Is it even possible to have a non-government communist sate becuase of human nature?

[Leopardo]

I don't quite understand how under Communism, people would want to work for free and get practically nothing in return. I'm talking about dirty jobs that no one wants to do like being a garbage man or working in a steel plant. To me, I feel like people would rather sit around and do nothing all day than work for free; money is whole reason why the proletarian families sent their kids off to work during the industrial revolution.

Maybe working for free isn't quite the case under Communism. I'm still pretty new to this ideology.

[Blake's Baby]

I would help to clean the streets 'for free' (ie, if I got all of my needs met by society) because I don't want to live in piles of shit. If I want the benefits (read if everyone wants the benefits) then I have to (read everybody has to) join in to do the work.

It's not really a very difficult concept. If we work together, we can do amazing things, If we don't, we can't. So if we want amazing things, the only way to get them is to put some effort in. Why then would we decide not to do the things we wanted to do?

[Q]

Set yourself for a second in 14th century France for a second, if you can. Then ask yourself how this 'capitalism' thing might work. After all, won't we need all available labour for agricultural purposes? Who will do those dirty jobs? And what with the lord system, if we overthrow that, who will manage the peasants?

Now jump back into this day and age with these questions in mind. Communism is not an alternative way of organising society, in the same way we can choose for this or that party during elections. It is a break with the old society and a superseding of it.

Capitalism needs human labour in order to create surplus value, the main goal of capital. Under communism we would have no such restrictions. "Work" becomes something qualitatively different. you no longer "go to work", but internalise it as an expression of how you develop as an individual.

Having said that, this idea that people would "rather sit around and do nothing all day" is incredibly dull. Try doing that for a few days, you'll like it as you enjoy some well deserved rest, but after that it becomes a frightening prospect. Ask any jobless person, they hate being idle, seeing no purpose in life. In communism, that is, human rule (as opposed to the rule of capital), people will not "work for free" as "work" and "free" will have very different meanings in a society of relative super abundance.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't quite understand how under Communism, people would want to work for free and get practically nothing in return. I'm talking about dirty jobs that no one wants to do like being a garbage man or working in a steel plant. To me, I feel like people would rather sit around and do nothing all day than work for free; money is whole reason why the proletarian families sent their kids off to work during the industrial revolution.

Maybe working for free isn't quite the case under Communism. I'm still pretty new to this ideology.

Hello,

Yes this is a pretty common question for people unfamiliar with these ideas. First there are a couple of aspects to this question that I think take for granted that the specific ways that capitalist societies are set up are somehow "natural" or neutral, given facts of life. Really the only fact of life involved is that it takes labor for societies to create what is needed for societies to continue... but how this is accomplished specifically is the question of capitalism or communism.

So, why do people work as garbage men - or worse jobs (being a union garbageman isn't as bad a many other options)? Because they need a wage - why? Because this is how they get what they need to survive. But who holds the key to the gate of being able to get a job (who controls the means of production)? So capitalism actively seeks to maintain a level of poverty and a minimization of non-market ways to support yourself in order to ensure that there are people willing to do work for cheap.

But for the garbage man, while he may go around cleaning up other people's neighborhoods, if he's poor, he might return to live in run down apartments with less services and more trash. He/she receives just a wage, but no benefit from the actual work performed. No one receives a wage for taking out their own kitchen trash, yet these tasks are performed daily. So tasks performed under capitalism for a wage are not the only or the "natural" way to accomplish necessary things - it's just how this kind of society does it and that mostly entails ensuring that there are a class of people who have to get wages just to maintain themselves.

[tuwix]

I don't quite understand how under Communism, people would want to work for free and get practically nothing in return. I'm talking about dirty jobs that no one wants to do like being a garbage man or working in a steel plant. To me, I feel like people would rather sit around and do nothing all day than work for free; money is whole reason why the proletarian families sent their kids off to work during the industrial revolution.

Maybe working for free isn't quite the case under Communism. I'm still pretty new to this ideology.

You asked very important. This question without proper answer cause that many men and women don't believe that moneyless system is possible.

But the answer is pretty simple. IMHO Moneyless system won't be possible until human civilization won't go to the level that those unpleasant activities will be done by machines. And civilization goes towards that. Less en less real work is needed in the world. From 30's there are created jobs only to employ people without any additional purpose.

[Marshal of the People]

You asked very important. This question without proper answer cause that many men and women don't believe that moneyless system is possible.

But the answer is pretty simple. IMHO Moneyless system won't be possible until human civilization won't go to the level that those unpleasant activities will be done by machines. And civilization goes towards that. Less en less real work is needed in the world. From 30's there are created jobs only to employ people without any additional purpose.

I have come to the same conclusion myself. Communism will only be possible once we have the technological capabilities to outsource all undesirable and boring jobs to machines leaving the fun stuff left for us. I believe a post-scarcity society will only be possible once we have robots to do all our work for us.

[RedHal]

yes technology will be used for more productive purposes than it is in our current system. In the current system some of the best technology is used in war machines, in a sane society we can surely create machines to help in the boring/dirtier jobs.

[Bala Perdida]

I would investigate or read up on some Jacque Fresco for the technology aspect. Sure he is ideologically weird, often called a utopian socialist, and he is critical of communism since he thinks it still has money and he was kicked out of a youth communist league as a kid. Nonetheless, his theory for a better world is perfectly adaptable to our types of egalitarian societies.

Also on a related not (and to save a thread), does Marxism have a hierarchy post-revolution (after the RDotP). Is there some sort of manager or union leader or anybody overseeing the workers? Is there any form of representative democracy overseeing the society? Or is it just like anarchism in which everyone governs themselves/the community governs as a whole with no one specific leader and nobody having authority over everyone else?

[ZvP]

I have come to the same conclusion myself. Communism will only be possible once we have the technological capabilities to outsource all undesirable and boring jobs to machines leaving the fun stuff left for us. I believe a post-scarcity society will only be possible once we have robots to do all our work for us.

Although communism would be more feasible under these conditions, I don't see them as necessary prerequisites. People will ultimately do what they feel needs to be done (this is different for everyone of course), even if they are not compensated and especially if they are not already obligated to work 8 hours per day. You also have to keep in mind that the people doing these shitty jobs would probably be respected in a communist society, which is the direct opposite of how they are viewed by many under capitalism, and is an incentive itself.

In capitalism, it would certainly be difficult to get people to voluntarily mop floors, but in a communist context it's very easy to see how it could be done. If all else failed, we could just apportion the "shit" jobs amongst everyone, and maybe offer some small incentive, but I don't think it would even get to that point.

[Creative Destruction]

Having said that, this idea that people would "rather sit around and do nothing all day" is incredibly dull. Try doing that for a few days, you'll like it as you enjoy some well deserved rest, but after that it becomes a frightening prospect. Ask any jobless person, they hate being idle, seeing no purpose in life. In communism, that is, human rule (as opposed to the rule of capital), people will not "work for free" as "work" and "free" will have very different meanings in a society of relative super abundance.

agreed.

as it is, there are legions of paid office workers that sit around and basically do nothing productive all day. i can guarantee, based on my experience, that the conversations that happen between cubes range from "i'd rather be at home working on x" to "i want to fucking kill myself." doing that shit paid brings up suicidal feelings. doing it willingly is probably a sign that something is wrong with the person -- like they're not doing well emotionally.

[Q]

I would investigate or read up on some Jacque Fresco for the technology aspect. Sure he is ideologically weird, often called a utopian socialist, and he is critical of communism since he thinks it still has money and he was kicked out of a youth communist league as a kid. Nonetheless, his theory for a better world is perfectly adaptable to our types of egalitarian societies.
I agree. His 'Venus project' in my opinion gives an interesting view of what is possible. When people ask what communism will be like, I sometimes point to them for a vision.

Having said that, there are two limitations with it:
1. Fresco et al gives no answer on how we should get there. During their cooperation with the Zeitgeist people, the best they could suggest is to simply throw away the money in front of the banks and stop using it. Ugh...
2. Mind that Fresco too has obviously no crystal ball. Therefore, his visions of the future are a reflection of today. Therefore they are imperfect. they can be used as examples, but one has to account for this limitation.


Also on a related not (and to save a thread), does Marxism have a hierarchy post-revolution (after the RDotP). Is there some sort of manager or union leader or anybody overseeing the workers? Is there any form of representative democracy overseeing the society? Or is it just like anarchism in which everyone governs themselves/the community governs as a whole with no one specific leader and nobody having authority over everyone else?I take it you mean communism ('Marxism' is not a form of society) and the answer is both yes and no. No, there is no need for a more 'democratic' variation of the state we have today. Society will, by and large, rule itself through democratic principles. With this I'm also saying that 'representative democracy' is a very problematic term as it implies elections and that stuff, which are not democratic.

But yes, there will obviously be a 'hierarchy' in the sense that society needs some form of supervision and collective coordination. Quite much so in fact. The anarchists' aim is to have a loose federation of local communes. But this is problematic as resources are not equally divided over the globe, which in turn implies a distribution of these resources. For lack of a central coordination of this, the alternative would be trade and, as such, an exchange of values. This anarchist ideal therefore runs the considerable risk of recreating class society in some form.

We need global coordination and this must bedone democratically if we are to do this collectively, as a species, in our collective interests, so that the individual may flourish. How this might work is explained by Moshé Machover in his essay on the subject: Collective Decision-Making and Supervision in a Communist Society (http://www.matzpen.org/english/2009-10-10/collective-decision-making-and-supervision-in-a-communist-society-moshe-machover/).

[Bala Perdida]

I figured we're the revolutionaries, so we can put an end to this government and use Fresco's designs to reshape/rebuild society.
As for Marxism, I meant it to be from a Marxist perspective. Also, I know many anarchists that subscribe to the world revolutionary theory popular on this forum. Personally if the whole world reaches communism I think we can redistribute the resources relatively easily. I mean the communes can all govern themselves, but have a data base to see which area needs what for aan equal distribution.

[Red Shaker]

The concept of human nature is often used to explain why communism will not work. Richard Lewontin, a professor at Harvard, wrote a book many years ago explaining that human nature is not a product of one's genes but rather of the type of society one lives in. The book "The Sociology of Biology" is well worth reading.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The problem with saying 'but human nature' is that it is not an argument in itself. Positing that there is one-way causation from human nature to everything else is a quasi-religious argument in that it assumes that there cannot be causality running the other way, i.e. from the social conditions we face every day of our lives towards our basic human instincts/nature.

In other words, the human nature argument is highly limited and chooses to ignore the wealth of anecdotal and scientific evidence that suggests that we generally adapt our behaviours to suit the social conditions we face in our lives.

[Thirsty Crow]

The problem with saying 'but human nature' is that it is not an argument in itself. Positing that there is one-way causation from human nature to everything else is a quasi-religious argument in that it assumes that there cannot be causality running the other way, i.e. from the social conditions we face every day of our lives towards our basic human instincts/nature.

In other words, the human nature argument is highly limited and chooses to ignore the wealth of anecdotal and scientific evidence that suggests that we generally adapt our behaviours to suit the social conditions we face in our lives.
Maybe it should be noticed that the selection of traits to fill this basically empty, but somehow persuasive, notion of human nature tends to follow clearly ideological lines. In other words, people make of this human nature what they will in that moment so that it may somehow serve as a stick to beat the debating opponent with.
(incidentally I don't think that any ideological use of the concept has anything to do with base instincts, but with forms of behavior)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Maybe it should be noticed that the selection of traits to fill this basically empty, but somehow persuasive, notion of human nature tends to follow clearly ideological lines. In other words, people make of this human nature what they will in that moment so that it may somehow serve as a stick to beat the debating opponent with.
(incidentally I don't think that any ideological use of the concept has anything to do with base instincts, but with forms of behavior)

Indeed.

It's problematic to argue against in that it is difficult to prove causality one way or the other (from conditions in society to human nature, and from human nature to conditions in society), since undoubtedly the picture is clouded by so many variables (environmental factors, genetic factors, institutions in society etc.) and also as you say by ideology.

As you say, it's a bit of a chameleon, which is why it's so useful in microeconomic theory; why is there inequality? human nature. Why do bankers get bonuses? human nature. Why did that cop shoot that un-armed homeless guy? human nature.

[Leopardo]

Wow. I didn't expect to get this many replies.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Wow. I didn't expect to get this many replies.

It's a very common question for communists because it's something we're told even before we understand what communism is, so it's something we'll each have thought about.

[Illegalitarian]

Q, the problem with that assumption is that it assumes, from what I read, some form of barter in a society where the democratic work-place organs are organized through a loose confederation of said organizations.

Why would this run a danger of bringing back class? Why would distribution not be based upon need, as per the Marxian economic maxim of From Each According To Their Ability, To Each According To Their need? Just because there is no centralized coordination doesn't mean coordination can't be done in a decentralized fashion, with each democratic body/union controlling each work place coordinating production and distribution with one another.


To answer your question, OP, human nature is a lie. Our actions and thoughts, behaviors, etc are determined by he society we live in, not the other way around.


Look at Warren Buffet or Bill Gates. These men could never work another day in their lives and simply shut down their various operations, but they choose not to. The "idle rich" are a very small minority among the bourgeois. Even among middle class people who can afford to retire, many, many do not, or at least keep themselves occupied through some other productive hobby.


Not being productive is rather boring.


Not that the vast majority of work that exists now will not exist in such a society, most of it existing now just to maintain a work model.