Comment on What happens if someone refuses to work in a socialist economy?
deegeese@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Don’t you work at Sonic in the extremely capitalist USA?
Guessing you’re a young person without much money playing devil’s advocate about why couldn’t we have a real social safety net like most developed countries.
Next time drop the act.
PixelNomad@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
I never said I wasn’t a socialist. I’m genuinely asking—what if I don’t want to work? In a socialist system, everything is basically free, so I don’t have to work.
Adm_Drummer@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Socialism doesn’t mean that money goes away. It means that your hard earned money is yours to spend how you please.
You’re not forced to pay insane rent to line the pockets of a landlord, rather you live in a rent controlled neighbourhood where the profits go towards housing generations of people.
The money you have is yours to spend how you see fit. Rewarding other people like you and I for running the local coffee shop or splurging for the D.O.P. San Marzano tomatoes at the grocery store and insert that money directly into your local economy.
Money exists, you just don’t have to spend all of it on surviving. Rather, you can spend it on living.
You still make money based on your merit and input, grocery clerks aren’t being paid the same as neurosurgeons but both people can spend the same basic amount every month on living.
deegeese@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
You said you live in a socialist society and work at Sonic. Those can’t both be true.
And the answer depends on the country but in general you end up some sort of bum but don’t actually starve to death.
zeppo@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That isn’t how socialism works. Socialism means that the workers control the means of production. It typically also means that necessary services such as healthcare are not run for corporate profit. Such government also typically give assistance to people who need it, rather than acting as if human life is worthless if it isn’t making capitalist profits for the owner class. In your case, if you were refusing to get education, employment, and contribute to society for whatever reason, that could be seen as some sort of psychological issue and most likely you would receive counseling. If you’re unable to work due to that, you may have assisted housing and a small stipend. But do you get like, a car? Luxury food? Vacations? No, because there is not a situation under socialism where “everything is free”. The bare necessities of life are supplied by the government, because that is, for one, smarter and more efficient than the American system where we do things like let preventable health conditions fester for years while people suffer and become untreatable rather than just giving them preventative care in the first place, which would save the entire society tons of money and increase overall productivity.