Beyond the Wage System

[TBF]

There’s a famous quote that Frederic Jameson, among others, has repeated about how “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” I’d go a step further: it’s easier to imagine the end of capitalism than to imagine the end of work as we know it. Our imagination is so dominated by this one activity that it becomes difficult to imagine having a different relationship to it. Even on the left, there is an all-too-common assumption that we are laboring creatures, and that our dignity is tied up with our waged work.

Beyond the Wage System
Kathi Weeks ▪ November 9, 2015

Here’s my pitch for a universal basic income: it’s the best way I can think of at this juncture to respond to the inadequacies of the wage system. There are two basic inadequacies that I want to cover here: underwork and overwork.

The wage system is supposed to do two things. It’s supposed to be a mechanism for the accumulation of capital and profit, and I think it’s doing a pretty good job at that. But it’s also supposed to be a means for distributing income to the rest of us. And that’s where the problems start.

Here, again, there are two dimensions. Obviously, too many people are left out of the wage system as a mechanism for distributing income. Think about the levels of unemployment, which have always been necessary to the capitalist system as a way of maintaining economic “health.” Today’s “jobless recovery” is perhaps the most obvious sign that the wage system is not working ...

Much more here: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/beyond-wage-system-kathi-weeks-universal-basic-income