So, I read another Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt book and MAN, this guy really makes me HATE FDR. i know in his "free time' book he discussed how FDR kinda railroaded the progressive movement toward less work and doomed us to a life of sisyphusian grind, but he only dedicated like a chapter of that book to that, here he has a whole book with all the gory details.
Anyway, this book actually helps me kind of understand where I am on the pecking order of things ideologically, and how my exact ideology, despite being really new in my mind, is also really old. I mean, I kinda rediscovered an idea that was actually pretty commonplace a century ago until FDR killed it.
So, let's start in the 1920s. prior to the great depression and the new deal, there were two major camps regarding the rapid rise of technology improving living standards. One group wanted to use technology to reduce working hours. if anything after WWI, people were quite pessimistic about growth and capitalism. Capitalism had grown so efficient that it started throwing people out of work. This would lead to recessions and depressions, and the way to solve them back then wasn't by "creating more jobs", but by "sharing the work." So we would actively reduce working hours to drive people back to work and despite shorter hours, wages would often go up due to increased worker bargaining power.
But, there was another camp. One that kind of viewed the first group, which I kinda identify with, as "defeatists", and who believed in using consumerism to increase demand, which would then lead to more jobs, more productivity, more work. Basically, "work without end", as the book is called. The commonplace ideology we have today where we just insist that human needs are infinite, we need to keep working forever, and anyone who doesnt believe in this committed some massive fallacy against economics, as if economics should be authoritative on life in general, and not just on growth and productivity.
Guess which one won out? here I am, thinking with my own blueprints for a post work future that I'm coming up with new ideas and discovering these very obvious truths, when in reality, people used to believe in this stuff a century ago. hell, it's that camp that caused keynes to write his essay about how in 2030 we'd all be working 15 hour weeks and have so much free time we wouldnt know what to do with it. Which is part of the problem, as I'll get to later, I feel like part of the reason we never arrived at such a future is because people literally cant imagine a world without work after it has been beaten into us all of our lives, so people think it would be boring. Trust me, it's not. You'll eventually have so much stuff to do that you cant get to it all and the idea of work and drudgery as most currently experience it seems as backwards and barbaric as chattel slavery does.
But yeah, for a while, there were these two camps. The first, like myself, saw work as a burden, and something to be eliminated, while the others wanted to make work central to one's life. Again, guess which idea won out? My ideas seem alien to me, like relics of a long lost now defunct era no one takes seriously, and anyone who seriously questions the cult of work should have their head examined.
Anyway, the book then looks at why the movement toward fewer hours failed. A lot of it is complicated, a lot of political maneuvering by FDR and him literally F-ing over the factions that supported the movement toward a 30 hour work week, industrialists opposing 30 hours, and just, the conditions of the depression basically requiring traditional keynesianism to jumpstart the economy.
I could go on and on about the conflict theory explanations, but we all know that song and dance, FDR sold out, he backstabbed the movements that supported fewer hours, first adopting their language and then going in with JOBS JOBS JOBS, and economists and industrialists obviously wanted to do the whole infinite growth without end. if we see the state as being first and foremost in favor of the interests of the wealthy, it makes no sense the "gospel of consumption" as it was called won out.
But to be fair there were some more functionalist explanations I do wanna address. So...the great depression itself caused a very severe reduction in living standards. THe book didnt address this part directly but accounting for GDP per capita, the 1920s had GDP per capita closer to the 1950s than the 1930s. The depression literally halved standards by my estimates. And people feared that "work sharing" would just doom everyone to poverty. Growth was needed to truly recover from the depression, and not just work sharing, although in my view, we should have both.
I mean, that's the thing, despite rejecting the gospel of work and infinite growth, I'm not ANTI growth either. I kinda support a compromise, recognizing that these guys do sometimes have a point, we shouldnt remain at like 1920s/1950s or 1930s standards of living forever, and we SHOULD grow. I just dont see infinite growth as helpful either, as the jobs system perpetuates poverty in a systemic way itself, and also, the existential angst of working forever so some line goes up just doesnt sit well with me. But growth is nice. And I'm not necessarily against it. But, in the 1930s, it was framed as one or the other and the gospel of consumption people basically said that reducing hours doomed america to poverty and growth was needed to actually make america prosperous. Again, they're not necessarily wrong. THe interests of the state also aligned with the growth paradigm. More growth means more tax revenue. If we use consumption to stimulate the economy, it creates jobs, which produces more wealth, and thus, more revenue. So even if we stimulate the economy, we're also growing it making the initial expenditures small by future standards. Again, standard keynesianism. And...it's not a bad idea. I ain't opposed to keynesian economics. It's surely better than the more neoliberal economics that came after that shaped my own perspective. But it's not...all that I really support, given the fact that in this debate between growth and working less I'm actually, all things considered, a moderate, not actually advocating for just one or the other, but a combination of both.
But yeah. Then FDR later just tied his legacy toward jobs jobs jobs and creating work for its own sake. And he just flat up backstabbed people like hugo black and william connery in the process. He did a lot of stuff that they wanted, but in doing so, created the monster that is the modern economic system. It was with FDR that we went all in with jobs jobs jobs forever, never reducing working hours, growing forever, and using the federal reserve system to regulate the economy. And don't get me wrong, it's because of that paradigm that I now have my current views. I mean, contrasted with reaganism which is always just "let's give more tax cuts to billionaires so they create more jobs" and that pretty much falling flat on its face in the light of evidence, the keynesian model is why I can say liberalism is better than conservatism.
But...I never really got along with liberals either. Like, here's the thing. I'll admit the thing that most people in our work centric society won't admit, I REALLY dont want to work. I dont like the idea of working. yes, I'm "lazy", I want to be a "parasite." I mean, let's face it. If things HAD to be this way, if we all had to work just to survive and scarcity was the consequence of everyone not pulling their weight, that would be one thing. But it isn't like that. In the aftermath of the 2008 recession, as I watched Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spar over what philosophy did better at creating more jobs, I asked...why do we need more jobs? Jobs exist to make things, do we really want to just create work out of thin air just to give people a paycheck? And that's when it really clicked with me that yeah...this sysyem makes no sense.
But we sure do have this cult of jobs that slavishly depends on them. To some extent, i thought it was merely because liberalism was captured by conservatism to use the same rhetoric as them, and how they had to play the game of talking of "creating jobs" in order to win over conservative leaning moderate voters. Ya know? But it always seemed weird to me for Obama to be trying to "create work." If the left wanted to differentiate itself from the right, it should lean more into social programs and less into work. Let work be the realm of conservatives and their fundamentalist approach to economics. What made the left great was using the power of the federal government to provide aid directly to the people through stuff like unemployment and social security.
But as things evolved from there, I kinda realized, yeah, liberals have a work fetish too, and even more so depending on the exact implementation, they either sound like conservatives or socialists. Conservatives want the free market to create the work, and socialists want the government to do so. And it didnt click. We had a GDP per capita on the level of my entire family's income at the time, we could theoretically divide up the entire wealth of the country that way and it would give everyone a lifestyle on par with my whole family's. Of course doing so would destroy the economy, and I would be more moderate than that, but again, that's where UBI comes in. We take 15-20% of that GDP per capita, and we redistribute it to everyone equally, and then no one is poor, income inequality goes down, and society is far more fair and just.
But but, no, we can't do that because it's 1) communism (never mind communism is closer to the whole work creation nonsense in practice and that's a core problem I have with it), 2) would destroy the incentive structure (it wouldnt), 3) would upset the natural order of things (religious nonsense), or 4) a myriad of other reasons I've debunked over and over by now. As I always say, the strongest arguments against a UBI and my ideas arent practical, but moral, and that's why I spend so much time debating the morality of it.
Same with this work reduction stuff. And that's kind of where the book ended up ending. The final quote of the book really stands out to me:
automation threatens to render possible the reversal of the relation
between free time and working time: the possibility of
working time becoming marginal and free time becoming full
time. The result would be a radical transvaluation of values,
and a mode of existence incompatible wilth the traditional culture.
Advanced industrial society is in permanent mobilization
against this possibility.
I mean, that really does seem to be what it comes down to, after I spent years studying this issue, deepening my understanding of it, etc. People who support the status quo fear what change would bring. We would need to change our values to adapt to a society where work is less central to our lives and it scares people. it scares the wealthy who fear losing their power and privilege in society as people fail to buy their stuff. It scares weirdo communitarians who believe people need to be united around common purposes to encourage social cohesion. It scares religious whackjobs who insist that we must be repressed, lest we fall into sin. It scares workers who have adopted the slave ethic and can't imagine a society without work.
But, as a secular, left wing VALUES voter, someone who wages my own "culture war" from a humanist perspective, and wishes to drive the current political ideology into the dustbin of history, I'm okay with that? my ideas were built out of a rejection of the modern GOP and its values, since, since the 1930s, the republicans have since been the party obsessed with job creation and work for its own sake, while liberals just merely reflect their own version of those values. But it's kind of weird that liberals used to be very much into those ideas too, and still are.
In a sense, my own liberalism has never been FDR's liberalism. Nor did I ever try to be it. After all, the focus on technocrats and government job creation seemed to be what turned people off from the new deal over the long term. People became more individualistic, lost that civic ideal, wanted to be left alone, and honestly, a lot of the warts of old liberalism led to its downfall. It became percieved as being inefficient, being authoritarian, creating jobs for their own sake, and honestly, not all of these characteristics are always wrong. I do think that that iteration of liberalism failed due to its own internal contradictions, that it was inefficient, that it didnt work, and that it no longer mobilized people. People ultimately care for their own interests. FDR was beloved during the depression because despite his flaws and my own ideological disagreements with him, he came off as very pro worker, and in a world based on needing to work to survive, government created jobs were better with no jobs. But after a generation, the flaws started setting in. Johnson and FDR never truly solved poverty, government did stuff but it never seemed to work for the people, and Reagan was able to say HERE, TAX CUT, and the people went wild, especially after stagflation and the relative normalcy that followed. Once in a generation, an economic crisis breaks the current system and leads to realignments based on reform. It isnt always the best ideas that win, but if a political movement does a GOOD ENOUGH job at returning thigns to normal and restoring confidence in the system again, people will glorify them, at least until the next crisis. FDR was that guy in the 1930s. In the 1980s, Reagan was that guy. In the modern era, things are in flux. Democrats suck, being a watered down shell of their former selves that makes even the new dealers look comparatively amazing, and the republicans are succeeding via the placebo effect in my view, and just all the timing issues with who wins where. Trump has no real solutions, but if he can make people FEEL good, then that's all that matters. And thats where democrats fail. Yes, Joe Biden was the best conventional, post FDR style leader we could ask for in the 2020s in terms of "job creation", the economy had low unemployment, inflation spiked but he got it under control, but people werent happy. I blame the whole economic system based on jobs. Trump promises to "make america great again" which is just more conservative BS repackaged. but it makes people FEEL good, and that's all that matters.
SOmetimes pretending to solve the problems creates more success than actually solving them. And that's kinda what happened with FDR. Sure, he did a lot of good things, but he also backstabbed my own camp with their own dogs in this fight, to the point that some of those people became quite bitter toward FDR. And Reagan...well he took us in the wrong direction, but it seemed to be good at the time so people glorify him regardless. ANd it's the same with trump. Bernie, if he won, would be more like FDR, an imperfect jobist candidate. One who leans hard into the gospel of consumption as FDR understood it and is hostile toward the UBI movement (sorry, but at this point, the writing is on the wall, he kinda is).
I mean, yeah. That's the thing. No one in mainstream politics really represents me. Heck, no mainstream ideology does either. I'm neither a conservative, nor a traditional liberal or leftist. Because as bob black would point out, all of these factions all believe in work. LIberals are right in that reform is better than revolution. Capitalism isnt the problem, it's just our iteration of it. Leftists are right in that liberals are sell outs. But I dont agree with either, because both are just fixated on this modern zeitgeist of work fetishism. Leftists just want "economic democracy" and job creation via the state. Liberals want a modified version of capitalism better than trickle down economics, but it still basically enslaves us. Hell, as far as im concerned, all of these ideologies enslave us.
The fact is, my own version of liberalism/progressivism died a century ago, killed by FDR and his gospel of jobs, and all these factions fight against my own ideas. Honestly, this book was a downer. it was very informative, but it makes me realize just how deep the cultural problem of solving work and capitalism go.
Like, let's face it, yang is the closest that it gets to me, given he is the only one to question this gospel of work and to propose UBI, but he seems oddly naive about the forces that oppose his movement. Like, his take is so surface level compared to mine. He seriously thinks that people will just wake up and realize job creation isnt working and that people will take him seriously when...they won't. Because we're dealing with people who believe in the gospel of work with quasi religious zeal. And despite all of the problems with capitalism related to this gospel, they'll just insist with intense religious faith that the answer is always more jobs. It's almost like a mental disease. Except, ironically, psychology has been taken over by these people where they view those who dont accept the gospel of work as the diseased ones. And I'm being literal there. They would think I have a literal mental disorder for not wanting to work.
Well, I am autistic probably, but let's have a serious discussion abiut THAT. Is high functioning autism really a disorder? Or is it only seen as such because it clashes with our job and work centric society? I'd argue the latter. I mean, a lot of autistic people arent really like...deranged or anything, they're just wired a little differently. But that makes living in a work centric capitalist society very disorienting and painful for us. I really would argue there's nothing wrong with me, the problem is with society here. I dont buy into society's BS, society's BS being imposed on me is the source of my problems, and no, the solution isnt for me to adopt society's values. I hate those values and find them very offensive to my being. Living according to them would lead to an inauthentic view of life, where I would feel like a slave. I often feel like one of the only sane people in an insane world here. And yeah.
Anyway, now I know that my views used to be a whole lot more common, it's just that this cult of work won out over them. And I find that very disappointing. We could be living in utopia and now we have in this bioshock infinite esque hellhole where we all adopt this slave ethic and act like anyone who doesn't has something wrong with them. And even worse, most debates are merely over how work should be done, not challenging the very idea of doing so in and of itself.
It really is as that above quote pointed out. Modern industrial society is in self preservation mode and permanently mobilized against any movement that might change the way things are and challenges its values. And that's what I do, I just challenge its values. I refuse to adopt the work ethic, which I view as a slave ethic. And I refuse to act like there's anything normal about a sisyphusian grind without end so line on chart goes up forever. Really, I can't emphasize how messed up modern society is for me. It's like we've forgotten how to live. We just live to work. We dont work to live. And it's backwards. Everything about society is backwards.
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