A work or die mentality doesn't work. Why we deserve a basic income.

originally posted by: LordSatan

We don't work to live. We work to earn a medium of exchange that can be used to trade with others in the market. You work because person A labored to create X and you desire X, and person A wants an equivalent exchange in value.

It is not required that you interact in the market to live. You can very well provide everything you need to survive by utilizing your labor, and your labor alone. The quality of what you can produce is irrelevant, the fact remains that you have the ability to survive utilizing your labor outside of the market.

Could you elaborate? I am confused by that. You used the word "desire" which for me, tend to indicate things which are not necessities- is that how you meant it?

you have the ability to survive utilizing your labor outside of the market.

What do you mean? Like you have the option of stealing food?
When I lived in the US, I found money very necessary for survival, and lived in a state of stress because of that.
But maybe that was because I was in an urban environment, where there was no natural sources of food to be caught or gathered. Heck, in Los Angeles, even water could not be found in any natural source!
You needed money to have food and water, need to work to have money. How do you see it possible to detour that ?

a reply to: Bluesma

Could you elaborate? I am confused by that. You used the word "desire" which for me, tend to indicate things which are not necessities- is that how you meant it?

You still desire the things that are necessary for your body's survival, it is not lack-of-desire that compels you to seek them out (water, food, shelter). Desire is desire regardless as to whether said resource is necessary for your body to live or not.

If I labor to produce clean water, you have no positive right to said clean water just because your body requires it. Your labor didn't produce the clean water. If you did have a positive right to the clean water that I produced, you would be morally justified in taking it from me through violence and/or coercion.

1. You could trade with me, but you would have to find something that I value more than the water. Maybe I need food and you have labored to produce a flock of sheep, we could do a direct exchange of resources, my clean water for your sheep. What quantity of water is equal to what quantity of sheep? What if I don't want sheep, I want cattle, but you have no cows? Why would I do a direct exchange of resources with you if I wasn't getting something that I find value in, in return?

2. What if you had nothing to offer, should I just give you the water? But I spent t in time cleaning it, and I need to feed my family, and myself. My supply of clean water is finite, which means I will eventually have to clean more water. That means that the time I could be spending gathering food is being spent cleaning water, so trading with you would be more beneficial than just giving you the water outright. Would I have any guarantee that somebody else who is producing food would just give it to me? On good faith that, when they (the food producer) want X, that someone will just give it to them? None of us would have any guarantee that others would act in such a capacity.

A currency is a tool that solves the problems presented in instances 1 and 2.

We can deduce that, a currency is a medium of exchange, and that as a medium of exchange, a currency eases exchanges of resources between people. It gives us a way to measure the value of a resource without having to make direct comparisons between different resources--and it acts as a guarantee that we will have something of value to trade with others in future exchanges (when I take the money you gave me for the clean water I produced and use it to buy food).

We do not go to a market to get the things that we need for our survival because we could not otherwise, we go to a market because someone else's labor has already produced said goods and it is more convenient to gain a medium of exchange, and use it to trade for already-produced-resources.

I do not have to engage with others in a market (either through earning some currency or trading said currency for resources others produced) to survive. I have to engage in a market to obtain the resources that were produced by someone else's labor. Person A labored to produce X, I want X, person A's labor deserves compensation if I am going to take X from him.

I can provide water, food, and shelter myself by utilizing my labor to do so, and just skip the earning money and buying things altogether. The level of quality that I can produce may not be as good as what someone else can produce, but 1. we have no positive right to quality (having such a right would imply that other humans are our slaves, quality requires labor), and 2. the question of quality is completely subjective.

I get the idea of money as a way to exchange- that is not what I am confused about.

Your examples all apply in third world countries, where an individual has perhaps dug his own well, filtered his water, and another would like to have some of it.

It does not seem to apply in the modern first world as it is evolving right now- in which an automated robot and machine has done all of that.

This is the whole point of these systems proposed- the automation of our modern world which leaves little labor for humans.

I am inclined to take technology into consideration when the "work or die", the seemingly current paradigm is being discussed.

In the past, food was much more difficult to store, now one can store food nearly indefinitely.

Automation of what was once accomplished through human labor will only make the situation worse than it already is.

Let's just rush right on ahead and imagine a world where everything we need is produced by machines and human labor is no longer a part of the scheme.

There either has to be a drastic change in the way the needs of the population are met, or all but the technicians who repair and maintain the machines, and the owners of the machines, will be deprived of what they need to survive and die.

I fear it will be the latter, from how petty, thoughtless, cruel and ruthless and utterly ignorant the lowest to the highest many of us are.

a reply to: Bluesma

My point is that you don't have to sell your labor/time to live, that claim is not true.

Even if you don't engage in the market, to sustain yourself, you will still have to labor (work). Building a shelter, collecting/cleaning water, and acquiring food is all work (labor, i.e., mental or physical effort).

In the market we use a medium of exchange to acquire products that were created from the labor of others, it's a matter of convenience. You can survive without convenience, you don't have to rely on the labor of others, you can provide for your own survival through your own labor.

I was not making any argument regarding the automation of labor, I was making an argument against a specific claim in the OP.

a reply to: MyHappyDogShiner

There either has to be a drastic change in the way the needs of the population are met, or all but the technicians who repair and maintain the machines, and the owners of the machines, will be deprived of what they need to survive and die.

Unless, of course, humans have the knowledge to be able to build and maintain such things on an individual level.

What people in this thread don't understand is that, building and maintaining automation is work just like all of the work they are railing against now.

a reply to: LordSatan
Building and overseeing a system that is designed to replace jobs still has a net loss of many many jobs despite the few people overseeing and building it.

a reply to: Benicealways

Building and overseeing a system that is designed to replace jobs still has a net loss of many many jobs despite the few people overseeing and building it.

Say what now?

a reply to: LordSatan

I guess I am not getting it.

You used these two sentences in the post I was asking about-

We don't work to live.

You can very well provide everything you need to survive by utilizing your labor, and your labor alone.

"Work" is "labor", the terms are interchangeable here. Labor has wider meanings (like in giving birth, or as in a workforce (plural), but used here, they mean the same thing- we work or labor, to be able to survive.

At least those underneath the very wealthy do. The wealthy can rise above those drives for survival

(which might not be desired so much as needed- I see a difference. Sometimes I do not desire to eat, but I know I must because it is needed for my survival...)

..and on to drives for self-actualization, which grow stronger as the lower needs are fulfilled.

One person might be needed to maintain a machine that takes the place of ten workers.
This creates a problem for those who have potential labor to exchange for food, protection, water.... at least in urban areas.

I recognize that in rural areas one has the ability to find all this themselves, but people in cities can't (legally).

In my experience, I was used to being motivated to labor or work through my fears for survival, and going to live in a country where there is no threat of that, and it is not part of their culture, (they live with a sense of security ) I found with time that even if I don't have to work to live, I had those drives for self actualization motivating me!!

My american family have asked me thousands of times why I was doing minimum wage jobs when we're basically rich by the standards in our environment. I didn't "need" to. I still have other drives besides physical survival which step forward when that is fulfilled.

I'm wandering off commentary on your thoughts, and into the topic at large.
Anyway, I still don't get exactly what you wanted to say, but that's okay, I might catch on later while watching. Thanks for the effort anyway!!!