Indignity of not-work?

Click here to access article by economist David Ruccio from Real-World Economics Review Blog.

Mainstream economists and economic commentators continue to invoke the so-called “dignity of work” to criticize the idea of a universal basic income.

It’s an argument I’ve dealt with before (e.g., here and here). As I see it, there’s nothing necessarily dignified about most people being forced to have the freedom to sell their ability to work to a tiny group of employers. The idea may be intrinsic to capitalism—but that doesn’t mean it contributes to the dignity of people who work for a living, especially when they have no control over how they work or what they produce when they work.

Quite to the contrary. Working for employers is subjecting oneself to the indignity of a wage-slave by working for bosses (masters) who have essentially complete control over you while at work; and increasingly nowadays for middle managers with the introduction of cellphone technology to their jobs, this kind of relationship often extends beyond normal work hours.