Friday, March 07, 2014

TGIF: Work!

Among those who have commented on the nature of work, I prefer Maynard G. Krebs to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the economists to the moralists.

Read about it here.
Posted by Sheldon Richman at 6:13 PM
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1 comment:

Younes Megrini said...

Very interesting article.
It reminds me of the growing number of people, especially here in Europe, who are advocating what they call a "life-long universal and unconditional basic income". One of their arguments is that people are right now "forced" to work in jobs that they do not enjoy only because they need the money. Therefore, this basic income is meant to be high enough to afford each person the ability to refuse any job that they do not like.
I think such a measure would not only be illegitimate, since it is supposed to be implemented through the State instead of functioning on a voluntary basis, but would also have devastating consequences on people's incentives.
When told that most people would just stop working, their answer is basically that
- they have faith that people will not stop working because many have told them that they wouldn't
- people will still work if they want to earn more than the basic income
- people will do what pleases them which has a certain "value", if not an economic one
I would be curious to know your thoughts on this.

March 8, 2014 at 9:17 PM

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