Imagine a society where everyone has everything they need without working for it, with one exception: You. If you work 40 hours a week, the entire society hums along without anyone else needing gainful employment. If you don’t, it doesn’t. The society reverts to modern day US.
It’s not an onerous job. It is not physically taxing and it’s not horrendously boring. And through magic, you can have sick days and vacation days. Say 10 of each per year.
(You can mentally fill in whatever sf construct would be necessary to make this remotely plausible, but the construct isn’t the question. In other words, if you fight the hypothetical, I’ll assume your answer is no.)
Yes to the first, and probably for the second. I generally like the feeling of accomplishment I get from work, and would probably really like the feeling of accomplishment from my work providing for the needs of the whole country.
Do we take into account the extraordinary amount of leverage this would provide to that person? That could make it a lot easier to sustain motivation through the years.
Is this question in some way related to guaranteed minimum income and its possible effects on incentives to work?
You can take into account whatever makes sense to you in the scenario.
It’s a question inspired by the idea of “freeloaders.” Given sufficient resources, some people would care that there are freeloaders, and some wouldn’t. I thought I’d take it to the extreme.
Sure. It might be fun. Plus, lots of folks would be willing to do all kinds of stuff for me. And worst case, I change my mind and everything is back to “normal”. As a final touch, I’m pretty close to what is considered retirement age, so in my fantasy about this world, you get to retire at a reasonable age and have someone else take over.
To rephrase the question: suppose, if I’m willing to keep doing what I do now, nothing gets worse for me, but it gets better for everyone else. Do I keep doing what I’m doing, or do I quit out of spite?
I think that’s a fair rephrase, and I’d have trouble sympathizing with anyone who’d spitefully ruin the world for everyone else.
Now, I might expect some goddamn recognition. I might expect some serious favors. I might be pissed if nobody does anything to recognize how much better I’m making the world for all of them. But even if I got no recognition for it, I’d keep on doing it, because what kind of person wouldn’t?
As for volunteering: I wouldn’t exactly be waving my hand shouting, “Ooh, pick me! pick me!” I’d wait a bit to see if HurricaneDitka was stepping up. But if the room were suspiciously silent and it became clear that it was me or nobody, I’d volunteer.
Yep, call me a spiteful bastard but if i have to get my ass up this morning and go to work and don’t get to go fishing because i want to neither do you.
Well, if I’m the only one working… what is the work? I’m NOT doing colonoscopies. No way no how. Unless they’re exclusively of people that deserve a bad one.
And of course the American conditions listed in the OP are unacceptable. Sick days are as many as needed and I bloody well get weekends, holidays and a decent vacation package or y’all can do your own colonoscopies.
I suppose I’d be working, if only becuase I’m screwed if I don’t. I work, everyone freeloads and I have a comfortable life. I dont work, then I’m living in the regular world where things are much less comfortable when I’m not working. Not much of a choice.
You’re the last person who has to work. The rest of the world, all 7 billion, get enough ‘credits’ they can spend on whatever they like, put into their account every month. AI agents that take the role of ‘social workers’ make sure nobody who blows all their credits starves.
The credits are enough to live a middle class existence, though there are always tradeoffs. Go to space often, and you might have to live in an apartment.
Anyways, what if we actually credited the last worker with 1% of the value they are adding to the system? And then tax them at 99%?
If we do that, then essentially we are paying the last person 1% of 1% of the GDP of the entire earth.
Or 100 trillion * 0.01 * 0.01.
A salary of 10 billion dollars a year.
Seems fair enough. They or whoever they choose as beneficiaries would live much richer than all the ‘takers’ they are supporting.
Basically the current economic policy says we should give that one person 99 trillion and the rest of the planet gets to split 1 trillion.
If I’m the only one working, then who is making the beer down at the brewery? No one, that’s who. And if there is no beer to buy what’s the point of living, much less working?
There’s nothing in the secondary scenario that precludes me having to work along with everyone else, AFAICT. So basically the question is, if you could have an easy commute, the office all to yourself, and the whole world grateful to you, would you? Of COURSE I would. How is this even a question? The commute alone makes it worthwhile.
I do worry though about that gratitude bit. I’m not sure that part is a given.
Was it Asimov who wrote a SciFi short story with a similar scheme? The only job that had to be done was to flick a switch once per year, but the switch had to do with the sewage treatment plant, and so the person who did the work was considered an untouchable. Or something like that, it’s been a while.
Humankind is totally capable of becoming a horde of unbearable snobs, and looking down upon the one remaining “working class” person.
I wouldn’t care though, as long as they stayed off the highway fro 8-9:00am and 5-6:00pm.