Capitalism, the system where we allow poverty to exist

I disagree that "labor" can never be voluntary. But I also fully agree that labor in a Capitalist system is fundamentally based on coercion.

The thing to me is that "labor" and "doing work" are two fundamentally different things. You can accept a role that someone else needs done in exchange for something, or you can work on things you find important or interesting, or that just needs doing, to maintain yourself and your environment in a broad sense.

I don't get why it's so controversial that people should be able to survive without a job. It doesn't need to be glamourous, but nobody should be unhoused or unfed. We are blessed with plenty and we should share. And before it sounds like I'm religious, no, I'm not saying churches should be responsible for that, government should. (Though obviously I have no problems with any religious groups feeding and housing people as well.)

If you meet people's basic needs, they do not cease to care or aspire.

A lot of the issue is "bullshit jobs" and being forced to do one. Work needs to be done, but we could be just as productive and maintain higher quality of life if we all worked less or for a shorter part of our lifespan.

Folks are happy to do a job that helps others, but they're less inclined to do a job to make a few bastards rich.

That also assumes that once people have what they need to survive they would give up on the things that they want. I'd love to have things like the necessities taken care of but I wouldn't expect them to pay for my video games and movie tickets, so I'd need a job to pay for that. Not only that, but I'd be able to work towards a career that I actually want instead of being forced to work a dead end job because I have to be constantly employed or else be homeless. The way the system works now makes it difficult to change careers or go to school later in life because any risk of being unemployed or lapse of time in our income could literally ruin our lives in a matter of weeks.

Claim is ok, the unspoken "so everything will collapse" is bullshit. In the end, Hampton is right: "work (do what someone else wants) or starve" is not how anyone should live

There's a fact that a lot of people commenting here are overlooking. Marx himself admitted that in the lower stage of communism, wages will have to exist until people's mindset on labor changes. It's simply not true that communism will not work because 'people don't like working'.

edit: grammar

Serious question, how can we provide everyone's basic needs without some work? Food doesn't harvest itself. Tools don't maintain themselves.

Labor will always be required on some level though it does not need to be exploited.

People are going to work for pleasure. That's how we're wired. What I find interesting is that people don't get this. They also never see any motive to work beyond the profit motive. I guess that what a system designed to squeeze all the blood out of you does.. you have none left to wander your mind.

Adam Smith "sold" capitalism on the virtue of "free and fair markets". Capitalism, as a practical understanding today, is the supremacy of capital, oligarchist protectionism, and corporatism. Only fair markets (those without coercion and lies, including structural coercion) are free. Adam Smith did not define/sell capitalism as structural coercion of society to maximize ROI for those with capital. Actually the opposite, where "perfect competition" was supposed to result from free and fair markets. Monopoly/cartels generate higher ROI than competition.

UBI/freedom dividends is the path for free and fair markets for labour. It also naturally increases ROI, where investment includes work/time, where the freedom to refuse unfair work means higher pay for work, including higher returns on capital/management, if competition needs higher returns for their work too. But, most important to ROI, redistribution and high pay, means significant increase in demand/GDP, and more work available to satisfy that demand.

The reason UBI is resisted, is not that the rich cannot get much richer from UBI. It is that UBI redistributes power instead of wealth. Those in power, have more power under slavery than by giving away their power (freedom) to the people. Oligarchy needs control over power to protect their oligarchy. After your first $B, what is the point of more money if not to enforce harsher slavery to limit competition to your next $Bs.

Unless you assume people will work out of goodness of their hearts, every system has to somehow coerce people to work. You can't fulfill everyone's basic needs without workers.

And yes, maybe people would do some types of work anyway, but good luck finding people who find working in sanitation as an interesting hobby.

All animals need to work for food

I wonder what life was really like back in hunter gather times...must have been nice sometimes. Maybe even most of the time.

The specific issue in the US is the exploitation of labor to serve the need for infinite profits. In an ideal state, the government (for the people, by the people) would stand between the needs of labor and the needs of profit by providing labor with legal protections from exploitation. When those in government become one with the needs of profits, the people lose.

What we are seeing now after Citizens United is that it becomes more profitable to lobby/capture the government to increase profits than it is to buy more productive labor. By extension, they use a portion of their profits to convince labor to vote against the interests of the many by identifying and focusing on divisive culture issues.

Now who is poised to protect labor? Used to be the news media holding the government accountable to the people, but now most influential news media organizations are held to the need for infinite profits. They have something to lose now if they report on an issue that interferes with their ad revenue.

The solution? Talk to your neighbors and engage in your local community. Invite others to the community. Support each other by sharing skills, knowledge, and resources locally. Serve your community rather than insatiable unidentifiable shareholders. Also be wary of organized religions that can be used to incite conflicts or division. Not saying religion is bad, just that large organizations dilute the accountability needed to prevent the reliance on infinite profits.