I kinda went on a little research spree on economics this afternoon but at one point I figured it’s probably good to know if it’s possible for, say, at least 98% of people on earth to live a happy fulfilled life at all.
I know there’s plenty of people who’d be more than happy to have literally nothing more than a house, food and water, but that still leaves a whole lot of people who want other things in life.
Do we have any metrics or data on wether the earth can sustain roughly 8 billion humans?
Yes, there is. The problem is that the rich hoard resources, like a dragon sitting on a pile of gold. This is a feature of capitalism.
It’s kind of a feature of humanity. That’s been going on since there were resources to hoard, and any people with the capability and will to hoard them.
Money is a placeholder for labor. If you distribute all their money, the same labor needs to get done.
It absolutely helps, but it can’t make everyone rich because by definition “rich” requires living off the work of others. (I’m using the word rich losely to mean comfortable.) What it can do is raise the bottom 10% out of poverty.
The US consumes at a level unsustainable by the Earth. Bezos’s billions doesn’t mean he consumes a billion cheeseburgers a day. His personal waste is huge but tiny when compared the the total of 350m Americans.
I don’t agree with this.
We as a society are productive enough that we could absolutely work a lot less individually and still have all our needs and comforts met (which is what the OP was asking)
don’t forget the 1/3rd or sonething of all food harvested and cooked and packaged and shipped that gets thrown into dumpsters that the same billionare’s stolen capital “safeguard” from those impoverished and starving. we could sustain more people by literally not throwing actual food into actual trash.
It’s not just food, either. There’s tons and tons of clothing and just “discontinued” products that are destroyed.
Luxury goods are so wasteful. A $5,000.00 handbag costs as much to make as a $50.00 bag. It’s all in the name.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes that extra money buys ethical labor practices, sustainable material sourcing, quality workmanship and item longevity. Not always, there are plenty of scammy “luxury” goods, but there are plenty of brands that are considered luxury simply because they aren’t fast fashion and are buy-it-for-life quality.
While this is all theoretical, I agree with you. I think there are so many jobs that either currently don’t need to exist or jobs that could be replaced with robots or AI in the near future that it frees up people to focus on culture and innovation. Instead of focusing on maximum output, we can create only what is needed and let people relax more and enjoy life. Imagine instead of 1 person working 40 hours a week, you have 4 people working 10 hours a week. Everyone can contribute and also have plenty of time for themselves. This of course is only possible with guaranteed food and shelter for all. But one can dream.
The lowest-hanging fruit are jobs that exist solely to work against other jobs, e.g. the entire health insurance industry vs. literally every medical professional.
As someone who works in healthcare, I couldn’t agree more. I’ll be very happy to give up my job if it means we can all have healthcare.
You’re the same as literally every other person in the field with whom I’ve ever talked to about this. And it’s been a lot.
Rich and comfortable are definitely not synonyms. Rich is a relative descriptor that basically means to have more than other people, so obviously, we can’t all be rich. Comfortable is a state descriptor - shelter, food & clothing needs met, children provided for, time and resources for relaxation - everyone can have that.
Billionaires don’t earn their money though. It’s stolen in the form of low wages and denied pay increases.
Not really. Billionaires don’t have a checking account with billions of dollars in it that they stole from their workers. The vast majority of their wealth is locked in non-liquid investment vehicles. If they actually tried to cash those in at once, they’d only get a fraction of that wealth.
The big problem is banks will loan them money based on those non-liquid assets and it’s not taxed as income.
That value could be dispensed fairly to workers. Jeff Bezos essentially gets paid in AMZN stock, and there’s no reason that stock could not be dispensed to workers just the same. 10, 100, 1000 shares to each of the 1M employees, every year. The fact that Bezos and his fellow capitalists have kept all of the business value to themselves and not shared it with their workers is how they have hoarded/stolen the value of their employees’ labor.
This sounds like some theory you find in a school textbook that doesnt match reality…
Most people just need somewhere to live and enough food to have the basics met. We dont need to be Jeff Bezoz. But so many people dont even have the basics.
If we were a group living in the jungle, it would be like one of us owning a proper house with maids and others sleeping in tents.
That one guy would quickly be dragged out and made to sleep with the pigs because of his greedy selfish behavior, while the house would be shared by everyone else so they can also be comfortable.
That is what is fair. We know society is extreamly unfair now and it will continue to become even more so, because the power to actually do something physical about it has disappeared in this age. Before, you would have revolutions.
Providing the basics is why I said taking the wealth and giving it to the poor would work.
However “comfortable” is middle class, the majority of the US population, and that’s not ecologically sustainable.
No.
First of all, it takes just as much labor to make a product that lasts fifty years as it does to make a product that lasts five years. Most things today are designed to fall apart and be replaced. If we made cars and appliances that lasted, there’d be less demand for new things. A lot of the current economy is designed to be wasteful.
Second, they’ve already detected asteroids that are loaded with all the minerals we’d need. Back at the height of the Veitnam War the US was launching a Gemini mission about six times a year. Getting people up there might take a decade, but the payoff would be worth it.
Finally, OP didn’t say ‘rich’ they said ‘comfortable.’
We do. Cars especially, today, are vastly more efficient, reliable, longer-lived, and safer than cars even 30 years ago. Appliances, too.
While product obsolescence and built to expire is a huge problem, it is absolutely untrue to the point of absurdity to claim that making a product that lasts 50 years costs the same as a 5 year lifespan product.
We don’t even have the materials science to engineer an led diode that doesn’t decrease in brightness over 50 years to be able to build one. You can beef up the components and heat sinks so they last 20, but the emitter will still be a fraction of its original brightness. The same goes for everything else.
Back in the day, people could take tubes from their TVs and radios to a shop, test them, and buy replacement parts. How much tech do you own that can be easily replaced with a screwdriver?
Look at things like furniture and clothing. If you paid half a dollar for a shirt in 1930, you expected to be able to wear it to the coal mine every day for years. When was the last time you saw shoes for sale that could be resoled?
Did you learn that from me? I posted it a few weeks ago:
https://lemmy.world/comment/18518488
Sorry, but no.
It was a super common thing; plenty of places had them. Talk to any CRT or old radio enthusiast, or anyone over 55, and they’ll tell you about it.
Ah yes labor must exist in the context of wealth generation…
I’m just saying average Americans, the comfortable class, exist on the backs of millions of global workers living in poverty.
The claim that everyone can live like a fat American isn’t ecologically sustainable.
Just Americans, eh? The poor here in America also exist on the backs of global workers living in poverty because of the rich. We absolutely could all have food and shelter and healthcare. If that’s what you think fat Americans have I’ve got bad news for you, bud.
People tend to forget about that part. Money is what is exchanged with you for your labor and then you exchange that for goods. Sure an increase in funds would mean a bunch of people could live better for a while. But then trash would pile up, waste water would become a monumental issue. A lot of gross, vile, disgusting, and extremely necessary work would suddenly stop getting done.
Everyone likes to pretend that they’d be willing to step up and tackle those jobs. But they really won’t. I’m positive that the percentage of people willing to do those jobs for enough resources to live comfortably is in the single digits. I know damn sure the amount of doctors willing to work for a one bedroom, one car, and enough food living situation is in the single digits.
There are people picking up trash, cleaning restrooms, changing bed pans, repairing infrastructure, teaching children how to read, giving legal aid and providing medical care all for free. It’s called volunteering and millions upon millions upon millions of people do it every day. Hospitals, schools, soup kitchens, nature conservancies, youth sports, and museums all rely heavily upon volunteers. Organizations like Habit for Humanity, Doctors without boarders, Red Cross, Red Crescent, Meals on Wheels, Second Harvest, and Rotary International are largely staffed by volunteers. Those who give of themselves know this to be true.