I know this is a pretty good problem to have, but do any of you wonder what the culture of a free society would be like? At advanced stages of capital accumulation, the standard of living would be high for all. I think this has some cultural implications. There would be no wars, toil, rebellions, or things of the like. Our entertainment and culture has always centered around conflict. It is often said, with truth in my opinion, that struggle builds character. I think that free markets would be the end of poverty, but I wonder what the effect would be on the human spirit? Doesn’t man need to struggle to be sane? Maybe that’s just me, but in my head I see a kind-of “Wall-E” society, where everyone has a high standard of living but are underdeveloped humans, spiritually, physically, intellectually, etc.
The vast, vast majority of people of every era could be considered ‘underdeveloped’ in all those categories. I really doubt that any individual ceteris paribus would be less developed in those areas if he had e.g. double the leisure time than if he did not (or, in pre-industrial conditions, died of malnutrition). Even factoring in the possibility that there is no contemporary ‘conflict’ in the world, any individual has literally thousands of years of historical conflict to indulge in if he really wants to. How does struggle necessarily lead to development in all of those areas?
My point with struggle is this. If one has never shoveled snow before, and then suddenly must do so in 2 feet of slush, he finds the chore unbearable. If one shovels snow consistently, he is hardened to the task and finds it routine. The same applies to all physical tasks but also to the spiritual aspect. If one is accustomed to making fires, chopping wood, swimming, and cooking his mindset is one of capability and confidence. If one is accustomed to pampering and pleasures, his mindset is immature and vulnerable. Evidence for this might be the sultans of the Ottoman Empire. The early ones frequently dealt with war and were competent. The mid-late ones were raised in the pleasures of the harem and made terrible rulers because they knew no struggle. They were never required to be exert themselves.
What I’m worried about is this: what if in the future, we are all (mostly, there are always exceptions) spoiled little princes? What happens to humanity when hardly anything is earned?
Are you talking about some kind of a manna from heaven scenario? Why would that be the case? For people to continue to hold the same standard of living, the capital structure must be constantly maintained.
If one is accustomed to making fires, chopping wood, swimming, and cooking, his mindset is one of capability and confidence in those areas. He’ll likely find e.g. solving a complex differential equation to be unbearable.
Even in that case I know plenty of people who do the same job day in day out and still find it completely unbearable. People can be real good at finding something to “struggle” against- external or internal- even if its complete imagination. As long as there is any chance for unhappiness there’s a chance to build “spirit”.
But look at today vs 500 years ago. Less people need work to support themselves and their families due to the mechanization of production. I think this mechanization process will only increase until either very few people need work, or people need work very little.
Doesn’t this assume that most of us will be solving complex differentials in the future?
I don’t see how. I wasn’t even referring to the future explicitly. Does that help?
Put another way, in the future, presumably, we will have less and less necessary physical tasks. If you grant that confrontation with physical adversity somehow improves human character, then the implication here is that humans in the future will be a different kind of person. They will be less competent in regards to self-preservation, closer to aphysicality, decadent perhaps. What becomes of man when he need not ever feel pain?
So I guess the best place to start is, do you agree that physical struggle “builds character” (for lack of a better phrase)?
@OP: I recently saw an advertisement for a ranch resort that provides a “full experience” package… you wake up at 4am, ride a pickup out to the back-country with the cattle hands, buck hay, round up cattle and so on, then roll back into the resort around 6pm. All for the modest price of $1,500 per person (you pay). I think the market can easily solve the problem of “insufficient manual labor required to survive.” Furthermore, I disagree that general prosperity is the automatica result of a more free-market society… you will always have to compete with other producers if you want to keep up with the status quo standard of living.
Clayton -
The producers are a minority of the population though, the majority being consumers. What I mean is that with mechanization, competition doesn’t necessarily mean longer working hours for laborers, but more efficient technology, better marketing schemes, business partnerships, etc. So it’s the capitalist class that will be working the hardest, the further towards mechanization of production we get, in my opinion.
Anyways with your first point, people are free to do whatever they want. I’m not talking about ‘insufficient manual labor required to survive’ I’m just curious as to what you think the character of the “New Man” will be.
Compare yourself to a caveman. It is a similar comparison to the one you would like to make. Do you consider yourself the decline of humanity? If not, then all is well. Remember - capitalism encourages competition and innovation.
I am in between the caveman and the roboman. Both physical and mental. Capitalism encourages competition and innovation for the entrepeneurs. Everyone else simply enjoys their efforts.
If a worker is lazy, is he hired?
No but he’s not exactly required to compete, much less innovate. It’s the business which must do that. Do you agree?
He must compete with other workers for a job.
Just thought I’d throw this in here…when speaking of future world, I tend to think of Kurzweil. A really great documentary that may actually get you to consider new ideas to a point of freaking out is Transcendent Man. You can find it on Netflix streaming.
But do you really think that his occupation is a state of constant competition? I think such is the case for the business-owner but not for the common laborer. Isn’t that kind of essential to the division of labor? The owner risks everything in competition, while the laborer must only perform his task satisfactorily.
EDIT: In response to JJ, I don’t doubt that Kurzweil is right, but he scares the shit out of me. Humans will not have shed their oppressors by the point of the singularity. It frightens me to think of a world so technologically advanced and structurally opposed to freedom.
…like I said…
But on that note, if you told Thomas Jefferson that one day people would be able to be watched even when they are alone in another room (on the other side of the world, for that matter), that transactions would take place in a non-physical realm, and could easily be monitored and logged by anyone with the right technology, that guns would be able to fire off over 100 rounds per second, ballistics would be so precise they could raze a single home from essentially anywhere on the planet, and so destructive that an entire region and literally millions of people could be incinerated in an instant…and that all this would be reality in a time when the American people give nearly half their product to the State, and the President can assassinate whomever he deems an enemy, and his agents can search and seize your property without probable cause, simply because you attempt to travel…
…he would probably wonder why everyone hadn’t already committed suicide. But here we are…living lives in many ways free-er than he ever dreamed.
Are you sure you’re not conflating “free-er” with “convenient-er”. Anyways, yes we aren’t exactly free right now, but with the singularity, everything will be digitized and interconnected. Right now that’s not yet the case. There are still ways to slip by the cameras. When RFID chips are standard and therefore no anonymity exists, I think that things will get a lot worse.