Memes

We live in a time of unprecedented efficiency and automation. We over produce how much we require massively. Optimized, no not every human has to work. Work should be voluntary and without exploitation. Food water and shelter should be shared resources that no one is deprived of. We have the abundance to do this, we only don't because of the capitalist economic political and social systems which promote wage slavery (the concept that you don't deserve to live if you're not capable of producing labor value for capitalists).

Everyone should be encouraged to work and contribute. But no one should face death for being unable to do so. All work should be voluntary and people should be encouraged to work for their benefit, their family's benefit, and their community's benefit. Universal basic income should exist (in our society today) so that if you're being exploited you don't face either further exploitation or literally death. Supporting yourself and your family and society should be done because you believe in those things and you see the direct benefits of your contributions. The problem is capitalism has indoctrinated people to believe that work is not a mechanism of direct survival. It is a mechanism for attaining capital value, which is traded for direct survival.

It goes beyond that even, they indoctrinate us to believe that:

1. Capitalism is natural and can be found in nature.

2. Human beings are inherently uncooperative and hate each other. Plenty of human beings are uncooperative, but capitalism literally makes people uncooperative by continually reinforcing the hopelessness of helping others. How can you cooperate when your own survival solely depends on you being willing to give your labor value to capitalists in exchange for indirect survival?

3. The homeless, the mentally ill, the addicted, all those who are unable or unwilling to give up their labor value to capitalists - they're all the picture of sin and vice and they are to be derided and hated for their inability to provide labor value to capitalists. That they are worthless, and should be treated like wild animals.

4. On that note, they also indoctrinate us to believe that homelessness is natural. That its a personal failing.

When examined separately you can see that they pre-construct people's opinions to cooperation among the labor force. "Don't be a failure by not giving us your labor value." "Don't help those who we deem failures." "Being a failure, by our definition, is a personal choice and not a product of exploitation." "Our system is natural, the natural world has capitalist-type hierarchies. So it is unchallengable."

Bear in mind that politically I am an anarchist. In my eyes no society has ever done nearly enough to create real equality. And I fundamentally disagree with all social hierarchies.

Automation and efficient machinery have made most labor significantly easier and require significantly fewer people. The rise of corporate desk jobs and call centers pretty well represents this. A huge portion of society is already doing meaningless work that only serves capitalist interests.

This means a couple things. First off, far fewer working hours are required to maintain a community. People don't have to work 40 hour weeks just to get by. Secondly, people can rotate what jobs they're performing based on how they feel like investing their efforts. I'm an anarchist, not a communist, so my beliefs surrounding division of labor are different from, for example, a marxist-leninist.

Western society is far too indulgent with many things that cost massive amounts of resources and provide very little in the way of human benefit. Public transportation should be the norm everywhere for instance, because cars and roads are wildly resource intensive for really no reason. Every human being does not need to possess a personal vehicle. It does not actually serve our interests. It just pushes the cost of transportation onto the workers, instead of the ruling class funding actual comprehensive functional public transportation. This is just one example, but the way we approach food is also extremely flawed. Instead of primarily relying on our host ecosystems and local food production to feed ourselves we ship food all around the world at another massive resource cost. We are also over-reliant on resource intensive livestock, when much less resources intensive options exist.

Put all things together, and it becomes firstly apparent that we are wasting the majority of our resources on stuff that has no actual real world benefit to us. So we could stop wasting those resources, and thusly not need to invest as many labor hours into production. So far fewer people need to work than currently do. And labor should be invested locally, into things that directly benefit you your family and your community. Instead of the present case where the majority of your labor hours are invested into things that have little to no tangible benefit for yourself or your community. So its much harder to see how your work is actually helpful.

Part of the propaganda you're fed by capitalism is that cooperation can never work because everyone is selfish and uncooperative and "exploitation is just human nature". Those things are not true. Exploitation is not human nature. Humans are naturally social and community oriented. We are naturally codependent and have adaptations for functioning within a community. Capitalism, and more broadly consolidation of power into a ruling class, has upset humans natural tendency to cooperate. Capitalism puts mortal pressure on our ability to expend labor hours for capitalists. You cannot help anyone else because it risks your own personal life, any time you spend money you're spending your own survivability. It's what means you can live at all. So people do not want to help anyone else. We are taught through propaganda that being homeless is a personal failing. That being poor is a personal failing. This is specifically to prevent human cooperation from expanding into a genuine desire to improve life for all workers.

So people don't feel like they can cooperate, which leads to the general perception of human nature as being selfish. The idea that people will work to better the lives of everyone in their community is a completely normal idea.