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The radical idea of a world without jobs


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2018 Jan 19, 1:10pm   5,807 views  18 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/19/post-work-the-radical-idea-of-a-world-without-jobs
By the end of the 70s, it was possible to believe that the relatively recent supremacy of work might be coming to an end in the more comfortable parts of the west. Labour-saving computer technologies were becoming widely available for the first time. Frequent strikes provided highly public examples of work routines being interrupted and challenged. And crucially, wages were high enough, for most people, to make working less a practical possibility.

Instead, the work ideology was reimposed. During the 80s, the aggressively pro-business governments of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan strengthened the power of employers, and used welfare cuts and moralistic rhetoric to create a much harsher environment for people without jobs. David Graeber, who is an anarchist as well as an anthropologist, argues that these policies were motivated by a desire for social control. After the political turbulence of the 60s and 70s, he says, “Conservatives freaked out at the prospect of everyone becoming hippies and abandoning work. They thought: ‘What will become of the social order?’”

It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but Hunnicutt, who has studied the ebb and flow of work in the west for almost 50 years, says Graeber has a point: “I do think there is a fear of freedom – a fear among the powerful that people might find something better to do than create profits for capitalism.”

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1   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2018 Jan 19, 1:56pm  

Lack of work will be the death of humanity. The American welfare system has proven what happens when people don’t work.

Better yet, watch Million Dollar Baby again and provide your take. The conservatives are correct.
2   anonymous   2018 Jan 19, 2:12pm  

No jobs.

No money.

Billions starving and providing targets for oligarchs to shoot from helicopter gun ships for entertainment.

Sounds reasonable.
3   georgeliberte   2018 Jan 19, 2:49pm  

I think many (most?) jobs are to some extent simply places to warehouse and keep the population busy and out of trouble. Many do not really require 40+ hours per week and employees already sense and implement reduced work by wiling away time on the internet looking a funny cat pictures and Pat Net, or listening to an electronic music device. SO I agree that labor is a control method just as the pyramids may have been public projects with that as part of the goal.
Oyster Shuckers around turn-of-the-century
4   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2018 Jan 19, 3:39pm  

georgeliberte says
I think many (most?) jobs are to some extent simply places to warehouse and keep the population busy and out of trouble. Many do not really require 40+ hours per week and employees already sense and implement reduced work by wiling away time on the internet looking a funny cat pictures and Pat Net, or listening to an electronic music device. SO I agree that labor is a control method just as the pyramids may have been public projects with that as part of the goal.
Oyster Shuckers around turn-of-the-century


I don’t agree with this conspiracy theory at all. End welfare, arrest the homeless, and deport all illegals and we will have damn near 100% employeement. Eliminate minimum wage and we would have to have a guest worker program.
5   anonymous   2018 Jan 19, 5:44pm  

A world without jobs? Sounds like Detroit.
6   Strategist   2018 Jan 19, 7:29pm  

anon_c6dfa says
A world without jobs? Sounds like Detroit.


"An empty mind is a devil's workshop" The whole world would become a Detroit.
In reality, we would have robots doing most of the monotonous boring work. Humans would work at jobs that require brains. The lazy and the stupid would just watch re-runs of Oprah all day long.
7   HeadSet   2018 Jan 19, 7:46pm  

We may not be without jobs, but we could have been at a shorter work week. As technology progresses, we should have a natural deflation born of more productivity per worker. People could take a pay cut from a 3 day work week since the lower pay would buy the same goods as what a previous era's 5 day work pay would buy. The reason this has not come about is debt - a society of people with 30 year mortgages cannot tolerate deflation.
8   Strategist   2018 Jan 19, 8:13pm  

HeadSet says
We may not be without jobs, but we could have been at a shorter work week.


We are already there. We worked sunrise to sunset every day of the week just a hundred some years ago.
In the next 100 years we will be working half as much as we do today.
9   Patrick   2018 Jan 19, 8:27pm  

HeadSet says
We may not be without jobs, but we could have been at a shorter work week. As technology progresses, we should have a natural deflation born of more productivity per worker. People could take a pay cut from a 3 day work week since the lower pay would buy the same goods as what a previous era's 5 day work pay would buy. The reason this has not come about is debt - a society of people with 30 year mortgages cannot tolerate deflation.


But also, capital has managed to take all of the productivity gains away from labor:

10   Strategist   2018 Jan 19, 8:41pm  

Patrick says
But also, capital has managed to take all of the productivity gains away from labor:



Interesting graph. I can think of 3 reasons why hourly compensation lagged productivity.

1. Illegal immigration that competed with hourly unskilled labor that technology tends to displace.
2. Low wage countries like China and Mexico that displaced manufacturing with imports.
3. Most of the benefits of technology going to those who create technology and those qualified to handle it.
---------
This phenomenon will continue for several more decades. Raising minimum wages is the only way to counter it.
11   NuttBoxer   2018 Jan 19, 10:22pm  

This is a non-story, we were never anywhere close to not working. Thoreau, who lived in the early to mid 1800's marveled at how dependent man had become on the tailor, and the carpenter, how America had evolved into a completely materialistic society. In the 1800's!!

But FYI, the ability to earn a wage gives you a much better chance at freedom, than the ability to stand in line for a handout. If this article was even semi-legitimate, elimination of welfare would never be seen as a hindrance to freedom.
12   WatermelonUniversity   2018 Jan 20, 12:28am  

interesting but check out my new radical economic system in the other thread: selling air to grow the economy.
13   Al_Sharpton_for_President   2018 Jan 20, 4:11am  

Patrick says
They thought: ‘What will become of the social order?’”
Also explains the continual war on drugs.
14   NDrLoR   2018 Jan 20, 9:25am  

"In 1979, Bernard Lefkowitz, then a well-known American journalist, published Breaktime: Living Without Work in a Nine to Five World, a book based on interviews with 100 people who had given up their jobs. He found a former architect who tinkered with houseboats and bartered; an ex-reporter who canned his own tomatoes and listened to a lot of opera; and a former cleaner who enjoyed lie-ins and a sundeck overlooking the Pacific. Many of the interviewees were living in California, and despite moments of drift and doubt, they reported new feelings of “wholeness” and “openness to experience”.

"1979" says it all. It's interesting how ideas come in cycles--I saw recently a piece about how swearing, using really vulgar or sacrilegious words, can be beneficial for you, much like one I'd read over 40 years ago--and how ubiquitous vulgar language has become as to no longer be noteworthy. I remember when this book came out and how it was such an icon of its era. I wonder how these people who opted (another word invented in that era) out of work turned out. Does it surprise anyone that most of the interviewees lived in California? Or "lie-ins", another gem of the time taken from "sit-ins".
15   Tenpoundbass   2018 Jan 20, 11:01am  

That's called Socialism we just went through 8 years of it.
16   NuttBoxer   2018 Jan 22, 11:19am  

Tenpoundbass says
8 years of it.


The short-sightedness of the left/right paradigm. We have had socialism fully implemented(every plank) since the 30's.
17   Heraclitusstudent   2018 Jan 22, 11:29am  

It's the responsibility of the leadership to make sure most people have a positive purpose in life.
Struggling to survive while making billionaires richer is as good a purpose as any.
18   Shaman   2018 Jan 22, 11:31am  

I’ll agree that as time goes on, work saving devices will save us from frittering all our hours away on dumb work. But smart work will always be in vogue. Computers are great, but someone has to tell them what to do. Even AIs need instruction and feedback to know how to do their jobs optimally. People need work to make their lives meaningful, but that need not be dangerous or dirty or overly lengthy work to provide that psychological benefit. A feeling of worth and accomplishment can come from a mere ten hours of productive work per week.

Others may need to spend more of their time being industrious to ward off mental instability. I think I’m definitely one of those.

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