• bitwaba@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    People worked to have a calorie surplus so they could not work the next day, or they could make sure their shelter wasn’t leaking, or they could do something they found entertaining.

    People don’t work for the sake of work.

    • Ferrous@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      So you’re saying people labor in order to entertain, love, create, do art, and do philosophy?

      Sounds very human to me.

      Never did i claim that people “work for the sake of work”. My argument is that humans can be characterized as working creatures who use labor to change their environment - be it geographically, politically, socially, etc…

      • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        And that is very true.

        It’s that at some point someone realized they could use their momentary surplus to exploit someone else’s dire need and thus use other people’s labor to generate an even larger surplus for themselves.

        The rationale to justify this exploitation has changed through the ages, as well as how much has to be spent to coax others - going from slavery all the way to whatever is on the other end, which I guess would be the shared ownership of the means of production.