So…we've all experienced gatekeeping on here at some point, if not recently, in the past, and a recent top level post got me thinking about how to explain this to this sub. So, that said, I figured I would discuss a bit about anti work from the capitalist side of things, and explain where I come from on things.
“But but…you can't be anti work without also being anti capitalist!”
Uh…wrong. It really depends on your ideology. Let's define terms. My definition of being “anti work” is roughly the same as what the leftist definition is, being anti wage slavery. I'm against coercive forms of work. That doesn't mean I'm necessarily against all work, or that I dont understand that some work needs to be done. I certainly do. If anything, pragmatic considerations are a huge reason I'm still on the “capitalist” side of things. So…let's define anti work as being against wage slavery or coercive institutions of work. And let's define capitalism as in favor of a “free market” system of economic organization that is predominantly represented by privately owned businesses. I define it this way since some people like to claim capitalist is someone “owning capital” while playing these weird leftist definitions of words to create pointless rhetorical debates. I'm not interested in debating rhetoric (outside of the term “anti work”), I'm interested in debating concepts. So I'm supportive of markets. In all honesty, I'm neutral on who “owns” the means of production, but I'm “fine” with privately owned means of production and actively prefer it over various models of socialist management, more on that later. But I am anti work.
“But but…isn't wage slavery an endemic part of capitalism?”
In our current iteration of it sure, but as I defined capitalism, not necessarily. As I see it, the problem with capitalism is that the market is coercive as it exists. We live in a system that is based on private property to such a degree that some have insane amounts of property and others have none. This is the root cause of wage slavery. Our system is designed in such a way a small minority own most land and resources, and most people are propertyless. This system has been created over the centuries via the enclosure movement in Europe, and colonialism and neocolonialism elsewhere. Basically, we destroyed traditional ways of life, forced people to crowd to cities to get jobs, they have nothing, and workers are given just enough to survive, but not able to ever be truly independent or able to say no.
To me, the root evil of capitalism is the fact that people can't say no. And, there's a specific strain of thought that has appeared in recent decades within capitalist left libertarian thinking, through people like Phillippe Van Parijs and Karl Widerquist, who see the way that a social system like capitalism can be justified to exist, is by essentially compensating people for its existence. Basically, people are given enough resources to survive within the current social system without being coerced to work, and this normally takes the form of a basic income.
A basic income would ideally be high enough to free people of all coercion to work, and allow people to purchase the necessary resources to survive.
While I envision a UBI as being relatively basic at first, in the long term, it can be expanded. Essentially I understand some work has to be done in society, and while I certainly dont support giving people so much freedom society collapses, since that is counterproductive long term, I do believe that over time, UBI could lead to cultural shifts in work.
After all, the employment system as it exists is designed around giving everyone a job and having them work 40+ hours a week. And often times, we fail to achieve that. We have just too few jobs to give everyone a job, and this serves at keeping inflation down, but it also ensures the market is rigged in favor of employers.
If people are given the right to say no, via a UBI, then employers will have to do one of three things. They'll have to pay better wages and offer better working conditions. They'll have to automate jobs no one really want to do. Or they'll have to go out of business.
For nonessential work, I'm fine with any of these happening. For essential work necessary for the functioning of society, going out of business or inflation is bad, but if we can automate work over time, and change the equilibrium, it should in theory allow us to expand UBI.
Once we get away from a full employment paradigm, which a UBI would lay the groundwork for, we can talk about automating jobs more, not creating new jobs that no one wants to do (currently when we automate jobs it's a bad thing because jobs are an inherent good in our society), we can then reduce work hours, or raise UBI. Basically, i support the UBI that gives workers the most bargaining power to say no and demand better conditions, without threatening the functioning of society.
Ideally in the long term, work hours go down, the centrality of work in our lives declines, and we'll be able to work less, and live more. Even in the short term, a UBI of around the poverty line would greatly reduce poverty and improve peoples' autonomy.
“But but…markets dont work, rents go up, why not universal basic services?”
Yes, it's true, some industries can't be saved and seem to suffer massive market failures. I'm fine with turning SOME of them, like healthcare and education, into government services. HOWEVER, I oppose doing away with markets entirely and just having the government do everything. And here's why. I DON'T TRUST THE GOVERNMENT. The point of UBI is that it gives you money, and then the government gtfos of your life. And stuff like universal healthcare have been proven to work in other countries.
But would I want the government to give you food? Or tell you where to live? No. That's too freedom infringing. I oppose corporate tyranny but I feel like the left is too quick to replace it with state tyranny. Please read “the tyranny of kindness” by theresa funiciello. Or look up scott santens (UBI advocate) reading chapters of her book on youtube. I dont want the government doing stuff directly, because the more power you give the government, the more they can exert it over you, which is negative beyond a certain point. I want the government to provide the services it needs to and is shown to be able to do, and to just give money for everything else. I actually like markets to some degree. They mean freedom when used ideally. You buy what you want, you dont buy what you dont want. You dont have someone telling you what you get and that's it. The problems with markets happen when bargaining power between entities is out of whack. The problem with work is our system coerces people to work, and this depresses bargaining power and ensures jobs are exploitative and one sided. Because the market is one sided. That's why im so big on the power to say no, not just to any individual job, but all jobs. And IMO this can only be provided with a UBI as well as guarantees to services that otherwise have severe market failures.
“I don't get it, why don't you just embrace leftism?”
Because I'm not convinced leftism can work, and examples of people trying to make it work have scared me off of the concept.
In an ideal sense, socialism is economic democracy vs economic totalitarianism. Whereas a private work place is one you have no autonomy over, if you're a partial owner of a factory in a socialist system, you have a say in your work place. While I dont deny this sounds good in theory, in the long term, does this really help me?
Let's start with market socialism here, the most moderate forms of socialism. THis is probably the form of socialism I'm most okay with. Because it's the most moderate and still respects the market system. But say we accomplished market socialism tomorrow…will society be anti work? NO!
Here's what's gonna happen. You're still going to be tied to a company, and to a job, in order to get money. You might have more say over your work place, but if you want to work fewer hours and your coworkers are all martyrs who want to work more, you're gonna be outvoted. Tyranny by a boss is replaced by tyranny by majority. And given how prevalent the protestant work ethic is, things won't likely change much. Your work happy coworkers who brag about how many hours they work…will still do that. And they'll outvote you. And you might be stuck working more than you want, and working all the shifts you dont want, etc.
And say most people are relaxed in a work environment and do want to work less. Well….would a competitive market system actually allow a business to work less overall? That means they lose money, which means they could go out of business, and be replaced by another company that has a stronger work ethic. So…I dont see much changing here. Unless there's a system of universal income and other public services like healthcare in place like would exist under “capitalism”, I don't see much changing under socialism. This is why I view socialism as overrated. Economic democracy sounds great, but only if you're pro work enough to actively want to participate in a work environment and want say over it. If you dont desire power, and dont wanna be there, this system does nothing for you. And it likely won't change much anyway. Because there's more wrong with the system than just who owns the means of production.
And then there's stronger forms of socialism like democratic socialism. Okay, so say a government nationalizes all industry in the land it commands. Okay…now we have the government running everything. How democratic is this gonna be really? Not very. In the most ideal situation you get a vote on things, but your vote matters as much as who wins the presidential election. I mean it matters, but it really doesn't. Because there's just so many voters, and so many people with different opinions where your opinion is barely gonna contribute to the overall situation. And then in order to make these industries work, you'll likely have tons of unelected bureaucrats like exists today in governemnt agencies running the whole thing, and they'll be the ones really running the show. And gee this is starting to sound like the soviet union or something. Inefficiency, bureaucracy, throwing money at the problem, workers supposedly being in charge of everything but largely being powerless, and an authoritarian state telling what to do every minute of every day.
I could see democratic socialism on a national level turning tyrannical just like has been tried in “communist” countries around the world. And while some would say that that isnt real communism, yeah, but Im not sure we can really achieve that. The fact is, there's the theory, and then there's the reality. In order to execute the theory, you need actual logistics in place. And when you get those logistics in place….things arent really as great as they seem. And things can go tyrannical really fast.
Even if done on a more local level, allowing for smaller scale units of government, it's still going to now really inherently lend itself to freedom. More a creation of the capitalist problem as I see it. The lack of autonomy and coercion is very real under socialism and in reality, I dont think that this alternative system liberates people at all. If anything it just gives the government more authority to act like a monopolistic capitalist state that also has the power to jail you and even execute you if you defy it. The problem is concentration of power.
This isn't even getting into the whole idea that most socialists DO tend to revere work as much as say, a right wing conservative capitalist would. Marx had the labor theory of value, and that just seems to be “well THE WORKERS are entitled to everything”. And it actually seems to be more pro work than anything. It seems to destroy any “capitalist” way of life like capitalist accumulation of wealth that may allow people to avoid work obligations…by taking that wealth away and forcing them to work. So isn't that just making more people work and ensuring no one can avoid working, because work is a duty to society and in the words of both the religious right bible, and also communist vladimir lenin “those who dont work, dont eat”? I mean, how are we really achieving anti work goals….if socialist ideology….idolizes work and puts it on a pedestal like it does?
“But what about anarchism? Most of us are anarchists”.
Yes, I recognize most people here are anarchists. They reject the authoritarian forms of socialism to adopt something like say, peter kropotkin's “on the conquest of bread” which discussed stuff like social anarchism, and people like “bob black” who envisioned “the ludic life” in which work was an act of play.
But here's the thing. I'm not sure if those ideas…work. Like social anarchism….how does that work if you're not the most social person in the world? Like I'm autistic. If forced social interactions with each other are painful and I dont get along with a group, how is this utopia for someone like me? This is why I like UBI. It respects freedom of association, but it also gives people the right NOT to participate. For someone like me social anarchism or something doesnt work either.
And work as play? Well….i dont care how you dress up work, work as play might soften the blow…but we should try to minimize…coerced work in the first place. Work as play kind of sounds to me like a capitalist boss in some silicon valley tech company going on about how they have ping pong rooms. Is it a nice perk? Sure. Does it fix the inherent coercion in the system? To me, no.
Also, another issue with anarchism is im not sure it would work well logistically in the first place. I mean, how do you prevent someone from just taking everyone over and imposing a state on them again? Isnt the core point of a government to have common defense?
What about the loss of living standard that would come with abolishing the state and modern economy? I mean, i can tell you im in my 30s, but I'd be dead many times over if not for modern society. I never would've survived childbirth, my mom probably would've died too. And then I got sick a few times in ways that could've been life threatening. And my parents have had various injuries. We've only survived because we have a modern society that greatly improves life expectancy. How can we ensure we maintain a low level of mortality and high quality of life under anarchism?
A final observation about leftism in general
Look, I get it. Capitalism as it exists sucks. And in our modern society, becoming a leftist is….subversive. It's counter cultural. it allows you to pick at the problems from modern society from an ideological framework that is…well versed in criticizing those problems.
Leftism, for all its faults, is great at criticizing capitalism. I get it. I mean from an academic point of view, that's what it's good at. And it provides tons of valid, in depth criticisms of the current system.
But at the same time, I really dont believe it offers anything compelling enough to fully abandon a capitalist framework. Revolutions carry a lot of risks, and then I have to ask, looking at how leftism actually works….will this get us closer to an anti work utopia? I dont see how this gets us closer to an anti work utopia. Most forms of leftism seem to be pro work, and if you implement “socialism”, I see things either not changing, or inherently becoming more coercive as the state just runs everything and serves as the sole employer, with an incentive of coercing people to work itself. While decentralized socialism can bypass those issues somewhat, I still dont see it actually acheiving anti work goals without implementing the same solutions i advocate for under capitalism, which would include some sort of state guarantee of the basics, ideally in the form of UBI and certain government services like healthcare.
But at the same time, if you have no state, I see no real organization that really allows us to have the safety and comfort modern society provides. There would be no military for common defense, and if we all lived like primativists, many of us would forgo modern medical care. I also dont see how this would allow us to avoid work either, as going backwards just means we'd have to do more for ourselves just to survive the winter, for example.
So….do leftist systems really have answers? They can throw rocks at capitalism all day, but I dont really believe they can do a better job. Meanwhile, as I see it, we have a system that's flawed, it can arguably be fixed, and if we fight for reforms within, as well as advocate for certain left libertarian but still capitalist goals like a UBI, and Medicare for all, etc., we could probably achieve more for the anti work dream, than any of the leftist solutions I mentioned.
Idk, it just seems arrogant of people here to claim you can't be anti work without being leftist. When most leftists dont even seem anti work at all (given the centrality of the labor theory of value among the marxist variety).
Honestly, this isn't to say leftists dont contribute though. Anarchists, socialists, etc. provide extremely detailed, and extremely accurate criticisms of capitalism as it exists. I just disagree with these groups in terms of being able to achieve goals within a liberating, anti work framework. Socialism seems nice on paper, but seems very overrated in practice, and anarchism, i just cant even envision it working in a stable form outside of smallish tribal communities, and how those groups live, isnt necessarily any better than how we live. They work less on paper, but also live much more primitive lifestyles.
Idk, given I support anti work goals, and modernity, while also being skeptical of power wielded by both the state and private industry, I think that the UBI+M4A approach is the way to go. It would give people more autonomy, without grearly increasing government overreach (it might actually decrease it if those things are truly unconditional), and it would allow us to get the stuff made, while also increasing freedom as much as we can. While it wont fully allow us to reach anti work goals in the short term, in the long term, simply expanding on this framework to meet contemporary conditions would likely be the way to go.
Idk, I just see it as the best, most realistic approach. Some here might disagree. I'm not necessarily looking for a protracted ideological debate here. I just wanted to explain how you can be anti work and capitalist. I would actually argue that you could achieve anti work goals more easily under capitalism than most forms of leftism. And while im not gonna gatekeep and say leftists cant be anti work, many obviously are, I would appreciate not being gatekept myself.
The big divide in the anti work community IMO isnt that between capitalists and leftists. It's between people who actually do seek to achieve anti work goals, vs those who simply want mild reforms that might improve things, but actually dont accomplish the goals of getting us off of this threadmill of having to work like we do in the first place. I seek to actually reduce the amount of necessary labor we need to do in the first place, and to minimize the amount of coercion we have in society insofar as work goes in the first place.