It brings us to this important question. Someone answers that having a lot of money. Someone else would say to be happy with what you have no matter how much it is. I don’t believe it. I think that being really rich means that you can spend your time in the way you really love, on a place which you really choose, and only with those kinds of people you really like, and still be able to feed yourself and to have your needs sufficiently fulfilled at the same time. Not doing a job which you hate just to have more money for some free time to enjoy. Not doing a job which you love but making a huge compromise with your desired lifestyle. Of course, the second would still be better but we have to find better ways.
I really find it problematic that many people today do not do what they love, they have to spend a lot of hours in their jobs, sometimes even overtime, sometimes they have to take their work home, or have to have more jobs, or cannot have enough time for lunch, or cannot choose the place of their work and so on. They also do not have enough sleep, are much stressed, use synthetic stimulation to be awake and focused, and that all just to be able to feed themselves and their families. I doubt it that they could feel as really free people.
However, they are still much freer than in other political or economic systems. They do not have to be members of the “right” party to keep their jobs or to stay alive. They do not have to do the jobs which government forces them to do. It is only nature, their willpower and their habits which decide. Almost everyone was born with some potential, with some abilities and in our societies we also have an opportunity to develop our skills or knowledge through mostly free education and if not, then on the internet.
Liberal capitalism is individualistic in the way that it can make us free from the government or from other individuals and it can let us live our free lives with the money which we are able to get from our work, our enterprise, our investments or from any other form, and to choose to fulfill the variety of our needs. On the other hand, liberal capitalism is still very collectivistic because it forces us to cooperate and compete with other people, to use our skills, knowledge, time, work and effort to do the activities which fulfill the needs of our whole society.
Part 9: Will we work in the future?
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