Communism chooses your occupation? What?

[programminglinguist]

Hey guys first time on this forum and I have a question. I'm currently studying communism and I found in my economics book this

"One of the first disadvantages of communism is that individual freedom is lost. People have little or no say in their jobs, and economic planners determine even the choice of occupation."

Is it true that the idea of communism includes a government of some sort choosing your occupation? perhaps based on economics needs? Or is this total bullshit?

I don't think Marx had the idea of a supreme government choosing your occupation for you... I'm not wrong am I? :confused:

[Martin Blank]

You're not wrong. Marx saw communism as having no state (i.e., no standing police or military, no overarching "criminal justice" industry, etc.), no bureaucracy, and not even necessarily a "government" as we know it. The idea that someone would choose your job for you comes from the foul equation of communism with the false "Communism" practiced in places like the USSR and China. And even in those countries, there really was no more of a state intervention into a person's career path than there is in the U.S. (e.g., "tracking" through standardized testing into college prep or vocational education for high school, children from more privileged backgrounds went to better schools, etc.).

High school economics classes are little more than indoctrination sessions in the joys of "free-market" capitalist exploitation. Just from the two sentences you posted from your econ book, I can safely say that the book is shit and you shouldn't trust any of it.

[Kenco Smooth]

Some socialists would argue for planned organisation of jobs. Personally I think it's fucking retarded and many agree with me there. It's the kinda point people who really don't think much about things support vocally.

Generally no. It's wrong and as said be very wary of what you learn in your economic classes. There are areas of valid economic research. The neo-classical approach that dominates modern economics is nonsense.

[Thirsty Crow]

Some socialists would argue for planned organisation of jobs.
A planned economy does not, by all means, entail the phenomena you're ranting about.

[Diello]

I was fed a similar line in elementary and high school. "Communism means the state controls everything you do and nobody gets to own anything! And as we can see from the Soviet Union, it clearly doesn't work in practice! Ta-da!"

[Taikand]

A planned economy does not, by all means, entail the phenomena you're ranting about.
I still think there needs to be some sort of planning of occupation. If we allow all to go and study, let's say, medicine, who'd be the engineer, then?Pinpointing exactly what you're gonna do, and what the guy besides you is gonna do is wrong, but you must limit their choice.If 500 persons ant to let's say, study engineering, but only 300 are needed then a sort of exam will choose the 300 most fit for the position.
I know this is quite vague, but I can't write more right now.
And as everyone above me said, economics books are weak and narrow-minded.

[Le Corsaire Rouge]

The entire argument is a giant smokescreen. You would have more personal autonomy under a socialist system than under a capitalist system, not less.

It sounds as if you can work on the basis that whenever this book says something, you can confidently believe the opposite.

[Catma]

I can't think of any surer way to alienate someone from their labor than to force them to perform a job they don't want.

[NecroCommie]

There is no form of society in which you are completely free to choose your career. "Even" in capitalism your career is influenced much more by luck, background, appearances and above all the labor markets than your personal preference. Or why do you think I am studying literature instead of playing wicked rock in some band?

But this is why even the most bureucratic perversions of socialism were far superior to capitalism! Labor markets are more or less random, unexpected and serve no other purpose than to feed those already fat. Almost any other form of labor organisation is more motivating because at least the bureucrats could clearly articulate why are you a plumber, instead of just telling you to suck it because you are lazy/non-innovative/weak/whatever.

[Armchair War Criminal]

Neoclassical economics is far from useless, in my opinion, but a bad textbook has a lot of ideological nonsense. If you can't learn to separate fact from fiction in official sources, though, economics textbooks will be the least of your problems.


I still think there needs to be some sort of planning of occupation. If we allow all to go and study, let's say, medicine, who'd be the engineer, then?Pinpointing exactly what you're gonna do, and what the guy besides you is gonna do is wrong, but you must limit their choice.If 500 persons ant to let's say, study engineering, but only 300 are needed then a sort of exam will choose the 300 most fit for the position.
Like capitalist ones, planned economies coordinated who could enter various occupations with a combination of credentializing, monetary incentives, and personal connections.

[NecroCommie]

Neoclassical economics explain very well how markets work, true. But there still is no reason to think markets are somehow desirable in these kind of decisions. There are after all alternatives which are insanely superior.

[another breath]

I still think there needs to be some sort of planning of occupation. If we allow all to go and study, let's say, medicine, who'd be the engineer, then?Pinpointing exactly what you're gonna do, and what the guy besides you is gonna do is wrong, but you must limit their choice.If 500 persons ant to let's say, study engineering, but only 300 are needed then a sort of exam will choose the 300 most fit for the position.
I know this is quite vague, but I can't write more right now.
And as everyone above me said, economics books are weak and narrow-minded.


This isn't even realistic. I mean if you're going to try to justify this much government intervention in peoples' lives, at least put some thought into it...


Communism is about realizing ourselves as full human beings through our needs and our desires. Not everyone is going to become one thing because not everyone is interested in the same things. In communism we won't be specialists either, but people who move through different activities when we want to or feel that we must.

[Taikand]

This isn't even realistic. I mean if you're going to try to justify this much government intervention in peoples' lives, at least put some thought into it...


Communism is about realizing ourselves as full human beings through our needs and our desires. Not everyone is going to become one thing because not everyone is interested in the same things. In communism we won't be specialists either, but people who move through different activities when we want to or feel that we must.
All I can think is the amount of education needed to switch occupation, that would lead to a lesser degree of optimization.

[ckaihatsu]

The entire argument is a giant smokescreen. You would have more personal autonomy under a socialist system than under a capitalist system, not less.


And the *reason* one would have more autonomy with a socialist system is because every person would be a part of determining *what* an 'occupation' is. Currently they're just present-day extensions of the factory system from the last century, gradually updated through the decades, just enough to not cut into profits too much. The workers' agency, camaraderie, and professionalism of the occupations is always *secondary* and an *afterthought* to the financial imperative of the enterprise, not to mention their selected existence in the first place.

In the hands of the workers themselves the entire *layout* of what a society is for could be actively discussed, debated, and planned-for -- nothing would be left to chance, and all workers would make the productive capacities responsive directly to *human* needs and preferences, instead of to the market's.

I'd go so far as to argue that a post-capitalist society would have an objective interest in liberating *individuals*, on an individual basis, by providing the individual with the *personal* means with which to produce one's own housing, energy, water, food, education, entertainment, etc., for a complete "take-away" of personal autonomy. This would enable the resulting liberated collectivized society to be composed *entirely* on a self-selected basis from the ground up, without the least bit of 'clientelism', exploitation, or any kind of entanglements or dependence in either direction.

[Oswy]

Hey guys first time on this forum and I have a question. I'm currently studying communism and I found in my economics book this

"One of the first disadvantages of communism is that individual freedom is lost. People have little or no say in their jobs, and economic planners determine even the choice of occupation."

Is it true that the idea of communism includes a government of some sort choosing your occupation? perhaps based on economics needs? Or is this total bullshit?

I don't think Marx had the idea of a supreme government choosing your occupation for you... I'm not wrong am I? :confused:

Communism as Marx envisioned it would be a condition in which there was no state at all. A socialist state would be the 'bridge' between a failed capitalism and that future communism but even here you should have much greater freedom to do whatever kind of productive work you like given that equitable distribution plus scarcity-ending technology means much less emphasis on the need to work at all (in my view).

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

Communism is about realizing ourselves as full human beings through our needs and our desires. Not everyone is going to become one thing because not everyone is interested in the same things. In communism we won't be specialists either, but people who move through different activities when we want to or feel that we must.

I'd imagine that your friendly neighborhood physicist, astronomer, surgeon, mathematician, etc. would object to your idea that there won't be "specialists" in communism. What sort of deficient society are we going to be living in where there aren't specialists for anything? If I decide that I want to work in construction for 5 years and then go into dentistry, I better damn well become a dental specialist! I certainly wouldn't want somebody fucking around with my teeth that doesn't consider him/herself a specialist in his/her respective field.

And of course not everybody will want to be the same thing, but I would venture to guess that there are far more people in our society that wish to be architects than bus drivers. And yet, we need far more of the latter than the former. How exactly do you plan to resolve this contradiction without tests and quotas for particular areas of employment? Just like dentists, we can't just let anybody design a building if approval for the building doesn't have to be given by a board of architectural specialists.

[ckaihatsu]

Shit, it's causing me actual physical pain to disagree with you here -- and especially since that username is one of the best I've seen -- but I tend to think that many or all occupations we consider "specialized" today will just be commonplace knowledge and ability for those of a post-capitalist future.

Consider something that we consider "pedestrian" today, like keeping the books or other basic white-collar stuff -- for someone of 100 years ago *that* was considered "specialized" and was looked up to as a pillar-of-society kind of thing. Now the clerical-type flows of numbers and information are automated and all that's left are the ivory tower hacks to apologize for the antiquated underlying dynamics.

Even "specialized" professions like teaching and acting are coming under attack now from the increasingly automated "civilizational" infrastructure of the net and computer graphics, respectively. Given enough of a collectivized society perhaps we'd all just eventually make the rounds and become variously proficient at *all kinds* of "societal upkeep" duties, even including dentistry and surgery (probably computer- and robot-aided). With enough knowledge automation -- meaning certain guiding parameters and algorithms, as in software -- perhaps even *children* would be given a free hand here and there to design and co-finalize plans for the building of actual buildings....

[ckaihatsu]

( Oh, and the obligatory clichéd satirical send-up of the demonization of Cold War Stalinism: )

Eeen kahm-you-nist soh-sigh-eh-tee work chooses *YOU*!

[Jimmie Higgins]

The quickest way to counter the false idea of "freedom" to choose jobs in capitalism is the frequent mass lay-offs that happen under capitalism. Obviously, being laid-off from a job means that your choice of job is objectively less important than the demands of the profit system. Which is more freedom for a worker: having an unaccountable bureaucrat place you in a job because it is in the interests of the ruling order of that society or a unaccountable boss removing you from a job because it is in the interests of a profit seeking ruling order? Neither.

Educational inequality and limited opportunities for many working class people, as others have said in this thread, are also examples of how the system determines our job more than personal will. I wish I could find the figures, but I remember reading (in a mainstream newspaper) that the majority of people in the US end up working in the same occupational field as their parents.

As for jobs after a revolution: I don't think workers would decide to create a job-placement system where people's jobs are dictated to them with no regard to an individual's feelings. I think there would be an incentive to create some kind of temp-agency type system where jobs could be allocated to people who need them. At the workplace level, there would probably also be an incentive to get rid of all unplesant shit-work... or at least a minimization of it. Necessary buy tedious or unpleasant tasks could be divided up so that each equal worker would have to clean the toilet once a month or whatnot which is much better than being assigned by capitalism (or some top-down bureaucracy) to be a full time garbage-man or janitor for 8 hours a day everyday. But even if job choices are limited, a socialist system with real workplace decision making and so on would mean having to take a necessary job in an field that isn't of interest to you, would be free from the alienation of working in capitalism and so you'd have the ability to try and cooperatively find more pleasant ways to take care of unpleasant tasks.

But tasks would still have to be organized in some way - individuals probably couldn't just decide to be a professional ice-cream taster if there was no call for such a thing in general. But organizing these tasks in a democratic and cooperative way is far superior than having tasks decided on because of the demands of the market and dictated by CEOs and managers or some monolithic and unaccountable state. Free and ongoing education on demand would mean that even if you have to put in 10 hours a week at a local food co-op or whatever you could still study and train in other fields that aren't just necessary, but actually interest you as well.

[ckaihatsu]

I appreciate the politics behind all of your points here, JH -- I'd like to do some "fine-tuning" here....





At the workplace level, there would probably also be an incentive to get rid of all unplesant shit-work... or at least a minimization of it. Necessary buy tedious or unpleasant tasks could be divided up so that each equal worker would have to clean the toilet once a month or whatnot which is much better than being assigned by capitalism (or some top-down bureaucracy) to be a full time garbage-man or janitor for 8 hours a day everyday.


I think this oft-repeated argument suffers from a kind of "negative-fetishism" -- I don't see why revolutionaries should feel the least bit anxious or perspire at the prospect of having to address less-desired tasks that must be handled by a self-liberated collectivized labor force.

Looking back at history there are *plenty* of *formerly* politicized tasks that, due to increasing technology, don't even have to be bothered with at all anymore -- I'd imagine that in the not-too-distant future there could very well be a technological development like some kind of spray or coating that would either prevent bacteria from attaching to surfaces altogether or else allow an electrical zap to clean all surfaces, or something like that....





would be free from the alienation of working in capitalism and so you'd have the ability to try and cooperatively find more pleasant ways to take care of unpleasant tasks.


I really think we should emphasize this *ethos* -- that there would no longer be any objective social (political) barriers to the full, unimpeded, uncoerced cooperation of all liberated workers, worldwide. If something like cleaning toilets became such an unresolved sticking point among so many people then it would rise to the visibility of being one of the leading political issues of the day, and so there would be more concentrated attention focused on it, and on possible solutions for it.

And, combined with the more enlightened ethos you've described, such a population would not *feel* comfortable just dispensing with such gruntwork by a system of drawing lots or whatever -- an enlightened society would look for a permanent, *non-human-labor* *solution* -- automation -- so as to unencumber *everyone* in a universally non-discriminatory way.





As for jobs after a revolution: I don't think workers would decide to create a job-placement system where people's jobs are dictated to them with no regard to an individual's feelings. I think there would be an incentive to create some kind of temp-agency type system where jobs could be allocated to people who need them.




But even if job choices are limited, a socialist system with real workplace decision making and so on would mean having to take a necessary job in an field that isn't of interest to you,


I'm particularly cautious of projecting present-day capitalist-based practices -- like the commodification of work into formal job positions -- onto the revolutionary conceptualizations and planning for a *post*-capitalist future.

We shouldn't necessarily think that such a political economics would revolve around the basic unit of the job position -- rather, I think each person's *political* role would come to the fore, in a mass, aggregated context. Currently jobs are *needed* by the working class in order to secure the basics of life. But once freed from such formalism the societal structure could be something more along the lines of an industrial and post-industrial "primitive communism", everywhere, all over the world.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think automation would certainly play a part of how people would be reorganizing work in their own interests. I was mostly trying to address some of the more immediate post-revolution day-one ways that people might attempt to handle these issues because really it's all just speculation about what people may or may not do in the future. I really would only imagine some kind of cooperative job-placement type organizing would be necessary while the society was still moving from capitalism to a new society set up by workers. And ultimately there would be an interest IMO for just getting rid of "work" as much as possible. Automation and new ways of organizing production that can not be automized would be a big part of that process.

[ckaihatsu]

And ultimately there would be an interest IMO for just getting rid of "work" as much as possible. Automation and new ways of organizing production that can not be automized would be a big part of that process.


I'll just briefly add that part of that process should be a mass-scale re-prioritization of what should even *be* considered as work-worthwhile for society to function -- but then that's the definition of *revolution*, isn't it...?


= )