this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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Yes to all but a right to a job. People shouldn’t have jobs. It’s not natural.
I think it could be argued that you have a right to a "purpose". For some people that may be a job. And some may choose to not have a purpose. But no one should be denied a purpose if they want one - even if it involves goals they will never succeed at.
Almost as if that mazlow guy had a point or something
Jobs are fine. It’s for-profit companies that’s the problem. Why does a company need profits (outside of maybe emergency capital)?
No company needs to profit by billions/trillions.
Humans find jobs for themselves and their community all the time, but not fucking bullshit jobs like data entry technician or call center technician.
I fucking hate cleaning, but I will happily help a friend or family member clean their house or their apartment because we thrive in a community.
Not getting the humanity squeezed out of us for a few cents more.
Those are chores, and caring for your loved ones. They are not "jobs."
You are right, my definition of job is wrong.
Someone has to grow the food. That's a job.
Farms are actually one of the industries seeing some of the most automation. The biggest issue right now is just harvesting.
Either nothing humans do is natural, or everything is.
Democracy and human rights aren't natural. Capitalism isn't natural. Or they both are.
People do like to work, the caveat being that they generally don't want to work with virtually nothing to show for it. The modding community is massive, and they almost never get paid. People love to bake, or draw, or garden, or volunteer, all without fiduciary compensation.
But when people make it where they have to "get a job" to survive, the love of the labor disappears.
Costco has a low turnover rate because they’re paid a living wage. Hell, even (ugh) Chick-fil-A pays their teenage employees decently.
I agree that most people absolutely want to work; the two most important factors are choice of labor and not being treated like shit - either by compensation or other mistreatment.
Who's going to provide your food, shelter and clothing if no one is working?
Yes, if you want to live in a society, you must contribute. Even if you live in a village with no government or economic system, people have to haul water, catch fish, grow crops, make charcoal, weave baskets, 1,000 other jobs.
And to care for the people too elderly or disabled to care for themselves, you must work harder than merely providing for yourself.
Oh, were you thinking rich people could just give us money? Where do you think they get that money? Hint: It comes from our labor, which you propose shouldn't exist.
If you don't like any of that, go homestead. Dick Proenneke left for Alaska in his 50s, single-handedly built a nice cabin and lived there alone for 30 years.
Ol' Dick didn't have a filthy job, unless you count survival. If a middle-aged man can do it with 60s tech and gumption, so can you!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke
This. As automation increases, fewer of us should have to work. A significant issue with the Soviet Union and their legendary inefficiency is that every one had the right to a job even if there were no jobs to be done. Leading to them creating unnecessary intermediary positions at every level of the system.
Basic income, sure. And people should be educated. But beyond that, encourage the people who don't need to work to pursue art or other ends. Get them involved in community activities. But work towards a society of leisure if possible.
The flip side of Soviet “everyone must work” inefficiency was the prediction of American economists that we’d have so little work to do thanks to automation that our biggest problem would be filling our free time.
Instead we found more and more work to do, and now work even longer hours. And it’s because people didn’t want to do the hard work of figuring out a new way to run society and just stuck with what they knew.
We see the same thing happening with remote work. It causes some problems, yes, but it’s way better for a lot of reasons. But instead of moving forward and solving those problems organizations are just insisting on doing things the traditional way.
And it’s really sad how many people in this thread can’t see that they’re doing the same thing.
They would have been far, far more efficient if they weren't so anti-computer. The first attempts at creating a computer system actually dates back to the 1930s during the Stalin era, but Stalin didn't like it and shut it down (in the West computers were just starting to be invented) and in the early 60s they could have let OGAS be aggressively developed. This would have resulted in an economic boom for the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 80s instead of a downturn. On top of that, the internet as we know it would have been a hell of a lot more different AND better developed if that was the case.
Do you remember on how Sputnik and the Soviets sending a man into space sent the US into a massive tizzy to try to outdo the Soviets in space? Can you imagine if the Soviets also made the first internet and networked computer system that actually ran well? Imagine the pace and the priority given to that instead of the bullshit that was the Vietnam war at the time.
But also distribute work as much as is reasonable so everyone contributes maybe a few hours to the necessary work and not just a few thousand randos working 140hr/week
Exactly. I studied coding and I could have been interned and further taught whatever the hell they needed me to learn. But nope, gotta have 10 years experience for a language that only existed for 5.
Neither is the Internet or the computer you are using, or the highly developed efficient language you are speaking, nor the clothes on your back, the medical care you've received, the worldwide logistics that enable you to have a nice miso soup, or maybe a slice of cheese every once in a while, or even the engineering, math, and, science that allow anything and everything to exist in our world, yet people throughout history have worked very hard to make those things for you.
If you don't want to contribute back, that's totally fine, just know that the rest of humanity is working hard to keep you alive even if you don't.
Someone has to dispose of your trash, and it doesn't seem like it's gonna be you.
Do not assume I am here because I wish to be
Yeah sure, but unlike a job, the Internet and computers are the en vogue method of communications, access to which is absolutely essential.
Who do you think built all of it? It didn't just magically appear for us to consume. Throughout history people have worked hard to make all of this.
People work without being exploited. Nice things can be done without money exchanging hands.
Is that the argument? Because the person I responded to said 'people shouldn't have jobs'
If you are arguing for an anti capitalist (or what appears to be an anti commerce) position, it's almost entirely irrelevant.
No matter what, people will have to work, whether it is homesteading or a global network of logistics, food has to be grown and since we have a generally global society, goods and services need to be provided all around the planet, regardless if people are getting paid or exploited to do so.
I'm arguing that we have rights to our collective infrastructure. You seem to be incorrectly correlating infrastructure existing to infrastructure being owned or something? Or having to require some specific person to create or maintain it?
Work can and will get done without remuneration.
We don't need servitude to an organization, which is what a job is.
Sooo, what do we call the thing that is a collection of work in which someone is expected to complete it? Maybe a jobby instead?
I mean I don't really get what the argument is here, are you mad at the word job? No matter what, the role of 'farmer' will exist and will be a full time [collection of work that the person in the role is expected to complete] in which other people will be dependant on them doing. You can call it a shmackadoodle if you want, it doesn't change it's existence.
A job is a collection of work, sometimes for pay, sometimes not, but really this is idiotic pedantry, if the argument that op was making is that communism is great, or, I don't want to work, or people should not have to work to survive, then they should have stated that. But claiming jobs aren't natural is just stupid, conceptually, they are just as natural as anything else humanity has developed since basic agriculture.
And besides all of that, the point doesn't make sense anyway, the right to a job is a great thing, rights are not obligations, fundamentally the right to a job doesn't mean you have to have one.
We don't need to designate specific people to specific work, there's no real reason for that except to assume that the person with the job is qualified. This is detrimental, qualifications can be maintained without jobs.
I know a dozen people that would be excited to drive heavy equipment and crush things, I don't think garbage collection would be as hard to staff as you think.
People would also have the opportunity to skill up and become qualified for a larger range of work if they were not committed to a single role as well. It seems like jobs reduce labour liquidity.
Garbage collection, sure, what about the engineers that designed the garbage truck, the manufacturing process, the miners, the chemical engineers figuring out how to properly handle it the mechanics repairing it, the planners designing routes, the mangers coordinating between the many many people that it takes to do this etc.
However that is irrelevant to the conversation at hand, which is, that of a right to a job and whether or not a job is natural and should exist. Collecting garbage is a job by any reasonable definition, whether you are paid to do it or not, or if you do it every single day or not. That's why we have words for those scenarios such as 'paid full time job'.
If you want to engage, I would ask that you actually respond to my statements instead of of just responding with non sequiturs.
I don't even know what your point is, because you haven't stated it clearly, at first you claimed that you are arguing for rights to collective infrastructure, which is completely and wholly unrelated to that of a right to and the existence of the concept of a job (again, the topic at hand), and now you seem to be arguing against something that doesn't exist (at least not in the United States) which is that people are committed to a single role. I have changed careers multiple times, cross trained, and have degrees in different fields. Part time, contract, and freelance jobs exist. It isn't illegal for you to hop between jobs, or work multiple jobs at once there are no obligations for you to have a specific job.
If your point is about the money attached, i again would argue that it's irrelevant, the concept of a job is fundamentally divorced from any payment, charge, reward, or punishment. Jobs will always exist, because collections of work need to be accomplished (someone will always have to take the trash) and the right to a job is a good thing because it allows, but does not obligate, an individual to make a choice about their contribution while guaranteeing both outcomes are available, which is giving a person freedom. So I ask again, what would you call a collection of related work and tasks that need to be done?
My point is, jobs and work aren't the same thing. We can organise and complete work without it being a job.
It seems like you are using the term job to mean only a collection of work, and I'm using it to describe not that, but the ownership and employment paradigm that people think of when they "get a job"
The ownership of work stops being a "job" when it's a collective responsibility.