• rchive@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I think you’re defining “compensation” a bit too narrowly. Just because people are doing work of some kind in their community and not getting monetary wages for it doesn’t mean they aren’t being compensated. All human interaction is in some sense a transaction, it might just be more amorphous and unquantifiable than x many dollars. Friendships are trades. If a friendship isn’t worthwhile for people, they generally end the friendship, even though most people wouldn’t dream of assigning a dollar amount of value to a friendship.

    • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      And I think you’re missing the fact that we’re talking about surviving under capitalism, and that you can’t buy food and shelter with friendship 🙄

      • rchive@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Of course you can. Lol. Stay-at-home moms and dads are doing this exact thing. Older parents who live with their kids are, too. They’re probably doing something like labor in addition to just being in some kind of human relationship, but they are effectively getting paid for friendship. It would be hard to put an exact dollar amount to this, and most people including myself wouldn’t really want to write an invoice for every hug they give or minute of conversation they’re partner to, but since all human interaction is effectively a transaction that is informally what’s happening.