10 Reasons why you should not have a job

I have not had a job now for 12 years. My worst nightmare would be to have one.

Here is the best - meaning well argued - set of reasons for not having a job. This is not just a polemic but a shrewdly argued logical piece that is also bruatlly funny  as you see what you gave up to have a job.  Thanks to Euan Semple, another escapee from Jobland, who found this at Steve Pavlina's site.  Snip - The bits I liked the best were about being either a free person or a slave. I have just given you a taste - the full list is special.

3. Lifelong domestication.

Getting a job is like enrolling in a human domestication program.  You learn how to be a good pet.

4. Too many mouths to feed.

Employee income is the most heavily taxed there is.  In the USA you can expect that about half your salary will go to taxes.  The tax system is designed to disguise how much you’re really giving up because some of those taxes are paid by your employer, and some are deducted from your paycheck.

5. Way too risky.

Many employees believe that getting a job is the safest and most secure way to support themselves.

Morons. Social conditioning is amazing.  It’s so good it can even get people believing the exact opposite of the truth. Does putting yourself in a position where someone else can turn off all your income just by saying two words (i.e. “you’re fired”) sound like a safe and secure situation to you?  Does having only one income stream honestly sound more secure than having 10?

9. Loss of freedom.

It takes a lot of effort to tame a human being into an employee. The first thing you have to do is break the human’s independent will. A good way to do this is to give them a weighty policy manual filled with nonsensical rules and regulations.  This leads the new employee to become more obedient, fearing that s/he could be disciplined at any minute for something incomprehensible.  Thus, the employee will likely conclude it’s safest to simply obey the master’s commands without question.

10. Becoming a coward.

Have you noticed that employed people have an almost endless capacity to whine about the problems at their companies?  But they don’t really want solutions – they just want to vent and make excuses why it’s all someone else’s problem.  It’s as if getting a job somehow drains all the free will out of people and turns them into spineless cowards.  If you can’t call your boss a jerk now and then without fear of getting fired, you’re no longer free.  You’ve become your master’s property.

When you work around cowards all day long, don’t you think it’s going to rub off on you?  Of course it will.  It’s only a matter of time before you sacrifice the noblest parts of your humanity on the altar of fear:  first courage… then honesty… then honor and integrity… and finally your independent will.  You sold your humanity for nothing but an illusion.  And now your greatest fear is discovering the truth of what you’ve become.

PS Craig Jones - sent me this link that expands the debate of not having a job - the essence being that there is work & life and then there are jobs that diminish life. Snip --

Welcome to CLAWS at whywork.org. We're a pro-leisure and anti-wage-slavery group of people dedicated to exploring the question: why work? This site provides information, support, and resources for those looking for alternatives to traditional employment.

We actively promote alternatives to the wage slavery mindset and what we call "The Cult of the Job" which automatically equates having a job with making a living.

If you start asking yourself "why work?" you may see a connection between wage slavery, misunderstandings of leisure, lifestyles based on consumption, corporate welfare, education that often amounts to little more than conditioning, and the global social, environmental, and economic crises we are now facing. We hope that the materials we feature here will encourage critical thinking about such things. This site is primarily about ideas and encouragement, so our focus is more philosophical than practical. However, ideas and action go hand-in-hand, so we're currently expanding the "practicality" sections.

Comments

[Euan]

It's funny you know - I thought the list was pretty good but some commenters thought it was crap!

[Robert Paterson]

Hey Euan
There is such a logic to this list - it would be interesting to ask the detractors to refute the points

Bit like Luther and Heresy - "Show me where in the Gospels there is any mention of Indulgences and I will recant"
Rob

[Sebastian]

I love this list. How true. I just took on a one year contract, framed as a full-time employment and I am already feeling the walls closing in on me.....

[Willie]

After owning a company for many years I am now among the people without jobs. 2 months and loving it so far. Great post!

[mattbg]

I definitely agree with the sentiment of the post, but the efficiencies and scale of a well-run organization (vs. the inefficiencies of duplicating all of the overhead again to form your own business) can sometimes allow you to accomplish and experience things that you would rarely accomplish on your own, or by owning a small company.

But it's never as satisfying. And, many organizations are toxic.

Also, let's not forget that there are people who are cut out to run their own business and crave that autonomy and people who are/do not. It's not for everyone, and a large number of small businesses don't succeed.

[Rob Paterson]

My question Matt is that if you need scale - why default to the machine design that cannot cope with complexity - why no go for the network where many small are linked into a large?

[mattbg]

Rob, I agree with you that the idea of a loose network of small businesses coming together to perform a task sounds like a very ideal way of doing things.

I just don't know how many opportunities are available today for those types of networks. I don't think the illusion of the efficient corporate machine has been completely broken yet, and the loose network idea isn't in a position to take over... yet. In the future, I imagine it will become important. Today, I'm not so sure. But, I haven't been out of school for that long and I still have a lot to learn.

Also, my opinions on this are clouded by my involvement in IT, which has many other problems beside being able to scale effectively :)