Ya know, it took me quite a few days to write that essay on expanding my theory into economics. And even after writing it, I still don't feel happy with it. I mean, I kinda did get into some themes that I wanted to, but I never took it as far as I wanted. This is gonna be a shorter article regurgitating how my iteration of human centered capitalism plays into all of this.
1) The economy exists for humans not humans the economy
As I said, in the previous article, the whole point of the economy is to produce goods and services to meet our needs and wants. That's all it is. I really feel like in our modern economy though, we kinda design our lives around productivity, rather than productivity being designed around us. This is a huge reason why work feels like slavery to me. At some point, it's no longer about serving our needs, but making us subservient to this inhuman economic system that squeezes us for everything we got. But no, the economy exists to serve us, we don't exist to serve it, and we need to remember that.
2) Work is a means to an end, not an end in itself
Part of this process of making us subservient to the economy includes the concept of "jobism", the idea that jobs are the solution to all problems with the economy. We talk constantly of creating jobs, but not a whole lot about whether people actually want to work or whether we should work. heck, if anyone dares question the concept at all, they're shamed and browbeaten and called terms like lazy and threatened with economic sanctions like joblessness, which wouldn't be so bad if we didn't need work to survive, but sadly, our system is designed in such a way where we think that we need work to justify giving people a paycheck.
Work just exists to make things. It shouldn't be a good in and of itself. It should be a transactional process, not some great calling that we revolve our lives around. We really do need to rethink our relationship with work, and to rethink the link between work and income.
3) Property is not a natural right
That involves questioning the so called natural right to property. As I said, in the previous article, property is not a natural right. And yet, we treat it with the force of divine command theory. No, see point 1, the economy exists for humans, not humans the economy. The same can be said of property. We are literally enslaving ourselves to our institutions and we need to seriously rethink property rights. Im not saying property is altogether bad, but I do think recognizing it is a social construct that can be changed or modfied would be positive. A strict approach to property rights, and by extension our fixation with work being the basis of it, is why we're largely stuck in this mess. It's why we see redistribution and the idea of "something for nothing" to be so....beyond the pale for most people. We just think "if you want something, you have to work for it, you have to get it from voluntary exchange, taxation is theft." No, taxation is not theft, theft is the illegal and unjust siezing of property. But if property isnt a natural right but a social convention, taxation is just as justified as property and redistribution is something worth considering.
4) There is no purpose but that which we make for ourselves
Another major barrier to moving away from work is this concept of the protestant work ethic, or the idea that work is a calling and that we need work and work is good for us because it provides people a sense of purpose. Yeah it does that if that's what you're told and that's all you know and you never question things, but I do question things, and existentially, i think work is bullcrap, and I think telling people that work is dignified and gives people purpose is spiritual violence. If you genuinely don't believe it, and you shouldn't if you're a free thinking secular humanist, which my ethics are based off of, work is more a sisyphusian hell than it is something that's good and dignified. If you wanna believe that crap, go ahead, but imposing it on everyone else and telling us we need work to make us feel good and to be part of a cause larger than ourselves or whatever bullcrap you're peddling is spiritual violence. You don't speak for me, don't even try.The only purpose that comes from work is that which we make for ourselves. if you believe that, fine, but some of us don't. And we kinda resent the concept.
And yeah, I just wanted to outline that as a companion article to the previous article on expanding my humanist ethics into the economy. i feel like this is a much sharper article intended to address some key points of the economy that relate to work more in particular, and these are the principles my ideas of human centered capitalism are based upon. There's some parallels to yang's version, but there's also some differences. For me, the idea has deep philosophical roots in my worldview, with deep philosophical implications for the system as a whole. We need to change, and the changes should align with these ideas.
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