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I gave an example of an automated checkout, but my point was not that the jobs I mentioned could all be automated -- my point was that they are not necessary. When I say "necessary", I don't mean that they aren't necessary to increase corporate profits (salesman, which I mentioned, certainly are), I mean they are not necessary to ensure a stable and functioning society. The example I gave with automated checkouts is not to demonstrate that automated checkouts are _better_ than human workers -- human workers are and will likely be far more capable than machines at running checkouts for a long time. My point is that they _could_ be replaced, and that if society decided that increasing human liberty was a more important goal than certain small inconveniences at the checkout, they _would_ be replaced. So yes, these people are "contributing to the maintenance of society", but there are conceivable alternatives that would give these individuals (and society as a whole) more liberty, and would only require some small inconveniences. The anecdote you give of your startup which needs advertising to get off the ground is beside the point. Perhaps your startup is revolutionary, and perhaps it needs some advertising to get off the ground, but this doesn't change the fact that most advertising is simply misinformation. Television commercials which make use of lush landscapes and half-naked women to sell cars don't create rational consumers, and without rational consumers you cannot have a functioning market. If advertising was simply a way in which companies communicated well-reasoned facts about products, and came with a balanced analysis of a product and its competitors, then we could argue that advertising was working towards creating a functioning market system. Until then, advertising will simply favour those with the largest advertising budgets and those who are best at disinformation, and so it's difficult to argue it is contributing to society. > Indication that considering what is and isn't necessary in society could "liberate" half the population? Yeah: every society that tried it, like the Soviet Union (hint: they'd kill people for trying to leave). This is really cheap rhetoric -- and not even accurate. If I'm arguing for a society where people are liberated from work, why are you using the Soviet Union, a dictatorship where everyone worked all the time, as some kind of counterpoint? Not everything that contradicts the status-quo is totalitarian communism, you know. Besides, the points I'm trying to make aren't even original. There are serious proposals that have been made for why society should move to a 20-hour work week to address things ranging from rising levels of depression to climate change. [1] [1] http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/21-hours |
You can live on a very very small income right now. I figure an intelligent frugal life can suffice at $10/day. But you don't, because you won't give up what you don't need.