What would you do if Capitalism didn't curb your potential and force you to sell most of your time?
I often daydream about how society would be if we were not forced by society to pigeon hole ourselves into a specialized career for maximizing the profits of capitalists, and sell most of our time for it.
The idea of creating an entire identity for you around your "career" and only specializing in one thing would be ridiculous in another universe. Humans have so much natural potential for breadth, but that is just not compatible with capitalism.
This is evident with how most people develop "hobbies" outside of work, like wood working, gardening, electronics, music, etc. This idea of separating "hobbies" and the thing we do most of our lives (work) is ridiculous.
Here's how my world could be different if I owned my time and dedicated it to the benefit of my own and my community instead of capitalists:
- more reading, learning and excusing knowledge with others.
- learn more handy work, like plumbing and wood working. I love customizing my own home!
- more gardening
- participate in the transportation system (picking up shifts to drive a bus for example)
- become a tour guide for my city
- cook and bake for my neighbors
- academic research
- open source software (and non-software) contributions
- pick up shifts at a café and make coffee, tea and smoothies for people
- pick up shifts to clean up public spaces, such as parks or my own neighborhood
- participate in more than one "professions". I studied one type of engineering but work in a completely different engineering. This already proves I can do both, so why not do both and others?
Humans do not like the same thing over and over every day. It's unnatural. But somehow we revolve our whole livelihood around if.
Did you read my post? Where did I say that I don't like living in a society? I said the exact opposite.
You asked what we’d do if we weren’t forced to sell most of our time. I suggested a way you wouldn’t have to sell any of your time. So seriously, what’s stopping you? Is it that you want the benefits of the labor of others without contributing up to your own potential?
What, you mean like CEOs and landords?
Not at all. Nothing is stopping OP from opting out. And nothing is stopping OP from having hobbies and interests now. The obvious subtext of their question is that OP wants to fuck off and do whatever, as long as it’s easy. They won’t leave because they’d have to work to survive. Which explains pretty much everything about why they don’t have hobbies now and it’s someone else’s fault.
Actually they won't leave because in the wilderness, if you fall and break your leg, you die, because there isn't a hospital nearby to get to. You're being obtusely reductionist.
"If you don't want to contribute in the ways I define as contributing, then go live in the wilderness where you'll most assuredly die of exposure" is not the grand argument you think it is.
I have cancer, I didn't choose it. I literally cannot live without modern medicine. But sure, I can make the choice now to fuck off into the wilderness to pursue my hobbies while dying a horrible painful death. You're being willfully obtuse.
So you’re saying OPs life is massively easier in their current capitalist society? 😂🤣😂
Any society offers the same trappings, you fucking nonce. Capitalism doesn't have ownership of modern living standards.
Or are all the roads in China made of dirt and everyone is wearing rags? Last I checked, China is where half our fucking microchips come from.
I think you’ve lost the plot. I simply assumed OP lived in a capitalist society since apparently that’s what’s keeping them down. They’re welcome to fuck off to China, but I suspect China won’t let them in.
Shifting goalposts, I see. Ah yes, once again, they're supposed to drop their entire life because they have a difference of opinion on how things aught to work and whether or not regular people deserve more of their own lives to themselves. As the old saying goes, take shit or get off the pot, dude.
There’s no goalpost shifting. You’re just upset. Because unlike OP who can make changes in their life and childishly refuses to, you feel trapped. But that doesn’t change OPs answer. OP should either fuck off or cowboy up and take ownership of their own life. And it only reinforces for you that you, too, are much better off in a society.
Anyway, best of luck with your illness. Have a nice day.
"oh you dont wanna sell your time? why not just die right there right? surely you would not have to sell your time then!!"
This is how stupid you sound. And if you read the rest of my post, I will repeat this again, I was talking about how I wish to live in a better society, not outside of society and in the woods. dont project.
That’s literally how societies work. You can do everything yourself, or you can cooperate with other people. Cooperating means spending some of your time doing their stuff so they spend some of their time doing your stuff. Cooperating means giving up some free time but probably having more free time overall.
As is, you can have hobbies and interests now. Society isn’t stopping you from that either. You need to realize that your happiness is your responsibility instead of projecting onto the rest of us.
A “not stupid” version of your question might have been “what would you like to spend more time doing.” But that’s not the question you asked. You decide to blame society for you being kind of a pathetic person.
Please reread their post. That is what they want, but are unable to do because of capitalism.
Capitalism does not encourage cooperation. It encourages competition and domination. Competition between businesses and individuals, and domination of the working class by the state and capital.
The work one has to do under capitalism, i.e. wage labour, is not simply "cooperation". That would entail an agreement between equals. It is a coercive arrangement enforced by the state in which people must submit to the whims of an employer or else risk joining the ranks of the unemployed, or worse, the homeless, the presence of which is a necessity under capitalism as both a sobering reminder of what's at stake, and also to ensure there are always more people to employ.
You can - to a degree - choose who you work for, but to no extent can you choose whether you work.
That’s literally how life and any society works. Let’s rewind all the way to the beginning. If OP doesn’t like working in a society they can fuck off to the wilderness. But! Frontier survival would actually be more work and danger and less free time. Or, OP can move. But it turns out Western societies generally have shorter work weeks than the rest of the world. So what’s OP left with? Misplaced angst and the glaring unwillingness to take control of their own life.
No, it's really not. Not every society forces you to seek wage labour. This is only the case in capitalism.
No, they can't. The government would hunt them down. But again, it's not society in general they're against. It's capitalism. It's stunning that you conflate the two.
Okay but they weren't gonna do that. Nor is it the only way to not have to do wage labour.
We could instead transition our economy to one that operates on the basis of need instead of profit. Then people can choose how they work, without it defining their life:
Are you really stating this as a genuine option?! Do you know how fucking expensive that is??
The "rest of the world" predominantly includes other capitalist societies. Ones which the West forcibly made so, and made subservient, forcing down their wages and strongarming them into supplying us with cheap labour and goods. Not the best point you could have made.
Agitating for class consciousness and solidarity with fellow workers
Why is it misplaced? Also, it's quite clear they are more than willing to take control of their life, but have obstacles in the way.
What’s an example of a society that doesn’t require work?
You seem really hung up on the term” wage labor”. That’s not the only way to create or store value. But it is the most efficient. We could completely eliminate “money” but the concept of value would remain. And cooperation would only be more difficult and less efficient if I didn’t want to barter my chicken for your potato. Money, and “wage labor, regardless of who pays your wages, allow for the transfer of goods and services between individuals who don’t need the others goods or services now.
No they wouldn’t. Because except for your family and friends, nobody gives a fuck about you. It’s hilarious that y’all think this is even a possibility. I mean seriously, if I went missing tomorrow, would you know or care? And if not, why would anyone else?
This is absolutely an option. People all over the world do it every day.
Moving seems easier, quicker, and more effective. But this could work too. Carry on.
Anyway, always fun to chat with college communists. Have a great day.
It's stunning to me that you can't conceive of another way for goods to be stored or distributed. Community stores? Mutual aid? Never heard of these? There is no need for money or any analogue. Bartering is also kind of a myth. No one ever participated in bartering on a large scale, even before money. People just gave each other things, all the time.
Relevant terms for further reading:
Mutual aid
Gift economy
Library economy
Also, yes, the government would hunt you down because you'd no longer be paying taxes. They kinda don't like that.
Moving is not an option if you don't have enough money, and no way to earn it.
One last thing - I left college a decade ago. :)
There are many ways that societies can work. Criticising the way society currently works is not criticising all possible societies. The options are not "accept things the way they are" and "bugger off into the wilderness".
What’s a society that isn’t premised on cooperation? Capitalism, communism, and essentially every other form of society are simply differences in how the money is divided up. They’re not differences in the belief that members of society have to work.
I mean, OP can move to a different society. OP could also stay and vote but I suspect that type of cooperative government might not be what they’re after. So yeah, in general, acceptance and fucking off are the only two real, immediate, choices OP can make. And in the context of this thread, asking OP this question is a great way to get to the point of their complaint.
Are you being deliberately obtuse? Because nowhere has anyone said they oppose cooperation.
Boy howdy that seems like an ENORMOUS difference.
That is what OP is saying. They want to know what we’d do if we weren’t forced to sell most of our time.
I agree. But again, that’s not what OP is talking about. As we’ve established, any society requires cooperative work. Neither you or OP has argued that another system wouldn’t require OP to “sell most of their time.” If you’d like to make this argument you might be interested to start here.
No it isn't. That's something you have hallucinated.
There's a lot of options between having to spend the majority of our time dedicated to work, and not cooperating at all.
Not to mention most of the work we do isn't for the benefit of our communities, but for the benefit of a tiny handful of already-incredibly rich assholes.
That would be convenient for your argument, but actually, you do not get to decide what other people are talking about based on what is most convenient for you to argue against.
I read OPs post. I quoted it back to you. Both you, and OP, are implicitly arguing that you should be able to both fuck off AND have the benefits of society. That’s actually one of the perks of a functioning society where a member who is to old, sick, or otherwise unable to contribute can be taken care of. Do one of these apply to you or OP? If not, you’re no different than the “already rich assholes” except that you’re takers who are bad at capitalism.
Anyway. Have a nice day.
No. I'm not. I'm telling you I'm not. Despite whatever nonsense you are hallucinating, that isn't the argument I'm making.
Society can be structured differently. So resources can be distributed more fairly. So everyone can enjoy more of their time. Instead of a greedy few getting most of the benefit at the expense of the rest of us.
Bite me, asshole.
hey so i read all your comments here and I feel like it would have been far less of a waste of your time (and others) to just ignore the whole capitalism thing and answer what you'd do with your free time if you had more free time.
No, they're not.
It should be, but this is becoming less and less the case as welfare, social security and pension plans keep getting cut and gutted.