Would I be able to pursue my hobby?

[Amon]

Comrades, apologies as I'm sure this has been asked before but I just haven't been able to get a clear answer.

A communist society has been established. Money has been slowly and gradually phased out. The people now have free housing, free clothes, free food, free education & free healthcare etc.

I would love to work for the benefit of society, it would make me extremely happy, even roles that society today deems 'horrible', such as sweeping the roads, personally I'd love to sweep the roads to keep things clean for people.

I also have a hobby of taking pictures with telescopes (basically taking pictures of space and such). Would it still be possible to pursue this hobby within a communist society? How would I go about obtaining the camera and the telescope etc? Would I have to work and earn labour tokens of some sort and collect enough to obtain them?

What about if I couldn't work due to disability or illness? Would I still have an opportunity to pursue my hobby like everyone else?

Thank you in advance for your time and effort :)

[RedHammer]

Not only would you be able to, but I imagine you'd have even more time to do so than ever before. A society that moves past the insanity of capitalist production can, with rational planning, establish a system of production that effectively reduces the work week, increases productivity, and supports public and personal recreation.

Don't believe me? Look around you. Capitalism is wasteful. How much wealth is locked up and idle in the hands of a few? How much food do we waste? How much land sits around idle? How many buildings and factories - all potentially useful instruments of production - sit around idle while jobs are outsourced? And all the while, people remain unemployed.

There will be no economic reason to not utilize all productive forces to the fullest extent under socialism; a socialist economy is not bound by the rules of capitalism, the rules of the profit system. Look around you today: finance capital is replacing industrial capital; it is growing in complexity, with interest on top of interest, ultimately...producing nothing.

The number of hours in the average work week will decrease over time, as labor and capital are fully utilized. And all the wealth that is tied up in the hands of a few can be freed up and used to support public projects - including theaters, museums, academies, you name it. The entire point of socialism is to free the laborer; to have work be both enjoyable and productive at the same time.

[blake 3:17]

The answer is YES

[theblackmask]

In Soviet Russia, telescope takes picture of YOU!

[human strike]

The entire point of socialism is to free the laborer

I disagree. The entire point of communism, at least, is to abolish labour. Communism abolishes work and hobbies as concepts, replacing them with creative-doing. As Marx explained, there is a dual-nature to labour. We have alienated and non-alienated labour (I prefer to think of it as 'doing' rather than 'labour' since the term seems rather misleading, but anyway, Marx said 'labour'). Essentially, the difference is alienated labour is doing we do but out of our own personal control. Non or un-alienated labour is creative activity that is under one's own control where one has a self-determination over one's doing. Within communism this is the nature of all doing (or labour). Notice that many hobbies today already fall within this category of un-alienated doing. My point is, within communism, work and hobbies don't exist; only creative doing. Hope that answer helps OP.

[Amon]

Thanks for the contribution guys.

So I guess the answer is yes, I can still pursue it.

I still would like to know if it would be obtained through 'labour' tokens or not, or creative doing tokens, if you will?
And if yes, how would the sick/ill obtain such tokens? Would they just be given them?

[Yuppie Grinder]

http://www.google.com/imgres?num=10&hl=en&safe=off&biw=1680&bih=949&tbm=isch&tbnid=qKGsun1Mge35uM:&imgrefurl=http://www.lolriot.com/2012/07/03/funny-pictures-61-30-images/robot-no-fun-allowed/&docid=4E9iMdqGZBI96M&imgurl=http://www.lolriot.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Robot-No-fun
Just Kidding.
In communism with the abolition of work and division of labor the concept of hobbies would probably disappear, but I can't see why you wouldn't be allowed to do what makes you happy.

[Rusty Shackleford]

communism isn't about workworkworkworkworkworkworkworkwork...


communism is about everyone benefiting from everyone's labor socially. freeing up time to pursue other things like entertainment, hobbies, and what not and actually developing beyond just what you can do in the workplace

[Jimmie Higgins]

Thanks for the contribution guys.

So I guess the answer is yes, I can still pursue it.

I still would like to know if it would be obtained through 'labour' tokens or not, or creative doing tokens, if you will?
And if yes, how would the sick/ill obtain such tokens? Would they just be given them?

For one thing, I think exclusive artistic equipment (and training) would be much more widely available. I don't know much about photography these days, but I'm pretty sure the equipment is pretty expensive. So for one thing advanced computer photography programs would be made available to everyone, 2nd while maybe you would take photos enough to warrant your own cameras, I think specialized equipment, rather than sitting in specialty shops, would be available like a library makes some equipment available. So maybe you would want to have your own camera for opportunity/spontaneous photos, but you'd also be able to get professional portrait cameras or underwater or film and video/editing access, telescopic lenses, and specialty equipment for shooting planets.

Also the kinds of research facilities often made available on College Campuses could be increased and made available for everyone. On many public campuses even if it's not your major you can reserve space in film editing rooms, borrow cameras, etc. It's done this way because they don't have that equipment for direct profits but for use - yeah sometimes people sign up and can't get the spot they want, but I think that's better than living somewhere and wanting to record a record but you lack the ability to learn the skills involved and lack the money to rent the thousands and thousands of dollars of rental time to record an album professionally.

So I think decentralizing and democratizing ACCESS to many of these things would be something people would have an interest and desire to do under conditions of worker's power and the end of the profit-system.

As for vouchers or whatnot - this might be put in place by workers at the beginning (or some analogous system) for things that do need to be personal possessions - you can share hundreds of cameras with 1000 people, but it would be harder with, I don't know: hats or undies :lol:. So especially right after a revolution when not everything would be immediately transformed and made available on demand then people will have to figure out some kind of fair way to make these things available. But as worker's really begin to reshape society, only things that are really naturally rare would have to be done by lotto or sign-up rationing - if tons of people wanted cameras, then it would be seen as a priority and people would probably make more - if people wanted to record in studios more, then (assuming that people have their other priorities met) then more studios could be opened and so on.

As it is there are many many people who don't get access to make art or movies or record music or even take photos because of "capitalist-style rationing" which is basically that commodities are given out only if they can turn a profit: where money dictates access and free-time. The point of regular people taking control of society would be to reorganize all the surplus and wealth possible with modern (and future) techniques and making them more available while also reducing a the percentage of all of our lives devoted to work.

[Amon]

As for vouchers or whatnot - this might be put in place by workers at the beginning (or some analogous system) for things that do need to be personal possessions - you can share hundreds of cameras with 1000 people, but it would be harder with, I don't know: hats or undies :lol:. So especially right after a revolution when not everything would be immediately transformed and made available on demand then people will have to figure out some kind of fair way to make these things available. But as worker's really begin to reshape society, only things that are really naturally rare would have to be done by lotto or sign-up rationing - if tons of people wanted cameras, then it would be seen as a priority and people would probably make more - if people wanted to record in studios more, then (assuming that people have their other priorities met) then more studios could be opened and so on.

As it is there are many many people who don't get access to make art or movies or record music or even take photos because of "capitalist-style rationing" which is basically that commodities are given out only if they can turn a profit: where money dictates access and free-time. The point of regular people taking control of society would be to reorganize all the surplus and wealth possible with modern (and future) techniques and making them more available while also reducing a the percentage of all of our lives devoted to work.

Thank you very much, that certainly has cleared up a lot of things on the subject at hand.

There is still the question of the ones who can't work due to illness. How would they go about carrying out their hobbies/interests/creative expression? Just the same way as everyone else?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Thank you very much, that certainly has cleared up a lot of things on the subject at hand.

There is still the question of the ones who can't work due to illness. How would they go about carrying out their hobbies/interests/creative expression? Just the same way as everyone else?I think there is more than enough in our society in the abstract to allow people who can't reasonably work for a variety of physical or mental reasons to enjoy basically the same things as most other people... in fact I think many would want to help to the best of their abilities even if it means they just work when they are able or they do jobs which don't interfere with their health. Many elderly people I know like to help with the house when they are able and I think someone with bad depression or a physical issue would still want to help with some things in their community from cleaning up to clerical work or whatnot. But if they didn't or were not able I think they would be considered socially "paid-up" and given access to things that working people in a worker's society would have access to.

For able-bodied people who choose not to work, well workers will have to decide how to democratically prioritize the kinds of services and production they want and then how to fairly divide up the necessary labor (while also trying to figure out how to reduce - especially unpleasant - tasks either by changing the way things are produced, making more technology available, or just spreading out the work so that, say, every community has a central dumpster area and once a week a different able person would have to take out the neighborhood trash by driving it down to the dumps.

People in Occupy camps as well as communes or even family farms have found ways to divide up labor in relatively fair ways and this is usually under conditions of scarcity with small workforces (which can make that work difficult and the hours long... as in a family substance farm). But with full democratic access to surplus and technology and so on, I think almost immediately we'd be able to reduce work rates... even if we didn't change anything except to allow unemployed or imprisoned people who want to work, access to jobs, we could all work less weekly hours. Ultimately though I think people would want to reduce necessary but uninteresting tasks to their minimum - some things might remain though and everyone would agree that they are tasks which are needed. So it might suck to be called to help do yard maintenance in your community once or twice a year for several hours... but it sucks a lot more for just one person to be a janitor 5 days a week for 40 hours for the best hours of the day and the best years of their life. We all want to live someplace without trash on our front-door and so I think we'd all get together and decide how we want to organize these tasks.

Anyway, I'm getting away from the question. I think when Marx talks about "from each according to their ability... to each according to their need" he was adressing this question. Sometimes it's interpreted by anti-communists (and some communists who look to some repressive regimes as "communism") to mean that we all have to work as much as possible. But I think what he really meant was contrasting socialist and democratic work to capitalist work where you have to work as much as you can not matter what your ability is or you are tossed to the side. Socialism, worker's power in society, would be IMO the opposite of this... make work just a necessity when it makes sense as workers/consumers to do so as opposed to working to make profits irregardless of the usefulness or necessity of the commodity.

[citizen of industry]

Thank you very much, that certainly has cleared up a lot of things on the subject at hand.

There is still the question of the ones who can't work due to illness. How would they go about carrying out their hobbies/interests/creative expression? Just the same way as everyone else?

Yes, we would still produce surplus value. But instead of going to the idle capitalist class, it goes into providing for those who are not old enough or not able to work, emergencies, etc. In capitalism, surplus is destroyed because it cannot be sold. Because we are harnessing production for human wants instead of private profit, we can employ everyone, reduce working hours, cut waste, and have a wide variety of occupations. In short, you will have plenty of time to pursue your hobby, and will be provided for if you are sick, which you really aren't under capitalism. Plus, there is less restriction on what we can produce, because it doesn't have to go to market.

Marx addresses your question in Critique of the Gotha Program.

[Psy]

I also have a hobby of taking pictures with telescopes (basically taking pictures of space and such). Would it still be possible to pursue this hobby within a communist society? How would I go about obtaining the camera and the telescope etc? Would I have to work and earn labour tokens of some sort and collect enough to obtain them?

What about if I couldn't work due to disability or illness? Would I still have an opportunity to pursue my hobby like everyone else?

Thank you in advance for your time and effort :)
If you are able to work on your hobby (pictures of space), I don't see how you would not be able to teach astronomy or photography at level comfortable to you, be it at a grade school or at a university. Arrangements can be made for light work duty if you want to keep working while disabled, Stephen Hawking still works and contributes to science.

[human strike]

Why is astronomical photography not a valuable pursuit in and of itself? Why would they have to do anything to supplement it? I would say that communism may provide the opportunity to spend all one's time on photography, if one so wishes. Professions within communism are redundant since the division of labour no longer exists. Marx talked about how within communism one might do one thing in the morning, another in the afternoon and a completely different thing in the evening. Basically, you can spend your time doing what you want. The actual practicalities within a community would no doubt be a little more complex than "do what you want" though, but that's the ideal.

The question of illness is easily answered by the basic principle of communism; from each according to her ability, to each according to her need.

[Amon]

Ok, I believe I'm getting my head round it now and it's making sense.

The only reason I asked about the disability/sickness is that I'm not well and I cannot work at all unfortunately. I will have small windows of 'wellness' when I could do a little work if I don't push myself too hard, but I wouldn't be able to get any job round here, as I would make myself worse if I had a 9-5 job.

I like the fact that I would be able to help out when I was wasn't so bad that I can't get out of bed, it's more flexible and practical that way.

Also the thing that gets me is that under communism, I'd have a chance of being well again, I wouldn't have to pay a minimum of £30,000 to attempt to get better and my parents lose their house and everything they have. It actually infuriates me that this is happening around the world, and I mean really mad. So many people dying cause they can't afford to live. Plus the government will probably take away my sickness benefit money soon as there's going to be a massive 'reform'. Sucks cause I had dreams, I was at university studying computer science, and had to leave as I became ill.

Sorry, I'm not looking for sympathy, I've just got so much anger that people cannot see this. Thanks guys for clearing things up. Hopefully one day the world will change :)

[ckaihatsu]

So for one thing advanced computer photography programs would be made available to everyone,


There's an excellent photograph 'stitching' app available for the Linux operating system (both are free) that allows you to make a single larger photo from several adjacent regular photos:


http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/[email protected]/





Ok, I believe I'm getting my head round it now and it's making sense.


I think the rule of thumb is to just 'scale-up' from any individual's needs and wants, to that of society as a whole.

What does a person prioritize for their basic well-being? Health, nutrition, mobility, association, education, etc. -- the exact same thing goes for all of society as well, since the point of having *any* kind of social organization (instead of everyone operating strictly as individuals) is to realize efficiencies and gains from coordinated efforts.

Socialism is about treating all of society as a "single individual", or entity, if you will, and making sure that we address all of the basics for life and living for *all* in society, by the best social organization possible.

The method(s) used will vary according to conditions of materials and the political struggle, but could adopt any combination of a number of possibilities of material accounting so as to facilitate the greatest benefits for everyone.


[10] Supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy

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

[Amon]

Thank you very much for your contribution and also the attached file that you have provided me with, I'm very grateful!

All this information is helping me out lots! :)

[ckaihatsu]

Thank you very much for your contribution and also the attached file that you have provided me with, I'm very grateful!

All this information is helping me out lots! :)


Not at all -- that's what they're there for.

There's more where that came from:


Political (educational) diagrams, for revolutionaries

http://www.revleft.com/vb/political-educational-diagrams-t111586/index.html
tinyurl.com/ckaihatsu-diagrams-revleft

[Regicollis]

Other users have demonstrated how the vast majority would be better off after a revolution.

As for the labour voucher thing I think that in the initial stage of socialism "money" will be retained as a way of rationing luxuries. Necessities like food, housing and health care will be provided free of charge since there is a limit to how many potatoes you can eat, how many apartments you can live in or how many bypass surgeries you would want.

Then there are the non-necessities. Some of them are not scarce and will be provided free of charge - like software. Others, like chocolate, photography equipment and Persian rugs, are scarce and will have to be rationed.

A labour voucher system will allow this rationing to take place while providing an incentive to do necessary but boring and unpleasant work. For each hour you work you get a fixed amount (if we use the minute as a unit of account you would get 60 minutes for one hour of work). I imagine that it would be possible to increase the compensation for doing unpleasant work like cleaning toilets so that more people would voluntarily sign up for it. Then you could spend your labour credits to buy the luxuries you want.

To avoid capital concentration these labour vouchers would not circulate like today's money. They will be destroyed when spent and they will be personal and non-transferable (Although possibly with the ability to authorize persons in your own household to spend your credits for you).

To compensate those who are not allowed to work people like the elderly, the disabled or children should be allotted a fair amount of credits. That amount should be somewhere in the vicinity of what an average worker earns. As for students I think we should see studying as work, worthy of compensation. If you want to build a house or fill a cavity some of the work that needs to be done is to learn how to do it first.

[ckaihatsu]

To avoid capital concentration these labour vouchers would not circulate like today's money. They will be destroyed when spent and they will be personal and non-transferable (Although possibly with the ability to authorize persons in your own household to spend your credits for you).


There's been a good discussion at another thread about more of the *particulars* of this topic....


Is Economic Planning Inefficient?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/economic-planning-inefficienti-t174181/index.html


I've also wondered about how everyday use of *physical space* would change, once private property is done away with -- perhaps the communization of materials, and physical space, would mean that daily life would be much more *mobile* than today, perhaps more resembling the times of primitive communism, since there would be no more uncertainty in modern "foraging".

Private collections of whatever cultural artifacts would give way to a norm of *collectively* administrating such collections, more like a common network of museums or an academia that's as ubiquitous as the Internet.

It's tough to say, though, because it would probably hinge on how much slack the people of such a world would grant to the domain of *sentiment* -- would personal possessions *increase*, in a hoarding kind of way, for expanding and expansive personal reasons, or would society frown on such harboring of sentimentality, since all items themselves would be freely available anyway -- ?

A formal economy would be good to preserve and encourage individuality, but from a strictly material standpoint wouldn't be absolutely *necessary*, as the degree of socialized life increased. Doubtless there would have to be some complex balancing of the two, in all aspects.

[Philosophos]

Well in my opinion you should be able to pursue your hobby. I'm an actor (not professionally) and I'd love to still act in a communistic society. But at the same time I believe that since acting is not offering a lot as a profession and it's more like a hobby I should do another job at the same time (fisher, teacher whatever).

So if you are not a scientist and you just do this for a hobby you could do another job at the same time and have telescoping as a hobby.

If you want the telescope you must go and find somebody that makes it and maybe help him at the making process or help him carrying the stuff that it needs so it can be made. Otherwise in this communistic society we will already have so many telescopes that you'll get yours in no time ;)

[ckaihatsu]

If you want the telescope you must go and find somebody that makes it and maybe help him at the making process or help him carrying the stuff that it needs so it can be made. Otherwise in this communistic society we will already have so many telescopes that you'll get yours in no time ;)


This brings up another tangent, that I wouldn't mind elaborating on.... = )

Since the hobbyist / artisan type of production is very small-scale and limited, while mass industrial production is very large-scale and productive, a communist society would have to consciously determine how much, and what kinds of, productivity would be allocated to each.

There's an inherent material trade-off since the turn to artisan-type production might be more personally satisfying and even indulgent, but it would not be nearly as socialized and *politically* relevant as a productivity grounded in mass-administrated liberated labor would be.

We could ask, once an intensely-social worldwide proletarian revolution is accomplished, would there be any more need for mass industrial production *at all* -- but then the question would always *remain* nonetheless. At any given point there might be *societal* accomplishments to be realized by the foregoing of more individualistic-minded pursuits. Should humanity be more focused on large-scale or small-scale achievements?

[Amon]

Am I right to presume that after the initial stage with the labour vouchers and such, that when we move to 'upper' communism/socialism they will be abolished all together and people wont need an incentive to work anymore, they'll just do what needs to be done for the good of each other and society.

I just get confused when people talk of socialism as a separate thing form communism, I thought they were exactly the same thing, but there was lower and upper communism.

[ckaihatsu]

Am I right to presume that after the initial stage with the labour vouchers and such, that when we move to 'upper' communism/socialism they will be abolished all together and people wont need an incentive to work anymore, they'll just do what needs to be done for the good of each other and society.

I just get confused when people talk of socialism as a separate thing form communism, I thought they were exactly the same thing, but there was lower and upper communism.


That's the conventional, orthodox, "textbook" treatment, and I think it generally serves well as an outline.

Since the topic is one of a direction and time-frame moving into the future, we have to speak in terms of 'what direction' and 'how quickly', in my estimation. Here's a comment on it:





[R]eal-world *conditions* of revolution may vary -- we would have to speak in terms of best-case and worst-case scenarios.

Best-case is that everything happens quickly and money instantly becomes obsolete and anachronistic -- this would equate to the resounding defeat of the bourgeoisie on a worldwide mass basis and the quick dissolution of its state. It would be replaced more-or-less in a bottom-up organic way with production rapidly reorganized on vast scales (for economies of scale and efficiency).

Worst-case is that there's an ongoing situation of dual-power where contending forces from the bourgeoisie and proletariat linger on in protracted labor-based battles, both political and physical. World public opinion remains divided and the class war takes on the characteristics of a country-by-country civil war between the classes. In such a situation it would be more-than-understandable for revolutionary forces to call for the seizing of the state, and to use it in an authoritarian, top-down way in the interests of the workers' forces, against the imperialists. This could include a system of labor vouchers, in an attempt to assert some kind of consistent economic valuation system, as counterposed to imperialist/colonialist resource extraction, corporatist/militarist syndicalism, and market-type commodity-production valuations.

[human strike]

However, some argue against any such transitional period. For these communists (myself included), communism is something that occurs in the here and now, not as some vision of the future after a revolution with all of what others have discussed above, but as the revolutionary movement itself. Note that this isn't the traditional anarchist line which holds that while there is no transitional period (what one might call the "dictatorship of the proletariat", by the way), communism still comes after the revolution. What I'm talking about can be called 'communisation' theory, the idea that the revolution is communism and communism is the revolution.

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

Basically, what I'm saying is, there's no consensus on transition to communism and certainly no consensus on anything like labour vouchers.

[Philosophos]

Should humanity be more focused on large-scale or small-scale achievements?

Well about this point I believe humanity should be focusing at both large and small scale achievements. It depends we can't all be scientists for example. So the large-scale achievement of finding a cure for HIV with no side effects is going to be done by only a few people.

If you can't do something like that (something on a large-scale) you can always improve yourself (the only actual thing you can control in this world) so you can make world a better place (small-scale).

[ckaihatsu]

Well about this point I believe humanity should be focusing at both large and small scale achievements. It depends we can't all be scientists for example. So the large-scale achievement of finding a cure for HIV with no side effects is going to be done by only a few people.

If you can't do something like that (something on a large-scale) you can always improve yourself (the only actual thing you can control in this world) so you can make world a better place (small-scale).


Okay -- just to clarify, I was indicating different possible scales of *social cooperation* and *production*.

Certainly much scientific research depends on the cohesiveness of all of academia as a social institution, but it's (arguably) another matter altogether to see the kind of cooperation and planning required for, say, the interstate highway system or the space program of past decades.

Actually, one of the best-funded and most-socialized endeavors *these* days is indisputably the *military*, unfortunately, but it goes to show what extents the dynamics of depersonalization and socialization are used for.