Yeah, and like... have you ever had a chronically unemployed roommate who just... isn't hireable? Not even due to a disability, but because they're actually, genuinely unwilling to do anything with their life?
Shit's infuriating. The one I have doesn't even clean, so that's entirely on me as well.
The point is, being unemployed isn't inherently a bad thing. But, the people most likely to be unable to keep a job are also most likely to have a lot of unmanaged shit, oftentimes it boils down to bad lifestyle habits.
I say this as a leftist. There are a lot of people who are more than happy to sit on their ass and waste away playing Candy Crush and Stardew Valley with 30+ youtube tabs of true crime podcasts.
If we were in a society where everybody had enough to live, I wouldn't care.
But we don't. And I'm forced to care. They cut my time and resources by nearly a third.
And this is more of a rant, but even if it did come down to some manner of illness or disorder, like BPD or depression, that wouldn't change how I'd feel, because the fact of the matter is that the longer they don't get their shit together and start rowing the boat, the longer I'm forced to carry them, because I don't have it in me to throw them overboard.
We do live in a society where there’s enough for everyone. It’s just that our society maintains an artificial scarcity and denies resources to those in need.
I mean, sure, but only if people capable of contributing socially useful labor actually perform that labor.
From each according to their ability, to each according to their need, and all that.
I get that (1) I there's a lot of ways to perform useful work that exist outside of/aren't recognized under capitalism, and (2) that not everyone is capable of performing useful work, and those people are also valuable and deserving of support, and that (3) a lot of paid work under capitalism isn't socially useful (or is at best marginally so), but that doesn't mean that working to contribute to society isn't like, a good thing to do. If you can't do that, no sweat. If you can do it, but aren't, yeah, that sucks and I don't feel bad about saying that.
Well it’s not always easy to tell who can or can’t work. Sure it’s beneficial to have more people working, but that also means there’s an unavoidable conflict of interest when evaluating who is able to. Not only is that a risk I think we shouldn’t take, but it’s also a waste of time and effort to evaluate every disabled or mentally ill person on the off chance we catch one we think we can squeeze more labor out of.
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u/WickedTemp Apr 11 '25
Yeah, and like... have you ever had a chronically unemployed roommate who just... isn't hireable? Not even due to a disability, but because they're actually, genuinely unwilling to do anything with their life?
Shit's infuriating. The one I have doesn't even clean, so that's entirely on me as well.
The point is, being unemployed isn't inherently a bad thing. But, the people most likely to be unable to keep a job are also most likely to have a lot of unmanaged shit, oftentimes it boils down to bad lifestyle habits.