When I talk about the gift economy, the guaranteed minimum income, or a new economic system for the 21st century, I am not suggesting that everyone quit working. Just that inequity be avoided and poverty eliminated.
Most people want to work. To do something useful. Some can’t and a few won’t. But everyone else will still need a job.
Everything in nature must eat.
Creatures satisfy that requirement in many ways, from parasitism to predation to specialized beaks and other parts.
Humans are different in some ways and like the rest of nature in others. Yes, we do have our parasites. But because we are self aware, most of us need work to feel complete.
Some people have a talent or interest that manifests from early in life. Their work is how they enter the world. In a way it is what they live for. These are the ones who will never truly retire. Artists of every kind. Scientists. Philosophers. Intellectuals. If you are one of these you have a type of creative compulsion and not a great deal of choice. You must work. Not because of the money.
Then there are workaholics who keep going to avoid something they like less. Or because they only feel worthy when they are working.
The vast majority are not in either of these categories. Most have jobs they work at primarily for the money. If they are lucky they like what they do.
Others hate it but spend a third of their lives doing it anyhow.
The capitalists will tell you that money is the only motivation. That personal preference has no place in the discussion. And that “free loaders”, a group that in their minds includes both those who won’t work and those who can’t, should just be left behind.
One of the pillars of late capitalism is the belief that without the ever present stick of fear nobody would work at all.
It is simply not true. Before capitalism there were many other economic systems. And they all involved work of some kind.
All the way back to the Hunter-Gatherers. The system decides who gets to eat. And many of them did far better on this account than capitalism.
If you took the brutality out of this system with a guaranteed minimum income and a strong gift economy, people would still work. Because they have drive. Because they want to simply be useful. To satisfy the ego. To be a part of something bigger than the self. And for some, to build something that will outlive them.
If you are a creative person you might wonder, under a guaranteed minimum income, who would do the bussing of tables? Who would clerk at stores? Who would take the jobs you can’t ever see yourself doing?
Everyone is not a clone of you or of me. Some people truly enjoy keeping books or busting suds. For some, these jobs I would pass up (or feel like I was in a hell world) are literally the best they have to offer. This should be respected.
Most people want to be useful, but not used. And certainly not used up. They want to work but not have that work kill them. Not their bodies or their spirits.
If we are to ever live in a just world work must be uncoupled from survival.
The capitalists should not be deciding who gets to eat.