From the Welfare tangent in the Silly Voters thread, I thought I'd pluck out a certain theme running through much of the debate.

BeefotronX's last post, in particular gave a quite eloquent reasoning through why Welfare is not a good idea if your goal is getting those on it into jobs, and I suspect that by that reasoning he's right - If you're mostly worried about people not working, there are better ways of ensuring that people get to work than a welfare payment.

But I'm going to try and break the mould of conversation, because BeefotronX has touched on a subject I've discussed previously with other people. I'm going to start with a simple question.

Why is it important that everyone works?

Recently on a mailing list I'm on there was a very large discussion on the possibility of what is known as a Universal Citizen's Entitlement. This is effectively a baseline payment, paid to everyone of a certain age and above. In theory, the UCE should be just enough to be able to live off, enough to cover the very basics. Should people wish to live more than a basic existence, then one could work in order to supplement their UCE.

It was rather radical, and there was a lot of shouting down of it, basically on the premise that it would mean that "hard-working people (ie me) would be supporting a bunch of layabouts (ie them)", when in fact the whole reason he wanted to bring this up because he felt that the Protestant Work Ethic that currently pervades Western Culture is inherantly flawed - we just don't need everyone to work all the time, and we certainly don't need people trapped in jobs because the being unemployed is not even worth considering.

In a way, I suspect he had a point - there are a lot of occupations which really tend to be busy-work - things like advertising, the middle layers of management, many types of service jobs, etc. These jobs are often lauded as excellent ways to get people into work, but is it really necessary? Could we survive, as a culture, if there were sections of the community that not only did not work, but had no interest in finding work, and that there was no disincentive to do otherwise? Could a UCE-type system work?

I think UCE wouldn't actually create a stable of people that didn't work ever at all. What it would do is create a larger group of people that worked LESS; maybe only half-time, or just a few hours a week. Of course, this would also create more job openings, since the work might not necessarily go away because there isn't someone to do it, so you'd have two or three people doing the work that one person now does.

There'd be some people that never worked, but humans like their luxuries. People would work for the luxuries, even if all their basic needs (and I'm talking food, shelter, health and clothing here, nothing more) where provided. More people might start working just for the good of the community; most of the volunteers that come to the Food Bank here that aren't court ordered are people of means or retired - thus already having their basic needs met. So they volunteer their time to work without pay, since they're now without want.

I think the vast majority of people would like to live in a world without advertising, and most would be glad to do without middle management. It would be virtually impossible to get a UCE system into place, and it would quite possibly be completely unsupportable on a scale the size of the US, but I don't think it would be completely unworkable. In fact, it might makes us all feel a lot more connected to our country and our countrymen than many of us do right now.

Alaska actually has enough money from it's oil supply that the tax burden is very low, and all citizens of the state get an annual stipend from the revenue, simply because there's nothing else for the state to spend it on. Even in that situation, with a fairly small population, they don't have anywhere near enough money to have everybody survive without working. So where would the money to fund this come from? Taxes? Everybody would have to make enough money working to support somebody else out of their taxes.

Besides, there's already a group of people supported like that who don't have to work. They're called academics

I don't think that people should just get money for just doing nothing, they should contribute to society unless they physically can't for whatever reason. What FreakyBoy said about work hours is a really good point, though. If the work day were shorter, like 4 hours or something but people still got paid wages for a full day of work, there'd be almost no unemployment and people would have a lot more time for other things.

And here's the attitude I was noting above. Why is it so important that people should contribute to society? I mean, a while back, it was pretty important, since in agrarian societies, if you don't get everyone doing their bit, you could possibly starve, but nowadays? I have great difficulty believing that everyone is needed to do their bit.

Remember all those utopian visions in the 50s, where robots would replace everyone's work, and we'd be spending all our extra time on recreation and furthering personal goals? What on earth happenned to that vision? In a lot of ways, it was a great idea. I mean, who wouldn't want to have all the dreary work of society done for you, and be able the reap the benefits of having extra time up your sleeve? You could sit and relax, and live the carefree life, or decide to expand your knowledge of the world, or even, if you liked, did things like gardening or baking! You wouldn't have to do anything you didn't want to do! How grand! Yet, these days, something like this is actively attacked on multiple fronts. (Before you reply, yes, I do know many of the reasons that contributed to the idea's downfall. But where did the dream go?)

I agree with you on the subject, I think there's an obligation to do something for your fellow country, but if this is the case, should you have to be paid for it? What if you wanted to do something for your country by doing volunteer work all the time? Or some other unpaid work? The structures we have in place don't exactly encourage this sort of altruistic behaviour. Imagine if every mother got the UCE, and was able to do whatever she needed with it?

I'm the first to admit that there are some major flaws with the idea of a UCE, and while it is nice to discuss such things, my main thrust was to question the work ethic. Why must everyone work?

Because without people working, nothing would happen, nothing would be produced, there wouldn't be anything on the shelves. And personally, I just have a work ethic and I feel guilty if I don't pitch in.

And if people don't have work ethic what will motivate them to do anything besides live of a monthly stripend? Sure there will be people who use it to better their lives and stuff, but the lots of them will simply fall into habitual laziness. And if there is no work ethic then currency loses its value becuase currency is not so much a thing as an idea. The idea is that this piece of paper represents a physical object that can be exchanged for goods and services. If people no longer need to work to get money than currency loses its value and all the monthly stripends will actually be giving the people less.

Okay I'm somewhat certain I got that wrong somewhere so disprove it if you like.

I'm confused, Crake - why would someone's money no longer be exchangable if they got it through means other than working? People get money without working all the time. Gifts, prizes, interest, welfare, profitable currency exchanges. I'm not following your argument at all.

Well yeah but if a significant population of the people got money without working is what I think I meant to say. Well the argument sounded better in my head.

Sounds suspicious to me. To be fair, some people would benefit from not having to work for money, like mad scientists and philosophers, who spend all their time trying to invent things or ideas and don't succeed all the time.


The model for living situations though should be two people sharing one dwelling, not living alone. We could get away with paying them less that way. :P

The question is, who works? How do you decide who works? Through ability? Then you punish ability. Through birthright? That's almost racial slavery. Through lottery? So your place in life is determined by pure luck of the draw, not even birthright. Wonderful.

So you are saying that given the option, noone would work? Despite you saying that you probably would given the choice to do otherwise? :)

I got a question about your system. Where's this money that you're going to give everyone coming from? Taxes? Who would you tax? Would there be enough people earning enough money for you to gather enough taxes to pay everyone else's allowance?

One idea you said was to replace most service workers with robots (probably possible for things like a drive through fast food restaurant - make it into a great big vending machine). But who owns the robots? Who invents the technology, modifies them for industrial use, builds them, and maintains them? Would this person bother to do all that, if he knew that his or her earnings would be taxed away at the end?

BeefotronX:
I personally wonder if that the entire entertainment industry represents a section of society that is being supported voluntarily by 'productive' workers. As a farmer, I provide value by turning earth, water an sun into nutrition - I create real value of an essential nature. As an artist, I create decorative pictures of birds that people hang on their walls as a luxury, but people voluntarily support even the very esoteric arts - is their no aestheitic in knowing that there is a person who lives in a shack on a secluded beach who chooses not to work but paddles out into the surf before dawn every day?

Quasi-profound thought of the day: If we elevate idleness to an art form, is it less offensive to Western Culture? Hmmm... Perhaps that's where the terminology of meditation comes in.

NobodyHome:
People like to better their situation and they will continue to do it through work. Ability or not - people will work voluntarily if it means the difference between bare basic survival and living in high comfort and going tot he cinema whenever they want.

Kea:
You've hit the nail on the head. The numbers don't work at all, but an underlying idea that Kirby wants to explore is the removal of the stigma associated with people who aren't employed.

Note I don't say 'don't work' because there are plenty of people who are employed - even well paid, who do little or no productive work. Tthere are plenty of people who are not employed who do massive ammounts of work - stay-at-home-parents, particularly mothers, are a key example.

Some people who work hard to maintain an income that supports their lifestyle actually hatepeople who don't seem to be trying as hard.

The ubiquitous 'Joneses' scorn their neighbours who don't keep up with the acquisition of the latest and greatest. The Joneses believe that accumulation of wealth indicates the value of an individual. They wouldn't understand that their less-materialistic neighbour might consist of a father who enjoys his job, but leaves on time most days so that he can be home in time to help the kids with their homework, a mother who works part time at the local op-shop and kids who don't mind at all that they camp in a caravan at a mountain lake every year instead of skiing the Swiss Alps every season like the Joneses up the street.

When a whole society - or half of it, at least, adopts the idea that everyone has to strive to the utmost to earn their place in society, and that for someone not to strive - or give the appearance of striving is lazy and worthless, it gets very dog-eat-dog, which is not high on my list of measures of quality culture and humane behaviour.

When unemployment is high and there just aren't enough jobs to soak up the pool of jobless, an equitable approach is job-sharing. Spread the workload so that everyone can earn something. Another option is for a portion of the taxes to be used to support the percentage of the population that there are no jobs for. It would be nice if this could be done without rancour, thus the thread. (unless I'm totally off beam, Kirby?)

The agrarian/protistant/strong work ethic harks back to a time when all hands were needed to support the community for fear of a shortage of something. This is not the case these days. There is no dire shortage of any material thing.

What would happen if people didn't fear the shame of slowing down their hectic work-life? What awful thing would befall society if, instead of being on call 24-7, an executive assistant could just say no to mobile phones whilst on holiday? Wouldn't it be shocking if people went home when their paid hours expired and the employer had to hire someone else to do the surplus work that people now do unpaid? Where'e the catastrophe in a parent saying - 'I need to work part time so that I can dedicate more of myself to my children than to my job'? All of these examples would be frowned on severely in the current work-climate. Desiring less work; exchanging earnings for time to have a life is seen as shameful. Why must this be so?

Our society doesn't lack for material things. Our society lacks time. It lacks compassion - give people time to volunteer. It lacks common sense - give people time for self education. It lacks heart - give people time to socialise with family and friends.

The way to give time back to people is to remove the shame associated with not working.

I doubt people would no longer work under a UCE system. It's not like they are no longer paid for their work. They get thier UCE and if they want any more you still have to work.

How many people do you know who really work exactly up to earing their bare necessities and not a bit more to buy some luxuries, status symbols or whatever.

So if they are prepared to work for luxuries now why shouldn't they if there is an UCE?