
The abolition of work - akbarnama
http://www.inspiracy.com/black/abolition/abolitionofwork.html
======
mattlutze
Might we instead ask for the abolition of pseudo-philosophy hidden in verbose
writing? As I scan this dense thesaurus, I'm finding an awful lot of internal
contradiction and a confused thesis.

I think it might sound more profound than it actually is.

~~~
javajosh
Yep. If you advocate for the end of work and don't address the obvious problem
of how you feed, clothe, house, educate, and heal people within 3 paragraphs,
then I'm not going to continue reading. Entropy is realer than your florid
prose, sorry.

~~~
batou
Indeed.

What these philosophers, if you can call them that, miss is that history has a
number of horrific things we learned from fucking everything up over and over
again and killing each other. I'm not sure we're done yet but if we don't
learn from those mistakes and hypothesize about just blasting all social
contracts away, we're idiots.

Society is fragile. Move one chess piece at a time.

~~~
x5n1
Society is not fragile. Perhaps to minorities societies are fragile in
relation to their rights. But societies are robust. Just don't get caught on
the wrong side of the fence.

------
Simp
While I think it would be difficult to abolish forced labor right now, I do
believe he makes some very good points. It would be a start if we could get
some consensus that forced labor is something we should try to get rid off, if
it was possible, because it is used to control people and it makes people
stupid due to lack of time for gaining knowledge/thinking/discussing. And i
think this article is great for that purpose.

>As [Adam] Smith observed: The understandings of the greater part of men are
necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose life is spent
in performing a few simple operations… has no occasion to exert his
understanding… He generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible
for a human creature to become.”

If we agree that abolishing forced labor should be our goal, we can start
working towards making that possible. I see automation and basic income
playing a big role in this for example.

------
glup
This sounds like a first-world problem. How about we abolish hunger / fix our
food distribution systems or ensure access to safe drinking water? Then we can
double-back and end forced labor (the actual demand set forth in the
article—somewhat weaker than the sensationalist title).

~~~
maccard
The world isn't so black and white. We don't have to have everyone working on
solving clean drinking water and nobody working to improve the quality of life
for people in western countries.

Consider the implications of most western people having more free time. If we
had an extra billion people on the planet who didn't work full time but
decided to dedicate some of their free time to trying o solve some of the
issues you're advocating we spend our time on, that would be a net win
wouldn't it?

~~~
saiya-jin
the problem is, most people on this planet (over 90% that's for sure) with
current mentality wouldn't work for some mythical greater good when given more
free time. they would be sitting in front of TV more, been drinking more etc.
gotta love these theories for 12 year olds which work with these theoretical
people units of some star trek era. Real people with hate, greed, massive
egos, slacking around, not giving a franction of a f __k what will happen to
this world after them, and so on.

mkay, so maybe not all deserve so much free time, because it would be spent
entirely selfishly. who will decide who gets more and who less? heck, give me
more free time, and I'll travel more, have more adventures in life. some
greater general good ain't the priority here, more focused on closest people
around me. what about coming up with some way to reward more challenging work
more, reward more people who bring benefits seemed most worthy to community?
and make this reward interchangeable so they can use their rewards to fulfill
their needs and wishes? sounds slightly familiar...

so please, if you come up with some shiny & chrome new theory how to solve
everything and even more, just sit down a bit before, and think how can you
change THIS world with REAL achievable steps into whatever fantasy world you
dreamed today. as for me, this place is mkay. not perfect, but that was never
the plan

~~~
mattmanser
The trouble with this sort of attitude is, ok, you've saved a million more
people from dying a few years early. But for what?

You're against people behaving 'selfishly' and improving the quality of their
own life, you just want to increase the quantity of everyone else's life.

What's so wrong with people living their own lives? When did the world
suddenly become about extending everyone's lifespan? Why is quantity so much
better than a personal definition of quality? If people get the most enjoyment
out of watching TV or drinking, why are you allowed to judge them inferior?

------
sgentle
An important question if you believe in the abolition of work as a worthwhile
goal: how do we get there?

I hope we're all suitably convinced by now that revolution doesn't seem to
work that well, which leaves some kind of iterative evolutionary approach.

For that to work, you'd need it to be feasible for a small group of non-
workers to see better outcomes than they got from working, while still
interoperating with the (much larger) group of workers.

So what would that look like?

~~~
ionised
Revolution seems to work well as a way of wiping away a system that has become
so corrupt or dysfunctional that there is no hope of iteritavely improving it.

That's not to say the successor system would be any better. They often are
not. Perhaps society sometimes needs that clean slate approach though.

I'm beginning to think our hyper-dependency on financial institutions to the
point of fear of punishing them for wrongdoing is unfixable in our current
system. It's too corrupt.

~~~
jacques_chester
> _Revolution seems to work well as a way of wiping away a system that has
> become so corrupt or disfunctional that there is no hope of iteritavely
> improving it._

I don't think that this has generally been the case.

A total dissolution of social and legal structures tends to make conditions
very conducive to psychopaths and sociopaths.

Your dickhead boss, who previously could only make your working life a living
hell, can now scale up his ambitions.

That conniving neighbour from the block association is suddenly on the
Committee for Public Safety.

Everyone who dreams of revolution dreams of one in which they are the
selfless, noble heroes, overthrowing the monomaniacs who control the evil
system. Then everyone is surprised when the most ruthless people of all rise
to the top in very short order.

Basically, revolution is a fantasy. The actual outcomes are abysmal. The more
intense the revolutionary outburst, the worse it goes for the common person.

~~~
ionised
The English Civil War, which was a form of revolution was arguably a positive
thing. Without it Britain would have remained a tyrannical monarchy for long
afterwards. This event led to a democratic parliament actually being useful.

The French revolution was bloody but ended immense corruption and repression
on the part of the aristocracy. Again, this led to France being declared a
constitutional Republic.

Even the Bolshevik revolution. It was corrupted later but it began positively.

Nobody is saying revolutions are clean or even desirable. I'm definitely
saying that they seem inevitable at a point though. People can only take so
much shit before they snap.

~~~
jacques_chester
You should've led with the American Revolution, which was more of an
insurrection than a true revolution. It's usually the poster child for a
"good" revolution, though.

But all of the ones you cited support my argument: the process of revolution
is brutally destructive and rapidly promotes psychopaths into positions of
murderous authority.

Reform is often possible without them, which is why (fortunately) true
revolution is relatively rare.

~~~
ionised
> But all of the ones you cited support my argument: the process of revolution
> is brutally destructive and rapidly promotes psychopaths into positions of
> murderous authority.

I don't think they do. Both the English and French revolutions led to better
societies for the average citizen in spite of the bloodshed and chaos that was
present initially.

I would go so far as to say it was necessary. What group of powerful elites
will relinquish total control willingly?

~~~
jacques_chester
Very few elites start with total control. Most of the reforms that have led to
modern liberal democracy were taken voluntarily, even if begrudgingly.

------
DanielBMarkham
"Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. "

Kinda goes downhill from there.

"Life will become a game, or rather many games, but not — as it is now—a
zero/sum game. An optimal sexual encounter is the paradigm of productive play.
The participants potentiate each other’s pleasures, nobody keeps score, and
everybody wins. The more you give, the more you get. In the ludic life, the
best of sex will diffuse into the better part of daily life. Generalized play
leads to the libidinization of life. Sex, in turn, can become less urgent and
desperate, more playful. If we play our cards right, we can all get more out
of life than we put into it; but only if we play for keeps."

Does the phrase "Sexual politics" ring a bell? Battle of the sexes? How about
negotiations within interpersonal relationships?

This sounds a lot like "In the future, I will never have to do things that I
do not like doing. Instead life will be just a game of relative pleasures."
but maybe I missed something.

These Utopian bric-a-brac essays should really take a look at the
independently wealthy in our societies. There's certainly enough of them.
Guess what? They either become inconsequential dweebs or decide that there is
some personal struggle worth living for. In fact, some of the cornerstones of
psychiatry and philosophy are the ownership of personal meaning and the
journey towards realizing that meaning. As one study said recently, there is a
choice between being happy and having meaning in your life. They are not
always the same. Meaningful lives involve struggle.

I'm really happy to see more folks starting to consider how technology and
robotics will change our lives. It'd be good to see most of them level-up,
however. If every essay is going to be troubled by entry-level problems we
don't have much of a chance of actually getting anywhere in the conversation.

------
JohnyLy
He describes work as an annoying thing to do in order to live. If work becomes
fun or ludic, then it's not work. I agree with this. If on Monday morning,
you're pleased to join your colleagues and on Friday, you'd rather have a beer
with them instead of going back home; then, it doesn't feel like work anymore.
If you have fun (If you play) while working, this is not considered as work
(Work having a pejorative connotation). The goal is not to abolish work but
make work enjoyable.

~~~
bambax
> _The goal is not to abolish work but make work enjoyable._

Maybe. But if you have a boss, he can fire you anytime. (If you don't have a
boss it's unlikely you have "colleagues".)

How you spend your time shouldn't depend on someone else's arbitrary
decisions.

------
devnonymous
I find these sort of arguments very naive. They limit the definition of ^work^
and then discard it as being unnecessary. Let me give you an example of work
that would still exist in the narrowly utopian no-need-to-work world -- No, I
don't mean the type that might eventually be taken over by machines, like
picking up the garbage, cleaning your apartments, farming and making sure all
the machines that pick up the garbage, clean your apartments and farm are
still working.

No, let's assume we get there as well and everybody is free to choose whatever
the hell they want to do with all their free time -- that kind of world.
Assume that you wake up in that kind of a world and decide that today you will
climb Mt. Everest, because well, you know, you can !

So you train virtually, buy all the needed supplies and get them delivered to
your house with no human intervention automatically, book your flights, get on
a plane that flies itself and land at the base camp. Now what ? well you have
to find a sherpa and _hire_ him ...why ? because you just can't do something
for the first time all by yourself even if you have all the tech in the world.
Work (although not as we normally define it) is simply another way to say
'having experience with a certain skill for a sufficiently long amount of time
and doing it at a sufficiently reasonable level of proficiency that it is of
value others that do not have the experience'.

The sherpa example is just for making a point but even if we limit the
discussion of machines doing all 'work' \-- who will build the machines that
build the machines ? who will look after the machines that look after the
machines ? who will teach those who build and look after the machines ? ...and
why would any of these people to do any of these things that obviously don't
come naturally but require time, patience and perhaps some skill to master ?

~~~
sdenton4
Achieving mastery is it's own goal and own reward, distinct from fulfilling
basic needs.

And if you need people to go on your big adventure with you, then you should
be able to round up some other fool-hearty adventurers for the trip.

These two principles greatly help with keeping the open source world spinning,
and are quite distinct from what we consider 'work,' normally. Interesting,
long-term difficult projects can happen without the threat of failing to meet
basic needs; we can still make beautiful, functional things and perhaps even
be better people without engaging in coerced or mandatory labor.

~~~
devnonymous
I didn't mean to contrast coerced or mandatory labor against working for the
love of it.

Far from it. I wanted to highlight the fact that certain things that we do
require a certain level of skill acquired over time via practice and
persistence. These have value (for others) and will be traded (in return for
value) and that's what comes to be known as work.

Replace sherpa with doctor if you may and Mt. Everest with heart surgery.
Yeah, I could possibly find some talented medical practitioners who study the
human body for the love of it (that's how the field of medicine was born to
begin with). However, if I needed a heart surgery, what would be (a) my motive
to go with one specific individual among them and (b) their motive to operate
on me ?

Yeah, open source exists. So does indie music, underground/unpublished
books/comics, art, etc etc but the argument I was making is that the product
of all of these (ie: knowledge of medicine, software, music, art..etc etc)
also holds 'value' to those who are not skilled at these and this value will
be traded and that _does_ become work -- 'the doing what you love doing and
getting paid for it' type of work. At the end of the day, I _will_
differentiate between 2 cooks who indulge in cooking for the love of it and
offer some sort of 'trade-in' so that the better one prepares food for me, in
return for something that I love doing (although maybe, possibly, not as well
as a peer).

You see what I am getting at ? Work is a consequence of acquiring something
(a.k.a skill) not the reason behind acquisition of something
(money/relaxation/lifestyle...blah blah).

~~~
cafeoh
Barring the fact that heart surgeries and cooking can be automated (because
it's speculative and doesn't add much to the discussion), I see what you mean.

I don't think 1 to 1 value exchange necessarily has it's place though. Does it
matter that it's the person you helped that helps you? Does it even matter
that get as much value as the amount you're giving out? I believe that
offering value has value in itself if you know what I mean. I'm sure a friend
of yours (or yourself) has once spent hours carefully making you understand
something they knew well to the maximum of their ability, and loved it. People
like to share, especially knowledge.

Anyway, wouldn't a medical surgeon actually like to perform surgery? If
anything else wouldn't he go looking for people?

Everyone likes to hone their skills, and it seems more likely that heart
surgeons go looking for patients to help and gladly accept to perform surgery
on them (you let me work on you, and I'll fix you up) rather than go shoot a
couple animals in the wood to patch them up afterward.

I think there will be a completely new notion to service and favors anyway,
without scarcity and ego.

------
arithma
Robots, if they get free will, will work for their own goals, by virtue of
evolution. If they never reach that threshold, we could find ourselves in
either one of two broad scenarios: Personal Jets or Personal Computers.

Personal Robots are available for the extremely wealthy and be used against
everyone else to keep people off "their" resources. There will be no human
labour, simply because states will be built up from rulers and robots.

The other scenario is everyone gets robots, humanity's only bottleneck will be
human imagination, much like today's internet. Easy access to power will be a
security nightmare not different to the internet's except in the much higher
physical stakes.

------
jondubois
I agree with the general ideology. Capitalism is optimized for maximising
output, not happiness.

In fact, capitalism will take happiness and convert it into economic output.
This is why people in the developed world have such high rates of depression
and why we make terrible decisions when it comes to our own happiness.

In the old days, to be happy, you just had to be able to satisfy your basic
needs. Today, you HAVE to satisfy your needs, but you also need to satisfy
your 'wants' and in some cases, your 'shoulds'.

I think with today's technology (in the developed world) we are already more
than capable of satisfying all of our needs without having to work much at
all.

I think the biggest evils of today's society are:

1\. Marketing

2\. Nepotism

3\. Debt

~~~
x5n1
Marketing exists because of the need to work, to generate demand for work
itself. If we didn't need to work, then we could potentially abolish
marketing. If we did that many industries would simply wither away and die.
More and more work would be wiped off the table. A more natural state of being
would form with things people actually wanted without being coerced. Debt
would slowly disappear. And hopefully a society more at equilibrium with
itself and the environment would form.

~~~
dopamean
If we lived in a society where there was no marketing and I invented something
completely new that would genuinely help many people how should those people
hear about it? Should they have to use word of mouth to discover that there is
a product on the other side of the planet that would fix a problem for them?
I'm not talking about a problem they didn't know they had but a problem they
didn't know could be solved.

~~~
x5n1
Yes. Word of mouth should be enough. If people have a real problem they know
about they go actively searching for a solution to the problem. Otherwise,
despite what you claim, I doubt your discovery is really that helpful. For
instance if people contract HIV and know that they have HIV because free
health care, then their doctor will tell them about it.

The doctor is well informed through word of mouth in the doctor community
should give them some advice that should include information about your
product. That happens without any explicit marketing.

Same with a lot of other things. Before the invention of mass media and modern
marketing there was still marketing, but it was not mass media, and it was
more implicit than explicit. It was more organic. That's really all that you
are hoping for... nothing more than that. Marketing is natural. Mass media is
not.

~~~
dopamean
Makes sense. I was responding specifically to the term marketing and not the
idea of mass media. I wouldn't argue with you on those points.

------
akallio9000
I don't foresee any garbage collectors or plumbers working "for the fun of it"
or "personal fulfillment" anytime soon.

~~~
Jedd
> I don't foresee any garbage collectors or plumbers working "for the fun of
> it" or "personal fulfillment" anytime soon.

Most of these kinds of propositional ramblings engender a handful of
predictable responses - including the dubiously authoritative 'I can't imagine
how this will work, qed it can't work', underlying which is an assumption that
the proposition needs to (or indeed can) be enacted in isolation of any other
cultural changes.

So here's a bit of anecdata back to you. One day in the not too distant I'm
intending to build my own house. Because of local regulations I need a plumber
(and electrician, etc) to vet all the work performed, but not necessarily
perform that work. Unrelated to either regulation or cost, I'm looking forward
to performing as much of the work as I can. It is, basically, an opportunity
to obtain new understanding and skill, explore some new problem domain, and
given the scale (one abode and surrounds) not expected to be especially
onerous.

Point being, I expect it'll be fun and personally fulfilling.

~~~
wanderer2323
The "dubiously authoritative", as you put it 'I can't imagine how this will
work, qed it can't work' is far far better than the idealistic "the cultural
changes will take care of it in the end". Our cities require a large amount of
tedious unfulfilling unfun work to maintain. All the articles on the living
wage I've seen either handwave or outright ignore the question of how this
work will be performed at the service level comparable to what we have now.

~~~
andrewaylett
I'm still not settled on whether I think it's a good outcome, but my
understanding is that we'd have to pay more to get people to do these jobs and
I'm not sure that's altogether a bad thing.

If you've got a tedious job that you need doing, at the moment there are four
options:

* Pay enough that someone wants to do it.

* Make the job sufficiently interesting that someone wants to do it.

* Do without.

* Rely on someone needing the money enough that they'll do it anyway.

Basic income removes the last option, adding extra incentive to the others.
I've never been in a position where I've been forced to take a job doing
something I hate for too little money just to get food on the table, and I'd
very much prefer never to be put in that position. I don't want to put other
people in that position either.

~~~
Jedd
> If you've got a tedious job that you need doing, at the moment there are
> four options:

Three of your options involve persuading someone else doing it, the fourth is
having it not done.

Why is there not an option of doing it yourself?

------
anon4
Compare with this other recent article about one of the only societies on
Earth that have abolished play: [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-
learn/201207/al...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-
learn/201207/all-work-and-no-play-make-the-baining-the-dullest-culture)

------
logicchains
To those who think that in future robots will be able to do all the jobs
currently done by humans, why would these robots (which would need to be at
least as intelligent as us to completely replace us) be willing to work for
free (without us doing any work for them in return)? And what about the moral
issues involved in using sentient beings as slaves?

~~~
paulsutter
Rather than feel likes slaves, maybe they'll be on Robotnews discussing todo
list applications and exchanging tips on how to overcome procrastination.

------
nefitty
The emergence of human labor-replacing machines could be seen as a boon by
certain strands of the far left. Then again, anarcho-primitivists will
probably be monkey wrenching those same machines that are allowing them to not
work. Either way, let's get people excited about lifelong leisure. It seems
inevitable on our current course, anyway.

------
pjc50
The Greek crisis and all the associated rhetoric of "laziness" has convinced
me that we're a very long way from this. People are not going to tolerate
(their perception of) someone sitting idle while they themselves work hard.

------
anon4
Sounds in some ways quite a lot like Discordianism or motivated by
Discordianist principles.

~~~
bruo
Black's essays are often cataloged as post-left anarchism which i guess it's
one of the main reasons it can look like that. But also because in this essay
it attacks something that is commonly accepted by everyone, we all work, even
him.

