Yes and no? Yes in that most of the modern world for most people this is probably true. No in that we get a game of semantics- but something which is necessary is generally not toxic. Meaning that by modern sensibilities, survival would be toxic, but since where survival is an imperative your options are survive or die… the “toxic” thing that will harm you the greatest is to not do what must be done. In other words- there are few if any scenarios where restocking a shelf or finishing a project are remotely “life and death.” Most of what we do in the modern world isn’t critical in that sense. It is important to recognize that there are those who do, either by role in society or by the developmental level of their society and circumstance etc- still live in “critical worlds” where stopping before a job is done can have real consequences for you or others.
Some jobs by their nature drain people faster and some people drain faster. In the modern world we do have enough people that we generally could most likely “split” most or many jobs up so that even critical tasks could be properly staffed and allow amply time off for anyone to keep their batteries charged, but that argument faces certain economic and social realities and practicalities- including ones in which we have roles that either very few people are capable or qualified for, and roles that do not require much of either of those things but we require in such great numbers that redundant filling might not only be problematic, but we’d need to figure out how you can provide a basic standard of living to people who work 10 hours a week greeting customers or who spend 20 hours a week cleaning parking lots. We already have people who do jobs like this for 40,60+ hours a week and can barely provide their own basic needs.
While I certainly agree that the wealth disparity is disgusting and we could “nerf” aka mitigate the ability of a privileged few to hoard so much wealth- the truth is that by the numbers this alone doesn’t provide an answer. Ignoring all the issues with such “wealth distribution” that would abolish billionaires and such and spread that money around- on a global scale if one adds up the money and divides by the people… the results are not a utopia where all can live well. At best we end up with a world where the poorest fair slightly better and everyone else doses much worse.
If we go so far left as to dissociate the concept of money at all- startrek economics where money doesn’t exist- resources are still finite at any given time. There always is supply and demand, practical realities of growing societies. We can’t just “abolish capitalism and have the whole world get to live to developed world standards.”
Bill Gates entire net worth was at one point around $90 billion. That’s enough to give everyone on earth less than $10. Hardly life changing. If you did that for every wealthy person you end up with maybe a few thousand or optimistically tens of thousands of dollars? That is if you leave the rich with NOTHING, and that is by net worth- in other words their assets including companies. If you liquidate such assets, you get a windfall for a single generation, but those broken companies and such no longer can pay employees or do business. Your economy is destroyed by the next generation. If we “abolish private wealth” the concept still holds true. The resources consumed by the “elite few” don’t actually end up amounting to much and without a system to take over immediately.. there is a total loss of stability in terms of production. Wether they cost money or not, people need to make goods for us to have goods.
If we go so far left as to dissociate the concept of money at all- startrek economics where money doesn’t exist- resources are still finite at any given time. There always is supply and demand, practical realities of growing societies. We can’t just “abolish capitalism and have the whole world get to live to developed world standards.”