I never get this argument. “…with no clear reward or incentive.”, isn’t having electricity enough of a reward and incentive.
believe it or not, some people just find that shit interesting.
The issue is that we’re not talking about pitching in occasionally, we’re talking about like a full time job that you do for no pay. And the difference isn’t necessarily electricity on or off, maybe you end up with a skeleton crew that isn’t able to keep up with maintenance and the like, leading to more frequent outages.
And if your answer is mutual aid, then you’re basically just suggesting that everyone gets paid via GoFundMe. Instead of a consistent salary, that you can spend on whatever you like you get whatever and however much the community decides to give you. You’d have to worry as much about making sure everyone knows that you’re keeping the lights on, as you do about actually keeping the lights on.
For many people the community recognition would be incentive enough.
Is everyone going to be recognized by everyone else? There’s so many thankless but essential jobs. I have no idea who works to keep my house powered now, and I’m not sure how I would.
Imo in the end most things would naturally balance out.
The fact is that there’s a certain demand for jobs and there’s a certain supply of people who are interested in those jobs, and what you’re suggesting is that the supply and demand is going to happen to line up perfectly for every job. There’s no reason why that would be the case. Of course you can just say, “well some people find garbage collection really fun” for any job but the chances that there will be exactly the right number of volunteers, who are willing to work that job 40 hours a week long term with no pay, for every single job that needs to exist, the chances of that are infinitesimally small. This just seems like wishful thinking. I don’t think we should set up systems where plan A is everyone being angels and plan B is society falls apart completely.
If something needs to be done reliably and consistently, then you need to make sure there are reliable and consistent incentives. I don’t see how it’s different from saying, “We should cut food stamps and let donations cover it.” Donations and volunteer work aren’t going to be as consistent as an actual program.
The issue is that we’re not talking about pitching in occasionally, we’re talking about like a full time job that you do for no pay. And the difference isn’t necessarily electricity on or off, maybe you end up with a skeleton crew that isn’t able to keep up with maintenance and the like, leading to more frequent outages.
And if your answer is mutual aid, then you’re basically just suggesting that everyone gets paid via GoFundMe. Instead of a consistent salary, that you can spend on whatever you like you get whatever and however much the community decides to give you. You’d have to worry as much about making sure everyone knows that you’re keeping the lights on, as you do about actually keeping the lights on.
Is everyone going to be recognized by everyone else? There’s so many thankless but essential jobs. I have no idea who works to keep my house powered now, and I’m not sure how I would.
The fact is that there’s a certain demand for jobs and there’s a certain supply of people who are interested in those jobs, and what you’re suggesting is that the supply and demand is going to happen to line up perfectly for every job. There’s no reason why that would be the case. Of course you can just say, “well some people find garbage collection really fun” for any job but the chances that there will be exactly the right number of volunteers, who are willing to work that job 40 hours a week long term with no pay, for every single job that needs to exist, the chances of that are infinitesimally small. This just seems like wishful thinking. I don’t think we should set up systems where plan A is everyone being angels and plan B is society falls apart completely.
If something needs to be done reliably and consistently, then you need to make sure there are reliable and consistent incentives. I don’t see how it’s different from saying, “We should cut food stamps and let donations cover it.” Donations and volunteer work aren’t going to be as consistent as an actual program.