Incentive for harder, more extensive careers

[Einkarl]

This is a point that is often brought up in discussion with reactionaries and capitalist-sympathizers. If everyone from the janitor to the doctor gets paid the same or receives the same power of purchase or can enjoy the products of society equally, then what incentive does one have to get the extra education under a stateless society?

I imagine under DotP one can be paid or compensated to go into college if one shows passion or aptitude in those fields. That may imply some sort of state intervention or government programs. I want to know how it would play out in a society without a state.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

I like to learn. I wanted to go to the university, but couldn't because of money.

So, to answer your question: anyone's incentive to learn is actually because they want to.

[Romanophile]

People would learn because they want to. Learning can be an enjoyable experience, but many pressures make it unenjoyable now. Financial pressures, which usually work along with time constraints, discourage people from obtaining the ‘job’ that they desire. People are different, so naturally that have different desires and different requirements.

Forcing disinterested people to labour or to learn seems rather inefficient since they are less likely to put more effort into these.

Does this help ?

[o well this is ok I guess]

Most people can't even afford to be doctors. So, what, you want us to incentivize an entirely gentrified profession?

[Profunc]

I am a janitor, and I don't particularly enjoy the job itself, because I'd much rather do something else but can't. The managers expectancy for us to kiss up to them makes the environment depressing and competitive. I never feel like doing a good job, because I know it'll do nothing to get me ahead.

However, I'd stay here just because of the people I work with, and how much fun they are to be around. It's better than the same environment, with people who stab you in the back every time you say something against the management, to find an opportunity to gain favour with them.

In a communist society, hopefully there would be a complete removal of that kind of environment. And then, if I wound up as a janitor, I would at least enjoy my job—if I did a good job, I would be rewarded, and not with money, but with appreciation for my efforts and a good relationship with my workmates. And then, why be a doctor, when I'm already happy where I am?

[Tim Cornelis]

Janitors probably wouldn't exist. People tend to become janitors because they don't have the means available to become something else. Maybe there would be some exceptions. Such work would be done on a rotating basis, mostly.

That doesn't refute 'equal income' though. A person having the intellectual capability of becoming a doctor certainly wouldn't be challenged or enjoy being a janitor.

Under communism there will still be some scarce goods, maybe a trip to Hawaii or luxurious goods, which can't be allocated to everyone according to needs. Those good be prioritised towards doctors, for instance. This would perhaps be an incentive to take up the more educational productive activities.

You could also point out how in Cuba and Belarus doctors are paid relatively low wages, yet they have the second and fifth most physicians per 1000 citizens in the world. In Cuba so many doctors exist because education is free and they are, so I'm told, held in especially high regard by the community.

[Clarion]

A society in which doctors can only earn the same as janitors will under produce doctors. So long as commodity production exists, there will be variations in wages or the amount somebody can charge for their trade on the basis of skill and scarcity.

[bcbm]

people will do it because they want to and find some pleasure in their labor. the idea of being tied to one job won't exist though. obviously some may 'specialize' as is needed but this is by no means a requirement to anyone.



Under communism there will still be some scarce goods, maybe a trip to Hawaii or luxurious goods, which can't be allocated to everyone according to needs. Those good be prioritised towards doctors, for instance. This would perhaps be an incentive to take up the more educational productive activities.

no

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Well I know Karl Marx didn't endorse the idea of equal income, for one:



Critique of the Gotha Programme

What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Lenin quoting Marx

State and Revolution

In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx goes into detail to disprove Lassalle's idea that under socialism the worker will receive the “undiminished” or "full product of his labor". Marx shows that from the whole of the social labor of society there must be deducted a reserve fund, a fund for the expansion of production, a fund for the replacement of the "wear and tear" of machinery, and so on. Then, from the means of consumption must be deducted a fund for administrative expenses, for schools, hospitals, old people's homes, and so on.

Instead of Lassalle's hazy, obscure, general phrase ("the full product of his labor to the worker"), Marx makes a sober estimate of exactly how socialist society will have to manage its affairs. Marx proceeds to make a concrete analysis of the conditions of life of a society in which there will be no capitalism, and says:

"What we have to deal with here [in analyzing the programme of the workers' party] is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes."

It is this communist society, which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society, that Marx terms the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society.

The means of production are no longer the private property of individuals. The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it.

“Equality” apparently reigns supreme.

But when Lassalle, having in view such a social order (usually called socialism, but termed by Marx the first phase of communism), says that this is "equitable distribution", that this is "the equal right of all to an equal product of labor", Lassalle is mistaken and Marx exposes the mistake.

"Hence, the equal right," says Marx, in this case still certainly conforms to "bourgeois law", which,like all law, implies inequality. All law is an application of an equal measure to different people who in fact are not alike, are not equal to one another. That is why the "equal right" is violation of equality and an injustice. In fact, everyone, having performed as much social labor as another, receives an equal share of the social product (after the above-mentioned deductions).

But people are not alike: one is strong, another is weak; one is married, another is not; one has more children, another has less, and so on. And the conclusion Marx draws is:

"... With an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, the right instead of being equal would have to be unequal."

The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production--the factories, machines, land, etc.--and make them private property. In smashing Lassalle's petty-bourgeois, vague phrases about “equality” and “justice” in general, Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the “injustice” of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not according to needs).


So I don't think it is productive to speculate on equal income since that can only happen under "full communism" so to speak, and from where we are now to try to think about what that might be like is a wee bit Utopian. "From the Ability to the Contribution" seems like a much more logical option in the short term.

[Sea]

Janitors probably wouldn't exist.Might not want to advertise that on the commune gates...

[BIXX]

Why the hell do we always use doctors vs. janitors?

In my opinion, more people would want to be doctors than janitors. I sure would.
However, I think the whole doctors vs. janitors argument is way oversimplified. We're ignoring that there are a lot of other conditions that would affect (effect? Probably affect.) what someone chooses to do as a profession. I mean, I'd rather choose to be an electrician, metal worker, gunsmith, etc... than a doctor. And these all have different levels of important to society, with, in my opinion, the gunsmith being the lowest as not everyone needs a gun, and in my area, very few people even want a gun.
However, I don't know anyone who doesn't want and need electricity. I've also met very few people who want the type of metal work I do right now. Overall, I think we just need to see how things go post revolution, because we're trying to hash out the details of something I doubt we can predict.
My personal belief is that there will be some people who genuinely enjoy being a janitor (even if it's only because of the people they'd be working with) and some people who love being a doctor, metal worker, electrician, gunsmith, office worker, etc... And due to that I doubt there will be much of a problem.

[black magick hustla]

people have done shit to survive before time immemorial. its not like humanity gonna just chill and starve to death if some asshole is not paying them

[Owl]

I actually think capitalism does a better job of incentivising low level careers than communism. In the case of communism, there's really little to make high level careers - which come with various personal benefits - a poor choice for those who want them. Whereas, under capitalism, the cost of education makes these careers financially risky for a bulk of the population, thus incentivising low skill work.

[The Intransigent Faction]

people have done shit to survive before time immemorial. its not like humanity gonna just chill and starve to death if some asshole is not paying them

Absolutely. I would add that plenty of people have also spent their lives doing what they enjoy regardless of material incentives---even in capitalism. My grandma became a teacher because she enjoys teaching, and she was much better at it than anyone who did it just for the money would have been.

Besides, nobody really works just for money, even if they think they do. Money is only a means to buy things. If we can get all the things we need and plenty that we want without money, as long as we do the work to produce them, then money seems pointless!

[Ravachol]

J
Under communism there will still be some scarce goods, maybe a trip to Hawaii or luxurious goods, which can't be allocated to everyone according to needs. Those good be prioritised towards doctors, for instance. This would perhaps be an incentive to take up the more educational productive activities.


This is ridiculous.... Have you considered joining the local IST or Stalinist groups as of late?

[Ravachol]

That doesn't refute 'equal income' though. A person having the intellectual capability of becoming a doctor certainly wouldn't be challenged or enjoy being a janitor.

Bollocks. I'm a computer scientist by profession yet I find most of that supposedly 'intellectually challenging' stuff shoveled down my throat boring as fuck, whilst I often enjoy manual or artisanal crafts, whether woodworking, gardening or cooking, in my past time. It has nothing to do with 'intellectual challenges' and people who say that just want to feel good about themselves 'cause they're "oh so smart".