Per David Kang: from 1368 to 1841, there were only 2 formal interstate conflicts within the confucian-sinic sphere (China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan), & well over 200 within Europe, even tho the former had ~2.5x the pop of the latter; yet their conflict death rates, life expectancies, & GDPs per capita were broadly similar, & this is the period Europe really took off (eg suddenly producing far superior ships & logistics, & then the modern state & renaissance & enlightenment & Industrial Revolution). & yet if anything sovereignty was clearer in the east: the borders were more stable, the bureaucracies & institutions & taxes & monarchs more durably & cleanly separated, etc; whereas in Europe there were much more clearly distinct peoples with much more interest in self-rule, but nonetheless much more overlapping cross-border governance (religious, commercial, chivalric, noble, & other such orders). On the other hand, sovereignty was much more focused on maintaining formal equality in the west (each state is ostensibly equal in certain legalistic & cultural respects geopolitically equal before its continent, & the great power game is all about preventing any singular hegemon from arising), whereas China was openly & formally dominant over other nonetheless formal & practical sovereigns in its tributary system. (Yes, this is in some ways the most extreme way to frame the comparison, since the sinic sphere was of course not infrequently riven with peasant rebellions, barbarian invasions, pacification campaigns, etc, & had several interstate wars with other formal states, eg Burma or Siam; but it’s also clearly a real distinction, & not limited to these particular periods or definitions, & one could argue that Europe contrasted more with China beforehand—eg Europe’s map 900-1300 was more characterized by the formation of protoethnonationstatelets like what we see now, & 1400-1800 saw the consolidation of it into anomalous imperial blocs more like oriental cosmopolitan despotism than in other European periods). The choice back then was between an often meritocratic universalizing cultural prestige network & an arena in which vigorous competition was formally organized into explicit conflicts; ie formal inequality & informal conflict, vs formal equality & formal conflict. Globalist government by civilized norms & elite regulation thru static old separated bureaucracies, vs populist competition by armed bands & material production over dynamic new unitary systems. Europe’s approach was much better at producing the sorts of charismatic excess & effective innovation that mattered. Because it doesn’t really matter if any given conflict was originally smart, so long as everyone’s necessarily trying to learn from what happened (so they don’t lose horribly); eg part of Britain’s brilliance is that it’d invent makework adventures for men like Bligh between wars, to figure out who was great at leading men on crazy missions, & reward him with real meaningful authorities (or in the case of eg Shackleton the accolades to inspire those pursuing more practical ends to try more dashing means). That’s why the Ages of Sail & Colonization were so fruitful: each vessel & settlement & company its own fresh quasi-sovereign, alone in the wilderness, unburdened by home’s sunk costs & set habits, expected to lose everything unless it gambled well, & otherwise proved sovereign for us. Many of our current issues flow from our dramatic turn against our heritage in this regard, & many of our current enemies are obsessed with damming up whatever we could otherwise unleash this impulse thru.

Any amount of UBI changes work/leisure decisions by making leisure less expensive to choose. By setting UBI at its optimal level we solve a specific problem: eliminating makework by distributing income efficiently. This is an important problem to solve, alongside other goals.

That's not really socialism though, as you still have the means of production being owned by *someone*. Excepting increasing state makework jobs you're really starting to approach distributism.

What value does the labour of makework govt employees provide to increase the living standards of society as a whole? They will make everything more expensive for everyone by competing for goods on the market, so what does society receive in return?

The DC reflecting pool is Trump's most successful jobs program. We need more makework projects to provide Americans with steady employment.

“As an example you can have makework jobs that dont have a lot of value and that require minimal skill..” We do. You just described 80% of all government jobs. 😀

The wealth distribution can have a variety of forms. As an example you can have makework jobs that dont have a lot of value and that require minimal skill but enable the bottom % to feel productive vs. just giving them money. My brother had an IQ of about 60 and he worked through programs that allowed him to be paid $1/hour to pack boxes, wash dishes etc. He didnt need the money, but did benefit from structure where he went to work regularly.

even kids who inherit family businesses or go into the family office get jobs there.. its to launder ur reputations and show you can do the work. any dad just handing a makework fantasy foudner job is doing their kid a disservice. fucks their ego up and legitimacy

We lost pretty much everything in terms of international stature. We’ve been exposed as a paper tiger who spent trillions and trillions in military makework programs for the wars of yesterday and we ran out of supplies in a fucking month

In a system where income is bottlenecked by wages, then yes, people must continue to work to earn their stuff. But that doesn't mean all this work is actually efficient. Today we prevent deflation by generating jobs. This risks makework. UBI is a better way to support spending.

UBI is orthogonal to the debate bout privatization vs. public services since it's compatible with any mix of the two. UBI simply funds private sector spending efficiently. Without it, employment must be kept artificially high; wasting labor and our time in makework-for-income.

AI has really exacerbated the problem of people creating makework without thinking about WHY they are doing something.

You're in no danger of contributing anything. You're already rich from the easiest job in the world: punditry, sponsored by right-wing makework thinktanks.

Political problems!! Quick give more makework to bluesky libs!! Why isnt it working fuck!!!

The Biden chief of staff is being given makework by airbnb which is normal, tech companies are always providing jobs for dems out of power and nothing will happen to them, its not open season on tech companies for merely being liberal, which will not be the case under dems

Seems like a makework job. The factory seems to be automated and running itself at this point

I'm against data centers because they're putting them in small towns and suburbs specifically to import foreign invaders to staff the fake makework jobs they created.

No, they understand that's all fake. They also understand their makework jobs will all be the first to be automated.

I wish Mark were important enough to be a target for Iranian intelligence but FDD is just window dressing and our Iran policy would be identical whether his makework charity existed or not.