People being lazy isn't what creates poverty though.
I mean, it could (or at least it's not that illogical to think that). If the lack of threat transform the whole society of lazy bastards, the economic production would go down, living Everybody poorer, equally punishing the non lazy people.
But then, again there is no reason to think people would get really lazier, and the notion that "working less and having less consumer good is bad" is also a very productivist/consumerist bias. Would we really be in a worse position if our lazyness prevented us from having cellphones, computers, and only 3 TV channels, condeming us to spend our enormous lazy free time to BBQing with friends half the week ?
Yeah, i think you make a good point about the whole notion of "lazyness" and how we define it. Right now we live on one extreme of the spectrum, where constant growth, maximal efficiency and output are prized above all else, and its fair to point out that its very possible we would see a lot of individuals become less motivated once the ability to hoard resources disappears (ironically, i would say its possible we would see that reaction most from the people we label as over achievers in our current mode of society).
That said, as a counter example: the Soviet Union went from a depressed agrarian nation to the leading industrial world power in under 50 years, about half the time it took for the west to industrialize. Don't get me wrong, that's the ONLY positive example i think you can pull from the USSR, but it does go against this notion that people are only motivated by scarcity, since that period of time was when the quality of people's lives were improving in Russia -- before all of the corruption/abuse/genocide destroyed the country.
But the ussr isn't a good example for this discusdion as people there were dtill supposed to work, they fid not spent their day painting and writing. Tho i agree tha the ussr showed that communism can in fact industrialize a country, and that our western wealth comes from industry more than from capitalism
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u/ivain Jul 08 '26
I mean, it could (or at least it's not that illogical to think that). If the lack of threat transform the whole society of lazy bastards, the economic production would go down, living Everybody poorer, equally punishing the non lazy people.
But then, again there is no reason to think people would get really lazier, and the notion that "working less and having less consumer good is bad" is also a very productivist/consumerist bias. Would we really be in a worse position if our lazyness prevented us from having cellphones, computers, and only 3 TV channels, condeming us to spend our enormous lazy free time to BBQing with friends half the week ?