every one paid the same? whY?

[goldenboy2421]

Whats up everyone! yea well im having a hard time with the fact that everyone is paid the same. The fact is is that a doctor has worked very hard to get to where he or she is today and t the janitor is payed equally? I mean, if the doctor wanted to he could have dropped out of college when it got super duper hard and just been a janitor. ofcourse both of them are necessary but the doctor is rareer than a janitor.

Who are we fighting? the rich? or bouergoisie? because not all rich are bourgeoise. Couldnt there be at least some difference in salary change because here in America the fact that everyone is paid the same is very shunned and it will be hard to convert people to the left when we are brained washed that some should get paid more than others...except me lol

Couldnt it be a society where the government provides the shelter,food, water, healthcare, services, and education but then people can still be paid differently. How will people have the incentive to work? im having a tough time tackling this.

Yea im kinda new to this ideology so please enlighten me!!

[Frosty Weasel]

To put it simply without going into the technicalities, Marxism advocates the eventually doing away with the wage system and replacing it with a system of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." What this means is that you do not consume any more than you need (basic needs necessary for human life) and you do what you can to contribute.

While doctors do have to study harder than Janitors do, their overall contribution to the community will not only make their own livelihoods better, but also the community at large.

Also, wrong section.

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

While doctors do have to study harder than Janitors do, their overall contribution to the community will not only make their own livelihoods better

Care to elaborate? I've been looking for different perspectives on this...

[Frosty Weasel]

Care to elaborate? I've been looking for different perspectives on this...Actually reading some Marxist literature will go a long way towards being one.

[Kotze]

Hmm, I think that question came up once or twice, wait a sec...

The doctor argument against communism (December 2010) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/doctor-argument-against-t147012/index.html?t=147012)

The same wage issue (November 2010) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/same-wage-issue-t145436/index.html?t=145436)

In true communism, does everyone get paid the same? (June 2010) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/true-communism-does-t136412/index.html?t=136412)

Basic Questions about Marxism (May 2010) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/basic-questions-marxism-t135696/index.html?t=135696)

Should everyone have the same wage? (April 2010) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/should-everyone-have-t132829/index.html?t=132829)

Hours as a measure of labor (November 2009) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/hours-measure-labor-t122517/index.html?t=122517)

The Doctor and the Janitor (January 2009) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/doctor-and-janitor-t99553/index.html?t=99553)

I got some questions for you Communist (September 2008) (http://www.revleft.com/vb/got-some-questions-t90116/index.html?t=90116)

Whoa, it also came up in a thread from October 2001 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/huey-long-and-t1570/index.html?t=1570)

Above list is incomplete, the search function shows over 70 instances where both the word "doctor" and "janitor" appear. I suggest there should be a subforum Doctors & Janitors. :lol:

I hope you are okay with me recycling my answers. Socialism is not about paying everybody the same, it's about getting rid of people receiving fat income just by owning stuff (land, factories) or inheriting wealth. A bit of income difference for people who work longer or do more stressful tasks is okay.

I wrote something about the importance of doctors in comparison with other high-income people here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/conservative-dad-t141781/index.html?p=1865700#post1865700) and about a scenario with doctors in a future society where income-based incentives are less important here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/doctor-argument-against-t147012/index.html?p=1970222#post1970222).

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

Actually reading some Marxist literature will go a long way towards being one.

haha I've read Marxist literature. I've read Kapital, Origins of Family, State and Revolution, Principles of Political Economy, etc.

I've just found that different people have different perspectives and takes on the issue. No need to be rude.

[Frosty Weasel]

No need to be rude.My voice in writing always comes off to people as angry or rude when I'm not trying to be. I think maybe it's due to how direct I am in my speech.

No rudeness intended.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Couldnt it be a society where the government provides the shelter,food, water, healthcare, services, and education but then people can still be paid differently. How will people have the incentive to work? im having a tough time tackling this.

Yea im kinda new to this ideology so please enlighten me!!From the way I see revolutionary socialism, the goal is the "self emancipation of the working class". That means not just replacing the current governmnet with one that can provide better services, but it means changing the basis on which our society is run. Right now it's all organized on the basis of profit. Labor is treated as a commodity so people are paid roughly based on the value it took to develop the skills needed - Surgeons are better paid not because of the actual physical or mental work they do is so hard but because it took a lot of education and a lot of specialized skill developing to produce a surgeon. Some of the hardest fucking jobs I ever had were also the lowest paid - I wasn't paid less because it was easy, but because my job was anonymous and could be done by almost anyone of average physical or mental capacity -- therefore I was easily "replaceable" and cheap and so I got paid shit!

As a socialist, I argue for reorganizing a society based on profit and transforming it into a society where production and the "governmnet" are run democratically and so what we decide to produce, the skills that we will value will not be based on raking in profits, but on what people decide is important to them. Any incentives will be based out of that.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Whats up everyone! yea well im having a hard time with the fact that everyone is paid the same. The fact is is that a doctor has worked very hard to get to where he or she is today and t the janitor is payed equally? I mean, if the doctor wanted to he could have dropped out of college when it got super duper hard and just been a janitor. ofcourse both of them are necessary but the doctor is rareer than a janitor.Initially, I don't think everyone will be paid the same after a revolution. People may decide to give extra incentives to do unpleasant but necessary work - overall though I think the incentive will be in trying to develop ways to get rid of unpleasant work. The incentive doesn't have to be money it can be that if you are a trash collector, you only have to work one full day a week while most jobs might need up to 20 hours a week. Some jobs may even have restrictions on pay - like any elected delegates should be paid the same as the people they represent just so there is no chance of some parasitic bureaucracy developing that is separate from the rest of the working class.

Money has no inherent power in of itself, the power is in the social relations that money represents (that's jargon-y, but I don't know how to explain it further without going into a lot of theory that would take me away from the main questions here). So really our goal isn't to rejig how money is divided up but rework the fundamental way that production is run (the social relations) in society so that it is done on a democratic basis.


Who are we fighting? the rich? or bouergoisie? because not all rich are bourgeoise. Couldnt there be at least some difference in salary change because here in America the fact that everyone is paid the same is very shunned and it will be hard to convert people to the left when we are brained washed that some should get paid more than others...except me lolVery true, the capitalists and the rich are not perfectly synonymous. In fact, I'd argue that high-paid entertainers are actually working class (unless they are selling their image and endorsing products and starting clothing lines as many of the very highest paid actors and athletes do). Even at my job, people who do the same tasks as me in places where a union already exist sometimes make as much as $8-10 more an hour than I do... does that mean I'm "more working class"... well yes, because I'm just that hardcore. Ok, kidding - no it doesn't change the fact that we are both workers even though they get paid better.

I think we SHOULD be arguing for people to be paid better! People in the US have been getting paid less for more work for over a generation now. We should argue that workers should get ALL of the products of their labor. Of course the trick there is that you can't do this induvidually; workers (since their tasks are more or less interchangeable for most of capitalism) can't do this without working together to achieve this goal in the workplace and in society in general.

[Decolonize The Left]

This should be moved to Learning.

As for the question, please check out the links provided by Kotze above. In the first thread listed I answered this question at length. There are other excellent replies in that thread as well.

- August

[thesadmafioso]

You seem to be lost sir, this is not opposing ideologies. Nonsensical arguments like this do not qualify as in depth discussion of theory.

[ckaihatsu]

I wasn't paid less because it was easy, but because my job was anonymous and could be done by almost anyone of average physical or mental capacity -- therefore I was easily "replaceable" and cheap and so I got paid shit!

As a socialist, I argue for reorganizing a society based on profit and transforming it into a society where production and the "governmnet" are run democratically and so what we decide to produce, the skills that we will value will not be based on raking in profits, but on what people decide is important to them. Any incentives will be based out of that.


I'd like to expand on this stand common to revolutionary leftists by posting a description of a model for communism I developed, from a recent exchange, below:


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

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


Can someone give a concise description of the communist politic and economic system?

tinyurl.com/concise-communism-model








[In] the 'communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors' there is no *pay*, *compensation*, or *wages* whatsoever, because that would imply the receipt of some abstract material value designed to be used in an *exchange* for material goods and services.

Rather, my model enables a detailing -- labor organizing power -- of future liberated labor efforts, in direct proportion to the actual labor magnitude-times-time put in by any given person, as represented in labor credits (see the model for the exact definition).

The principle at work here is that no one would be under any duress for their basic living needs -- since a post-capitalist society will generally have the mechanized means for providing *that* to everyone in the world with the slightest of efforts (note how few people in the U.S. are still farmers now) -- but for those who decide to go ahead and provide some kind of their own self-selected liberated labor to the population (according to mass demands), they will be increasing their own "stature" as laborers as a result and will be compensated with a certain rate of labor credits that can be used in a like way, for others who provide their own liberated labor, going forward indefinitely.

This implementation satisfies the question of "Who gets to decide what job positions to create, and for whom?", conferring both work-role-creation *and* labor-organizing power on the basis of standardized established and delivered past work performance.





[I do not] advocate any system of exchanges of abstract values for material goods and services -- communism should be *distribution only* and should not require exchanges.





Instead of assigning abstract valuations to the *products* (or services) produced by labor, the only accounting done should be of the *labor itself*. Products of labor are pre-planned (demanded / ordered / requisitioned) on an aggregated mass basis, so liberated labor is then requested and tasked accordingly, administratively.





I disagree with the approach towards production currently in use by the market mechanism -- that consumer demand (by *market* demand, pricing) should be *estimated* and then production completed based on such estimations / extrapolations / speculations. In actuality we see how much waste and chaos is generated through sheer monetary speculation -- it's "putting the cart before the horse" because what *should* matter most is *who* actually wants to consume things, and *how much* exactly, upfront.

A better system, within the context of communism, would be to have everyone put in their orders first for consumption, and then put out the request to liberated laborers to self-task themselves to fulfilling this demand for human need. In practice, once up and running, there would undoubtedly be a regular routine and schedule to this process so there would not be any kind of starts-and-stops, or lagging -- a limited amount of extrapolation and slight "over-production" or pre-production would be used to keep the flow of goods and services running smoothly, especially for regular, routine items.

The advantage with the system I advocate is that is does not require any elaborate abstract economic modeling or intensive computation -- this is because it cuts out the "middle layer" of abstract material valuations altogether, today's cash / currency.

The nature of communism is that everyone decides *politically* what is worth doing, and then does it -- if there is not enough mass demand for something then the liberated laborers of that society will see it and will see that low-human-needs requests -- say for specialty luxury goods -- will not be worthwhile enough to actually do. Reinforcing this dynamic will be the amount of labor credits (representing past labor done) in circulation -- would those who have already *done work* wish to pass along their earned labor credits for just anything? They may very well decide to fund the extraction and refinement of gold from gold ore, or, if they see more human-needs-demand political activity around peanut butter or turnips, those liberated laborers might find it more worthwhile to direct their labor credits and/or their further efforts towards production for those more-needed goods and services.

Realistically, I would go so far as to say that the production of peanut butter and turnips would be mostly automated and would not require that many people to look after the production process, for the extent of providing those goods for all from the world's population that would want them. This would leave many who would want to find more skill-intensive and mass-cooperative endeavors, in which an outstanding mass demand *could* exist, and which would confer a relatively higher rate of labor credits as compensation, for those who would be into that kind of thing.

This dynamic would assist in the rapid automation / computerization of more mundane, lower-skilled work roles, since those who do the systematizing of such processes would be considered higher-skilled and would receive better labor-credit rates than those who might be tempted to just do the work conventionally, in a shit-work kind of way, with their own labor power, at *lesser* labor-credit rates. Along with this would be the actual outstanding mass demand for the timely delivery of such products, thus adding *political* pressure to the dynamic.

Determining how much liberated labor might go into any given good or service would *not* be required, since there would be no "middle layer" of abstract material valuations needed.


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

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

[Dimentio]

Whats up everyone! yea well im having a hard time with the fact that everyone is paid the same. The fact is is that a doctor has worked very hard to get to where he or she is today and t the janitor is payed equally? I mean, if the doctor wanted to he could have dropped out of college when it got super duper hard and just been a janitor. ofcourse both of them are necessary but the doctor is rareer than a janitor.

Who are we fighting? the rich? or bouergoisie? because not all rich are bourgeoise. Couldnt there be at least some difference in salary change because here in America the fact that everyone is paid the same is very shunned and it will be hard to convert people to the left when we are brained washed that some should get paid more than others...except me lol

Couldnt it be a society where the government provides the shelter,food, water, healthcare, services, and education but then people can still be paid differently. How will people have the incentive to work? im having a tough time tackling this.

Yea im kinda new to this ideology so please enlighten me!!

Basically, the end goal of Communism is an economic system where there is no wage society and things are distributed according to needs. Some communists want to achieve that with automatisation, while some are sweat fetischists and a tiny minority (anarcho-primitivists) want to go back to the Paleolithic age.

[Victus Mortuum]

why not?

[ckaihatsu]

why not?


Because, while the dynamic of self-organizing emergence (of higher-level, more-complex structures) is widespread throughout nature and even in social patterns, there's no more reason to *rely* on this self-organizing dynamic than there is to rely on the zombie-like non-conscious market mechanism.

Without formal and consistent social (economic-political) consideration for those who put in greater efforts for society, the default will be to leave such higher-level concerns and efforts to those who will undertake them from their own intrinsic motivations. That's nominally okay, but by the same reasoning why bother having schools? Why bother organizing *anything* societal and larger-scale if we can just get by on the volition of individuals?

It would be *better* for us to use our collective intelligence to *consciously* organize in a way that encourages, supports, and rewards those who willingly socialize their skills and efforts in an "upwards" direction, for higher-level and broader-based societal projects, progressing onward.





[T]here could very well be a "core" of hobbyist-like liberated laborers who wind up plotting society's technical and artistic trajectory from their own interests and inclinations, as long as they have a sufficient political base by which to do so, for using society's collectivized implements. These would be the liberated scientists and artists of a post-capitalist society, free to pursue their large-scale-enabled visions as long as there were no legitimate political grounds for denying them their proportionate access to collectivized implements.

- A second would be that there *could* be a "division of labor" in a post-commodity economic context, by which *mass demands* could be fulfilled by *mass liberated labor*, and *not* dependent on a perpetual avant garde sector of society for forward progress. In this way liberated labor would *not* be tied into being one and the same as those who politically *support* a project, and, likewise, those who *are* political and provide proposed plans for the use of society's collectivized machinery would not be constrained to their own ranks for the subsequent *implementation* of those (mass-approved) plans, as with their own liberated labor alone.

[Property Is Robbery]

Without janitors the hospitals and clinics would be more plagued with germs than they are now. With such an un-sterile environment many people would die. Doctors should do that job because they have a passion for helping others not for monetary incentive. Also, many janitors work damn hard.

[ckaihatsu]

Without janitors the hospitals and clinics would be more plagued with germs than they are now. With such an un-sterile environment many people would die. Doctors should do that job because they have a passion for helping others not for monetary incentive. Also, many janitors work damn hard.


I've become much more open to the idea of a location-based rotation of all participants through all work roles -- the opposite of specialization, in other words.

And, the political component of such could even be *non*-delegated, since we have the Internet as a tool for communications -- why bother specializing *that* role in particular when all organizational and external political matters could be handled at a 'flat' level, among all involved / affected participants -- ?





3. Ends -- Local commune-type moneyless productive entity




Rotation system of work roles

http://postimage.org/image/1d53k7nd0/


4. Ends -- Flat, all-inclusive mode of participation at all levels without delegated representatives




[In] this day and age of fluid digital-based communications, we may want to dispense with formalized representative personages altogether and just conceptualize a productive entity within a supply chain network as having 'external business' or 'external matters' to include in its regular routine of entity-collective co-administration among its participants.

[Victus Mortuum]

Because, while the dynamic of self-organizing emergence (of higher-level, more-complex structures) is widespread throughout nature and even in social patterns, there's no more reason to *rely* on this self-organizing dynamic than there is to rely on the zombie-like non-conscious market mechanism.

Without formal and consistent social (economic-political) consideration for those who put in greater efforts for society, the default will be to leave such higher-level concerns and efforts to those who will undertake them from their own intrinsic motivations. That's nominally okay, but by the same reasoning why bother having schools? Why bother organizing *anything* societal and larger-scale if we can just get by on the volition of individuals?

It would be *better* for us to use our collective intelligence to *consciously* organize in a way that encourages, supports, and rewards those who willingly socialize their skills and efforts in an "upwards" direction, for higher-level and broader-based societal projects, progressing onward.

I asked the question rhetorically, because of the implicit assumptions within the question. I was trying to break those with my question. Based on this individual's response I would have been better able to address their misconceptions.

Regarding your criticism of equal pay. Supply and demand work pretty well. If a job is more intense than the average, people will move away from that job and in order to attract people back into it the intensity of the job will have to be lowered until it matches the rest of society's labor intensity. I'm not saying that it's the optimum solution or an ideal situation - but it seems like a plausible possibility. I'm not totally opposed to the concept if certain other conditions are met (such as paid tertiary education and government ELR activities) as a short run move to empower the working class.

[ckaihatsu]

I asked the question rhetorically, because of the implicit assumptions within the question. I was trying to break those with my question. Based on this individual's response I would have been better able to address their misconceptions.


Yeah....

I think it takes a concentrated use of one's mental imaging abilities to actually consider what a fully socialized living and working environment could be like, after the removal of *all* ubiquitous divisive social dynamics like those based in elitism, privilege, artificial scarcity, balkanization, competitiveness, separatism, and so on. It helps to have one's own personal experience in something outside of the cookie-cutter nuclear family and hyper-individualizing job-position norm -- something on a larger scale that includes a degree of empowerment within a larger group.

Without an overarching ruling class to enforce "downward pressure" -- to use a euphemism -- the self-liberated peoples of a post-capitalist society would be entirely in "co-ownership" of the entire world, to determine some general guidelines or policy that would be generally fair and that everyone could live with.

One common implicit assumption that bears reviewing and reflecting on is whether labor-related tasks would really continue to be structured in an individualistic, career-track kind of way, as is the norm today. Would a fully socialized society -- one that has usurped the rule of private capital holdings and its nation-state authorities -- continue to practice a social norm of hyper-individualization? It seems like *already*, *today*, there is a contradiction between the broad-ranging projects enabled by these large accumulations of capital -- as for construction, etc. -- and the hyper-individualized treatment of the laborers tasked within such projects, for accounting purposes. As commodified "human resources" workers are no more than discrete investments made from above for profit, little different than dogs being bet on at the racetrack.

But when unencumbered by such restrictive strictures people tend to socialize and pitch in and pool their resources and abilities, especially for something stable and well-defined and important -- maybe the raising of children would be a suitable example from our present day. On a mass scale this same pooling dynamic would more likely be the *norm*, as a fastidious accounting of collections of capital would *not* be the requirement and guiding principle for enabling human activity.





Regarding your criticism of equal pay. Supply and demand work pretty well.


It's a counter-intuitive and seemingly contradictory political position to hold, but as can be seen from the title of my blog entry, it's a mechanism that actually may *work* and be *suitable* in functioning -- in the sense of *liberated labor* supply and *human-needs* demand -- once the world's means of mass industrial production have been entirely collectivized under the workers' co-administration. (Please note that, from post #12, I do not advocate any system of exchanges of abstract values for material goods and services -- communism should be *distribution only* and should not require exchanges.)





If a job is more intense than the average, people will move away from that job and in order to attract people back into it the intensity of the job will have to be lowered until it matches the rest of society's labor intensity.


*Or* -- if the task *couldn't* be sidestepped, say for the mining of certain needed minerals or energy resources, then those who *do* undertake the exceptional levels of hazard, intensive work, or intensive preparations for work, should be given much more societal esteem and labor empowerment -- for organizing larger groupings of liberated laborers, in my model -- as explicit material "compensation" for doing that which most others would not, but which was generally considered to be socially necessary.





I'm not saying that it's the optimum solution or an ideal situation - but it seems like a plausible possibility. I'm not totally opposed to the concept if certain other conditions are met (such as paid tertiary education and government ELR activities) as a short run move to empower the working class.


Sure, reforms are important, especially as political motivations in the here-and-now....

[Amphictyonis]

Whats up everyone! yea well im having a hard time with the fact that everyone is paid the same.

It's hard to fathom different human motives other than greed when you're living in a society built on greed isn't it. Doctors aren't some magical wizards and the human body isn't really that complicated. They misdiagnose illnesses quite often it's the advancements in technology (operating room sterilization/vaccines etc) thats mostly saved lives and a lot of try this try that on battle fields and cadaverous but I wouldn't minimize the role of exponentially advancing medical technology. Med school is unachievable for so many people because of the money. Look at Bush. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard.

[ColonelCossack]

Whats up everyone! yea well im having a hard time with the fact that everyone is paid the same. The fact is is that a doctor has worked very hard to get to where he or she is today and t the janitor is payed equally? I mean, if the doctor wanted to he could have dropped out of college when it got super duper hard and just been a janitor. ofcourse both of them are necessary but the doctor is rareer than a janitor.

Who are we fighting? the rich? or bouergoisie? because not all rich are bourgeoise. Couldnt there be at least some difference in salary change because here in America the fact that everyone is paid the same is very shunned and it will be hard to convert people to the left when we are brained washed that some should get paid more than others...except me lol

Couldnt it be a society where the government provides the shelter,food, water, healthcare, services, and education but then people can still be paid differently. How will people have the incentive to work? im having a tough time tackling this.

Yea im kinda new to this ideology so please enlighten me!!
... basically, we communists think that greed should not be the only motive for doing something- to use your example, a doctor should be a doctor forb the joy of helping people, not to become rich.