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If we no longer force people to work to meet their basic needs, won't they stop working?

 
 
 
Axulus said:
ksen said:
The author points out that we have three basic ways to live our lives:

And basically the way our society is set up only option #1 is realistically available for the vast amount of people.
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Society isn't set up that way - people are set up that way. People are free to give away amounts beyond that needed to meet their own basic needs any time they wish.
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Care to explain how "society" and "people" are meaningfully different?
 
ksen said:
Axulus said:
Society isn't set up that way - people are set up that way. People are free to give away amounts beyond that needed to meet their own basic needs any time they wish.
Click to expand...

Care to explain how "society" and "people" are meaningfully different?
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it's axulus, so... The Glorious And Anointed Perfection of The Magnificent Hand of The Free Market is greater and more perfect than any person, and thus society is merely the lives of humans being wrapped around Its Divine Light.
 
ksen said:
The author points out that we have three basic ways to live our lives: And basically the way our society is set up only option #1 is realistically available for the vast amount of people.
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What is stopping you from starting your own business? Do you have large student loans?
 
Harry_Bosch said:
ksen said:
The author points out that we have three basic ways to live our lives: And basically the way our society is set up only option #1 is realistically available for the vast amount of people.
Click to expand...
What is stopping you from starting your own business? Do you have large student loans?
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two things:
1. viable business concepts don't grow on trees, and even if you somehow ignore the nebulous "business concept" factor there's still the basic fact that you're trying to suggest someone can simply impose their will upon the universe - saying "why don't you just start your own business?" is like saying "why don't you just stop having cancer?"
2. going back to a classic 'get out the vote' concept but in reverse... if everyone acted like that, society would collapse on itself.
 
ksen said:
Axulus said:
Society isn't set up that way - people are set up that way. People are free to give away amounts beyond that needed to meet their own basic needs any time they wish.
Click to expand...

Care to explain how "society" and "people" are meaningfully different?
Click to expand...

I would say that the meaningful difference is that society (the group of individuals and the political/economic institutions that are in place) allows for individual people to freely give away/share amounts they have beyond their basic needs. Most of the individual people choose not to (at least not very much).
 
prideandfall said:
two things: 1. viable business concepts don't grow on trees, and even if you somehow ignore the nebulous "business concept" factor there's still the basic fact that you're trying to suggest someone can simply impose their will upon the universe - saying "why don't you just start your own business?" is like saying "why don't you just stop having cancer?" 2. going back to a classic 'get out the vote' concept but in reverse... if everyone acted like that, society would collapse on itself.
Click to expand...
I will agree that starting a company is difficult, but it's not rocket science. I've started two. Thinking about a third.
 
Harry_Bosch said:
prideandfall said:
two things: 1. viable business concepts don't grow on trees, and even if you somehow ignore the nebulous "business concept" factor there's still the basic fact that you're trying to suggest someone can simply impose their will upon the universe - saying "why don't you just start your own business?" is like saying "why don't you just stop having cancer?" 2. going back to a classic 'get out the vote' concept but in reverse... if everyone acted like that, society would collapse on itself.
Click to expand...
I will agree that starting a company is difficult, but it's not rocket science. I've started two. Thinking about a third.
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The hard part is not starting a company it's making money. Although I'm told exploiting workers is supposedly a can't miss way to make some obscene profits.
 
ksen said:
http://www.scottsantens.com/if-we-n...meet-their-basic-needs-wont-they-stop-working

What underlies a question like this is that it's okay to force people to work by withholding what they need to live, in order to force them to work for us. And at the same time, because they are forced, we don't even pay them enough to meet their basic needs that we are withholding to force them to work.

What is a good word to describe this?

Now, what if we no longer withheld access to basic resources to meet fundamental shared basic needs? What if work in the labor market was then fully voluntary?

What if we could no longer force people to work for low wages? Maybe wages would go up? Maybe productivity would go up? Maybe automation of human labor would be accelerated?

We could find the answers to these questions. We already know from experiments what they are likely to be. Until basic income is policy though, we won't know for sure, and we will continue forcing each other to work by withholding food and shelter from each other.
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When stated baldly our current system does seem to have a pretty barbaric foundation.
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I actually disagree strongly with the premise of the first statement.

Suppose we start at the beginning of people: people had to work in order to obtain the sustenance required to continue living. They had to hunt or gather food, find shelter, warmth at a basic level, in order to survive.

FF to an agrarian society: In order to have food to eat, and a warm place to sleep, it is necessary to expend some energy and effort (i.e. work) in order to meet one's basic needs. I don't see anything wrong with that. Even if you have food vouchers for an adequate supply of free food of your choice and a corner store, one still must expend some amount of effort (i.e. work) in order to have a meal. Even if it is delivered to your door, already prepared. You must expend some effort in order to have your clothing and your home clean or clean-ish. You must expend some effort to live. This is not something that society has imposed upon people. In fact, society has lessened the need to provide for all of your own needs and indeed, allows some to have their needs met through very little effort on their part. For very wealthy whose wealth is inherited, very little effort on their part has yielded a living that far exceeds their needs.

I don't see anything wrong with that reality: we must work to gain what we need to live.

It is not necessarily true that the more effort you expend, the better your standard of living you will have. I've known some very, very hardworking people who barely managed to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, much less provide much more. Some of that has to do with making choices about what kind of work to pursue but at least some of those individuals had very few choices, or very few that they considered honorable, about what they could do to provide for themselves. At the same time, I've known (many fewer) people who managed to live extremely well with very little effort on their part.

What I think is entirely up to discussion is how do we ensure that people are able to provide for their own needs. Are people--that is--all people--fairly compensated for the work they perform? Are all people afforded opportunity to perform work that will allow them to earn a living? To get ahead? This would include ongoing access to education and training, support while learning new trades and skills and becoming educated in general, health care, etc.

Are people fairly compensated for their labor? What does it mean to fairly compensate people for their labor? I live in a small city which has a dual identity as a working class town and also as a college town. There are a limited number of professionals outside of the university and a number of quite wealthy business owners and many more small business owners who struggle to keep the doors open and the lights on and who get by because they have a spouse with one or more other jobs that keep food on the table. But most people work for the few wealthy business owners and most of those people barely earn enough to be lower middle class. Many have no benefits and almost none have good benefits. Many work multiple jobs, all low paying. If you manage to make $15/hr, you are doing really, really well. If you make it to $18/hr, you're practically rich. Most people make between $8 and $12/hr. I'm not talking high schoolers or retirees who are supplementing their SS checks. I'm talking people supporting their families. And a few families are very, very wealthy because they pay their workers so very little, treat them poorly, and fire anyone who raises a voice in protest or concern for safety, etc. I don't see anything fair about this at all.
 
The OP could be read..."Must we force people to work for "us" in a manner we approve or they won't meet their needs?" This in fact is how I read it. Essentially that kind of thinking creates a law of the jungle concept where some are empowered to make all kinds of dictates and enforce them on others. It is a flimsy argument that pretends to be concerned for the needs of others and produces a system that forces those other whom one presumes to care for to produce for the person speaking. Slavery works like that...with the assumption that the slave has no place in society other than serving the masters. It is straight out of the dark ages...a place I try to avoid.
 
Harry_Bosch said:
ksen said:
The author points out that we have three basic ways to live our lives: And basically the way our society is set up only option #1 is realistically available for the vast amount of people.
Click to expand...
What is stopping you from starting your own business? Do you have large student loans?
Click to expand...
Like most people it's lack of capital that's the biggest obstacle.
 
AthenaAwakened said:
When answering the question in the OP, think about this one:

Is the only reason I work is to avoid starving?
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No, people work for a variety of reasons, but meeting their basic needs is one of them. So the question is how are the finite resources that we want and desire distributed throughout the world.

If you don't want to work it's easy. Create the energy matter converter from Startrek and then most of the resource issue will go away.
 
An increasing number of people can't do productive work even if they wanted to. I think that as a society, the best we can do is foster an environment where people who have a motivation to better themselves so that they can produce things that are still in demand, are able to do so. Having to constantly worry about where your next meal is going to come from is not conducive to that.
 
coloradoatheist said:
AthenaAwakened said:
When answering the question in the OP, think about this one:

Is the only reason I work is to avoid starving?
Click to expand...

No, people work for a variety of reasons, but meeting their basic needs is one of them. So the question is how are the finite resources that we want and desire distributed throughout the world.

If you don't want to work it's easy. Create the energy matter converter from Startrek and then most of the resource issue will go away.
Click to expand...

So the answer to the OP is no.

Thank you.
 
AthenaAwakened said:
coloradoatheist said:
No, people work for a variety of reasons, but meeting their basic needs is one of them. So the question is how are the finite resources that we want and desire distributed throughout the world.

If you don't want to work it's easy. Create the energy matter converter from Startrek and then most of the resource issue will go away.
Click to expand...

So the answer to the OP is no.

Thank you.
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If "they" means "all people", the answer is no, if "they" means "some people" - the answer is yes.
 
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