Critic on Leo's Blog Post (Escaping Wage Slavery)

[Philipp]

To be direct. I don't like the individualistic advice he gives on economical problems such as wage slavery, because they are often very individualistic and could never work for a population ( his advice goes something like "Create your own Business, create value for others, profit"). It should be clear for all that it is not possible for all have their successful business, that make lots of money and allows the  consumtion of massive amounts of ressources). Even worse, this individualistic attitude towards the economy is basically the reason why capitalism and wage slavery exists in the first place. 

It reminds me so much of this lone wolf attitude, and a "me first" attitude and is highly dysfunctional if a whole population has this attitude and will always only make a small percentage of people priviledged to escape soul draining work life. 

It think you should always advice for scalable and solutions that could actually work on a population level, especially if his advice otherwise is also having a good, moral, loving life. 

To keep it short, I just wished he would advocate instead for more collective efforts  such as Creating Co-op and Purpose driven companies, that are not profit driven.

Also Minimalism is an actual escape out of wage slavery that is scalable. I mean advocating to just earn lots of money, in order to not have to work anymore, will never work for everyone, because where should all those ressources for your house, car and lifestyle come from? (it will never work for everyone). Minimalism on the other hand actually proposes a good life, whilst reducing the use of ressources and thus could allow a good life for all.

At the end of the day Leo wants to be a moral leader and that why I think his advice should be actual solution to the economic system, instead of individualistic "Get out of it and don't look behind" advice. 

Whats your thoughts on Leo economic and buisnes advice? Do you think they are immoral from societal point of view? 

[snowyowl]

I get what you're saying, in fact Leo elsewhere is an advocate of big government to provide decent public services like education, health, welfare etc. As well as keeping the private businesses in check. That needs talented people to work in the public sector, big organisations, as employees rather than starting their own business. 'Wage slave' is a loaded term, and doesn't apply to everyone. I'm very happy working for a big public sector organisation myself. The ancient Greeks had it right: know thyself. 

Edited January 26, 2021 by snowyowl

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Philipp said:

and could never work for a population

Lol

Of course! Escaping wage slavery or being a millionaire cannot scale across the whole society by definition.

Do not confuse my biz advice for national economic policy. My biz advice is geared towards the top 1% of mankind who actually care to be creative.

My advice will never scale across the entire population. And neither will enlightenment. If everyone in society became enlightened civilization would collapse. But this is not a problem because less than 1% even care about enlightenment. Likewise, less than 1% even care about starting a biz, let alone willing to do the necessary work.

None of this makes my biz advice dysfunctional, as you say. It's super functional and helps advance mankind of you do it right.

My biz advice does not contradict starting a co-op. And my advice is not about maximizing profits.

I do not give stage Orange biz advice. But nor does my biz advice fit your utopian Green socialist ideals, since that is nonesense which does not work in the real world.

It is you who is actually tainting the creative process by trying to inject politics into it.

My biz advice is apolitical.

You should also understand that we live within a certain system (capitalism) and you must work within this system, not your fantasies. You can try to change the system, but until that is actualized you're still operating within the old system, and there's no way to escape that.

[Lyubov]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If everyone in society became enlightened civilization would collapse.

bold statement. perhaps agnostic to what would actually play out if this were to occur.

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, Lyubov said:

bold statement. perhaps agnostic to what would actually play out if this were to occur.

Not bold at all. Just common sense.

Civilization is built on wage slavery and unconsciousness.

Why do you think so few people care about enlightenment? It's not some accident. It's absolutely central to civilization's survival.

[Lyubov]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Not bold at all. Just common sense.

Civilization is built on wage slavery and unconsciousness.

Oh, so you mean just current civilization? In that case yes, but I think it would likely transition or scale over in some form. 

[Leo Gura]

You should realize most things in society do not scale across all of society.

For example, if everyone became a plumber, civilization would die out. But that does not mean there's anything wrong with you pursuing a lucrative plumbing career.

Society requires lots of specialized roles that are not meant to scale.

We don't need 100% entrepreneurs. That would be as stupid as trying to get 100% plumbers or dentists.

[Thought Art]

Nothing Wrong with Creating a lot of value in the world.... Even if you are still a wage slave. Knowing who you are and what you want to create in the world, and working hard to create that value is very much needed.

[Philipp]

Well since the problem of meaningless work,  poor payment, and no free time (my definition of wage slavery) is definitely a societal problem, I would hope there is a solution that can scale to all.

I personally have a problem with profit driven businesses (except if they are small scale or self-employed) , because they are giant structure which funnel year after year cash into individuals and people wonder why there is such wealth inequality. Well its the f* buisnesses 

That being said, if one is highly creative and wants to sell his creativity in a self employed fashion, there is nothing wrong with that. You would probably say your advice targets these individuals, but I often get the feeling your advice sounds more like a applicable to all "start your business and get rich". 

I mean if you want to  get rich, you can even just sell things on amazon, but it is also about how you get rich. Starting your own buisness can often lead to moral dilemnas especially in this competitive "winner takes all" environment. As soon as you want investors, you can also pack up your morals. Minimalism, Tiny house, etc.  on the other hand offers a solution to this soul draining modern work life that does have this problem. 

Anyways thanks for the reply and I am looking forward to your next video! Thanks

[Lyubov]

I'm just speculating but as consciousness rises across populations I'm guessing a lot of automation will take over a lot of jobs no one wants to do and different sorts of policy will be put into place to ensure everyone gets education, food, safety, etc. I don't think exploitation is an absolute requirement for civilization to form. Alternatives just have not been invented yet and we are far from (hundreds of years) anything resembling a utopia. 

Edited January 27, 2021 by Lyubov

[Leo Gura]

@Lyubov It's not a requirement in some absolute sense. It's a systemic feature of current civilization. In 1000 years everything will change. But you are living now, not then.

[Preety_India]

Awesome post/thread. 

 

 

[Parththakkar12]

@Philipp My man, what you are asking for is a change in the very structure of how collective egos work. You are asking for a world in which the priority of the collective is growth, creation, expansion, peace, contribution as opposed to brute survival. This will require radical changes in the level of consciousness of mankind, radical changes in the metaphysical and epistemic control-structures of society.

Wage-slavery is much deeper than working a job you hate. What it really is, is survivalism. A survival-strategy that is survivalistic, i.e. prioritizes survival above everything else. You can have other survival-strategies that are not survivalistic, i.e. that prioritize growth/expansion above survival. All you need for survival is a survival-strategy that works. It doesn't necessarily have to prioritize survival! Back to the point.

On an individual level, getting out of wage-slavery and doing something you love and that contributes something meaningful to mankind is the equivalent of replacing a survivalistic survival-strategy with a growth-based survival-strategy. I'm going to give you a clue on what to do about this - If you want to solve the collective issue of wage-slavery, you want to look for a way to scale this up to the collective level. You want to create collective survival-strategies that prioritize collective growth above collective survival!

You could start at home, in your relationships. That'll show you how challenging this really is. Say you're a wage-slave providing for a wife and you're wanting to break out of wage-slavery. How easy will it be for your wife to be on board with you escaping wage-slavery? Pretty darn difficult. Now, if the collective, that is the couple that is you and your wife, has agreed upon a growth-based survival-strategy beforehand, your wife will be all for you escaping wage-slavery and pursuing your dreams! But, that's far too uncommon. This is because the collective survival-strategy of the collective, which is the couple, is survivalistic. This is why there will be so much resistance to you escaping wage-slavery. This is why they will try to enslave you.

[Philipp]

 @Parththakkar12  Honestly our collective survival has been a lot more than physical survival for a lot of time. It all about pleasure nowadays. Or if you want survival of this identity is still present. But there are so many people, who just are sick of the capitalistic work life. Most young people want more meaning in there jobs. And I think there should be solutions for them. It must not be a solution that scales to the whole population, but at lest a solution for the 5-10% who care about meaningful work. 

At the end of the day I am just disappointed with Leo on this economic aspects, because his solution is not sustainable. 

You can be creative and make your contribution without accumulating ressources.

I would like to see leaders who promote a humble life. Who show me how I can have a meaningful work life without trying to become a millionaire. 

I want to see leaders who advocate or create the new economic structures we need instead of promoting using the old ones. 

Wage slavery is not just survival. Wage slavery is definitly opression. Opression maintained in our current economic structur

Am I the only one bothered with the spiritual path in which you should also become a millionaire? You simply lose a lot of time chasing money and strengthening your selfishness and attachments AND it is immoral to use so many ressources, especially today where you ressources come from some southern country where people get completly exploited. I am sorry we live in an imperialist system here in the west, which has been priviledged anyways with excessive amounts of ressources and now trying to consum even more is just absurdly egotistical (well it may seem normal to you). 

I think a spiritual leader should promote a path, that is actually good for the planet, that is accessible for those 5-10%  (even if it is just meaningfull work and not enlightenment there are after) and this means that we should promote alternative ways of living, instead of a "Get rich and escape society" mentality. 

@Preety_India Why haha?

 

[Preety_India]

@Philipp this thought did come to my mind at some point. I'm glad you made the post.