Doing no work: AntiSocial, or AntiEconomy?

[The top part is an expansion of Sinclair's Aristotle translation since
Eric asked about the bits I left out. Below the = = = = line is  a copy of
a letter I sent this morning giving my own view about consumption and
whether doing little or no work is admirable.  D.]

At 08:58 30/07/99 -0700, Eric <emstorm@metro.net> wrote:
>David sent T.A. Sinclair's translation of Aristotle's The Politics:
>Chap. 5 begins:
  "Connected with the foregoing is the question of property.

     What are the best arrangements to make about property, if a state is
to be as well constituted as it is possible to make it?
     Is property to be held in common or not?

 ... A possible answer is that ... it would be better that property, both
in respect of ownership and usufruct, should be held communally. Or
ownership and usufruct might be separated; then either the land is held in
common and its produce pooled for general use (as is done by some peoples)
or the land is communally held and communally worked but its produce is
distributed according to individual requirements. This is a form of
communal ownership which is said to exist among certain non-Greek peoples.
There is also the alternative already mentioned - that both the land and
its produce be communally owned.

... Communal life and communal ownership are hard enough to achieve at the
best of times ... 

** [some ellipses there; complete translation of that section now: ]

  As to its cultivation - any system of communal ownership will run more
smoothly if the land is worked by persons other than the citizens [D.: male
property-owning Athenians]; because, if they themselves work the land for
their own benefit, there will be greater ill-feeling about the common
ownership. For if the work done and the benefit accrued are equal, well and
good; but if not, there will inevitably be ill-feeling between those who
get a good income without doing much work and those who work harder but get
no corresponding extra benefit. Communal life and communal ownership are
hard enough to achieve at the best of times and such a state of affairs
makes it doubly hard. The same kind of trouble is evident when a number of
people club together for the purpose of travel. How often have we not seen
such partnerships break down over quarrels arising out of trivial and
unimportant matters! In a household also we are most likely to get annoyed
with those servants whom we employ to perform the routine tasks.

[The translation continues as given before: ]
  These then are some of the difficulties inherent in the joint ownership
of property. Far better is the present system of private ownership provided
it has a moral basis in sound laws. It will then have the advantages of
both systems, both the communal and the private. For, while property should
up to a point be held in common, the general principle should be that of
private ownership. ...


[Eric asks: ]
>... do you think we see communal life and ownership as difficult because
of the way things are now?  I am thinking about other (often tribal) groups
who seem to use communal systems reasonably well.  Not all of course, but a
few.  I wonder what factors are necessary to make it work, and why present
day attempts (often failures, I agree) at communal living aren't working?
>
**  I have little opinion on that, though both Eric and Aristotle seem to
say it depends largely on the personalities involved.


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

>From: atlas@geocities.com
>Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 20:13:21 -0700 (PDT)
>Subject: New Discussion
>
>I now have a new discussion set up and I need your input.  Drop by
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/6723/env/sustainabilty.html
>
>Thanks for your time,
>Adam  anott@sfu.ca


**  Adam has said:
"[we should] expand the question of what we as individuals and as a
community can do about our consumption patterns, population and the
technology we use."

**  I agree with him that the original question, focussed on population, is
less than half of the problem facing the world. The co-opting or take-over
of more than 40% of the world's natural production systems by humans (as
estimated nearly ten years ago; a higher fraction now), is caused by their
total consumption, i.e. by the sum of all the products: one individual
times his/her consumption, (added up) for everyone.

**  So with people in the rich (OECD) countries using up something like
half of measured human production, it's clear that the most rapid (and I
think, easiest) way to reduce total consumption is for those in the richest
tenth of world population to drop their consumption to below half (and for
CO2-producing activities, under a sixth) of what it is now. I refer here to
the great majority of people in OECD countries.

**  There are several ways to do this. One would be to take at least some
of at least a score of steps to directly reduce consumption, such as major
reduction or elimination of car use, and not buying large houses for small
families. I have seen such a list recently, and was going to send it on (as
I think Adam Nott was expecting). But another way, mine and my family's, is
much more effective though very much tougher to do: reduce one's income so
that there just _isn't_ the money to spend on consumption.

**  The following lays out this approach; it is a letter to the Editor of
the largest daily paper in this nation of under 4 million people. I was
prevented from sending it in April 1993 (when I wrote it) by my eldest son,
then just 21, who knew that it would redound upon him, since our surname is
unique in New Zealand. He wished to appear to his acquaintances as more
"normal" than we really are.

The Editor, NZ Herald,
PO Box 32, Auckland, NZ
 (suggested title: )
 . . . . . . . . . .   Anti-Social, or Anti-Economy?
Dear Sir,
    I'm encouraging my three young-adult children to feel free to _choose_
whether they contribute to the economy, and to what extent.

    As I see it, they are free to 'do nothing', provided that they expect
nothing: no unemployment benefit or any other state-provided support.
including all types of low-income-targetted assistance.

    Where do they get essentials like food and shelter?  From a combination
of two sources: family/friends, and their own money-earning efforts. The
latter could be as little as a few weeks work in the year, provided they
have very little use for money; e.g. use only buses and do mostly free
things: libraries, beaches, visit friends, work on a farm for only bed and
board.  _And_ if they are happy enough with living on less than $2.50 a day
for food. I am, and have done since last year! [And still am, nearly 7
years after 1992.]

    I encourage this option for most, because:
 (i)  The Protestant "work ethic" is now unnecessary, and has been
increasingly out-dated since the late 1940s: there are now several people
capable of doing every job that _needs_ to be done, and even in NZ the
number of such jobs will be a smaller and smaller fraction of the number of
people capable of doing them, averaged over all jobs and an 8-year or
longer period. Economists call it 'structural unemployment': it just means
we have to change our attitude to jobs and money; neither is as important
as the business sector and their government cronies would have us believe.
 (ii) The pollution caused by our over-industrialised economic system
(including CO2) is world-wide and increasingly evident, both visibly and in
mankind's declining average health. When (not if) our population doubles
(it'll be in my lifetime, and I'm already retired), all our present
problems will be seen as puny, unless we are all consuming a lot less.

Yours sincerely,
(David MacClement) d1v9d @ bigfoot .com 
http://come.to/davd  (^ d one v nine d)
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