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.
