I mean what if one of those "leeches" your talking about is a war veteran who sacrificed his health to defend the country?
Many will tell you that they are.
It is very hard for me to believe that anyone who was, would settle content on a street corner and beg for alms. Panhandling on the corner for a day (or even a week) is one thing, but I have seen people on the corner for 3 to 6 months; and in a few cases as many as ten years.
What if we're taking about an elderly woman that raised 3 kids?
On the street or on welfare? What are you asking here? That she should get public assistance for raising three kids? What on Earth for? If she raised three kids, then each should feel highly obligated to care for her, but to tax the neighbors for that?
Well. Yes. And no.
Yes someone at some point had to fight for it so following generations can enjoy it. And no, because those rights have to be constantly and vigilantly defended by each generation anew because those values are always at attack by some groups, be it religious groups, fanatics or extremists and they do not always come from the most obvious direction. But I get what you're saying.
That should be 'Yes & Yes' then, as your point (for 'no') is the gist of the quote.
If I get you right your point is, if people had no need to work they would not work at all.
This is not something I said; this was your mentioned hypothetical situation.
But that makes me ask one question. Why do we even have to force people into doing certain jobs? Jobs that pay so little that you can barely exist with them.
What you're doing is that you force people in an almost slave-like situation where they sell their manpower to the lowest bidder and not because they want it but because they have to. How is that true liberty?
That's life; the flip side is to force employers to pay more than it's worth to them, or higher rates than available elsewhere. Why is it okay to abuse the employer?
Companies routinely outsource jobs over seas because it's cheaper; in some cases even
better workmanship. Why shouldn't they be allowed to pay whom they wish for their projects?
The only forced jobs that I can think of, at least here, are semi-voluntary AFAIK, and that is prisoners on work details; collecting trash and lawn mowing for 50 cents an hour (possibly less).
There was once a situation possible where a company could build a town near the job-site, and pay workers in scrips, redeemable at the company store, and to pay for company housing, but that's probably illegal now. In that situation, the workers could really be trapped, and subject to whatever prices the store chose to charge.
It's like holding a gun at someone and telling them they have the choice. A system of mega-corporations can just as easily oppress people and put their boot in your neck as any state can. Just ask all those small towns and small business that have been destroyed by either Wall-Mart or Amazon in the last few decades with absolutely no way of fighting back. Some smaller communities never managed to recovered from this. But who cares as long the share holders are happy, right?
It's true, and it is the customer's fault. They have a choice of supporting the small business, or the large chain store that offers better pricing.
... let us remove the need to accept any work just so that you can exist that way people have an actual choice to decide for them self without pressure...
Pressure is imperative.
It's the natural order of the world. What you are advocating is a world without pain; a world with no opposite to pleasure & ease. It would create a short lived society of madmen. The more recent population already has difficulty coping with not getting their expectations met; imagine if there were no longer even the concept of not getting...
*Bethesda's AI for Oblivion needed to eat. Oblivion's world is overflowing with food. It's because when they started running out of food, they would all go nuts and start killing each other over bread and carrots (etc). There was no degree.
People naturally measure risk vs. reward; cost vs. gain; pleasure vs. pain for it. Is it worth robbing the beehive for the honey?
In the movie Highlander, the villains would rampage without care, because nothing really meant anything; they were practically deathless (except to themselves), and would always rise to live again.
Here you would advocate a society with no risk, no downside; free money for all; free housing, free healthcare; free education, free internet, free entertainment?
How does any of that mean anything if it is no longer a personal achievement, but an optional gift.
(And where does that money come from?)
I would not choose to live in a society where there was no comparative gauge for contentment; no measure of hot vs cold. It would be like The Matrix that failed.
There are ideas that everyone should get access to a trust fund.
But of course.
Like the moment you are born, you have access to a financial trust fund based on capital gains by large corporations (Apple, Google, Amazon etc.).
Why not do it simply with all big corporations?
By what right should they be fleeced? By what lunacy would they choose to stay in a country that does that to them, and not move to another that doesn't?
Yes! But who defines that?
The ones footing the bill for it of course.
Let us face it. In our current society those that work a lot or hold important positions are not paid for their "valued" labour. They are paid what their employer grants them.
I had a friend who once chided a relative of mine for not hiring her friends to help her finish a commissioned order. This friend could not comprehend that in order to pay a helper, that helper would have to work at a speed that her friends could not ---had not. Without the accuracy/quality the commissioned work would not be accepted, and if it took too long to make then she would be paying them more than she'd earn from the sale... the commission would actually cost her money to produce.
Even today, it's still lost on him. Money from a paycheck is just a magical number with no origin, or concern for how they were able to pay it; like a score in a video game.
The value of one's work is worth the price one sets for it, tempered by the price other's will pay for it. Occasionally these values are reversed; sad when it happens. I knew a man who would sell his oil paintings to a dealer for under $100, and she would turn around and sell them for thousands.
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