The doctor argument against communism [Archive]

Decolonize The Left

24th December 2010, 01:51

I'm sure this has been gone over again and again but here goes.

My brother is arguing that those that work "the hardest" deserve to be rich and have most of the wealth saying they earned it. Then goes on saying because a doctor workers harder than a janitor he should have more.

How do I respond? It sounds like there should be an easy answer but I can't think of one...

This is a very common argument against socialism in general, and can be refuted quite well as follows.

The difference between the doctor and janitor is primarily one of specialization. Hence the argument which your brother is trying to make is that the doctor went to school for a long time, was educated in a specialized discipline, and can now perform tasks which the ordinary layperson cannot.
Now, how do you counter this? The first point is to acknowledge that what your brother says is true. You cannot simply deny that these are facts when the are.

Your argument is more nuanced, you want him to explain how the doctor came into his/her position and how the janitor did. For the most part, the doctor's family was able to afford a good school, college, and grad school. Hence it is reasonable to assume that the doctor departed from at least some position of privilege. It is likely that the janitor did not. This is your first point.

Your second point is one of necessity. Yes, doctors are necessary. If I need a triple-bypass there are only a handful of people in my area who can help me. But what about getting to the doctor? I need some transportation - i.e. I need some laypeople to perform mundane tasks in an assembly line to manufacture a car. Then I need to get into the hospital and be taken to the emergency room. I need laypeople who cleaned the roads, cleaned the hospital, cleaned the equipment, built and wired the hospital, painted the walls, put in the windows, etc...
And what about the doctor? Where would s/he be without the janitor? The answer is in a shitty ass hospital which s/he would inevitably leave for a cleaner one. No doctor will tell you they'd rather clean toilets, floors, walls, puke, etc... and not pay someone else to do it for an entire building.

Now why should they be paid differently? We have already established that the doctor most likely emerged from a position of privilege and cannot perform their task without the janitor. In short, we have established that the doctor and janitor live in a mutually benefiting relationship in the sense that both of them are necessary to one another's survival and well-being.

In short:
So your brother should say that they should be paid differently because one's purpose is more valuable than the other. But we have already articulated the opposite. If he is going to argue that one went to school for a long time, we have dismissed that reasonably and attributed it to privilege. If he is going to argue that the doctor's job is harder, this is false as the janitor's job is more difficult and arduous while the doctor's job is more technically advanced. This doesn't make it harder though.

Your brother is oversimplifying the situation to suit his argument, it is your responsibility to take a more nuanced view and provide him with the context of 'pay grades.'

- August

24th December 2010, 01:53

In a capitalist society, the prevailing narrative is that if one does difficult, complicated, skilled work, they "deserve" to "earn" more than those that do easier, simple, unskilled work.

But this is an arbitrary construct to justify the capitalist's system of rewards - in fact there is no non-circular reason for thinking a doctor "deserves" more than a janitor.

Why should for example, someone be payed more for doing something rewarding, that they enjoy, and that brings a great deal of social prestige and status - than for doing something that is boring, that no one cares to do, that provides no social benefits? Why should a job that leaves your body shattered by the time you're 50 be payed less than a job that you can work at comfortably into your 70s? It seems a reasonable argument could be made that actually the janitor should be paid more since he or she receives less or no non-monetary benefits, and the doctor payed less since she or he receives non-monetary perks.

On an even wider level - what does it mean to "earn" money? Is it money that you grew out of thin air like you might get vegetables from your own garden? No of course not - its nothing more than what other people pay you. Where do you they get the money? Ultimately all of the consumer goods and socially necessary material things in society come from manual laborers who produce them in factories, construct them, move materials around, extract raw materials from the earth and forests, and so on. These things that they make are *taken* from them by "owners" who can do it not because the owners actually contribute anything meaningful but because the state uses coercive force to enforce their "ownership" - to assign to them the product of other people's labor. This then eventually gets filtered to both the doctors salary and the janitors salary.

So in fact, neither really "make" money - they don't make anything - rather they get paid by the people (indirectly) who have power over those (the capitalists) who do make things (the industrial and agricultural workers). How much they get paid has nothing to do with what they're worth or even with what they do - it has to do with the whims of the capitalists. Why should the capitalists get to decide?

Broletariat

24th December 2010, 01:56

Whenever someone bases value of work on difficulty of work I tell them I'm going to chop down trees with pillows.

Rafiq

24th December 2010, 01:59

He says because he went to school longer and does a more complicated job.

His parents most likely funded his college.

Rafiq

24th December 2010, 02:01

Society would make you think that doctors work more, but that's simply not true.

You need Janitors just as much as you need Doctors.

Die Neue Zeit

24th December 2010, 07:15

I'm surprised nobody mentioned university debt yet.

mlgb

24th December 2010, 07:37

If he is going to argue that one went to school for a long time, we have dismissed that reasonably and attributed it to privilege.

but under a socialist system education would no longer be a 'privilege'. this refutation is insufficient because its is constructed based upon the aspects of the system we are rejecting. certainly in the immediate aftermath of the seizure of state power by the proletariat many/most doctors would still be the product of privilege but another decade or two on this would no longer be the case. why then should the privilege argument even be considered?

ckaihatsu

24th December 2010, 09:08

This argument / issue is a perennial one, and is the most valuable to address since it cuts right to the heart of what 'labor' is termed to be, and how it could be otherwise.

As revolutionaries we *must* be able to clearly make this distinction throughout, since what we advocate doesn't currently exist -- we can't simply point to something already out there and tell someone to read up on it. So, for each point we need to be able to make *two* arguments -- one *against* the existing capitalist status quo, and one *for* a mass labor-collectivized solution to it.

This is a very common argument against socialism in general, and can be refuted quite well as follows.

The difference between the doctor and janitor is primarily one of specialization. Hence the argument which your brother is trying to make is that the doctor went to school for a long time, was educated in a specialized discipline, and can now perform tasks which the ordinary layperson cannot.
Now, how do you counter this? The first point is to acknowledge that what your brother says is true. You cannot simply deny that these are facts when the are.

Your argument is more nuanced, you want him to explain how the doctor came into his/her position and how the janitor did. For the most part, the doctor's family was able to afford a good school, college, and grad school. Hence it is reasonable to assume that the doctor departed from at least some position of privilege. It is likely that the janitor did not. This is your first point.

Unfortunately, AugustWest, you're not addressing the 'specialization' argument on its own terms. Instead you're putting it into a larger context of privileged background. I don't disagree with you -- it's an important factor to consider -- but for the purposes of argument we should be able to deal with 'specialization' at face value.

In the context of the capitalist status quo it's easy to dismiss the exorbitant compensation that white-collar / "professional" positions often receive -- though much of the middle class has now been proletarianized through the economic downturn of the past 30-40 years.

Their privileged compensation owes much to the "capital club" dynamic of in-crowd cultural politics, meaning that certain necessary stages towards certain career positions can only be received through the "blessing" of certain others who are in established positions to "open doors" for the up-and-comers. This means that the "specialization" is not only through *skill*, as the term suggests, but is rather through a capital-oriented, guild-like *political* specialization -- what we might call active participation in bourgeois 'society', in the elitist sense of the word.

In an earlier day we could talk more straightforwardly about one's objective relation to the means of mass production -- but in an era of *post*-industrial, *debt*-based economic activity it makes more sense to speak in *subjective* terminologies, such as those that look to see who are the major players in the realms of political and economic influence. So, overall, it's still the bourgeoisie at the helm, with the result that the "wages" that "professionals" receive are more akin to "political payoffs" since the work done is in the *service* sector -- much more amorphous a type of work than physical, blue-collar *manufacturing* work is.

But, politics aside, there *is* still something to be said for the time out of a person's life that they spend in preparation for their income-earning position. This, then, is more in line with the connotation of 'specialization' as we normally think of the term. A white-collar proletarianized worker can justifiably ask, "Why did I put in all that time at school if not so that I can do the good job at my work that I do today?"

We would only be dismissive and insulting in our approach if we told this kind of educated worker that what they do, with their one or more degrees of academic training, is literally on par with the work of a janitor. Yes, as workers-in-society their roles are all socially necessary, but, on an individual basis, as individual lives, we *cannot* just blur them all together as generic 'workers', wantonly ignoring the differences in the *type* of work they do.

We don't have to address matters of compensation in the *current* time-frame, as if in a reformist way -- since we're revolutionaries -- but we *do* have to posit some treatment of these material factors of work for a realistic interpretation of how a future *post*-capitalist society could establish consideration for the same.

In order to respond to arguments like the one for this thread, I developed a model that takes these critical factors -- like work difficulty -- into account in a material way. One excerpt is here -- please note the 'survey' part within it:

communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

Determination of material values

communist administration -- Assets and resources may be created and sourced from projects and production runs

labor [supply] -- Labor credits are paid per hour of work at a multiplier rate based on difficulty or hazard -- multipliers are survey-derived

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination

http://postimage.org/image/35sw8csv8/

Tavarisch_Mike

25th December 2010, 20:45

The title 'doctor' tend to be quite wide, not all of them are highly specialized brain-surgery some of them have basicly studied a medicine book and got the authority to give a diagnosis. Many nurses have more knowledge since they tend to get in contact with the patients evry day, since healing is a long process and the nurses takes care of all the basic tasks (and some advanced) you can argue on who is actually working hardest, speaking of that when this argument comes up i think its good to immidiatly answer with the question on how do we define hard work.

Ned Kelly

27th December 2010, 05:55

Ask him what would happen if janitors, garbagemen et. al, disappeared.

Bardo

27th December 2010, 06:46

Being a doctor will get you laid. Being a janitor probably wont.

/argument & sign me up for doctor

Apoi_Viitor

27th December 2010, 14:46

Ask him to find Cuba on this map...

http://www.joeydevilla.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/inhabitants_per_doctor.jpg

chegitz guevara

27th December 2010, 17:03

#1 Labor, like any commodity, is the product of socially necessary labor. There is more socially necessary labor invested in training a doctor than a janitor, therefore there should be no problem with socialist society valuing the work a doctor does more than it does a janitor.

#2, in communist society, when money has disappeared and we live in a world of abundance, there will be other methods of social reward. Doctors are probably always going to be well respected and have relatively high status, regardless of whether or not they have lots of money.

Aurorus Ruber

27th December 2010, 17:18

I think a communist economy would no longer confine people to purely menial labor like janitorial work while making higher education a privilege of others. Our current economy draws sharp lines between janitors and doctors, but I don't think all economies would necessarily work that way. One could imagine a hospital collective dividing simple cleaning work among members rather than requiring one person to spend all their time doing it.

chegitz guevara

27th December 2010, 22:31

True, but I'd rather people who put their hands inside me not be handling the garbage first. :crying:

Kotze

28th December 2010, 00:29

My brother is arguing that those that work "the hardest" deserve to be richWhat does this have to do with capitalism? :P
There is more socially necessary labor invested in training a doctor than a janitor, therefore there should be no problem with socialist society valuing the work a doctor does more than it does a janitor.The education will be paid for by society and this will include an income for the trainees, so individual education expenses can't be used to justify paying doctors more.

Only in a scenario where a socialist commonwealth and non-socialist regions co-exist and a non-socialist region lures sucessfully huge parts of specific groups with higher pay, this has to be curbed by higher pay and possibly movement restrictions for these groups. The second option is somewhat unpopular and if used should be something that people get informed about before they start with getting that education (eg. after becoming a doctor you have to stay in the commonwealth for 5 years or something like that).

ckaihatsu

28th December 2010, 02:06

True, but I'd rather people who put their hands inside me not be handling the garbage first. :crying:

Also, if they do that, they really should send flowers and chocolates afterwards...!

x D

(Sorry -- too easy, someone else would have anyway, etc.)

Klaatu

28th December 2010, 05:09

A doctor can do a janitor's work.

But can a janitor do a doctor's work?

mikelepore

28th December 2010, 05:46

He says because he went to school longer and does a more complicated job.

Going to school has nothing to do with it. As a simple comparison shows, a person who is a janitor and remains one forever, and another person who starts out as a janitor but then goes through training to become a doctor (which would be considered time on the job), have both worked the same number of years.

Person A

year 1: janitor
year 2: janitor
year 3: janitor
year 4: janitor
year 5: janitor
year 6: janitor
year 7: janitor
year 8: janitor

Person B

year 1: janitor
year 2: training
year 3: training
year 4: training
year 5: training
year 6: training
year 7: training
year 8: doctor

As we can see, there is no evidence pointing to the conclusion that there must be additional sacrifice on the part of the person whose work day has consisted of studying to be a doctor.

StalinFanboy

28th December 2010, 06:22

Proteus

28th December 2010, 20:45

Going to school has nothing to do with it. As a simple comparison shows, a person who is a janitor and remains one forever, and another person who starts out as a janitor but then goes through training to become a doctor (which would be considered time on the job), have both worked the same number of years.

Person A

year 1: janitor
year 2: janitor
year 3: janitor
year 4: janitor
year 5: janitor
year 6: janitor
year 7: janitor
year 8: janitor

Person B

year 1: janitor
year 2: training
year 3: training
year 4: training
year 5: training
year 6: training
year 7: training
year 8: doctor

As we can see, there is no evidence pointing to the conclusion that there must be additional sacrifice on the part of the person whose work day has consisted of studying to be a doctor.

I agree with this. If doctors are being remunerated on the basis of working hard in college for 7 years in training, can those doctors prove that they worked any harder than the janitor, miner or deep-sea fisherman? They clearly did not.

ckaihatsu

29th December 2010, 00:57

First -- my disclaimer is that I don't make a habit out of defending petit-bourgeoisie occupations.

That said, I have to note that, even allowing a year of training / education to equate to a year on the job, once that schooling is complete it doesn't mean that the resultant job positions are equivalent in terms of labor, with all due respect to janitors.

[If] doctors are being remunerated on the basis of working hard in college for 7 years in training, can those doctors prove that they worked any harder than the janitor, miner or deep-sea fisherman? They clearly did not.

We should acknowledge that white-collar work tends to be more learning-based and judgment-pivotal than blue-collar labor -- it's no wonder so many revolutionaries consider white-collar positions to be *managerial* and not even of the working class at all....

A doctor can do a janitor's work.

But can a janitor do a doctor's work?

Nonetheless this material fact holds, and in a post-capitalism context, the managerial aspect of the doctor's work would be soundly on the side of mass humane concern, with all personal avaricious motivations being structurally transcended.

Both the janitor and the doctor would have political duties -- including inherent judgment- / decision-making within a collective-based context -- as the mass-political complement to their functional work. So, *politically*, they would be seen as roughly equivalent in their greater societal input, but *functionally* their positions would still be similar to that of today.

The Fighting_Crusnik

29th December 2010, 01:24

As to the doctor argument I figure this. A large majority of doctors who claim that they'd quit are only blowing out steam. In other words, they aren't going to do anything. As to those who leave, there will be a slight hole. But if the entire government is fundamentally reformed, then I foresee many kids from the slums who would otherwise have no chance at a higher education going to medical school and becoming doctors because it's what they want to do with their life.

scarletghoul

29th December 2010, 02:03

Just ask why Cuba has a surplus of doctors.

Klaatu

29th December 2010, 03:49

Going to school has nothing to do with it. As a simple comparison shows, a person who is a janitor and remains one forever, and another person who starts out as a janitor but then goes through training to become a doctor (which would be considered time on the job), have both worked the same number of years.

Person A

year 1: janitor
year 2: janitor
year 3: janitor
year 4: janitor
year 5: janitor
year 6: janitor
year 7: janitor
year 8: janitor

Person B

year 1: janitor
year 2: training
year 3: training
year 4: training
year 5: training
year 6: training
year 7: training
year 8: doctor

As we can see, there is no evidence pointing to the conclusion that there must be additional sacrifice on the part of the person whose work day has consisted of studying to be a doctor.

I do not think that you are being fair.

(A) This "training" is not exactly a piece of cake. The training is tough and mentally exhausting (and few actually make it through)

(B) A doctor must pay for his own training (university degree) so the years 2 through 7 he is not earning a living.

(C) Comparing doctors and janitors is a waste of time anyway. We should be comparing janitors and hedge-fund managers.

mikelepore

29th December 2010, 05:55

I do not think that you are being fair.

(A) This "training" is not exactly a piece of cake. The training is tough and mentally exhausting (and few actually make it through)

Perhaps the doctor or the med student exerts greater effort than other workers in a way that can be estimated. Perhaps someone can estimate that an hour spent memorizing the names of the bones is as much as a stress on the individual as another person's 1.5 hours buffing the floor. But a classless society would have to consider that explicitly in order to justify having unequal compensation. It would have to be unlike the present system, in which doctors can make up fees out of thin air, as if to say, "I declare that an hour of my time is worth a thousand dollars --because I can."

(B) A doctor must pay for his own training (university degree) so the years 2 through 7 he is not earning a living.

Not relevant. Your observation is about the present system. The thread is about how to reply to a certain type of "argument against communism."

(C) Comparing doctors and janitors is a waste of time anyway. We should be comparing janitors and hedge-fund managers.

The thread is about how best to respond to those who use a certain argument, so it's not an option not to make the comparison.

Acostak3

29th December 2010, 06:08

"The elimination of all social and political inequality,” rather than “the abolition of all class distinctions,” is similarly a most dubious expression. As between one country, one province and even one place and another, living conditions will always evince a certain inequality which may be reduced to a minimum but never wholly eliminated. The living conditions of Alpine dwellers will always be different from those of the plainsmen. The concept of a socialist society as a realm of equality is a one-sided French concept deriving from the old “liberty, equality, fraternity,” a concept which was justified in that, in its own time and place, it signified a phase of development, but which, like all the one-sided ideas of earlier socialist schools, ought now to be superseded, since they produce nothing but mental confusion, and more accurate ways of presenting the matter have been discovered." -- Friedrich Engels

This is sortof a copout, but outwardly, the doctor question isn't really relevant to communism. Doctors are still proletarian, and communism's primary focus is not income disparity within the proletariat -- it is on the fact that the bourgeois have a monopoly on the means of production and this enables them to exploit the proletariat.

Klaatu

31st December 2010, 03:43

The thread is about how best to respond to those who use a certain argument, so it's not an option not to make the comparison.

I agree with an equal society, but perhaps doctors, which are an absolute necessity to society, may not be the best thing to compare to?

I mean that, there are people in society who are absolute criminals (the legal type!) which we should be attacking instead... Consider that "hedge-fund" managers in the stock market make millions, even billions, of dollars, simply betting with other people's money... In my humble opinion, a great argument can be made to favor socialism (and communism) by the exposure of these blood-sucking leeches, even the outlawing of their activities.

It kind of seems unfair to go after doctors, who are healers, when these hedgefund criminals, and others like them are such easy targets.

In fact, we can get a lot of people over to our side if we first go after this corruption (many people would support us here) however I cannot see socialists getting much support from the general population, if we downgrade doctors. Sure there are crook-doctors. But most just try to make an honest living. I suggest going after the worst of the worst first. Our time is now. No one else is going after these capitalist blood-suckers. We should be.

ckaihatsu

31st December 2010, 04:20

I agree with an equal society, but perhaps doctors, which are an absolute necessity to society, may not be the best thing to compare to?

I mean that, there are people in society who are absolute criminals (the legal type!) which we should be attacking instead... Consider that "hedge-fund" managers in the stock market make millions, even billions, of dollars, simply betting with other people's money... In my humble opinion, a great argument can be made to favor socialism (and communism) by the exposure of these blood-sucking leeches, even the outlawing of their activities.

It kind of seems unfair to go after doctors, who are healers, when these hedgefund criminals, and others like them are such easy targets.

In fact, we can get a lot of people over to our side if we first go after this corruption (many people would support us here) however I cannot see socialists getting much support from the general population, if we downgrade doctors. Sure there are crook-doctors. But most just try to make an honest living. I suggest going after the worst of the worst first. Our time is now. No one else is going after these capitalist blood-suckers. We should be.

In my humble opinion, a great argument can be made to favor socialism (and communism) by the exposure of these blood-sucking leeches, even the outlawing of their activities.

This argument really *does* bring the economics point to a head, and it's the kind of thing that *politicians* will use, too, by spinning it around to *their* side.... They'll say something like, "Oh, yeah, we know the crisis is bad, and that we're essentially rewarding financial criminals for making wildly reckless bets, but what's your alternative? Socialism?!"

This accusatory tone, leveled at those who aren't used to being political, will shut them up really fast because they're *not* sure about workers' power. There's no in-between at these heights, so unless someone is ready to say 'yes' to socialism and to back it up with arguments they'll instantly succumb to the anxiety-mongering from capitalism-backers, unable to think of a reformist fix to mitigate the meltdown, because there *isn't* one.

OhYesIdid

31st December 2010, 04:57

as Redstar 2000 said over in the Learning forums:

If there were no janitors, housekeepers, sanitation workers, what would happen? You'd either have to do all that clean-up yourself or things would get filthy, germs would breed, you'd get sick and die.

As a matter of fact, death rates started to decline in the second half of the 19th century...when medicine was still mostly quackery. Why? Because major European cities started building sewer systems and people stopped living in their own shit.

Every person who makes a genuine contribution to society deserves a living wage...an income sufficient to live with dignity.It may not be the most technically impressive argument out there, but it is certainly poetic.

Klaatu

31st December 2010, 06:09

This argument really *does* bring the economics point to a head, and it's the kind of thing that *politicians* will use, too, by spinning it around to *their* side.... They'll say something like, "Oh, yeah, we know the crisis is bad, and that we're essentially rewarding financial criminals for making wildly reckless bets, but what's your alternative? Socialism?!"

This accusatory tone, leveled at those who aren't used to being political, will shut them up really fast because they're *not* sure about workers' power. There's no in-between at these heights, so unless someone is ready to say 'yes' to socialism and to back it up with arguments they'll instantly succumb to the anxiety-mongering from capitalism-backers, unable to think of a reformist fix to mitigate the meltdown, because there *isn't* one.

The sad thing is that the average Joe-On-The-Street has a completely distorted idea of what socialism is all about. They think it means "collectivism" and "dictatorship." And when politicians make these comparisons (as ckaihatsu points out) it only continues the ignorance, and beats us while we are down. People think that socialism is somehow "bad" or something. This is because they don't know what it is. They think what they are told to think.

A typical credit union is a socialist organization, where the people themselves own shares, and no billionaire is sucking in obscene profit. Even die-hard right-wingers support credit unions (then why not socialism?)

ckaihatsu

31st December 2010, 06:27

A typical credit union is a socialist organization, where the people themselves own shares, and no billionaire is sucking in obscene profit. Even die-hard right-wingers support credit unions (then why not socialism?)

It's a stretch to use credit unions as a rough sketch for a fully post-capitalist global socialist collectivism because credit unions are *non-productive* entities, unlike factories. The productive process *requires* labor and *that's* the source of workers' power. Credit unions are based on pre-existing *ownership* of monetary value, however slight in quantity -- therefore they're *consumer*-oriented, not *worker*-oriented.

[The] owners and the users of the institution are the same people. In any case, credit unions generally cannot accept donations and must be able to prosper in a competitive market economy.

According to WOCCU, a credit union's revenues (from loans and investments) need to exceed its operating expenses and dividends (interest paid on deposits) in order to maintain capital and solvency[30] and "credit unions use excess earnings to offer members more affordable loans, a higher return on savings, lower fees or new products and services".[8]

Most credit unions provide service only to individual consumers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_union

Property Is Robbery

31st December 2010, 06:31

Without a janitor, hospitals would be filthy and everyone would die.

Klaatu

31st December 2010, 21:13

...credit unions are *non-productive* entities, unlike factories. The productive process *requires* labor and *that's* the source of workers' power. Credit unions are based on pre-existing *ownership* of monetary value, however slight in quantity -- therefore they're *consumer*-oriented, not *worker*-oriented.

Yes, but it's a start. But also think of the credit union as a service. The economy consists of goods and services (for example, janitors, doctors, and teachers provide a service, they do not manufacture anything)

The credit union is a good model to prove to the uninformed that socialism works. Also, the success of Veterans' Administration hospitals proves that public, government-run health care works.

What galls me is the call for "privatisation" of public entities (such as public utilities) in that electric prices, for example, always rise when they are sold to private ownership. Recall the 2001 rolling blackouts in California? This was caused solely by the privatisation of their electric grid. Fully one-third of the power plants in that state were purposefully taken offline (even for mere minutes at a time,) to create power shortages, to thus jack up electric prices. Nothing was wrong with California's power-generating capacity at all. All of this was just a big scam, courtesy of the private company Enron Corp.

Therefore, we should be nationalising large industry, not privatising! The people should own these entities, not billionaires.

Cane Nero

31st December 2010, 21:27

Didn't read the whole thread, but ask your brother what he thinks the world would be like right now if suddenly there were no janitors or garbage men or anyone to clean shit up.

also ask him why the illegal immigrant who spends 14 hours a day picking strawberries gets paid less than the CEO who sits on his ass all day.

And if your brother use the argument that illegal immigrants are less studied than the CEO, ask him if either had or were given the same level of quality of education?

Dr Mindbender

1st January 2011, 00:43

Klaatu

2nd January 2011, 02:20

human beings shouldnt have to do janitorial work in the first place.

Having janitorial jobs automated; are we OK with this?

I don't know. I am wondering what those with little or no skills might do for a living, if we robotize our work force? Consider the "Roomba" robotic vacuum cleaner.

x371322

2nd January 2011, 02:32

Having janitorial jobs automated; are we OK with this?

I don't know. I am wondering what those with little or no skills might do for a living, if we robotize our work force? Consider the "Roomba" robotic vacuum cleaner.

I'm okay with it... assuming that by that point we have free education, childcare, housing, etc. People will be able to become anything they want, with nothing to hold them back. Not to mention that we'll have a lot more leisure time on our hands, so that's always good.

ckaihatsu

2nd January 2011, 03:04

---

I'm okay with it... assuming that by that point we have free education, childcare, housing, etc. People will be able to become anything they want, with nothing to hold them back. Not to mention that we'll have a lot more leisure time on our hands, so that's always good.

And as I have mentioned the word labour, I cannot help saying that a great deal of nonsense is being written and talked nowadays about the dignity of manual labour. There is nothing necessarily dignified about manual labour at all, and most of it is absolutely degrading. It is mentally and morally injurious to man to do anything in which he does not find pleasure, and many forms of labour are quite pleasureless activities, and should be regarded as such. To sweep a slushy crossing for eight hours, on a day when the east wind is blowing is a disgusting occupation. To sweep it with mental, moral, or physical dignity seems to me to be impossible. To sweep it with joy would be appalling. Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt. All work of that kind should be done by a machine.

At present, in consequence of the existence of private property, a great many people are enabled to develop a certain very limited amount of Individualism. They are either under no necessity to work for their living, or are enabled to choose the sphere of activity that is really congenial to them, and gives them pleasure.

The Soul of Man under Socialism by Oscar Wilde

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1017

Os Cangaceiros

2nd January 2011, 05:10

I don't know. I am wondering what those with little or no skills might do for a living, if we robotize our work force?

Dig holes and fill them back in again.

ckaihatsu

2nd January 2011, 08:36

Dig holes and fill them back in again.

Competitive navel-gazing.

x D

Lucretia

2nd January 2011, 08:59

He says because he went to school longer and does a more complicated job.

Talents are morally arbitrary in the sense that people don't deserve them. I might be a millionaire bikini model, instead of a 200 kilogram waitress, but not because I am a better person and therefore deserve it, but instead because I was born with good genetics and to parents who fed me health food throughout my childhood and young adulthood. Even the development of skills is something that occurs mostly when one is young, at the behest and under the guidance of others. Talents do not develop as a result of an individual's isolated struggle, so why should the individual have an a priori claim on all the things deriving from that talent?

The problem with this argument about specialized skills requiring exponentially more pay is that it presupposes what political philosophers call self-ownership. If you're interested in this topic more, I'd advise you look up that term.

ckaihatsu

2nd January 2011, 09:31

Talents are morally arbitrary in the sense that people don't deserve them. I might be a millionaire bikini model, instead of a 200 kilogram waitress, but not because I am a better person and therefore deserve it, but instead because I was born with good genetics and to parents who fed me health food throughout my childhood and young adulthood. Even the development of skills is something that occurs mostly when one is young, at the behest and under the guidance of others. Talents do not develop as a result of an individual's isolated struggle, so why should the individual have an a priori claim on all the things deriving from that talent?

The problem with this argument about specialized skills requiring exponentially more pay is that it presupposes what political philosophers call self-ownership. If you're interested in this topic more, I'd advise you look up that term.

*Whew!*

This gray area you've raised is bigger than a complex of retirement homes.... (heh)

I think we're in general agreement here that, currently, under *capitalism*, specialized skills are consistently over-valued and over-compensated due to commodification and market forces.

But your generalizations about socialized self-development strain credulity -- certainly we are more under the guidance of others while we're younger, but I think you're taking this premise to the point of eviscerating individuality altogether. Don't you think that by one's teenage years one has at least made *some* claims to one's own personhood, including certain avenues of self-development -- ?

Yes, individuality itself is a gray area and is definitely socialized, no matter the mode of production, but there *is* such a thing as self-determination, however mediated....

(Um, so *are* you a millionaire bikini model...?)

x D

Lucretia

2nd January 2011, 19:21

*Whew!*

This gray area you've raised is bigger than a complex of retirement homes.... (heh)

I think we're in general agreement here that, currently, under *capitalism*, specialized skills are consistently over-valued and over-compensated due to commodification and market forces.

But your generalizations about socialized self-development strain credulity -- certainly we are more under the guidance of others while we're younger, but I think you're taking this premise to the point of eviscerating individuality altogether. Don't you think that by one's teenage years one has at least made *some* claims to one's own personhood, including certain avenues of self-development -- ?

Yes, individuality itself is a gray area and is definitely socialized, no matter the mode of production, but there *is* such a thing as self-determination, however mediated....

(Um, so *are* you a millionaire bikini model...?)

x D

I think we can agree that a person has agency and helps to develop her own capacities and skills. My point was that this agency is always heavily structurally conditioned by factors outside of one's own control, so that it calls into serious question any a priori property claims to all the proceeds of one's talent.

Dr Mindbender

3rd January 2011, 01:15

Having janitorial jobs automated; are we OK with this?

I don't know. I am wondering what those with little or no skills might do for a living, if we robotize our work force? Consider the "Roomba" robotic vacuum cleaner.

People with little or skills are generally in such a position because there is a shortage of and/or high price for education and training.

Unless you are entertaining the bourgeoisie rationale of the workers being deserving of their adversity and repetitive roles due to their stupidity.

ckaihatsu

3rd January 2011, 01:22

I think we can agree that a person has agency and helps to develop her own capacities and skills. My point was that this agency is always heavily structurally conditioned by factors outside of one's own control, so that it calls into serious question any a priori property claims to all the proceeds of one's talent.

Yes, but I have to note that you're mixing modes here (present, future) -- in the *present*, under capitalism, those who do the actual labor (mental / emotional / physical) should receive the full surplus labor value of what the product of their efforts is sold for on the market. Of course no one does....

In a *post*-capitalist, *collectivized* political economy your point would be more pertinent, wherein one would not be in such a social situation to be "hogging" their talents and abilities -- in other words it wouldn't be a society of individualistic hobbyists and artists. There would be social dynamics that would encourage the organization of liberated labor on a *mass* basis.

Lucretia

3rd January 2011, 02:34

Yes, but I have to note that you're mixing modes here (present, future) -- in the *present*, under capitalism, those who do the actual labor (mental / emotional / physical) should receive the full surplus labor value of what the product of their efforts is sold for on the market. Of course no one does....

In a *post*-capitalist, *collectivized* political economy your point would be more pertinent, wherein one would not be in such a social situation to be "hogging" their talents and abilities -- in other words it wouldn't be a society of individualistic hobbyists and artists. There would be social dynamics that would encourage the organization of liberated labor on a *mass* basis.

Actually, no, I am not mixing modes. My argument is that there is no abstract transhistorical principle that justifies giving each person everything he makes. Not under capitalism, and not under socialism. The injustice in capitalism is not distributive in nature. It lies in the fact that people are being compelled to labour solely because they lack democratic control over the means of production. As under socialism, there are many good reasons why a person might be compelled to perform "surplus labor" such as maintaining the elderly or the disabled.

ckaihatsu

3rd January 2011, 03:32

Actually, no, I am not mixing modes. My argument is that there is no abstract transhistorical principle that justifies giving each person everything he makes. Not under capitalism, and not under socialism.

Well, you're glossing over some *immense* differences in the nature of how labor is, and would be, performed -- capitalism vs. socialism.... Socialism would *collectivize* liberated labor effort and productivity so that everyone would have *equitable* access to education, training, work opportunities, work positions, work time, co-administration of collective liberated labor, and the *products* of that collectivized, mass liberated labor.

The injustice in capitalism is not distributive in nature.

Yes, the injustice in capitalism *is* distributive in nature.

It lies in the fact that people are being compelled to labour solely because they lack democratic control over the means of production.

Okay, yeah, agreed -- that, too.

As under socialism, there are many good reasons why a person might be compelled to perform "surplus labor" such as maintaining the elderly or the disabled.

I mean 'surplus labor' in a strictly technical sense -- please see the two diagrams, attached. Caring for the elderly or disabled is, by definition, *socially necessary* labor, since it pertains to the upkeep of the working class.

[11] Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

http://postimage.org/image/1bygthl38/

[23] A Business Perspective on the Declining Rate of Profit

http://postimage.org/image/35qexc278/

∞

3rd January 2011, 13:38

Well is the complicated labor of certain doctors treated as such? Hell no...
My mother, a neurologist, studied for around 8 years. An orthodontist studies 2.
Most orthodontists make more than my mother. Ask your brother this, are nice teeth more important than not having a stroke? Is studying (and diagnosing) Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson's Disease not more important than fiddling with people's teeth?

The laws of the market are governing the wages of doctors, thats fucking disgusting.

Now envision a society where a doctor isn't stepping over shoulders and investing, where wage isn't the reason she/he practices. Instead people study medicine to treat people, expand their knowledge, and be held in high esteem by the community.

From here cappies will make the "HURRR HUMAN NATURE" argument, tell them it is not applicable under their pretentious pessimism, but there is no psychological law that indicates we cannot live like this.

Urko

3rd January 2011, 13:45

not so long ago janitors went on strike here in slovenia... hospital halls were full of garbage bags and trash cans were full... who was complaining? doctors.

ckaihatsu

3rd January 2011, 13:56

not so long ago janitors went on strike here in slovenia... hospital halls were full of garbage bags and trash cans were full... who was complaining? doctors.

That's a better system of checks and balances than even in the U.S. Constitution...!

= D

Klaatu

4th January 2011, 02:38

Would anyone be OK with robotic doctors? That is, a sopisticated computer, in place of Doctor Welby. The "training" would be in it's software.
Is this possible/desirable?:confused:

ckaihatsu

4th January 2011, 03:34

Would anyone be OK with robotic doctors? That is, a sopisticated computer, in place of Doctor Welby. The "training" would be in it's software.
Is this possible/desirable?:confused:

Uh, yeah, fine from over here, just so they don't start making arguments against communism....

= D

ExUnoDisceOmnes

4th January 2011, 03:37

Uh, yeah, fine from over here, just so they don't start making arguments against communism....

= D

If robotic doctors could exist in the present, they would already exist because they would make some damned capitalists a whole boatload of cash... labor could massively be taken out of the industry, making the first one with robot doctors capable of either having a HUGE profit margin, or driving competition out with low prices.

However, assuming that the technology is possible, it must take more labor to make the machine than is saved by the use of the machine.

Klaatu

4th January 2011, 05:58

Would anyone be OK with robotic doctors? That is, a sopisticated computer, in place of Doctor Welby. The "training" would be in it's software.
Is this possible/desirable?:confused:

I would be ok with this, as long as he (it) doesn't mess with my Vicodin prescription :D

Lucretia

4th January 2011, 06:18

Yes, the injustice in capitalism *is* distributive in nature.

In a sense, yes, but not in the specific sense you're referring to. Marx does not at any time assert that capitalism is unjust because workers are not given the full fruit of their labor on an individual basis (which would be a position held by somebody asserting self-ownership). In fact, he critiques this view in his Critique of the Goethe Program. He asserts there is injustice in the inequitable distribution of people's opportunities for freedom and self-realization rooted in inequitable distribution of productive assets (which should be equally controlled). And he also asserts there is inequitable distribution of proceeds, in that distribution is not occurring on the basis of need but rather on the basis of self-ownership. Marx was a critic of a mode of production that actually depends to a significant degree on the bourgeois idea of self-ownership.

I mean 'surplus labor' in a strictly technical sense -- please see the two diagrams, attached. Caring for the elderly or disabled is, by definition, *socially necessary* labor, since it pertains to the upkeep of the working class. You are muddling two concepts here: socially necessary labour time and necessary labour. There is no concept of "socially necessary labour," though exploitation under capitalism cannot be measured except at the level of a mode of production as a whole (due to the fact that production is so socialized and the division of labour so advanced). Marx designated necessary labour to mean that labour performed by the working classes in the process of their collectively producing their necessary use-values (according to a historically determined understanding of what necessity means). Yet even under socialism, surpluses will be produced and stored in case of emergency, etc. By definition, the production of this surplus will be surplus labour. Though, of course, under socialism, this surplus will not be produced through exploited labour but through labour democratically controlled.

ckaihatsu

4th January 2011, 06:26

Would anyone be OK with robotic doctors?

Being a doctor will get you laid.

Damn robot doctors are going to get all the honeys and leave the rest of us in the lurch...!

x D

Klaatu

5th January 2011, 06:24

Damn robot doctors are going to get all the honeys and leave the rest of us in the lurch...!

x D

I think they will just go after the robot nurses (?)

Need plenty of lube oil, dahling... :lol:

ckaihatsu

5th January 2011, 12:05

So robot doctors and robot nurses care for what -- robot *patients* -- ???

How the fuck is *that* part gonna work??!!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

x D

Rooster

5th January 2011, 12:35

Not all doctors are in it for the money. If they were, then they'd all move to LA and perform daily tit jobs and plastic surgery. I'm not complaining about big boobies or straight noses or anything, by the way. Sometimes it just helps.

ckaihatsu

5th January 2011, 12:44

Rooster

5th January 2011, 13:07

Yeah! Make sure to let us know which one you finally decide to get...!

= )

I'm afraid comrade that no amount of plastic surgery will cure my twisted hobgoblin features.

My point was, why do most doctors become doctors?

DuracellBunny97

5th January 2011, 13:10

In a communist society, there is a different kind of incentive from money. I think people just need to look at things from a different perspective in order to accept communism. Somebody who works very hard for, the Coca-Cola company for example, they are working hard, for the good of the company, despite that they are being exploited, because, if you work for the company, what's good for them, is good for you. In the same way, I think people should realize that what's good for society, is good for them. Why should a doctor refuse to perform an appendectomy on somebody who is a functioning, contributing member of their society, because he's not getting any money out of it? People who are able to work, but refuse to for no reason in an anarchist communist society, wouldn't be welcome, therefore every member of a society would be a contributing member, so what's good for one, will be good for another. Besides, a doctor will probably be considered a hero for what he does, but a janitor will be ignored, so there is a another form of incentive.

One of the counter-arguments that bothers me though, is that some people are blaming the janitor position on a lack of opputunity and money, lets assume this is true in all cases, all doctors are simply privleged, of course this is not the case, but for the sake of argument. Well in a communist society, everyone would have the same oppurtunities, so how can pursuing a less noble profession than doctor or historian or scientist be justified. Of course cab-drivers, janitors, and gas station attendants do play a role in society, but who would fill these rolls in society if every capable person could be a doctor. Immigrants I guess, I don't know

ckaihatsu

5th January 2011, 13:51

Well in a communist society, everyone would have the same oppurtunities, so how can pursuing a less noble profession than doctor or historian or scientist be justified. Of course cab-drivers, janitors, and gas station attendants do play a role in society, but who would fill these rolls in society if every capable person could be a doctor. Immigrants I guess, I don't know

Besides this sketch of the *economics* of it, I think the *political* consciousness aspect would play a large role in that no one *should* want to waste their life-time with lesser socially meaningful occupations. A nascent communist society as a whole would no doubt turn its immediate attention to logistically phasing out grunt-work-type positions as quickly as possible, if only to avoid its own political embarrassment....

(This reiterating, recursive dynamic may actually be what could drive a communist society forward, endlessly, in terms of technological and humanities-type development -- generally, people's sentiments of self-worth would be higher than now, under labor commodification, so no one would *want* to do relatively lower-level work in terms of the society's norms at any given point, *plus* the society would be politically "self-conscious" about not wanting to look objectively regressive by allowing the use of human labor for such tasks....)

ckaihatsu

5th January 2011, 14:00

I'm afraid comrade that no amount of plastic surgery will cure my twisted hobgoblin features.

*I've* been trying to get by with what I have on the *inside*, and *that* hasn't been working out so well....

x D

My point was, why do most doctors become doctors?

Dunno....

UltraWright

1st May 2011, 23:03

Back to your "doctor's wage" vs. "janitor's wage". I prefer to replace "janitor" with "sewage worker", it is a difficult job that not much can withstand.

CHEtheLIBERATOR

4th May 2011, 00:56

THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE
The amount of money we give people in a capitalist society is pretty much based on reverse supply and demand

Low supply of doctors, more they get paid

High supply of janitors ( because it's simple labor) less they get paid

I for one think this system is wrong because it uses the working class as a commodity. Also the upper class does not work as hard as a proletariat so he shouldn't get payed more

Finally, the doctor cant heal if his place is dirty and vice versa for the janitor.

ALL PEOPLE ARE EQUAL AND SHOULD LIVE AS EQUALS

Vladimir Innit Lenin

7th May 2011, 10:37

ckaihatsu

7th May 2011, 12:14

As AugustWest says, you have to acknowledge the quite intuitive logic in your brother's argument.

If we say that (assuming the transitory Socialist stage) doctors' pay, perks and privilege should always be exactly equal to a janitor's pay, perks and privilege then we are really missing the point. Undoubtedly, doctors tend to be clever chaps, hard-working and so on. They do deserve some sort of higher status and respect. The issue is narrowing the inequality between high-flying doctors and lowly janitors during the transitory Socialist phase, and taking the 'money' element out of 'status' as much as possible. We should point out that people like consultants, surgeons and GPs (well, in the UK!) earn excessive salaries, but that many junior doctors, foundation level doctors and non-consultant/specialist doctors do not earn huge salaries.

We are missing the point if we argue against any status differential, or if we end up making silly, illogical arguments in defence of menial staff as some sort of higher being than the doctor. The doctor is necessary to society and in almost all cases will be an intelligent, hard working sort of person, professionally speaking. The key is to remove the importance in the community of the money element of 'high status' (high status being what people like doctors should probably organically receive from those in their community).

In short, wean society off it's addiction to money and the doctor/janitor argument sort of logically solves itself.

Okay, sorry to do what I'm going to do here, since I agree in spirit with what you're saying -- but, as comradely as possible:

Even with the "double-paid" aspect removed, a more-intensively-educated, higher-commitment (life) role -- like that of a dedicated professional like a doctor -- would still receive appropriate societal appreciation and respect from colleagues and the public, *without* the artificially inflated status symbol of conspicuous consumption (allowing for unfettered non-reckless personal consumption done "logistically", out of purely genuine *personal* motivation, for *appreciable* goals).

*However*, this noble societal spirit of equanimity, even if profoundly heartfelt by each and every person, may not necessarily be enough if such a society found itself lacking for a supply of (medical) professionals, perhaps knowingly but suddenly unprepared in the wake of a calamitous natural disaster. How could such a goodhearted social order *not* have been able to motivate enough of its people to step up into preparation for such a service when news reports had long and consistently made it clear that the professional fields were lacking?

Perhaps the heightened respect of peers was *not* enough of an incentive for many to put in the extra time and effort when they could get along to their personal contentment in *lower-skilled* roles for society. So, just by the way the numbers popped up "on their own" this potential post-capitalist society found a few -- or several -- major areas of public service to be consistently critically understaffed.

I won't turn the rest of this post into an advertisement, but I *will* at least note that my own approach to this problematic "dynamic" is to provide a unique kind of proportionate "compensation" in return for increased quality of efforts over time. My model -- at my blog entry, and attached here -- uses labor-hour credits that are gauged to the hazard and difficulty of the work done. These labor credits *do* circulate but are *not* exchangeable for any material goods. Rather they are passed along in turn, at the discretion of the liberated laborer who worked for them, to anyone else who provides *their* own liberated labor in some form that someone with credits is willing to "pay" for.

In practice the possession of labor credits (sourced only from one's own work completed) confers a kind of *labor-organizing* authority, which can be coordinated with others who also possess labor credits. Only those *with* labor credits can fund ongoing and future liberated-labor collective work projects, the results of which are necessarily for the common good.

communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://postimage.org/image/35sw8csv8/