Force people to work

[Garret]

Would we have to force people to work in a moneyless or equal paying society, if all their necessities are provided anyway? Or would we have to eliminate laziness from our conciousness all together?

[Broletariat]

This always seems like such a silly question to me, do you know how bored you get over the summer time (if you're still in school) with no school? And if you don't then I'm CERTAIN you've heard your friends ***** and moan about being bored. Simply put, work would stop being "work" and more like a recreational thing. When people have nothing to do and their livliehoods are gauranteed they get bored and need something to do. Not to mention that all sorts of jobs people find a natural interest in anyway, some people find mechanics and car type things fascinating etc etc.

[Nolan]

Are you talking about a gift economy?

[Garret]

Now there are jobs like the janitor and plumber... that most would probably admit - they'd rather not do. How do we get people to grow up and be one of those? Since there would be no reward for cleaning up filth and unblocking toilets?

[Broletariat]

Now there are jobs like the janitor and plumber... that most would probably admit - they'd rather not do. How do we get people to grow up and be one of those? Since there would be no reward for cleaning up filth and unblocking toilets?
Well lets take a job like a janitor. Wouldn't it be far easier for people to clean up their own messes and spills? More efficient that way too. It takes 1 person an 8 hour job to clean up an entire building when it could take every body in that build 5 minutes or so to clean up their own messes. This isn't so unrealistic to ask considering how awkward it feels to make a mess and then just leave it, or at least everyone I've talked to will mostly agree with.

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

Now there are jobs like the janitor and plumber... that most would probably admit - they'd rather not do. How do we get people to grow up and be one of those? Since there would be no reward for cleaning up filth and unblocking toilets?
The reward would be no filth and unblocked toilets. Those jobs need to be done and someone has to do them. Whoever feels they can handle such jobs can choose to do them. If nobody does those jobs then there will be problems and nobody wants those problems. People who don't want such problems will do what they can to prevent them.

[Tablo]

No one would be forced to work. If a person refused, however, they would not be provided for by the community.

[Dr Mindbender]

Would we have to force people to work in a moneyless or equal paying society, if all their necessities are provided anyway? Or would we have to eliminate laziness from our conciousness all together?
the trick is to change our cultural relationship with work and our understanding of the term so that work becomes synonymous not with repetition, boredom, alienation and servitude but with personality, interest, self em-betterment and at the risk of sounding ridiculous, fun. How we do this is the automation of each and every role that can be automated while giving human beings the freedom to learn without the tether of scarcity and poverty.

You cannot force people to clean toilets and other miserable jobs while avoiding a dictatorship. In a society where the collective mentality is 'let someone else do it' everyone will pass the buick until at some stage guns will have to be pointed. Better just to automate jobs like this.

[Dimitri Molotov]

i always thought about that, i think we should refuse to give them their share until they decide to actually be a part of society.:thumbup1:

[Dr Mindbender]

i always thought about that, i think we should refuse to give them their share until they decide to actually be a part of society.:thumbup1:

Shouldn't the onus be on the society to engage its members rather than the other way around? I find the idea that people must conform to a archetypal model of a 'productive' conformist citizen rather reactionary.

If you remove the push factors from employment then the need to penalise and punish people for non participation becomes irrelevant.

[Decolonize The Left]

Would we have to force people to work in a moneyless or equal paying society, if all their necessities are provided anyway? Or would we have to eliminate laziness from our conciousness all together?

Marx taught us that labor is the essence of humanity - i.e. to labor/work/create is what it means to be human. When we work we use our bodies and minds to create something which we then see as emergent from our struggles, and we are self-satisfied. Obviously there are many different kinds of labor and many different ways to get people to work. The underlying point I am trying to make is that those differences are secondary to the fact that we all must labor in some form or another, no matter the society or scenario.

So to answer your question - no, no one will need to be forced to work. The debate begins with the 'who does what, how, when, where, and why?' There is no debate over whether or not people work.

- August

[Lyev]

We have to ask ourselves: why? What's the incentive - the real underlying reason - for people to work? Under capitalism, I work because I have no choice. It's wage-slavery or starvation pretty much. I am compelled by the dynamic forces of the market; by competition. These same reasons apply to the capitalist too. And in a communist (stateless, moneyless, classless) society why do I work? Well, now that private property - the cause of the alienation of the proletariat from production - has been done away with, along with whole old order of things, I can do what I like, within reason of course. As Marx wrote in The Germany Ideology, 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, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic." And also in "bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer."

[Apoi_Viitor]

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19760725.htm

CHOMSKY: Well, there's a certain amount of work that just has to be done if we're to maintain that standard of living. It's an open question how onerous that work has to be. Let's recall that science and technology and intellect have not been devoted to examining that question or to overcoming the onerous and self-destructive character of the necessary work of society. The reason is that it has always been assumed that there is a substantial body of wage slaves who will do it simply because otherwise they'll starve. However, if human intelligence is turned to the question of how to make the necessary work of the society itself meaningful, we don't know what the answer will be. My guess is that a fair amount of it can be made entirely tolerable. It's a mistake to think that even back-breaking physical labor is necessarily onerous...

That's why I began with a big "If". I said we first have to ask to what extent the necessary work of the society -- namely that work which is required to maintain the standard of living that we want -- needs to be onerous or undesirable. I think that the answer is: much less than it is it today. But let's assume there is some extent to which it remains onerous. Well, in that case, the answer's quite simple: that work has to be equally shared among people capable of doing it.

If it turns out that these are really tasks which people will find no self-fulfillment in. Incidentally, i don't quite believe that. As I watch people work, craftsmen, let's say, automobile mechanics for example, I think one often finds a good deal of pride in work. I think that that kind of pride in work well done, in complicated work well done, because it takes thought and intelligence to do it, especially when one is also involved in management of the enterprise, determination of how the work will be organized, what it is for, what the purposes of the work are, what'll happen to it, and so on -- I think all of this can be satisfying and rewarding activity which in fact requires skills, the kind of skills people will enjoy exercising. However, I'm thinking hypothetically now. Suppose it turns out there is some residue of work which really no one wants to do, whatever that may be -- okay, then I say that the residue of work must be equally shared, and beyond that, people will be free to exercise their talents as they see fit.

[Ovi]

No one would be forced to work. If a person refused, however, they would not be provided for by the community.
Which is exactly the same thing as forcing someone to work. Abolishing money and being compelled to do what someone else considers to be productive isn't communism, but some sort of barter society.

[Revolution starts with U]

What are people going to do, sit and stare at a wall all day?
Lets say you just want to spend all day watching TV... hey, there's our TV critic, or other jobs related
You just want to practice guitar.. musician
You just like to read.. scholar, critic, etc
The point is, when people no longer have to work, they will find the things they love to do and work in them.

[Bubbles]

I can just go from my own feelings and I want to contribute to society, not act as a parasite. We just have to raise our children to be active citizens. And also; do you ever clean your own home? If you feel that your community is something that belongs to you, I think people would want to contribute to that to.

[Decommissioner]

I don't think people should be forced to work. I think people should be encouraged to work as little as possible, and enjoy life. Necessary labor will be just that, necessary labor that no one will have qualms with doing.

There will be no plumber profession, no janitors, no lifetime factory workers or construction workers. There will be people who know how to plumb, and contribute when necessary. There will be people who always look out for trash and keep things clean, without having that be their title. People will feel the incentive to put in some hours at a factory if they have time to kill. There will be no mandatory time, perhaps just a contract to say you want to work for so many hours over the span of so many days. People will feel pride in putting in the time for construction, knowing that their name will be attributed to this highway, that monument, that building.

The point is, the idea of a "career" will be pointless in a true communist society. People should be encouraged to actually live more than they work, thus always providing incentive to actually give back to the society that allows them to be so free. And thats just considering "unwanted" labor. With things like doctors, scientists, architects, teachers etc etc..these are professions that people are passionate about under capitalism, socialism would only ensure these people had the same freedom to come in and out of the profession as they pleased, while making sure there were more doctors, teachers, architects to fill the role at all times.

And recreation would be more prosperous in socialism than under capitalism. Since people will dedicate less of their lives to necessities (because they are free from creating surplus value for capitalists), people would feel the need to do things that love, produce things they and others care about. It would be possible to start a council to produce certain consumer goods, or to start a small co-op to run a bar or a music venue. I see endless possibilities.

[meow]

forcing people to work = slavery. we fight against capitalism because we hate forced work (wage slavery).

no we wont force people to work. no matter circumstances.

[Vanguard1917]

Would we have to force people to work in a moneyless or equal paying society, if all their necessities are provided anyway? Or would we have to eliminate laziness from our conciousness all together?

In the realm of economic production, human "laziness" can be seen as a progressive characteristic. We want more goods and services with as little input of labour as possible. The history of the advancement of our species has been urged on by a desire to do less work. Thus, perhaps paradoxically, humanity is uniquely capable of immense industriousness. By always seeking out more and more efficient ways of producing a good (e.g. through technological development), mankind reduces the labour time necessary for that production. And this economisation of labour time has the potential to give way to progress in other spheres of social life. As Marx put it, "The less time the society requires to produce wheat, cattle etc., the more time it wins for other production, material or mental. Just as in the case of an individual, the multiplicity of its development, its enjoyment and its activity depends on economization of time. Economy of time, to this all economy ultimately reduces itself."

Does this mean that a new workers' state struggling to organise a new mode of production should promote laziness? No. Self-imposed workers' discipline in production will be key to building a new society. But by unleashing humanity's colossal productive potential, people in socialist society will more and more be able to enjoy their "industrious laziness" to the full. :)


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'As a general rule, man strives to avoid labor. Love for work is not at all an inborn characteristic: it is created by economic pressure and social education. One may even say that man is a fairly lazy animal. It is on this quality, in reality, that is founded to a considerable extent all human progress; because if man did not strive to expend his energy economically, did not seek to receive the largest possible quantity of products in return for a small quantity of energy, there would have been no technical development or social culture. It would appear, then, from this point of view that human laziness is a progressive force, Old Antonio Labriola, the Italian Marxist, even used to picture the man of the future as a “happy and lazy genius.” We must not, however, draw the conclusion from this that the party and the trade unions must propagate this quality in their agitation as a moral duty. No, no. We have sufficient of it as it is. The problem before the social organization is just to bring “laziness” within a definite framework, to discipline it, and to pull mankind together with the help of methods and measures invented by mankind itself.'
- Trotsky (link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/ch08.htm))

[maskerade]

he who does not work, neither shall he eat!

[Broletariat]

forcing people to work = slavery. we fight against capitalism because we hate forced work (wage slavery).

no we wont force people to work. no matter circumstances.
Not true at all, we oppose wage-slavery as a form of slavery simply because it is a social relationship. One class of the population has to work while the other does not, and holds control over the working population. Slavery is a social relationship. Being forced to work is just nature, gotta hunt for food and all that y'know?

[Revolution starts with U]

he who does not work, neither shall he eat!
That sounds like the same arguments the capitalists make....

[Vanguard1917]

he who does not work, neither shall he eat!
That sounds like the same arguments the capitalists make....

It's different because the social context is different. You labour under capitalism for the benefit of the bosses. Under socialism, you will work for the benefit of society as a whole. If enforced democratically and collectively by the workers themselves, labour discipline is a socialist measure and shouldn't be confused with the coercion experienced under capitalism (or, for that matter, under bureaucratic state socialist systems).

[Revolution starts with U]

If you would consider all forms of productivity as work, then sure. But if not, you're just forcing someone to be what they are not.

[Garret]

Thank you everybody.

[The Red Next Door]

We should not force people to work but, we should not let them get away with not pulling there weight around the collective or commune.

[Die Rote Fahne]

You mean slavery?

No. If one chooses not to work, it is their choice.

However, that number will be very low with the availability of training in all fields to all people.