this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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Just like today, most of us are "not slaves" and many even take pride in being exploited.
It still happening, it is a tricky balance. Simplifying the situation to the following makes reasonable.. if you have a gold mine that generate 1 million coin a day, and you have a population of 1 million, and you secure jobs such as mining, tools makers, home builders, farmers, governor, and military. But you end up with a 300,000 people or families with no jobs.
If you gave every person a coin a day, then people who work harder or risky job will figure they better not work and enjoy life, so it would make sense to start making useless projects to keep people employee and restore some sort of balance.
The issue when the balance is exploited like what happens in modern governments.
We're too far in the other direction where it doesn't matter how hard you work, any advantage you can eek out is so miniscule as to be the inconsequential because like 10 people own half the assets in the entire country...
There is no issue with rewarding work with luxury while still providing everyone with the necessities to survive - such as a basic home and food.
Besides, you can reduce unemployment by just reducing working hours. 40 hours per week is way too much frankly. Why not 30 or even 20? That way everyone has more free time which results in better health and more productivity.
People would have time to debate political issues. Their job wouldn't take the biggest part of their life so they wouldn't link their identity with their job. Social customs would change so that the people who should work 40 hours for the benefit of all prefer other jobs. Scarcity of applicants would also shift the power towards the employees for wage negotiations.
It's possible and could improve society massively, but too risky for the current business owners to implement on their own.
Yes the first thing to cut out is the "unearned income".
Higher income linked to real work / productivity is unlikely to be as big a problem unless the higher paid/skilled workers start gathering market power and controlling stuff (unearned income like a monopoly premium).
But the original thought experiment seems cart about horse to me - the work and product comes first, coins come along second to make it easier to specialise and trade.
No. People enjoy the feeling of being useful. They want to contribute.
Speak for yourself. If I could afford to not work I absolutely wouldn't work.
studies on UBI shows that to be a pretty uncommon stance.
So, if your food and housing was taken care of you would just stare at the ceiling all day?
I might, if that's what I felt like doing that day. The first thing I'd do would be to sleep for a year.
Of course not. I'd probably spend most of it hiking or pursuing other leisure activities. Things can be fun without being useful.
Absolutely. I can live without working but I do bc I want to be able to do those extras, the sense of accomplishment, as well as socialization.
There's a difference between not being employed and literally doing nothing.
If you don't know what to do with yourself when you're not being literally told what to do for the majority of your week, that's a you problem.