this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023

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Antiwork

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A community for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.

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Date Created: June 21, 2023

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The Anti-Work Library 📚

Essential Reads

Start here! These are probably the most talked-about essays on the topic.

The Abolition of Work by Bob Black (1985) | listen
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (2013) | listen
In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (1932) | listen

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773

Merry Christmas (i.imgur.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Space Bobby knows.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Space Bobby is tanning.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

The milks about to go bad. And there it goes...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

You make the same profit selling food to a starving person or a full person, but the starving person has a higher willingness to pay. The issue WOULDN'T be distribution if it wasn't for wealth and income inequality.

Wealth and income inequality can be fixed in Democratic Capitalism, you just vote for a tax that is distributed to the poorest people. We just haven't done that to the degree necessary to solve this problem.

If you think about it, for food, you would sell more if there was less inequality and you could sell to more people at the same price. So if there WAS some all powerful Food Capitalism Cartel they would be in favor of something like a wealth tax to fund a UBI.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Literally all arguments against UBI are based down to "but, but- The workers will have a leverage!"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Dangit Bobbuh

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

That's my [work product]! I don't know you! 🦶🔩

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Not entirely true. The whole 3 missed meals from anarchy is kept up to keep the masses satiated.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Maybe we should blanket subsidize groceries?

[+] [email protected] -13 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Kind of weird that in the last 100 years nearly all the worst famines occured it communist countries.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Except that’s not true? China had much worse famines before the communist revolution, and both China and the USSR never had a famine after the ones you are thinking about.

Meanwhile, we hear every 5 years that hundreds of thousands of people will die of hunger on the Horn of Africa, that millions of people are food insecure at the seat of capitalist power (the US, UK etc.). We see breadlines in the UK, families going hungry because of foodstamp cuts.

And then you see Vietnam, China, Cuba… and they have eliminated famine. Not hunger, but famine. Meaning there are no food insecure people. The USSR had done the same before it collapsed. People in the USSR had better food security than people in the US after the 50s.

You basically don’t know what you’re talking about and are just repeating propaganda points from the Cold War. It’s vibes based ideology, no facts or science.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

ROFL nothing what you said is remotely true lol

Saying people in the ussr had better food security than people in the USA in the 50s hahahahahaha

Tankies....lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

millions of people are food insecure at the seat of capitalist power (the US, UK etc.). We see breadlines in the UK, families going hungry because of foodstamp cuts.

There's food insecure people in China too. It's not different in that respect at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There is, but when people say “eliminate hunger” or “food insecurity” in these neolib global think tanky way they mean statistically eliminate them.

China has better food security than Italy, Greece, Singapore, South Korea etc. and you’d never associate those countries with hunger or food insecurity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

China has better food security than Italy, Greece, Singapore, South Korea etc.

I find that hard to believe. Which numbers do you base this on?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Food_Security_Index

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Ah, fair enough then

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Link to evidence of people starving under capitalism, and I’ll show you a place where the government tried to take over food distribution.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I don’t have to find sources for you. But the Irish famine literally was a famine of laissez faire policies. The British landowning class of Ireland deliberately chose to export the agricultural produce of Ireland because it was more profitable. The government refused to step in to create regulations or limitations on exports and that’s what caused the famine. Also, the mono-culture of potatoes was also a factor of capitalism. Industrial mono-culture is the agricultural form of capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I would suggest not drawing the line between capitalist corporate societies and authoritarian communist dictatorships. Not every message needs to be about government models.

I take a message like this to start a conversation about cooperation instead of greed. Conceptually, I don't see it scaling to 8 billion people.

But the great thing is that we can all individually make the choice to operate this way within our smaller communities, and offer support to those in need when we can afford to. You can even scale this concept down to your family or your team at work. Cooperation can convert certain resources away from being a fixed-sum game.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (5 children)

There's a larger issue of paltering within the previous statement in that it artificially limits the time span under scrutiny and to the headline famines (rather than sum totals) to railroad a specific political inference in service of an anti-collectivist meme.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm just trying to support cooperation with the idea of starting small with our friend who isn't ready to think big about it yet. I think people need to experience immersive demonstrations to understand the amplification power of cooperation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

That's certainly commendable but it ignores the power of easily repeated lies.

There is great value in earnest discussion. It, however, requires all sides to be ingenuous. If someone's opening gambit is calculated artifice then all you are doing is giving them soapbox from which to bend pliable minds to their regressive agenda. By all means try to draw them into open discussion but only within a framework of honest representation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not agreeing with op but for this meme it does make sense to limit the timeframe. Production and worldwide logistics have only recently given us the ability to feed everyone on earth reliably and consistently.

Two hundred years ago a surplus in Argentina couldn't easily be applied to a failed crop in Bangladesh. The world as a whole now produces more than enough food and we have the ability to transport it from anywhere to anywhere. We just don't do it. In the past hunger sometimes couldn't be avoided, now it could.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's true that the transport system is much faster and reliable now than the 1840’s but you didn't need a Prime subscription to lift a famine. Transport back then was still fast enough.

The conditions that cause famines lasted multiple seasons/years and they didn't drop in over night either. Famine struck areas slide into scarcity slowly as the price of the cheapest food available rises above what is affordable by the poorest in that society.

In some areas, such as the Irish potato famine in the 1840’s, there was still a surplus of food being exported to markets that could afford it. Aid, when it eventually arrived in Ireland came from Britain, USA, Indian Ocean, France, Canada, West Indies, Australia, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, south America, Russia, Latin America, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, Portugal and other British Dependencies. The world was much more connected back then than you may be aware.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Thank you for the links.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It does make sense to limit at least when there's socialist states if you want to compare capitalist states to socialist ones.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Only if you wanted to hide all the earlier famines that happened under capitalism under the tenuous argument that there's some overarching uniformity of development, opportunity, meteorological events, natural disaster etc etc worldwide that allows for fair comparison within the same timeframe.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It just doesn't make sense to compate two completely different timeframes as-is.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

On the contrary. There is no cognizant reason to limit the timeframe other than to bury relevant facts unfavorable to anti-left rhetoric.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I thought the point was to compare the two. Wouldn't make sense to give one a much longer timespan in the comparison.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That would only make sense if there was some tangible link between the occurance of famines and the passing of time. But there isn't really. There is to things like war, drought, flooding, epidemics, vermin infestation, mis-management, a country's degree of development etc etc. If you want to make some qualitative comparison between systems of government then use those not some superficial framing set to prejudice the outcome.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But when we're comparing occurrences numerically, of course time matters into it. In comparable time and preferably situations, how many occurrences you'd have.

Skewing the comparison by using two totally different time frames seems just weird ngl. What would be the point, unless you want some specific result

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Skewing the comparison by using totally different countries with totally different situations seems weird ngl. What would be the point, unless you want some specific result.

Russia and China both had an unfortunate history of famines before any pesky revolutionairies popped their heads up. Examining a longer time period reveals this highly relevant fragility. Also the facts that both of these huge countries were badly underdeveloped at the time of their revolutions: And the period you wish to limit it to had both of the world wars and the extended periods of international instability associated with them: And both countries suffered invasions and other unusual external pressures over a long period of time. These are relevant factors.

Limiting the time frame for a comparison based solely on a summation of deaths is a leading, manipulation of the study of the phenomena of famines.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Preferably you actually would use the same countries and times, if you could. I'm not sure how you think comparisons usually work lol. You'd try to keep the comparison as similar as possible.

I'm sorry but I feel like you're trying to arrive at a certain conclusion rather than doing an honest comparison.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Limiting by time period and a crude summation of deaths is a dishonest framing for any discussion regarding how one political system may be more the catalyst for famine than another. It is basic correlation vs causation. By all means make a cognizant argument that shows how these limits can promote a fair comparison of the political factors that influence a countries descent into famine. I would like to hear something from you that amounts to more than some article of capitalist (bad) faith. I feel that you will struggle to do so because you are not interested in making an earnest effort to understand famine just in weaponising contrived stats.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Cooperation is vastly superior to competition. This is where capitalism fails miserably and does the opposite of it's claims, specifically with regard to innovation.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Hunger in capitalism is not about famines, it's about mass produced cheap food full of sodium, sugar and chemicals, yes people are feed but at the cost of obesity and other health problems, it's about farmers pushed to plant specific crops to the detriment of the environment and the land, pushed to buy seeds from Monsanto and punished if they dare to plant their own crops.

People still are going hungry in the world, but not we're you can see it, and you will never see it, in your bubble of lights and advertisment.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It’s also about famines tho…

The Irish Famine was 100% caused by capitalism. The Bengal Famine is the same. All famines today in the capitalist world are the fault of capitalist logic. When people die of hunger in Ethiopia or Eritrea, it’s capitalism killing them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The Irish Famine was 100% caused by capitalism.

This is a lie.

The Irish Famine was caused by the British government using thugs with guns to steal food from Irish farmers. It had absolutely nothing in it to resemble a free market situation. The Irish Famine was caused when the government stepped in to disrupt the action of the free market.

Capitalism is defined by free markets. When the government comes in and confiscates all the food to export overseas, that is the opposite of a free market,

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

What are you talking about? The Irish famine was caused by two factors:

The potato blight, and potato mono-culture. Potato mono-culture being caused by capitalism, by industrialisation, privatisation of Irish land at the hands of British landlords, and profit maximisation in a laissez faire market.
During the famine, it was more profitable for the British landlords to export agricultural produce to England and other parts of Europe than to sell it in Ireland. So laws of the market dictated pretty much everything was exported.

The famine was literally caused by the government NOT stepping in, doubling down on laissez faire liberalism and using racist Malthusian excuses like “helping the Irish would just make things worse cause they would procreate like rabbits and need even MORE food”…

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Oh, I get it now.... You just read your first Ayn Rand book lol

You're gonna vmbe amazed at what a brick wall the imaginary "free market" solutions are gonna run into.

You have all the free market capitalism you can stand right now and the problems got WORSE, not better. Corrporations literally control the US government and have created food deserts and starvation and utterly empty calories. #FAIL. Capitalism cause famines.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Hunger in capitalism is not about famines

I think this pretty much sums up capitalisms’s relationship to food. Hunger in capitalism is a word we use to describe people being driven, because hunger in capitalism is not about famines.

I’m glad we agree on the basic facts here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

No, people here can't even afford that garbage. It actually is more economical to buy unprocessed vegetables, beans, meats, fruits and to just cook your own food.

The only feasible way to participate in the economy is to not be dependent on it to survive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

try to convince all manufactures to stop selling. If won't happen, because of huge profits that follow deficit

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Kind of weird how this isnt fucking true at all but idiots who slurp up talk radio fascism repeat it like lemmings

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

You're absolutely right, it's because no one is motivated to do the unenjoyable work