Unfortunately I feel this is still a slippery slope and one that also even AES haven’t been very good at handling. Who decides what is “some way of contributing”? Is community work, emotional support, spreading knowledge about a hobby, some form of art a “valid” way to “earn one’s living”? And how much of those you would have to do? What happens if you are hindered? Who decides?
I think without a post-scarcity (or severely degrowth) economy, these will stay hard to find a common ground on.
That’s even explored (and partially left to the reader) in The Dispossessed. We’re told that in the anarchist Anarres the only thing that compels anyone to work (and do anything) is the social order, but what is considered worth and valid is relative, there are artists who struggle with social pressure and unable to get their work published (this is a bit of a pre-internet plot point heh). There’s a cautionary tale of someone who wrote a play that was critical of the social structure that people dunked on so hard he was put into/volunteered to be put into an asylum, then only made conformist slop (though this is told by a character that is trying to convince the main character that there are things wrong with the social structure)
Unfortunately I feel this is still a slippery slope and one that also even AES haven’t been very good at handling. Who decides what is “some way of contributing”? Is community work, emotional support, spreading knowledge about a hobby, some form of art a “valid” way to “earn one’s living”? And how much of those you would have to do? What happens if you are hindered? Who decides?
I think without a post-scarcity (or severely degrowth) economy, these will stay hard to find a common ground on.
That’s even explored (and partially left to the reader) in The Dispossessed. We’re told that in the anarchist Anarres the only thing that compels anyone to work (and do anything) is the social order, but what is considered worth and valid is relative, there are artists who struggle with social pressure and unable to get their work published (this is a bit of a pre-internet plot point heh). There’s a cautionary tale of someone who wrote a play that was critical of the social structure that people dunked on so hard he was put into/volunteered to be put into an asylum, then only made conformist slop (though this is told by a character that is trying to convince the main character that there are things wrong with the social structure)
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”