I don’t regard freedom as a morally desirable state, but rather a state necessary to morality.
And the author doesn’t make that argument. He/she states that obligations such as “debts, families, and of course social obligations” put workers in a weaker bargaining position. The argument is heavily detached from its implications, but those implications are no less there for it—until workers are without such obligation, without the need to work for food and board, they are in a state of coercion. Until the decisions of workers do not actually matter, they—being in a state of coercion—have little freedom of their own.
The author is the one moralizing, with cautious implications, exacting connotations, and carefully evaded implications. My response is merely to point out what it is.
obligations such as “debts, families, and of course social obligations” put workers in a weaker bargaining position. The argument is heavily detached from its implications, but those implications are no less there for it—until workers are without such obligation, without the need to work for food and board, they are in a state of coercion.
The word ‘coercion’ might be slipping in some unwarranted connotations, but this seems roughly correct to me. There’s a reason that having enough wealth saved up to live comfortably for an extended period of time is popularly known as having ‘f**k you money’.
I don’t think there is a single thing in the piece I could describe as factually untrue. The factual truthness of it isn’t really the problem; the problem is that nothing the author was intending to convey actually depends upon the truth; the truth conveyed is a relatively trivial one, practically a tautology; those who depend on working to live have to work to live.
Everything in the post comes back to that one truth. The author even takes it as a given that justice requires that people -not- have to work to live (that’s what the “universal wage” line is), and then argues that this isn’t enough, because other things in life still require you to work, and you’re still being coerced. (Coerced by what? Reality?)
It’s an exceptionally well crafted piece of dark arts.
I don’t regard freedom as a morally desirable state, but rather a state necessary to morality.
And the author doesn’t make that argument. He/she states that obligations such as “debts, families, and of course social obligations” put workers in a weaker bargaining position. The argument is heavily detached from its implications, but those implications are no less there for it—until workers are without such obligation, without the need to work for food and board, they are in a state of coercion. Until the decisions of workers do not actually matter, they—being in a state of coercion—have little freedom of their own.
The author is the one moralizing, with cautious implications, exacting connotations, and carefully evaded implications. My response is merely to point out what it is.
The word ‘coercion’ might be slipping in some unwarranted connotations, but this seems roughly correct to me. There’s a reason that having enough wealth saved up to live comfortably for an extended period of time is popularly known as having ‘f**k you money’.
I don’t think there is a single thing in the piece I could describe as factually untrue. The factual truthness of it isn’t really the problem; the problem is that nothing the author was intending to convey actually depends upon the truth; the truth conveyed is a relatively trivial one, practically a tautology; those who depend on working to live have to work to live.
Everything in the post comes back to that one truth. The author even takes it as a given that justice requires that people -not- have to work to live (that’s what the “universal wage” line is), and then argues that this isn’t enough, because other things in life still require you to work, and you’re still being coerced. (Coerced by what? Reality?)
It’s an exceptionally well crafted piece of dark arts.