Has there ever been a time in human history where we were just allowed to exist for our passions and not work for survival? Our economic system definitely has its flaws, but this meme paints with too broad strokes.
We've basically conquered scarcity at this point in history. There's really no reason people shouldn't have all their basically necessities provided today, but bcz of greedy assholes, they're always in search of more money, so we don't get that.
You don't work merely for your own survival under capitalism, most of your labor goes to supporting the capitalist class (and bombing foreigners to keep resources cheap so those capitalists can make even more money).
Half a century ago, working in a grocery store was enough to buy a home, raise a family, and put a kid through college. The job did not get less productive, if anything each worker produces more than ever with automation, but a greater share goes to the capitalist class, both through stagnant wages and increasing costs.
The Renaissance was a time of a vast labor shortage. This allowed workers to demand higher wages, and it also allowed leisure time to study new things and make new art.
If we're talking specifically about art, historically, there was the patronage system where wealthy people would pay artists that they liked to largely just spend their days painting whatever they liked. It wasn't something every artist could take advantage of (Van Gogh died a poor pauper because his paintings basically didn't sell at all until after his death, for example), but it did exist.
Also, genuine question if anybody knows, what about the philosophers of old? Did they get paid as teachers of their school of theory or something?
It's not like there was ever a time when people simply didn't work at all, but there is a large portion of the population today who don't feel like their work is anything other than busywork with no reason to it, and that makes them miserable even doing something that they love. There are people out there who love picking up garbage for a living because they know that they're doing something that makes a difference.
Yeah, childhood.
Fight Club told that when man were hunter/gatherers we spend twenty hours a week working so it must be true.
Part of the reason why the transition to agriculture was so difficult, is because that is true. Agriculture is a lot of work, and requires a lot more labor time than the hunter-gatherer mode of production.
Of course in the long run, agricultural societies end up overcoming hunter-gatherer ones, because they're able to support a much larger population.
Harari claims something similar in his book Sapiens, so it might not be so far fetched. However, even then people would have to pay for being alive with their work, even if it's less.
One doesn't even get to focus on paying just for oneself.
One has to pay for Zuck/Bezos/Musk/Cook/Trump first.
This was pretty much what set me on the path to radicalisation.
The system felt so unfair and then to learn that there were people who could do exactly this just because they were born into a family with large capital it was infuriating.
That's why I dislike these kinds of memes that say, "Oh, I shouldn't be working all day; I should be living a life of leisure and free to create".They feel like the conservative strawman of the "lazy leftist who just envies the rich".
Living as the meme describes inherently requires the exploitation of labor. Unless a society becomes technologically advanced enough to achieve fully automated post-scarcity, meeting a person's needs still requires a certain amount of human labor. The issue under capitalism is that some people do live as the meme describes, and they do so by exploiting the labor of others through capital. As a result, the rest of us struggle even more.
Not exactly a rebuttal, more of an addendum:
Artists can seek personal fulfillment, which may indirectly contribute something of value for society, or they can directly contribute value to society by creating art for others. If this value is greater than or equal to that which is required to sustain them, then exploitation is not inherently necessary.
Hey want to throw up? Here's a Koch heir using daddy's blood money to be a pretend "creative."
What a fucking jerkoff, billions of dollars at his disposal, he's probably got designers and renowned artists on speed dial...
...and the most creative he can get is "a shirt, but in a fun print!"
Was talking to a friend about AI and job loss and eventually he says something about "those people in the past talking about reducing the population" unfortunately being possibly necessary... I think he was referring to some things written on the Georgia guidestones, but Jesus fucking Christ...
Essentially "How many people are allowed to live is entirely dependent on how much labor Mr.Money needs."
🤮 🤮 🤮 🤮
innovating or being less wasteful??
(·•᷄_•᷅ )
arguing to reduce the population so the privileged can have even more privilege?
( ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ )
butt in gommunism, you think you'll be a poet, but you'll work in a mine.
in capitalism I wanted to be an astronaut, but now I have a substance abuse problem and write spaghetti code for a corporate machine that would not give a shit if I dropped dead tomorrow.
My mental health increased massively when I stopped being a programmer.
I had to do neurofeedback training to reduce the beta wave amplitude if my brain. They were three standard deviations above normal even when I was having an incredibly calm day.
The neurofeedback clinician had me skip my ritalin for a few days before doing that baseline scan. The day of the scan I felt a calm like nothing I’d felt for months. Even in that state my beta waves were three standard deviations above normal.
The neurofeedback training put a stop to my panic attacks.
Anyway, beta waves are used in logical decision-making (the thing a programmer does 10,000 times per day), and they’re also used in fight or flight response. Good thing to know about how the brain works.
Luckily as a software dev I had the money for the neurofeedback. I spent about $7k on that in total, in chunks of about $1500 at a time.
you "only" need to pay for being alive instead of going around hunting all days fighting boars and shits
