First of all, a basic income wouldn't be a disincentive for working, because it would only cover the basics, and human desire is infinite. People like consuming and going on vacations etc. These things only become possible (not to mention investing for the future), by means of additional, paid labour. Secondly, why automatically associate a basic income with "leisure", in other words laziness? There is something of the philistine in this kind of thinking. Is there no inherent value in reading philosophy, writing, painting? Why assume that nobody is interested in doing these things or could gradually acquire such intentions by sheer virtue of the fact that they actually have time for these activities? The entire edifice of Greek philosophy was based upon the leisure of a privileged caste. The time that they had to develop their ideas has been nourishing human civilisation for over two thousand years. Conversely, where is the dignity or the sense of fulfilment, the development of human potiential in sitting at a cash register all day? The obligatory 40-hour workweek is stultifying, when all is said and done a form of slavery. Most people are tired in the evenings, and their weekends are for recuperating, as though from an illness.
Cool Richard Sennett! I did't like the approach of asking the personal questions.. it was not ill mannered but still inpolite in the sence of how humane relationships should feel. Do you agree?
Kannte Sennett bisher nicht und auch nicht seine Werke. Seine Gedanken in diesem Interview ließen mich jedoch reichlich uninspiriert zurück. Außerdem finde ich es unangenehm wie er Yves Fragen wertet. Diese müssen ja nicht seine persönliche Meinung darstellen.
Das im Interview zuletzt erwähnte Buch "Building and Dwelling" fand ich sehr gehaltvoll, dagegen fällt dieses Interview erheblich ab. Ich glaube einerseits nicht, dass der Moderator es gelesen hat, andererseits haben vielleicht auch einfach nicht gut miteinander harmoniert - schade.
Sennett should live all spectrums @ 5 years each. 1st live with a family that is intact, not dysfuctional and watch them nuture a child musician. 2nd, live with a wealthy family that offers a child everything a child could want, but also helps the child with discipline, good grades. Then 3rd, live with a poor family, not dysfunctional, one parent, religious, who teaches the child to do chores, get average to good grades, and gives child a meger allowance, sometimes paid in rewards, like a movie, special birthday. Lastly, live with a family, uneducated in money, relationships, and with no child rearing skills, male or female, and parents who work menial labor or on welfare. Sennett will find that education and a stable homes, including a hobby for the child growing, will show no need for welfare or mass population of computer technology. He will find self reliant human primed to invent. Why not send welfare systems to the migrant's countries so that they can help themselves before they leave their country. Welfare is backwards in the USA since it no longer serves the people who pay into it. Welfare in the USA should be made to offer a new craft and made up of 7 yrs learning to enter a new job garunteed income, within a new state or city, only provided to it's citizens. Foodstamp and rent and a new trade ,only, and at the same resource, location of the school would they spend welfare. Only stipulation, the recipient has to keep the job for 7 yrs., or pay the system back with interest. Isn't that what prisons are "almost" doing? Sennett, why encourage welfare as it is set up? It doesn't work.
