Should all radio work be unpaid?

[cloughie]

No - but it does seem to be at least "widespread", so apologies to everyone affected. It is being "looked into"

Thanks, ferney!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm often asked to play the piano or the oboe. I respond with two words: "How much?"

After the embarrassed silence, the next question is: "I thought you'd retired." Nowadays, I make the point by recommending musicians who have not retired.

I hope it helps to dismiss the idea that it's OK to approach people with a view to circumvent paying.

[ahinton]

I'm often asked to play the piano or the oboe. I respond with two words: "How much?"

After the embarrassed silence, the next question is: "I thought you'd retired."

The only credible answer to this surely being "so why are you asking me to work?"...

[french frank]

No - but it does seem to be at least "widespread", so apologies to everyone affected. It is being "looked into"

It appears that the main FutureQuest site over in America was down for a certain length of time - which probably got them on to sorting the problem as quickly as they could! The for3@ emails were down too.

[Demetrius]

´

For developed economies the sweeping change of automation, only just started, is surely an unprecedented challenge - previous transformations have involved occupation and purpose for humans. Automation divides us into the fortunate in employment and a steeply rising (ultimately a majoriity) classified as burdens on the state endlessly looking for paid work that does not exist. And the handsome profits from automation will be routed through those tax havens into the hands of the ever present 1%.

For decades there has been limited work for those who can labour but have limited literacy or general capability. Now entrants into the work force are being advised to consider creative occupations as the last redoubt of paid work for.

At the moment, one solution is to invent "jobs". This includes about 80 % of all callcenter work. Service industries replacing ... actual industries for workers. Long term, if we don't eradicate ourselfs in the process, I think society will shift away from defining working as the main purpose in life. There are already proposals for unconditional basic income schemes. At some point, those will come into being, simply because there won't be enough work to employ most of the potential work force. That means a shift from taxing work and income to taxing .... something else. And that tax shift will provide ample conflict.

[MrGongGong]

I have a great admiration for buskers (good ones, that is...)

In my experience the "trick" of busking is NOT to be too "good"
people will only give you money once

[teamsaint]

At the moment, one solution is to invent "jobs". This includes about 80 % of all callcenter work. Service industries replacing ... actual industries for workers. Long term, if we don't eradicate ourselfs in the process, I think society will shift away from defining working as the main purpose in life. There are already proposals for unconditional basic income schemes. At some point, those will come into being, simply because there won't be enough work to employ most of the potential work force. That means a shift from taxing work and income to taxing .... something else. And that tax shift will provide ample conflict.

Discussions about how we would fill out time, and how to structure incomes, were alive and well back in my A level Economics days in the late 70’s.

Somehow, the projected work deficit and universal 3 day week( or whatever it was going to be ,) didnt happen. Well not for most people anyway. Universal basic income ideas were around then too.

I suspect that those with real power need to keep the vast bulk of us busy and distracted, and will find ways to achieve this.

[vinteuil]

Discussions about how we would fill out time, and how to structure incomes, were alive and well back in my A level Economics days in the late 70’s.
.

... indeed, back in 1935 -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Idleness_and_Other_Essays

[ ... actually 1932 -

http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

.


.

[cloughie]

Discussions about how we would fill out time, and how to structure incomes, were alive and well back in my A level Economics days in the late 70’s.

Somehow, the projected work deficit and universal 3 day week( or whatever it was going to be ,) didnt happen. Well not for most people anyway. Universal basic income ideas were around then too.

I suspect that those with real power need to keep the vast bulk of us busy and distracted, and will find ways to achieve this.

Yes, ts, I seem to remember predictions back in the 70s on how the increasing use of computers was going to make our lives so much easier -er, didn't quite work out that way!

[french frank]

Long term, if we don't eradicate ourselfs in the process, I think society will shift away from defining working as the main purpose in life.

Some people have not defined work as the main purpose in life for a long time. Thinking back, the old SDP proposed the introduction of the "Citizen's Income" in the 1980s, thought to be viable because the majority of people want/need more (much more?) than a basic income, and only people who didn't define work as the main purpose in life would take advantage of the scheme - people who were happy working on their allotment, writing poetry, volunteering for a charity, painting, doing something for which they didn't require/need to be paid … It was also thought that there would be enough such people to keep them out of the job market, leaving enough paid employment for those who needed it.

But it was mainly for people wanting to 'do their own thing' not take paid jobs from other people.

[Joseph K]

Of course nothing can stand still and I for one would not expect it to do so. Our interconnectedness today as compared to the days of feudalism means that we all have the opportunity to know what's going on, but those who dismiss capitalism (a phenomenon that I'd be the first to admit is flawed in many areas of its practice) never seem to offer chapter and verse as to how or even whether a society could function without money, the exchange of goods and services and the labour requirements that have not been overridden by technologies of one kind and another - nor, indeed, do they even go so far as to identify how an entire world population can be persuaded to try whatever that alternative might turn out to be.

In communism, exchange of goods and services would be for free, and would be done on the basis of common need. If it come about that the production process becomes fully automated, all products will be so plentiful as to make paying something for them utterly redundant, in the same way that we do not have to pay for the air we breathe. Until then, I would suggest the remaining labour would be allocated by means of popular assemblies, councils and associated populations. And it would be an economy of zero growth, of course. I do agree that the alternative, communism, would have to be internationally agreed upon by the working classes of every country, but I do not expect capitalism to just disappear peaceably...

[ahinton]

In communism, exchange of goods and services would be for free, and would be done on the basis of common need. If it come about that the production process becomes fully automated, all products will be so plentiful as to make paying something for them utterly redundant, in the same way that we do not have to pay for the air we breathe. Until then, I would suggest the remaining labour would be allocated by means of popular assemblies, councils and associated populations. And it would be an economy of zero growth, of course. I do agree that the alternative, communism, would have to be internationally agreed upon by the working classes of every country, but I do not expect capitalism to just disappear peaceably...

This is the nub (though by no means the entirety) of the problem. The free exchange of goods and services in a newly non-capitalist country will fall flat on its face the moment that said country has to exchange the same with other capitalist countries - and which countries can afford to be so self-sufficient and "splendidly" isolated from the rest of the world (or at least from the rest of the capitalist world) as to be able to manage without such dependency? Not only that, even if goods and services are to be exchanged without cost in a non-capitalist country, on what will its citizens survive? and will said citizens be able only to survive or will they be able to develop and grow? Moreover, how would it be possible to make all goods and services available for free, especially given that not every individual citizen will either want or hope to obtain precisely the same goods and services in the same quantities?

Capitalism has done some good things; it has also allowed some very bad ones to flourish and many people have been gravely disadvantaged as a direct consequence. The latter, however, has been possible and reared its ugly head only because of the unwarranted and unwarrantable greed of certain advantage-takers; weed those out and capitalism can become much more of a force for good than a force for evil. I'm not suggesting that this will be easy or free from the risk of meeting mighty opposition, but then it would almost certainly be less difficult to achieve than turning the entire globe into a non-capitalist one.

Anyway, why single out radio work in particular as meriting being unpaid? (just in case any interest remains in the thread topic)?...

[Joseph K]

This is the nub (though by no means the entirety) of the problem. The free exchange of goods and services in a newly non-capitalist country will fall flat on its face the moment that said country has to exchange the same with other capitalist countries - and which countries can afford to be so self-sufficient and "splendidly" isolated from the rest of the world (or at least from the rest of the capitalist world) as to be able to manage without such dependency?

Try reading the whole of my post before replying. I clearly state a successful communist revolution should be international, global - 'by the working classes of every country'.

Not only that, even if goods and services are to be exchanged without cost in a non-capitalist country, on what will its citizens survive?

On the very same goods and services which are produced freely for free.

and will said citizens be able only to survive or will they be able to develop and grow?

This strikes me as an odd question, considering that under capitalism, billions of people are able only to barely survive. Obviously the goal of communism is the growth and development to the fullest extent of everyone's capabilities, enabled by a limitation of the working day, until, as I pointed out, automation is at a point where all unpleasant work has been automated and humans can freely create, so the 'working day' ceases to exist as a concept.

Moreover, how would it be possible to make all goods and services available for free, especially given that not every individual citizen will either want or hope to obtain precisely the same goods and services in the same quantities?

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

Capitalism has done some good things;

Yes, Marx celebrated the achievements of the bourgeoisie. His was right to do so.

it has also allowed some very bad ones to flourish and many people have been gravely disadvantaged as a direct consequence. The latter, however, has been possible and reared its ugly head only because of the unwarranted and unwarrantable greed of certain advantage-takers; weed those out and capitalism can become much more of a force for good than a force for evil. I'm not suggesting that this will be easy or free from the risk of meeting mighty opposition, but then it would almost certainly be less difficult to achieve than turning the entire globe into a non-capitalist one.

Actually 'greed' or profit-seeking is inbuilt into capitalism. Capitalism is amoral... there's almost no point in talking about concepts of greed because people simply are behaving congruently with the irrational system that is capitalism. But I am all for reforms that would make, e.g. the UK a better place to live, if we could elect Corbyn's Labour.

Nonetheless I am very intrigued by how you think capitalism could possibly become a force for good rather than evil. This seems a far more far-fetched idea than my idea of communism - care to sketch out an image of how capitalism can become a force for good? The only way I can see this being so is despite capitalism, so if there's an overlap into a more social-democratic society.

[greenilex]

Nappies which change themselves, children who educate themselves, tables which sweep themselves free of debris, toilet rolls which place themselves in their holders, menus which plan themselves, beds which render themselves clean and comfortable for each separate occupant...I don’t worry too much about redundancy.

[Richard Barrett]

Try reading the whole of my post before replying. I clearly state a successful communist revolution should be international, global - 'by the working classes of every country'.

Joseph, you're being sucked into ahinton's rabbithole here. I recall in the past telling him almost exactly the same things as you're doing now and getting almost exactly the same responses. As I said to him at a certain point, why not just read some socialist literature and then you wouldn't ask such obvious things, which obviously he hasn't done, or pretends not to have, because clearly his only intention is to draw out the "discussion" and waste your time. This is exactly why I never respond directly to his posts.