[vespergo]

Let's call this what it is. Any system that short circuits the basic human need for hard work and reward compensation will never be a success. You can sugar coat it and re brand it any way you want to. Humans need that feedback loop of blood, sweat and tears before they receive a 'reward'.

[tim333]

It's been theorised that hunter gathers in good times did ok without blood, sweat and tears.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society

[jrochkind1]

That theory is actually pretty challenged. Makes me want to find time to enhance the wikipedia article, but it would be a lot of work.

Among critiques are that the !Kung San people the study of which is at the basis of this theory _weren't_ actually exclusively (or possibly even primarily) engaging in hunting and gathering as economic activity at the time the anthropologists studied them, but those anthropologists just chose to leave out the wage labor as "atypical". And that the !Kung San at that period of history actually were a regional underclass -- if they didn't work much, that's because they didn't have many options, and is similar to the extremely poor in any society. See Edwin Wilmsen, _Land Filled with Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari_

That's just a start.

But anyway, I agree with you that it's ridiculous to think that people can't be happy unless extorted to work for others at threat of starvation.