Work hard argument?

[safeduck]

Hi, Just wanted help to argue against this typical argument : "If everyone was equal and provided with what they need, everyone would just be lazy and pick easy jobs"?
Thanks.

[Prinskaj]

Well the part about taking "easy jobs" is blatantly wrong, for two very specific reason:
A) There is no such thing as an "easy job", there is just different ones, a blacksmith uses manual labor, while a scientist uses his cognitive abilities.
B) People do challenging things all the time, without expecting any money from it. People play sports in local clubs, do charity work and many other things while not expecting anything in return other than the experience.

[Revolution starts with U]

Tell them they're projecting themselves on everyone else.

But mostly the answer above me works fine.

[danyboy27]

Hi, Just wanted help to argue against this typical argument : "If everyone was equal and provided with what they need, everyone would just be lazy and pick easy jobs"?
Thanks.

People would pick the job they wanted to do has it should be.

From my personnal experience many folks are doing jobs they dont like beccause they need the money. My landlord wanted to be a carpenter, but it would not provide enough for him. One of my collegue, a saleman would be a pretty damn good mechanic, another would would like to be cook, and another one want to be a fitness trainer

Of course there will always be surplus and shortages in certain domains, has it is right now but people would be more productive and happy.

Messy low qualification job would be automated and shared amongst the population. if i do what i want 30 hours a week and do a messy job 5 hours a week, i would say its worth the pain.

I asked this question to a shitload of people and nobody ever disagreed with the concept of doing a little bit of menial job in order to do what you truly want without having to worry for food or rent.

[Rafiq]

These types of questions must be treated with careful and critical analysis, and must be adjusted to retain materialist consistency.

Firstly, we are not in the business of arguing that, when provided with "everyone being equal", humans will act moral and choose hard working jobs. This is absurd. We all know very well that, should this be the case, everyone (Especially when the revolutionary spirit has faded away) will choose to pick the easiest possible Job. Of this, there can be no objection.

This is why, it's important to ruggedly object such a claim with something much more radical than "NO dey will be good": After the destruction of a capitalist system, the champions of history will be faced with such a problem. However, it is of great chance that they will devise a systematic means of combating such. For example, harder jobs would have more benefits. In this way, things would be balanced. We must, as materialists, never assume that humans, on their own, voluntarily will make material conditions adjust to themselves by acting in a moral or beneficial way. Instead, material conditions must be (unintentionally) established so that, human behavior will reflect such conditions to our likings. Let's be quite frank, material conditions, systematic establishment never, are, or will adjust themselves to human 'good'. Instead, they must be devised so that humans will act 'good' as a mere response.

(In no way, shape or form do I concur that humans can just establish material conditions freely. But material conditions can establish themselves to change the way humans would behave, as they have during and after the wave of capitalist transformation from feudalism)

In short: Study materialism. Materialism is the basis of revolutionary thought, and has, before silenced the opponents of our movement. You must learn to go beyond Bourgeois rationalism. The problem is that you are still speaking the language of the enemy, instead, you must assure the enemy is keeled down, speaking your language.

For example, you are still thinking within the constraint of capitalist society. If you do so, then of course your opponent is correct. But it's important that we avoid doing this.

[Bronco]

Well to be brief; firstly work wouldn't be so undesirable anyway; the hours would be shorter, it wouldn't be done under such gruelling conditions and you'd likely be working as part of a group so the burden wouldn't be yours alone.

Secondly, people would still want hard jobs to be done because a) people aren't purely money motivated, I don't think you'd find that all doctors only work as such only for the high salary b) everyone as a whole would lose out from those jobs not being done

And even if there are still some jobs people are refusing to do then these can be given special advantages or incentives, or maybe it would come to be that everyone needs to chip in with this job who is able, each just doing a little bit a week, a month or year or something like that

[Strannik]

As I understand it, in early socialism working more/better still "pays" better, except the payment measures the individual effort of each. In communism, labor productivity is so immensely high, that even if someone decides not to work for some reason, its not a social problem - not working just means that others decide the goods and services are available for you, i.e. you're dependent.

[RevSpetsnaz]

The fact of the matter is you cant expect to reap the benefits of the society without contributing as well.

[Oswy]

Hi, Just wanted help to argue against this typical argument : "If everyone was equal and provided with what they need, everyone would just be lazy and pick easy jobs"?
Thanks.

It's a human instinct to do useful labour and contribute to the group's wellbeing. Capitalism has a lot to answer for in the way it seeks to atomise us before exploting and/or alienating us so as to generate individualisation and demotivation in labour.

My view is that the more my basic needs are satisfied the more able and interested I'll be in helping secure the same for everyone else. Sharing the caring is win win.

[krazny]

Speaking only for myself, "easy jobs" would drive me out of my skull with boredom. I don't love my job because it's easy - even though the work comes naturally to me - I love my job because there's something new and different every day. I would never be happy pressing the same button on the same machine the same way a hundred times a day and waiting for the next part to come down the line. There is a place for that work, and there are people to whom it appeals. That's fine. There's enough work to go around, and then some. Everyone can have work they either enjoy or find easy. It can and should be a personal choice where on that scale one wants to fall.

[ckaihatsu]

In short: Study materialism. Materialism is the basis of revolutionary thought, and has, before silenced the opponents of our movement. You must learn to go beyond Bourgeois rationalism. The problem is that you are still speaking the language of the enemy, instead, you must assure the enemy is keeled down, speaking your language.

For example, you are still thinking within the constraint of capitalist society. If you do so, then of course your opponent is correct. But it's important that we avoid doing this.


Agreed.





[M]aterial conditions must be (unintentionally) established so that, human behavior will reflect such conditions to our likings.




(In no way, shape or form do I concur that humans can just establish material conditions freely. But material conditions can establish themselves to change the way humans would behave, as they have during and after the wave of capitalist transformation from feudalism)


I'm wondering why you're positing that people wouldn't be able to change material conditions on a mass scale -- this is the very definition of revolution, in case you hadn't noticed.

It's "only" from the entire *past* of human history that we see material conditions *unintentionally* established, as from the transformation of feudalism into capitalism.

[ckaihatsu]

As I understand it, in early socialism working more/better still "pays" better, except the payment measures the individual effort of each.




In communism, labor productivity is so immensely high, that even if someone decides not to work for some reason, its not a social problem - not working just means that others decide the goods and services are available for you, i.e. you're dependent.


These are very interesting postulations.

Setting aside the reality that no one can definitively *dictate* future conditions from here in the present, I'd like to address this.





As I understand it, in early socialism working more/better still "pays" better, except the payment measures the individual effort of each.


In a revolutionarily-socialized and revolutionary-democratic economy I'd think that economics would be subsumed to politics, rather than the other way around, as things are now. This means that economics, including definitions of 'work', would necessarily be politicized, so that the measure wouldn't necessarily be a generic "working hard" or "working more" -- or even "working smarter" -- but rather 'working *socially*'. This would especially be the case during a full-blown worldwide revolutionary uprising wherein one's very social identity would become politicized, as in "What are you doing for the revolution?" (Consider that members of certain past generations would, upon meeting other members of that same generation, ask, "What did you do during the war?" This is as much a *political* inquiry as much as an experiential one.)





In communism, labor productivity is so immensely high, that even if someone decides not to work for some reason, its not a social problem - not working just means that others decide the goods and services are available for you, i.e. you're dependent.


I *want* to agree with this formulation because it sounds very intuitive and common-sense, but on further reflection it tends to be problematic.

It sounds like you're saying that a person's entire *political voice* would be nullified and their *physical existence* demoted into receivership -- and in a fully communistic world -- (!) Needless to say, this just sounds too close to a condition of virtual imprisonment.

[Blackburn]

Why is it, that 'work' has to be perceived as 'hard' to be of any value?

Do people run businesses the hard way on purpose, or do they find ways to improve efficiency.

Wouldn't efficiency and results trump 'hard' any day?

In an evolutionary sense, we evolved not to do 'hard work', but the ones who survived were the ones who could survive without 'hard work'.

It's known tribesmen would hunt for the day's food, and much like Lions, have time off to chill out. There was no 14 hour work day in a cubicle.

I've also seen when I was in a management position, and I shortened the work day for people, that the same work was completed, if not more. I have heard it read that employees only do work 40% of the time on average.

[Lanky Wanker]

Please can we get one of these threads stickied? Unless my mind is making it all up, this question gets asked at least once every week. It would be easier for both the people asking and the people answering.

[The Stalinator]

You know, I don't think that money is the driving factor behind many people who choose challenging jobs. I don't know any good doctors who became doctors because they just wanted to be rich. I haven't heard of any reputable scientists who became scientists to get rich. They do it because it either interests them or they want to help people.

That's not to say there aren't people who would want nothing but the easiest jobs. I have no doubt, though, that there would still be doctors, inventors, scientists, and other innovators -- because people who get by in those fields don't do it only for the sake of greed.

[ckaihatsu]

It's also the case that many professional and technical fields get more routine in practice as the years go on. Initially there are 'learning curves' -- not to mention the social process of labor -- and so those fields look more daunting to a younger person.

I'll add that much of being a *revolutionary* is quasi-professional since it's such a rich field in its own right, besides the ongoing political point of it all.