this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Antiwork
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A community for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.
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Date Created: June 21, 2023
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The Anti-Work Library 📚
Essential Reads
Start here! These are probably the most talked-about essays on the topic.
- The Abolition of Work by Bob Black (1985) | listen
- On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (2013) | listen
- In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (1932) | listen
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Why would the ultra wealthy stick around to have all their money taken from them? It seems like they could buy an island somewhere and go live very nice lives, and pull the rug out from the whole plan pretty easily.
I agree they unchecked capitalism doesn’t work, that’s why it is regulated. They may need to do a better job, but big mergers need to be approved and are often denied. Some monopolies have been broken up. AT&T being a rather well known one. AT&T has clawed their way back up, but they don’t stand alone anymore, we have various options and there is some competition. There is currently some talk about doing something to Google. The threat is always there and it has been used many times.
The US (I assume that’s what we’re talking about) also does have social safety nets, there is just a lot more red tape and bureaucracy than most would like. Last I checked the US spends over $4T/year on these programs as is, significantly more than the military spending everyone always talks about. $4T for plans people think suck; this stuff isn’t cheap. They could simply everything and just give everyone $1k/month no matter who they are and hope it all works out. We’d save a lot of administrative costs, but I’m sure people would complain that it’s not enough for some and that others make too much to get anything… just like with the Covid checks, and even those didn’t go to everyone.
Even if every last dime was taken from the ultra wealthy, it seems we’d burn though they money insanely fast. Then what happens after all the rich people are gone who were supposed to fund this stuff? If you take all the assets of the richest 15 people (about $1.4T being generous with some very lazy math), you could give each American about $4,000 one time. That’s not much different than the Covid relief checks. Seems like a lot of work to destroy the economy for almost no upside. Once you take out the top people, the list doesn’t look to great when you talk about dividing it by 340m people. For every billion dollars you take, each person gets less than $3. So when you knock out someone with $50B, you get a check in the mail for $150; congrats you can pay the heating bill for 3 weeks in the winter, in exchange Nike was wiped out and all the employees were laid off, along with anyone who relied on downstream industries.
Now, if you really want thinks to be fair, this should be global. Why should Americans live better than everyone? As it stands someone making $40k in the US is in the top 1% globally, last I heard. Doing it globally, for every billion taken, each person gets 12 cents. So instead of $150, you get $6… you can have lunch at Subway, once.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a job than live whatever kind of life can be afforded by those numbers. And the first pay out would be as good as it ever gets. Each one after that will drop dramatically as the richest people are cleaned out. It won’t take long before the cost of the postage is more than the value of the check. Mathematically, it’s a bad plan.
That's the issue with global capitalism and why most nationalistic attempts at communism couldn't be successful. The system of global capitalism is enabled by mechanisms the US supports and upholds. The system wouldn't suddenly collapse if the US stopped upholding it, but it would need to adjust. The free flow of capital is what allows it, so the free flow of capital would need to be crippled. Other strategies like agreed upon tax rates for companies made by most large governments could also improve things. Ultimately it does require global class consciousness and global cooperation.
When it comes to regulating capitalism, we need to do more than we currently do. The tide of deregulation must be halted and reversed in many complex ways I don't have time to get into. This will probably require a constitutional amendment or reform of the courts the restore the power of regulatory agencies.
When it comes to our current welfare spending, most of it comes from Medicare and social security, both popular programs that do a lot of good. Expanding Medicare to cover everyone would raise taxes for everyone, but it would save everybody money and actually give people more disposable income. Social security could theoretically be expanded, effectively budgeting for everyone's retirement, but we really don't need to touch it anytime soon.
If every last dime was taken from the very wealthy, then it wouldn't just be withdrawing money from a bank account, it would involve distributing more stock in companies to the workers. This is the role that unions and non government collectives could play. Ideally, it would involve restructuring companies so they worked more democratically and CEOs and executives would be elected by workers rather than chosen by people with capital who have no stake in the company besides profit. This would need to happen in tandem with everything else, and it would be a gradual transition away from capital investments to worker owned companies. Taking from the wealthy isn't a long term strategy, but a technique used to transition away from capital ruling over everything.
Eventually, there would be no ultra wealthy, but taking from them will no longer be necessary. That democratization of business and workers would be the socialist element that would need to be enabled by the government. Workers would be able to switch industries by earning stock with them that they could switch to a new industry through currency. Then, when they feel like retiring, they could live off that stock for a while. If we expand human lifespans and reverse aging, it might even be cyclical where people would spend years in retirement, and then come out of it to work before retiring again.
It's radically different, but it would allow people to carve out existences in the system. People who never retire because they enjoy work would support those who worked only to earn bonus comfort, and automation would make much of society run without much work. It's a futuristic goal, but it honestly isn't that unrealistic technologically. We have slowed aging in mice and expanded their lifespans already, even reversing the age of human cells, and automation through ai has made huge breakthroughs recently. Look at how much tech has changed life in the last 100 years. Is this change really so far fetched?
Maybe... maybe not. I was told Obamacare would be great too, but my out of pocket costs went up dramatically, while everything about it became more complex and annoying. I used to have an HMO. I paid a extra each check, but showing up to a doctor just meant a co-pay. I went to the ER, paid $250, and didn't have to worry about anything after that (it would have been a $30k bill). Now I'm forced into a high deductible plan where basically everything is out of pocket for the first $3k, then there is some weird split, then there is a max out of pocket at some point. It sucks. I like the idea of Medicare for all, as I want things to be simple. When I'm sick the last thing I want to think about is money... but with how bad they fucked things up for me last time I have 0 faith that they won't fuck up a single payer program as well.
This is vastly different than what I usually hear when people talk about the rich paying for everything. If this is what people mean, then everyone else I've ever talked to is either grossly misinformed or really bad at explaining things. Either way, that's not good. I have a lot of questions though.
So... let's say I get hired at an Amazon warehouse. As part of each check I'd get some amount of stock? Then when I leave and go over to work for Uber, I'd start getting some of their stock with each paycheck?
It looks like Amazon actually used to do this, but ended it to fund the minimum wage increase everyone was demanding.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/3/17934194/amazon-minimum-wage-raise-stock-options-bonus-warehouse
But it mentions they still have a stock purchase plan, which many companies do. I guess the idea being that if you still want the stock, you can use some of the increase in pay to buy the stock. This concept of taking some of your pay to buy stock can be done regardless of what the company offers, but that goes back to the financial literacy conversation which we don't need to rehash.
At the end of the day, what you're describing sounds like some kind of hybrid between a pension, stock purchase plan, and 401k (which usually offers some kind of employer match). I don't see it being radically different. The only difference is taking all the stock from other current owners, which seems like choice, not something that must be done to have these other things in place... as evidenced by these other things already being in place in our current system.
I don't think this would help with the equality thing, as some companies will do better than others. Someone who spent 10 years at Apple would be living high on the hog, while someone who worked at Blackberry would be broke. Financial advisors will warn people about overvaluing the stock of the company you work for, and this is why. If you're giving stock as part of your compensation, the general rule is to treat it like any other income, sell it, and re-invest it into a more diversified portfolio based on your goals. That sounds like a lot more work than what a pension or a 401k with a target date fund would, while ultimately serving the same role. If people can sell this stock, or borrow against it, they will, and they'll be in the same spot they are today. You'll have the savers and the spenders, where the savers end up accumulating money to have a comfortable retirement, and the spenders live a more exciting life, with a more depressing end. That's a personality thing; do you live for today, or delay gratification in hopes of a better tomorrow? Ultimately a balance is good, but it's never one someone can get perfect as we never know what the future holds.
I actually like like the idea of a pension, but they've fallen out of favor. I have one, but my company stopped contributing to it, which sucks. I think a big reason for pensions not being much of a thing anymore is all the jump hoping. No one wants to deal with tiny pensions from 20 different companies. They were really designed for someone who was going to work at once place for 40 years. I think it served a similar function as to what you're talking about. It's a company investing for your retirement on your behalf. The 401k match does this as well, but the employee has to opt-in and has the option to screw themselves by taking money out early with huge penalties. A universal pension which can follow you from company to company would be nice to avoid splitting it up. I guess one could argue that's what social security is, but social security isn't your own account, it's a big pool of cash.
Unfortunately most people, even people who are self proclaimed socialists, don't think through what seizing the means of production means. It means that the capital that is owned by a class of people who do little labor for it, is given back to the people who labor. Another reason people don't describe the system is that many different versions and strategies exist to accomplish this goal. I'm not an economist by any means, so I'm not wed to that plan.
It's ultimately about accomplishing the goal of economic equity where anything beyond the necessities is earned through labor, not ownership. The current system where you gain wealth primarily from owning capital leads to people getting impractical sums of wealth. Scarcity means that those impractical sums are allocated in a way that lets people suffer and die needlessly.
Additionally, many people who are merely social democrats don't want capitalism to go away so long as people aren't left behind. I'm not determined to destroy capitalism at all costs, making me a bit of a social democrat. However, I don't care if capitalism is destroyed so long as the goal is accomplished.
It's easier to unite people behind the mentality of making the economy more fair than to nail down a solid plan that everyone agrees to. Most people will never need to understand how the intricacies of the system work beyond how they interact with it. So why make sure everyone fully comprehends anything beyond the input and the output? I don't know exactly how my computer works, but I can use it. So long as the information is available to everyone and the basics are common enough knowledge, we can have people informed enough to vote and fight for it.
I'm getting tired, and this will probably be my last response, but I will say that the current Amazon stock purchase plan is missing the point. Almost all the capital is owned by shareholders who don't work at the company, so owning the stock gives workers little say over company decisions or ability to realize the full profits. The point is to give all that stock back to the workers or a democratic government. There's still room for executives who make decisions, but they are only representatives. The role of CEO would probably be similar in name and public relations only. It would be like calling Biden the king of the US. The system being owned by workers isn't a choice, but the main feature of such a system.
Part of the reason the ACA has problems is because it needed Republican and moderate Democrat support, leading to compromises that hindered it. The fact that the senate is an elected position necessitates the removal of the filibuster to get things done.