The Abolition of Work

[dalebert]

http://deoxy.org/endwork.htm

No one should ever work.

Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost all the evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.

I was surprised at how much of what this guy's saying is exactly some of the things I've been contemplating and talking about myself since I moved to NH. I think the areas where there may be some disagreement between lies more in methodology. For instance, I believe that real freedom including a truly free market would lead to a society more like what he describes. To me, that's the goal and the type of society he describes is the reward to be expected because it opens up so many options. A free society is more efficient and free minds are not easily enslaved.

I've been saying that the government roads are slave roads. Just as the slaves of the south were assigned quarters and provided food so they could work for their masters, we are provided roads so we can drive to work. The predominant portion of our productivity goes to taxes in one form or another, or going to pay for houses and products that are massively expensive due to inflation and embedded taxes and costs. Then we are allowed a small amount to sustain ourselves, our "slave quarters". When we can own our own homes without having to take out loans that we pay off for the rest of our lives, and when the costs of goods and services drops thanks to a freer market, we'll be a lot freer to be productive in the ways we choose rather than according to necessity, a necessity which is imposed on us by tyrannical practices.

In a free society, I envision a lot more people working for themselves or in small companies with people they know and like to be around. Smarter people will trade in actual productivity rather than in human hours. You might trade your labor to do a certain task for a certain payment and then be free to leave. Perhaps free minds would be less easily manipulated by the advertising that tells us what we need to buy to be happy. There's wisdom in what he speaks of. I just think he might have things turned around a bit.

I'm already trying to live like this. I've already given up a large salary and have rejected looking for jobs that call for me to commute and stay for 40 hours a week. If you can be happy on less money, then you're paying less money into the evil machine and in a way they can't go after you for, not yet anyway. Look for that to change as the times get more desperate. They NEED us to slave away to keep that machine going.

[PattyLee loves dogs]

Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world.

Ummm, work is the source of all the FOOD in the world too. Certainly in a real free market there would be a lot more independent contractors and small businesses; it's hard for small businesses to afford the hundreds of lawyers you need to be in a lot of businesses.

But unless you can repeal the laws of entropy there's going to be some work involved in living.

[DigitalWarrior]

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

[dalebert]

Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world.

Ummm, work is the source of all the FOOD in the world too.

It sounds like you responded without reading the article. He qualifies his opening remarks shortly into the article.

[PattyLee loves dogs]

Tragically, I did read the article. Here's some gems:

"deregulation, currently fashionable, won't help and will probably hurt. From a health and safety standpoint, among others, work was its worst in the days when the economy most closely approximated laissez-faire."

Oh right, we just need more bureaucrats. It's certainly true that THEY never do any useful work 

"Twenty years ago, Paul and Percival Goodman estimated that just five per cent of the work then being done—presumably the figure, if accurate, is lower now—would satisfy our minimal needs for food, clothing and shelter."

Sure, if you got rid of taxes. But what about our needs for life extension technology, asteroid deflection, and starships? Those are going to take a few hours of overtime.

"No more war production, nuclear power, junk food, feminine hygiene deodorant—and above all, no more auto industry to speak of."

No, we certainly wouldn't want to do the work necessary to clean up the environment (i.e. stop burning coal). And there's no reason for peasants to drive around in cars, they can just live and work in their huts.

Dale, get back to work 

[les nessman]

    A hard days work is a usually a good thing if you are in good shape.  It becomes problematic when a portion of the proceeds are redirected from your own benefit to someone else without your consent, or when the fruits of your labor are stolen at the barrel of the gun "'cause its the law" to be spent for
"public good" projects like waterboarding apparatus and microwave weapons to cook the taxpayers skin
to make them compliant. 

[Feanor7]

Robert Anton Wilson did a lot of interesting writing on the subject.

I think it can be more properly defined as the end of scarcity than the end of work - i.e. if free energy ever comes about and advanced nanotech rides in to town, then there will be no more need for humans to produce anything.

Check out "Schroedinger's Cat" for a cool, mildly libertarian idea of how to get there.

[Caleb]

But what about our needs for life extension technology, asteroid deflection, and starships? Those are going to take a few hours of overtime.

The only technology worth working for is that replicator technology that they have on star trek ... once we have that, we can have anything else we want.    Free lunches all around!

[Caleb]

Check out "Schroedinger's Cat" for a cool, mildly libertarian idea of how to get there.

Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment designed to show the inherent paradox in quantum theory. I'm not sure I follow you.

[dalebert]

I think it can be more properly defined as the end of scarcity than the end of work - i.e. if free energy ever comes about and advanced nanotech rides in to town, then there will be no more need for humans to produce anything.

Are people actually reading this article? I think what you're talking about is interesting but it still feels like people are missing his point. He's not saying we need to figure out how we can be lazy. He's talking about how we've all gotten programmed into this mindset of going and doing a job we hate for a significant portion of our lives in order to survive and how everything is set up to make us feel that's completely healthy and normal when it's really not. It's not that we don't have to do anything to feed ourselves and produce goods and what not. He's saying that we are making ourselves miserable and emotionally unhealthy with the WAY we go about it. I think he takes it to extremes with contrived ways of figuring out how we can avoid ever doing anything unpleasant, but the core of his message resonates with me as truthful. I think he may also be missing the key point of how freedom figures into it in terms of expanding our options for productivity and reducing scarcity. To me it seems like the sort of world he envisions is the natural outcome of the expansion of freedom.

[John Edward Mercier]

What he's suggesting isn't all that odd, its been said before... Find your Passion.
The thing you would do even without pay, then find a way to be paid for it.

[Feanor7]

Check out "Schroedinger's Cat" for a cool, mildly libertarian idea of how to get there.

Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment designed to show the inherent paradox in quantum theory. I'm not sure I follow you.

I was talking about the book "Schroedinger's Cat" by Robert Anton Wilson, not the experiment by the physicist.  The title is, obviously, taken from the experiment.

[dalebert]

What he's suggesting isn't all that odd, its been said before... Find your Passion.
The thing you would do even without pay, then find a way to be paid for it.

Well said. And I believe that would be much more viable in a freer market. Meanwhile, part of the process of becoming freer as individuals involves trying to do that now to the greatest extent possible. This is going beyond his article, but I think learning to be happy with less income, or at the very least with less over the table income, is an important part of withdrawing support from the state since most of our efforts are bing funneled into the state with taxes and inflation.

[David]

Dale, when you get a chance, reread the article.  Keep in mind that things happen to one degree or another because the costs of not doing it are higher than the costs of doing it. 
He sees no difference in trading/paying someone for work, and forcing it, when he states the carrot and the stick are the same things. 
Later in the article he suggests abolishing entire industries.  He forgets that those industries exist because there is enourmous demand for them, such as the auto industry. 
He suggests using children to clean the toilets because of their natural enjoyment of filth, and encouraging outstanding work by a system of recognition and medals.  He forgets that plumbers are well paid because they are doing work that no one else wants to do. 
I love the suggestion to find out what you enjoy doing and find a way to get someone to pay you for it. 

[dalebert]

Dale, when you get a chance, reread the article.

I don't need to reread it. I remember those parts which I disagree with. Again, I think he's onto something, he feels what's wrong, but he's misdiagnosed the problem as many statist types do. So many people just want to change the type of violence we engage in to shape the world to fit their view of utopia.