this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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What is the incentive to work if all these things are provided? Btw I want these things so I can quit my job and just wander around
Why is it that work is the only way? Why must we work and have "incentive to work"? Who decided that we must work or be worthless? Why must we be forced to play a game that treats us like shit or be outcast and ostracized?
I don't expect you to have answers, this is just something I've always wondered.
Because all the things in that picture are produced by people working. If there are not people working to make clothes, you don't get clothes. If there are not people making and maintaining power plants, there is no electricity. And so on.
It's okay if temporarily non working people, or people that are unable to work, or people that work but are not paid enough gets these things for free (or deeply discounted. But if absolutely everyone gets all of that for free, there won't be enough people working just to sustain the ones who won't.
This isn't really a reasonable conclusion though, why could the people doing that work not be incentivised, by being rewarded in some other way than just a bare minimum livelihood? Why would they abandon their station to just do nothing instead ? Doesn't good protection enable the worker to negotiate their work to be fulfilling, rewarding and well compensated? Are the workers not just cogs in the machine if they don't get that power to actually negotiate? ....
It makes no sense to assume nothing would get done if we just had enough to live no matter what, the argument that we'll make more and better things seems much more likely to me. Both are somewhat unknowable until we just do right by people and see it working.
It's not that "nothing will get done". Sure, some people will work, but much less, if you could get a "fulfilling life" regardless of employment status.
There is already many (quotation needed) people that choose to live off of family members+the state in exchange of some (or a lot) quality of life.
The more you provide for free, the less people will need to work (and some people work only because they need to). This will put more strain on the people that do work, because they are the ones that pay more taxes, which would lead to less luxuries for the people that do actually work.
The higher the production, the higher mean (not median, the rich will always skew the curve a lot) QoL. The idea behind this post aims to increase the median QoL, but I think it'll just bring the mean closer to the median, and shrink the whole thing.