So, normally I like Evelyn Forget's work on UBI. I mean she is one of the ones who went back into the studies on UBI back in the 1970s with mincome and found that they actually did a lot of good for Canadians at the time, and helped put UBI on the map around the time that I got into the idea, but I'm going to be honest, this one is a bit cringey.
I'm going to be honest, I'm sick and tired of people trying to tell me that there's social meaning in work, and work is so great, and blah blah blah. I'm tired of trying to rehabilitate work as a concept. I'm ANTI work, full stop, screw work.
From my humanist point of view, there isn't really an inherent purpose to things. When I was an atheist, I flat out went full nihilist/absurdist in looking at the concept. There's no meaning in anything, except that which we give meaning to. And I adopt this perspective, even though I have gotten some level of spirituality. Because hey, the actual divine beings seem to largely have a noninterventionist policy here, they arent trying to force their way on us, and if anything they seem to like to largely hide themselves and give themselves plausible deniability to avoid influencing our actions unduely (unless they specifically want to give certain individuals information), so I think that sticking with that approach is...fine.
So let's just assume there is no purpose to life. Life is what we make of us. Isn't work just...what we make of it? There is no inherent value in work. The inherent value in work is subjective. It has the value that we give it. As a society, we overvalue work. From a functionalist perspective, valuing work is about encouraging people to do the things necessary for society to function. Society needs farms and blacksmiths and blah blah blah, so it got them. As we evolved socially, we shifted toward factories, stuff like that, and now we're going into like...this weird bifurcation between low wage, low prestige service work, and high wage high prestige information work. Even a lot of the prestigious information jobs are under fire due to chat GPT and stuff. But generally speaking, from a functionalist viewpoint, the ultimate point if work is to make things. All of those social attachments we have to work are SUBJECTIVE.
And of course, there's the conflict perspective to work. Which is that work is valued because our system is controlled by an elite, and a system in which people value work is beneficial to that elite. And my own perspective also kinda leans into this. I mean, from this perspective, we brainwash people into working so that people are willing slaves to produce wealth for rich people. And yeah, you can clearly see why my own perspective is a synergy of those two perspectives.
I mean, keep in mind the three schools of sociological thought. Functionalist theory, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. I'm not a huge fan of the third theory, because while it's good at understanding cultures, values derived from such a perspective are...subjective. They only hold value within society. They dont have objective, universal value. And I feel like the work has dignity crowd tends to lean way too hard into our social preoccupation with the topic, whereas I tend to think differently and not value it much. I mean, if work is so great then i shouldnt be forced into it. Forcing me into a cultural practice i disapprove of is coercive and evil IMO. And as such, we must default to the other two theories in trying to justify such an idea. I'm fine with some level of coercion if it's NECESSARY under functionalism. My ideas dont mean anything if they dont work. I'm in the same lala land as the marxist leninists with their "theory", or the ancaps, for a right wing example, if i cant justify my ideas from a functional perspective. We can talk about how we can work less all day but if society falls apart without work, then my talk is meaningless. Which is why i spend so much time putting actual policy details behind my ideas.But alternatively, if work is actually justified more in conflict theory, and we really are just slaves to the elites, then that system is unjust.
Keep in mind my own iteration of human centered capitalism. The economy is made for people, not people for the economy. I soundly reject work if work is based on conflict theory justifications. Are social structures exist to serve us, we don't exist to serve them. If we exist to serve them, then we are slaves, and we should abolish such a system. And then my second plank, work is a means to an end, not an end in itself. This explicitly attempts to put a functionalist perspective on work. The function of work is to make things. I explicitly reject any feel good subjective thing about work being great and we needing work for our own good and blah blah blah. I reject the idea of creating jobs for the sake of creating jobs. Quite frankly, in a world without objective universal purpose, work for the sake of work is just us living the myth of sisyphus, and wasting our lives rolling rocks up hills for all eternity for its own sake. And I'm sorry, i dont wanna live like that. I don't want that to be my life. The idea of working for the sake of working in a society where we could easily start doing away with work, just sickens me. It really does. I hate the idea of it. I hate the idea of my life being built around work, when it doesnt have to be around work. I resent being forced to work, because our social structures are such that we can't opt out of it.
Honestly, all of this crap about work being essential to living a good life is a bunch of crap. That's my honest opinion. It doesn't connect to me, it never connected with me, and I never even came across such twisted sentiments until well into my adulthood after I 1) left christianity, 2) became a leftie, and 3) adopted UBI. it was only after I actually purged all of the nonsense I believed growing up and made my own ideology from scratch, that I actually encountered these ideas. And I mainly encountered them as pushback to UBI and my ideas. And I'm just like, bro, where did these ideas even freaking come from? Really? They just seemed like weirdo justifications and rationalizations to bully people into liking something that they would otherwise hate. Seriously, I wanna emphasize. I NEVER encountered these ideas before I became a UBI advocate. My ideas of work growing up and as a young adult were always negative. Literally the only reason I adopted the idea of work at all was because I believed if we didn't all work, society would fall apart. I resented people on welfare because I saw them as living off of the labor of others, and being coerced to labor to provide for another is just...wrong. Why should i have to work and then pay taxes to allow another person to not work? That person should get a job and stop mooching off of others. That was my mindset. It was just bitterness and crab mentality. Because at the end of the day, I hated work, I resented being subject to it, and the idea of someone living off of my labor was wrong because of that coercion. It's really the idea of "if i have to do it, everyone should have to do it." It wasn't until I left Christianity, became a leftie, and designed my own ideology from scratch, with my UBI support melding with my humanist perspective, that I really even encountered the idea of people actually LIKING work. Again, it's just such a foreign concept to me. Most people I know hate work. Most sentiments regarding work being positive, or necessary, come from cultural brainwashing. And I really wanna drive that home.
Now, to get into the article more, and to discuss the facts and figures she presents as far as work goes and its positive impacts on our lives, I do want to point out that Andrew Yang cited similar figures, and was a bit more of a "jobist" than me because he felt similar things. But I do wanna point out some things.
First of all, we live in a society that is very "work centric". We place subjective cultural value on work. We place significant aspects of our self worth into working, and those aspects bleed out into other forms of society. People who dont work feel bad about themselves, because they're denied privilege and agency in their life that others have. They lose their friend circles, because their friends dont want to associate with those who are "lazy" and dont want to work. Romantic partners pass them up. Rejecting work leads to mass societal rejection, in which you're shut out of social relations, and you're stripped of dignity and social respect by virtue of well being. You also lack money. And that drives a lot of the above. Why would a romantic partner want to be with someone who doesnt work? They want financial security, because ultimately, romantic partnerships become economic partnerships. A lack of work ethic can also create problems within those economic partnerships even if they dont work. Because if you dont work you better bet you're doing the housework and taking care of the kids. Ya know? So ultimately, by rejecting work and work ethic, you forfeit a lot of life's most important relationships. Which leads to lower life satisfaction and lower self esteem. It's not that there's inherently anything good about work. it's the social stuff that comes with the work. And that's where UBI comes in. UBI gives people social respect and money, outside of work. Which is also why its so controversial. Those conservative types with bitter mindsets who hate work dont want that, because from their perspective, if we give everyone money, then no one would work, and it isnt fair to those who do work and blah blah blah. They see work as an inherent negative thing, but they recognize it has to be done. Liberals are weird. They seem to recognize this too, but they tend to play more mental acrobatics creating these ideas like "the dignity of work" to justify the idea. But that's what that stuff is to me, it's just mental acrobatics. I even pushed liberals before on the topic, only to get them to drop the act, take the mask off, and have the same mindset as conservatives too.
I also wanna say, on the "deaths of despairs" thing mentioned, this isn't a new concept. Hell, this is LITERALLY the oldest thing known phenomenon in sociology. Emile Durkheim discovered the discipline by noting that suicides seemed to coincide with a anomie, a mismatch between society's norms, and society's reality. He wrote over 100 years ago, the more early stage capitalist hellscape in which people were forced into cities and forced to take factory jobs. From my perspective, there are two ways to approach anomie. We can either change the norms of society to better reflect reality, or we can change society to reflect the norms. We seem to choose the latter with all of this talk for more jobs. We would rather keep creating work for its own sake, rather than shifting away from jobs and toward a more healthy approach to society.
Think when you were a kid. Odds are if you live in a first world nation, you didnt work. And I bet you had no issue with that. If you were anything like me, you loved it. I always hated school. I always looked forward to summer. Because summer was when I could just do whatever I wanted. I got up when I wanted, slept when I wanted, and spent most of my days playing video games or playing outside with friends. Best times of my life. It's only when we get older, and suddenly there are all of these societal expectations on us, that suddenly, we are miserable not working. Heck, we prevent children from working because we obviously dont believe in the idea that "the children long for the mines". Heck the very idea was just what the capitalists told us to justify the idea.
Why do we treat adults so differently? Again. As I see it, we have a very unhealthy culture. We hate work, but then gaslight ourselves into loving it. We force ourselves to do it, and punish people who don't, and then we act like we want to do it all along. It just comes off as the same self loathing mindset common in protestant christianity. I mean, it's called the protestant work ethic for a reason.
Honestly, we should change our norms. Normalize not working. I mean that's what COVID kinda sorta started doing. Like people dont realize it but here's why the right started crapping bricks when the economy shut down. They kinda realized, that if people got used to staying home and collecting a check, and that we could live life a different way, that they would be DONE politically. Like, once you get out of plato's cave, and you see past the illusion that is modern life, there's no going back. And COVID kind of presented an opportunity for cultural change. So the powers that be fought it, and all of the conservatives fought it. because for them the downfall for society comes when we lose our work ethic. If we just all sit around collecting checks and not working, we become soft, entitled, and society falls apart. They really are subscribers to the good times create weak men, weak men create hard times, hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, cycle. So for them saving america was about keeping people working because if we stopped working and realized there was more to life than that, then their idea of america would be DONE. They would lose all cultural sway, and they would because irrelevant.
So thats why the right fought to keep us all working. It wasnt just about the economy, it was a front of the culture war. I can say this as a former right winger who still has an idea of how Id respond if I held those values. And yeah, I would've crapped bricks too. I mean, imagine the "entitlement society" that could have come out of covid. I mean, imagine a society where no one has to work and we just give everyone a check unconditionally every month, the horror. M i rite? For them, that's hell, because it speaks to the downfall of society. For me, it's a missed opportunity as someone who would like a society where we all get checks and arent forced to work.
But yes, something to think about with right wingers. Every one of their insane overreactions to something is because they perceive something as a threat to their values. And while the left doesnt push for values anywhere near as much as they should, the right kinda is more aware of the ideological consequences of certain things becoming mainstream.
Which is why the right made it their mission to get "back to normal" as quickly as possible during the pandemic. The more people were allowed to sit around and acclimate to pandemic life, the harder it would be to go back to that pre pandemic normal.
And of course, how did they draw the battle lines? THOSE LIBERALS WANNA TAKE AWAY OUR FREEDOM TO WORK, THEY WANNA FORCE ALL OF US TO SIT AROUND COLLECTING CHECKS. Now, i dont wanna FORCE people to live like that, I do believe in choice, but yeah. You see how these guys are literally fighting against my own value system here, even though it's a massive strawman most liberals dont actually believe? Yeah. I'd actually like to take on that cultural fight mind you. But they made it their mission to sabotage it before it could happen. And they were largely successful. We largely went back to normal and seem to treat closing down in general as a mistake even if we saved thousands or millions of lives doing so.
I know, I know, Im on a huge tangent, but I just get so fired up on this subject and just go stream of consciousness mode in talking about this topic.
But yes, Im in favor of changing our norms to meet a new reality.
Now, to be fair, I do wanna say one thing, I do recognize that most people want to work. I mean, the data suggests this. I do think this is in part cultural, and long term with UBI we could see greater reductions in work ethic not measured by studies, but assuming it happens over a long enough period of time, I do think that the economy could absorb that and adapt to it. The economy is quite adaptable, and as we automate more work, the amount of people NEEDED to work goes down.
But yeah, ultimately, and ironically, Forget (finally going back to that essay), does seem to suggest that if people wanna work, then theres no need to force a work requirement for UBI. That's fair I guess, and again, data suggests that. And you know what I think. if enough people work to keep society going with a UBI, then there's no reason to reject a UBI on the grounds of feasibility. Most arguments against UBI are actually moral and come down to this cultural idea that work is good and people have a duty to work. But of course, I reject that, assuming the actual functionalist requirements for society are met regardless, as I dont value work in and of itself.
Forget then asks if people under 25 should be denied a UBI to teach them good work habits, citing that young people are more likely to take larger lapses in employment that hurt their earning potential over time.
Uh...this comes off as creepy, like we need to teach young people the value of work, and brainwash them into the work cult, before we give them a UBI that would allow them to not work. Same philosophy of religion "get them while they're young." I also feel like this really ignores how UBI changes the game. If work no longer becomes a necessity for life, but more an opportunity for people to socialize, find meaning, what have you, then perhaps earning potential isnt a long term concern. After all, i envision a society where workers have the upper hand over employers, arent forced to be their slaves, and can leave at any time. I envision a world where employers have to adopt to a new reality that maybe "no one wants to work any more" and maybe to attract talent, they have to, you know, pay them what they're worth. UBI, in giving people liberation from coerced work, can change many of the cultural norms normally associated with work, and change the game significantly.
Again, the reason this crap matters now is because we HAVE a cult of work and people are forced to participate whether they like it or not. So people who dont abide by the cult's value system are punished later on...with poverty. Again, UBI takes away that power to a large degree. And that's one of the reasons im interested in this policy above others. Other policies merely try to regulate the unjust relationships between workers and employers, but few tend to actually solve the problem. UBI is the one that actually lets people do things on their own terms. And based on Forget's essay, I think that's what people want.
Forget mentioned at one point in the article that people who suffer involuntary employment suffer mentally. But she also mentions people in bad jobs also suffer mentally. The common thread between all of her examples seemed to be, to me, not that people want jobs or dont want jobs, but they want autonomy over their own lives. Which is what UBI offers. People want to live life as they wanna live. What makes people unhappy, regardless of their circumstances, is living a life that is incongruent with their expections for what a good life is. So people who are forced to work bad jobs are unhappy. people forced not to work when they wanna work are unhappy. It's almost as if we should just give people the freedom to pursue their own ends rather than imposing a one size fits all system on people.
And yeah, that's all I really have to say at this point. But yeah, that's my reaction to this essay. Again, I realize that i spend more of my time going off on my own tangents than reacting directly, but sometimes the subject matter gets me going. And I feel a need to respond to it.
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