I’ll build the houses! I truly enjoy carpentry and building things but by profession I am an engineer, primarily because it pays better. There are plenty of jobs that I would enjoy doing but they typically don’t pay well and I’d rather not compromise my standard of living at this time.
I had the opportunity to travel to, and within, Russia, Latvia and Lithuania in the late '80s. I had a discussion with my host on the pros and cons of Capitalism v. Socialism (The Communist kind). He laughed when he talked of the propaganda poster of the “Communist Worker”…the one with the strong man and woman with hammer and sickle. He described a situation where you were working in a factory, getting paid the same as everyone else, with no ability (permission?) to start your own business if you have a better mousetrap… He described the typical employee performance as “dropping to the level just above that of being fired”. Without the opportunity to capitalize on innovation, there is no incentive (other than pure science) to create anything better. My host told stories of “mandated innovation”. “You will now develop a rocket to lauch a dog into space…GO!”.
He was rather envious of the “garage innovators” in the US. An eye opening conversation.
As far as “personal creativity”, I agree with some of the others…if everything else is the same I will strive for different. Hello Gulag.
a former soviet neighbor of mine described the working life back then as “we pretended to work and they pretended to pay us”
but ive always thought that there was a way for a government to give everyone a place to live food and basic utilities and transportation and then ya have to work if ya want anything better …
This made me recall James P. Hogan’s “Voyage from Yesteryear.” Now I have to go dig out that book and reread it. I think you’d enjoy it, too.
Not to be confused with an Oligarrchy, which is by its very nature a totalitation society.
But carpentry is something you enjoy. What about the jobs nobody enjoys? That’s why people have to be paid to do them.
Government doesn’t “give” anyone anything. All they do is redistribute wealth that some people have created, and transfer it to those who haven’t created anything. Of course everyone who imagines this “utopia” thinks they’ll be on the receiving end. But if you have any talent, it’s YOUR work that’ll be exploited.