Yes and no. There fundamentally are jobs that are both necessary and unpleasant. It is easy to talk about things like gardening and art, but we need sanitation. Even some level of bureaucracy. There are many kinds of work people may be willing to do for free or cheaply, but also many types of work almost no one would.
PS: You can actually see this in volunteer driven open-source software projects. There are many volunteers to develop features or even fix bugs, but they sorely lack management roles and work on important but niche features (unused by most volunteers) like accessibility for blind people.
Idk I know nurses and janitors that actually enjoy that work. Some people do enjoy doing sanitation and we should let those who enjoy it do it and get their needs met for it. Perhaps the unpleasant jobs should get more incentive? (Currently that’s not the case)
Anyway my main point is incentive instead of coercion. People should all play their part in society but should have their needs met no matter how they choose to play that part. Society not based on maximization of profit would value different jobs than our current Society.
Ok, where do you get those benefits from? Someone needs to work on those, and they will also require benefits. If people don’t have to work, some portion will inevitably either not work or work hobby like jobs (that don’t usually produce very attractive benefits). So you have less things being produced and require more things to guarantee everyone’s needs and significant benefits for working peoples on top of that.
You seem to be under the impression that everything that’s being “produced” right now is of actual value and must be kept up or replaced under a non-capitalistic system. I’d argue the contrary. There is so much braindead wasted labor being performed and energy wasted in the current system that would be completely freed up if our main economic goal were to change from “growth and competition at all cost” to “ensure a good life for everyone”.
At the same time, our ever increasing ability to automate work and solar energy becoming incredibly cheap means that less and less of the necessary production actually requires human labor.
Add to that that most people like to have community and purpose, and would be happy to give back to a society that guarantees their wellbeing for rather modest reward, and I really don’t think finding enough people to do the actually necessary work would be a big issue at all. Kids that stock up their pocket money by mowing lawns are basically already making that exact deal.
Ok, as long as I don’t have to participate in this “utopia” of yours and can keep living as I do, go for it. Of course if you need to coerce others to participate, you may have lost the plot somewhere.
There are many volunteers to develop features or even fix bugs, but they sorely lack management roles and work on important but niche features (unused by most volunteers) like accessibility for blind people.
Those volunteers are still volunteers inside a capitalistic system that have to get by somehow. Of course they’re going to spend their extremely limited free time on the things that benefit them directly (features they need, bugs that affect them). The incentive structure is set up against them. That would be very different if they didn’t have the pressure of keeping afloat in spite of their volunteer work.
Perhaps, but whether it is by knowing my self or people I work with, I kinda doubt that.
Also, what exactly is it that you would need to bootstrap a group like this? Does it involve coercing people that want to keep capitalism to participate?
I agree with you, I have thought a lot about a hypothetical reality where people work paid jobs for 1 or 2 days a week (or 50-100 days a year) to do the things needed for society to function and spend the rest as they wish.
It seems somewhat achievable compared to abolishing coerced work all together.
Yes and no. There fundamentally are jobs that are both necessary and unpleasant. It is easy to talk about things like gardening and art, but we need sanitation. Even some level of bureaucracy. There are many kinds of work people may be willing to do for free or cheaply, but also many types of work almost no one would.
PS: You can actually see this in volunteer driven open-source software projects. There are many volunteers to develop features or even fix bugs, but they sorely lack management roles and work on important but niche features (unused by most volunteers) like accessibility for blind people.
Idk I know nurses and janitors that actually enjoy that work. Some people do enjoy doing sanitation and we should let those who enjoy it do it and get their needs met for it. Perhaps the unpleasant jobs should get more incentive? (Currently that’s not the case)
Anyway my main point is incentive instead of coercion. People should all play their part in society but should have their needs met no matter how they choose to play that part. Society not based on maximization of profit would value different jobs than our current Society.
Well, then make those jobs come with benefits proportional to their unattractiveness
Ok, where do you get those benefits from? Someone needs to work on those, and they will also require benefits. If people don’t have to work, some portion will inevitably either not work or work hobby like jobs (that don’t usually produce very attractive benefits). So you have less things being produced and require more things to guarantee everyone’s needs and significant benefits for working peoples on top of that.
You seem to be under the impression that everything that’s being “produced” right now is of actual value and must be kept up or replaced under a non-capitalistic system. I’d argue the contrary. There is so much braindead wasted labor being performed and energy wasted in the current system that would be completely freed up if our main economic goal were to change from “growth and competition at all cost” to “ensure a good life for everyone”. At the same time, our ever increasing ability to automate work and solar energy becoming incredibly cheap means that less and less of the necessary production actually requires human labor.
Add to that that most people like to have community and purpose, and would be happy to give back to a society that guarantees their wellbeing for rather modest reward, and I really don’t think finding enough people to do the actually necessary work would be a big issue at all. Kids that stock up their pocket money by mowing lawns are basically already making that exact deal.
Ok, as long as I don’t have to participate in this “utopia” of yours and can keep living as I do, go for it. Of course if you need to coerce others to participate, you may have lost the plot somewhere.
Adding another comment to address this PS.:
Those volunteers are still volunteers inside a capitalistic system that have to get by somehow. Of course they’re going to spend their extremely limited free time on the things that benefit them directly (features they need, bugs that affect them). The incentive structure is set up against them. That would be very different if they didn’t have the pressure of keeping afloat in spite of their volunteer work.
Perhaps, but whether it is by knowing my self or people I work with, I kinda doubt that.
Also, what exactly is it that you would need to bootstrap a group like this? Does it involve coercing people that want to keep capitalism to participate?
I agree with you, I have thought a lot about a hypothetical reality where people work paid jobs for 1 or 2 days a week (or 50-100 days a year) to do the things needed for society to function and spend the rest as they wish. It seems somewhat achievable compared to abolishing coerced work all together.