So whats the solution?

Well look at this article that just came out on antinatalism: https://thebigsmoke.com.au/2019/02/14/wish-youve-never-been-born-youre-bang-on-the-mark-you/

Antinatalism is essentially the philosophy that what matters most in ethics is suffering. Being born means inevitable suffering, thus by not having children, you are preventing suffering. No one is around (in the first place) to be deprived of any "goods" of life either (so win/win). What this amounts as related to politics is that someone is never born for their own sake. By having the child, you are essentially making it a sacrifice in the name of society. Why? The child has to be enculturated which de facto, makes the child interact with society. Why enculturation? Humans survive on a cultural/social basis. In other words, they survive through transmission of ideas through learning in a social setting.

What does this ultimately mean? This simply means that human societies need more people to keep it going. Highly complex forms of society (that have been shaped through forces of history), keep itself going through the work of the labor force. Thus being born essentially accounts to be enculturated to become a laborer. Thus, no political/economic system will overcome the very foundation of what it means to be born into a society. That is to say, we can never get out of the fact, that our wants and needs as individuals will create the need for other people to labor to meet those demands and needs. By being born, we de facto are forced to labor. In a social setting, we are simply units of labor. You were born to labor in some social setting.

What say you @Bitter Crank?

What say you — schopenhauer1

There are several points here with which I can agree, or not.

I'm going to define politics as trying to or actually achieving influence/control over a community of people. — schopenhauer1

That's 1/2 of politics; the other half is resisting control. Individuals and groups prefer to maximize autonomy, just as surely as the goal of some individuals and groups is to minimize others' autonomy. Scale matters here: parents must exercise control and limit autonomy of children in order to keep them safe and prepare them for autonomous life. Family life is the genesis of politics. Employers exercise control and limit the autonomy of workers in order to operate an enterprise. That's economics shading into politics. The kingdom, satrapy, nomenklatura, senate, party, ministry, chancellory, etc. is about control. That's politics.

The first act of control over us is being born in the first place. — schopenhauer1

This has been discussed at great length from many points of view.

De facto, being born throws more workers into the grist mill of the economic-political system. The first coercive act is throwing a new human into the labor force to be used as a source of labor. Socialist/communist societies are more transparent that this is what a person is in a sociological setting. Capitalism has a gloss of "individualism" that simply puts a thin veil over the fact that the individual is used as a source of labor with the principle of the "invisible hand". We were never born for ourselves, but always on the account of another. — schopenhauer1

Karl Marx (and maybe others before or beside him) called it "reproducing society". People don't just reproduce themselves through effective parenting, they reproduce the personnel and the roles required at all levels of society. In mass societies, individuals existing for themselves is a necessary illusion. We don't -- we can not -- exist just for ourselves--and we never could, even in a primitive hunter-gatherer band.

No mass political system -- whether capitalist or collectivist -- can afford to be overly transparent. There are various necessary illusions. Stating the terms of existence baldly, "You are free insofar as you obey", is unappealing. "Your primary function is to serve". "Your task is to consume as much as possible." "Work, or else." "Vote!" -- even though it is often a meaningless gesture; we require a sign of your consent to be governed.

In fact, it is an impossibility to live for oneself — schopenhauer1

Yes, but let's be a little more nuanced about it. Life is too difficult to live only for oneself. The requirements of life require toil which one person alone cannot perform. We need and we must be helpers. We require both sources and objects of love and comfort--and so on.

People are de facto coerced into laboring. This I believe to be a harm to the individual. — schopenhauer1

Well, I would say the harm to the individual is being coerced into laboring for somebody's interest not his own. "Work or else..." when the labor is for the greater wealth of the ruling class; when the labor is too poorly rewarded to enjoy life; when the cost of labor is an early death -- all that is indeed a harm to the individual.

People are not free- they are social factors, social products. The individual, first person point of view, matters not in the political sphere. — schopenhauer1

It is true that we are not free, since we are not vaporous spirits whose existence is above the material plane. We are material, social, and individual beings. As such we can not be free of the demands of a material world.

So, "The individual, first person point of view, matters not in the political sphere" is clearly not true--even in a mass society where individual political freedom is highly constrained. It can not be true because the individual POV have always been the starting point of change that threatens to bring down the superstructure of power. Thinking about how things work occurs in individual minds, and when individual minds start comparing notes and when two, and two, and fifty, then a million... change can happen.

You, for instance, are an individual with a distinct POV beating the drum of antinatalism. You are not the only individual with a distinct POV about the futility of reproduction and a sensitivity to the ethical dilemma of bringing children into this particular world. You (obviously and correctly) think there is some point in expressing your individual point of view.

You could form a political group of antinatalists, and (you might be surprised) have remarkable success in promoting non-reproduction as an ethical act of resistance.

I'm not saying you would be successful, or should be successful, but if you were successful it would be because of individuals' points of view. (And, of course, social conditions that would either favor or negate your various efforts.)

What is forcing one to work in modern society?
Status? The urge to maintain a high standard of living? Social pressures?
The value of these matters is all illusory in nature. Ultimately it is the person themselves who is "forcing", in order to obtain or maintain those things they desire or they think they cannot live without.

I say it time and time again on this forum, but your responses are some of the wisest I've seen, on here or anywhere really. Thank you again for your cogent and insightful remarks. They seem to hit the mark, as far as I see it. I will try to respond in more detail at a later point. You get to the heart of the issues I bring up that most gloss over or don't recognize and brilliantly lay out the points in a measured and nuanced way. It also helps that you have a tinge of cynicism that strikes at the heart of the matter. I can't help but smile at that. Be careful though- high praise from schopenhauer1 will probably not get you far on this forum from most posters.

You are very generous in your praise.

they think they cannot live without — Tzeentch

Like food, shelter, clothing... stuff like that.

Status? The urge to maintain a high standard of living? Social pressures?
The value of these matters is all illusory in nature. — Tzeentch

Status can be measured in very small increments. If you are living on the street, having a piece of dirty, deteriorating foam rubber to lay on is a step up from laying on the bare concrete; having a cardboard box to sleep in is a step up from not having a box. living in a noisy, smelly, cockroach ridden efficiency is many steps above having a box. Living in an old small house is many steps up from the efficiency. Living on the 33rd floor of the new condo building is a step up from living on the fifth floor. Living in the 80th floor penthouse (and having the whole floor to yourself) is many steps up from the 33rd floor condo -- as nice as that was. Having a fake Picasso is many steps above having a house full of abstract depressionist paintings by your sister-in-law in Cincinnati, Ohio, for god's sake.

That all this status is illusory is a rather harsh judgement. If you are sweating day and night to plunder the pension funds of auto workers, you had jolly well better believe that the status is real.

It takes more than one's self to strive for status, because status requires the jealous comparisons of one's peers. If absolutely no one gives a rat's ass about your new kitchen, what has one gained? Well, the $40,000 stove gets hot, but so did the old one. The deluxe 360º glass refrigerator gets cold, but so did the one you bought from Ikea. The granite counter top, imported from a nicely distant quarry allows you to chop up turnips, but so did the old Formica counter top.

Status requires a jealous crowd. No crowd, no status.

"Work! Strive! Persevere! You are all victims of a monstrous hoax."

Like food, shelter, clothing... stuff like that. — Bitter Crank

In most, if not all modern countries these things are not of real concern. The concern comes around when one desires good food and not leftovers, or central heating and hot showers, or branded clothing instead of second-hand. If one is content with scraps, one will find treasures everywhere and one isn't forced to work for them.

Status requires a jealous crowd. No crowd, no status. — Bitter Crank

Doesn't that reinforce the illusory nature of status? And an illusion, no matter how many people believe it, is still an illusion. Be that as it may, my point is that I don't believe anyone is being forced to work by anyone other than themselves and the illusions they hold.

Material reality isn't quite as generous as you make it seem. Adequate food -- never mind really good food, adequate clothing for the season (winter, where winter is a harsh material reality), and shelter -- beyond a reasonably adequate location in a box under a bridge, is not guaranteed, and in many places is a pay-or-drop-dead deal.

Yes, there really are people who go hungry, poorly clothed, and homeless even though they are able, willing, and even actually working. At Our Saviour Shelter, for instance, about 10% of the clients work. Housing has become too costly for them.

Are there people actually living in boxes under bridges in midwestern winters? There are. There are many more in California where, while it might not snow, can be very cool and wet.

Social resources are ratcheted: it's much easier to go down than back up. Once you fall off the bottom rung of the ladder, you find that the first rung to get back on is quite a ways above one's reach. It is very hard to overcome the disadvantage of hitting the bottom. Do people literally starve and freeze to death? Yes. It may take time, but hunger, exposure, and homelessness are life-shortening conditions.

If one is going to cast off their material chains, perhaps one had best avoid places with particularly harsh winters unless one knows a handful of survival skills. Especially if one lives in a location where people would deny a freezing man a blanket or a starving man some food. But people generally are quite willing to spare such things.

A lot of homeless people have other sorts of chains. Drug addiction, alcohol addiction, psychological problems, to name a few. People rarely end up freezing and starving to death on the sidewalk out of the blue. While material reality is a lot more forgiving than one may think, one cannot expect their actions not to have consequences.

A lot of homeless people have other sorts of chains. Drug addiction, alcohol addiction, psychological problems, to name a few. — Tzeentch

This is totally true -- usually people who are reasonably well put together don't end up sleeping in doorways.

But, I have known two who were well put together charming, cultured people who did become homeless -- they were sheltered, fed, clothed, and so forth -- but they lost their homes. One's circumstances can change from solvent to broke in a very short period of time, and if you are broke... bad things happen.

Casting off one's material chains -- the vast array of stuff we keep -- is a very difficult, radical step which I think requires very strong 'spiritual' (for lack of a better term) motivation. Living simply (there's a movement and apps for that) or voluntary poverty (not very popular) are more secular routes. Voluntary poverty / simple living has a lot to recommend it, and I've tried it off and on several times.

The best example of voluntary poverty I can cite is the Catholic Worker Movement started by Dorothy Day and Peter Marin (back in the 1930s). Their mission was to serve the homeless and neglected, and they practiced poverty themselves, though as Day said, poverty is both commendable and a horror. She became a devout Catholic from her starting point as a secular leftist journalist. Christianity (in the form of pre-Vatican II Catholicism) provided her with the spiritual structure that made her work possible -- for her and for others in the movement.

Voluntary poverty is an interesting subject. It comes in many forms. One could argue that a hermit lives in voluntary poverty. Or a survivalist. Or a vagabond. If one doesn't miss the material wealth they left behind, should it still be called poverty? Where I live, people who earn no income can live in centrally heated homes and have a place they can get food for free, and they still call these people impoverished! Poverty has become a relative term here, and the metaphor of a dog chasing its own tail comes to mind. People are deathly afraid of losing their job and savings and end up in a situation I just described, but what is there to fear but their own illusions?

The choice to live in voluntary 'poverty' is perhaps quite extreme, but the mere realization that life continues if one were to lose all their material possessions can be liberating.

Other lifestyles produce different societies... and therefore different politics. Your analysis is from the perspective of "civilization" and from that perspective seems more or less accurate minus a few quibbles.

But it is an analysis that only looks at one mode of living.

We are all essentially domesticated into this society, and since it is the ocean we swim through it is difficult for us to see how that ocean shapes us.

As a specific example of what I mean from your article:

Part of what you are discussing seems to me to be the authoritarian nature of our systems. This authoritarianism is very new in terms of the life of the human species. For the vast majority of our existence humanity didn't have these large systems of authority that you describe. The systems developed as a means to protect property.... farms, cities, resources.

So the authoritarian and violent nature of our system does much to shape the politics you define, and this is my main objection to your definition of politics as gaining control...

This is not always the case in general terms, but does fairly accurately describe the last 10,000 years or so... among "civilized" peoples. You'll find politics is much different for most indigenous peoples. There is a lot less "I" and a lot more "We"... as a rule.

Our definition of "I" is also effected by the demands of "civilization"... again mostly through the authority issue. A lot of the Bible is about defining the "I" in terms of authority. Such concepts are generally quite foreign to more cooperative non authoritarian lifestyles.

In fact they are often described as insane.

Our definition of "I" is also effected by the demands of "civilization"... again mostly through the authority issue. A lot of the Bible is about defining the "I" in terms of authority. Such concepts are generally quite foreign to more cooperative non authoritarian lifestyles.

In fact they are often described as insane. — Bloginton Blakley

I think there is still structural suffering in all human life and lifestyles. We have to be careful not to commit the "noble savage" fallacy. All societies have ways we suffer- hunter-gatherers to post-industrial socioeconomic systems. I also don't think that having people more integrated into the group (pace Durkheim's idea of "anomie) will negate the fact that people were born to labor for the group in the first place. Suffering is also structural vs. only contingent. Because of our species psychological and physical needs, we are harmed. It does not go away due to contingent factors of birth or lifestyle. Life itself is harmful due to the de facto need to survive in the first place. But once we survive, our complex minds look for myriads of ways to try to entertain itself. It is never truly satisfied, and the physical and psychosocial means of survival and dissatisfaction are perpetual.

But the original point here was, even in tribal societies, we are not given a choice whether to enter into existence and go through this survival and inevitable suffering. Thus, any socioeconomic system (even hunter-gatherer) essentially counts us as useful as our labor we provide to the group. Even the very wealthy in industrial-capitalist systems rely on the labor of their fellow citizens for their own ability to non-labor so built upon the laboring of others. Again, we are not born for ourselves, we are born to labor for the group. This I believe to be a harm to the individual that is born.

I think there is still structural suffering in all human life and lifestyles. — schopenhauer1

We evolved to live in groups of 50-150. The manifestations of structure in these condition are different in quality and kind. This has nothing at all to do with the noble savage trope, and everything to do with the assumption that political life now is essentially the same as it always has been.

There are major differences in how hunter-gatherers viewed the world. Speaking generally, while acknowledging the vast range of different lifestyles and strategies such group were capable of.

One of the most pertinent to this discussion is the idea of authority. In small groups you don't get leaders of leaders. You get alliances within a larger cooperative and leadership shifts depending on the circumstances. The in nomadic groups the structure you are talking about shifts in a much more adaptive way, and the individual within the group isn't "I" centered in the same way you and I are.

So the structural misery you are talking about in most cases doesn't even arise, because the structure isn't set but adaptive. We see similar things in primate groups. What it means to be a leader is something different. A lot of this has to do with the fact that small group leaders are intimately connected both in terms of interest and social feedback, in way that our "leaders" are not.

This disconnection between the led and the leader results in the structural pain you are describing, but again this is not necessarily universally the case with each and every civilization. These types of problem are stuff we deal with in our civilization because our civilization makes particular demands on human character. Like stressing greed and competition.

The hunter-gatherer lifestyle allows for a different set of demands on human character.

This has nothing to do with noble savage myths and everything to do with the fact that the fundamental demands of a particular lifestyle challenges human character in a particular way. Different lifestyles have different focus for their politics. Our focus is a violent commitment to ideology because this serves to build large group sizes. Which then become available for labor and defense.

Doesn't come up that way in small groups. For example the plains Indian viewed conflict between tribes as a part of nature... a way of keeping their group strong and weeding out weaknesses. Also as a way of producing genetic diversity as raids were often for "wives". The idea of struggling over territory was very unusual. Such struggles generally start with agriculture.

Not to say there was no structural pain in hunter-gatherer societies... but it was different and created different politics within and between groups... and due to the lifestyle these miseries were shared across the population.

Doesn't come up that way in small groups. For example the plains Indian viewed conflict between tribes as a part of nature... a way of keeping their group strong and weeding out weaknesses. Also as a way of producing genetic diversity as raids were often for "wives". The idea of struggling over territory was very unusual. Such struggles generally start with agriculture. — Bloginton Blakley

Well, still seems to be conflict there, doesn't it? And raiding "wives" in other tribes for more options to mate with and carry on the group's lineage, still pretty harmful, in my opinion. But that isn't the point. I'm asking to bring the foundations of political theory down to the level of being born itself. Being born itself is a political decision done to us. The parent thought a new person (who will labor) should be birthed into the world and be carried out. A decision was made for someone about this. The parent decides for you that you are to be born. This was not a choice for the individual being born. Being born entails being socialized to labor in and for that society. That is the majority of our lives (and for those who don't, they rely on most of the others doing this). We are born with the well-known, certain knowledge that we are to labor for society (any type of society). To have more people be born in order to labor in a society is a harm to the individual, but no political theory puts this in consideration. They just assume that people are going to be (and should be) born, and that they will (and should) continue to be born to labor for society.

As I said, there, of course was still structural pain.

To have more people be born in order to labor in a society is a harm to the individual, but no political theory puts this in consideration. — schopenhauer1

Sounds like the Malthusian trap. And again this rendering is pretty much from the POV of the agricultural dynamic. Takes lots of energy to grow crops. This energy originally came from human labor... and the sun of course. This gave a positive social incentive to population growth. An incentive that hadn't existed before.

So, humanity is some 200,000 years old. For the first 190,000 human population peaked at around 5-10 million. Then during the agricultural revolution populations grew to about 1 billion. Finally the industrial revolution we gained another 6 billion people or so.

So we can see across the three ages of human society that only in the last 10,000 years has labor even been an issue.

On the other hand, it is true that any individual born now can be expected to be used by society. The "civilized" world is incredibly harsh in terms of what humans were evolved to deal with. Which is why Zinn reports that over the course of the US Indian wars lots of civilized people joined Indian tribes to live as they do, while no Indian voluntarily gave up their birthright for civilization. Some Indians traveled... mostly as diplomats, but all if given a choice returned to live an "uncivilized" life.

Yes structural pain is a main component of our current politics. No this is not a requirement of the human experience.

Very interesting conversation.

Thanks.

So, humanity is some 200,000 years old. For the first 190,000 human population peaked at around 5-10 million. Then during the agricultural revolution populations grew to about 1 billion. Finally the industrial revolution we gained another 6 billion people or so.

So we can see across the three ages of human society that only in the last 10,000 years has labor even been an issue.

On the other hand, it is true that any individual born now can be expected to be used by society. The "civilized" world is incredibly harsh in terms of what humans were evolved to deal with. Which is why Zinn reports that over the course of the US Indian wars lots of civilized people joined Indian tribes to live as they do, while no Indian voluntarily gave up their birthright for civilization. Some Indians traveled... mostly as diplomats, but all if given a choice returned to live an "uncivilized" life.

Yes structural pain is a main component of our current politics. No this is not a requirement of the human experience.

Very interesting conversation.

Thanks. — Bloginton Blakley

I do think this is a good conversation. Many times when we reiterate or affirm a value, we are affirming the value of a culture. Most individual's take on some aspects that are shared in the community. One of these aspects is the ethics of laboring and work. It needs to be there for survival's sake. It doesn't matter if it is "uncivilized" tribal societies, or industrial civilizations, there is some values surrounding laboring. Being born is a positive affirmation that the values of laboring needs to be carried on. Most of our life is wrapped up in our use and utility for society. Thus as I see it, choosing for someone to be born, is to bring someone who will try to enculturate and labor for society. I think this is harmful to any individual in any society, tribal, hunter-gatherer, agriculturist, or industrial.

@Bitter Crank
What do you think about some of the latest posts?

@Blakley seems to have read something about hunter-gatherer societies. I have not -- I know what I hear from a friend who has recently gotten into anthropology/archeology and has been intensely reading about it.

Anthropologists seem to think that modern day hunter-gatherer tribes (what few of them left there are) are a good sample of what HG societies were 200,000 years ago. It seems to me probably that HG people evolved and developed over time. Whether the HG societies we see today are the same as they were 200,000 years ago, I doubt. in his book THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE, Pinker said that archeological evidence suggests that the 200,000 years ago HG societies were pretty violent (based on the number of skulls that were bashed in).

Anyway, from your perspective been born has been a bad deal for a long time. Being born seems to have been a bad deal ever since animals evolved the means of eating each other. Nature red in tooth and claw, and all that gory mess.

choosing for someone to be born, is to bring someone who will try to enculturate and labor for society. — schopenhauer1

This principle is much less clear in mass society than it was in simpler agricultural societies -- and that wasn't a long time ago--just a couple of hundred years. Breeding slaves for future laborers would be the most obvious example, but free farmers expected children to labor, too.

The exchange of work and rewards in mass society is just a lot more rococo than it is in simple societies, and it's harder to keep track of the simple details. Not working, and being a consumer of goods and services, is a real role in mass industrialized mature capitalism. Children fill that roll for at least 18 to 26 years, depending on how long they are in school. Everyone receiving support for old age and disabilities fits into that group. And of course, the idle rich parasites.

Consuming without working is an absolutely essential function. In a modern economy (like ours currently is) where consumption amounts to 72% of the GDP, buying stuff -- consuming -- is an essential task. Buying stuff is dirty work, but somebody has to do it.

Of course, if we consumed less some people would have to work less.

Suppose automation took over all work -- from raising food to high fashion. Would being born still be such a bad deal? E. M. Forster wrote a science fiction noel around a century ago, The Machine Stops. In it machines supplied everything we needed. Individuals lived in 6 sided cells (not prison cells, more like bee hive cells) where everything they needed was supplied by The Machine. The function of people was to produce and consume ideas. One had to apply to the directorate to be a parent. That was all fine and dandy for a long time, until The Machine started wearing out and eventually stopped. Bad things happened at that point.

Great story. A PDF is here.

At the rate we are going, I think we are laying the necessary groundwork for implementing a thorough-going anti-natalist plan.

So we are really born to procreate. Labor is good, but laborers die. How do you maintain the supply? Make sex pleasurable. Oh wait, natural selection did that. Nature just wants us to keep laboring. :wink:

The exchange of work and rewards in mass society is just a lot more rococo than it is in simple societies, and it's harder to keep track of the simple details. Not working, and being a consumer of goods and services, is a real role in mass industrialized mature capitalism. Children fill that roll for at least 18 to 26 years, depending on how long they are in school. Everyone receiving support for old age and disabilities fits into that group. And of course, the idle rich parasites.

Consuming without working is an absolutely essential function. In a modern economy (like ours currently is) where consumption amounts to 72% of the GDP, buying stuff -- consuming -- is an essential task. Buying stuff is dirty work, but somebody has to do it. — Bitter Crank

Yes consumption is the other end of the production. Economically speaking, it is a physical representation of our wants and needs. Capitalist economies have that whole disconnect thing from workers to their production (cue Marx) so it seems as if the two are detached. Now accumulating wealth is the motivation of the production, and consumption is the ability to use some of the wealth accumulated.

Of course, if we consumed less some people would have to work less. — Bitter Crank

It is our very needs and wants that keep each other enslaved to each other.

Suppose automation took over all work -- from raising food to high fashion. Would being born still be such a bad deal? E. M. Forster wrote a science fiction noel around a century ago, The Machine Stops. In it machines supplied everything we needed. Individuals lived in 6 sided cells (not prison cells, more like bee hive cells) where everything they needed was supplied by The Machine. The function of people was to produce and consume ideas. One had to apply to the directorate to be a parent. That was all fine and dandy for a long time, until The Machine started wearing out and eventually stopped. Bad things happened at that point. — Bitter Crank

Until (if ever) it happens, we are still being used as a source of labor in society. The enculturation process is just taking longer now, but it still stands that it is our labor and consumption that makes us valuable to society. At the end of the day, this is what people are in a political sense- laborers. The choice was not had by the person being born. The choice was made for them- be a good laborer or the whole thing collapses. Besides, why not be, right? The very things you need (shelter/food/water/warmth) can only be had through this means. Your very desires can be tangibly consumed through the products and services that money provides.. Why not go along with the laboring process? Keep throwing more people into the world to be enculturated to labor to get the means to survive and consume to your desires content (or find a better way if you can't!). But is this not coercion par excellence?

My main point though is that ALL political systems need to take into account that birth itself is not for the individual. It never was FROM BIRTH. We are society's little maintainers and developers- each and everyone of us.. brought about through the pride of the family unit, sacrificed to the alter of social continuation and development through the labors we provide (using the trickery of consumption which deceptively keeps us laboring).

@Bitter Crank

Any responses to this?

Nature just wants us to keep laboring. :wink: — Harry Hindu

Yes, good thing we can actively work against this by passively not having children.