Comment by fragmede

Only the poors need to. If you chose the right parents, you got a trust fund when you turned 18, and don't need to labor to afford life's necessities. There's just this spigot that gives you $5,000 a month, and you don't have to labor, ever. If rich kids get to live like that, why can't more people?

If we oversimplify a human's needs into clothing, food, and a dwelling, and ignore the concept of money, the industrial revolution has made it so that humanity is able to produce enough of those for everybody. It then becomes a distribution and coordination problem rather than a problem of there not being enough for everybody. Of course, if we abolished money there would be other problems, so it's still delusional, but if 100 people can make enough food and shelter and clothing for 1000 people using machines, why do the other 900 need to sit in an an office making spreadsheets five days a week?

It's not that simple, of course (because those machines have to come from somewhere), and homesteading is a thing, but it's food for thought.