Would you work for free?

Originally posted by symmetricAvenger
The topic is about working for free... not communism, i think you are confusing the two aspects here....

It boils down to pretty much the same thing. YOU are confused.
If you don't get paid for your labors but instead your labors go to
help those who aren't working or are working less ... that's communism.

how hypercritical your own post are on this subject..

Ouch ... NOT! Get a grip.

Originally posted by symmetricAvenger
oh boy .. Wealth

That's the economic term for $$$, goods, property, etc.

Basic Economics 101 - the term is 'wealth'.
Obama uses it all the time - 'redistribute the wealth'
Wassa' matter ... didn't you go to college?

Originally posted by mortalengine
You must realise that you can only be wealthy and seek wealth as a desire by standing on the heads of your neighbours.

That's simply not true.

reply to post by Scooby Doo


I would work for free for a period of time if I really believed in the company and the people running it or if the company had a great mission.

I would pay the bills by working another job in my off hours, by cutting expenses, and maybe get my wife to work extra, etc.

reply to post by FlyersFan


No i think you are missing the point of the subject here!

we are talking about being ants... NO MONEY WHAT SO EVER...

Communism and wealth are both the same thing.. you work to make the people at the top who give you orders RICH.



did you stop to think what the thread in fact means? or are you going to just step out of the box..

I hope so.. as the thread is a good one and all you seem to be doing is bashing people with your narrow minded views on the subject at hand.

Now you can have your view correct and rightly so but at least understand were others are coming from also..

You see the funny part is you say that i am talking about communism when in fact. In most cases if not all in a "so called democratic system"

you all ready live in a communist apparatus... Just because you have the appearance of so called democracy does not entail it is in fact one

you should know you use a 2 party system... we have 3 in the UK and a queen as head of state

funny do you not think how people banter words about without understand the complex nature of

WEALTH

now feel free to freak out and use my words and then get frustrated

the thing we have to understand that money is just paper theres no reason why we should value it

all it is you work for say walmart and you work on deliverys getting evrything in

you do your work n get your bits of green paper of the
then you go to walmart whith your paper and the place your working for to get food drink tvs see what i mean

everbody that works at walmart are getting paid so your gettin the food and for doing it you can have some but only a little

what you think??

reply to post by Scooby Doo


No I dont agree to slavery. Sorry.

reply to post by awdbawl


Wow, very natural beauty IMHO.

Very pretty.

Had to say it....

reply to post by awdbawl


You are a slave. this is the point

Do you think using money makes you free? oh boy...

Money was made to keep you in control, Let me show you

Did you print the money? do you know why you get taxed?

Do you know that humans use to HUNT for food? do you know that little bit of paper is pointless? do you know the very system we are inside is about control and always has been?

Slave you say? the chains are not on your hands they are in your HEAD

This is the point...

You are only FREE if you take of them chains that are in your mind

This is what they want.. Life is always free water is free food is free

IF YOU GET OF YOUR REAR END AND GET IT

Or you can go to wallmart and be a mindless little drone and do the bidding of the very people you hate who tax you

YOU let them tax you

Tax? slave?

please...

reply to post by symmetricAvenger


very good point star for you

I would work for free if I knew it would increase my chances of not getting fired. I mean in this economy you really don't have a choice. Granted I'd want to know for how long I'd have to work for free and prefer that it was for a set time and that I had the money in the bank to do it.

reply to post by Scooby Doo


I bet all the managers, CEO,and the fat cats sipping the finest sonsai, smoking fat richard III cigars with there big fat bonuses and obscene pensions wouldnt work for free, so I certainly wouldnt

reply to post by tdrowe2008


Thank you sir

Work for free... sort of brings out the truth about how people see the economy, doesn't it? I'm gonna flag this thread if for nothing more than that one simple reason.

Now, would I be willing to work for free? Absolutely not! Never! But would I work for something other than money? That's a different question, and the one I believe we are actually addressing here.

There are more important things than money, and in abundance. For instance, there is security in the near term. Should my company be having trouble and ask me (along with everyone else) to work for a week or a month for free, they are not really asking me to work for free. They are asking me to work without financial compensation. I may well receive something for my labors, be that something personal satisfaction, future financial profits, job security, or even a favor from a supervisor I can call in later on. The point is that money is not the only method of payment.

Money is actually a hindrance to understanding societal rewards and evolution. We are used to being paid in money, spending that money for the things we need and want, and using that money to place a value on ourselves. This is the societal slavery that some have already mentioned. Money by itself is green (or in Canada, multicolored ) paper, nothing more and nothing less. You can't eat it. Unless that money has some sort of value by which it can be exchanged for goods and services which are useful, it by itself is useless. Want proof? Take a million dollars of Confederate currency to the supermarket and try to buy a can of beans. You won't have much luck, despite the fact that it is as much money as if it were a million dollars of US currency.

Where I live there is a family who is very wealthy. tney have untold acres of land, multi-million-dollar homes, vacation houses, shopping centers, and several businesses. they want for nothing, nor will their future generations do so for the foreseeable future. The wealth started many years ago during the Great Depression, when no one could afford to pay for services. Their ancestor was a family doctor in the area, and one of the poorest doctors as doctors go. But he would agree to treat anyone regardless of how much money they had for him. He would gladly take eggs, chickens, steaks, sometimes a cow, and occasionally, when the bill was huge, a plot of land in exchange for his services. He was obviously the most popular doctor around. As time wore on, all this accumulated good will and property was handed down to his children and then to their children, and as the economy improved, the things he accepted from those who could not pay became worth more in value, while the money he might have gotten became worth less. He became a multi-millionaire... by working for 'free'.

So my short answer is, no, I would not work for nothing, but the real answer is I would gladly work for things besides money, even if those things were promises of future profits. Of course, the actual financial position of my employer, an indication of how much faith I could reasonably have that the arrangement would save the company, would be a factor in my decision. Also, it would possibly affect my decision if certain high-ranking officials were not contributing their paychecks, an indication of deceit.

But my real concern is how many here seem to either place a monetary value on everything, rather than a true value, and how many people seem to think the system must be corrupt because they are not at the top. There is corruption, and plenty of it, in the corporate realm, but it does not follow that everyone who makes better than you financially is corrupt. That type of thinking will only make sure you never advance your own position in society.

TheRedneck

If one day we lived in a society that is based on service to others, where there is no such thing as money but a resource system, then yes, I would be happy to work for free. Free wouldn't even be a word anymore, it would be a concept, an ideal that is accepted by everyone.

reply to post by Scooby Doo


I'd like to add that IMO it should be illegal to fire people because they refuse to work without pay. That doesn't sound like fair grounds for termination. It's not like I can go a month without paying my bills. Where I live a tire factory went out of bussiness, they didn't dock peoples pay for a month before that happened. Either the government steps in or it's not important enough to. Can't tell me the country doesn't have enough money to provide aide for a major airport. Absolutley rediculous. I'd quit. I don't even care. That not reputable.

I agree with the guy who responded to me (sorry didn't check the name)
Yes I am a slave, without a doubt. I'm not unaware of that fact. I would love nothing more than to live in nature in a hunter gatherer society. I would even be willing to live in an intenional community. But I am scared to join one by myself and unfortunately I never met a like minded person. Anyone want to go live in nature with me? As of yet no-one has so I am stuck living in a money based society and as long as thats the case, I need money. At least my family needs money. I know my little brother needs snow tires this winter or he may die. You can't pic those off a tree, he needs a car to make money to buy food. He doesn't own his own property to grow some. To have the rights to live on a land you have to buy the land.

I don't know if you haven't checked but nature has been cut down and polluted, and you don't have many options these days. as far as running wild and being free. I sure am not going to be homeless alone, as a female. Sorry. Yes taxes are thievery but being stolen from is another matter.

I will not work for nothing. I would work for shelter, food, clothing and necessities. But for just plain nothing. No way. Not like that, not in that circumstance.

I don't think those people got any compensation. I don't think it's fair. I know we are slaves but people who get paid little or nothing all the more so.

[edit on 21-6-2009 by awdbawl]

[edit on 21-6-2009 by awdbawl]

[edit on 21-6-2009 by awdbawl]

I would work for 0$ if we didn't live in a monetary based society.

But we do. And working just to warm up doesn't pay the bills. So, a redundant no.

If you can't keep the business, British Airways, just shutdown! Yeah, people would lose their jobs. But would they lose that much, since you aren't paying a single cent for they workforce?

Into the ethical approach of this issue...

We, humans beings, are wasting around 40 years of our life to feed others and keep the status quo of our society: the rich ones even more rich, the poor ones even poorer. What if the workforce (us) just decided to stop one day? Time to rethink society, eh?

Well, any single mom who is doing a great job of rasing their child is working for free, out of LOVE mind you, but if the dad isn't paying for child support, and he would have to pay for a stranger to watch his child, but dosen't support the mother, I would say she is working for free, out of love.....

It doesn't take much introspection to realize most of what any of us do is a perversion. Lust, anger, greed, vanity, attachments, arrogance, selfishness pretty much drive our lives. They are part of the flushing of our imperfections. Above the perversions are such things a selflessness such as selfless service. While working for free is good a selfless service, there is little opportunity in a world of debt slavery. If the goal of the airlines is to get something for nothing it is hardly well intended. More a probe testing response. Volunteering time for the employer is robing someone else of their livelihood.

I worked for a well known software company once that actively promoted the "team spirit" propaganda. Older workers where looked down on as the reason the Japanese became successful as older workers where associated with unionism and a lack of company first commitment. I just shook my head and laughed to myself. In one department people worked 60 hours per week with photos of their children on their desks. They where praised as example "team members". The whims of the marketing department often drove the staff to last minute long hours. The moment the politics changed slightly and the department was "down sized" everyone of these great, noble example employees where fired in a heart beat.

People work too many hours as it is -- especially in the USA -- 40 hours is too much time. Way to much creative potential is lost because of it.

reply to post by symmetricAvenger


I agree with you that money is abused by many people and that many people "work" under others, and not for others.

But...even in such a system, it is better than manyy others. It is like being a slave, yet you still can get anything you want.

Or, you can be free and only have access to a limited amount.

Even though THAT is not entirely true, it would take whole generations to change the system for the slightest better.

Do humans think that much in the long term though?

[edit on 30-6-2009 by FritosBBQTwist]

reply to post by Scooby Doo


One of my jobs I would work for free. I'd work at PetSmart for free if it came down to it, for the good of the animals. My other job, at a bank...hell no. They've got enough money, pay me or lay me off. I will not work there for free.