It’s hard to imagine the idea that work can be 100% voluntary being reliable enough to stake human survival on. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible. But hard to see. When it comes to cleaning up shit, and all manner of unpleasant jobs especially. Seems like we’d have to be on some sort of involuntary rotation. Are there really that many people who would happily clean up shit while harboring no ill will towards those that refuse to do so? Way less work for all though is very possible. Or maybe the idea is it’s all robots?

Real participatory democracy in all aspects of society would necessitate massive amounts of shared labor that could be enormously fulfilling to people.

Inspired by the teachings of Richard wolff I decided to start a democratized bread company. By workers for workers. We vote on what bread we will produce next week. Think it will be Naan. Wolff bread coming soon.

There's a component to this that a lot of socialists and anti-socialists alike don't think about nearly enough, based on how little they actually talk about it: how to arrive at 25:20. How to get to the point where there's a shared work ethic of social responsibility instead of force. It sounds really utopian, and anti-socialists will point to that "utopian-ness" as "proof" that it's impossible etc. So for those who haven't been able to figure out how to arrive at such a future, here's a general pathway: start community-building and relationship-building in your living spaces, not JUST your workplaces. Socialists focus primarily on talking about worker solidarity and union organizing. There's nowhere near enough attention paid to what they do outside of organizing around workplace issues, yet in the real world, that's where the other half of all life is lived, and socialism isn't ONLY economic democracy/equality; it's also political democracy/equality. So consider what it would take to build a democratic, actually socialist society in a society where neoliberal capitalism has atomized everyone and turned "social responsibility" into "personal/individual responsibility." Rather than re-type it all (I've posted variations across multiple forums), I'll paste it: --------------------------------------------- De-atomization requires relationship-building. You are probably very familiar with the scene of going home and never speaking to your neighbors beyond an occasional greeting, whether you live in an apartment complex or a house of your own. People just want to relax when they get home because of the stress of their working life. Whether that's your own experience or what you see others do, that is a form of social isolation that weakens communities to the point where "solidarity" in the living place (a core requirement for a real democratic system like socialism) is almost nonexistent. Building worker solidarity isn't just about getting people to vote for the same things or recognize that they have a shared interest, but also about building relationships so that the work of building a democratic, cooperative, and mutualistic future is even plausible. Towards that end, the first steps in that direction are 1) talking to your neighbors so that you all know each other, and then 2) moving progressively towards building cohesive communities. In real terms that means, after getting to know each other with some regular conversations about personal stuff like hobbies and family, you invite them to BBQs or potlucks where you can all have a comfortable excuse to just socialize. Over time, include more neighbors, leaving controversial issues out of it as much as possible so that you can first *build a rapport*. When you're all comfortable enough around each other, and know and have some respect for each other, bring up stuff like helping each other watch children, or basically anything that leads into mutual aid networking. Building mutual aid networks helps to alleviate the stress of living in a capitalist society, but it also brings people together to work towards a common cause: mutual support. But building mutual aid networks is only part of it. The goal is also to build the communities into democratic units. As you start suggesting things leading to mutual aid, also talk about how to manage it. Rather than putting the burden on the shoulders of an organizer or someone nominated, suggest that everything be democratic so that everyone knows without question how funds and resources are being used, on top of having a say in that distribution/use. Not only does it provide that transparency, but it also gives people the first taste of democracy that they will likely have ever had, as well as the opportunity to offer other ideas that might benefit the community. And not just the adults. It's just as important, if not more so, that the children old enough to understand what's going on be included in the process of democracy so that they a) grow up understanding how it actually works, and b) develop a sense of identity that involves active participation in a healthy community. More than anything else, that fact of *normalized* childhood participation will help push the movement forward, because as they grow up knowing and practicing actual democracy, they will be that much better equipped to argue in its favor within unions and elsewhere, recognize and talk about the problems of capitalism, etc etc etc. But it all starts with building relationships. Unionization is great, but without the de-atomization efforts of relationship-building, it will only result in concessions that merely alleviate some of the issues that "someone else" will handle for the union members (not all unions are tight-knit. Many are basically the same as our political system, where people are elected to do the job of running the union, and the members have little to no say in any of it beyond voting for who will rule...and more than a few have corrupt leadership that coopt the unions one purpose or another). Democratization and community-building within the union are necessary, just as it's necessary within the workplace and the living community. While none of the theory of Marx, Lenin etc (that I can recall reading, but my memory isn't great) explicitly discusses the relationship-building aspect, it does support the democracy-building aspect. Building the future that they write about as the goal, where social responsibility and democracy are the norm, requires that community-building, which requires relationship-building. In real terms, putting aside the "this is how to do socialism" talk that puts non-socialists on guard, all of this is nothing more than bringing people together to recognize and support common interests. Whether in a deep red or deep blue or purple area, a lot of those interests are shared, and the act of building relationships and communities without actually hinting at socialism will bridge a lot of the gaps via first-hand experience. It won't change the most bigoted or cultish groups, but it is a good start that will have long-term benefits. As Alex noted, it's about changing the norms from the desperation, atomization etc of neoliberal capitalism into the social responsibility, democracy etc of socialism. You can't do that by ONLY focusing on worker solidarity and workplace reforms. You HAVE to simultaneously make progress in the living communities so that democratic cooperation between communities and workplaces is even viable. You CANNOT expect it to "just happen after the revolution." -------------------------------- As I said, this is a general pathway. It'll vary based on conditions from place to place. But it IS vital for capitalists to consider AND DISCUSS this aspect of socialism.

Why do we refuse to deal with reality and be honest. As long as there are a significant number of highly selfish individuals, there can be no true equality. The question is how much inequality can sustain humankind's existence? We want to have it both ways and say and think, we are higher than any other life form - that we are evolved and enlightened beings, and or the product of a supreme merciful and beneficent being, (ironically the depiction of which, contradicts it said nature) who made us the custodians of the planet we live on. If the majority of us think the relationship between those who have the most power and wealth is unfair, we can collectively stop supporting the system they have put in place, that maintains their level of power. We don't/won't do this. We enables this system of power domination. We see this as our best option, when doing a cost benefit analysis of attempting to end this power domination. We make individual choices, within the confines of the system. Some live by the concepts of right and wrong and fairness, while others live by the concept of acquiring power and exercising it, in their limited realm, thus putting them in a better position. The powerful live peacefully. The more power one has the more peacefully and comfortably you live. In communities where there is a considerable difference in the power among the people, living together can be contentious, many time very contentious. Some people are satisfied or content with their lot in life, while others are not. Many who are unsatisfied, see those immediately above them in power, as the main cause of their having less than they desire. Many societal factors play into when people come to feel/think this way and how many of them do it. Sometimes it gets so bad that the society becomes very disrupted. This social disruption, is a back and forth or cyclical process. It begs the question, will one day it be so bad that the whole society falls into chaos and or anarchy? When I see the level of violence in this society today, I ask - is the power and thus wealth disparity that exist, the cause of it, as many suggest it is? I'm Black and I have heard for decades many Black people say "our people sell drugs to survive". I never understood this, as the nature of selling drugs in Black communities is often violent. The drugs themselves are deadly and debilitating enough, but then the violence that comes with the selling of them, are added on. This certainly is antithetical to survival. Mere survival is certainly not much of an issue, in modern society, not to mention one of the most wealthiest nations, in the world. Why do so many justify, excuse, or ignore this unjustified level of violent crime in the U.S.? The level of White collar crime is not even justified, but this level of violence!? This is where the "Left" (the far Left especially) really falls short. The Left ask nothing of the masses, and wonder why they have no little to no power. That this could even be offered up for discussion, says more about the poor leadership and ineffectiveness of the Left. The attitude of 'power to the people' and 'vote for me and I'll set you fre' has gotten the Left nowhere and will get us nowhere. Once again, I suggest the people set the example for government and give themselves a 'domestic peace dividend'. Trickle down morality is not going to produce any more than has trickle down economics. The morality has to come first from the people.

Indigenous cultures shared necessary work such as collecting berries, catching fish, and maintaining clam gardens as heartfelt, reverential, community activities the importance of which everyone understood and to which everyone who was able was eager to contribute. Work in this context is one expression of the defining quality of indigenous life, namely the community's relationship with the Earth. Colonial resource extraction all but eradicated this way of life and replaced it with "work" as a means to acquire money to give to money-obsessed madmen who demand it.

Basic income depends on everybody contributing to production of basic consumer products and services like water, food, energy, health and medical drugs and equipment, clothes, education, supervision, teaching, maintenance, agriculture, transportation, shipping, writing, reading, housing, building, demolition, furnishings, cleaning, cooking, delivery, shopping, mining, refining, processing and packaging, storage, heating +ventilation +air-conditioning, information technology, engineering and automation, research and development, defense and arbitration, garbage collection and disposal, protection from violence and the reduction of inequality to promote social stability, social services for the disabled and aged population, child care, maternal and infant care, hospice, etc. *Limited production = limited needs filled.*

We can automate nail guns and scissor lifts but at the end of the day, a roof replacement requires many human beings. We can automate a tractor to plow and plant a field but it requires a maintainace worker to keep the machine in tip tip shape and maybe a technologist to program and run the computer on the tractor. Automation means the jobs get more technical, less physical. We should absolutely embrace this type of high skill work, it gives people a sense of accomplishment while also making their labour valuable to bargain against capitalists while the capitalists are still around

What does it mean to split the work evenly though? Surely people with the capacity for various intellectually difficult, physically difficult or difficult caring/nurturing work would be wasted doing other ones they aren't good at?

It's good to engage with these ideas once in a while as a way in to practically changing and thinking about labor power

I work in a factory that just went through an automation project. The job got easier but now there is more jobs, the automation didn't reduce labour requirements, it allowed for production to increase to meet market demand Automation also takes a really long time, projects like the one at my workplace required meticulous planning for more than a yeae and 50+ temporary contractors to get it done. So while automating "might" reduce work load, it creates jobs from installing machinery, laying concrete, building new buildings etc etc. An automation process on a societal scale would probably take more than 50 years to eliminate a lot of the tough labour jobs we see today.

Really great conversation here!

Thank you, Alex Gourevitch and Jen.

I think just having the basic things and enough money to get them won't be enough for most people--most will work at least PT to top off the basic UBI.. I am used to living low income i could probably survive exclusively on UBI.. I don't believe the "work to receive" method is the way to go.

Great conversation. We could add problem of information. Any GBI scheme would need some people working to produce the basic goods. This would include manufacture, distribution and the whole range of skills needed by an advanced economy. Give capitalists their due, their activities generate and consume a vast amount of data/information and this is true whether it is footballs or meatballs. Whatever participatory system you want to have, the challenge of managing vast amounts of information remains and that challenge is not a small one. Who collects the data? How is it collected? What do we do with it?

If we had a ubi then employers would have to pay their workers a lot more

❣️LET US TRULY CHOOSE ‼️🇺🇲💔💔💢🙏❇️❇️❇️❇️

We can't predict how socialism will be, but I'm autistic and I have a really big problem working, probably because I never bought what the capitalist society tried to teach me about work: it's all about money. I have a REALLY hard time doing anything purely for the money, specially because (thankfully) my parents still help me financially. Maybe I should take a page off your book and find a meaningful job instead. Thanks for the help ❤

She needed to push back on some of his ideas more .....a lecturer he is to his wall flower student :(

I worked at a family run business that made and sold shades for airlines and private. I handled the machines that would cut the material to the orders request. I actually enjoyed the work, but the pay was god awful, and couldn't sustain my living expenses (child care, rent, groceries). I ended up quitting to be a stay at home parent because daycare alone was eating up 100% of my pay. If UBI was in place, and the business was in different hands (the owners were horrible, greedy people), I probably would still be there. So the notion that UBI or abolishing forced labor would be a detriment is absurd to me. I think we'd have more people working fulfilling jobs if our basic needs were covered. Vietnam is an example with high employment, and a growing economy.

I dream of the day when I don't feel guilty for not being "productive".

I’m not sure about a “post-work” society. But it is seductive. I often wish I didn’t have to work again. If there is a way to make work optional, though…

Is there not the issue of WHO doesn't have to work? In a developed country we could see that a lot of work is not essential... but the workload of the world will be going on somewhere. Total stasis, where no one needs to work, might sound nice in a place where we already have infrastructure to keep society going, but some places aren't quite so comfortable. Where we are, work might seem optional in function, but 'post work' sounds like an aristocratic vision dependent on the continued (essential) labour of poor countries.

It's amazing how difficult it is to get some people to concede that the working class needs its own party. It' s the most obvious starting point for a socialist politics and to inspire and organise the working class. You can't imagine workers taking power over society until they have their own party and are organised as a party (so the duplicating and self-stunting doctrinaire sects are not what's required). It's also essential to building working class consciousness in the first place.

gotta love these dreams of utopia. maybe we should spend time on real solutions...

I used to imagine that automation would solve a great number of societies work problems, but over the years I've scaled that optimism back. Although automation can be incredible fruitful, even in an ideal, non-capitalist system, there will be issues around power concentration. The few people who are required to work to maintain the automated systems will inevitably wield incredible power, because of how crucial they'll be to the functioning of the automated system. Even in democratic scenarios where the automated systems are owned & operated by the workers, there would be so few workers relative to the rest of society, they would wield a disproportionate amount of power, especially if these systems are widespread or something towards universal.

I really reccomend the Accelerationist manifesto.

Yes but we’ll actually receive wages that are high enough to purchase things that actually matter.

This argument would apply if technology would stand still as is. Advancement in ai and robotics are advancing at an exponential rate, new breakthroughs almost every month. there is no labour under the sun which robots or ai cannot replace eventually. I suspect within 5 years 50% of jobs which simply require a computer will be replaced.

So if all the bullshit jobs are eliminated, and the 50 million unemployed are put to work we'd all be working about 15 hours per week. Put all the teens to work a couple days too. Then we're down to one 12 hour day. The environment would benefit tremendously also.

I dont think UBI alone will do all this. Especially if the government controls it. Who does the govt answer to? Corporations. We need to fundamentally change society and then UBI at that point may be a good bonus. We have to free ourselves from corporations and governments first though.

Fortunately this guys ideas will never be taken seriously.

It's the fear of losing that job that is the way the modern capitalist system works. To get you to perform on the job the way they want you to (not necessarily better -- it could be they don't want the best job you can do) AND to censor you. To make you beholden to the 'providers' point of view. The only way for the 'average person' (non-famous, non-rich) to get to "contribute their part to society" is to be demeaned as the means of others outsized ends -- that they're never entitled to, but are expected to be grateful for contributing to the cause of others' image of grandeur (that can only happen through "average" people going along with that whole charade). I've seen criticism of UBI as possibly playing into that. We've seen Republican (and some Democratic) lawmakers use the 'Servant must be beholden to the Master's religion and philosophy' paradigm with welfare programs, by adding work and drug-testing requirements. The critcs' extrapolation is that government can then tell you how you must think -- as evidenced with the professional treatment of lawmakers and media figures who don't go along with the dominant narrative: They want to censor you and will use any leverage than can for that purpose. Where we are now with labor, automation and AI -- is quaint compared to where we will be in the future. But, it's not hard to imagine that anything that we think isn't possible, based on sound reasoning, can occur (or a facsimile) at some point. So, I know I like my work -- but, I've engineered my life to be free to do what I want in life. I'm not rich and live a simpler lifestyle than the mainstream as a matter of socio-environmental philosophy, to begin with, so it makes it easier to see just how possible to live as you see fit is -- if you have the mindset to match. Most don't realize how close they actually are to the reality of personal freedom on that level. However, Covid Pandemic helped to blow the lid off of that for many people. It's through living a meaningful life that you actually contribute, doing your part. Because you are starting with yourself first. There's an inversion that takes place -- and, why capitalism goes to selfishness. You are putting yourself "out there" first, depriving yourself of the meaning you crave in life. This, in turn, makes you selfish -- because you haven't given yourself what you reall need, you feel deprived. So, you think you will make up for that through material gain -- since that is all you get out of the deal, anyway. Since we are not taught to give ourselves what we really need -- viewing ouselves as the means to our own ends, and no one else's -- we assume the opposite is the case, until we make others the means to our own ends. This is what we are taught as values. this works against a real work ethic -- and supplants it with a hierarchical view of work, where you are demeaned if you do something "below your station". As a sculptor, I have much technical and craft-related work to perform -- to make art. My best assistants are always skilled craftspeople, with being working artists, a secondary plus. Crafts people with specific construction experience and a good working knowledge of the Language of Design. And so, to say that they are lower hierarchically than me is a big mistake, it demeans their own knowledge, skills and accomplishments. For me to benefit from them assisting me in my art-making endeavors -- in a real sense for me, is the respect, honor and celebration of them, the meaning that they have built for themselves in life. It's this example I give, that there's already this way -- if people so choose to go that direction. The narrative that it's so irresponsible if you don't become an economic unit of the capitalist approach -- that is what's irresponsible.

Of course. It will be the immigrants who will work but someone has to bake bread drive buses teach operate or play music

ai and analog technology will make most work unnecessary sooner than you think

Definitely agree with your framing, but I think UBS/UBI would help get us there culturally long-term.

ell oh fucking ell

WHAT ABOUT HEALTH? BASIC INCOME IS SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH TO FINANCE A CANCER TREATMENT. WHAT ABOUT COLLEGE EDUCATION? BASIC INCOME IS NOT ENOUGH FOR THAT EITHER. WHAT ABOUT DECENT HOUSING? SAME. IT IS MUCH BETTER TO PROVIDE FREEDOM FROM INSECURITY IN KIND, NOT WITH UBI. THINK ABOUT IT. OR COULD WE HAVE BOTH?

Most people would just take drugs and play video games nonstop if they were not forced to work.

AUTOMATION WILL TAKE HUNDREDS OF YEARS. IT SEEMS THAT AUTOMATION IS TAKING A LOT OF TIME.

If he's about to say those sucky jobs are burger flipping, trash guys and warehouse, he's already wrong.

Lol no one works if everything is free. Where do you get food if no one is so poor that they are willing to pick fruit in the field? This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Who makes your chi latte, drives your uber, fast food workers, lawyers doctors every job is done for money.

If we'd stayed on the FDR path and not allowed neoliberalism to consume our planet I can't help but believe we would have been in a MUCH better place. I have been gainfully employed and contributing to social security for 42 years, so don't discount my lifetime of observations too quickly.

26:16 the coupling of need and work in the individual level is just capitalism my dude. The transactional focus ignores the independent value each side has. The one who can’t work still has needs, and the one who fulfills their own needs can desire to work. Planning productions according to needs first and unnecessary wants next should be a socialist goal. The insistence of sticking the need to labor is just capitalist work ethics. Both should be strived to fulfillment with the fulfillment of needs taking priority over work uniformity.

" In Soviet Union, we pretend to work- and they pretend to pay us".

The problem wouldn't be the lazy people who don't want to contribute, it will be the grifters who feel they are entitled to more than their fair share, regardless of input, who spend all of their time figuring out how to game the system.

I don't really see that not working and contributing is frowned upon. As long as you're rich it's fine. In fact, if you're truly at the top you typically enjoy massive government handouts.

With all these switched on happening people why is America so right wing.