Comment on Costs to thee, but none for me!

• AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  (n.b. I got here after OP deleted their comment, so I don’t have the context of what you were replying to. This is just a reply to you)

  I felt a sad wistfulness upon reading your comment, because of how deeply I wish this were possible.

  I’m reminded of an exhausting dinner in which a friend and I were trying to explain to his Dad why doctors and the like don’t work for free. It took us a while to figure out what he was actually saying, but in the end, we understood him to be arguing roughly: “It sure would be nice if people could work for free, because things like the NHS and other social safety nets only exist if people feel a duty to society, or their community. It sucks that selfish motivations seem to be guiding people’s decisions instead, and this isn’t their fault, but a product of them having to struggle to fulfill their basic living needs under capitalism. Maybe if we had a comprehensive, universal basic income, we would see more people able to exercise their duty to society”.

  This memory sticks out to me because we spent most of that conversation exasperated and confused because it seemed like he was arguing that people should work for free, in the here and now. Your comment brings me back to that memory because I do believe that sufficiently robust social safety nets would lead to far more people doing work because they find it rewarding; I’m imagining a world where they still get paid, but the money is far less of a determining force in people’s decisions. It would be nice to be able to be an idealist like this, but we’re a long way off from that world

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