It would at least help clean our image of do-nothing layabouts if we did.
This is mostly a rant but idk I think I have something to say. It's just a lot of thoughts I've been having from listening to essays and books.
The existential threat of capitalism can not go understated. It is beyond the obvious environmental problems we’re facing. If capitalism suddenly went green tomorrow, minding the inherent contradiction of a Green Capitalism, that would obviously not be the end of the problem. Our time on this earth is finite. Never forget that. Memento mori. It is far too short to spend it working 40 hours a week for most people including me. Some people, such as my mom and my coworkers, work 60 hours. A lot of people work even more. The thought of that is simply disgusting. It is inhumane. At this point I must clarify myself being an American, I know other parts of the world have better or worse conditions living under or outside of capitalism, but this isn’t necessarily to provide a worldwide solution if something is even possible currently.
What we need is a system that ensures everyone’s basic needs of housing, food, healthcare, and education are met. The stressors of trying to pay or provide all that by ourselves are what hold us back the most. If those needs were met we’d have the security to leave shitty jobs and to protest corrupt systems and corporations more strongly. Amazon is insanely powerful because of its convenience to get the things we want or need to keep living our shitass lives, but we could cut out that convenience more easily if we weren't stressed and working all the time. Obviously, markets regularly prove incapable of self-regulation, but I like to stay optimistic. I like to think people will be more aware and explore alternatives given the opportunity.
The real clincher will be the workers. Exploited workers who have no material need to keep working an exploitative job can safely leave. No workers, no more production. We could safely stop using Amazon for its current convenience, and workers could safely stop working and force workplace quality to improve. If your job is shitty, you could literally just leave with no stress about your next paycheck. More people could opt to pursue education for education’s sake without fearing short-term or even long-term financial loss. We’d see a rise in educators, doctors, philosophers, artists, writers, musicians, critics, etc. It would be a beautiful thing.
A lot of capitalists fear automation, which is completely understandable. If you believe peoples’ only value is the labor they provide, then a machine that can provide the same labor without pesky human dignity would put a lot of people out of jobs. Of course, fear of automation isn’t really anything new, people feared that the automation of farms would result in long-term unemployment, but time and time again people find new ways to work. I highly doubt automation will eliminate labor completely. A robot can never provide the same way a teacher, a nurse, a caregiver, an artist, an innovator, etc can. Call me up when a robot successfully teaches a class about ethics and moral philosophy or makes a truly valuable and thought-provoking work of art. I find the idea of robots becoming athletes, and being cheered on by a filled-out human audience, laughable. A lot of things simply need a human touch that a robot cannot provide. And I see you thinking about robots with human-level sentience ok this isn't about them. I have some other thoughts about automation that I don't want to much farther into because typing is hard, just trying to get the gist down.
We will not see the abolition of money for a long, long time. It’ll be here for at least a week- maybe even a month or two, a generous estimate I know. But in that time we’ll just have to go along with it. Quite frankly? I’m not totally against the idea of money when it comes to using money to buy luxury goods. But when it comes to an actual necessity that people need to live, don’t put a price tag on it. We do that now and that’s why everything sucks so bad. If people have those needs met but want a little extra something-something, then they can put the work into getting it. The economy would be stimulated a lot more that way, people would have more money to spend on more things if they aren’t spending it all on rent and healthcare and shit. Of course, this means work wouldn’t be abolished, not immediately. And I know that sucks. But it’s an important step. First, the people’s need to work for survival needs to be abolished.
We need to collectively stop working for a week. For two weeks. For months. However long it takes to get change. Basically how we quarantined during the pandemic but in perpetuity. Stock up on food and water, install solar panels and get some batteries and generators ready, band together and live in homes as large groups if need be. Live out your van. Rent is obviously going to be an issue, and while we could all collectively stop paying- they can’t evict all of us- it’s good to have a fallback. Grocery stores often throw out perfectly good food, so don’t hesitate to dumpster dive safely. Get into farming. Get Hasan Piker and other large lefties to spend their money on something other than Porsches and mansions. It might be a fun period of respite for a few but I recognize it will be hard for a lot. But I also think that it's going to be necessary. Change hardly comes about with no effort. We gotta go as ham as we can while also staying peaceful. We have to be charitable to each other.
I need to be clear, I am not trying to propose a solution for everything all at once. Like I said before, I'm an American so I'm mostly envisioning this happening in the US. I'm anxious about how much work will be exported to other countries in our place. I just want us all to take the first step. The problems that may arise afterward should be easier to solve than whatever hellscape is currently going on. Like when I was talking about automation earlier, I recognize that that contradicts an earlier point I made about leaving exploitative jobs. I'm trying not to be convoluted, but those jobs will simply switch to machinery in time, at which point it might be harder to protest other problems such as environmental impact, the displacement of wildlife and people, etc. The key is time. They can not do it now, not in the short term. By the time they do switch to automation, we can find new ways to restrict their harmful practices. But we can always do something. We can do something right now. We can recruit, we can strategize, we can supply ourselves, and we can deploy when ready.
I've always remembered being told I'm an optimist, and that the world just isn't fair. I think those people should collectively shut the fuck up and stop saying shit that discourages progress. The world isn't fair when your dog gets hit by a car, bad luck and shit happens, but when it comes to the systems we humans have constructed? That's not the world being unfair, that's us not doing something about it. We have to do something. Ok, I'm bored now. Is this a manifesto???? I think it is lmao