Why would Johnsonville as a group wish to continue poisoning Tablesville’s water supply if the Tablesville community makes it clear to them that they are being harmed by Johnsonville’s lack of adequate treatment?
Easy. They don’t believe it. They think Tablesville is exaggerating. They think Tablesville is confusing what is causing the polluted water. They think that pollution isn’t that bad. They think that their need to spend more time with their kids in their very short and mortal lives is worth more than Tablesville’s need to reside on a very specific piece of land that Johnsonville can’t even see the point in inhabiting. They don’t care about Tablesville. Take your pick.
Johnsonville would likely be receiving mutual aid from Tablesville due to their close proximity, so it’d be really weird of them to willfully screw over their downstream neighbors whom they often exchange help or supplies with?
That presumes that the level of mutual aid is substantial and bidirectional. If Johnsonville is in a good position and largely helps, rather than is helped, while Tablesville is a barren little scrap of swamp, what need does Johnsonville have of Tablesville’s good will?
It would make sense why Johnsonville would want to skimp on water treatment under a capitalist society, as perhaps there are some corporations that don’t want to deal with treating their waste water, so they lobby the local government to allow it. Profit motive can often overcome cooperative goodwill and empathy for others.
Bruh, people will put other lives at risk to end a job - not a capitalist job, but everything from volunteer work to self-improvement - a fucking hour early.
You don’t need capitalism to provide a motive for overcoming goodwill and empathy.
But in an anarchist society where there is no profit motive? Not saying it’d be impossible (perhaps Johnsonville is weirdly anti-science for some reason and won’t listen to reason?), but it’d be a damn sight less likely than the same scenario under Capitalism.
You could make that argument, but that presumes that this is a binary choice between anarchism (in this distinctly non-enforcement sense rather than libertarian socialist sense) and anarcho-capitalism, and that’s not the case.
A democratic socialist state has the obligation to enforce the laws made by common agreement upon all members of the polity, even those that disagree. Even a libertarian socialist polity has that same obligation, it just has more layers of decentralization which prolongs how long a problem must linger at low-level resolution before the central polity comes in.
Easy. They don’t believe it. They think Tablesville is exaggerating. They think Tablesville is confusing what is causing the polluted water. They think that pollution isn’t that bad.They don’t care about Tablesville. Take your pick.
So that’s assuming that Johnsville is naturally deeply uneducated, unwilling to listen to any evidence presented, won’t test their own waste treatment output, or are majority sociopathic (lacking empathy for others), or a combination of all the above.
I could see perhaps a very insular and small religious fundamentalist town perhaps being capable of totally ignoring the problem, but any larger settlement tends to attract more education amongst the population. Our current system usually puts the sociopaths in leadership positions which can then override a community’s wishes, but under an Anarchist system it would be highly unusual that the majority care so little about others to the point of not wanting to help whatsoever.
They think that their need to spend more time with their kids in their very short and mortal lives is worth more than Tablesville’s need to reside on a very specific piece of land that Johnsonville can’t even see the point in inhabiting.
In an Anarchist society, people would only really need to contribute about 2 to 3 months of work per year to have a functioning society that is able to provide everyone’s basic needs for free. That would leave 10 to 9 months out of the year as completely free time for everyone to do with as they please, which would make it even more difficult to justify not spending a little extra time to treat your waste water properly for the sake not actively poisoning others.
If Johnsonville is in a good position and largely helps, rather than is helped, while Tablesville is a barren little scrap of swamp, what need does Johnsonville have of Tablesville’s good will?
If they become so uncooperative and hostile to their neighbors, than they could receive negative perception or treatment from other federating communities near them, which would probably go a long way to encouraging them to just treat their waste water better.
Bruh, people will put other lives at risk to end a job - not a capitalist job, but everything from volunteer work to self-improvement - a fucking hour early.
People are desperate to stop working an hour early because our current society gives them virtually no free time to enjoy life, to rest properly, or to not worry about needing to make ends meat just to survive and not become homeless. Most of their waking hours they are exploited with the majority of their effort going to the benefit of a few undeserving folk.
Would they be so desperate not to help if they were now afforded most of the year to themselves? I think many would find meaning in helping out in some of their spare time, since it is not longer exploitative or coerced.
You don’t need capitalism to provide a motive for overcoming goodwill and empathy.
It’s doing the heavily lifting for most of society.
A democratic socialist state has the obligation to enforce the laws made by common agreement upon all members of the polity, even those that disagree.
A society of self governing communes could still federate with each other, and with that federation agree to some standards to become a part of that federation, such as adequate waste water treatment.
So that’s assuming that Johnsville is naturally deeply uneducated, unwilling to listen to any evidence presented, won’t test their own waste treatment output, or are majority sociopathic (lacking empathy for others), or a combination of all the above.
No, man, people are very capable of being blinkered without needing to be uneducated or sociopathic.
I could see perhaps a very insular and small religious fundamentalist town perhaps being capable of totally ignoring the problem, but any larger settlement tends to attract more education amongst the population. Our current system usually puts the sociopaths in leadership positions which can then override a community’s wishes, but under an Anarchist system it would be highly unusual that the majority care so little about others to the point of not wanting to help whatsoever.
… would it? Man, every one of us on here chooses our own comfort and entertainment over the lives of others every day of our lives. What makes you think we’d act differently under an anarchist system?
Have you ever been involved in local government? Genuine question.
In an Anarchist society, people would only really need to contribute about 2 to 3 months of work per year to have a functioning society that is able to provide everyone’s basic needs for free.
That’s extremely questionable, especially if you get into issues of distribution/access, that what people regard as basic needs change, etc.
That would leave 10 to 9 months out of the year as completely free time for everyone to do with as they please, which would make it even more difficult to justify not spending a little extra time to treat your waste water properly for the sake not actively poisoning others.
Fuck, people have ample free time now and choose to poison others rather than take on a little extra burden.
If they become so uncooperative and hostile to their neighbors, than they could receive negative perception or treatment from other federating communities near them, which would probably go a long way to encouraging them to just treat their waste water better.
And if it’s just towards Tablesville? What incentive does everyone else have to get involved and degrade their own quality of life and their own relationships with people in Johnsonville for the sake of Tablesville? What makes you think that prejudices won’t cause people to agree with Johnsonville? People tend to make decisions based on their pre-existing relationships; if Johnsonville is a ‘giver’ and adamant on this point, the natural tendency will be for many of those Johnsonville ‘gives’ to to side with them on the issue from an emotional standpoint.
People are desperate to stop working an hour early because our current society gives them virtually no free time to enjoy life, to rest properly, or to not worry about needing to make ends meat just to survive and not become homeless. Most of their waking hours they are exploited with the majority of their effort going to the benefit of a few undeserving folk.
Do you understand just how little it would take to live at a lowered standard of living for most people?
We work ourselves like dogs and normalize it because previous standards aren’t good enough. What was idyllic in 90 AD is torture in 1990 AD. And this is good! It encourages society to ever move onward, to not be satisfied with what it has.
… but the reason why people are overworked is not because society ‘gives’ us too little to not work ourselves to death; it’s because people value things other than free time. I grew up in a poor area, in a poor family - “People are hard-put upon” and “People are not working simply to keep themselves full, clothed, and with a roof over their head” are not mutually exclusive.
Would they be so desperate not to help if they were now afforded most of the year to themselves? I think many would find meaning in helping out in some of their spare time, since it is not longer exploitative or coerced.
Many find meaning now in helping out in their spare time, yet still will shirk other work - or even cut corners during their volunteer work, as I previously pointed out - to the detriment of others. We are creatures with very limited lifespans, and every hour becomes precious when considered.
A society of self governing communes could still federate with each other, and with that federation agree to some standards to become a part of that federation, such as adequate waste water treatment.
I think a big issue here is that you’re operating under the assumption that humanity as a whole is incredibly selfish, uncaring, and unable to operate cooperatively without a centralized force that is able to adequately threaten people to cooperate against their natural instincts. If that is your base assumption, then you will have to conclude that Anarchism isn’t viable because it doesn’t have enough threats or sticks to keep people from reverting to some base-level of antagonism, laziness, or self interest.
Where on the other end, due to the evidence I’ve seen of how humans organized in egalitarian societies as the norm until around 8000 years ago (from compelling evidence put forward in David Graeber’s and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything), as well as the success of the Anarchist Society in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil war, I believe that humans would demonstrate their true nature is cooperation and egalitarianism if finally provided a society that does not actively incentivize our worst traits like our current one does.
We work ourselves like dogs and normalize it because previous standards aren’t good enough. What was idyllic in 90 AD is torture in 1990 AD. And this is good! It encourages society to ever move onward, to not be satisfied with what it has.
Most people in the US are barely able to afford basic food, housing, and transportation. They are working harder now than they did in the 1970’s without any meaningful wage growth since that period, despite their actual productive capacity increasing tremendously since that time.
You really think most would choose to continue struggling with bills, or to be two paychecks away from homelessness vs. a society where all of your basic material concerns are guaranteed as a human right?
And you realize those people can choose to do whatever they want with the those 9 months of free time? They can still choose to become doctors, or engineers, or scientists, or to create the things that give meaning to their lives? They just won’t have the threat of homelessness weighing above their heads if they don’t instead choose to work for someone else to make them richer.
We are creatures with very limited lifespans, and every hour becomes precious when considered.
All the more reason to question the utility of capitalism, if only a minority are able to achieve the fruits of all the time spent doing things we’d rather not be doing, if every hour is so to be considered.
… but the reason why people are overworked is not because society ‘gives’ us too little to not work ourselves to death; it’s because people value things other than free time.
If you truly believe that, then our entire worldviews are completely incompatible. I don’t mean this as an insult, but from my perspective your judgements on why people work so hard are quite detached from reality.
I think a big issue here is that you’re operating under the assumption that humanity as a whole is incredibly selfish, uncaring, and unable to operate cooperatively without a centralized force that is able to adequately threaten people to cooperate against their natural instincts. If that is your base assumption, then you will have to conclude that Anarchism isn’t viable because it doesn’t have enough threats or sticks to keep people from reverting to some base-level of antagonism, laziness, or self interest.
No, man, I’m assuming that humanity as a whole operates as it has since the beginning of recorded history - with limited resources, including limited time, energy, motivation, and perspective. Unless your proposal for anarchism is radically transhumanist, you aren’t going to get rid of that issue. This isn’t a question about “What if people don’t care about each other???”; this entire scenario presumes that the polities in question are functioning along anarchist lines. The question that is being brought here is, "Do you really expect people to value those they don’t know over those they personally know and care about, themselves included?"
And if your answer is ‘yes’, I invite you to talk to some parents sometime.
Where on the other end, due to the evidence I’ve seen of how humans organized in egalitarian societies as the norm until around 8000 years ago (from compelling evidence put forward in David Graeber’s and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything), as well as the success of the Anarchist Society in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil war, I believe that humans would demonstrate their true nature is cooperation and egalitarianism if finally provided a society that does not actively incentivize our worst traits like our current one does.
Other than my own extreme issues with The Dawn of Everything, which would lead to a much broader discussion…
Anarchist Catalonia is a prime example of what I mean in multiple ways.
First off, it was not shy about enforcement. In the least.
Second, it was commonly observed that regionalism of the sort described was a problem that caused severe issues for them.
Third, many of its structures were oriented around war necessity; I don’t know if you would find the same willingness of people to submit to seizure and arbitrary justice if literal warfare was not a stone’s throw away.
Most people in the US are barely able to afford basic food, housing, and transportation.
… have you ever actually lived in the USA?
They are working harder now than they did in the 1970’s without any meaningful wage growth since that period, despite their actual productive capacity increasing tremendously since that time.
That’s true. Wages have been largely stagnant, in terms of buying power and relative income distribution, since the 1970s. But in the 1970s, most people weren’t barely able to afford subsistence-level living. In the 1970s, most people struggled because, as in the modern day, they want more. And as I said, they are not incorrect in wanting this, and it is good that they want this, but it is an issue you have to think about when considering a complete reorganization of society.
You really think most would choose to continue struggling with bills, or to be two paychecks away from homelessness vs. a society where all of your basic material concerns are guaranteed as a human right?
That’s not even vaguely relevant to the question I proposed. The issue of whether they prefer a socialist system or a capitalist one is not relevant. The issue being disputed is the idea that provision for one’s basic needs is enough to stop one from desiring more, with you saying, and I quote:
People are desperate to stop working an hour early because our current society gives them virtually no free time to enjoy life, to rest properly, or to not worry about needing to make ends meat just to survive and not become homeless. Most of their waking hours they are exploited with the majority of their effort going to the benefit of a few undeserving folk.
And you realize those people can choose to do whatever they want with the those 9 months of free time? They can still choose to become doctors, or engineers, or scientists, or to create the things that give meaning to their lives? They just won’t have the threat of homelessness weighing above their heads if they don’t instead choose to work for someone else to make them richer.
A-fucking-gain, I’m not at all disputing whether people prefer a socialist system to a capitalist one, assuming they weren’t pig-brained morons. That’s not the issue being disputed here. The issue being disputed here is the notion that people will no longer want more, more comfort, more success, more free time as in the core example used that you responded to, in an anarchist system.
All the more reason to question the utility of capitalism, if only a minority are able to achieve the fruits of all the time spent doing things we’d rather not be doing, if every hour is so to be considered.
I’m not a fucking capitalist. I largely tend towards democratic socialism. My issue being raised here is fundamentally one of conflict resolution, not economic orientation.
If you truly believe that, then our entire worldviews are completely incompatible. I don’t mean this as an insult, but from my perspective your judgements on why people work so hard are quite detached from reality.
Man, I’ve fucking lived on flour and water for days at a time. My area of specialization is an era when people worked more hours for fewer material gains and in much more endangered scenarios.
People work more because they want more, because it’s normalized to want more. Housing crisis aside, people by and large spend their money on things that are not strictly needed, but nonetheless, they desire - and should be entitled to. At no point do I dispute they’re being exploited - my point is only that it is not their needs being unfulfilled which drive most people; it is a desire for more than their basic needs, which would not go away if they stopped being exploited.
You think most people wouldn’t become homeless if they spent less time working?
The issue being disputed is the idea that provision for one’s basic needs is enough to stop one from desiring more
That is not the argument I was making. People can still desire more even under an Anarchist society, the difference is that anything more they want they either have to make themselves, make it collectively under a worker cooperative, or trade with another person with something they acquired by their own means or as the fruit of a cooperative effort.
You can still create computers, build fancy chairs, make a cooperative factory to produce a desired good, etc, but you just wouldn’t be able to hang food, housing, and healthcare over somebody else to effectively force them to do that stuff for you. Under an anarchist society, you could only convince someone to work with you on something if they felt it was a democratic endeavor where they had an equal say and an equal reward as you or anyone else who helps you gets.
That ensures that no one can effectively exploit anyone else, or create a power imbalance with a hierarchy. Everyone gets access to the same baseline for a happy life, and 9 months our of the year to do with as they please, whether that be to improve their house, make jewelry, paint, write, or spend time with their friends or family, they can personally decide what they want to spend that time doing, instead of laboring all year for just those basics.
You think most people wouldn’t become homeless if they spent less time working?
I did specify ‘housing crisis aside’, but yes. 40% of Americans own their own paid off home; most renting households still spend around 33% of income on rent. 67% of income, then, is spent on things other than not becoming homeless - do you want to speculate on what amount of that is actually necessary?
That is not the argument I was making. People can still desire more even under an Anarchist society, the difference is that anything more they want they either have to make themselves, make it collectively under a worker cooperative, or trade with another person with something they acquired by their own means or as the fruit of a cooperative effort.
But I never disputed any of that. The entire point originally raised was that people would still desire to do less work even if they had their needs fulfilled.
That ensures that no one can effectively exploit anyone else, or create a power imbalance with a hierarchy.
How does that follow? Some endeavors are more profitable than others. Hierarchies can be set up even without material differences (which, as we’ve established, certainly are not eradicated). Exploitation is often predicated not on material differences, but social manipulation, and result in material differences.
The entire point originally raised was that people would still desire to do less work even if they had their needs fulfilled.
Peter Kropotkin provides a good counter-argument to the idea that everyone would skimp out on doing needed work if all their basic needs were met in The Conquest of Bread, under Chapter 12: Objections.
My point is not that needed work would not be done. My point is that people will still desire to do less work, which means your original objection to my scenario, that the workers would not desire that extra hour of free time once they had ‘enough’ time off, is not realistic.
Perhaps reread Chapter 9 of The Conquest Of Bread.
Easy. They don’t believe it. They think Tablesville is exaggerating. They think Tablesville is confusing what is causing the polluted water. They think that pollution isn’t that bad. They think that their need to spend more time with their kids in their very short and mortal lives is worth more than Tablesville’s need to reside on a very specific piece of land that Johnsonville can’t even see the point in inhabiting. They don’t care about Tablesville. Take your pick.
That presumes that the level of mutual aid is substantial and bidirectional. If Johnsonville is in a good position and largely helps, rather than is helped, while Tablesville is a barren little scrap of swamp, what need does Johnsonville have of Tablesville’s good will?
Bruh, people will put other lives at risk to end a job - not a capitalist job, but everything from volunteer work to self-improvement - a fucking hour early.
You don’t need capitalism to provide a motive for overcoming goodwill and empathy.
You could make that argument, but that presumes that this is a binary choice between anarchism (in this distinctly non-enforcement sense rather than libertarian socialist sense) and anarcho-capitalism, and that’s not the case.
A democratic socialist state has the obligation to enforce the laws made by common agreement upon all members of the polity, even those that disagree. Even a libertarian socialist polity has that same obligation, it just has more layers of decentralization which prolongs how long a problem must linger at low-level resolution before the central polity comes in.
So that’s assuming that Johnsville is naturally deeply uneducated, unwilling to listen to any evidence presented, won’t test their own waste treatment output, or are majority sociopathic (lacking empathy for others), or a combination of all the above.
I could see perhaps a very insular and small religious fundamentalist town perhaps being capable of totally ignoring the problem, but any larger settlement tends to attract more education amongst the population. Our current system usually puts the sociopaths in leadership positions which can then override a community’s wishes, but under an Anarchist system it would be highly unusual that the majority care so little about others to the point of not wanting to help whatsoever.
In an Anarchist society, people would only really need to contribute about 2 to 3 months of work per year to have a functioning society that is able to provide everyone’s basic needs for free. That would leave 10 to 9 months out of the year as completely free time for everyone to do with as they please, which would make it even more difficult to justify not spending a little extra time to treat your waste water properly for the sake not actively poisoning others.
If they become so uncooperative and hostile to their neighbors, than they could receive negative perception or treatment from other federating communities near them, which would probably go a long way to encouraging them to just treat their waste water better.
People are desperate to stop working an hour early because our current society gives them virtually no free time to enjoy life, to rest properly, or to not worry about needing to make ends meat just to survive and not become homeless. Most of their waking hours they are exploited with the majority of their effort going to the benefit of a few undeserving folk.
Would they be so desperate not to help if they were now afforded most of the year to themselves? I think many would find meaning in helping out in some of their spare time, since it is not longer exploitative or coerced.
It’s doing the heavily lifting for most of society.
A society of self governing communes could still federate with each other, and with that federation agree to some standards to become a part of that federation, such as adequate waste water treatment.
No, man, people are very capable of being blinkered without needing to be uneducated or sociopathic.
… would it? Man, every one of us on here chooses our own comfort and entertainment over the lives of others every day of our lives. What makes you think we’d act differently under an anarchist system?
Have you ever been involved in local government? Genuine question.
That’s extremely questionable, especially if you get into issues of distribution/access, that what people regard as basic needs change, etc.
Fuck, people have ample free time now and choose to poison others rather than take on a little extra burden.
And if it’s just towards Tablesville? What incentive does everyone else have to get involved and degrade their own quality of life and their own relationships with people in Johnsonville for the sake of Tablesville? What makes you think that prejudices won’t cause people to agree with Johnsonville? People tend to make decisions based on their pre-existing relationships; if Johnsonville is a ‘giver’ and adamant on this point, the natural tendency will be for many of those Johnsonville ‘gives’ to to side with them on the issue from an emotional standpoint.
Do you understand just how little it would take to live at a lowered standard of living for most people?
We work ourselves like dogs and normalize it because previous standards aren’t good enough. What was idyllic in 90 AD is torture in 1990 AD. And this is good! It encourages society to ever move onward, to not be satisfied with what it has.
… but the reason why people are overworked is not because society ‘gives’ us too little to not work ourselves to death; it’s because people value things other than free time. I grew up in a poor area, in a poor family - “People are hard-put upon” and “People are not working simply to keep themselves full, clothed, and with a roof over their head” are not mutually exclusive.
Many find meaning now in helping out in their spare time, yet still will shirk other work - or even cut corners during their volunteer work, as I previously pointed out - to the detriment of others. We are creatures with very limited lifespans, and every hour becomes precious when considered.
So how does it enforce that?
I think a big issue here is that you’re operating under the assumption that humanity as a whole is incredibly selfish, uncaring, and unable to operate cooperatively without a centralized force that is able to adequately threaten people to cooperate against their natural instincts. If that is your base assumption, then you will have to conclude that Anarchism isn’t viable because it doesn’t have enough threats or sticks to keep people from reverting to some base-level of antagonism, laziness, or self interest.
Where on the other end, due to the evidence I’ve seen of how humans organized in egalitarian societies as the norm until around 8000 years ago (from compelling evidence put forward in David Graeber’s and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything), as well as the success of the Anarchist Society in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil war, I believe that humans would demonstrate their true nature is cooperation and egalitarianism if finally provided a society that does not actively incentivize our worst traits like our current one does.
Most people in the US are barely able to afford basic food, housing, and transportation. They are working harder now than they did in the 1970’s without any meaningful wage growth since that period, despite their actual productive capacity increasing tremendously since that time.
You really think most would choose to continue struggling with bills, or to be two paychecks away from homelessness vs. a society where all of your basic material concerns are guaranteed as a human right?
And you realize those people can choose to do whatever they want with the those 9 months of free time? They can still choose to become doctors, or engineers, or scientists, or to create the things that give meaning to their lives? They just won’t have the threat of homelessness weighing above their heads if they don’t instead choose to work for someone else to make them richer.
All the more reason to question the utility of capitalism, if only a minority are able to achieve the fruits of all the time spent doing things we’d rather not be doing, if every hour is so to be considered.
If you truly believe that, then our entire worldviews are completely incompatible. I don’t mean this as an insult, but from my perspective your judgements on why people work so hard are quite detached from reality.
No, man, I’m assuming that humanity as a whole operates as it has since the beginning of recorded history - with limited resources, including limited time, energy, motivation, and perspective. Unless your proposal for anarchism is radically transhumanist, you aren’t going to get rid of that issue. This isn’t a question about “What if people don’t care about each other???”; this entire scenario presumes that the polities in question are functioning along anarchist lines. The question that is being brought here is, "Do you really expect people to value those they don’t know over those they personally know and care about, themselves included?"
And if your answer is ‘yes’, I invite you to talk to some parents sometime.
Other than my own extreme issues with The Dawn of Everything, which would lead to a much broader discussion…
Anarchist Catalonia is a prime example of what I mean in multiple ways.
First off, it was not shy about enforcement. In the least.
Second, it was commonly observed that regionalism of the sort described was a problem that caused severe issues for them.
Third, many of its structures were oriented around war necessity; I don’t know if you would find the same willingness of people to submit to seizure and arbitrary justice if literal warfare was not a stone’s throw away.
… have you ever actually lived in the USA?
That’s true. Wages have been largely stagnant, in terms of buying power and relative income distribution, since the 1970s. But in the 1970s, most people weren’t barely able to afford subsistence-level living. In the 1970s, most people struggled because, as in the modern day, they want more. And as I said, they are not incorrect in wanting this, and it is good that they want this, but it is an issue you have to think about when considering a complete reorganization of society.
That’s not even vaguely relevant to the question I proposed. The issue of whether they prefer a socialist system or a capitalist one is not relevant. The issue being disputed is the idea that provision for one’s basic needs is enough to stop one from desiring more, with you saying, and I quote:
A-fucking-gain, I’m not at all disputing whether people prefer a socialist system to a capitalist one, assuming they weren’t pig-brained morons. That’s not the issue being disputed here. The issue being disputed here is the notion that people will no longer want more, more comfort, more success, more free time as in the core example used that you responded to, in an anarchist system.
I’m not a fucking capitalist. I largely tend towards democratic socialism. My issue being raised here is fundamentally one of conflict resolution, not economic orientation.
Man, I’ve fucking lived on flour and water for days at a time. My area of specialization is an era when people worked more hours for fewer material gains and in much more endangered scenarios.
People work more because they want more, because it’s normalized to want more. Housing crisis aside, people by and large spend their money on things that are not strictly needed, but nonetheless, they desire - and should be entitled to. At no point do I dispute they’re being exploited - my point is only that it is not their needs being unfulfilled which drive most people; it is a desire for more than their basic needs, which would not go away if they stopped being exploited.
You think most people wouldn’t become homeless if they spent less time working?
That is not the argument I was making. People can still desire more even under an Anarchist society, the difference is that anything more they want they either have to make themselves, make it collectively under a worker cooperative, or trade with another person with something they acquired by their own means or as the fruit of a cooperative effort.
You can still create computers, build fancy chairs, make a cooperative factory to produce a desired good, etc, but you just wouldn’t be able to hang food, housing, and healthcare over somebody else to effectively force them to do that stuff for you. Under an anarchist society, you could only convince someone to work with you on something if they felt it was a democratic endeavor where they had an equal say and an equal reward as you or anyone else who helps you gets.
That ensures that no one can effectively exploit anyone else, or create a power imbalance with a hierarchy. Everyone gets access to the same baseline for a happy life, and 9 months our of the year to do with as they please, whether that be to improve their house, make jewelry, paint, write, or spend time with their friends or family, they can personally decide what they want to spend that time doing, instead of laboring all year for just those basics.
I did specify ‘housing crisis aside’, but yes. 40% of Americans own their own paid off home; most renting households still spend around 33% of income on rent. 67% of income, then, is spent on things other than not becoming homeless - do you want to speculate on what amount of that is actually necessary?
But I never disputed any of that. The entire point originally raised was that people would still desire to do less work even if they had their needs fulfilled.
How does that follow? Some endeavors are more profitable than others. Hierarchies can be set up even without material differences (which, as we’ve established, certainly are not eradicated). Exploitation is often predicated not on material differences, but social manipulation, and result in material differences.
Peter Kropotkin provides a good counter-argument to the idea that everyone would skimp out on doing needed work if all their basic needs were met in The Conquest of Bread, under Chapter 12: Objections.
My point is not that needed work would not be done. My point is that people will still desire to do less work, which means your original objection to my scenario, that the workers would not desire that extra hour of free time once they had ‘enough’ time off, is not realistic.
Perhaps reread Chapter 9 of The Conquest Of Bread.