Imagine working to improve society rather than make money. Crazy concept.
this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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To any lib who comes here to whine about the profit incentive: Humans DO NOT need it to improve material conditions. However, even if they did (under capitalism), the transition from capitalism to communism will take many generations. By then, we'll be living in a post-scarcity world where little to no labor is needed
Counterpoint: There will be much more work to be done in socialism and communism than in capitalism, because our cultural standards will be much, much higher; a socialist world is one where everyone will have first-world problems. Just like living in the cramped and damp huts of the dark ages seems unthinkable today, it will be inconceivable to socialist society to live in an empty room painted eggshell. People tomorrow will not be content with derivative sequels and machine-made mince music, and they won't wear pants that can't survive the month. To support billions of people with luxury quality that has low environmental impact is a thing that can and will be made possible, but it requires much more work than supporting a deadbeat proletariat that is economically clinging on for dear life and teetering on the brink of ecological extinction.
Labour will not disappear under socialism. However, one can expect the efficiency of said labour to increase to such a point (due to massive improvements in productive forces) where, compared to capitalist society, it won’t be needed as intensively.
Of course, this will only be reached during the final stages of socialism or maybe even in early communism.
Bingo
Honestly, if all of my wants and needs were taken care of, I would still be a welder and work. I love what I do and take immense pride in my work. I even bought my own welding machine and setup to do it at home in my off hours.
Id continue to help out domestic abuse victims, do art, build shit etc; just now I dont have some dickhead threating to kick me out of my house every month if I dont pay a ransom of half of my wages.
To really make you feel better, DV and other forms of abuse would likely decrease significantly under communism because the power dynamics of relationships would change significantly. Not to say it wouldn't still exist to an extent but there's a lot to be said of using money to make someone feel trapped.
Yeah through my work the most common factor in whats preventing the situation from changing is the inability to move houses due to a lack of avilable social ones.
I work in maintenance for a hospital trust...i could see myself continuing to do that.
Yeah
It's about freeing you from the alienation from your own labor, as described in The Germany Ideology in all three versions by Karl Marx.
Three versions?
There were three drafts of The German Ideology, though most people remember the first and third one.
Very good at explaining things in Marxism that come later.
Do you know what the key differences are between the versions? Or any links to them?
Personally I'd still want to be a pc builder
I think that’s a question for future generations to answer, when the question becomes salient to the material conditions, but that’s so far in the future that I don’t engage with it seriously.
Reminder: there's still no such thing as free lunch. Work under communism will focus on producing the needs of society to get all your needs and wants for free.
When I followed my passion and taught Calculus 2 as a student, I got paid so poorly that I was losing money after rent and health insurance. I didn't care then, I still don't care, and I would do it again if the university would actually let me do it after graduating, because the pay is literally so low it is illegal for outsiders to do under national labour law. When your bank balance no longer represent your entitlement to survival, you'd be mad wasting your best years working on it
Yeah, we don't need money; we can allocate resources more efficiently through facts and logic.
(Yes, I just did a Ben Shapiro there.)
Imagine being a member of a household where everyone shared all the maintenance or productive work based on their abilities, circumstances and preferences. Now expand that to a collection of households.
well...i need to work to have my needs met (utilities, education, healthcare, internet, a roof over my head). money given on capitalism usually doesn't give you all of them at the same time, and most of the time, you have to sacrifice one or many of them to get another. if all of my needs are met, that wouldn't be work and it would be more like my retribution for all the services provided
all of my needs are met, that wouldn’t be work
Hard no. Humans will still work in a stateless, classless, and moneyless society, just not in the way capitalists think. It doesn't matter if it's cleaning your home town, moving shit from point A to B, making art, testing out hardware, or whatever. Humans will just find new reasons to work.
Again, to reiterate, there's no such thing as free lunch. The centuries long effort in abolishing capitalism is only one part of the cost, you also need:
- establishing the infrastructure needed;
- a cultural shift that is more communitarian, frugal, and more self-sustainable;