So, Kyle Kulinski had another take on work that seemed so close to hitting the mark, but then he just...totally misses the point. He discussed an article talking about how 80% of people hate their jobs and/or are disengaged from them. And he kind of had a moment where he was like, "hey, if 80% of people hate what we do for the majority of our waking hours, maybe we should rethink something" moment. In reality it seemed like 59% are more actively resentful of their jobs, so the numbers don't quite pan out to 80%, with only like 23% "thriving" at them, but still, that does paint a very dismal picture of the US economy, right?
The problem is, Kyle is, at his heart, still a jobist. He thinks the problem lies with how work is organized, and we need work that motivates and engages people, and for those who are inevitably stuck with crap jobs, he supports things like shorter work weeks (like 32 hours), higher wages, and worker self management (coops).
I'm going to go a bit further. If work sucks, and most people actively hate work...maybe we should...rethink work. Again, let's go into human centered capitalism as i understand it. The economy exists for us, we don't exist for it, meaning that we shouldnt be treated as mere inputs into the economy, or slaves, but the very end that justifies the entire economy existing, and we should understand that work is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
This...deemphasizes work as this end all be all. Jobism is like a religion in the US and other industrial countries. We treat work like a rite of passage, like people NEED work to make their life complete. Like we should aspire for every single person to be employed for 40+ hours a week, and that work isn't just a paycheck and other lofty nonsense sentiments like that. Oh, and that if you dont believe in wanting to subvert most of your waking hours to work, you're a lazy POS who deserves to starve to death.
I believe that we should strive to reduce the work burden on every single person. That technology, rather than destroying jobs and then creating others, just destroys them so we can afford to work less. I think we should strive to actively eliminate unpleasant work from the economy. That instead of creating more "shovel ready jobs" as obama would say, or more service industry jobs that are soul crushing to work at, we focus on automating tasks so we can be free from this BS.
I think we should strive to reduce work weeks and increase vacation time, yes. But we should be actively shrinking the work week more than just to 32 hours. If we can get the same productivity in 32 as we do in 40 that should be a nice start, and after 85 years at 40 hours this is a long overdue change. But we should also strive to go lower. 25 hours. 20 hours. Ultimately, 15 hours, 10 hours. This won't be done overnight mind you, but over the long term, if we value leisure more than raw GDP growth, we could instead pursue leisure over GDP growth.
We should also strive to make work voluntary. Give people a UBI, give people freedom as the power to say no, not just to any job, but all jobs. And ultimately, in the long term, strive to free as many people who desire to be free from the grind to be free from it. At the end of the day, maybe it will be those remaining 23% of actively engaged people who do the bulk of the work. And you know what? THat's okay.
It seems like part of the reason we insist on everyone working is out of some sort of sharing in the misery. it's not fair if everyone doesnt work and isnt miserable, so if i must be miserable, so should you. But that is a crab mentality and is harmful in the long term. In the long term that just ensures we continue creating jobs so that people share in the misery of working. Maybe we should try to free people.
Which is where UBI comes in. Not only does UBI solve abject poverty, but it also gives people more of a choice, you could choose not to work and to live just off of UBI, or you can work and earn more on top of UBI. Most people would choose to work even with a UBI, given the UBI is truly basic and poverty level. Because people to seek to have higher living standards and have more enjoyment in life. But ultimately, this freedom to work or not to work puts the choice in the worker's hands. It essentially accomplishes what socialism claims to. By giving workers back control of their lives. They CAN quit, they CAN find other jobs, they CAN hold out until their demands are met, and with no compulsion to work, they can choose to work on their own terms. And that makes everyone happier and more engaged. People will no longer be trapped in bad jobs, they can leave whenever they want and be fine for it. People work merely to enrich their living standards more than it would be on a UBI. And this might also mean they choose on what terms to work. They might be in command of their own hours. They might choose only to work part time. Honestly, i think the destruction of the full time job, and a replacement by hourly gig work, assuming we get the basics taken care of with UBI and universal healthcare, is possibly the ideal way to run an economy. The reason we put so much emphasis on full time jobs with benefits is because the 20th century social democratic and new deal dream was making sure everyone could ensure their needs are met through work. But to me, this is just reformism. And you cant just reform work long term. You need to liberate people from it, and give people a real choice.
In the long term, we should pursue less work as we know it, and more part time, gig opportunities with flexibility to workers. I dont care about owning the means of production or being engaged in work. Quite frankly, i dont WANT to work. I think work sucks, and that this cult of work that we have going in our society is an incredibly destructive ideology. It's also why i tend to fail to fall in a typical left right divide. The left and right doesnt argue over work itself, but merely who owns the means of production. At least the left wants to ensure people can live on work well, but they tend to also go too far into trying to reform work into something that to me it will never be. I say screw work. You cant reform work where i would actively wake up and be like "oh gee i cant wait to go to work". Nope, even if I became a video game streamer, or a political commentator like kyle kulinski, or both like vaush or something, i would get burned out. Because for me, my inspiration comes and goes. it ebbs and flows. I dont like a consistent schedule, i dont like a grind. I write here when i have things to say and dont when i dont have things to say. Sometimes im writing articles daily, but much likely lately, sometimes i pull back as i get burned out and focus on other things. Work itself though, is constant. It means you gotta constantly grind. It means that you got other people telling you what you do for the majority of your time. It doesnt let people do things on their own accord. And that's what lefties who try to reform work miss. Yes it's good, if you're getting screwed, to be compensated well for it. it's better to give people a choice not to be screwed in the first place though.
On this blog, I've given ideas, blueprints, of how to move away from work. I'd advocated for UBI, I've advocated for reduced work weeks. Much of my political ideology is dedicated to this cause. And I believe that in the long term, my ideas could work. They just need to gain popular support and be adopted.
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