A World Without Work?

[Katzndogz]

It is not possible for the government to force the rich (defined as those who are still productive) to perform their labor for the benefit of those who won't work. It isn't a matter of no work being available. The work is available. It that the kind of work that is available is unacceptable.

 

[KissMy]

It is not possible for the government to force the rich (defined as those who are still productive) to perform their labor for the benefit of those who won't work. It isn't a matter of no work being available. The work is available. It that the kind of work that is available is unacceptable.

The working poor & middle-class perform their labor for the benefit of those entitled rich who won't work. Government can force the rich to stop stealing so much from the working man.

 

[depotoo]

It is not possible for the government to force the rich (defined as those who are still productive) to perform their labor for the benefit of those who won't work. It isn't a matter of no work being available. The work is available. It that the kind of work that is available is unacceptable.

The working poor & middle-class perform their labor for the benefit of those entitled rich who won't work. Government can force the rich to stop stealing so much from the working man.

First, would you rather there be no need for their labor? As I am sure the rich could leave and take those jobs with them or even do those jobs themselves as they worked hard to get where they are today and are familiar with hard work. Secondly mental labor is labor whether you think so or not. Mental stress causes more strokes and heart attacks than physical labor.

Don't judge until you have walked a mile in their shoes.

 

[Papawx3]

When the "wealthy" business owners are forced to give away their business income and profit to those who won't work, it becomes no longer economically feasible for them to continue in their business so they shut the business down. Then not only do they not have an income, there is no longer any left for the government to steal and give away to those who don't or won't work.
Keep going down that path and eventually there is nothing left for anyone.

But, if businesses don't have to subsidize those who CAN'T work (not WON'T work), who will? And, can society as we know it survive without someone supporting those who would work, but for whom no work is available?

That's not the purpose of business. The purpose of 'business' is to make money by providing needed products and services for it's community - nothing more, nothing less. In doing so, that business invests in it's community and hires workers who in turn support that community in the way of their own purchases and investments.
The taxes paid on purchases, income and investments add to the coffers of the local, state and federal governments. While most businesses donate to charitable organizations, it is certainly not their job to give away their companies away by way of government redistribution.
The job of providing for the needy rests primarily on those folks' families, churches and other charitable organizations.
It is also the mission of "providing for the general welfare", as stated in the Constitution, of the government, but that goes only as far as ensuring that the truly needy are fed, clothed, housed. They must also have medical care, but for life-saving measures only, not for every little cut, scrape and splinter they may encounter. It is certainly not the government's job of stealing from those who otherwise work to support and enhance their communities and giving to those who make a habit of taking, and taking, and taking some more.

 

[bitterlyclingin]

Only in Obamaville.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=xEYFFiEnUjQ]Obamaville Song - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Obamanation]

 

[Agit8r]

In the future, the robots will do all the work and make all the decisions, yes?

honestly, we practically have the technology already. It's kind of a mindf~ck.

 

[Nika2013]

We actually studied this phenomenon in college. Jeremy Rifkin has the idea that the majority of Americans will no longer work in the traditional workforce, but will be paid a "living wage" for subsistence expenses. Each person will contribute a few hours each day or week to tutor, plant a community garden, work in a youth or senior center, etc. Each person will be free to pursue his/her own interests and talents for the majority of the time and this leisure time will make society more creative and productive. Rifkin states that this is the future and not an idea. It is the theory of Karl Marx when he stated that work schedules prevent self-realization.

The down-side of this may be that the rich are still rich and everyone else equally poor. Socialism for the masses and capitalism for the rich?

Marx and Rifkin believed that society advances when people are happy and self-actualize. Marx believed the 8 hour day is non-productive and that people should job-share and have flexible time.
I am not against it. Who would not want to learn to play guitar, or write the next American novel, or hunt and fish? The issue is how to do it so that it is of benefit to society.

 

[Nika2013]

Pappa W x3....Well...I hope I am around when you give up your social security check as welfare...No..you did not pay in what you will receive in benefits....People in my town are always discussing "their taxes" in stores...and I question how many even know that they are not paying taxes...Most are receiving refunds...I am so sick of conservatives who simply mouth the party line..without thought...and BTW...it is the responsibility of businesses in the community to support the community as they receive funding from loans of the deposits of others.

 

[blackhawk]

Sounds like a lot of rambling nonsense to me.

 

[Charles_Main]

We most certainly have to come up with some new thinking and concepts for the post-monetary age.

You people watch to much fucking star Trek.

 

[Dugdale_Jukes]

Here's an interesting opinion piece from the New York Times which asks the question whether or not working is necessary anymore.

I'd never thought of it in those terms, but we must admit that the information age has made it more and more acceptable to work in non-traditional ways. Many of those who have left the work force aren't destitute. They've found other ways to support themselves besides a traditional job, and the wealth of the nation keeps on growing. As the author points out, when a nation has the kind of wealth we have, even a slight increase (as we're experiencing now) is still a tremendous amount of money and will still leave us far wealthier in the future.

There are, however, costs for supporting ones self through what might be called "non-work," but they are mostly societal issues. But, with the breakdown of the traditional family and the remarkable rise in the number of people whose personal interactions are virtual, it may be that we're quickly establishing a new, and far different, society anyhow. And, it may be that neither political party or ideology has caught up with that new reality.

What do you think?

"…Those riches mean that we can probably find ways to subsidize — through public means and private — a continuing decline in blue-collar work. Many of the Americans dropping out of the work force are not destitute: they’re receiving disability payments and food stamps, living with relatives, cobbling together work here and there, and often doing as well as they might with a low-wage job. By historical standards their lives are more comfortable than the left often allows, and the fiscal cost of their situation is more sustainable than the right tends to admits. (Medicare may bankrupt us, but food stamps probably will not.)…"

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FOLLOW UP POINT PARAPHRASED: Can this work without interfering in free markets?

It can't work, but if it could what do free markets have to do with it?

The only free markets in western and PacRim civilizations since WWII have been "black" markets. Every western government and every Asian government has taxed all the trade it could monitor.

There hasn't been free trade in the US (except black market trade) since the 1930s. I still laugh at the halfwits who believed Reagan's nutball coterie wanted "free" markets. IN fact I'm laughing out loud now thinking about the quality of mind that EVER bought into that including Friedman himself and future liberal idiots like Krugman.

The trick to Reagan's degenerate (aka "voodoo") economics was scale.


Think: "too big to fail" and you have the Reagan/Clinton wet dream come true. When "too big to fail" exists, free markets don't.

 

[Oldstyle]

The USA would be doing swimmingly IF the new wealth created by technology was more evenly divided.

Instead, our system rewards the owners who invest in technology and by doing so make human labor redundant.

Then when the wealth class has a LOT of extra money, what happens next?

ASSET INFLATION...

What is Asset inflation?

That's when there's more money chasing productive assets than there are productive assets to invest in.

The ASSET BUBBLE really started taking off in the 80s. Hence the saving and loan debacle, the dot com bubble, the real estate bubble, the GOLD & commodities bubbles, and the stock market bubble, too.


Some people ask my why I object when the wealth class is TOO wealthy in comparison to the laboring and managment class?

Because the above as described is all too PREDICTABLE.

It happens WHENEVER the capital class ends up owning too large a percentage of the CAPITAL, and they then drive up the cost (but not the efficiency of) the ASSETS that the nation depends on.

Our economic system is, right now, terribl;y INEFFICIENT in the sense that it cannot wisely diorect the nation's investment capital to BACK INTO the nation from which capitalist FIRST made it.

You know what, Ed? Your "theory" sounds so reasonable unless you really start thinking about it. You say that the wealthy having all that money drives up the cost of assets that the nation depends on? How would that work? There are only so many wealthy people out there and they aren't buying the bulk of houses, cars, appliences, electronic goods, ect. ect...the bulk of those products are being purchased by ordinary people. If Donald Trump wants to buy a 6 million dollar house or a three hundred thousand dollar Maserati do you really think that's going to increase the cost of the three bedroom two bath house I'm buying in Florida or the cost of the Ford Focus down at the local car dealer?

I would make the contention that it's our government printing dollars to pay for our out of control spending that is what is driving up the cost of assets in America. I just got back from the grocery store and that rotisserie chicken that used to cost $5.95 a few years back now costs $7.95. Is that because Donald Trump and his rich pals are driving up the cost of chicken? We're starting to see an ugly trend...higher prices in a stagnant economy...and it's got NOTHING to do with wealth inequality, my progressive friend!

 

[Oldstyle]

It is not possible for the government to force the rich (defined as those who are still productive) to perform their labor for the benefit of those who won't work. It isn't a matter of no work being available. The work is available. It that the kind of work that is available is unacceptable.

The working poor & middle-class perform their labor for the benefit of those entitled rich who won't work. Government can force the rich to stop stealing so much from the working man.

I don't "steal" from my employees when I give them a job. I provide them with a paycheck with which they can provide for themselves. I give them that paycheck whether or not the business that I have makes a profit that week because as anyone with even the slightest real world experience will tell you...profits trickle up...not down!

This is America...I don't have employees chained to the wall, nor do I lash them with a whip. If they don't like the pay I provide or the job that pay requires then they are perfectly free to go down the street and work for my competition. If I really DID steal from them as you seem to think, I wouldn't have employees or a business.

 

[Nika2013]

"I would make the contention that it's our government printing dollars to pay for our out of control spending that is what is driving up the cost of assets in America. I just got back from the grocery store and that rotisserie chicken that used to cost $5.95 a few years back now costs $7.95. Is that because Donald Trump and his rich pals are driving up the cost of chicken? We're starting to see an ugly trend...higher prices in a stagnant economy...and it's got NOTHING to do with wealth inequality, my progressive friend!"

Actually, it has everything to do with the prices going up....The poster is correct in stating that the wealth from technology is not being spread evenly and in fact, companies like Apple have been moving jobs to China for years...diverting wealth, while using the deposits of Americans and stock investments to support Chinese labor. When American companies send jobs that were once American jobs to other countries, while doing the above, it causes a drain of wealth from America. At the same time, Americans continue to buy Apple products and are subsidizing Chinese jobs. It was at the exact time that companies began to move jobs offshore that the value of the dollar dropped in terms of what it could buy. Time Almanac (2013) reports that a dollar could purchase more in the 1960's than it can purchase today and that its purchasing power dropped in the 1980's.
The answer is to make American companies accountable for outsourcing jobs. If they do not want to remain loyal and return the jobs they should declare an offshore corporate address and not be allowed to trade within our country.

 

[Papawx3]

We actually studied this phenomenon in college. Jeremy Rifkin has the idea that the majority of Americans will no longer work in the traditional workforce, but will be paid a "living wage" for subsistence expenses. Each person will contribute a few hours each day or week to tutor, plant a community garden, work in a youth or senior center, etc. Each person will be free to pursue his/her own interests and talents for the majority of the time and this leisure time will make society more creative and productive. Rifkin states that this is the future and not an idea. It is the theory of Karl Marx when he stated that work schedules prevent self-realization.

The down-side of this may be that the rich are still rich and everyone else equally poor. Socialism for the masses and capitalism for the rich?

Marx and Rifkin believed that society advances when people are happy and self-actualize. Marx believed the 8 hour day is non-productive and that people should job-share and have flexible time.
I am not against it. Who would not want to learn to play guitar, or write the next American novel, or hunt and fish? The issue is how to do it so that it is of benefit to society.

First, my apologies to Obamanation for using his avatar, but in this case, I found it quite appropriate.

Nika, I don't know which of the above most accurately describes you, but imo you are certainly in one of these groups.
And just for the record, no matter where on this planet or when in the history of mankind Communism has been tried, it has always failed.

 

[Oldstyle]

"I would make the contention that it's our government printing dollars to pay for our out of control spending that is what is driving up the cost of assets in America. I just got back from the grocery store and that rotisserie chicken that used to cost $5.95 a few years back now costs $7.95. Is that because Donald Trump and his rich pals are driving up the cost of chicken? We're starting to see an ugly trend...higher prices in a stagnant economy...and it's got NOTHING to do with wealth inequality, my progressive friend!"

Actually, it has everything to do with the prices going up....The poster is correct in stating that the wealth from technology is not being spread evenly and in fact, companies like Apple have been moving jobs to China for years...diverting wealth, while using the deposits of Americans and stock investments to support Chinese labor. When American companies send jobs that were once American jobs to other countries, while doing the above, it causes a drain of wealth from America. At the same time, Americans continue to buy Apple products and are subsidizing Chinese jobs. It was at the exact time that companies began to move jobs offshore that the value of the dollar dropped in terms of what it could buy. Time Almanac (2013) reports that a dollar could purchase more in the 1960's than it can purchase today and that its purchasing power dropped in the 1980's.
The answer is to make American companies accountable for outsourcing jobs. If they do not want to remain loyal and return the jobs they should declare an offshore corporate address and not be allowed to trade within our country.

LOL...when you say that corporations need to remain "loyal" are you asking that they disregard the interests of their shareholders and decline to be profitable? Corporations are outsourcing jobs from America because quite frankly we've made the cost of doing business here too high. You can't raise the corporate tax rate higher than elsewhere and not have an exodus of corporations to environments more conducive to doing business. It's naive to think you can...yet people like you, Nika...can't seem to grasp that simple concept.

 

[uscitizen]

Why work? Everyone can just make a living off of the market?

If you try that, you will be working even harder unless you are in the protected club who get bailed out. The market is not free.

but all you have to do is invest like privatized SS would be and you would have it made in the shade?

 

[Erand7899]

Pappa W x3....Well...I hope I am around when you give up your social security check as welfare...No..you did not pay in what you will receive in benefits....People in my town are always discussing "their taxes" in stores...and I question how many even know that they are not paying taxes...Most are receiving refunds...I am so sick of conservatives who simply mouth the party line..without thought...and BTW...it is the responsibility of businesses in the community to support the community as they receive funding from loans of the deposits of others.

Businesses borrow money from banks, but they pay interest on that money that benefits the depositors. Consequently, those businesses owe the community nothing.

Receiving a refund does not mean that people are not paying taxes. It just means they paid in more than the taxes they owed. However, many people do receive back more money than they paid in, due to several government redistribution programs.

Currently, banks pay little interest to depositors because they can borrow all of the funds they need from the Federal Reserve at almost zero interest. Consequently, they have little incentive to be nice to depositors.

You may not be aware of it, but this almost free government money is what is driving stock prices higher and higher. When it ends, the stock market will take a big hit.

 

[Katzndogz]

Why should we work when we can all live in huts and make neat stuff, then on occasion walk our stuff to a flea market and sell our neat stuff. Kumbaya.

Quite obviously someone would make more neat stuff than someone else. Sell more and be rich.

Of all the ridiculous ideas liberals come up with the idea that technology will give them lives of laziness is one of the silliest. Do they really believe that inventors will invent, engineers will build and technicians will maintain for the pleasure of the slothful?

What they really want is slavery with nice masters.