Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Scott Santens UBI Enterprise
This episode is inspired by a tweet that Bernie Sanders put out recently.
He tweeted "a full employment economy is not a radical idea."
"A federal job guarantee will lower the crime rate, improve mental health, and create a stronger sense of community."
"It will create a much healthier and happier America."
That phrase full employment made me immediately think about one of my favorite essays.
It's titled "Full Unemployment"
Now this is an essay that I originally read, it was probably one of the first things I ever read about basic income.
I read it back in 2013, and the essay itself is a speech.
that John Bentley gave on December 7, 2005. So the speech is almost 14 years old at this point.
And when I think of things that's I've read, there's actually a relative few things that I enjoy reading over and over and over again.
And this essay by John Bentley is one of those.
I think it's one of the best things written about basic income.
And it was written 14 years ago.
To this day it's one of the best things written about basic income.
I think it just completely nails what our goal should be.
And our goal should not be full employment.
I think Bernie Sanders is 100% wrong about full employment being any kind of goal that we should be seeking.
And so I want to read this essay by John Bentley because I believe it's just such an important essay.
I want more people to be familiar with it, and perhaps read it over and over again as I have.
And I think it's just really important that we shift this discussion from full employment to full unemployment.
So with that said, this is my reading of a speech delivered by John Bentley titled Full Employment that he delivered on December 7, 2005.
We ought be horrified by these calls for work/life
balance.
We ought be for: the eradication of work;
life without work; and full unemployment.
Germaine Greer has said: "I didn't fight to
get women out from behind the vacuum cleaner
to get them onto the board of Hoover."
There are at least two things we mean when
we use the word "work":
Effort that a person does to fulfill an aim.
As in, "This weekend I'll be working on my
donkey sculpture."
Effort done by a person, that they would otherwise
not do, but for economic compulsion.
As in, "Fuck it's Monday I have to go to work."
We ought not be interested in advocating eradicating
work in this first sense.
We ought not be interested in eradicating
persons' ability to pursue things which require
their effort.
Indeed it's likely that a person's life will
go as good as the effort they put into.
So from now "work" shall be confined to this
second definition.
Note that this definition of work is not:
effort that a person does when they are paid.
Take the already rich movie star who will
be paid $10 million dollars for their next
film.
They can't be said to be economically compelled
in the sense that can be said of the factory
worker.
That's true even if the movie star is only
doing the next film to finance the purchase
of a jet aeroplane.
Note also, for those who might be paid something
close to the average (for example, in a developed
nation), who are paid doing something they
love to do: that no longer counts as work.
Indeed they might say: "Oh it's not work.
Even if I had heaps of money I'd do it anyway."
How should we eradicate work and get full
unemployment?
By any possible means we can invent.
To start with.
We abolish the minimum wage.
We abolish the Jobsearch allowance (Australian
Social Security Payment).
In it's place we have the so called Universal
Basic Income: a weekly payment given to all,
without condition.
Expressly without the condition of having
to look for work.
How much?
We set it at the just abolished minimum wage.
We increase over it time, linked to productivity
increases in the general economy.
So we should not be satisfied with giving
mere basics for life.
We, as a society, ought start with the basics
then give away as much as we possibly can.
Much more than the basics in ever increasing
amounts.
There is a stream of usual retorts to this
proposal of full unemployment.
Firstly, there is the retort that work is
desirable as an end.
That is, work is good in and of itself.
Too often people say: "I think I'd be bored
if I didn't have to work."
It's disturbing that a persons' sense of possibility
has atrophied to such an extent.
It's as if they can only see a choice between
working and doing nothing.
They probably will be bored if they can't
imagine having such things in their life as
sport, travel, art, music - a whole train
of activity that is desirable as an end.
Perhaps they simply can't act unless under
forced instruction.
If that's the case, we don't need work for
that.
We can build a web site: www.yourdailytask.com.
Today you take a big inflatable ball to the
park.
Roll it up the hill, when you get to the top
of the hill release it, let roll to back to
the bottom.
Those that are free of work might even volunteer
to monitor those who require forced instruction
for their satisfaction.
They could offer harsh words, for example.
This view that work is good in itself another
has called "Work Fetishism."
The second group of retorts concede work is
not desirable as an end but maintain it is
necessary as a means.
Another way to express these group of retorts
is with the charge that "full unemployment
is utopian".
This charge means a few different things.
Firstly the charge "Full unemployment is utopian"
sometimes means that utopias causes death
and misery.
Look at all the death and misery that's been
wrought by people advancing their utopias:
Stalin; Hilter; Mao
But that's to criticize those particular utopias,
it doesn't follow that all utopias must cause
misery.
The pursuit of the utopia, for example, "No
deaths from aviation accidents" causes less
death and misery.
If we are denied the concept of a utopia we
must give up on advocating any political change.
For to speak of a utopia is speak of how things
might be better.
Fundamental Factors/Work Is Necessary
The charge "Full unemployment is utopian"
sometimes means this doesn't take into account
fundamental factors at play in any possible
practical world.
Isn't your proposition absurd?
Trying to get rid of work by removing workers
is like trying to get rid of crime by removing
lawyers.
So too I'd like to not to have to work but
if I want things like food, jumper, a surf
board then someone has to produce it.
There lies the chief fallacy that underpins
the paradigm of full employment.
It equates material wealth with work.
The chief fallacy: That for people to have
material wealth human effort is required to
get it.
Sunshine is material wealth, but no one throughout
human history has laboured to create it.
Not even a god.
We get sunshine without effort and (therefore)
without work.
But nature doesn't provide surfboards, are
you advocating some sort of back to nature
downshifting?
Some sort of lowering of standard of living.
No.
The opposite: Let a machine build the surfboard.
Let the labour saving devices be used for
the novel application of saving labour.
A second mechanism to bring us toward full
unemployment, in addition to a Universal Basic
Income is to automate anything that can be
automated.
Next, "Full Unemployment is utopian" may mean
that it's practically impossible to achieve
a complete implementation of the ideal.
You might be able to automate surfboard production
but what about food?
To get food someone has to farm it.
There is no in principle obstacle to automating
farming: Conceptually it's straight forward
to imagine green houses with robots tending
the tomatoes and harvesting them at the right
time.
Those tomatoes thrown down underground electromagnetic
pipes that speed them to your kitchen.
But, Ah!
You will need someone to maintain the robots.
You haven't eradicated work completely.
You haven't achieved a complete implementation
of full unemployment.
Right now thousands of computer programmers
develop and maintain thousands of pieces of
software.
They do so without pay and they give their
software away without cost.
Sometimes they can yield products superior
to the commercial equivalents.
The Firefox web browser for example.
So there is no reason to think that the maintenance
of farming robots could not be carried out
by humans who do it free from economic compulsion.
That is, who do it without working.
But, Ah!
There are nevertheless tasks that are not
amenable to automation at all.
Like being a teacher or a lawyer
Artificial Intelligence concerns aside I want
to grant this.
There are some tasks that are not so conceptually
straight forward to automate.
But all such tasks are activities that people
do find intrinsically worth while.
Being a teacher or lawyer are things that
people would choose to do.
Such tasks do have intrinsic value.
We do not even have to consider those people
who are sometimes motivated to do things out
of an ethical concern.
However, let's assume this to be false.
Let's assume that either some payment must
be give to the teacher or the robot maintainer.
Let's assume there must be economic compulsion
or, less odiously, financial incentive some
of the time to get some things done.
Let's assume that a full eradication of work
is not practically possible.
Recall the utopian vision, the ideal, in aviation
safety: "There should be no deaths from aviation
accidents."
It's an ideal that can't be fully achieved.
No matter how many safety improvements we
make there will always be the occasional fatal
accident.
Despite that, aviation authorities move in
the direction of the ideal.
The global accident rates of commercial jets
per number of departures from have been declining
at least since 1959.
What we don't say is "Let's aim for a flight/death
balance."
What we don't say is "Aviation can never be
totally safe therefore we should send out
a few engineers to loosen a few bolts to increase
the numbers of people killed in accidents."
If achieving a complete implementation of
the ideal of full unemployment is not practically
possible as least we can, and should, move
in that direction.
Next the charge "Full Unemployment is utopian"
sometimes means it's not practically possible
to achieve even a partial implementation of
the ideal.
If you are using examples like automated farming
then it sounds like you are talking about
a utopia after all... some distant future
requiring technical conditions that simply
don't exist today.
Firstly, although I've proposed that we use
automation to save labour, that's not the
only means.
Imagine there are a handful of us plane wrecked
on a remote island.
We have been on the island for a long while
and we live in caves near the beach.
All of us still have to work for our basic
needs.
Each individual spends 3 hours in the morning
gathering their daily food from the thankfully
abundant forest.
Alas, the only source of water is from a spring
at the top of the mountain.
In the afternoon each of us spends 3 hours
on the return journey to fill our bucket for
our daily water needs.
To get to the top of the mountain we take
a route that skirts the island and this route
starts west.
One day Lisa Simpson announces: "I've tried
the route east.
It only takes one and a half hours."
Fuck!
Lisa has discovered a means to get exactly
what we required before but in less time and
with less work.
And she has done this without automation.
Lisa has simply identified a more efficient
way to do things.
From now on we walk east and while producing
and consuming the same quantity of wealth.
Some work has been eliminated.
This work was not necessary for the wealth
that we got.
So we have a third mechanism to bring us closer
to full unemployment: identifying efficiencies.
Just in case you think this example is somehow
too artificial.
Consider the National Australia Bank.
In May of 2005 it cut 2000 jobs after announcing
a 17 percent increase in profit.
Even Australian Treasurer, Peter Costello
Remarked:
The National Australia Bank better have a
pretty good explanation because the National
Australia Bank, as you know, is a highly profitable
organisation.
The CEO's explanation for the job cuts (from
memory) was: we've found efficiencies within
the organisation.
Right now, not in a distant utopian future,
efficiency gains save labour.
Notionally, I'm not suggesting this course,
the CEO could give employees more time off
at their same weekly pay.
Back, though, to automation for I spoke of
automating farming.
Consider the recent past with respect to Garbage
Removal in Sydney.
A few years ago the norm in all Sydney suburbs
was to have a driver plus two garbos running
around the truck emptying bins into the back.
These days, in some suburbs, one person only
needs to drive the truck and a mechanical
arm seizes the bin and empties into the back.
Right now, not in a distant utopian future,
automation saves labour.
We can take a step back from the National
Australia Bank and Garbage Truck example to
consider what they illustrate in general terms.
Material progress gives us two things.
It gives us new material power, a new good
or service that didn't exist before, as when
the Wright brothers invented the powered aeroplane
and/or it gives us increased productivity.
That is, we can output more goods and services
relative to the inputs of capital and labour.
(Note that production, all the goods and services
that is produced, can decrease while productivity
increases)
Increases in productivity can occur in at
least one or both of two ways that have been
exemplified:
Through discovering efficiencies; or
Through automation.
Under our current economic system productivity
increases are returned in one or more of 5
ways:
Higher profits to the owners of capital.
Lower prices to the consumer.
Higher wages to the worker.
Increases in absolute growth.
The total amount of production increases.
That is, we make more.
Shifting the worker into a different job.
But there is a 6th option.
We could give the worker more free time.
The current economic system just doesn't include
any mechanism to give people free time.
Contemporary notions of increases in quality
of life or standards of living do not include
more free time.
This ought be the first priority of an economic
system.
Giving people free time ought be the end to
which other parts of the economy are a means.
Are the National Australia Bank and garbage
truck examples exceptional?
Are productivity increases, whether from efficiency
gains or automation, rare?
No.
Let's look a small subset of the global economy,
the Australian economy.
Productivity increases for the whole of the
Australian economy are measured.
From the Australian Bureau of Statistics web
site:
Productivity can be measured in a variety
of ways.
The most comprehensive Australian measure
available at present is multifactor productivity
for the market sector.
Multifactor productivity represents that part
of the growth in output that cannot be explained
by growth in labour and capital inputs.
During the decade 1993-94 to 2003-04, Australia
experienced improved rates of productivity
growth and multifactor productivity rose 1.5%
per year on average.
Now, let alone in some distant future, we
could maintain the production of wealth, or
even continue to increase it, while decreasing
the amount of labour in the process.
The point about considering a distant future
with advanced automation is to show that under
our current economic paradigm no matter how
much productivity increases 38 hours would
still be regarded as ordinary working hours.
The point about considering a distant future
with different conditions is to not have to
wait for it before starting on the path to
eliminating work.
Another retort against the proposition we
ought just give everyone money so that they
don't have to work is: who will do the shit
jobs?
Who will clean the sewers, or less literally,
who will pick apples off the tree?
Before addressing the question directly we
should note what the question reveals about
our current economic paradigm.
It underlines that we believe there are jobs
generally less desirable to do and that there
should be people who are compelled to do them.
The question reveals that we expect and require
a master/servant class system for the proper
functioning of society.
There should be some people who are forced
to do shit jobs so that other people don't
have to do them.
Under our system it is the shit jobs, the
more menial, the more meaningless, the less
intrinsically rewarding jobs that attract
the lower wage.
So who will do the shit jobs?
Firstly, a great deal of shit jobs ought be
eliminated straight up.
There are a great deal of many shit jobs whose
principle value lies in them peddling the
idea that the consumer is part of a the master
class.
A waiter is such a job.
There should be no waiters.
Just as petrol stations eradicated bowser
attendants not long ago we can and ought eliminate
waiters from restaurants.
Secondly those that do the shit jobs, ought
be paid as much or MORE than those who fortunate
enough to get to do the meaningful jobs.
And the mechanism to do both of these things
the UBI.
What we ought have is an economy where what
gets made is determined not only if there
is a consumer demand for it but a worker demand
for the meaningfulness and equity of the conditions
of the work.
Under the dominant economic system when we
speak of "markets" in general this covers
two markets in particular:
A market for goods and services.
A force that mediates the relationship between
consumers and suppliers.
A market for labour.
A force that mediates the relationship between
employer and employee.
In the market for goods and services there
is a sense in which the consumer is empowered.
If there is no consumer demand for something:
it won't get made.
If you get a difficult time from a company
as consumer you can go elsewhere.
This is a free market in a theoretically pure
form where we assume no advertising, no monopoly,
and a person actually has enough money to
be a consumer.
You might wish to add other assumptions to
prop this up.
There is a sense in which the consumer is
lord.
The consumer is lord even in the market for
labour.
Sure there is sometimes a power that the worker
has.
If a worker has specialist skill that's in
demand then they can command a higher wage.
But the demand for that skill ultimately does
not come from employers.
It comes from consumers.
For an employer is only providing something
that a consumer has demand for.
Therefore, what these markets have in common
is a force, ultimately driven by consumers,
that only cares about what gets made.
There is nothing in this market force that
operates on whether the meaningfulness of
the work done, the joy in performing the task,
will be equitably distributed to the workers.
So, In Mumbai India, where 6 million people
live in slums, you get child labourers whose
work is perfectly consistent with the contemporary
market force.
They can work barefoot in the garbage dump
picking up plastic or metal to recycle for
up to $2.00 AUD OR work factories under appalling
conditions earning between $0.16c AUD and
$1.35 AUD for their 12 hour shift.
Meanwhile Australian schools for the kids
of parents who have done well from market
forces, and historical legacy, put on Dicken's
"Oliver Twist", sometimes as a musical no
less, as a quaint depiction of a bygone era
whose primary value lies in its being a vehicle
to exercise Dramatic Talent.
Think of these contemporary market forces.
Imagine I want to build a widget and I have
capital but not enough.
I seek more capital and approach Venture Capitalists.
For them to give me money I have to convince
them I'll there will be a consumer demand
for my widget.
So whether the thing gets made or not depends
mostly on whether there will be this demand.
There is this market force that operates on
what gets made and even the quality of the
finished product.
If I can't generate this consumer demand the
product does not get made.
The market says "tough cookies mate, game
over."
Now I need to hire workers to make it happen.
The more specialised job, and therefore likely
to be more interesting and engaging, will
require me to pay more money.
There already is a market force for specialised,
skilled work.
Why? because such skilled work is rare.
I can hire someone to do the more menial functions,
for example, clean the office and the shit
house.
That's not too skilled.
And I can pay someone to do that at a far
lower wage.
Why?
Because the ability to do that is common.
And for many people they don't have much option.
It's no good saying, if you were the person
who asked "who will do the shit jobs?", "they
can just go to technical college and learn
a new skill."
Then you are imagining it possible for everyone
to be so skilled that no one has any greater
claim NOT to do the shit jobs.
If we had a UBI this would introduce a new
force in the labour market.
Not just a market force that consumers ultimately
leverage but a new market force that workers
can leverage.
This would restore a balance of power.
Here is a bit more explicit detail about the
Universal Basic Income.
The Universal Basic Income is set at X.
Every individual gets the same amount.
But while a full implementation of the ideal
is not reached paid work can exist along side
it.
A great deal of many people will want X plus
Y, more than the Universal Basic Income, and
they'd be free to do paid work.
The pool of people willing to do the more
menial jobs at the low wage will be radically
shrunk.
So in order to get the office cleaned I might
have to
Pay much more than before for the work; or
We who already work in the company will have
to share the undesirable task; or
Not clean the Office;
Invent a new way to minimize or eliminate
human effort in cleaning the office; or
Not make the widget.
The UBI creates a market force for the equitable
distribution of the meaningful and the shit
work.
So If I come up with an idea for a product
I now have to satisfy two market hoops:
That there'll be a consumer demand for it.
And that there'll be an equitable distribution
of meaningful work (Or the shit work will
be compensated much more fairly: The shit
work attracting a bigger wage).
If I can't satisfy both market hoops then
tough: it doesn't get made.
In other words, we create a market force for
not only what gets made but for how it gets
made.
The retort at hand is to deny that a partial
implementation of full unemployment is practically
possible.
I'll expand upon how a partial implementation
of full unemployment might work today:
There is problem with giving the Bank or Garbage
worker days off when productivity increases
occur in those industries.
Those industries might be more prone to efficiency
gains or automation.
A teacher or lawyer, as we move toward full
unemployment, ought share in the productivity
increases that will happen in other industries
first.
It's more equitable to pool productivity gains
through the device of a Universal Basic Income
so everyone might choose to work 5 minutes
less.
So when the garbage truck comes along with
the mechanical arm the 3 garbage workers can
job share and be paid the same hourly rate
but get less total pay.
For the garbage workers, that's not as disturbing
as our current situation, for they will be
getting a universal basic income.
The savings in labour costs for the council
can get largely passed over to the pool for
the Universal Basic Income.
So we have this forth means to full unemployment
in addition to the UBI, automation and efficiency
gains: A Liberation Contribution Fee.
When ever you lay off workers while your organisation's
income is maintained or increasing 75% of
what you formerly paid the workers gets handed
over to Universal Basic Income Pool.
You might be persuaded that the ideal of full
unemployment is approachable after all.
You might nevertheless feel that if we instituted
NOW a Universal Basic Income this would only
promote immediate economic collapse.
If no one is required to work then everyone
will just go off to the beach to surf Malibus
and wealth won't be created.
Firstly, as just mentioned, while short of
the ideal, people can be free to get paid
for work and so acquire more than the UBI.
Many people will want more than the UBI.
Secondly, Just because people aren't in paid
work it doesn't follow they don't make enormous
contributions to the social (material) good.
There is a great deal of activity that individuals
do that benefit society that are not recognized
in the formal economy.
Feminism, for exampled, revealed this dark
secret in the case of women's domestic labour.
There is the example of the open source software
movement, and Olympic volunteers.
There is good reason to believe that liberating
people from the necessity of paid work will
increase their ability to contribute to the
wealth of society.
It makes labour more mobile.
Let's recall the garbage workers example.
Let's assume that the garbage worker doesn't
have specialised skills that are in demand.
Under our current system she may find it difficult
to acquire new skills once laid off.
She's got to pay the rent and so might be
forced into waiting tables for example.
She can still attend night school but she's
fucked after the days work.
If there was no urgency because she had a
UBI, she could dedicate all of the best of
her energy to learning some new skill.
She could attend day school.
If people are free from paid work then greater
entrepreneurial risk can be taken.
If I propose to a few others that I've got
a great widget in mind and that it would take
us 6 months to develop.
Are they in?
Under the current conditions they might be
less inclined.
What they risk is economic ruin if it doesn't
work out.
With a UBI the worst case scenario is that
the widget doesn't make any money and you
lose any investment capital.
You can't lose basic access to food etc.
It is possible, with a UBI, that we all work
without pay for 6 months on the risk we will
make money OR the activity has some merit
regardless of whether money is made.
This might be persuasive.
It might be conceded that a partial implementation
of full unemployment is possible.
There might be an acceptance that a UBI will
not entail that everyone just surfs Malibus
on the beach.
Nevertheless some might surf Malibus.
Some might never make any contribution to
society.
"Isn't that inherently unfair?"
No.
Not at all.
While we are short of the ideal of full unemployment
we have the UBI existing along side a paid
labour market.
If someone want's more than the UBI by doing
paid work then that's their choice.
Everyone would be exposed to the same choice
equally.
Everyone is free to take the UBI only.
It's fair, secondly, because if you are Surfing
Malibus all day you doesn't compete for the
job another applied for, you facilitate others'
chance of getting a job that gives them an
income above the UBI.
Should the surfer be given social benefits
without them having to contribute?
Let's return to the remote island.
Recall that all of us still have to work for
our basic needs.
Each individual spends 3 hours in the morning
gathering their daily food.
And because of Lisas' efficiency gain we spends
only 1.5 hours on the return journey to fill
our bucket for our daily water needs.
Imagine Lisa then comes up with an idea to
build a pipe from the spring to the village.
She tries to enlist some assistance.
Some people agree to help.
Others say: "I'd rather not.
After my 4.5 hours of toil I'd rather go surfing."
So some of us spend 3 months building this
pipe which fills a trough in the village providing
more than enough for everyone.
Now those of use who built the pipe don't
have to spend 1.5 hours each afternoon fetching
water.
We just take our bucket to the trough.
The important question that splits political
opinion is "What arrangement should we who
built the pipe come to with those that did
not build the pipe?"
Under our current economic paradigm we ought
lock the trough up in a hut and trade the
water.
Thinking of the most generous example under
the paradigm...
We do something like divide the number of
hours it took to build the pipe amongst the
number of builders.
We use that figure to determine how many hours
of food gathering a surfer would have to do
to pay for access to water.
Once a surfer has given a pipe builder a sufficient
number of hours worth of food then the surfer
is allowed unlimited access to the water.
Those who feel individuals' should be arranged
to serve society might feel this is a fair
arrangement.
I'd suggest Lisa and her pipe building mates
ought properly be called cunts.
What the pipe builder's ought do upon completion
of the pipe is give everyone free access to
the water without condition.
A society that does that is a better society.
In case you think this example is too artificial
...
Music distribution is facing this very issue.
The pipe to the source of music has been built.
The internet now allows you to copy music
for free.
But that's illegal.
The music could be free and the artists and
music distributors could be supported by a
UBI.
Note the Global Positioning System IS like
this.
Right now 28 satellites orbiting the planet
as beacons to the best of American Communism
(something centrally planned, communally funded,
and whose benefit requires no fee upon end
user consumption).
The United States spends $400 million annually
maintaining this system.
Even non US citizens can access the signal
freely.
Every individual around the globe has free
access to the signal.
(notwithstanding that at a couple of hundred
bucks the receiver is beyond most peoples
means).
It's unfair and immoral that people should
be required to work for others' unfettered
and frivolous material desires.
I've suggested that with the UBI people will
still contribute to society.
It's likely that this would increase their
tendency to contribute.
However, that sort of justification is dangerous
as it panders to another fallacy that underpins
the paradigm of full employment: That people
ought be principally valued as a means - the
extent to which they contribute to society.
Bertrand Russell had observed that a fundamental
difference between political opinion is between
those who believe individuals should be arranged
to contribute to society and those who believe
society should be arranged to contribute to
individuals.
There is a sense in which this is not circular
word play.
The pipe-to-water example, above, draws out
that difference.
I can recall a doco on the age discrimination
of workers in their 40s.
Sometimes part of their appeal to be employed
was based on the phrase "But I still have
many years left as a productive member of
society."
We should stop valuing people in so far as
they are "productive members of society".
We, as a society, should not be valuing individuals
at all but, rather, creating the conditions
where individuals can pursue what they value.
The purpose to which production should be
put is to give people greater freedom.
People should not be put to the purpose of
production.
The purpose to which our production should
be put is so that people can surf Malibus
all the time if they want!!!
Return to the hypothetical island.
Imagine, there is Barry.
He comes up with an idea.
That we make several trips back up the mountain
to mine blue powder.
With sufficient quantities of the blue powder,
after 3 months of hard work, we can paint
our face blue.
Your proper response would be "well you go
right ahead I can't see any value painting
my face blue."
Now Imagine Barry says...
"If you don't help me with a few of my mates
I'll bar your access to the water trough."
Your proper response would be: "Get the fuck
out!
It is immoral of you to attempt to take away
access to what I currently get for free because
of your quirky tastes."
Of course this is the Cosmetic Industry.
A whole industry attracting capital and labour
for a completely frivolous end: so women can
paint their faces.
Instead of using capital and labour so that
women could paint their face we could, notionally,
I'm not recommending this course, halt the
industry, do without face painting, and give
the savings directly to the cosmetic industry
workers to do with as they please.
I'm not wishing to pick on women.
We could do the same to the industries of
bottled water, advertising, sports shoes,
insurance, and waiting tables functions.
There are whole industries whose output is
frivolous compared to the work that sustains
it.
So you're down on luxuries like female cosmetics.
Sounding a bit Taliban there.
Sounding close to the kind of utopian vision
that oppresses and causes suffering.
There should be no interest in banning people
from producing and consuming these things.
What we ought be for is that people should,
first, be free from an economy that compels
them to work so these frivolous things can
exist.
There are two other false beliefs that holds
back moving in the direction of full unemployment:
Absolute Growth of stuff with its evil twin
absolute growth in population.
There is the false notion that we need absolute
growth of stuff.
That is, to increase material wealth we need
always absolute increases in material wealth.
Increases in absolute material wealth sometimes
create scarcity.
For example, when the sum total of cars on
the roads increases, traffic jams increase.
Causing a decrease in material power, material
wealth for everyone, in virtue of trips taking
longer.
This leads to the creation of unnecessary
work: more roads are built.
If we increase Sydney's population we create
a scarcity of water.
Desalination plants are built, creating unnecessary
work.
Smaller shower heads are distributed.
The better measure is per capita growth.
We should create more for each, not simply
more total stuff.
That's to say nothing of the equality of distribution
nor of non material wealth.
What we should do is implement global population
shrink to prevent work being created and to
increase per capita wealth.
We ought not create work, we ought not create
absolute growth in wealth or population, we
ought create per capita growth.
Work, the effort done by a person that they
would otherwise not do, but for economic compulsion,
can be totally eradicated.
We can achieve full unemployment.
The ideal of "no work" is unlike the ideal
"no deaths from aeroplane accidents".
A complete implementation of the ideal of
no work is practically achievable.
Even if that's wrong, and a complete implementation
is not possible, that does not count against
us moving toward this ideal.
Underlying the current economic paradigm is
some false beliefs that fuel the opposite
ideal.
That work is good as an end in itself.
(work fetishism).
If someone is not telling you which acts to
perform and there is no economic compulsion
to act ... there are intrinsically worthwhile
acts that you can choose to do.
Sport, travel, art, sex ....
That people won't do things that have a social
benefit unless they are paid for it.
The Firefox browser is created by people without
pay and given away for free.
That human effort is necessary for material
wealth.
Sunshine exists.
We can take the shorter route to water or
attach a robotic arm to garbage trucks and
so eliminate effort.
What policies could we implement right now
to move us toward full unemployment?
A Universal Basic Income.
An unconditional weekly payment given to everyone.
The payment is linked to productivity increases
in the general economy.
A liberation contribution fee.
Whenever an enterprise lays off workers while
maintaining or increasing revenue 75% of what
it would have been spent on worker's pay is
channeled to the collective pool for the universal
basic income.
Productivity increases, whether from efficiency
gains or automation, would be returned, in
part, as increases in free time.
Alone these two policies would have some desirable
effects:
The introduction of a force in the labour
market acting upon the equitability of the
meaningfulness of doing work.
And it would become difficult to pay low wages
for shit jobs.
This will eliminate a lot of work that is
meaningless, menial, or purely subservient.
This will eliminate businesses that depend
on such work.
In one way the modern worker is worse off
than the ancient slave.
For at least the slave seeks freedom, the
modern worker, on the contrary, seeks more
work.
The modern worker elects governments who strive
for full employment.
The lives of individuals ought not be arranged
so that they may be productive, so that they
may contribute to society.
That's getting it the arse way around.
The reason for a society, the reason for an
economy, ought be so that individuals may
have freely lived lives.
"Freely lived lives" rather than a flourishing
life.
For if a (sane and competent) person seeks
social assistance to harm themselves that
ought be provided.
We ought not see individuals as a means for
production.
We ought see production as the means for individuals.
The chief purpose of material wealth and progress
ought be to increase our freedom.
We should not live to work and we should not
work to live.
We should live.
Freedom is possible.
