Are deliberately unemployed people a drain on society?

[tik 🪀✨]

Inspired by dead0man's comments in FC. I don't think people who don't want any work should be forced to work. I don't find such people very inspiring or even good, but I think in their own way that they contribute by buying goods and services on whatever level. And if they're getting government payments I don't care because I like to live in a world where people aren't forced into squalor by collective spite. And in general anyone who looks at them and then cries about "their" tax dollars being wasted on someone else's basic well-being is an insufferable ninnyhammer. If they are surviving on a relative's generosity they're only a drain on said person, which is just unfortunate, but doesn't mean they're a drain on society.

[tik 🪀✨]

To balance it out, you need to make welfare payments just low enough and increase the pay for those jobs no one wants dramatically. Living on the dole isn't a lifestyle most people thrive in, of course. It's incentive enough for most people to find work so that they're earning more. For those that choose it, a tiny fraction of the unemployed, I still don't think their existence is a net loss.

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I don't mind if their lifestyle is unpleasant, but squalor is inhumane and doesn't fit the "crime" of purposeful unemployment.

[tik 🪀✨]

Actually, dead0man, I mentioned consumption in the OP as a benefit.

And to clarify, yes, the only people we're discussing are those with no legitimate excuse not to work. Housewives don't count, nor do students, the disabled, etc.

Part of my argument for them not being a drain is their consumption. We often overproduce and so waste resources anyway.

And of course I believe it's ethical to make sure everyone is able to survive. So I don't mind if they receive payments.

Bear in mind I still don't really think what they're doing is good.

[tik 🪀✨]

Then they aren't of any concern and, come to think of it, they should probably write a book about it. Unless they're nutcases.

[tik 🪀✨]

Linus, the sink is society, and there are pipes (the economy) that bring water (resources) to and from the sink in a cycle. From this a deliberately unemployed person would be more like a leak in the pipes (if you think they are draining resources out of the economy).

Or, you could take one of the literal definitions of "drain": something that uses up resources (up being the key word). This was my (and dead0man's, I presume) intention. He also called them leaches I believe. That's excellent imagery.

And yet another alternative one could stop being so goddamn pedantic.

[tik 🪀✨]

Angus, my intention is to talk only about those who are not engaged in behaviour that would likely result in present or future gains for more than oneself. Think of an able bodied 25 year old with no physical or mental ailments and no pressing responsibilities or goals who survives by government payment or constant mooching off of monied relatives or friends. They aren't earning their keep, and their free time is spent purely in leisure and selfishness.