In the real world, goods are produced and services are provided: i.e. people work to get goods and services to buyers and consumers. Factories and production centre need input materials transported there by drivers. Retail outlets for goods need transporters too. Goods and services need advertising so people know they exist and where to access them. So media workers as well. Schools need teachers, maintenance workers, etc. And on and on.

Marx pointed out that goods aren't produced out of thin air by fairies (not his actual words). They are produced by capitalists to improve their money-capital-money cycle (contributing capital) and by labourers (contributing labour) who expect a wage. i.e. people work to produce goods that small children believe come free.

It seems some of those small children carry their infantile fantasies into adult life - that goods and services are provided by 'someone' for free. I remember my young son wanting to post a letter on a Saturday night and asking to go down to the newsagent's for a stamp, on the assumption that he/she/it was always there, 24/7.

On the other hand, some of us in the real world are only too aware that, in order to get a fraction of what we may produce, we may have to carry many, many others, such as management, shareholders, a plethora of government regulatory agencies, and a wide assortment of parasites. Some of us just shrug and say, that's how it is, and the gender the schemes, the more layers of BS artists and assorted parasites.

As an ex-Marxist, it took me a very long time to realise that a 'socialist' society was never going to exist staffed only by Stakhanovites (check that out on Wikipedia, children) - that ever-increasing numbers of apparatchiki and executioners would be necessary to keep the whole ramshackle apparatus going.

[TBC]

[continued]

But, to be charitable, this poor kid is oblivious even of the Stakhanovites - he/she seems to think that, yes, goods and services are produced out of thin air by fairies at night.

I'm puzzled why anyone would want such a work-free life ? What are you going to do all day, watch Channel Nine ? What would be the point of doing anything much, e.g. growing your own vegetables, if they're readily available 'free' ? Perhaps kick a footy around every afternoon, after a late-morning rise ? Go to a free gym, with free instructors ? The odd free trip to Bali ?

And of course, how would one actually earn any money for extras ? No, dear child, money comes, on the whole, from working, and that means working in the production and of goods and the provision of a multitude of services, paid for out of our taxes, usually from our earnings. Earnt from working.

Sorry, kid, there will never be an alternative to working, for most of us, and often getting ripped off in the process. There will never be a Heaven on Earth, no Big Rock-Candy Mountain - Hells, yes, of course, some of us have learnt much from the bitter history of 'socialist' regimes.

But keep believing that you're some sort of unique genius with an amazingly cunning plan that nobody else in history has ever thought of, if that makes you feel better the others.

Joe

Dear Joe,

You made two lists of necessary providers of goods and services versus the parasites: please move the advertising and media from the first list to the second.

Suffice there be a simple central index of goods and service providers (such as yellow-pages), then those who want to consume something will pull the information. Pushing information is wrong, and while I would stop short of criminalising it, I would at least stop encouraging it by denying tax deductions for advertising expenses.

Much of schooling also belongs in the second list: it is largely about indoctrination as well as training young "gladiators" to fight each other in the cruel capitalist battle-for-jobs.

While there will never be an alternative to working, Heaven on Earth is not binary: we should try to reduce the overall amount of work-for-money, but especially of unnecessary (and at times even harmful) work. Too many of us are wasting the best of our lives in jobs that we know are unethical, abusive and/or unnecessary, but we do it anyway only because we must pay the bills. Had basic/frugal survival not depended on having a job, most jobs on the second list could be eliminated.

Generally shouldn't try to improve on nature. Families, culture, nations important- world bodies should only regulate between nations not within. Every culture should have their own nation and right to self determination. Grand plans end in tears. Small incremental changes are ok with review. Less people and more self sufficient ones are a key to good society. Everything is free => no rules no cost no responsibility => no working.

When there are less people with respect to the environment effectively everything is free. The ones that travelled to the western US could build their cabin where they wanted.