Incentivising useful labor

[ZvP]

In capitalism, labor is considered useful if someone is willing to exchange their money for the product of that labor. The degree of usefulness is gauged by the amount of money consumers spend, and this creates incentive to perform the most useful labor. I know it doesn't work exactly like this, but it does reflect the demands of society somewhat accurately (with many exceptions of course). How would useful labor be incentivised in post-capitalism? If all labor is voluntary, I feel society would stagnate as people would tend to avoid the more difficult labor because it does not provide any benefits over other, potentially less useful labor; and would only be performed at the minimum amount necessary to survive. I do not believe people will perform the difficult labor needed to advance society without incentive.

Furthermore, how do we prevent and discourage useless or barely useful labor? If people perform labor but it has very little value, should they not have to live on less than people willing to perform the labor society really needs? And you know there would be people who would perform hardly useful labor because they enjoy it or because it's easy.

[hatzel]

No. No labour. None of that at all. Useful or otherwise, down with that sort of thing. And you know what? If, as you say,


society would stagnate as people would tend to avoid the more difficult labor because it does not provide any benefits over other, potentially less useful labor; and would only be performed at the minimum amount necessary to survive. I do not believe people will perform the difficult labor needed to advance society without incentivethen you know what we do? We just stop having that shit, needing these jobs to be done, we let society 'stagnate' rather than 'advance.' I mean if this guy...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3265/2604475596_94cc181b5d.jpg
...doesn't want to keep toiling in the sulphur mines every day, filling his lungs with poisonous gases, having his bones deformed by the weight of the load on his shoulders, once the incentives offered under capitalism disappear, then...simple! We don't need sulphur from that mine, and neither he nor anybody else will go to extract it, certainly not under these conditions. And if that means it's no longer possible to 'advance' society, then so be it. And if that means society 'stagnates' or even 'rolls back' somehow (as it perhaps would; removing sulphur and sulphuric acid from our techno-industrial diet would have marked effects - might stop us making batteries and insecticide and nylon and whatever else people use sulphuric acid for) then that's the price we have to pay. If you're putting this wholly mythical 'advance' of society, and ensuring it continues unabated, above the very real concerns of those directly oppressed in order to maintain a society such as ours, why not just stick with capitalism? I mean, it already does a pretty good job of making sure people do a load of pointless crap they wouldn't bother doing otherwise, what's not to like?

So basically what I'm getting at here is that we won't be incentivising 'useful' labour or trying to coerce people into doing it, just so that we can then reap the benefits of its being done. Instead, we'll be finding out ways to live without...well, whatever product or service would have been provided by those doing jobs they don't want to do any more...

[Jimmie Higgins]

In capitalism, labor is considered useful if someone is willing to exchange their money for the product of that labor. The degree of usefulness is gauged by the amount of money consumers spend, and this creates incentive to perform the most useful labor.What Marxism describes is that labor under capitalism is divided into use value and exchange value. Use Value is just what you describe: somethings utility. It's the value of how useful any commodity is and this is true in capitalism as it was in feudal or ancient societies.

The focus on Exchange Value, however is what separates capitalism from past systems. Exchange Value is what one commodity is worth, generally, compared to other commodities. So a glass of water is more useful on a basic level than a car stereo, but a car stereo has a higher exchange value due to the material and labor value required to produce it.


I know it doesn't work exactly like this, but it does reflect the demands of society somewhat accurately (with many exceptions of course). I think the exceptions are the rule. Capitalism is focused on profits, on exchange value. So during the housing crisis in the US, the use value of homes was unchanged as many more people want homes that currently don't have them, but the exchange value became depressed and prices along with it so developers couldn't sell homes at a profit and construction stopped and new homes (not to mention commercial spaces) went empty even as the demand for homes on a utility level increased.


How would useful labor be incentivised in post-capitalism? If all labor is voluntary, I feel society would stagnate as people would tend to avoid the more difficult labor because it does not provide any benefits over other, potentially less useful labor; and would only be performed at the minimum amount necessary to survive. I do not believe people will perform the difficult labor needed to advance society without incentive.This is a complicated - and good - question because for one thing it's hard to know how a democratic economy would operate - our best guesses can really only be informed on how it would NOT operate since that's the world we know for sure right now.

So tasks would not operate on the basis of profits and the alienation of labor from the labor process. How people would specifically do that, would be the subject of years of organic development and debate and so on.

I have some guesses for a period immediately following a revolution where there would still be a lot of effects of inequality from capitalist in play in education levels and the division of labor skills and so on. First I think a lot of labor that currently only goes towards enhancing exchange value would be eliminated very quickly - many probably just through the course of the Revolution. So this would free up a lot of labor making it possible to reduce the time most people spend laboring by freeing up some labor from useless (from a non-profit perspective) tasks as well as eliminating unemployment as we know it - in the sense of surplus labor (people willing and able to work, but who are just unemployed due to the needs and logic of the capitalist economy). So a lot of "shit-jobs" could be done by spreading out the tasks among more people so maybe someone only has to work several hours a week on an unpleasant task. This could also be used as an incentive: maybe people who do difficult or unpleasant things could work less than average or be given a higher wage. Things like janitorial work could be re-incorporated as a collective task of a work-site so that one person isn't cleaning 40-50 hours a week, but instead everyone in the workplace has to spend 20 minutes each shift or a full shift once a month or something.

As time passes, though I think a goal of workers would just be to eliminate unpleasant work as much as possible. This could be done immediately through finding new ways of organizing these tasks as well as, over time, with the introduction of more labor-saving technology.


Furthermore, how do we prevent and discourage useless or barely useful labor? If people perform labor but it has very little value, should they not have to live on less than people willing to perform the labor society really needs? And you know there would be people who would perform hardly useful labor because they enjoy it or because it's easy.I think "laziness" is a product of capitalism. People are considered lazy because they slack off on tasks that they are alienated from - I can do twice as much work on my job but it gets me nothing materially, so might as well try and take it easy. When labor is done for a concrete reason which all would agree is useful (i.e. isn't just useful for making more profits and a few people richer) then I think the focus of labor would be less on punching the clock and putting in the required time, but completing the tasks adequately. Most people wouldn't want trash sitting around in their neighborhood, so it wouldn't be alienating to organize a clean-up once a month of neighbors or whatnot.

[ZvP]

@hatzel I guess we just have an ideological difference there. Some unpleasant labor could be done away with, sure. But we can't sit there and allow society to stagnate because we don't want to come together and work hard to achieve greatness.


What Marxism describes is that labor under capitalism is divided into use value and exchange value. Use Value is just what you describe: somethings utility. It's the value of how useful any commodity is and this is true in capitalism as it was in feudal or ancient societies.

The focus on Exchange Value, however is what separates capitalism from past systems. Exchange Value is what one commodity is worth, generally, compared to other commodities. So a glass of water is more useful on a basic level than a car stereo, but a car stereo has a higher exchange value due to the material and labor value required to produce it.

If a consumer buys your product (assuming they aren't scammed or dissatisfied with it) doesn't that make the labor "useful"? And typically, labor in lower supply but higher demand receive greater wages, I.E. doctors. So capitalism has incentives to receive extra training and perform harder or more in demand labor. Of course useless labor in the financial sector unfortunately is rewarded in capitalism, so income doesn't always represent the need for or the difficulty of the labor, but at least it's something to get people to perform labor society needs.

[Prinskaj]

I guess we just have an ideological difference there. Some unpleasant labor could be done away with, sure. But we can't sit there and allow society to stagnate because we don't want to come together and work hard to achieve greatness. You will be welcome to go in the mines and work under terrible conditions, this is your choice. Why shouldn't everybody have this choice?

[hatzel]

@hatzel I guess we just have an ideological difference there. Some unpleasant labor could be done away with, sure. But we can't sit there and allow society to stagnate because we don't want to come together and work hard to achieve greatness.

I'm just going to tell you that you're using words as if they are neutral and of set meaning, when in fact they're not. The 'ideological difference' here isn't between those who favour achieving 'greatness' and those who don't much care for achieving it. It's between those who measure a society's 'greatness' on a particular (usually thoroughly Eurocentric, techno-industrial) scale and those who have (dare I say) a far more open-ended approach to the issue, and to the range of possible factors contributing to the perceived viability and desirability of a given social form. Or, as you would have it, the 'greatness' of a certain society.

Also I have literally no idea what it means for society to stagnate. I'm going to assume that this idea is tied up with the very same rigid ideological measures of social progress (for want of a better word) that I've touched upon in the above paragraph. Needless to say there isn't going to be anything neutral about determining whether a society is stagnating or advancing, particularly when this decision seems to be tied up more with production than anything else, if not entirely with production (as it is clearly framed in this thread). That alone is a sure sign that there are various assumptions and biases colouring your perception of social worth, which may or may not be compatible with a genuinely socialist position, but certainly shouldn't be taken as an inherent or unquestionable value or ideal to be applied universally.

[ZvP]

Also I have literally no idea what it means for society to stagnate. I'm going to assume that this idea is tied up with the very same rigid ideological measures of social progress (for want of a better word) that I've touched upon in the above paragraph.

My reason for advocating communism/socialism is to create the happiest, healthiest and most peaceful society possible. When I say "stagnation", I mean a lack of progress towards this goal. Greatness, in turn, would be significant progress towards this goal. I apologize for the vague use of those terms in my previous post.

People who are willing to go the extra mile to achieve these things, as well as the average working man who's willing to work "shit" jobs, should receive a little extra IMO. This is not to say that the average laborer is not just as important, but I feel some incentive is required to keep society moving forward. I feel like we need a way to reward people who aspire for "greatness", while still allowing the average worker to live the same lifestyle as them.

[Jimmie Higgins]

@hatzel I guess we just have an ideological difference there. Some unpleasant labor could be done away with, sure. But we can't sit there and allow society to stagnate because we don't want to come together and work hard to achieve greatness.How is greatness defined and greatness for whom? For the capitalists, greatness is increased profits, a socialist society wouldn't need or want that so greatness might be defined by the conquering of material need and freeing us from necessary but routine labor as much as it's possible.

For most of human history we've produced on a need basis - no wages, just working because it was necessary and also working for things we wanted. Changing the relations of how things are produced and on what basis won't hinder production, it would transform it - in the case of socialism, along democratic and cooperative lines.


If a consumer buys your product (assuming they aren't scammed or dissatisfied with it) doesn't that make the labor "useful"?I'm not sure what you mean? Are you implying if labor is expended on something that doesn't sell, then it doesn't have a use? Again, houses aren't selling, because of a decline in exchange value, but the use value remains the same.

Someone can buy a pet rock and the use value of the object is its novelty and joke. So it's not the buying that creates the "use" it's the "use" that creates the ability for people to buy it. Would you buy a broken pile of glass shards? It has no use. If you wanted to recycle it, however, then it has a use.


And typically, labor in lower supply but higher demand receive greater wages, I.E. doctors. So capitalism has incentives to receive extra training and perform harder or more in demand labor. Ok here again, I think I see it the other way around. Labor is also a commodity and increased education or skills adds value to that commodity of labor. If a company had to train an engineer from scratch, that would take a lot of time - so instead it's privatized (or made a collective responsibility through public education) and it becomes the future professional's expense and time and so on in the hopes of one day getting a position.

Wages might be inflated or deflated based on some momentary scarcity, but this is still different than the exchange value of that labor as well as its use value. In the late 90s, computer techs were paid outrageous amounts of money because there was high demand for those skills, now things have shifted and people do many of these same types of jobs as internships... the wages went way up then way down, just like the price of a commodity might depending on market forces... but the inherent use values do not change much, just the exchange value and then even more the price.


Of course useless labor in the financial sector unfortunately is rewarded in capitalism, so income doesn't always represent the need for or the difficulty of the labor, but at least it's something to get people to perform labor society needs.Capitalism gets people to do the labor by removing other alternatives and maintaining a surplus labor force which guarantees competition for job positions. The problem with your formulation here is that in capitalism, "shit jobs" are often the lowest paid. Fewer people want to be dishwashers and maids than want to be nurses or teachers or white collar workers, so how does capitalism "incentiveize" these necessary tasks? Not starving, not being in debt or prison.

Factories had no problem getting mill workers when they paid them next to nothing - why are modern counterparts relatively well paid (and could achieve "middle class" status in the last generation?) because of working class struggle to control a larger percentage of the profits we create.

The market plays a part but it's superficial like the waves of the ocean whereas these more fundamental factors that Marx discusses in Capital and "Value Price and Profit" are like the tides.