“The entire development of wealth rests upon the creation of disposable time.”
—Karl Marx, Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft), 1857
“…real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time.”
“The saving of labour time [is] equal to an increase of free time, i.e. time for the full development of the individual, which in turn reacts back upon the productive power of labour as itself the greatest productive power.”
—The Grundrisse, 1857
“Labour-time, even if exchange-value is eliminated, always remains the creative substance of wealth and the measure of the cost of its production. But free time, disposable time, is wealth itself, partly for the enjoyment of the product, 3 partly for free activity which—unlike ‘ labour—is not dominated by the pressure of an extraneous purpose which must be fulfilled, and the fulfillment of which is regarded as a natural necessity or a social duty, according to one’s inclination. Karl Marx Theories of Surplus Value”
“Just as plants live from the earth, and animals live from the plants or | plant-eating animals, so does the part of society which possesses free time (disposable time not absorbed in the direct production of subsistence) live from the surplus labour of the workers. Wealth is therefore disposable time.” —Economic Manuscripts, 1861-1863
Not just propaganda but also psychological operations. It's literally in the name. Their logo colors AID in red [1] so that people think they are an aid organization which they have never been. The money allocated them went to bribing foreign officials, altering narratives, changing policies, blackmailing people, etc... It is very likely that the narratives about cutting funding to them affecting food or other aid programs was likely created by them in attempt to save their organization.
Their name actually stands for United States Agency for International Development
This is your point of view. Atul Gawande’s point of view is that USAID has saved >92M lives and that its discontinuation has killed hundreds of thousands, almost all of them in the Global South, and the evidence for this claim is peer-reviewed public health research [0]. I’m sure you have a point, but claiming that USAID was just a propaganda outfit is incomprehensible to me.
> has saved >92M lives and that its discontinuation has killed hundreds of thousands,
Neither the 92M nor "hundreds of thousands" numbers stand up to scrutiny.
A more objective statement would be "USSAID-funded programs have plausibly contributed to averting tens of millions of deaths over two decades. PEPFAR's ~25M is the best-evidenced single component and the abrupt 2025 dismantling is causing ongoing excess mortality whose true magnitude won't be known for years but is unlikely to be zero."
Even given that, your framing is misplaced because you're saying that if someone you have never met is dying and you don't help them you are killing them. That logic is severely flawed.
> A more objective statement would be "USSAID-funded programs have plausibly contributed to averting tens of millions of deaths over two decades. PEPFAR's ~25M is the best-evidenced single component and the abrupt 2025 dismantling is causing ongoing excess mortality whose true magnitude won't be known for years but is unlikely to be zero."
I think this is a fair critique overall. I was less concerned with a statement of absolute truth, and more with providing a claim that was better-justified than the parent of my original comment.
> Even given that, your framing is misplaced because you're saying that if someone you have never met is dying and you don't help them you are killing them. That logic is severely flawed.
I don't know how much I fundamentally disagree with you, but I have a few responses:
1) I think analogizing the US Government to "you" is questionable. I am one person, born into the universe with approximately zero resources and a finite lifespan. The US Government is approximately the most well-resourced organization on Planet Earth and is, for most intents and purposes, perpetual. If you have been voted into stewardship of this organization, I do not think deliberately ending a sub-program of your organization that prevents significant excess mortality at relatively low costs, while also advancing the political goals of your organization, is ethically neutral or better. Many people further believe that part of the bargain of delegating taxation and governance powers to these governmental forces is the accomplishment of pro-social goals like the prevention of death, but I understand this is not universally-held belief, and the election of someone who promised to cut USAID is basically tantamount to society "okay"-ing these preventable deaths.
2) I have given more than $10k USD to effective altruist charity funds, including Against Malaria, because I do think that people in the rich world have some moral responsibility to spend their resources on the betterment of others who were born into worse circumstances due to simple bad luck. That being said, I can't provide a lower bound at which point I start judging the non-largesse of others, and I think Peter Singer would argue that only having donated four months of my current rent to this goal makes me evil.
The parent wasn't trying to be comprehensible. They are propping up an unsupported fantasy with broadscale nonsense meant to unmoored and decouple people from reality.
There's a very very dark color of kool aid going around, that has no obligation to support itself or to show what reality is: that works to sabotage reality as best it can, casting inuendo and falsity at every reasonable thing out there.
Alas a lot of these people come by their participation in darkest disinformation quite humbly. Aren't plugged in, dont understand the disinformation they campaign for, but are hapless participants also digging deep to undermine society & reason & truth.
Strongly disagree.
USAID organized entrepreneurship programs in eastern europe when I was in high school and it's one of the reasons why I started my own business.
It was also a funnel for American tax dollars into the pockets of those who run the NGOs that facilitate it, who in turn funnel a portion back to our politicians in the form of donations.
It's the "aide", the thing that is accused of being a "veneer" that is the actual provably tanigble object of reality in all of this, and it was this indisputable reality that led the receipients of that aide to credit USAID for certain tangible improvements in their country. This in turn functioned as US propaganda and extended US soft power, two things that are much more intangible and volatile than physical and the tangible aide that created it. Where the "aide" tangibly resulted in worse conditions it functioned as anti-US propaganda, as it should do.
When the CIA and gov black ops use the US treasury as a vehicle for their nefarious operations do we also say that "The US treasury is just U.S. propaganda wrapped in a veneer of 'banking'"? We could but it would be useless in describing the US Treasury's operations in general accurately.
All this looks like abject infantilism when all the nefarious institutions that were using USAID as a vehicle for their blackops, the CIA etc, are still unaffected in pristine condition and are simply doing the same shit they were doing under USAID but now under a different government agency label. The CIA is laughing their ass off as these guys are blaming USAID for their own operations.
Wasn't the big idea China continuing it, and then getting the benefits of propaganda and regime change operations for itself? That was why everyone said cutting USAID was stupid.
Turns out China makes countries dependent on loans, then effectively colonizes countries, usually for resources. No aid for hearts and minds ...
Of course, that and the fact that it would reverse gains on things like AIDS, thus killing a lot of people.
America got to design the western world order after WWII, but Europe was happy to give it the reins at the time. America setting the agenda was realistically the only way to get all these countries to agree.
The whole "American Imperialism" narrative only came about much later. In reality Europe got a great deal, most countries got to set their own agenda, and the USSR was contained.
In it's original form, the Monroe Doctrine was anti-imperial. It's tone changed during America's brief flirtation with empire at the turn of the century.
But the idea of a modern American Empire (Post-WW2) defined by Bretton Woods and NATO only makes sense of one doesn't have perspective on what empires were like before.
The world order for after WW2 was designed before the war was over. Invasion plans were partially argued over based on what different countries wanted to ensure they controlled.
For example, Churchill wanted to go through the Baltic instead of Normandy so he could be sure Britain still controlled Greece
Is this one of those things where Americans ascribe all of the outrageously massive military machine of the US -- the vast majority of which has nothing to do with Europe (see: Being a subjugate vassal state of Israel, which almost always works against NATO goals, and in fact has just yields an unending stream of migrants towards Europe) -- and pretends it's all for Europe? In modern history the US has been the world's number one antagonist, and honestly NATO has been used as a backstop for US imperialism (precisely what the diddler in chief is trying to do this time too).
Right now the US should get kicked out of NATO. Every American base in Europe should be shuttered. Europe can nuke up -- precisely what America tried to avoid -- and we can enjoy the new nuclear powers of Germany, Poland, Canada, etc. Japan and South Korea might want to build some warheads too.
And hey look, the grifter halfwit wants to increase the military budget $500B and pull out of NATO. Almost like the trillion dollar budget isn't the grand act of benevolence very ill-informed, uneducated, foolish Americans delude themselves into believing.
In that light, it's going to be doubly-funny if Trump actually goes through with his threat to withdraw from NATO, at which point the A in NATO will stand for... Canada?
Maybe? Israel has wanted us to go to war in Iran since Reagan. They finally got a president stupid enough (or with sufficient leverage over) to do it. But I wouldn't say from the US's side that this has been in the works for decades.
We are all being investigated by the Feds 24/7 — that's what dragnet surveillance is: indiscriminate investigation at scale to be used retroactively.
"Don't do anything bad and nothing will happen" is frankly asinine to me, personally. That same logic could extend to stop-and-frisk or random door-to-door visits to check for citizenship.
Never trust news about the DPRK from South Korean spy agencies. It's only a matter of months before it's proven to be nonsense. They're the ones always saying crap like "North Koreans push their trains by hand" or "Kim Jong Un claims to have invented the hamburger." Only the most brainwashed westerners buy it, but it's enough to keep the DPRK hate at a simmer.
Interesting that the author doesn't mention a reduction in working hours as a solution because I see that as THE solution. Federally mandate an 18 hour work week and job demand will soar. It's just as fanciful a thought as his other suggestions given how little power we have over the federal government to exercise our will.
Our entire economic system is built around ensuring we have scarcities of necessities (housing, mostly) so workers need to outcompete their peers to have access to said necessities. This results in reduced work weeks being a non starters as those who would like to avail of them are outbid by those who forego them.
But I'm not sure that 40hrs is the sweet spot. Other countries have chosen differently (with comparisons difficult to draw).
There are several competing influences here: inflation, AI productivity gains (TBD but nonzero), existing legislation around health insurance obligations, social/economic inertia, etc. And definitely others I'm not smart enough to think of!
It'd be interesting, if it was possible, to ramp down the 40hrs by an hour or two every year, keeping other components (esp healthcare) in step, to see where the inflection point is. I feel confident that we could get down to 32hrs without major negative drama. I agree that 18hrs (suggested elsewhere) would be violent.
I think a lot of people would love to live frugally and work less but it’s hard to pull off. Wage arbitrage in low CoL locations works with remote work but that’s been drying up. And of course access to health care and good education is an issue if you require either.
Yeah that’s interesting. Imagine what could happen if AI allowed us to work fewer hours and in exchange there was a program to enable people to pursue volunteer programs in their communities
Some “it takes a village” type of mentoring for children. Or programs to spend time with the elderly. Get outside and get involved in public works projects like repairing parks and waterways.
Total fantasy, for sure, but that’s what revolutionary new tech like AI could actually benefit society by letting humans be more human.
Wages didn't drop when going from the 12 to 10 to 8 hour working day. With adequate political power wielded by labor – hypothetical in the context of the article – there's no reason to suspect that wages would go down with further reductions in the working day.
“The entire development of wealth rests upon the creation of disposable time.” —Karl Marx, Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft), 1857
“…real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time.”
“The saving of labour time [is] equal to an increase of free time, i.e. time for the full development of the individual, which in turn reacts back upon the productive power of labour as itself the greatest productive power.”
—The Grundrisse, 1857
“Labour-time, even if exchange-value is eliminated, always remains the creative substance of wealth and the measure of the cost of its production. But free time, disposable time, is wealth itself, partly for the enjoyment of the product, 3 partly for free activity which—unlike ‘ labour—is not dominated by the pressure of an extraneous purpose which must be fulfilled, and the fulfillment of which is regarded as a natural necessity or a social duty, according to one’s inclination. Karl Marx Theories of Surplus Value”
“Just as plants live from the earth, and animals live from the plants or | plant-eating animals, so does the part of society which possesses free time (disposable time not absorbed in the direct production of subsistence) live from the surplus labour of the workers. Wealth is therefore disposable time.” —Economic Manuscripts, 1861-1863
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