But the current labor issues didn’t start until after the pandemic, and until the massive government spending to ease the issue of business closures and people losing jobs.

It’s not a fair market when people are avoiding those jobs because they can get paid for not working.

Once the government spending stops, things will change quickly.

And in fact we actually have had the opposite, people willing to give up benefits for worse jobs, gig economy jobs that provide no stability nor benefits. The reason is because there’s not actually a labor shortage at all.

So you might say that the pandemic reset people’s value assessment on the job market. That may be a good thing. But until government payouts stop we won’t see the actual market in a clear light.

For instance here our dog daycare can’t hire enough employees. What’s been happening is people apply, in order to show applications, and then don’t follow up because they’re still able to receive extended unemployment benefits. So at the moment there is gaming of the system.

And you are correct. Downvotes are not censorship. But they are a toxic method to communicate outrage and add little to positive discussions. As has been outlined both from other articles here, as well as recent coverage from the Wall Street Journal, social media companies are well aware these tactics result in increased outrage and mental health issues, but they choose to ignore them because it adds to their bottoms lines.

> what I hear them saying that they think people have to be compelled into working under the threat of poverty and violence in order to keep the current system from collapsing.

But this is ultimately the system of nature. If you don’t provide for yourself you starve. If you don’t provide for your shelter you freeze. If you don’t provide for your safety you are a victim of violence. Society has distributed those tasks, yes, and we can debate that distribution. But you can’t claim that you just shouldn’t have to work to prevent those things. If you assume you have free access to those things, they are being supplied by someone else. So why should they be free for that person and not the provider?

Could we supply those things free for everyone? I and everyone else would love that utopia. But it’s not where the world is at the moment, even if it’s a worthy goal. We need to keep moving forward as a species. Parasitic behavior is a real issue in any area of life, and in nature things balance out via Nash equilibrium.