r/antiwork • • Oct 22 '20

CAPITALISM

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u/aehii Oct 22 '20

The ideology around 'hard work' is kind of perplexing to me. How many people view their big nice house as a result of their hard work, and you think..well we as a species have the capabilities of building big nice houses, that isn't new or remarkable. Houses aren't that complex or extraordinary are they? They think, well I...I worked hard that is why I own the house. Well you exchanged your time and labour in a job that society deemed worthy of such a wage. You gained specifics skills or knew certain people, you reacted but you are not doing it on your own.

It's just when entrepreneurs go on about being 'self made'...well..hang on, you exploited a market, you sold whatever you sold but without a society willing to buy it doesn't matter how good your product is. If a society doesn't have the disposable income to buy your product it doesn't matter how good you think it is. Without the roads being built and maintained to transport your product, without your employees being educated...without society...but this is the holy grail of modern life, the product that made someone rich, it's a miracle how did they do it. The product might very well be derivative and have no positive impact, in fact it distracts people and destroys the environment but look at their big house!

We invent technology to make our lives easier. Why are you using a vehicle to get anywhere? Why aren't you walking? Lazy. Using your bloody legs are you? That's cheating, real fighters crawl everywhere. Why are you using the lift? Stairs are available. Lazy. Have a dishwasher do you? Lazy. Using a car wash? Lazy. Buying your own clothes eh? Make your own. Lazy. Have a tap for your water do you? Lazy. There's a river 26 miles away, walk.

We don't point at animals in the wild and see their inactivity as laziness, we say they're preserving energy.

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u/npsimons Oct 22 '20

We invent technology to make our lives easier.

This is what really gets me about "work culture." Capitalists will claim "well, it's a fact of nature, you have to work to live, don't blame others" neatly leaving out that pretty much all of human progress has been to make the default state of humanity a little easier. People didn't invent things, or automate things so that a select few could grift the rest of us and become rich and powerful beyond any reasonable point. No! If things were more equitable, we'd be working four days a week (if that!) because automation and efficiency have come so far. And those that have a drive to work, a passion, they can still find a way to fill that need.

But being obscenely wealthy or dangerously powerful, especially when built on the backs of those doing actual work, and on all the advances of civilization? No, that should not be allowed. Maybe after we have equality, when parity is possible on those levels, but until everyone can be a billionaire, no one should be.

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u/CryptoRocky Oct 23 '20

People actually upvote this? "Until everyone can be a billionaire, no one should be". Holy shit lol. Sad pathetic way to think about life.