It might be ok to tell low income people to get better jobs if the education/certification needed to access those jobs wasn’t gated behind real costs (eg tuition ) and opportunity costs (reduced time for employment) - but even if we commoned education so well that anyone could access the education needed, who is going to do the low income jobs?
If we are all doctors and engineers, who is going to sweep the streets, collect the garbage, mine the lithium etc?
This is a bit of a straw man, but I do understand your point. The honest answer from my point of view is that if people had their basic needs met, it would open up the job market to encourage people to pursue careers that they were genuinely interested in.
Money as the only motivator for career selection means that, under capitalism, people are pushed to pursue higher paying jobs, but there are many folks out there passionate about waste management, folks who find street sweeping meditative and comforting, and those who crave adventure like caving and exploration underground (although hopefully we keep harmful extraction to a minimum like lithium mining, right??)
When people are treated with dignity, when a culture values all work as necessary and equal, when folks have their basic needs met, we're dealing with a whole different labour scenario - one that is quite hard to imagine in our current paradigm.
I suspect I may have posted my comment without completing it, because it was meant to be a criticism of capitalism but doesn’t now read like that.
I can’t figure how to access the paywalled article but I can imagine that an anarchic community might figure other ways to dispose of waste (eg a roster where everyone takes a turn) and possibly also find ways to reduce consumption and to produce less waste or at least less waste that needs external disposal (we have a garden so we dug a small pit and toss in our food waste to compost - so there’s no paid labour or fuel involved in trashing it)
I think currently we (as society) relegate people to those low income jobs by structurally denying them access to better jobs, because we need that “dirty work” done. I guess it’s nice if someone passionate about trash collection does that work (like the people who take Simon Sinek’s trash because they really believe in the “why”) but we can’t depend on that - so within the current system actually they should be paid more than what they currently get - but they won’t be because there’s a steady supply of people willing to do that work for that price because “that’s the going rate in the market”
And agree with your last point - it’s hard to imagine. I think a starting point is to pursue more equality as a goal than growth, because growth in the current model comes from exploitation and therefore increases inequality (which leads to conflict) and besides it’s not sustainable for the planet
It might be ok to tell low income people to get better jobs if the education/certification needed to access those jobs wasn’t gated behind real costs (eg tuition ) and opportunity costs (reduced time for employment) - but even if we commoned education so well that anyone could access the education needed, who is going to do the low income jobs?
If we are all doctors and engineers, who is going to sweep the streets, collect the garbage, mine the lithium etc?
This is a bit of a straw man, but I do understand your point. The honest answer from my point of view is that if people had their basic needs met, it would open up the job market to encourage people to pursue careers that they were genuinely interested in.
MK wrote a good point on this topic here: https://debatemebro.substack.com/p/who-takes-out-the-trash (It's pay-walled but you can claim a free read...)
Money as the only motivator for career selection means that, under capitalism, people are pushed to pursue higher paying jobs, but there are many folks out there passionate about waste management, folks who find street sweeping meditative and comforting, and those who crave adventure like caving and exploration underground (although hopefully we keep harmful extraction to a minimum like lithium mining, right??)
When people are treated with dignity, when a culture values all work as necessary and equal, when folks have their basic needs met, we're dealing with a whole different labour scenario - one that is quite hard to imagine in our current paradigm.
I suspect I may have posted my comment without completing it, because it was meant to be a criticism of capitalism but doesn’t now read like that.
I can’t figure how to access the paywalled article but I can imagine that an anarchic community might figure other ways to dispose of waste (eg a roster where everyone takes a turn) and possibly also find ways to reduce consumption and to produce less waste or at least less waste that needs external disposal (we have a garden so we dug a small pit and toss in our food waste to compost - so there’s no paid labour or fuel involved in trashing it)
I think currently we (as society) relegate people to those low income jobs by structurally denying them access to better jobs, because we need that “dirty work” done. I guess it’s nice if someone passionate about trash collection does that work (like the people who take Simon Sinek’s trash because they really believe in the “why”) but we can’t depend on that - so within the current system actually they should be paid more than what they currently get - but they won’t be because there’s a steady supply of people willing to do that work for that price because “that’s the going rate in the market”
And agree with your last point - it’s hard to imagine. I think a starting point is to pursue more equality as a goal than growth, because growth in the current model comes from exploitation and therefore increases inequality (which leads to conflict) and besides it’s not sustainable for the planet