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Food is literally free
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2025
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Antiwork
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We're trying to reduce the numbers of hours a person has to work.
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We talk about the end of paid work being mandatory for survival.
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Big "Yet you participate in society" vibes on this one.
Tell me: How does agriculture require private property?
You can have agriculture without private property, sure. You CAN'T have food without work. Or devices for shitposting without work. No housing without work.
Work, and needing to work to survive, is not unnatural, hoarding the results is.
I think the second post explains how their definition of "work" differs from yours.
I think they define "work" as wage-labour.
Maybe, but then if you abolish wage-labour, you just have a different type of work needed to survive. Either you're going off-grid and living all on your own, which would mean you don't have a lot, but you're truly independent - or you're part of a society where you don't get paid a wage, but instead receive certain living conditions similar to everyone else's, and you're expected to work to the best of your ability.
Yes, working for a wage is unnatural. But then being part of a large society with super specialized roles is unnatural. We've been doing unnatural for thousands of years now.
The point is that this kind of work is less alienating.
I'm not arguing for that, since it's not a realistic scenario.
Cool, where do I sign up?
I don't want to succumb to the naturalistic fallacy here. I think it makes people miserable, since it runs counter to our brain structure. I don't think you can say the same thing about large societies (the amount of people you interact with has a natural limit and there's a natural need for humans to be social).
The top comment in the posted image is just stupid, food takes work, like a lot of work. Whether the land is private/public/something else, it takes a lot of work to maintain a steady supply of food.
It really doesn't tho, not inherently. I've worked ag throughout my life and there's nothing about food production in and of itself that's quantitatively a lot of work.
The hardest it gets historically is subsistence farming with no commons/wilds, and that generally isn't gonna be close to the 2,000 hours of labor a year that we now consider the minimum. Hunter/gatherer is gonna average less than 4 hours a day (large variations globally and historically ofc). In a well-maintained food forest even less than that.
Technology has increased food production efficiency like a thousandfold, to where a single person's worth of labor can produce enough food for dozens to hundreds of people.
What is a lot of work, though, is being forced to produce surplus value for a non-working owner class. That held true for the peasants working 1,000-1,500 hours a year to feed themselves and their lords, and it holds true for the workers currently working 2,000-4,000 a year to feed themselves and fatten bosses and landlords. That's the whole point of the post, to describe the enclosure of the commons.
Yes, food takes a lot of work. But we're a lot of people with very advanced technology. If we got rid of a few bullshit and counter-productive jobs, the work each and everyone of us would have to do would vanish in comparison to today's hustle culture.
I think the problem with your messaging here is because it focuses more on the fact that we could restructure society to meet people's needs rather than profits, but your post doesn't really describe how we get from here to there. Obviously agitprop is short and oversimplified, but some subjects work better with added context.
I wasn’t making an argument for any particular economic system. Just pointing out the absurdity of the idea that food is “free” or doesn’t require work to produce.
I’m for an equitable distribution of resources and drudgery. Unfortunately, drudgery is an unavoidable aspect of civilization, but I think we can all agree that civilization is (or should be) a net positive. We just need to spread it out evenly.
A lot of food actually is free. The commons supported a lot of people in the middle ages with nuts, berries and orchards.
The point was that private property is what creates the drudge.
If it requires labour, it's not free.
My dude, have you ever tried to grow food in a garden, or forage enough for a meal? It's extremely hard work. You could argue that those who work the land deserve to own the means of their produce, but you can't claim food is free.
You're right. It should be free, though. (As in free beer)
I'm not even sure if it should be "free". Something that is inherently free implies a lack of value, it's belittling to the workers who produce that food.
I think a better way to phrase it is that society should work together to provide the basic needs to those who participate in said society.
That's the bourgeois ideology talking. If I invite friends to dinner, they receive the food for free, but they sure don't think it's worthless.
So guests should go hungry?
How?
A guest invited to a home for food does not believe that food is inherently free.
What is a guest in reference to a society?
You're equating the concept of monetary value with general value. That those two things are inherently the same is a core belief of liberal/bourgeois ideology and IMHO: false.
What if the food was scavenged?
Let's say a traveler who is not from here and isn't part of the society I live in.
No, you're just equating the concept of "free" in a purely monetary sense and completely ignoring the value of things like labour.
Even in this pedantic disconnected argument it still cost someone time and labour...
And they are refusing to participate in your society while still engaging with it? I don't think thats really possible, and even if it was I don't really see how it conflicts with socialism.
Lenin believed in the mandate that every able body person contribute before they reaped the benefits of socialism.
I'd argue that this framework was meant by the original post. "Food is free until someone built a fence around it" imho means: you didn't pay until the fence came.
The post acknowledges that work is necessary in the second post. The original post was purely about the "free as in beer" concept. No one who reads "free beer" thinks that the beer just materialized.
That wasn't the point. The point was: will my guests in this scenario where I cook (scavenged) food for them think the food is worthless because they didn't pay for it (i.e. it was free)?
It's not about "refusing". It's about not being part of the society until they arrived and needed food for their travels.
Since when am I arguing against socialism? Food not being gatekept by exchange of monetary value is something that should be the case in socialism, imho.
Ah, you're bringing up Lenin quotes all of a sudden. That explains the weird arguments you made. Let's just say I don't agree with Lenin's view of how "parasitic" humanity behaves. I don't think you need compulsion to make the vast majority of people chip in (once they don't see themselves as rivals in a capitalist ecosystem, that is).
Right, it's a claim made on a baseless assumption. People didn't build a fence around some berry shrubs in the mountains. They built a fence around agricultural works, which have never been "free".
I don't think it really establishes that at all.
I don't think this is as popular of a concept as you appear to think it is?
If we're talking about advertising.... No one actually thinks the beer is free at all.
My point is that a guest wouldn't really assume it to be inherently free. They would acknowledge that you spent your time and effort to prepare it and do their best to appreciate it and not be wasteful.
Again you are only addressing value as a monetary transaction.
Yes, but are they planning to participate in the society, or just traveling?
There is nothing in socialism that says a society is responsible for providing basic need to tourists.
You do realize what instance your on?
It's not about gatekeeping..... It's about providing the basic needs for the most amount of people as possible. Something you can't do without creating a productive society.
What do you think the .ml stands for?
Lol, it's not that people are parasitic..... We just haven't reached post scarcity yet. Meaning everyone must contribute to the best of their ability.
Who said anything about compulsion? We're talking about creating enough resources to provide for everyone in society. If we haven't reached post scarcity, meaning there still isn't enough for everyone to go around. Of course able-bodied people should do their best to help, and if able-bodied people refuse to contribute then of course they should not reap the benefit of other peoples labour before the worker themselves.
Yes, they did.
People enclosed the commons, which included forests (as an example).
It opens up the distinction between overcoming adversities and extending oneself (your definitionof "work" and wage labour (what they called "work").
What do you mean? "Free as in beer" is a common phrase to refer to "gratis", as opposed to "free as in speech".
Beer can be free as in: I can drink it without paying. I'm using Linux or wikipedia without paying either (although I donate).
So why should people not value food if they don't have to pay for it, then? You claimed "free food" makes people not value food, but now you claim that's not the case when I invite guests.
Which is what's meant when I say "free food".
I usually wouldn't care. Even if there were 24/7 "tourists", most people have the urge to participate in society somehow.
I disagree. "To each according to their need, from each according to their ability" doesn't negate the needs of travelers to eat. (I said traveler - you made them "tourists" for some reason).
So? Have I somehow claimed I'm against socialism?
You're effectively argueing that society can't be productive without gatekeeping food, then? Care to prove that statement?
I'm not constantly checking the instance I'm on and the instance the other person is on. I don't want to assume and I'm lazy.
We could live in post-scarcity with the current development of productive forces, though.
You were implying it by gatekeeping food.
Ahh yes, who could forget when we fenced the mountains to purge the land of the hunter and gatherer societies....
The commons were still worked..... It wasn't just an open field of free food. People raised livestock and farmed the commons, the land itself was just collective. Whether or not land should be collectively owned is not what we're talking about.
Again.... That doesn't really correlate to the original claim.
Common in a specific field of open source software......
The tech field is not an accurate simulation of actual reality....who would have thought? I swear, programming gives people a brain disease that makes them incapable of thinking outside of digital space.
No, I said there is no such thing as inherently free food. My example that guest wouldn't waste your food even if they weren't paying for it supports the argument I've been making the whole time.
And that is why everyone is disagreeing with you. Claiming that food was free before people put a fence around it is nonsensical with your definition, and incorrect when evaluated by other means.
Then it wouldn't conflict with my statement.
What about being a "traveler" affects their ability to participate?
You questioned why a brought it up.......
Lol, you do understand that food has to be produced by workers? And those workers have other basic needs that need to be met by other workers in other areas of production?
Society can't be productive without workers.... Workers who reap the benefits of their own production. Should farmers be the only workers to just be forced to endlessly work once their own needs are met?
You're effectively arguing that farmers should be slaves to the land while others are free to contribute as they please.
Then you can't question the relevancy of a certain argument if you're too lazy to be aware of the context of your surroundings.
Possibly? If we rearranged the global economy and enforced strict centralization and productivity..... But even then, the standards of living would be incredibly low compared to what most westerners are accustomed too, and you would have much less leisure time.
By that definition you are compelling people to work the fields......
I don't feellike responding anymore if you're strawmanning and writing novels at the same time.
Lol, like labour is somehow disconnected from cost and value......
You could not just go out into a random field in the common and harvest crops someone else planted even though the commons were collectively owned.
Because your claims are indefensible. Have a good one.
I'm sure thateapplies to the strawman you built of me. Have fun feeling superior to that guy.
Lol, there's no logical fallacy. You just don't understand what you're talking about.
You're making up stuff that I never said. Claiming I think that stuff just materializes, or whatever. That's the definitioneof a strawman.
Then you claim that software comes from somewhere that's not "reality".
I'm sure the weird projectioneof me that you got in your head doesn't know what they're talking about. But that homie is diverging from me by that much that I don't see the point in arguing any longer.
You already wished me "a good one". So please try to stop insulting me.
I thought you were done responding.....
"Or whatever" doing a lot of work here. I didn't say you think stuff materializes. I'm claiming that you don't care about the people who grow the food that you think is inherently free.
Your claim that food shouldn't be "gatekept to force people to work" implies that workers should be forced to grow food for people who will not contribute to the well being of people growing the food.
Just because you have not fully thought out your own claim doesn't mean I'm engaging with a straw man argument when I point that out.... You just think that because you don't know what you are talking about.
Is pedantry just a base reaction for you? Do I have to explain the difference between physical and metaphysical to you? Do you think that the social environment of digital space accurately reflects the social space of the physical world?
You keep saying that.....
Stop responding with terrible rebuttals?
So you agree with me that you're just insulting me. At least you're kind of honest.
You made up about 90% of my "terrible rebuttals". Like that I think that farmers should be forced to do anything. I'd explain it to you, but you have more interest in dunking on some weird phantom based on my post.
Edit: gonna block you now. Have fun getting the last word which I won't read.
Lol