This ain’t a shitpost, but it is a realpost
this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2025
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Literally a modern serfdom
See, it's not the working that's the issue. It's the lack of control over our surplus value. It's the lack of control over the means of production.
Can't forget the terrible consequences of failing to meet "quota" (make enough to pay the bills).
But thanks for pointing this out, it really is similar, just with enough layers of abstraction to make the structure hard to see.
Is there anyone who genuinely believes that working for basic needs is freedom?
I don't think anyone does. When people talk about freedom, they talk about being able to travel, do whatever they want in their spare time, say whatever they believe, buy a gun and a hummer, go BASE jumping.
That kinda stuff.
I imagine the people who actually think about how they are working just for basic needs are mostly a different group of people than those yelling about freedom.
I don't know how many conservatives wake up in the morning with the feeling that everything they do is just to make some rich guy richer until they eventually die. Because why would they be a conservative at that point?
You should tell this to subsistence farmers living in Sub-saharan Africa that farm nearly every calorie they consume. It's a negotiation between them, the earth, and the uncaring sky. Same as its been for millennia. No rich people necessarily involved.
Are they free because no rich people are involved?
The lack of rich people doesn't imply freedom - people who are forced to hunt, gather, fish or farm for subsistence only with no reward beyond that are enslaved to the need to produce food and find shelter, but that differs from a society where there's sufficient food and shelter, it's just hoarded by those who have too much
Additionally the presence of rich people doesn't imply a lack of freedom - you could have a "safety net" system where everyone is guaranteed housing and enough grains and beans/similar to survive, and if they want more they can work for it (some of the taxes from this go towards compensating farmers and builders), giving people the freedom to not have to worry about survival, while also allowing for people to earn lots of money and buy nice things if they want and/or can
We live in an economically connected world. An argument can be made that they're forced to subsistence farm in a backbreaking and cruel way due to the natural resources of their country extracted by oligarchs that don't even live in Africa.
Wherever poverty exists, rich people are involved by their sheer unwillness to share enough to meet everyone's basic needs.
I thought bill gates cured poverty in Africa because he’s such a nice guy.
Pretty sure you're thinking of AIDS, not poverty.
Rich people are very likely at fault, too, given that shitty countries are handy for cheap labour and materials, like coltan...
Is every person in those communities required to work to eat and have shelter, or does the community take care of those that are unable to contribute labor due to health conditions/old age?
I can imagine by some stretch you can still blame the rich, maybe without the rich people they'd have more access to better farmland, cheap water, etc.
If you want to simplify the thought experiment, imagine being the only person in existence. You would still need to struggle just to meet the basic needs of survival, but you would definitely not be oppressed.
Nature is oppressive, so are billionaires. Working together helps overcome that, both when combatting nature and the asset class
I think that those are different meanings of the word "oppressive", which has a moral component when referring to human actions but not when referring to natural phenomena. You can only be wronged by another person, not by nature.
Imagine the following scenarios:
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You're alone on the planet. You struggle to survive.
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Now there's a wealthy person on the other side of the planet, where his lifestyle has no effect on you. He could rescue you but he chooses not to.
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The wealthy person offers to rescue you on the condition that you must work for him. He would get most of the products of your labor but survival would still be easier than it was when you were alone.
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Now you have no choice except to accept the wealthy person's offer. Survival is still easier than it would be if you were alone, but there isn't anywhere left where you could survive alone.
Your life is oppressive in each of these scenarios in the sense that simply surviving is difficult and there's no possibility of improvement. However, there's clearly no moral component to that in (1) because you are alone, and (4) seems like it almost certainly has a moral component. However, in every steps from (1) to (4) you're either better off or not worse off than you were before. Where does the moral component come from?
At step 3. Where the rich person forces conditions onto you and takes most of your production. That is immoral. Especially if he has the resources for both to survive with less effort just by not being selfish
I do wonder what the alternative is... Would that be growing/hunting your own food and making your own clothes and building your own shelter? I don't know about anyone else, but I would not live long in that scenario.
Surely there isn't an economic system in which people don't work for a top 1%, but for everyone, you could say a communal, or a social, economic system...
I mean, that experiment has been run and it is wildly difficult to manage (humans are quite wily!).
People said the same thing about not having kings
Well, we will need some different, better minds on it to see success. I'd embrace it if I thought someone had any vague idea of how to execute it.
The context is that there is enough wealth in most western countries that not everyone must work to survive. Working should be for having access to more things that just surviving, and not everyone should be required to work all the time just to survive.
Basic needs are basic, like food, shelter, and healthcare. If everyone had access to those basic things they would be free even if they need to work to attain more.
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It's called democratic socialism.
The alternative is all the wealth and resources hoarded by top 1% are shared among people so that everyone has access to basic stuff like food, shelter and healthcare regardless of whether they're able to work.
Which isn't to say this would be easy to achieve, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
Taxing people appropriately is obviously the right way to go. But it actually doesn't change the dynamic identified in the meme substantially. Rich people still hoard resources (albeit less after taxes). And basic needs are only met if enough people keep working to pay taxes or enrich their employers who pay taxes.
If people are taxed appropriately, there will be no hoarding
Maybe... Is saving considered hoarding? Is leaving a small inheritance to your kids considered hoarding?
Even without the semantic confusion or disagreement, it doesn't change the fundamental dynamic identified in the post.
It's considered hoarding if the money you're saving was stolen from other people (and I'm including wage theft in there). If you've actually earned the money you're leaving to your kids by hard work, I don't see the problem there. Because there's no way anyone can become a billionaire without stealing.
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