1w ago

Don't be fooled

236 comments

In so many of the contrarian responses I'm seeing, I'm reminded of Fisher:
it's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.
That is to say that so many cannot escape the capitalist framework of productive workers supporting the elderly. As though that's the only way society can possibly be organized.
Retirees are not seen as deserving of their reward, but rather a drain on productive labor. It's no wonder that there is so little sympathy for the destitute and homeless when those who've "earned" their leisure are still known as parasites.
- How do you imagine a world of caring for those who cannot care for themselves without people to care for them?
  
  Economies become ever more productive with new technology. Currently that surplus goes to raising standards of living, primarily the standard of living of the wealthy. The surplus productivity of new technology can instead be directed at providing the same standard of living, but at reduced labor participation rates. So maybe we stop making our homes and vehicles ever-larger. Oh well. We'll survive and thrive just fine. I would much rather have that than any attempts to coerce people into having children.
  
  AI powered spank bots
  
  We have the people and resources to care for the old.
  Nobody wants to care for the old because it doesn't reward you with enough money to live off of.
  I think a better question is how will we care for the old when we force people to work bullshit jobs that aren't as important just so they can have a life worth living?
  
  We're talking about population decline, not disappearance.
  
  All they say is that decline is only a problem in capitalism
  In a socialist utopia that means a larger burden for the population to share which leads to further population decline
  They never mentioned how they would remedy that and neither did you
  
  Ok, I'd remedy that by not giving all the wealth to the wealthy, and transfering it to the caring progefessions and to the retirees themselves, so that they could live a devent life.
  
  Ok but money in and of itself doesn't mean anything. Just giving away all of the wealth doesn't inherently fix the lack of labour. You can make everyone a millionaire but it doesn't matter if they don't have anything to buy with that money.
  
  I don't believe a reasonable population decline would mean such a severe shortage of labour that there would be nothing to buy. I think we could actually make a shorter week or shorter hours happen without big problems.
  
  We have plenty of labor, they are literally removing workers from the country. They keep coming up with new ways to prevent workers from entering the country. Unemployment rate has been a cool 4% for years now, the only thing wrong with the labor pool is their purchasing power.

236 comments