I can go for a month, probably longer, without, say, the internet. I could also go a month without food, maybe, but there are people who can't. Food is different because it is essential to life.
What this made me think of is life before computers, where people mildly handshake, create agreements on the fly. "Where communication is fuzzy and locked in on an individual basis."
TBH, to me, this imagined future looks a lot like it'd have all the problems we already have.
Margaret Thatcher said "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
I feel like the problem that Greenspan, Bernanke, and friends have found is that the problem with capitalism is that you never run out of the government's money.
I feel like 'Party like it's 1999' could become the slogan for a movement. Sure, the tech was a little less convenient, but overarching control was also less hard-wired into everything.
Whatever the merits or demerits of 'marvelous human experiences' are from the point of view of production and consumption, the OP's conclusion leaves out the important point that Alexander's 'rationalization of forces that define a problem' produces designs that come closer to solving real-life problems (even in production and consumption) than simply putting attractive lipstick on an economic utility pig. If production isn't solving real human problems, consumers will go elsewhere.
Seconded. This was a great read, and led me to a lot of great listening. And some wondering about how far Minutemen would've went if D. Boon hadn't passed so early.
I also think there's a lot to learn from the book about DIY for any startup or community organizer.
Lastly, if you read and you want to learn more about 'The Replacements', 'Trouble Boys', Bob Mehr, is a terrific read.
I agree that the consequences are greater.
There seem to be at least two perspectives on whether wealth makes you different:
1. In 1926, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the rich “are different from you and me,” and Ernest Hemingway supposedly retorted, “Yes, they have more money.”
2. Kurt Vonnegut's obituary for Joseph Heller...
True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22’
has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
Not bad! Rest in peace!”
Or, as Cyndi Lauper sang it, 'Money Changes Everything'
I'm of the latter persuasion, that wealth influences one's personality in important ways.
"When whole squadrons of very long-range aircraft were operating out of bases in the Shetlands, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland (and, after mid-1943, the Azores), and when the Bay of Biscay could be patrolled all through the night by aircraft equipped with centimetric radar, Leigh Lights, depth charges, acoustic torpedoes, even rockets, Doenitz’s submarines knew no rest." [0]
[0] Kennedy, Paul. Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War, from the chapter 'How to Get Convoys Safely Across the Atlantic'
I think your original point stands; I was not intending to contradict it, only to offer a possible explanation. The Overton window of what is seen as possible and necessary in US policy has shifted from, say, Social Security and Medicare, to tax cuts. IMO, party labels do more to obscure than reveal in these days, whatever the awfulnesses and benefits of either party may be.
"”The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican,” - Barack Obama [0]
There would be overhead in asking people to do something (UBW) rather than simply offering money (UBI). It strikes me that the benefits of being able to limit unemployment directly rather than indirectly, of being able to direct community work that supports all of us, of more people being able to pay their bills instead of wondering how to do so, and of putting a floor under private sector wages and benefits is worth the overhead involved.
I'd note that UBI also requires administrative effort and expense.
> What motivation do I have to do the work if I can’t get fired?
As the other poster described, you've still got to work to get paid. It's a job, not just a paycheck. Another poster described the problems with hiring people who are not able to work. UBW shouldn't replace mental health facilities or jails... although I suspect that it'd reduce the number of people who need either of those facilities. I'd say that both of these types of problems are relatively small compared to the population and to the benefits that a UBW program would provide. Pilot UBW programs might help assess the validity of the above theories.
I tend to think a job guarantee would work better than UBI: have the government provide a job to anyone who can't find one somewhere else, something like what was done in the 1930's in the US. Come up with a list of things needed (can you think of anything that needs fixing?), and pay people a living wage and benefits to take care of those things. Call it 'Universal Basic Work.'
Beyond spending government money to take care of the country and beyond providing those hired with enough to take take of themselves, it'd force private employers to pay and provide benefits at least as well as the government UBW jobs if they want to hire employees.
I further imagine that a person making enough to get by would be less prone to being hopeless and frustrated, supporting social cohesion. And that there's a dignity in that both for the individual and the community they are a part of.