this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
1 points (100.0% liked)

askchapo

23061 readers
70 users here now

Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.

Rules:

  1. Posts must ask a question.

  2. If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.

  3. Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.

  4. Try [email protected] if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I came across this old thread on reddit-logo. The question brings out the core Conservative belief that some people are lazy or "worthless" and "why should I pay for lazy people" or "why should I have to work for someone else to live off my labor?"

Many, many people on this thread say outright that people who they deem "lazy" don't deserve food or shelter or anything a human needs to live.

Is there a good counter to this talking point? It's pretty disgusting TBH being confronted with this. I know it's what they really believe but it still stings to read it out over and over again.

I don't understand how some people can think humans don't have an inherent right to exist. Not very "pro-life" of these people.

"Lazy" is an opinion and our society is built to treat people who aren't helping a Capitalist make profit or become a Capitalist themselves like they're burdens on society.

Life isn't fair, it never has and it never will be. Maybe some of your money goes to help a person who doesn't "work as hard as you"? There's also people who are born millionaires, people who have investments paying them for no work, people who win lotteries and jackpots or marry into wealth and never have to lift a finger again.

Forcing people to work in order to live doesn't sound fair to me. It sounds like slavery with extra steps. What kind of freedom do we truly have if we can't choose to withold our labor or check out of the system altogether?


I'm struggling a little mentally with feeling guilt around my failing job search. Technically I'm working on building three income streams, maybe four, but it feels like "failure" because I'm not making enough just yet to cover all bills. It's not for a lack of trying but there's ti.es where I have no energy to do much and it makes me feel terrible. This part of Conservatism always drove me up a wall. Hopefully some of you have good ways to fight against it.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 hours ago

Fascists when 30% of their wage goes to the people who did no work beyond having wealth concentrated into their hands through centuries of exploitation, then hoard it on a remote island bank account lest a penny of it end up even filling a pothole: 🥹❤️

Fascists when 20% of their wage is taken by the state, split into a thousand tiny little pots, and then laundered through an organisation of other fascists who get off on sending people to an early grave (they approved £30/week to someone who might be capable of a nonexistent desk job): 🤬🤬🤬🤬 8️⃣8️⃣⚡⚡

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 hours ago

If you throw in a bunch of financial capital that the hypothetical person in question subsists on, all of a sudden these same people will rush to their defense, saying that what they "do" is "economically valuable", even if it's a "healthy individual with no disabilities who lives in their parents' house". Add an abstract concept of owning capital, to the same situation of not engaging in any waged or salaried labor, and they'll trip over themselves to justify it.

The level to which Western workers are brainwashed into punching down is unsettling. Just in the past few years I've worked at 3 jobs where I've observed workers, earning close to minimum wage, getting unreasonably mad or indignant at other minimum wage workers not working as fast or as efficiently. Never mind that the company makes $300k per full-time labor equivalent.

I always reply with "I don't give a shit about anyone who's barely getting by, they're not the problem". The problem is with those who stuff themselves! (where are our Mélenchon emotes)

We know who the detrimentally lazy ones are and we should always be pointing the finger.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 15 hours ago

That argument always gives me vibes of "but I've had to go through corporeal punishment when I was a kid, it's not fair that children now should have it easier".

"Things were bad for me and I still made it, I don't want it to be easier for other people or it makes all I've gone through feel worthless"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 15 hours ago

Your money is already going going to assholes who don't need to do shit because they just happen to own the company you work at. Why be mad if that money was spread around to people who actually need it instead of just going to a few billionaires? You hate people you consider "lazy" enough that you think they should starve and that it's not worth helping anyone else if it means helping ONE "lazy" person?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 18 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 18 hours ago

The "lazy" people living off of "your" work get a tiny pittance of the taxes you pay, nearly the entirety of which only go to reproducing the economic system that rewards those who do not work but claim to simply by virtue of their "ownership" of the things everyone needs to live a bare minimum survival. It is these non-working "owners" who live in obscene opulence and have unrestrained power over us all, dictating to us that we must toil while they only reap. The value you actually produce is being stolen from you by those same "owners," and not even the table scraps are afforded those at the bottom struggling to survive in a system that is built around their poverty which serves a threat to all workers if they do not fall in line. The leeches are at the top, not the bottom. You absolutely should be enraged by those leeching off your work, but you've misidentified who the leeches are.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

I think the USSR used to just give you a job, shelter, medical care and support but they did expect you to work barring disabilities that prevented you from doing so.

These posts and comments as you've presented them are just general misanthropy hidden behind assigning social worth to labor to wages, a rant on their learned helplessness to the sentiment of : why don't I receive help? Why is my life so hard?. It is the cry of the alienated capitalist subject.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 15 hours ago

Yes it's quiet simple really. Does society desperately need me to work? If yes, ok then give me the job, I'm ready. No? I have to look for it and make myself appealing to the boss? So that means jobs are a privilege. So if I let others who need it more have it and stay on welfare then I'm making a sacrifice for others by not taking a job from someone who'd like it more.

Somehow that doesn't add up for a lot of people

[–] [email protected] 0 points 18 hours ago

Tell them that you fully agree, and that's why you want to abolish capitalism and follow a model like that of the Soviet Union, where unemployment was abolished and every able-bodied person worked, and the average time spent looking for a job after losing one was 2 weeks. Tell them that there was no unemployed in pre-agrarian societies or in feudalism, that unemployment is just a byproduct of capitalism and that people inherently want to contribute to society, and that's why we want a collaborative society with guaranteed employment for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

"Yes and"

Unproductive members of society should be removed. CEOs add nothing if value. Sales people. Bankers. Politicans. Landlords. Middle Men. Car dealerships.

Instagram influences at least add beauty. CEOs just leach off the hard work of others. If they didn't show up to work we'd still do our jobs. If the janitorial doesn't show up how long can you work with dirty bathrooms?

From there you can doubble down. A man is entitled to the sweat of his brow no? So an investor that doesn't actually work is owed none of the profits.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

Able to work, able to get hired, and able to make ends meet are different things. Lots of people want to work, but can't find a job, let alone one that will fully support them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I assume this is in relation to the BB bill that cut medicaid? Arguing in this line would put you in a difficult spot. Instead you should shift to talking about how these cuts are done on purpose to give a tax break to corporations. If that wasn't the case we wouldn't have needed to pass the cuts.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 hours ago

This thread is older than that but the sentiment has always existed.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

For the libs a utilitarian counter to this would be "because not providing support will give you crime instead".

And then you put them in prison and you're now paying significantly more for them than if you'd had benefits and systems in place to get them back into work more gently.

The current system got to this point by slow evolution from significantly less support because this is more cost efficient than what existed before.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 20 hours ago

Have you suffered enough to justify your existence today?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 21 hours ago

You know who works really hard? Cleaners, food delivery drivers and other people who are the most exploited by this system.

Are they rich?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 21 hours ago

I'm pretty sure I've seen the extremely inverted position of "Only small business owners managing labour are the real workers, everyone else doesn't have a "real job" or is lazy for not being a small business owner". That vibe is not uncommon. I hate it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 21 hours ago

As someone who would "happily" be lazy and sit around scraping by on welfare... People aren't like that because they're well.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

It clearly isn't effective to keep a person in a deep hole if you want them to be "productive". Bad times don't make "strong men", adequate nutrition, enrichment, stability, support, and education makes "strong men" (and women, NBs, etc). and those people make a strong society.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 22 hours ago

Capitalists are the “laziest” people in human history, and if those people don’t like being taxed wait until they hear about surplus value

[–] [email protected] 0 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

It is genuinely heartbreaking we can’t divide the world in two and let everyone who thinks this way live on their half while we get to point and laugh from our half

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

We tried they. They destroyed the good half.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 22 hours ago

The world is in a climate crisis because of a crisis of overproduction. In that context in particular, more "laziness" (the desire to chill and enjoy life instead of toil for wealthier people) would benefit the planet.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

laziness isnt even real. capitalism has tricked humans into thinking wanting to chill like every other animal is always doing is bad. why? because it doesnt make some rich dude more money

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 hours ago

I'm jealous of most of the animal kingdom. Why couldn't I be born a goose and just vibe in ponds goose-default-dance

[–] [email protected] 0 points 20 hours ago

Oh, you're not willing to constantly be doing shit you don't want to do for your entire singular lifespan? You sicken me, die immediately.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 23 hours ago

me when the value produced by my labor goes to non-working poors: frothingfash

me when the value produced by my labor goes to my lazy, parasitic boss: innocence

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I agree that everyone who's able should contribute to society, and that's why I propose sending all CEOs, investment bankers and venture capitalists into forced labor camps

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I feel that way about the rich. If I have to pay 33% on every fucking dollar I earn then so should they.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

And if they're purely a capitalist, they don't earn, they exploit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 14 hours ago

Yes exactly.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

How long should someone with no physical or mental disabilities be allowed to remain on benefits?

What is the industrial reserve army

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

honestly, if you want to take the financial angle, it's just cheaper to give struggling people money

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

A society should be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable. They will always take it a step further with their criteria of who is lazy. Today it may be the unemployed. Tomorrow it will end up being pensioners. Children? None of em deserve to die and we've seen such people vote into being laws that harm all of these groups.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

Ahhhh, yes. The healthy, able bodied person who chooses poverty.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Ask if they would trade lives with the person they're punching down on

They will say no because they think that their labor entitles them to live better than other people and they have afforded themselves their specific treats. It's expensive being poor and nobody is truly living on disability, and deep down they have to know that

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I met this awful German guy in China and one time he pointed at a guy begging outside a park in Kunming and made some comment about how easy he has it, and I said the exact same thing. If it's such a good life why don't you adopt it?

He was living off inheritance from his parents dying.

He truly was awful. I guess I just had a lot of fun telling him that to his face. He was clearly very lonely and yet would still want to hang out with me even though I spent the whole time lecturing and berating him.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

fuck em, pigs don't get to judge people

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

“You have no excuse to not be a productive member of society”.

I’d love to, but that’s not my decision to make. Take it up with porky, he’s the one who determines who gets to work and who doesn’t.

Am I a bad cook if no one is hungry? Am I a bad doctor is everyone in the world was miraculously healthy? Then I’m not lazy for only working in whatever job I can get and not the career porky isn’t even hiring for.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

porky's slacking off at the job creator factory, we should fire him

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

You jest, but this is unironically how I went from lib to leftist back when I was in high school

goku-doorstep: “Hello random retail store, I would like to work!”

porky-happy: “No.”

Turns out the adult world was just like this

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

I have an "invisible disability," at least on my better days, so I can see this attitude in some people's faces when they ask me what I do for a living.

And yet. About 30% of all income in the U.S. is unearned. Benefits payments are a small portion of that, and the vast, vast majority of benefits payments like SSI ultimately end up in the hands of landlords. But somehow my disability check makes chuds angrier than the fact that most of that check goes to rent.

The owners of this wealth, or capital, capture around 30 percent of the income produced by the country every year. This income flows to them, not because they work for it, but merely because they own income-generating assets like real estate, equity, and debt. In 2015, total US capital income was around $4.8 trillion.

If this unearned portion of the national income was distributed equally to every individual in society, then each person would receive around $15,000 of income per year in addition to whatever else they receive from working. For a family of four, this dividend alone would bring their household income to $60,000 per year.

$15,000, incidentally, is more than the maximum annual SSI payment. So even if so-called "laziness" were classified as a disability it would actually be the "lazy" who are getting a raw deal.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

It's true that everyone should be helping out the social whole to the best of their ability but to measure that solely in their ability to do a job making capitalists money then your measurement stick is fucked to begin with.

In a vacuum sure people should share the burden. They, we, have a responsibility to do that. Not fulfilling that responsibility could be called lazy. The idea that a job shows social worth is rooted in the assumption that the job benefits society. That any job does, really.

At the same time if my job is making mustard gas at the death factory then how am I helping society? If my job is selling candy to pre-diabetic kids does me not being lazy cancel out the social deterioration my job causes?

Proponents of capitalism are not qualified to discuss what laziness is because they can't tell the difference between benign and malign activities so long as they make money.

Further, from a Marxist sense, telling someone they are lazy because they don't volunteer themselves into a relationship where the bulk of their labor value is siphoned off so the money can sit in the Cayman Islands or whatever is laughable.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

because under capitalism getting a job is kinda difficult, painful process, so even many the 'voluntarily unemployed' may take up part time jobs if they had the chance and if it were provided for by the Government.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

if you own more than 1000 in 30 years treasuries, you get a wall as a lazy bum. but for real, the goal of socialism is to work less, have control over what you work for and how much you work. As we don't have full automation, edge case (able bodied, physically, mentally, socially) and not looking for work person shouldn't automatically be considered a person we should fight for (i for one think those people are actually very rare, cause it's boring as shit). Somebody grown and milled the flour you eat, you have to give something back (or you can do coop living, but have fun explaining there why you don't want to do anything). Or you can live in log cabin with a gun, but that's another thing, and not something those people would call lazy.

Now, there is a lot of work society doesn't deem profitable and thus not compensating (be it elder care or young people care, home work etc), so again you can construct argument around that person not being "lazy" actually.

The danger of this argument, appearing reasonable on its face, is constructing labyrinth of means testing which hurts more people than it helps.

But when people imagine this type of person, they are doing some sort of reagan "black people in cadillac", and likely being racist as well.

so choose your thingy as counterargument (means testing hurts more than helps, finance bros are more dangerous, caring for kids is work actually, "how did that work out for y'all since 80s, crackers?" - don't work on people on the internet, cause it's upper quintiles, "natural unemployment rate" is a thing they decided to accept)

also poster nr2 probably pays more to his owners than taxes, the little crab in the bucket.

load more comments
view more: next ›