So yeah, everyone is ripping Ben shapiro for his crap take that people should be forced to work until they die. Vaush had probably the most interesting take I'm willing to engage with. As we know, Vaush tends to be a jobist. I have very serious disagreements with this guy on everything, and even here, I don't fully agree with him, although I kind of do.
He said outright that he doesnt believe in anti work, he thinks that work provides people purpose, including older people, and that anyone of the right age can be economically productive. I kinda dislike this. I kind of feel like the reason a lot of people are drawn toward work is they dont know anything else. most young people, like teenagers, if you ask them about work, none of them like it. It's adults who get indoctrinated into work, where it becomes their whole life, and then if you take work away from them, a lot of them just dont know what to do with themselves. They never really developed lives outside of work. They dont have hobbies. They just have the mind crushing tedium of work and a lot of people after spending 40+ years working, suddenly find their time unstructured and free and don't know how to cope with it.So, it's not that this is the natural state of humanity. i dont think it is, it's a societally driven problem.
But vaush has good news, in his mind, if you want, you can work into retirement voluntarily. Get you out of the house, talking to people, potentially give you a reason to live, etc. And...here's the thing. I'm not opposed to this, as long as its voluntary. I hate the FORCED nature of work. I dont dislike people seeking work if they want to. if anything, I think that those guys, the ones who LOVE work, should be the ones to do most of it. Some people LOVE that crap, so I say, you know what? Let them. Let them do whatever work needs to be done, just dont force it on everyone else.
The difference being I would give EVERYONE that choice. I know, sociologically, most people WOULD choose to work. Whether it's a natural thing, or part of our indoctrination, most people seem to do mentally better when they work. It's pervasive in our culture and a lot of people like the money that comes with it too. They dont want the bare minimum, and that's fine. I just, again, dont think that people should be forced.
Now, what about the reduced work week? Well, again, we live in a society where people are forced. And you dont really have a choice to work less than 40 hours in most cases. Jobs that let you work less than 40 hours are typically so low paying and lack benefits that most want to work more...so they can get that better pay and benefits. What a reduced work week would do is remove coercion to work more. Like, the 40 hour work week was a good idea because before that people would work like 60-80 weeks. In early capitalism, it was closer to 100 hour weeks. It went down to 40 because of productivity and stopped because we didnt reduce it from there. We just said 40 is the right amount of hours and anyone who works less shouldnt be societally protected from poverty. We engineered society to make people work 40 hours, just making it harder and less economically cost effective to raise the work week over 40 hours as that would come with overtime. This does tend to not apply to high level salary jobs where people are often expected to work more, hence the "I work 80 hours in corporate america" thing, but yeah. A lot of people DO only work 40. And that's good. because we dont want them to work more. We understood people were forced to do so like slaves, again, reformists were like "yay, we fixed work". They kinda do this double speak of work is good now, but let's face it, work is forced for many people, and they work more hours because the system forces them to.
So....by reducing the work week, as I said, its giving people more freedom if anything. Because a lot of people rightly point out that just because something is "voluntary" in our economic system, doesnt mean it actually is. So reducing the work week should give people more freedom.
If people seek to work longer than 32 hours, they will find ways to do so. But lets face it, i think, if people are given a choice, and people start becoming more used to working less, they wont WANT to work more. And that's what the right fears, that people might realize this work stuff sucks, and they might start leaving the cult. As I said, a lot of measures to oppose things like working less, working from home, UBI, etc., is about control. A lot of people fear what will happen if work doesnt just control peoples' lives. They think, at best, that if people didnt work all of the time their lives would fall apart from sin and vice and that they need industriousness forced on them for their own good. But to go further, a lot of them fear that if work wasnt peoples lives...they would grow a spine and not want to live their lives that way. It literally IS about controlling people.
Anyway, to go back to the main point though, if people want to work voluntarily, even into old age, let them. I just dont think anyone should be forced to. I think theres so much worrying about what would happen if we didnt have to work any more that people spend too much time trying to come up with new nonsense for people to do, to keep us on that treadmill. And to be frank, I just want off at this point. I don't care. Screw work, we should all be free in my opinion. And what comes next is up to us. I believe most people would find ways to occupy their time over time. i think that society might come face to face with an existential crisis, but I honestly embrace the nihilism. As someone who went down that road, once you realize what work is, and what life actually is, you won't wanna go back. And you'll see going back into that cave as stifling, if not enslaving.
but, I recognize I'm not most people, and they can do them, just let me do me. If vaush wants to spend time working, let him. Just dont force that crap on me. That's what true freedom is all about.
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