
A nation of slaves - semanticist
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/04/a-nation-of-slaves.html
======
mjmahone17
One of the biggest views I see in my parents and grandparents: work provides
purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you
are a failure. This is really hard to respond to, especially with people who
have spent 50 years working with this mindset, because they feel "invalidated"
or "worthless" if their life's worth isn't measured by their work output.

I don't think that's necessarily a "bad" world view to have, especially if it
pushes you to provide some social good that you wouldn't if you thought it was
OK to be lazy. But I think it's harmful to impose that view on others. If you
have no choice but to work or be discarded, then, when the value you can
provide via work is less than that required to maintain your life, you have no
choice but to attempt to indenture yourself. And failing that, you're truly,
completely fucked. The purpose of entitlements ought to be (though currently
aren't) to provide reassurance against a requirement to sell yourself to
survive. And I truly believe, if we don't correct this failing of
entitlements, then we will see mass indentured servitude (though it won't be
called that), in developed countries, in my lifetime, of citizens of said
country. Currently, we already see mass indentured servitude, but we say it's
not that big a deal because

[1] The indentured are immigrants

[2] The indentured are in un-developed countries

[3] The indentured are "ghetto", "whore", or "gangster", which is seen as
pretty equivalent to [2]

~~~
vijayr
_work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and
therefore, you are a failure_

Regardless of age, I guess most people feel this way (not just the previous
generations - even the people in their 20's and 30's today). What is the
alternative to this? If not work - what is important? what makes one person a
success and another a failure, and what gives purpose and dignity to life, in
your opinion?

~~~
tambourine_man
_what makes one person a success and another a failure_

Why not abandon the notion altogether? This is not a competition.

~~~
infruset
I think it is interesting that in French, this notion of a person being
successful has no natural translation (although you can say it if you really
want to) and it is something I never hear being mentioned.

------
habosa
The discussion here ([http://libcom.org/library/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-
david-gra...](http://libcom.org/library/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-
graeber)) which is linked from the original post is, imo, more interesting and
thought provoking.

I think most people can immediately identify with the idea of "working" 40
hours while really only doing 15 hours of hard work and 25 hours of paper
pushing and procrastinating. Maybe not in your current job but almost
certainly in some job you once held.

I think this is a product of work culture. There are, at almost every halfway
useful company, a number of truly busy people. These people have 40 hours of
things to do every week, or at least need 40 hours to properly instruct their
subordinates. However it is often the case that they only really need 15h of
hard work from each subordinate. The issue is that it's not culturally
acceptable to say to your boss "I just did all you need from me this week in a
few hours, I'm going to the beach now". So such a worker faces the choice of
either speaking up and asking for more work, or dragging out the minimal work
they have to do until it takes an "acceptable" amount of time. Since time is
our most valuable asset the culture of a company is considered fair when
people are giving relatively equal time sacrifices to the task at hand.

I know I have been lucky enough to have a manager that was not offended if I
finished all of my work early and left, but 99% of people never have that
luxury. It's psychological, most people don't want others to get off easy.

~~~
socalnate1
See also:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law),
"work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

I don't think most people make the conscious choice to drag out their work, it
just happens naturally as our work expands to fill the time we've committed to
being in the office.

~~~
conanbatt
The book Peopleware condemns Parkinsons Law as unproven.

The problem with Parkinson's Law is that management also knows it, so they
think they can constrict their deadlines a lot and the work will get done, and
if its not, they can pressure you to work extra hours to do it.

~~~
doktrin
> _The book Peopleware condemns Parkinsons Law as unproven._

They condemned a humorous tongue-in-cheek adage as being unproven? Talk about
going after the lowest hanging fruit.

------
stefantalpalaru
An unconditional basic income[1] would speed up a paradigm shift from the
current "work or starve" society. Maybe our grandchildren will look back to
this time and make funny jokes about digging and filling holes...

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income)

~~~
bausson
Basic income mean huge changes:

For example, salary may still be partially driven by necessary education /
experience, but physical, tiresome or stressfull works would requireask for
way higher salaries (because you get up at 4AM to collect garbage when you
have no other choice, or when you think it really is worth it, and those jobs
would still be necessary)

The same way, some companies will have huge problems filling the ranks (let's
say: food industry, waiter, marts cashiers (or the people filling the mart at
night), ...

But education industry (and universities) would have to change their methods,
because nowadays peoples are willing to commit 100,000's of $ to get a well
paying job, this incentive would be gone, the better paying one being the
physical labor, with low education requirement.

I also wonder if people would go with their lives the same way they do now. I,
for one, would get one of those hard, high-paying job straight out of high
school for a few year, enough to buy a house and save a bit, then go to
university (or self-studying with internet classes, choosing some classes in
common with friends) and study whatever I found get my interest.

TL;DR: I'm all for Basic Income, mainly because I don't see any long-terme
viable alterative, and also because the changes it would bring to society
would be really interesting to study.

~~~
jerf
"Basic income mean huge changes"

I have to admit this alone is enough to give me pause. The logic goes
something like: "Our current social system has produced astonishing wealth. We
can therefore take this to change our current social system and distribute the
wealth more widely. Hooray, we fixed things!"

But this amounts to a rewriting of the social system. _We have no guarantees
that the next social system will produce the same amounts of wealth._ This is
a silent assumption that most advocates seem to make, and it is _completely
unjustified_. Despite the vigorous handwaving, it doesn't take much Econ 101
to guess there's a darned good chance it will produce less. But, if it
produces less, now we're distributing less wealth. Whatever social effects may
occur when that happens, it's pretty unlikely that they're going to be happy
puppies and rainbows.

If one could assume a steady-state and that the effects of the first year will
be the only effects ever, it's all fun and games. But the second and third
order effects seem unlikely to produce a happy society, or even necessarily
one that is still generating wealth at anything like our current pace.

The most popular handwave seems to be "Well, we can just pay people more to do
the things we need done... and look, now they're getting paid more to do these
things, so it's a win! Hooray!" but, well, _follow that through_ to its
logical conclusion... a society that is paying more for its basic needs is a
_poorer society_. Poorer in the same wealth that we're trying to redistribute.
And given that the price has risen, it's also a society that is getting less
of its critical needs.

Sure, the _first_ year of basic income is fun and games. But what does the
twentieth look like? Or the year that you have to claw it back because the
society no longer has the wealth to provide it? What does it look like when
78% of the culture votes for a larger "basic income" every year? Basic income
is probably incompatible with democracy in the long term; what are we going to
do about that? Basic income, democracy, and unrestricted immigration from
poorer places are _definitely_ incompatible with each other, what are we going
to do about that? (Given that we already see plenty of politicians with
incentives to legalize immigrants so they can have their votes, this is a huge
concern.) What does it look like when a natural disaster strikes New York and
society is out billions or trillions of dollars? You have to think about more
than the first year, and you have to think about what _real people_ will do in
reaction, and what _real people_ will do in reaction to those reactions, and
so on and so on. Yes, clearly, Star Trek people do great on something probably
quite like Basic Income, but that doesn't prove much.

And I'm quite concerned that this is something that from a societal point of
view is not something we'd ever be able to remove if it did become infeasible;
I suspect that the populace would happily ride it into straight-up social
collapse before giving it up. We may be disturbingly close to that scenario
even before we try "basic income".

This logic goes flying out the window if we can make robots that "just work"
and can provide for us... but we're not talking about waiting that long right
now, are we? We may have no practical choice but to suck it up until then.
(And ye gods is there probably a thin line between a robot economy smart
enough to provide for us without us doing much, and a robot economy smart
enough to simply dispense with us entirely.)

~~~
stefantalpalaru
> "Our current social system has produced astonishing wealth. [...]"

In Europe the main problem in agriculture is overproduction so farmers
sometimes get payed to leave some land uncultivated and hard limits are
imposed on the production of milk and on the import of bovine meat. This is
not a place where we'll starve because everybody will start painting and
sculpting all of a sudden.

~~~
zhemao
Of course we won't starve, but just having enough food to go around is a
pretty low bar for a society in which people can live comfortably. The working
classes in the developing world today generally don't starve, but no one would
say they have particularly comfortable living conditions. What jerf is saying
that, in the absence of full robot automation, a society in which we have
guaranteed basic income will make us poorer. The question is "how much
poorer"?

~~~
infinite8s
There are a large number of people in the 'working' class (at least in the US)
who are struggling daily to make enough money to be able to feed a family.
They aren't starving as yet, but it just takes a small unfortunate incident to
push them over the edge into spiraling poverty.

------
molsongolden
This is a stressful topic that gets overwhelming quickly. Things are shifting
but it's a slow shift and one that is going to be extremely painful before it
gets better. Some interesting work going on with worker coops, parecon, post-
scarcity economics, etc... As one of the linked comments noted "Looks like
we've built higher-phase communism accidentally. Ooops."

The Keynes article he briefly touches on is fantastic

[http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/1...](http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/1930/our-
grandchildren.htm)

"Yet there is no country and no people, I think, who can look forward to the
age of leisure and of abundance without a dread. For we have been trained too
long to strive and not to enjoy. It is a fearful problem for the ordinary
person, with no special talents, to occupy himself, especially if he no longer
has roots in the soil or in custom or in the beloved conventions of a
traditional society. To judge from the behaviour and the achievements of the
wealthy classes to-day in any quarter of the world, the outlook is very
depressing! For these are, so to speak, our advance guard – those who are
spying out the promised land for the rest of us and pitching their camp there.
For they have most of them failed disastrously, so it seems to me – those who
have an independent income but no associations or duties or ties – to solve
the problem which has been set them.

I feel sure that with a little more experience we shall use the new-found
bounty of nature quite differently from the way in which the rich use it to-
day, and will map out for ourselves a plan of life quite otherwise than
theirs.

For many ages to come the old Adam will be so strong in us that everybody will
need to do some work if he is to be contented. We shall do more things for
ourselves than is usual with the rich to-day, only too glad to have small
duties and tasks and routines. But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread
the bread thin on the butter – to make what work there is still to be done to
be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may
put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough
to satisfy the old Adam in most of us! "

~~~
gregpilling
While having a beer last week with some friends, the topic turned to the old
question "What would you do if you suddenly had $20 million dollars handed to
you?". This is an old question of course, on HN it would be called F U money,
but it had been asked that day by a customer of my friend Kevin. Kevin makes
jewelry tools. His immediate response was "I could buy more tools and
machines!", which was my basic response also. I have a nice new CNC lathe on
my list next, a mere $100,000.

I think it is funny, that given enough money not to work our (Kevin, me) first
reaction is to think of the things we could buy that would let us do more
work. For the most part I enjoy my work, and I would get more enjoyment with
fancy new equipment. "who can look forward to the age of leisure and of
abundance without a dread" does not seem true in this case.

YMMV of course. Given FU money, I would probably not work 40 hours a week,
every week. It would be more like 10 hours one week and 80 another. When I am
in the passion of a new idea, the time flies by and 80 hours feels like
nothing. Anyone who has worked all night on a project and then seen the sun
rise knows what I mean. I find those times some of the most enjoyable in my
life.

I think humans like to do things. Make games, write software, build
sandcastles, etc. Removing the need for work would not remove the work. The
work would just be what we found to be entertaining to ourselves, instead of a
job to eat.

~~~
molsongolden
> "I think humans like to do things. Make games, write software, build
> sandcastles, etc. Removing the need for work would not remove the work. The
> work would just be what we found to be entertaining to ourselves, instead of
> a job to eat."

This is part of the issue that arises. I've spoken with many people about the
concept of a low-scarcity, low-growth, etc... leisure economy and the
responses are surprising. "But then what will people do?" "What will motivate
them to work?" "Why would anyone want that much free time?" Some people just
don't have passions strong enough to drive their lives.

Keynes also addresses this in the above linked article, saying:

"Thus we have been expressly evolved by nature – with all our impulses and
deepest instincts – for the purpose of solving the economic problem. If the
economic problem is solved, mankind will be deprived of its traditional
purpose.

Will this be a benefit? If one believes at all in the real values of life, the
prospect at least opens up the possibility of benefit. Yet I think with dread
of the readjustment of the habits and instincts of the ordinary man, bred into
him for countless generations, which he may be asked to discard within a few
decades.

To use the language of to-day – must we not expect a general “nervous
breakdown“? We already have a little experience of what I mean – a nervous
breakdown of the sort which is already common enough in England and the United
States amongst the wives of the well-to-do classes, unfortunate women, many of
them, who have been deprived by their wealth of their traditional tasks and
occupations – who cannot find it sufficiently amusing, when deprived of the
spur of economic necessity, to cook and clean and mend, yet are quite unable
to find anything more amusing. "

I haven't dug for any data but at first glance it seems that many of our
societal "vices" could be responses to this lack of purpose. Some of the
socialist humanists touch on this topic, what happens to a man without
purpose? Drugs, pornography, violence, depression, striking out and grasping
for any sort of stimulation while flailing in a search for meaning.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
> many of our societal "vices" could be responses to this lack of purpose

I forget who said it, but one author noted that purpose is as spiritually
important as air. Without it, we break down.

How much of the Western world is built on grasping for the Next Big Thing? The
entire consumer culture is predicated on this! And this consumer mindset gets
reflected in the workforce. But if you think about it, it quickly boils down
to the same dull need: the need to dominate, consume, and self-aggrandize.

These motives are exceedingly poor, and we consistently select leaders who
exhibit them, often with terrible consequences.

------
Theodores
Our economies also have this tendency to siphon off surplus and spend it on
expensive military projects such as wars. There is the general year in year
out expenditure on new military toys, keeping the nuclear 'deterrent' up to
date and keeping those boys polishing their boots. We don't get a proper tax
breakdown on this expenditure so I would only be guessing as to how much is
really spent.

On top of this regular expenditure are the billions that have been spent
bombing Afghanistan and Iraq to pieces. We have been saddled with debt to pay
for that and it won't be the politicians that will be personally paying that
off.

Although a lot of people don't wish to see it that way, war is a racket.
Nobody would bother unless there was money to be made. The waste goes far
beyond the lives lost and the taxes diverted, there is also a real loss of
valuable materials and energy resources. It is all an incredible waste yet we
are always told that 'defence' is good for jobs.

Given the default option for siphoning off the 'fruits of capitalist surplus'
is more and more bombs and weapons, that is kind of what we all work for in
our variously inane jobs. Isn't this a fantastic situation?

~~~
mahyarm
Military expenditures are about %4.2 [1] of GDP, compared lets say the
financial sector which has increased to %8.4 from it's under %3 level in the
1950s[2]. Or the healthcare sector, which consumes 17.4% of GDP in the USA[3].
Compared to the typical average of ~%11 for countries with socialized
medicine.

Most of the US tax expenditure goes towards social security and medicare. But
your talking about a governmental system that can print it's own currency and
is the reserve currency of the world, so even that is a bit wonky to think
about.

If the USA fixed it's regulatory health care mess, broke the artificial supply
constraints on doctors, made medical devices not have %1000+ profit margins
and socialized their healthcare, they would save more GDP than liquidating the
US military. Shrinking the financial sector back to its 1950's % of GDP would
also pay for the military. Our relatively small software industry is under %2
in 2007.[4]

1\.
[http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS](http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS)

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization)

3\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_Stat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States)

4\. [http://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-GDP-is-the-US-
softwa...](http://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-GDP-is-the-US-software-
industry)

------
brazzy
> Workers in Germany average a little over 35 hours a week, compared to the 42
> hours worked in the UK.

Flat out wrong as per the source cited. The difference is only 0.7 hours, both
for full time employees and for all employees (the numbers above mix the two).

> German law guarantees 30 working days of vacation per year (and I am told
> medical leave for attending a spa resort on top of that).

Nope, it's 29 days _on average_ , but only 20 mandated by law (for a 5 day
working week). And medical leave is, of course, only available if you actually
have medical problems (and paid for by your health insurance or retirement
provider).

~~~
mcormier
Thank you for clarifying. Too often North Americans state "it's like this in
Europe", without researching what the actual facts are like. I have Uncles who
are still quoting facts that are 30 years old and may never have been accurate
to begin with ;)

~~~
semanticist
For the record, Stross is not North American: he lives in Scotland.

~~~
mcormier
Yeah, I haven't read this article yet. I got whisked away on an article
referenced at the beginning of this one and my world view imploded.

[http://libcom.org/library/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-
gra...](http://libcom.org/library/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-graeber)

------
raldi
This article is predicated on the idea that, because we're more efficient
today than 1930, we should be able to work less and live the same lifestyle.

Well, in fact, we _can._ But you can't ignore those last three words: you have
to live _the same lifestyle_ as a typical 1930s person.

* No internet.

* No TV.

* No air conditioning.

* No cell phone.

* No car.

* Bunk beds for your kids.

* One bathroom for the whole house.

* No flying, anywhere, ever.

* No fancy restaurants.

* No organic groceries.

The reason we're still working 1930 hours in 2014 is that we prefer it -- that
is, we prefer the rich lifestyle those hours provide us.

~~~
angersock
What? That's quite silly.

On the internet/TV for example, you are failing to take into account the
spread of tech and efficiency. We can have factories produce TVs
automatically, and internet infrastructure doesn't require a huge number of
people to keep it running--and most of them, I wager, would be happy to keep
doing what they're doing, because it's _fun_.

As for fancy restaurants or organic groceries...that's just a function of
cooking something well and having something to cook. If you're not working all
the time, you are more likely to be able to help in your community garden.

I'm sorry, but your assertion isn't borne out by thought.

~~~
dang
_What? That 's quite silly._ [...] _I 'm sorry, but your assertion isn't borne
out by thought._

This comment would have been better without its hostile preface and its
hostile appendix. Please don't use such language on Hacker News.

All: Please re-read what you've posted and, if it contains phrases that
contribute hostility to the discussion, edit them out.

This is really important, because (speaking metaphorically) our brains are all
programmed to pick up on the agitation in such language. That leads to bad
things, like the comment getting less reflective attention, and threads
getting provoked into a downward spiral.

~~~
angersock
This is meant in all seriousness (and posted here instead of private mail
because it is something that others could probably benefit from reading):

The preface is the gist of my post ("I disagree with your reasoning, and find
it absurd."), and the appendix summarizes the conclusion ("The conclusion
you've come to does not follow logically once you take into account other
factors").

I agree (having written some bad posts in my time) that writing "You're a
fucking idiot, how the hell did you come up with this?" is not good discourse.

At the same time, avoiding any flavor or diction in our writing here would
make it tedious to read and worse still boring to write.

There's got to be some middle-ground; I assure you that it wasn't written to
be hostile (consider the corrective reply and my acknowledgement elsewhere in
this subthread).

EDIT: Also, where do you come down on the "meta discussion kills" theory of
communities?

~~~
dang
I am confident that the creative and intelligent users of Hacker News can
figure out how to retain "flavor and diction" while making their writing more
substantive and less rude.

Meta discussion is bad on HN. My current stream of meta comments is a special
case, and temporary. Sometimes one prescribes medicine that is toxic because
the disease is worse. Hacker News' disease is unsubstantive and hostile
language in comments. We're pushing hard against this problem from several
angles. Providing clear feedback to the community is one.

I don't want to jinx it by commenting on how well it's going so far, but I
would definitely like to invite any of you who notice a _change_ , for better
or worse, to tell us about it at hn@ycombinator.com. We'll read it with
interest.

(Edited for less risk of jinxing.)

------
danford
Great article. One of the things that many people have an aversion to when it
comes to this kind of thing is the "socialist" aspect of it. We all agree that
it's great, but is it for everybody? I totally see where libertarians come
from. They want A LOT of freedom. But why can't we have it both ways? One of
the reasons socialism is hard to maintain is because of how spread out things
can be, I think we can all agree that with socialism you inevitably have to
force people to do certain things so that society can work (for example, live
in a certain place), and this is much easier to do in a small location, but
what's stopping us from having two sets of laws governing two areas of land?

You can fit everyone in the US into an area the size of Jacksonville Fl., so
why not just establish "tech-metros" which are open to anyone and provide
basic necessities in a socialized fashion, and use automation and
digitalization to provide goods and services, while designating certain swaths
of land out side these places as under a different set of laws that are more
libertarian in nature? I believe ~60% of people would flock to the "tech-
metros" while the remaining portion would attempt life in a more privatized
fashion out side of them. With a more centralized "sub-government" in charge
of these small areas, and with it being easy to come and go as you please, it
should be easier to take care of the masses that want to be taken care of and
let the masses who don't want to be taken care of take care of themselves.

Now that's just a couple paragraphs on a very radical idea, so there are a lot
of details being left out, but imho this idea provides the most happiness
along with the least destruction.

------
tomp
> Why should we not divert some of our growth into growing our leisure time,
> rather than growing our physical wealth?

Because not everyone was created equal. Some professions are completely
worthless (e.g. ad creators) and add nothing net to the society. Others, e.g.
doctors, are so valuable, and so few people can do them, that they simply
can't afford to work less (educating more doctors so that they can work fewer
hours is not an answer - I'm not a doctor, but I imagine it takes a relatively
fixed amount of hours of training to actually "become a doctor" (after
finishing your education), so if doctors worked less, they would be worse
doctors). The social contract then dictates that everyone must work, since
doctors have to work.

Solution: automate medicine, energy, food.

~~~
beat
As Bob Black pointed out in _The Abolition of Work_ , if a job is worth doing,
someone would do it, whether or not they got paid to do it. Charlie Stross
made that point in his essay - he'd continue to be a writer even if he didn't
need to write for a living.

The same is true of doctors. And farmers. And firemen.

~~~
ctdonath
I contend a core persistent failing of FOSS is proof that premise is not true.
There is somewhere around 5% of any project which must be done, but which
nobody wants to do because it's hard/dirty work which produces little (but not
zero or negative) benefit, is not interesting, few if any will appreciate (or
even notice) it, but without which there will be a persistent stumbling block.

Sure, writers & doctors & farmers & firemen might do their stereotypical work
for free because that's just what they do. But what about street cleaners &
trash haulers? janitors for public housing? high-risk divers for floating oil
rigs? Are you going to regularly clean, for free, elevators that low-end
public-housing occupants piss in daily? pick up trash on the street, dumped
there faster than you can clean up by bored teens who know they'll never have
to do anything because their GBI cards will always get them food & pay the
rent, and who are amused by your frustration at their persistent
destructiveness?

------
terranstyler
There is a big fallacy in the article:

Namely, that the amount of work that can be done has an upper bound.

In fact, the amount of work that can be be done is infinite and with higher
productivity other things are done (= can be done economically) than before,
for example:

Cleaning the streets, painting your house white, keeping your nearby river
clean, build tanks & guns, maintaining bureaucracy, helping people you don't
know (welfare state).

These things are all non-essential (yeah yeah I know but still ...), yet are
only done now because only recently we achieved the productivity / wealth of
being able to do it.

If we stop doing these things we will feel wealthier because individually,
we'll have more resources to fulfill our needs. We would maybe still help our
neighbours or paint our house white or buy guns but we would (or not) do it
because we decided it ourselves.

I suppose in the future there will be other things we'll do that now seem
insane: maybe even the poorest might have a swimming pool, or we commute a few
thousand kilometers to work, or we each carry a wearable computer around
without needing it for work (can you imagine???).

But there will be work, it is as certain as death and taxes.

~~~
ctdonath
The complementary fallacy also in the article: the amount of work required has
a lower bound of zero.

Survival isn't free. We consume (destroy) just to maintain a lowest-common-
denominator status quo. The Red Queen was right: we need to run (work) hard
just to keep up with staying where we are (98 degrees F). To keep two people
at that state of basic survival while one does nothing to produce whatever's
needed to maintain their fair share, the other has to work twice as hard - and
without some suitable incentive, the one working will lose interest in doing
so.

Yes, we're in a wealthy society. We're at this level because everyone, on the
whole, works hard and pitches in. If a growing subset decide to just bask in
the luxury, it's all going to come crashing down. As tax season approaches,
I'm reminded of how much is taken from me - making it hard to do what I
consider essential for my family, and making me reconsider my role in society;
take enough from me, and I can go "off grid" pretty fast. Remember the goose
who laid golden eggs.

------
ds9
The author points out that it's _possible_ in some sense to have a world with
less work, OK material standards, more leisure and less unhappiness. People
would still work, social/technological advancement would still occur, but
people would be more content and maybe many would move to jobs that would make
more of their talents.

This, however, is looking only at big numbers on a macro level. It ignores all
the things which have prevented this outcome from actually happening. These
include (1) incentives (2) ideology.

1\. If employer A allows less than 40 hour work weeks, or more vacation, he
can be beaten out in the market by employer B which mandates longer hours and
produces more per time period. Employees might prefer A over B, but they have
so little bargaining power that this will not stop B. If the same requirements
are imposed on all employers, then the country will be out-competed by others.

2\. Conservatives criticize any such proposal with an argument like this: "You
should be free to use your property as you wish, including by having people
work as long as you can get them to agree to. And everything is already owned,
so the only way to provide more for one person is to take away from another,
and it's wrong to take money or other values from people who have earned them,
to give to others who have not earned them."

Regardless of the merits of the argument, it is effective with the public, and
politicians use it effectively to protect the owners. This can never change
unless someone can present a contrary view that can be stated in equally pithy
sound-bites and which is equally convincing for large numbers of voters (in
democratic countries, basically W. Europe and parts of S. America) or unless a
large enough segment commit to a revolution (in the rest of the countries
which are not democratic).

------
stcredzero
I left a job where I was basically paid to be the other guy with a heartbeat
who knows Smalltalk. I did nothing but browse all day, and it was soul
crushing. (Also responsible for a significant chunk of my HN karma.)

[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-06-02/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-06-02/)

------
netcan
If you're feeling unbiased enough to try and ignore what certain words mean to
use today, you may want to ready Oscar Wilde's take on these things from a
19th century point of view.

If the words "Socialist" or "Marxist" mean something much more livid to you
than " Romanticism" or "Postmodernism," you are not allowed to read the linked
article^

[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-
oscar/soul-m...](http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-
man/)

^I was considering banning Americans from reading this article. I'm allowing
it for now, but please behave.

~~~
mcguire
Speaking as an American, I cannot see anything much more livid than
"Romanticism", except "Postmodernism".

~~~
netcan
OK. You have permission to read Oscar Wilde.

------
rjzzleep
funny i was talking about something similar with a friend last night. think
about this:

in a lot of professions it's common to study about up to 10 years before you
start working. that's after 12-13 years of school(unless you're a professional
athlete)

you study for a quarter century. think about it. a quarter of a century.
that's the height of your youth. then you're allowed to work for 40 years so
you can "enjoy" your retirement(provided you still get any retirement at that
time).

that's by the way the time when you have pain all over your body, wake up at 4
am and go to bed at 9.

who's winning here? who are we kidding?

~~~
wmt
Studying for a quarter of a century during the height of your youth a reward
on its own, and it's unfortunate that for so many it's just a path to
employment. I wouldn't change that even in the imaginary utopia I can dream
about.

What's BS is having to pay for that is the less fortunate countries, and a
pressure to churn people through it as fast as possible.

~~~
seestheday
I wish I could just study new things constantly.

I do it as a hobby. Every once and a while I find a completely new rabbit hole
to dive into and I find it exhilarating. I wish I could spend all of my time
learning and making new things, ranging from computer systems/programs to
rebuilding old motorcycles/cars or learning how to draw.

I did find my physics degree a little tiring by the 4th year, but that was
mostly because I had discovered computer science.

------
logfromblammo
Here's a thought experiment.

Mr. Myne has invented an extraordinary machine. This one machine can, using
polluted air and brackish water as material inputs, produce a nutritious food
substitute and potable water for one person for one entire day with less than
$1.30 of grid power. The 2000 kcal daily diet uses about 8000 kcal of
electricity and 10 L of dirty water. With this machine, a person can avoid
starvation and dehydration for less than $500 per year.

But Mr. Myne owns the machines. He will lease them out for the low, low price
of $8 per day. That's cheap for 100% of your daily nutrition! You still have
to pay for the electricity and water yourself, which is about $1.50 a day.

There's the hypothetical. Now here's the experiment. What happens if people
decide to stop paying Mr. Myne to use his machines?

~~~
mjmahone17
This is why patents ought to be property in the same sense that land or leases
are property, and the govt. ought to be able to use eminent domain on them.
Pay Mr. Myne a lot for his contribution to society, but then make sure that
even the least-well-off can take advantage of this newfound material wealth
without exploitation.

~~~
wtbob
Patents are property which is _automatically_ taken by eminent domain when the
patent term expires.

~~~
maxerickson
The legal protection is rescinded, not taken.

(People have some sort of natural right to ideas that they never share, beyond
that it's all protection granted by society. I guess it's a minor
distinction.)

------
skittles
A free-market society would never average a 15 hour work week unless there's
no incentive to _pay_ for the work anymore. This could happen if we find a
limitless energy source and real artificial intelligence. As long as someone
is willing to pay for hours of work, people will be willing to work more than
15 hours a week to get ahead.

~~~
semanticist
Why?

No, seriously, if I can work 15 hours a week and live comfortably, why is
there an automatic assumption that I'd need to work more just because other
people are prepared to do that? What does 'get ahead' even mean, in that
context?

There's so many social and cultural assumptions bound up in your statement
that it's nearly meaningless for anyone who isn't you.

~~~
habosa
People don't just want to do well, they want to do better than those around
them. it's natural to many people (maybe not to you, but to many). I read this
quote from a wall street executive in an article recently posted on HN: "
“It's not just enough to fly in first class; I have to know my friends are
flying in coach."

So unless nobody is selling first class tickets, people will work harder to
afford them. And in order for the market to work, the seller of tickets will
raise the price of first class until only ~10% of flying passengers can afford
it.

~~~
semanticist
I don't think your Wall Street exec is expressing a common viewpoint. In fact,
I think he's probably a sociopath, and if we can architecture a society which
is actively hostile to those kind of attitudes I think it could only be a good
thing.

------
fidotron
This looks like a lot of words to disguise the fact it's neo-luddism.

With technological progress worker roles are eliminated, but the idea is that
the market has demand for new currently non-existent things and as the
progress enables those things to come into existence creating new jobs as it
goes.

The much larger problem is people are genuinely getting conditioned to
receiving a lot for nothing, and this has distorted the market in terms of
what activities are most highly rewarded. For example, easy credit means
selling to people that don't have the money (or the means) is actually very
lucrative, so you get a lot of otherwise smart people engaged in activities to
extract money from those with easy credit as opposed to applying their talents
to contributing more positively to the system as a whole.

~~~
jal278
> With technological progress worker roles are eliminated, but the idea is
> that the market has demand for new currently non-existent things and as the
> progress enables those things to come into existence creating new jobs as it
> goes.

The author is arguing that this isn't always the case. You can't take it as an
axiom that the market will always have need for employing _everyone_.

For example, as automation becomes more sophisticated, the intelligence needed
to use or modulate that automation may increase. As that base requirement
rises, more people may become structurally unemployable. In the limit, if
there is little that humans can do better than computers, there is little need
to employ many humans.

~~~
handzhiev
Why do people have to be employed at all? If computers/robots become as good
(I don't see this in close future), people will just use them to produce what
they need and they will not need money.

