So...a lot of people in the democratic party don't like purity tests. They seem to just think we should fall in behind the democratic party no matter what they do, and not demand things from them. On the other hand, is a faction of so called "leftists" whose ideas of purity tests are so insane, and who purity test on what I consider to be on the "wrong" issues (ie, issues that have no direct relevance and importance to the quality of life of Americans as a whole). And I don't like that either. I DO believe in purity testing, and fighting my battles carefully.
On a political forum I sometimes lurk, people who were gonna purity test over gaza were asked to justify their opinions. Sadly, the thread was shut down as it was considered a repetitive topic so no one really answered in a significant way, but it did cause me to think about what motivates me, and why I care so much about my issues, so I figured I would try to sell my vision here.
Why I care so much about UBI, medicare for all, and a world without work
Time is our most precious commodity. Everyone has a limited amount of time. We live roughly 80 years, some more, some less. Most people work from 16 until around 66, which is the retirement age last I looked. We work 40 hours a week, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. We do this 50 weeks a year typically, and are lucky to have a 2 week vacation. Many don't even have that.
America is a country of freedom, but deep down, somewhere, people are profoundly unfree in this society. While we may be (relatively) free from direct state action in most situations, ultimately, our economic system creates a compulsion to work. This would be justified if it was necessary. If the failure of every able bodied person to work would create a scenario in which there was not enough basic necessities to go around, then I can see the idea of "if you don't work, you don't eat" as being justified. It's a necessary evil. But with that said, it is an evil, and it's one I wish to see extinguished from this world.
American capitalism has, however, produced an amount of wealth that is unprecedented in human history. Theoretically, we have enough resources to go around for every person to earn $70,000+ per year. We could have a society of plenty, and heck, if we wanted to, we could work less, and still be fine. But we don't.
Instead, we have a system in which 10-15% of people are in poverty at any give time, which means they lack the material means to properly sustain themselves. Around half of everyone lives paycheck to paycheck. They cannot afford a $500 emergency. Most people are desperate for work. We have decided that work and income are to be linked, and giving people the essentials of money for life is free, because they may not work. But this has never been empirically demonstrated, if anything, the opposite is true. Most would likely work in some form, and we would almost certainly meet the amount of work needed to sustain society as a whole.
What this system has done, is that is has enslaved us. It makes us desperate. It makes us beg for jobs, beg for servitude. We have tricked humanity into thinking trading away hours of your life to rich people who own most of everything just to be able to survive is normal. In any sane view of the world, this would be slavery, but in America, we just treat it as if this is how it is, this is how it always was, this is how it has to be, and we can't change it. Even worse, most Americans are so complacent under this system, that many resist changing it.
But let's go back to the finite time thing. If work is defined as the things we HAVE to do, then that comes at the expense of what we WANT to do. I want to minimize the amount of time that we HAVE to do things, and minimize the amount of time that we HAVE to do things. Every hour spent on work comes at the cost of an hour of time that could be spent doing something else. What else? ANYTHING ELSE. It doesn't even matter what it is. Whatever we deem to be important enough to do. It can be something most economically minded people see as a waste of time like watching TV or playing video games, to planting a garden, to raising children, to...ahem...making children, to doing art, to learning things and expanding one's intellectual horizons, anything, really, anything they want.
They could even work if they want to, in the fields they would work, if they were given the opportunity to choose, rather than being pressured to accept the first thing that comes along at whatever market rate that comes with.
To me, a basic income, medicare for all, and other economic proposals that I care about are necessary to preserve what we Americans consider to be our "natural rights". Now, I'm not a huge fan of natural rights theory as it is written, it sounds a little too divine command theory-ey, but honestly, I would say that the aims of my ideas are in line with what is outlined in the declaration of independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. NOT PROPERTY, mind you, property should not be considered a "natural right" but a social convention to prop up those other rights, the same goes with my ideas. All ideas should, essentially prop up the three natural rights enumerated in our constitition.
In terms of life: the role here is self explanatory. We cannot live if we cannot meet our bodily material needs. Basic income, medicare for all, and other proposals would allow us to meet those needs as a right of society. It codifies the material means to meet those needs rather than gatekeeps them behind work.
In terms of liberty: gatekeeping such life sustaining needs behind work essentially forces people into a position of servitude, being forced to work for a boss in order to meet our needs and survive. This makes us subservient to such bosses, and makes us kind of like slaves. Now, we consider it "not slavery" because technically, everyone can say no to any individual boss, the the fact is, most people will have to work somewhere, our options are limited, there is no real exit option, and my ideas would create one. This would give people actual liberty and allow them to choose to engage in relations with others more voluntarily as those relations would be based on wants rather than essential needs.
In terms of pursuit of happiness: with liberty comes our ability to pursue what makes us happy. We cannot pursue our happiness if we are not free to do so. Jobs keep us tied out for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50+ weeks a year, and take up almost a quarter of all of our time, and almost half of our waking time. And often times, a lot of time spent outside of work is also spent...on work. it's spent commuting to work, preparing for work, taking breaks at work, and doing other work that has to be done in our domestic spheres of life. We are a busy people, too busy for my tastes, and our whole lives revolve around this work. We do not live for ourselves, we live for work, like we are slaves. This is life in this sisyphusian hell that we created.
As I said, every hour spent on work is an hour that could have been spent doing something else. Something that might make us happier, something that might make us more fulfilled. Economists and free market libertarians will act like we CHOOSE work because the alternatives are worse, but we made the alternatives worse in order to force them to work in the first place, so we can't act like the decisions people make are justified or freely made after we twisted their arms to make them.
As I said, the only legitimate justification of this coercion is if it is necessary for society to sustain our needs at all. I do not think, in a modern era, that it is. Maybe it did at one time, but even that is debatable of Karl Widerquist's books on the subject are anything to go by. Essentially, at this point, we are de facto slaves to a bunch of rich people who have a pathological obsession with wealth creation and profit maximization. We are kept poor and desperate to drive us to work in order to serve them, and I think this should end.
This is an issue that affects virtually every american. At some point in our lives, we will work. Most of us will spend a good 40-50 years of our lives working in this rat race as we call it. Young people HATE this when first forced into it, recognizing it for what it is, but as people get older, they often just passively accept it and even become angry at the idea of changing the system because they fear how it will impact their place in it, and maybe even show them that their suffering was unnecessary all along. Well, at some point, we gotta break this cycle, it isn't fair to future generations to have to suffer just because ones in the past did, so yes, we should change our system, yes, we should give people more freedom, and yes, these ideas are always going to be my #1.
Even if I sometimes take a detour, such as voting for Biden to prevent Trump from overthrowing democracy, because we can't have UBI without our democracy, or I support some foreign policy conflict (we cant have UBI if we arent safe here at home), or I support something like ranked choice voting (in order to allow us to more easily get UBI), for me, this is always temporary. I'm thinking nonstop about how to get us to UBI and the future that I want, i vote based on it, and I will push to keep this idea alive. And yes, any compromise should be TEMPORARY, i dont support doing what, say, Andrew Yang did when he decided to merge his forward party with the serve and renew america movements. Because in doing so he gave up on UBI, institutionally at least. he clearly still believes in it as an idea, but he isnt as strong as an advocate for it. I respect yang for pushing ranked choice voting as a means to get UBI, but I dont approve of him abandoning UBI for it. While an occasional tactical retreat might be justified in order to more quickly reach our goals in the long term, any permanent retreat should be discouraged.
The fact is, unless we literally got bigger fish to fry of a more existential nature, I am going to keep pounding away on my issues and my economic vision. And I am going to be purity testy on this. To me, an issue that affects all of us, and how we spend so much of our lives and our time should be one of our top priorities. it baffles me for so many people to just normalize the system as it is, and act like this isnt a big deal, and scold me for caring about it, while they go on about bullcrap like identity politics or foreign policy conflicts half way across the world. I dont care. That stuff doesn't help me, or advance my causes. It might not even be that relevant, but a pointless distraction. I wanna stay laser focused on my issues, only deviating when I have to. That's where my heart is, and that's what I think is worth spending our time on. We can focus on other bullcrap in a post work world when we have the time to waste thinking about such pointless things and have the privilege to care about that stuff. Yes, I literally just reverse unoed the "privilege" people. Yes, I see them as the privileged ones. I don't believe I have the privilege to care about this. As Andrew yang once said, until the economic boot is taken off of peoples' throats, we're gonna be stuck in a scarcity mindset that makes these issues the top of our priority list. being able to care about more minor issues is a relative luxury....either that or a distraction. Perhaps both.
And yeah, that's how I see things.
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