[lex-lightning]

I would have paid double my taxes over my career if the US would spend it on elevating the poor. But asking me to not retire, to give away my savings to very few people? What, that’s not ethical.

What if I made a lot, but spend very little? Shouldn’t that weigh in, if your issue is consumption level?

What if in my early retirement, I go around lifting people up in non-monetary ways?

What if my job earned me a lot of money but was ultimately doing something I found socially harmful? I should continue working to the detriment of my mental health and against my principles?

We can elevate the poorest and decrease the amount of work the median/average person must do.

keyword references: degrowth, UBI

[danbruc]

My point is very simple and we do not have to discuss all the edge cases. Working x hours and consuming stuff that took y hours to produce where y is much larger than x is unjust. All the rest are details.

[jedberg]

I make widgets. I work 8 hours and make 8 widgets. In my spare time I make a machine to make widgets for me.

I've finished my machine, and it can make 16 widgets in 8 hours as long as I turn the crank. So I sit and turn the crank for 8 hours a day and make 16 widgets. Am I immoral yet? I just doubled my productivity for the same amount of work.

Now I pay someone to turn the crank for me. They work 8 hours and I give them 8 widgets, and I keep the other 8. They are doing the same 8 hours of work that I was doing, and I do nothing but make sure they keep turning the crank.

Am I immoral now? Why? I built the machine and I get 8 widgets a day out of it, the same amount I got when I was building them by hand. The crank turner also gets 8 widgets in 8 hours, the same amount I was producing by hand.

So the crank turner does less work for the same output, I do no work for the same output. But both of us have the same resources as my competitor who makes 8 widgets by hand.

Is it moral for the crank turner to exchange their 8 widgets for his? What about me?

[lex-lightning]

In the first case no, in the second yes.

Great that you reduced the need to work. You are a hero to society.

Not great to use that as a reason to control others.

[jedberg]

How am I controlling others? They are willingly turning the crank. They still get 8 widgets and they do less work than if they built the widgets themselves.

Everyone is doing better in this scenario than when I was building the widgets alone.

[danbruc]

Sure, everyone [1] is better off, but that just sets the bar too low. You and the other guy each turn the crank for four hours, that is the fair outcome. If you insist, you get a couple of extra widgets for inventing and building the machine.

You spend a week building the machine, time worth 40 widgets, but you want - ignoring your finite lifetime - infinite compensation for that, free widgets forever for a 40 widget investment.

[1] A bit nitpicking, in the exact case you presented, the other guy might not actually be notably better off. Instead of manually making eight widgets for himself - assuming he is as skilled as you - per day, he now spends four hours making his widgets and then four more hours making your widgets. This can of course easily be tuned to actually make him better of or that might already be the case if turning the crank also improves the working conditions over the manual process.

[jedberg]

Wouldn't my time be better spent inventing more widget making machines to improve the lives of everyone around me?

Why is both of us turning the crank for four hours the ideal and fair outcome?

[shrimp_emoji]

Are you saying time has objective value?

If it took me 50 hours to whittle a doll from a piece of wood, I deserve 50 times the hourly salary of whomever buys my doll?

I think that's really stupid, just like the labor theory of value.

[lex-lightning]

You are morally and intellectually superior.