"As we all know" aside - what's wrong with slacking off? Does painting, writing poetry, playing sports with kids, learning an instrument count as slacking off? Why does spending 8 hours a day at a job where you perform some rote, pointless, abstract task - like sending emails and having meetings about advertising - count as _not_ slacking off?
Obesity, suicide and depression have not been rising under conditions of an excess of leisure, they have been rising under a regimen of constant, precarious toil for less return, more alienated from the benefit of the work itself.
Human beings thrive when the boot of your smug ideology is taken off of their throats.
I don’t know anyone who would call “painting, writing poetry, playing sports with kids, learning an instrument” slacking off.
And having lived in both wealthy communities and among poor communities in developing countries it amazing the general mood among the poor seems to ve much more positive and less anxious and neurotic.
My interpretation is humans thrive when they have a purpose and for many people work is a purpose either what they produce themselves or what they use their gains for - family, children, building a future.
And when there is no purpose and there is no need to do anything, many people become lost and fall into negative self-harm.
So no, it’s not that work is a requirement, but productivity in whatever does seem a natural fit for humans.
I've noticed that too. Here are some of the potential reasons that come to my mind:
1. Their day to day lives are less complex. If they work in jobs, they usually perform a routine set of tasks that can be more or less done on mental autopilot. If they're self-employed (usually farmers), they have to plan and worry about the future, but at least they're not subject to a set of pointless, unknown and arbitrary rules like people in complex office jobs are.
2. Their jobs are (on average) more physical and involve more genuine contact with people.
3. They often stay around the place where they were born and when their entire family is. This gives them both rich social life, help with raising children, as well as a safety net.
4. They're not conditioned to strive to be excellent, an "industry leader" or a great artist etc. They're perfectly content with boring/low-status jobs as long as they pay for the important things in their lives, such as their family.
Thinking there is inherent meaning in salaried or at-will work is more ideological than factual. This can be scrapped for: being creative or productive with one's time. And this isn't tied to a job contract to an employer that is, more often than not, brutal to you.
That seems like a very conservative outlook. History has taught us that progress is overwhelmingly good for society and the downsides are:
a) small by comparison to the upsides
b) far smaller than the downsides of rejecting progress, failing to adapt and letting entropy take holdMost people don't enjoy their job, or jobs.
Most people don't like commuting rediculious distances just to make rent, and eat.
Most people realalized during Covid they might have been happier.
The virtual/physical infrastructure wouldn't have been built with work from home. This is our first experiment with working from home, and it went pretty well. Many jobs, with the help of technology, could be done at home.
We still don't know why so many lousy jobs are going unfilled. My take is adult kids moved home--a home they will never afford, and lived with their parents, and it was better than paying 80% of your paycheck for a lousy apartment.
I've always felt the world has two types of people. Those that built their lives around work. They come home, and even like to talk about it. You take their job away, and yes, they loose their identity.
Then there's the slacker, like myself. Work is unpleasant, unfulfilling, mind numbing, thing I just have to do. I don't enjoy really any of it be it the early show up times, or my superiors, and especially the long commute. I could care less about the company. I would be robbing the joint blind if the penalties weren't so severe.
I do know this, but most people don't have a say in the matter:
I have known way to many males wait to long to retire, and because all their personality was geared towards working don't last long. And we men just die so dam early to begin with.
I once got a peak at some union delagates debating retirement ages. It was Local 6 electrical. Guys could retire at 55, or 65. At 65 they got more money. You stll had to put 25 years in both plans. The union liked the 65 year old plan. Why? Because the retirees would only collect a handful of retirement checks before dying. They told retirees they would cover 100% of health care costs at 65 knowing these guys wern't going to see 65. Local 6 union is one of the better unions in the USA too.
You see, that’s the problem that you conveniently skip.
How much per person do you think they received?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52HpzZ4HT4g
TL;DR - employers left the employees first. The first time economic uncertainty hit their business, they dropped as many people as possible. This led employees to reconsider their relationships to their employers and work, especially realizing they couldn't rely on a steady paycheck.
They are not unemployed, they stopped getting money too. They did not returned to previous jobs and found new better jobs.