No, everyone likes work. We call it "hobbies" when its not formally productive and "vocations" when it is. Capitalism, as a system, is awful at allocating this work that people love to the people who love it. They either can't at all, or they are forced to fit it around wasted time, or they have to gamble on trying to build it up from nothing, and often losing their stake and their beloved work.
> Capitalism, as a system, is awful at allocating this work that people love to the people who love it.
It's significantly better at it than the alternatives.
Even UBI. Sure UBI sounds great in principle, you'll be given enough to live on and you can spend your time doing whatever takes your fancy, but in large-scale practice I don't see it working.
Making the majority of the population dependent on the government for their income is not something that has historically worked well.
One, they're not dependent on the government. Only on a society organized to redistribute wealth so as to prevent scarcity, in the broadest sense of the term. Could be anarchic or contributory in a different social climate.
Two, the idea is not that people will goof off all day. Some yeah. Most, no. Most people will find work they like doing and do it. What does go away, however, is the fear of failure, unemployment and poverty. So they will have much better options to search for their most effective niche, rather than leaping in panic upon the first offer.
One, there is no practical way to roll this out across an entire society without government involvement. Businesses and wealthy benefactors can make it work for small trials, but large scale society level in a western democracy? It will need government involvement, and even if you try to do it without them, they will stick their nose in it anyway whether you like it or not.
Two, ideas and reality are very different things. The idea of communism is that everyone is provided for and people give what they can and only take what they need. Sounds great, very altruistic. In reality, it's been a nightmare everywhere it has ever been implemented at a societal level because the idea fails to take in to account human nature. UBI proponents overlook or understate this factor too.
> Capitalism, as a system, is awful at allocating this work that people love to the people who love it.
It's actually pretty good at it. The really fulfilling jobs like nursing or teaching go to those who are willing to sacrifice most other luxuries to do them; those who don't get a fulfilling job get more consumption to make up for it. Enjoyable work is a commodity like anything else.
The utopia vision as I understand it behind UBI is that automation takes care of most / all of the work people don't want to do.
I think the biggest challenge to this utopia vision (assuming automation gets to this point) is more that, frankly, labor is not wealth. Land is land for instance regardless of what is automated or not. Rent seeking for various things is rather common, most of which automation will not touch. I can envision strong resistance to any sort of UBI scheme from this group (some of this group frankly seem to not even care for our current safety nets now).
Before we go through a true "post work" phase, we'll probably go through a phase where service oriented jobs are the norm -- this is also harder to automate away completely, although probably not near impossible like tackling assets and rent-seeking. The main problem here is that this side of the workforce is currently rather undervalued IMHO. So if one wants improvements in the world of work, I personally think putting more efforts here would be better vs. banking on UBI.
Or, with enough automation, the world would be making leaps of progress in a variety of areas of human interest, because everybody is pursuing their true interests.
The idea being that we automate, design away or do without as much as possible of the scutwork and pay the remainder handsomely. Then people can do the things they like - which may well be highly useful, they just aren't what capitalism will pay for.
Yeah, I agree with you there, but it seems to me that power and politics are a fact of life, like the air that we breathe or food that we eat. Maybe we can clean up the air or cook nicer things, but they will always be there.
Part of the problem, I think, is that most people like work. When people sense their hours are spent on fruitless or simple tasks, or they're not valued for it ("low skill" jobs) it's frustrating. Accomplishing things, making progress, solving problems ... these are very satisfying aspects to "work.". But how many jobs offer that regularly?
I have a more aggressive timeline than most on the spread of automation (a catch-all for job replacement, obsolescence, changing labor market). I'm of the opinion there will be a significant shift on our lifetime with whatever social repercussions and accommodations follow. But I don't think people will ever stop "working."
There is nothing wrong with working and liking your work. I have a passion for music and coding, working all day. Problem is that most people need to work for another reason; $$$ instead of passion, to avoid ending up in the streets. That's more like slavery.
I like to work. If I had a choice, I would be using my skills for something more directly beneficial to mankind than what I do now. Unfortunately, that just doesn't pay as well, and I have student loans and other financial obligations to worry about.
After long unemployment period and bad times, I need work, not the social thing, just the activity.
I guess to some, the fact to be doing something is better than the job being interesting, a career, well paying .. (as long as it's not to extreme of course)
btw, I believe that we're wired to like work as a basis for social bonding (if you believe that social bonding was selected to help for survival, and work is basically mutualized survival). So doing something in group is probably always good as long as the group factor is good enough (aka not being slaves)
No. Work is a hobby for me. I enjoy the process of working, progressing, doing something. I don't really have any other hobbies that I wish I could be doing all day. We have to have something to wake up and do everyday, otherwise life is very boring and just a waiting game until the end of our days.
If people don't enjoy their work, their mission should be to keep looking until they find something that suits them. It's worth the effort finding something that you enjoy doing everyday.
Sort of, I’ve washed dishes for a living, bussed tables at an Outback steakhouse, worked as a line cook, stocked groceries at Kroger, and am now a professional software engineer and hobbyist artist.
My favorite gig was probably stocking groceries, as I enjoyed my coworkers and working at night.
Almost all of these jobs have been “truly boring”, but I’ve also been unemployed and completely without direction. That period of my life was very difficult, and I found that work, no matter how boring the job is, afforded me a dignity and purpose that I couldn’t find anywhere else. Of course, others may feel differently, and I understand that.