"There is no incentive to create in Communism"

[Stranger Than Paradise]

This is the statement made by my politics teacher. I never got to refute him because he got sidetracked. My argument was that Capitalism stifles creativity and invention because it gives the resources and the education to select few people who are capable of inventing and creating. In Communism this division of labour won't exist and people will attain both intellectual creative skills and the practical skills. What are your arguments against this?

[Muzk]

This.

"IT HAS been objected that upon the abolition of private property," Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto, "all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us."
This is probably still the most common argument--the natural competitiveness and greediness of human nature excepted--against the feasibility of socialism. Defenders of capitalism fail to notice that the two ideas--"people are naturally lazy," and "people are naturally competitive"--cancel each other out!
Marx's clever response to the laziness argument is still the best one: "According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work."
Laziness, looked at another way, is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, if an invention can be found that cuts the amount of work necessary to accomplish a task, isn't laziness then an incentive to invent?
It's difficult to notice the truth of this observation in a capitalist society because for workers, inventions appear not as a means to cut hours, but merely to intensify production, or increase the amount of work each worker can perform in a given amount of time. Inventions of labor-saving devices don't ease the burden of the working class, but merely allow the capitalist who employs them to increase his or her market share by cheapening products and underselling competitors.
So long as profit is the motivation for invention, the result for the majority--that is, for the nine-tenths of people who have to work for a living--is not increased free time, but merely higher rates of exploitation.
The desire to avoid alienating and tedious work doesn't lead workers to stay at home, since doing so would mean starvation. What it does do, however, is lead workers to find all sorts of creative ways to increase their productivity on the job in such a way that the boss doesn't notice. This gives them more free time on the job (which they must also hide).
It is common to portray ancient hunter-gatherer societies as constantly living on the edge of starvation, doomed to endless toil to stave off disaster. The truth is that foraging societies were very good at figuring out the minimum labor necessary to keep the band living comfortably, leaving them plenty of free time.
One observer of the Kalahari Bushmen in Africa noted, for example, that "a woman gathers on one day enough food to feed her family for three days, and spends the rest of her time resting in camp, doing embroidery, visiting other camps or entertaining visitors from other camps." She spent about three hours a day performing other tasks.
As for men, "It is not unusual for a man to hunt avidly for a week and then do no hunting at all for two or three weeks...During these periods, visiting, entertaining and especially dancing are the primary activities of men."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IN A society where the market is abolished, and goods are produced and distributed by a social plan according to human need, invention will become a means by which the necessary labor of all--that labor required to reproduce the basic necessities of life (food, shelter, transportation, education)--is continually reduced, leaving greater and greater amounts of free time in which everyone is free to pursue their interests and desires, whether that involves music, art, dance, surfing or napping. Even more odious tasks, such as collecting garbage and mining, are far less odious if the workers have control over the work process. The combination of control over working conditions and processes, the application of the safest and fastest methods, the reduction of work hours, and finally, the rotation of the population into those jobs so that no single person is stuck with it would make even this kind of work far more enjoyable than it is now.
As a result of these changes, work becomes less stressful and more fulfilling, less stigmatized and more valued for its socially necessary character.
One of the absurdities of the capitalist market is the constant drive of each capitalist to sell more and more of a product. Inbuilt, then, is also invention for its own sake.
Such is the nature of certain industries that a "new" version of something, not necessarily that much different from the earlier version, is periodically released, and everyone who has the "old" version is encouraged to buy the new one, even if the old one isn't broken. Another feature of this frenzy to sell is what has been called "planned obsolescence": making things that don't last.
Naturally, it is not in the interests of the majority of people that things break. In a society without a profit motive, planning would be far more rational--that is, devoted to making things that last as long as possible. This, too, would reduce the amount of total social labor necessary to keep society running.
In a capitalist society, mental and manual labor is split, and everyone is pigeonholed into certain jobs. "Each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape," wrote Marx and Engels. "He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood."
However, "in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity, but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow...without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic."
No one can deny that people cease to be bored as soon as they are engaged in an activity they enjoy and are not compelled to do. Socialism eliminates these compulsions. By doing so, it does not bring "universal laziness" so much as a flowering of universal creativity.

[revolution inaction]

Ask him to explain open source software.
and people who do art, writing, build things etc for fun

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

Likewise I'd point to the existence of volunteer work even here under capitalism. You might point to examples like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina or of this year's devastating earthquake in Haiti to demonstrate how this morality that corresponds to communism is suppressed by the armed force of the state under capitalism such as to guarantee the protection of private property 'rights', even against people's ability to survive. After Katrina, as an example, they called troops off a rescue mission to come into New Orleans with orders to shoot to kill so that people couldn't use the area's resources to survive without paying. Under a new, revolutionary state power, proletarian morality would no longer be suppressed, but promoted. Just some thoughts on how to show that other, better motives than simple material 'self-advancement' are possible and do exist.

[HEAD ICE]

If production is moved away from that of commodity production to the production of use for society, it would be in society's best interest to develop and innovate to further better society and develop things that are useful. This is a different type of innovation from that of capitalism, where things are produced to be sold on the market rather than produced to be used and bettered by society. This results in innovations like computers taking over production that robs the working class in capitalist society rather than the clear benefit it could have in a socialist society.

Socialism is all about innovation. Capitalism is about innovation in the direction profits, socialism is about innovation to benefit society.

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

Stagger Lee wrote:
Capitalism is about innovation in the direction [of] profits, socialism is about innovation to benefit society.

VERY well put. I would completely agree with that statement and highlight that as something to point out to those who raise the question in the OP.

[The Fighting_Crusnik]

lol, what opensource software has achieved is proof that you don't need capitalism to inspire creation. In fact, in my psychology class that I took this past year, my class watched and read several reports that found that competition hurts creation whereas creation without competition is for the most part, superior and more advanced.

[graymouser]

There've been a lot of correct points here; production for need means a dramatically different thing than production for profit, and the innovation will be on the same lines. We'll be trying to make work vastly more efficient both in terms of human resources and material needs, with everything eventually being genuinely recycled at as high of a rate as possible.

I'd also recommend this really interesting video about what motivates people:

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Turns out profit isn't all that.

[Bitter Ashes]

Most engineers (the people who actualy create things) don't get into engineering for the money, but because they actualy like problem solving and creating things.

Most artists don't become artists for the money.

Most scientists don't just deciede to start researching if the money's right.

There are a few mercenary types, but even they would probably take part in order to make sure that thier own lives are comfortable by having thier creations in thier communities.

edit: also shameless plug. Check out the DIY directory on these forums. "Crazy" people making window boxes and cooking thier own food rather than buying pre-pack pizzas and even teaching themselves how to create complicated electrical, mechanical and computer engineerining. Are they doing that for the revolution? Well, maybe one or two of them, but most of us just enjoy it! Really good sense of achievement to make something either with your own hands or as a team when you believe and benefit from it yourselves instead of an employer.

[Hiratsuka]

lol, what opensource software has achieved is proof that you don't need capitalism to inspire creation. In fact, in my psychology class that I took this past year, my class watched and read several reports that found that competition hurts creation whereas creation without competition is for the most part, superior and more advanced.

Are you referring to the TED video? http://blog.ted.com/2009/08/the_surprising.php

To be fair, that study said innovation is spurned by less competition whereas mass production was better suited by profits.

[maskerade]

Tell him that it is only in communism where people have an incentive to create. When you're not busy busting your back 18 hours a day making profits for someone else, there is no limit to the things the human mind can accomplish.

Communism = lower working hours = more time to be creative and do what one most enjoys.

Also, what is the incentive to have a hobby? It doesn't get someone paid. Sometimes I honestly can't believe how stupid some of the arguments against communism can be

[graymouser]

Are you referring to the TED video? http://blog.ted.com/2009/08/the_surprising.php

To be fair, that study said innovation is spurned by less competition whereas mass production was better suited by profits.
Not quite. It said that purely mechanical labor is done better with more reward, but once rudimentary cognitive skills are involved, it becomes poorer. Why wouldn't a socialist society be constantly striving to reduce simple manual work to the absolute minimum? The more we could automate the better, with humans doing actual interesting parts of the job for them - design, coordination, repair, technical aspects that actually get them fully involved beyond acting as a beast of burden. The work that is left would be the more self-rewarding sort of thing.

[The Fighting_Crusnik]

Are you referring to the TED video? http://blog.ted.com/2009/08/the_surprising.php

To be fair, that study said innovation is spurned by less competition whereas mass production was better suited by profits.


It was a different video made during the late 80's, early 90's. What they did with the lab, was they had two groups of kids and they did art projects with them. One group was told that whoever created the best piece of art would get a snoopy backpack and then the next 2 people would get smaller prizes. The other group was allowed to create, and the three prizes were just raffled off. Afterward, they had several art professors and experts evaluate the art, and what they found was that the art created by the non-competition side was far more advanced and more diverse while the art created by the competitive group had narrow diversity and was in almost every way, inferior to the art done by the other group.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

This is exclusive to school but I find that in capitalism this can also stifle creativity. When I have a holiday or a day without school I feel much more motivated to read or write whereas when I go to school afterwards I don't have the energy or desire to read or write anything, pretty annoying.

[The Fighting_Crusnik]

This is exclusive to school but I find that in capitalism this can also stifle creativity. When I have a holiday or a day without school I feel much more motivated to read or write whereas when I go to school afterwards I don't have the energy or desire to read or write anything, pretty annoying.

Same here. And when I have to do projects that require strict guide lines, they tend to be crappy compared to the projects that are left open ended... and also, my physics teacher was obsessed with competition projects occurring once a quarter... the good thing is that we got one dropped test score, but the bad thing was, was that he was usually pissed at the lack of effort during certain quarters because we chose to use our dropped test for it and the other thing that pissed him off was when we had 10 projects that were pretty much identical... the last quarter we did a magic show for lil kids, and he considered them the best throughout the year... which it makes sense because we were allowed to create at our own will... of which I did the phonebook binding thing from mythbusters :D