Reacting to Andrea Veltman's "Universal Basic Income and the Good of Work"

 So this is chapter 8. it talks about work disincentives regarding UBI, as well as why UBI doesn't contradict with a social duty to work. 

On the first topic, the author just flat out admits that yeah, there's barely any work disincentives at all associated with UBI in practice, and most people would continue to work even with a UBI.

She also asks if there is a duty to work, believes that there is one, but that perhaps it should not be enforced via the labor system, given most people work any way.

It was an okay essay, but all in all, like most in this book, they lean way too far into the whole pro work perspective for my tastes.

I mean, there is evidence that most people want to work, and many UBI advocates will say "people dont want to sit around, they want to do something with their lives." That is absolutely true for a lot of people. I would say it's not true for me, but I also am likely autistic so my motivation structure is different than most. We can talk all day about whether the inherent drive to work in our society is nature or nurture. I think that there is a large nurture component where we've structured society around work, and thus most people can't envision a world without it.

Either way, as long as the sausage is made, I don't care too much how, as long as there are enough people to fill the positions that need to be filled, that's all I really care about. I dont see work as great and blah blah blah. Work is a means to an end, not an end in itself. 

As far as whether work is a duty that we should all have to undertake? I'd say no. I mean, the idea of work as a duty directly contradicts the idea that people want to do it. It comes from the idea that no one wants to work so we need to force them to work for the sausage to get made. If work is so great and people voluntarily choose it, why insist on making it a duty?

Also, duty is a subjective concept anyway. Keep in mind my humanist moral perspective. All morality comes from people, and serves people. It's not here by divine fiat, or blah blah blah. No, we MADE these ideas. And for the idea to be valid it must serve a valid purpose. If we absolutely NEED society to run this way, we can say that it should run this way. But honestly, the reason I can afford to have the views that I do is because I've long since realized that we don't NEED to do things this way. We CAN afford to work less, we CAN afford to make work voluntary, and I would argue we should reimagine our social contract to account for this. Rather than forcing people into the idea, we can just give people freedom to do what they want.

Does this contradict the author? Yes and no. At the end of the day we both would agree on the same thing. And she would probably do it from a slightly more normie friendly perspective. With me, I am more counter cultural here, and I'm just full on "screw work" and am more willing to reject such a duty outright. if we can make the sausage made through voluntary behavior, then there's no need to force people to do anything. Or even impose a cultural expectation on them.

Either way, I would be fine with shifting work as a duty from an actual enforced idea to a mere cultural expectation. Kinda like having kids. Although to be fair rightoids are trying to force people to do that too these days. But yeah, the childfree have always kind of resisted the idea of having kids, and no one (barring government intervention in banning birth control and abortion) can really force people to do that.

But...childfree people will also encounter negative attitudes from parents, who think it's their duty, and blah blah blah. They'll go on about how they suffer so much for their kids and blah blah blah. And you know what childfree people say to these would be authoritarians? Get bent, it's our choice, it's not really a duty, we can do whatever we want."

I'd expect, in shifting to a voluntary work society, that the jobists would freely choose work, then complain about it, and then tell us that those of us who opt out suck. And I'm just gonna say, "bite me, I'll do what I want."

And that's how society should work. Informal ideas and duties exist all around, but without force behind them, they're just expectations that people are free to ignore.

And if you wanna keep the duty to work in that context, that's fine, I'll just ignore it. Because I dont believe in that stuff. 

The author also discusses the issue of bad work, but given I already read chapter 9 and it's all about that, I'd rather just address this stuff there.