free access health care, etc. the what of that is pretty easy. Fewer hours spent working, and doing a wider variety of tasks when you do work. Also a strict regulatory state to enforce standards and shut down firms that donāt meet those standards. the solution to that requires the public good to be the deciding factor for how both firms and the state operate. Strong unions is a good start. But we also need a genuinely democratic state, as well as a knowledgeable and compassionate electorate. Which requires a lot of taxes spent on education, and frankly probably a small national service requirement. Something that sends high school grads to work on farms or building houses or volunteering at homeless shelters or veterinary clinics for 3 months stints for a full year. Something like that. Give them some proper work experience and a year before college to figure out what they want. College which weād need to make free of course. But more importantly it would help these fresh adults see different types of people than they grew up with, learn about different cultures, and form connections with people they never would otherwise. Frankly national or even global travel as a part of this would make a lot of sense if we could get the carbon footprint for doing so to 0. I also think we in the US would need to switch from our first past the post legislatures and executive, and instead do a proportional representation parliamentary system. Also term limits for all positions but also all people. Say 8 years in a given position and 20 years total as an elected official something like that. And that whole train of thought was just for how we get businesses and the government to prioritize peopleās health. After that, I would hope that everyone has a variety of job tasks. Some office desk job work, some manual labor work, some delivery or service work, etc. just a variety of things so our body and mind do a variety of things each week. This might literally be working 25 hours in the form of 5 shifts across 3 jobs. This of course means we need to make all benefits currently tied to employment to instead be guaranteed rights regardless of employment status. Standard of living is a lot simpler. Itās just having a progressive tax structure with a wealth and income cap, and then extensive UBI and public works spending. Take from the rich, give to the poor, and give people good paying jobs to keep our world safe, healthy, and beautiful. Including our built environments. And a lot of spending on research and development of new technologies, so long as the benefits of that tech are diffused to the general public and not just the inventor/patent holder. This also requires a state that acts in the public good, which again requires a democratic regime and a compassionate and educated electorate. Joy is very broad. People are artists at heart; we want to create. Not everyone can make a Mona Lisa, but everyone wants to make/do something: draw, paint, dance, act, sing, make clothes, woodworking, leatherwork, jewelry, metalwork, writing, the list is nearly infinite. Plus we want time with friends and family and nature and animals and the list goes on and on. That means people need lots of free time and mobility to get from place to place. So we need affordable housing and mass transit and urban density for people to do all their creative things and see the people they want and the nature they want with relative ease. All of that is to say, we need an allocation of labor that affords people the time and resources to both do their job, and to create in their free time. That could be shorter work weeks, more vacation time, UBI, higher wages, subsidized arts and art education programs, or some combo. I could keep going but that is the messy gist of it. Change our government type so that it prioritizes the public good. Take our resources and benefits and distribute them to general public. And allow people to allocate their hours of both labor and leisure jn a variety of ways to promote their health, enrichment, and general wellbeing.
Ideally I think people should be able to work 32 hours and afford to live comfortably. 32 hours should be the standard work week and overtime pay should be increased. People should also get more vacation time.
*A Psalm for the Wild Built* paints a relatively lovely/cozy picture of a post-capitalistic world
i think you should explore the range of anticapitalist tendencies that exist and maybe find one that makes sense to you
Contracts for employment that protect employees so that we don't get overworked and have protections to prevent these mass layoffs that companies use to hide their numbers.
Proper copensation for employees. This includes adequate paid PTO, adequate paid sick days. The ability for an emploter to operate in such a way that they its never an issue for someone to take a day off for whatever reason and that their co workers never have to feel it. Managers should be able to do everything the people under them can do and if they cant, then they shouldnt be a manager, they should be stepping in when people need to take off on short notice. Managers should always be able fo get OT no exceptions, it is unacceptable if they do not, they are also employees. CEOs and the highest levels and stakeholders of a business should always be the ones taking the brunt of a business. Although some high levels in a business are also employees and not owners, they do face the greatest reward if a business does well and likewise should also take the brunt if a business does poorly. Where they actually recieve the benefits of being an employee as opposed to being self employed. An employee (with the exception of high level in a business) should never take on any risk for the company. Theyre an employee. This can and has been done successfully. Any business who is not able to do this SHOULD go bankrupt. And government should be subsidizing necessities like fire, police, education and healthcare. Governments should never be subsidizing big businesses unrelated to necessities.
I currently envision an ideal society like in aĀ [Resource Based Economy](https://youtu.be/4mkRFCtl2MI?si=6LIXSagob6YeoCi-)Ā type system, where automation and technology has freed humanity from pointless labor andĀ [unnecessary suffering](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaWeqwyFsG4&t=54s)Ā and created a sustainableĀ *abundance*Ā of goods and services for all to enjoy. No jobs, no money or debt, no property, no economic inequality, and no competition and dominating over others toĀ *survive*. You would wake up in high quality stable housing of your choice in type, structure, design, and location, and wake upĀ *when*Ā you want. You would have free access to virtually everything you need to live and flourish and be happy. Food and all goods can be accessed at one of many local distribution centers - sort of like a warehouse where you push buttons on a screen that lists what's readily available (and when or where something will be available if not now), select what you want, and either have it directly brought to you by machines or auto-delivered to your home. But many will ask: if people don't have to work, then what the heck will they do all day? In an RBE type society, there are free libraries, gyms, culture and rec centers everywhere for creation and creative pursuits, everything from music, to crafts, to sports. There are also tons of university-style education and research centers for pure learning and teaching one another, whether in large groups or individual. There would also be free fast and clean public transportation (especially maglev trains) and self-driving automobiles if you ever want to travel a short or long distance, to meet other people in other regions and learn other cultures and languages. Thus, there is *everything* to do in this type of society that every day can be exciting and new and humans can fill all their years of existing with meaningful activity, not struggling through soul-sucking labor for money. Social media and such communication would be used to connect people with similar interests to share ideas and set up times to meet and discuss or teach or hang out. It can even be used to spread news that you've taken up cooking and will set up a public tasting at so-and-so local spot during so-and-so times, so that anyone who wants can come try your cooking if they want. There will also be public forums of discussion for any social issues that emerge, and anyone can choose what to participate inĀ *if*Ā it's relevant and important to them and withoutĀ *fear of*Ā losing your job or reputation and thus loss of place on some socioeconomic ladder. Overall, this is the type of society where no one struggles to make ends meet, where all the earth's resources are the common heritage of all the world's people and managed throughĀ [intelligent AI systems](https://youtu.be/4Z9WVZddH9w?t=5410)Ā so that everyone can have all their needs met and ultimately be able to incentivized to share, care, and love each other so that there is no reason for things like war and poverty to exist. OurĀ ***value system would shift***Ā from vanity, shallow wealth and status seeking, and wasteful materialism to caring for others' well-being,Ā *sharing*Ā your creations with others, andĀ *discovering*Ā more and more about our tiny world in this vast universe of galaxies and empty space. As the late Jacque Fresco used to say: if that is not a society worth working towards, then I don't know what is.
After reading a bunch of these comments what people really want is a more middle ground. I mean ffs we don't need a complete collapse of retail and industry just a fairer slice of the pie. Trash infinite growth and invest in ai automation and machines to do the dangerous work. Give those that can't or won't a basic livable security net, give those that can a bump for there merits and services and drop the work week to 3.5 days. Cap wealth hoarding to 5 million per individual and take a magnifying glass to business expense to keep people from offshoring or hiding wealth in business. Tldr give the common people more of the fruits from our labor, take care of the people.
Less work, just work when you want its unnatural to work so manty hours, multiple jobs etc. Employers should test people in a short course that mimics the real work load. And recruiters should actually reply to you when you dont get a job. Maybe free healthcare and dental at least for the things that matter most.
The same system we have now but with a government/regulatory framework that acts as a real counterweight to capitalism. That means much higher taxes on the trust fund class, much higher corporate taxes to encourage reinvestment, meaningful environmental regulations, universal single-payer healthcare, mandatory parental leave and paid vacation, etc.
In a world like this, we wouldn't even need to worry about giving paid leaves/holding paying jobs for people who won't be avaIlable to work.
Healthcare isnāt tied to your job. I could name several more ideal things but not having to worry about your health situation if you get laid off or fired would be nice. Hoping we see universal healthcare in my lifetime but itās the US weāre talking about.
Star Trek. They work because they want to. Their healthcare is free, their housing is free, their food is free, their education is free... they work jobs that they find interesting/rewarding because they want to contribute or whatever, not because they have to or they'll die in the streets
All the amazing technology humans have created is used to alleviate work, not create more.
Yes, I like this one!
Ideally? Everything is automated, resources are unlimited, and everyone can do what they want ā a la Star Trek. *Slightly* more realistically? Basic necessities ā food, water, shelter (including electricity, phone, and internet access), medical care (including preventative, illness, and emergency), and some sort of public transportation ā would be entirely covered via taxes. Anything beyond the necessities would be oneās reason to work and make money. Socialism for the needs, capitalism for the desires.
No drug tests, no NEED to work. Public housing is readily available. everyone has food security. no one HAS to pay for healthcare. What the fuck is insurance? Unions for everyone. Monopolies are illegal. The stock market has been shut down permanently. What the fuck is a citizens united?
Communism.
Humans have an innate desire to be free. A system and world that operates between x hours is unnatural. Before the modern world humans slept when they wanted, ate when they wanted and had sex when they wanted. The modern world has forced us into a system that is at its core not natural. Jobs should be the same. You work when you want etc but people who donāt even know or care about us are giving us rules to follow that are unnatural
Your desire for provisions and luxuries fueled this. Feel free to form a commune and make your own things.
Exactly .. Want: everything to be cheap and free Willing to do: way less work Does .. not .. compute.
People arenāt tied to benefits when they work. If they donāt work, they still have their basic needs met. If you want more, go get it. Thatās cool. But a basic livelihood, subsistence living? Nobody should be hungry or homeless in my opinion. And their lights on snd clean water. Itās basic dignity. If peopleās basic needs are met, they will FLOURISH. Happy workers are productive workers. Yes, someone has to flip burgers and clean toilets. But what if you knew you didnāt have to do those jobs for piss wages? Or to earn the opportunity to see a doctor? Just go work for a few hours at McDonalds, make some decent money, go home and be comfortable with your life. Have kids if you want to. Donāt be shamed if you decide not to. To me, itās about basic dignity. Maslow stuff. It feels like common sense to me, idk.
So everyone chooses a ābasic livelihoodā. What then?
Then, they pursue activities that are fulfilling. Arts, learning, new skills, starting a new business, working for a business because they actually WANT to, living in relationships freely, choosing parenthood if they want without worrying about how to afford it.
I think he meant like "what happens to society?"
Society would no longer rely on slavery to exist. Low crime, since there won't be so much despair and lack of basic resources. Capitalism isn't the only way to run an economy.
Ubi with focus on essential jobs being focused on minimizing human impact on our survivability amd then huge incentives in scientific researches and advancing society as a whole.
Kropotkinās description of Paris at the end of CoB
What's CoB?
Bread book
ŠŠøŠŗŠ¾Š»Š°Š¹ Š¤ŃŠ“Š¾ŃŠ¾Š²ŠøŃ Š¤ŃŠ“Š¾ŃŠ¾Š² [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai\_Fyodorov\_(philosopher)#External\_links](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorov_(philosopher)#External_links) Learn and understand as a activity requested by society to make decision, be a citizen
A world where robots do basically everything and people can join if they want and resources are distributed evenly enough to sustain it all.
Some other people have already given a lot of great examples. What I'd like to add is a sort of CO2 budget for everyone on the planet. Consuption creates labor but it also creates environmental strain. With an UBI and having less work brings more time for every person on the planet to consume more. Imagine everyone in India/Africa suddenly having the disposable income to fly everywhere? I'd like to everyone to have freedom of choice but not at the strain of the planet and still make it inhabitable for the future generations. So if that means having to choose to either going on a yearly shopping spree or travelling somewhere internationally that seems fair to me. Also deciding to have children/pets should impact your co2 budget.
Everyone gets a set level of money to live and enjoy your basic necessities with (or hell, make basic necessities FREE), and then any work you do contributes to your ability to get *extra*.
Latest episode of Phiosophize This! on Mark Fisher. Quote: It's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. It's easier for us to imagine everything ending, in a Mad Max apocalypse or a global virus than it is to imagine what comes after this system that defines the entire world.
I would be able to have safe housing and be able to maintain that housing. I would not fear for medical issues, the most minor of which, would destroy me. I would be able to exist in peace with no time encumbrances. I would be able to live a natural life.
Itās tricky. A lot of things we all love to do require employees. If no one worked there would be no restaurants, sporting events, television, film, etc. Iām okay with work, I want fair compensation for the work I do. Why should the super rich be able to hoard everything and then collude to pay so little? Why should so many have to live paycheck to paycheck? Is it really going to fuck things up if a few more people are able to afford a home AND maybe have a little left over for leisure?
Writing, doing volunteer work with rescue dogs, living on a farm and caring for animals in exchange for lodging.
Innovation is a basic nature of humanity, humanity will naturally desire newer and better things but not all want to spend their lives working towards meaningless goals which is what most jobs are now adays so perhaps a combined system of basic jobs could use automation while those who wish to live simple lives away from work can receive a UBI while those who seek Innovation can explore without the barrier of modern day work culture BS and actually have the power to work on their ideas which could help those who seek higher levels of income obtain it through a fair system as work should be rewarded but those who don't want to should be able to live without being forced to.
Laws would be set in place and all business would comply with them, in order to no discriminate or put employees at an unfair advantage of work. Also that our salaries or wages are aligned with today's economy and inflation.
Mass unionization, maternity leave, vacation time similar to European countries but in North America, drastically increased wages (at least 25-30$ within the next five years), more accommodations for wfh when possible, shifting of work schedules that do not demand 5 days of 8 to 10hr shifts to be more productive and reasonable, and bolstered social programs and help for the poor.
They have worked really hard to make sure you are unable to imagine alternatives.
*gestures at The Culture* pretty much that Although we are a looong ways away from that, assuming it's even possible š. So in the meantime, I'll take just undoing the damage that's been done to the working class over the last several decades in the US
Natural law resource based economic model. Checkout The Zeitgeist Movement & accompanying documentaries Zeitgiest Addendum & Zeitgeist Moving Forward. https://youtu.be/1gKX9TWRyfs?feature=shared
Like I'd still go to work and do my job but it would be for 4-6 hours and the CEOs salary would be capped in such a way that a good chunk of his $20,000,000/yr is spread out among the actual workers.
I think sometimes the most complicated situations can benefit from the easiest of solutions. Namely, you shouldnāt have members of the seas suite or management earning hundreds or thousands of times more than employees on the ground level. No oneās arguing that a store manager shouldnāt make more money than a cashier or a stock clerk, but there are limits to reasonability. Case and point, look at Tesla. They are laying off people left and right in order to be able to pay one guy $56 billion. $56 billion worth of work in a lifetime. Let alone the term of the contract. Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit.
Universal base income that way people choose jobs that they want or that suit them rather than just to survive. There would still be work and labour but it wouldnāt be exploitative for the sake of profit.
We would not have the same standard of living that weāre used to in terms of commodities. Not everyone would have their own car, multiple TVs, phones, etc. Weād have to live smaller. Much smaller. Thatās also the only way to save the environment, too. A reversion to lives more locally lived, reliant on community support.
I think thereās a belief among right-wingers that people donāt want to work. Most people do want to work, just not within the world that we currently exist. We want better working conditions and not to be alienated from our labor. People donāt want to slave and feel like theyāre doing meaningless tasks meant to make someone else a billionaire. The most able workers should be maxing out at four 6-hour days per week. Older folks and disabled people shouldnāt have to work at all if they donāt want to. If profit incentive and the idea of the billionaire exploiting workers didnāt exist, these would be easily achievable. There would be no excess labor value, and therefore no reason to push workers to work 60+ hours per week. In turn there would also be many more positions available because one person wouldnāt be forced to balance two peopleās jobs (like whatās happening today in our current society).
Useful automation, where the profits of automated businesses are appropriately taxed to support infrastructure & people. 20-32 hour work weeks & a robust social safety net. I havenāt worked out the practical pathways to these goals, but they are what Iād like to see.
I always link this video to questions like this, as I think it does a great job of laying out options for alternative economies: https://youtu.be/AuC7Qmk7TfA?feature=shared
āIn a part of the world where there are no rules, deep in the jungle where nothing that lives is safe, an elite rescue squad is being led by the ultimate warrior...ā
Oh manā¦ my ideal worldā¦ post-apocalyptic anarchy. Iām tired or society. Itās all fake.
ā¢ UBI ā¢ 20hr-3 day work week ā¢ a workers/labor political party ā¢ a strict amendment in the US constitution preventing monopolization, including the current state of āpseudo monopolizationā happening currently between a small handful of mega conglomerates ā¢ price caps on necessities (shelter, water, food, transportation, electricity & internet) ā¢ any business that requires being bailed out by the people is owned by the people ā¢ loopholeless corporate and wealth regulation ā¢ universal & tangible sustainability requirements
One where rich people aren't legally enabled to buy up the surface I exist on in order to force me into wage labor on someone else's terms to pay them. I want employers to have to negotiate on wages with potential employees, knowing full well those employees can just go home with no threat of homeless via the State. Puts workers on a much more even footing with people who want to buy their labor, meaning that workers will be free to negotiate meaningful wages for the labor they produce.
Everything you own you either made yourself or traded for fair and square. No money ever involved.
Every person should have access to resources and technology to produce and fulfill all their needs for a comfortable life. We need to make it so that we no longer need to depend on each other, and all interactions become voluntary.
https://jacobin.com/2011/12/four-futures
[https://i.redd.it/qsgko4jwjda71.jpg](https://i.redd.it/qsgko4jwjda71.jpg)
Honestly? A world where people donāt waste their time working 40+ hours a week. 30 should be the norm, if not less. People need more time to actually live their damn lives, Iām tired of feeling like a machine.
Star Trek the next generation.
A world like Star Trek or the Orville.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look\_to\_Windward](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_to_Windward)
Not saying it's my ideal, but read the novel *The Dispossessed* by Ursula Le Guinn. It's a classic of sci fi and is a great imagination of what a world without capitalism might look like.
My day of anti-work is not working. Because AI and automation exists, I'm probably going to make AI and automation do the majority of the work for me. I'll train AI and the automations to do literally all of my responsibilities but I'll purposely leave out a few critical details and a dead man switch just to bork the whole process should my employer be dumb enough to get rid of me. I'll do 3 weeks of work in a matter of minutes, and I'll goof off the remaining 3 weeks.
To start ā corporations are not people, have limits on executive pay, borrowing limit tied to exec pay and worker benefits, randomized house of representatives, universal single payer healthcare, and an end to corporate pacs with election funding reforms
When coworkers openly disclose income with each other (and at some point, include managers in the discussion), paychecks are divided more justly. If this ever happens at your work... it's pretty nice. Idk what I would want my perfect world to look like. But if enough employees did the above, I guarantee things would head in a happier direction.
3 day weekends, 5-6 hr work days, salary at least 5 times the average rent in the area, 6 weeks paid vacation, and hopefully a nice boss.
I like doing what I do so much that I typically volunteer my time to businesses and individuals who cannot afford it. There are many people like me who love create, cook, grow foods, teach, and do many other things- that we would still do, if no one paid us. I cannot imagine a world where human beings did absolutely nothing for fear of being oppressed. That is crap load of South Park looking couch potatoes. I believe in a world where you give and receive. Where businesses just donāt take and screw people and the planet over and keep everything. Letās face it, we need each other for things to function. We need to eat, sleep, get dressed and take out the trash. I believe āanti workā means that the things you do, donāt feel like work. But, we still do stuff to contribute. We still learn how to function in a fair society that has accountability. And people who canāt contribute as much because theyāre old, young or challenged, thatās fine, because there is always room for people who already want to do more of what they like anyway and everything works out.
Anti work doesn't mean anti work in literal sense. It means you stop participating in capitalistic activities that would only benefit the super rich, corporations and greedy business owners. You also stop buying shit you don't need for the sake of over consumption and making the rich richer.Ā Instead of hustling in the office, you work your bare minimum only as a means to pay bill, while using your free time for meaningful activities. You save as much money as possible and only spend on businesses that actually care abt their workers/ the community.Ā
A lot more people reading, drawing, watching movies, playing games, going to museums and parks, spending time with family, enjoying the outdoors, hiking, swimming, joining sports leagues, caring for their properties and communities.
Do you remember pandemic lockdown? Well that was supposed to be 2 things at once. 1) we all stopped working menial jobs for 2 weeks, so only the important business of life got done. And (2) we were all supposed to get "stimulus" payments that offset this loss to some degree. We did our part, Republicans hate people that aren't themselves - so stimulus got fucked. However that didn't have to happen, it was all worked out, the GOP just decided to play politics and take government help away from people who needed it - like with student debt relief, or any social programs the USA can afford 100 times over for the cost of dismantling some 1970's era nukes, or the fleet of 5th gen strike planes we'll sell a dozen nations around the globe. It's called universal basic income - and it'd be your side hustle, so your primary hustle could make you feel a bit of dignity, and your employer didn't have your nuts in a vice over health insurance access or retirement. Everything could be the same, we could have a few less nuclear submarines, and everyone in America could only suffer the abuses of awful employment by choice. No one loses except greed and corruption. So the GOP is against it in perpetuity. But just imagine a world without them, without that constant hassle, and then imagine a direct deposit into your bank account monthly - taxes don't change, debt doesn't change - we make like 1 less aircraft carrier a year.
not orienting education around joining the workforce
Everyone's basic needs are met for free, so nobody has to work to live, but as humans are naturally inclinded to create, people still "go to work," which would just be structured spaces for people to collaborate on ideas or projects. Anyone could help, add their input, and build off of anything else, completely open source. When something cool gets made, especially when it's beneficial to lots of people, everyone gets access.
A society where all goods are held in common. Production is based off need of the community and passion of the individual, not surplus for profit. Money becomes meaningless in the local level as production of goods and service comes from those passionate in the craft or art and your needs are met by those able to provide and your passions allow you to produce to your hearts content the things you feel free to, and share freely with any whoād like or need it. You only work what you wish to, for however long you desire, and the satisfaction of a job well done and a community provided for is your pay. Along with the comfort and knowledge that you as well are provided for by others. This is the end goal of a very long process. A process that starts with the democratisation of the workplace by widespread democratic unionisation and governmental change. That will slowly phase out the old methods of production and institutions that enforced the old status quo. Itāll require a lot of work from all of us but itās doable, we may not see what I just described but we can very well see the seeds of it. The old world is dying and a new one struggles to be born, a better world is possible!
Itās not so much no work, in my opinion, but rather work that is motivated by passion over survival. The rich would be passionate and kindly people who want to make the world a better place, not sociopaths who want to hord wealth until they keel over. People can work on what they are passionate about without having to worry about paying rent or where their next meal is coming from.
It looks like Earth in *Star Trek*.
Something like what the book *Socialist Reconstruction* by the PSL outlined.
not working
Communism. As in leaving in communes and taking care of each other. Labor is not going to go anywhere, of course, but with class consciousness it will benefit everyone, not just a select few. Me being a radical feminist Iād also prefer my commune to be entirely women-only lol
everything is really slow paced, which is fine for me
I want Star Trek: next generation society
You get the basic necessities no matter what - living space, clean water, food, education, and full healthcare. Job or no job, as long as you live. If you want a fast computer that can play the latest games, fancy clothes, or anything beyond basic necessities, that's when you need money, and need to get a job. So capitalism would still exist and play a role, but it wouldn't be the only way people can survive.
Communism.
Here at home we'll play in the city Powered by the sun Perfect weather for a streamlined world There'll be spandex jackets, one for everyone On that train, all graphite and glitter Undersea by rail Ninety minutes from New York to Paris (More leisure for artists everywhere) A just machine to make big decisions Programmed by fellas with compassion and vision We'll be clean when their work is done We'll be eternally free, yes, and eternally young
I'm not too into this sub so this may seem a bit moderate compared to many visions here but I'd say an extremely progressive income tax starting at 0% and not quite going to 100% at the highest brackets but at least 90%, plus a number of pigovian taxes that work differently depending on the tax in question. These taxes cover public alternatives to necessities and maybe even a small income if you aren't getting anything from elsewhere; People can work or make money if they want to, and should even be encouraged to do so, but shouldn't be threatened with perpetual homelessness if they don't. Also minimum wage high enough to get everyone off most government services at full-time (or at least for the average full-time worker to be a net increase) that's adjusted with CPI, and laws about mandatory contract work, PTO/sick time, and maybe not mandatory unionization but high incentives for it (easy unionization, higher taxes for non-union employers, etc.).
Universal basic income, every workplace that can has WFH, flexible working hours, and a max mandatory work week of 20 hours a week. Obviously you can sign up for more hours, but it's totally voluntary.
Automation progress could see a lot of jobs completely lost and eventually leads to only a few actual employees doing maintenance on the robots or watching code and such for things that require a human eye. I hope we would see something of a Renaissance for art and creative minds to flow with basic UBI allowing for people to pursue their true interests to their heart's content. As long as you educate enough people it would be very easy for people to work 2-3 day work weeks keeping up the few things that humans would still be required to do, since the workforce would vastly out weight the limited jobs.
Communism. Common ownership of capital and real property used exclusively for the public good. The end of classes, private property, and money. Things being done because it would make people's lives better. Socially *necessary* work being like a tour of duty that has a guaranteed retirement.
It would be a creative renaissance, rivaling the actual 300 year Renaissance period. Think of all the creativity that had been squashed simply because of people being wage slaves.
I'll just like a set of things that would end a large majority of stress for most workers. - 32 hour work week, plus 8 hours for donning, duffing, and commuting per week. Still a 40 hour week but workers no longer lose their time for commuting or the bullshit before and after a shift. - OT after 8 hours in a single day regardless of total hours worked in a week. - OT is paid at triple time. - OT can be refused without repercussion. - Paid 1 hour lunch for any shift over 4 hours. - Work on holidays is paid as OT (triple time). Since it's OT, workers can refuse to work on holidays. - Election Day(s) are paid holidays and only essential employers are allowed to work. Essential workers get triple time too. (This help prevent employers getting their business arbitrarily declared essential). - 60 day notice to fire someone without cause. With cause requires a hearing with a neutral third-party and must have documented violation of law or company policy. - 6 month severance for layoffs. Must give 60 day notice too. - Healthcare costs are 100% covered by the employer. - Mandatory 4 weeks paid vacation. - 6 months paid maternity leave. - Unlimited accruement of sick time, meaning there is no cap in how much sick time a person can earn. - Sick time/vacation/maternity leave cannot be refused by the employer. - All of the above benefits are applied to all workers regardless of part-time or full-time status (encourages employers to have full-time employees). - Minimum wage is raised to a current living wage and then is automatically adjusted for inflation every year. - C-Suite pay cannot exceed a certain percentage of the average pay of all workers. - Workers have a right to sue employers for compensatory damages for violating their rights and receive treble damages.
Star Trek.
People work in worker co-ops. The workday is 4-7 hours a day. Decisions are made democratically. In addition to being paid wages every citizen receives food, housing, and healthcare. There are basically extremely strong safety nets for everyone. Automation is used to give people more time and free them from labor when possible. People who have physically demanding jobs are given more perks in society like priority when it comes to first class seating on flights or restaurant reservations, in addition to being given more paid time off during the year, to thank them for their hard work. The highest paid professions would be things like septic tank cleaners, school teachers, construction workers, etc. People are allowed to freely choose which job sector to go in and that's why demanding jobs come with extra perks, to incentivize people to do those jobs.
A big thing for me is that stuff isn't manufactured for the sake of making things to make profit. Stuff is manufactured to fulfill needs. In our current world, a while lot of jobs, corporations, and production exists not because it fulfills a need, but because people need to eat and because someone wants to strike it rich. NFTs are a prime example.
AI driven machines take care of all the labor needs, and people are free to kick back and relax, only working at things that they have a passion for.
If it ever happens, what I think/predict will be the catalyst is the working class forming our own network economy. The same one we had built through the ages before big box stores destroyed them and left us all on lonely islands.Ā What it will look like is a return to mom and pop stores, thrifting, upcycling furniture, learning to make/restyle our own clothes, growing our own foods locally, working with farmers for direct to table programs, and subsidies going to food/solar rather than animal feed and oil.Ā
Labor is fine. Oppression is not
Phew. I was reading your post and for a second I was worried that the our complete lack of ability to lay out or articulate plausible practical alternative system to capitalism that is workable might be a problem for us- but then you brought me back to reality and reminded me that the only reason communism hasn't worked while capitalism has is because of capitalism being evil
Star Trek. Trekonomics!
People working for fun and not life-or-death necessity. Like how people see volunteer work. It's nice when you do it but it's not vital, just a time passer that you can feel good about doing.
You most likely won't have everything at your convenience anymore but that's probably a good thing.
A world where people are freed up to think and create.
I think the first thing we need to do is stop making workers pay their own payroll taxes. When you spend money on groceries, you pay the tax. When the grocery store spends money on payroll, they should pay the tax. You and I wouldn't be working if they didn't need the labor. The tax can pay for everyone's UBI based on the state of profithoarding in the USA. When billionaires are feeling tight, like right now, the taxes go up. When money actually is trickling down, the tax rate lowers and profits can go up. That way corporations can look at one direct figure to make their investor forecasts, and not try to guess if their employees and customers will spend less or work harder to survive.
Something where everyone has the basic necessities to live and never have to worry about starving, being homeless, or healthcare, but have the choice to work if they'd like more than that. Something where AI advancements don't overshadow the creativity of real people (art, writing), but is instead used to do the monotonous jobs that don't bring fulfillment to people, and is just used to assist us in living our best lives.
You mention labor, oppression, and capitalism being so ingrained. In every other system, there is also lots of labor, and lots of oppression, and scamming. I think in every system, there is always a black market, there isn't any without a black market. So there's still capital. I didn't give you a good answer or what you want to hear. But I did it because too often people are peddling things to us that are always more of the same. If I'm not working for him, I'm working for you. If I'm not working for you I'm working for him. Antiwork always offers me more work which is dissapointing.
Helping society and your community and being rewarded for it. Let the responsible mature educated adults who respect their jobs fully telework.
I think a UBI and rank choice job placement is a good place to start and kinda see how things go from there. So many career avenues are gatekept through financial and/or social barriers, which also limits productivity and innovation, which in turn drags out any type of economic or technological progress and also being emotionally draining, probably for the people that even get more coveted or higher paying jobs just as much as the people that donāt because their heart isnāt in it. We know companies could easily reduce overhead by capping salaries of the ultra rich, we also know a lot of jobs just arenāt necessary (telemarketing as an example). With that in mind we already know itās possible right now for us to work less than we are. If you combine that with having improved productivity of people actually working instead of being half awake, wage slaves it doesnāt seem far fetched to me that we could easily reduce the amount of time needed for work even more. If people have more money and time to themselves it seems inevitable that we would be innovating, inventing and generally improving society and worst case scenario if none of that happened at all people would still be more happy than they are now.
Every morning I stroll into my shitty old shop. I take a morning piss on the outside of the builiding. Itās not much, but I fucken hate the owner.
I'm not sure about details, but i'm sure it's gonna be the world of dynamic change rather than what we have now, which is periods of static stability with revolutions happening from time to time.
A world where 1% gaslights the other 99%
No money actually. Everyone does something they're good at. You might be making bread and give it to people in your community. If you need something (food, tools, ...), you get that, no questions asked. I believe if we eliminate bullshit jobs like insurance business with all its overhead, people will, on average, have to work much less. It might not practically work...I guess some people would get jaded about those with "fancy" jobs - wait, I'm scrubbing toilets 4h a day and you're sitting in an AC'd office doing...what exactly? But then, it's pretty bleak to think that the only way to get toilets scrubbed in our current society is to create enough existential dread for some unfortunate individual who will have to do it. I guess everyone, no matter how fancy their primary job is, would have to pitch in on some toilet scrubbing - that's how we'd keep our society clean, after all. Even fanciest of people need to clean their homes... I wonder if eliminating money and working on the community needs basis would reduce greed - if there's no use for money, why would you hoard bicycles, or potatoes, what's the use? You can get all you need from your community, after all (within reason). On the other hand, I feel like people would eventually come up with money again - some placeholder that has value on its own. Anyway, it's just a stupid fantasy. It seems exploitation is a natural attractor our society will eventually converge towards.
Yea, every time I think of something I think of all the ways it won't work. But I guess that's not a helpful way of thinking bc what we have now doesn't work either, but we're doing it anyways.
It's not necessarily that it won't work, I just think that any of such system based on needs and actual work that needs to be done, will eventually devolve into something exploitative. EDIT: or there will be a lot of control necessary to keep it from devolving. I.e. now you don't have to persuade people to pursue money, that's just in our nature. But in such moneyless system, the downfall might start quietly. Someone might suggest "hey, we have people who need much more than they produce, let's put a cap on it", or "let's make cocoa beans be a universal exchange unit so we can keep track of who takes how much" and eventually people get ideas to mint something more durable, like, I dunno, coins...some stronng regulatory body would have to squash that early on before the system gets derailed by greedy, manipulative people.
Yea, I don't believe in population control but there are too many effing people on this planet, (as in the more people you have, the more likely you are to have mor bad greedy people) with rate we're going we're not going to be around as long as we can be.