No one wants to be a fast food worker, not because it’s a bad job per se, but because everyone knows it’s bullshit that doesn’t help anyone, and their managers are squeezing them to get the very last penny out of them.
You do almost exactly the same thing in a charity soup kitchen, except everyone there loves doing it so much they do it for free because it gives meaning to their lives, and the people managing the operation are nice.
It’s all about context, it’s all about the ambiance and the social aspects.
If jobs end up not being done, it’s because they have been deemed not necessary by the people. There are enough weird people to fill just about every niche, if filling that niche also allows them to live.
But treating people like people with needs and desires as well as dreams doesn’t raise the bottom line! Cries in capitalism /s
There is no job that someone somewhere doesn’t want to do.
And a lot of the jobs that are truly awful and nobody wants to do … are bullshit jobs that don’t actually need to be done in the first place.
“no one wants to flip burgers for 7.25!” No shit buddy, maybe your business shouldn’t exist anymore
“No one wants to cook our poisonous food while being paid the absolute minimum we can pay them to do it”
You don’t say !?
We could automate those jobs, yes, but then a lot of people would have no jobs at all.
If we were providing basic needs to everyone, then it would not matter. Its so disgusting how many think “work” is the end all be all to existence.
And that is not saying people are lazy, but that they should not define their existence doing tasks for other people’s benefit for the right to simply be.
And there would be jobs that need a person, but we as a society could and should be able to handle that. Some sort of "everyone does some sort of work age 25-30, when they are kind of “peak ability.”. Or "You get a bit more if you want to work, but its not necesary.
That sort of thing.
In a society in which one’s material needs are not tied to one’s labour, this would not be a problem.
True, but we don’t have that society, yet we do have the ability to automate a lot of people out of a job.
So you see the problem.
I see several. Most notably that we seem to keep winding up with leaders that want to enrich themselves rather than make thing better for everyone.
We must ban automation!
Nah, we need to ban jobs and force automation on everything
Theres a steep irony in someone doing government controlled work idealizing a system where the work they do would likely not exist. Who exactly would be mandating/funding the existence, operation, or regular testing of a sewage plant in an anarchist society?
Society is poorly designed in the general sense, sure. It could be vastly improved and people could have more liberty wrt a lot of things. But left to their own devices people on average would not choose to mandate water treatment. Even if they somehow did, providing no central system of oversight for making sure that it happens would all but guarantee it doesnt get accomplished.
Its ridiculous how many people take critical aspects of society for granted and assume they would continue to exist in a world where everyone does whatever the fuck they want without any central planning or control. In many places around the world people already dont have access to fresh/clean water for this exact reason…
Look at the libertarian experiments that have all failed spectacularly, like Grafton, NH. Mfs couldnt even agree to not feed the bears or dispose of their trash appropriately. And that doesnt require some massive infrastructure project to accomplish. The greater good often necessitates protecting people at large from their own stupidity, otherwise your liberties are quickly diminished by your neighbor’s negligence
If you consider the Zapatista’s anarchist, they are a federation of autonomous municipalities that do stuff like this (along with hospitals, schools, etc).
Its ridiculous how many people take critical aspects of society for granted and assume they would continue to exist in a world where everyone does whatever the fuck they want without any central planning or control. In many places around the world people already dont have access to fresh/clean water for this exact reason…
You have a very simplistic view of what an anarchist society could look like and it’s rooted in the assumption that the only possible alternative to central planning is no planning. It’s absolutely possible for people to organize access to clean water in a decentralized manner and I know this because it has been done repeatedly all over the world and throughout human history. In the places you’re thinking of that do not have access to clean water it is often not the result of a lack of central planning, but directly caused by it, such as when a multinational corporation claims a community’s water supply as its private property and restricts access.
This feels like projection more than anything else.
There are tons of people who voluntarily do hard, unpleasant, or dangerous work because they care about the people around them. Volunteer firefighters. Mutual aid groups. Community search and rescue. The number of regular people who stepped up during disasters when official institutions failed is huge. The idea that nobody would bother maintaining water systems unless a central authority forced them to says more about how you see people than about how people actually behave.
You’re also mixing up anarchism with “no coordination.” Anarchism isn’t “everyone does whatever they want and society collapses.” It’s opposition to hierarchy and domination, not opposition to organization. Sewage plants and water treatment don’t exist because of some mystical power of the state. They exist because people need clean water. They require technical knowledge, cooperation, and systems of accountability. None of that logically requires a top-down ruling authority.
You brought up Grafton, NH, (I had to google this) but that doesn’t look anything like anarchism. That looks more like a hyper-individualist, market-first version of libertarianism with almost no civic culture. Anarchism, especially in its socialist or syndicalist traditions, is built around collective responsibility and shared management. Those are very different things. “Nobody owes anyone anything” is not the same as “we organize ourselves without bosses.”
And on the clean water point: communities historically pushed for sanitation because cholera and dysentery were killing people. Public health measures often came from collective pressure long before centralized bureaucracies standardized them. People don’t need to be tricked into wanting potable water.
You say the greater good requires protecting people from their own stupidity. Maybe sometimes. But you seriously think centralization magically fix negligence? Flint, Michigan had a state. That didn’t prevent a water disaster. Bureaucracy can fail just as hard as decentralized systems, and sometimes with less direct accountability.
The real disagreement here seems to be about human nature. If you assume most people won’t lift a finger unless coerced, then yeah, anarchism sounds ridiculous. If you assume people are capable of organizing around shared needs when they actually have ownership and say over things, it becomes less far-fetched.
Precisely. The original post shows there could still be labor willing to do the work, but it does does not address how that work would be funded. Even if the labor was free there are resources required to build and maintain that plant that are not free. Where do those resources come from?
“nobody wants to do this” = “I don’t want to do this and I have no imagination”
Props to the original poster for being open-minded in their reaction
This is why I’m moving away from programming for a boss and am looking for jobs where I don’t get the stress of countless meetings and project manager bullshit. I just want a nice job where I don’t feel too much stress and make enough money to live decently. Then I can continue working on opensource projects as my hobby.
I really dislike all the “ceremonies” that seem to be involved in software development now. It’s just so much useless ritual.
“We can discuss it at the stand-up”.
Join a cooperative!
It’s our time to shine!Would be cool. I’ve tried, and was even able to get an interview with one, but was rejected :( This job market sucks; everyone’s getting many more applications than they’re able to deal with, and cooperatives are more hesitant to accept new members than regular businesses. I guess I’d have to create a new cooperative if I wanted to work in one, but I’m bad at/hate securing and negotiating contracts.
I’d have to create a new cooperative if I wanted to work in one
🙂↕️
I’m bad at/hate securing and negotiating contracts.
And because you’re not a psycopath, you’ll be able to amend them to suit both the syndicates’ interests and that of the new recruit as you go. Contracts should be living documents, not blood and tear contracts.
That seems interesting.
Thank you for the link.
