cross-posted from: https://piefed.blahaj.zone/c/onehundredninetysix/p/449273/food-is-literally-rule
Food is literally rule
Edit: Could you please chill it with the taking everything so bloody seriously? It’s low-hanging fruit leftist agitprop from c/196. It doesn’t aim to be coherent with the very letter of Marx or whatever leftist group/cult-leader you prefer.
I guess we could go back to a hunter gatherer lifestyle tomorrow. There would certainly be a lot of complaining, not the least of which would be about the food options. Long pig would be on the table for the first year or so
Big “Yet you participate in society” vibes on this one.
Tell me: How does agriculture require private property?
The top comment in the posted image is just stupid, food takes work, like a lot of work. Whether the land is private/public/something else, it takes a lot of work to maintain a steady supply of food.
Yes, food takes a lot of work. But we’re a lot of people with very advanced technology. If we got rid of a few bullshit and counter-productive jobs, the work each and everyone of us would have to do would vanish in comparison to today’s hustle culture.
I think the problem with your messaging here is because it focuses more on the fact that we could restructure society to meet people’s needs rather than profits, but your post doesn’t really describe how we get from here to there. Obviously agitprop is short and oversimplified, but some subjects work better with added context.
I wasn’t making an argument for any particular economic system. Just pointing out the absurdity of the idea that food is “free” or doesn’t require work to produce.
I’m for an equitable distribution of resources and drudgery. Unfortunately, drudgery is an unavoidable aspect of civilization, but I think we can all agree that civilization is (or should be) a net positive. We just need to spread it out evenly.
A lot of food actually is free. The commons supported a lot of people in the middle ages with nuts, berries and orchards.
The point was that private property is what creates the drudge.
If it requires labour, it’s not free.
My dude, have you ever tried to grow food in a garden, or forage enough for a meal? It’s extremely hard work. You could argue that those who work the land deserve to own the means of their produce, but you can’t claim food is free.
You’re right. It should be free, though. (As in free beer)
I’m not even sure if it should be “free”. Something that is inherently free implies a lack of value, it’s belittling to the workers who produce that food.
I think a better way to phrase it is that society should work together to provide the basic needs to those who participate in said society.
That’s the bourgeois ideology talking. If I invite friends to dinner, they receive the food for free, but they sure don’t think it’s worthless.
So guests should go hungry?
How?
A guest invited to a home for food does not believe that food is inherently free.
What is a guest in reference to a society?
You can have agriculture without private property, sure. You CAN’T have food without work. Or devices for shitposting without work. No housing without work.
Work, and needing to work to survive, is not unnatural, hoarding the results is.
I think the second post explains how their definition of “work” differs from yours.
I think they define “work” as wage-labour.
Maybe, but then if you abolish wage-labour, you just have a different type of work needed to survive. Either you’re going off-grid and living all on your own, which would mean you don’t have a lot, but you’re truly independent - or you’re part of a society where you don’t get paid a wage, but instead receive certain living conditions similar to everyone else’s, and you’re expected to work to the best of your ability.
Yes, working for a wage is unnatural. But then being part of a large society with super specialized roles is unnatural. We’ve been doing unnatural for thousands of years now.
The point is that this kind of work is less alienating.
I’m not arguing for that, since it’s not a realistic scenario.
Cool, where do I sign up?
I don’t want to succumb to the naturalistic fallacy here. I think it makes people miserable, since it runs counter to our brain structure. I don’t think you can say the same thing about large societies (the amount of people you interact with has a natural limit and there’s a natural need for humans to be social).