Who will do the dirty jobs?

[Redhead]

In a communist society where money no longer stands in your way for education, what will be the motivation to become for example a groundskeeper or a garbageman? I mean, there is alot of people who enjoys these kinds of jobs, but alot of them are there because they cant do better (cant afford education etc.). Will there be a lack of people doing these professions? And how would we solve this?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

If no one wants to be a grounds keeper do you think society will survive?

[Zukunftsmusik]

I'll do it.

[Erfurt 1891]

Community.

[Redhead]

If no one wants to be a grounds keeper do you think society will survive?

Thats the problem, someone have to do it. Its an underestimated and very important job, but many people who got such jobs now got it because they dont have a choice.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

In a communist society where money no longer stands in your way for education, what will be the motivation to become for example a groundskeeper or a garbageman? I mean, there is alot of people who enjoys these kinds of jobs, but alot of them are there because they cant do better (cant afford education etc.). Will there be a lack of people doing these professions? And how would we solve this?

For one thing, in a socialist society very few people would have one "career". People would take out garbage and so on because, well, most of us don't want to choke in garbage. Besides, why would collecting garbage be that unpleasant (more unpleasant than mucking around someone's guts as surgeons do)?

[Redhead]

Its not that its unpleasant, its just hard, time consuming work. And i can see the argument for taking out the garbage, but someone has to take the garbage further than just to the bin. Someone has to maintain the hospital. Someone has to clean out the sewers.

[Bala Perdida]

If more people knew how to apply for these positions and what they required, I'm sure there would be no shortage of people doing these jobs. I don't consider jobs like these dirty or degrading, in the sense of doing them makes you a lower than me. I respect a garbage man or a drive thru attendant much more than I do a lawyer. A lot of people only become software engineers and marketing advisors because the positions pay well. Their jobs would be near useless in a socialist society, where you don't have to produce competing anti-virus softwares.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Thats the problem, someone have to do it. Its an underestimated and very important job, but many people who got such jobs now got it because they dont have a choice.

Is it really "important" though? Sure it's important to this society, but do you think it's possible that things we designate as important under capitalism, may not actually be important in communism? Are untidy lawns, or a lack of lawns all together even, an acceptable price for freedom in your opinion?

[Tim Cornelis]

you don't get paid to take out the trash in your own household, yet you do it.

If there are 1500 adult residents in one neighbourhood, and it takes 3 people to operate a garbage truck, then every resident would only need take out the garbage 1.4 times a year. It's likely people would be willing to do this for just once a year if it keeps their neighbourhood clean.

EDIT: for some reason I assumed garbage will be collected daily. It's more like twice a week, so even less work to rotate.

[Blake's Baby]

Some people who might, currently, quite like being a groundskeeper, but won't because it doesn't pay very well, and some people who don't like being groundskeepers at present, but do it through economic compulsion, would get to do what they want.

If there were things that had to be done, that no-one wanted to do, then I think we'd probably have a rota.

EDIT: oh, loads of people replied while I got interupted.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I think instead of having one person be a cleaner, one person a doctor, one person a nurse, one person an orderly and one person a receptionist, you'd have five people who want to pursue medical science and to assist others in medical emergencies who simultaneously recognise the need for the workspace to be clean and the paperwork completed and so organise their work accordingly.

[Durruti's friend]

In a communist society where money no longer stands in your way for education, what will be the motivation to become for example a groundskeeper or a garbageman? I mean, there is alot of people who enjoys these kinds of jobs, but alot of them are there because they cant do better (cant afford education etc.). Will there be a lack of people doing these professions? And how would we solve this?
I'm pretty sure most of those "unpleasant" jobs could just circulate if there'd be no one volunteering to do them.

For instance, collecting garbage. Say you live in a middle-sized neighborhood with some 60.000 inhabitants. If the garbage is collected from the neighborhood twice a week by three people per turn it would take some 200 years for all the people to rotate on the job. You most likely won't even have to collect garbage in your lifetime.

Edit: dear god tim you fast bastard

[Creative Destruction]

Automation.

[Illegalitarian]

It's not like everyone is just going to let open sewage run through the streets and garbage pile up everywhere just because there's "no one to do the dirty jobs".

I don't know about you, but if that sort of shit started happening in my area I would try and round up enough people to take care of it. I'm guessing most other people would, too.



The same answer goes for dangerous, tough jobs such as welding or anything to do with electricity. There are some things that absolutely must be done for a society to keep functioning, no one is going to let these things go unattended just because they're no longer in situations where they may have to do them.

[Creative Destruction]

The same answer goes for dangerous, tough jobs such as welding or anything to do with electricity. There are some things that absolutely must be done for a society to keep functioning, no one is going to let these things go unattended just because they're no longer in situations where they may have to do them.

Being a welder and an electrician is different from groundskeeping and janitorial work. I don't know anyone who wanted to be a groundskeeper or a janitor; they did it because it was the job available and they had the skills for it. Being a welder and an electrician has an amount of accomplishment to it. I was trying to get into an electrician apprenticeship a few years back and it's really competitive, because it's really rewarding work. You're providing a tangible service to people, in addition to getting paid really well. But there's enough people who love fucking around with electricity anyway. It's challenging and fun, and some folks are danger junkies.

[Quail]

I don't know why this is such a common question/objection to communism. "But WHO WILL COLLECT THE RUBBISH!?"

I think most people want to live in a clean and safe environment and if the small price to pay for that is occasionally doing a job you don't like, then so be it. It's never going to get to a point where we're surrounded by rubbish and sewage simply because people can't be arsed to clear it up because nobody wants to live like that.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't know why this is such a common question/objection to communism. "But WHO WILL COLLECT THE RUBBISH!?"

I think most people want to live in a clean and safe environment and if the small price to pay for that is occasionally doing a job you don't like, then so be it. It's never going to get to a point where we're surrounded by rubbish and sewage simply because people can't be arsed to clear it up because nobody wants to live like that.

Yeah, as I pointed out in another, almost identical thread, why do people clean their toilets? It's dirty, it's unpleasant, and everyone does it because no one wants to live in a sty.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Actually the fact that it comes up so often is probably justification for the argument that it isn't an important question to ask. Obviously a shitload of people are concerned about this, I can't imagine a shortage of volunteers being an issue for this after all these threads.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Actually the fact that it comes up so often is probably justification for the argument that it isn't an important question to ask. Obviously a shitload of people are concerned about this, I can't imagine a shortage of volunteers being an issue for this after all these threads.

I think people are asking "who is going to take care of the garbage so I don't have to?".

[Quail]

Buy whyyyy are people so concerned about this? I don't understand. Unless they themselves just live in piles of their own trash or something.

Slightly related:
FO79S-VPkL0

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Oh 870, how droll

[Creative Destruction]

Buy whyyyy are people so concerned about this? I don't understand. Unless they themselves just live in piles of their own trash or something.

What's even more ridiculous about the question is that there are ways of disposing or reusing waste. Even if there is some shortage of people not wanting to do the "dirty work," we have things that are pretty much self-contained and safe. Tired of having a sewage plant? Compost toilets are pretty awesome and advanced these days. Don't want to deal with garbage? Most of it is compostable. Right now, if we were a rational society, we wouldn't be producing garbage and sewage in the volume that we do. Capitalism has really stunted us in this regard.

People who are seriously concerned about this are just lazy thinkers. I'd imagine that by the time we get to an era where we are in a later stage of communism, we'll have the technology for people to be as lazy about their cleanliness as they want to be.

[Futility Personified]

It's the same kind of question as "how will we equally distribute houses to exactly the same size?" A complete farce that detracts from the serious problems of the current state of affairs. "Oh gee, I guess there'll be a blood bath for the largest mansion in the town. After that, as my family have killed everyone else, we'll eat all the shit from the sewers that noone would have bothered to clean up anyway"

[Illegalitarian]

Being a welder and an electrician is different from groundskeeping and janitorial work. I don't know anyone who wanted to be a groundskeeper or a janitor; they did it because it was the job available and they had the skills for it. Being a welder and an electrician has an amount of accomplishment to it. I was trying to get into an electrician apprenticeship a few years back and it's really competitive, because it's really rewarding work. You're providing a tangible service to people, in addition to getting paid really well. But there's enough people who love fucking around with electricity anyway. It's challenging and fun, and some folks are danger junkies.

It's different in perceived prestige and it's definitely different work (seriously, if you're a welder you have my utmost respect.. that is some fucking grueling work).

It's the same however in the sense that they're both professions people claim no one would be interested in post-capitalism due to the high rewards being taken away from the latter to incentivize more people to go into it.


Which was my point, no one is just going to let society burst open on the most basic level just because someone doesn't feel like doing some electrical work, or because someone doesn't care about taking out trash.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I don't know why this is such a common question/objection to communism. "But WHO WILL COLLECT THE RUBBISH!?"

I think most people want to live in a clean and safe environment and if the small price to pay for that is occasionally doing a job you don't like, then so be it. It's never going to get to a point where we're surrounded by rubbish and sewage simply because people can't be arsed to clear it up because nobody wants to live like that.

I imagine it's a question asked by people who have never had to get their hands dirty before, and the thought of doing so repulses them and their sheltered sensibilities.

I think that's why it seems pretty obvious to some of us why, for example, you and I would not let rubbish pile up, or sewage run out into the street, whereas other people's first reactions are 'oh no, who ELSE is going to clean up Felicity dear's muck?'

[Zukunftsmusik]

I think it has more to do with an incapability to imagine work outside of the present form of wage labour.

[Zanters]

I am sure Feudalist also though, "But who will tend the land? And who will distribute protection?"

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think it has more to do with an incapability to imagine work outside of the present form of wage labour.

This is true - this question stems from the fact that we have a strong cultural association between work, individual duty and financial compensation.

I think the bigger question might be how do we wean people away from a society where people are forced by necessity to do "dirty jobs" other more skilled laborers refuse to do.

[Illegalitarian]

No disrespect to the OP since he was asking a question and not trying to spark some silly debate, but how the fuck could someone possibly think these things?


Who honestly believes that without the the state or wage labor and private control of the means of production that people would just lay down in a 500lbs mound of stolen bread just soiling themselves as garbage piles up

[consuming negativity]

No disrespect to the OP since he was asking a question and not trying to spark some silly debate, but how the fuck could someone possibly think these things?


Who honestly believes that without the the state or wage labor and private control of the means of production that people would just lay down in a 500lbs mound of stolen bread just soiling themselves as garbage piles up

most of america lmfao

[BIXX]

most of america lmfao
Unfortunately, too true.

[The Modern Prometheus]

In a communist society where money no longer stands in your way for education, what will be the motivation to become for example a groundskeeper or a garbageman? I mean, there is alot of people who enjoys these kinds of jobs, but alot of them are there because they cant do better (cant afford education etc.). Will there be a lack of people doing these professions? And how would we solve this?

This is a argument i hear come up often and is called the garbageman argument. Personally i don't see the sense in it other then a propaganda tool for the bourgeois to keep the class system and Capitalism in place.

Plenty of people would rather be out tossing garbage into a truck (well actually these days depending on the machine used you often don't have to even bother getting out of the truck) or mowing lawns and trimming hedges then sitting at a desk all day. I have personally worked at picking up trash as well as keeping up the grounds (i quickly learned i cannot trim a hedge to save my fucking life), bricklaying, as a labourer in a well known shitty courier company, a fish processing plant (my first actual job as well as the worst one i have ever had and the only one i officially quit) along with other unskilled manual labourer jobs.

I do come from a fairly poor rural working class community and yes access to University due to lack of funds was/is a problem for me but except for the fish plant job (i think i have mild PTSD from that fucking job still lol) i can't say i disliked the work. It's how i first got into unionism and one thing my parents really did right was to teach me from a very young age why scab labour was so wrong and against my own best class interests. Granted i grew up in a era where the economy of this province was rapidly changing and there where strikes all over the place that often got violent so i had a crash course in class consciousness so to speak. I certainly had it beaten into me from a very young age that crossing a picket line was being lower then scum and that the police who where basically hired guns by the government to suppress strikes where even worse.

Despite growing up without much money i am actually quite grateful to have experienced all that. If i had grown up in a solid middle class household i seriously doubt Marxism would have ever interested me because i was basically a Socialist before i knew what a Socialist really was due to all the things i saw and experienced first hand that i considered as wrong. I will forever remember the time i saw no less then 4 pigs pull away 1 small old man dragging him across the floor to be arrested for the awful crime of disagreeing with a local politician who wanted the strike to stop. I was maybe only 10-12 at the time but it had a lasting impact as it was the first time i remember being really angry at the establishment and thinking how can people call this right and why are people not stopping this?

So besides the fact that i actually liked many of the jobs i worked i also got a sort of education in class consciousness out of it i guess as well. Also as has been already pointed out who the fuck is going to put up with rubbish and sewer in the streets? I was in Toronto during a really hot summer even for Toronto when the garbage collectors went on strike. The whole fucking city absolutely reeked and on some streets it was enough to make you puke. The city held out about a month if i remember right but then they had to sit down with the union and they worked out something as by then it was becoming a health hazard. I don't know how the city held out as long as it did because everyday was well past 30C it seemed like. Fuck that reeked :cursing:

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

This whole argument almost always comes from people who have never had to roll up their sleeves and do any intense physical labor. People who have never had to chop wood, skin and dress an animal, lift heavy boxes, dig a ditch, etc.

And as I must once again state: As someone who has to actually load my own garbage onto my truck, drive it over to the dump, and physically dispose of it....even though it has been decomposing and attracting flies for two weeks.....the whole 'garbageman dilemma' comes off as the last desperate argument of a lazy, pampered schmuck.

[Comrade #138672]

Robots eventually.

[Spatula City]

I'm having a really hard time finding a reason to post in any of these threads because it seems everyone here does such a fantastic job of saying everything that needs to be said as soon as the question is asked.

I will say that I think there could be a difference between taking care of one's own house and taking care of the community. But to play devil's advocate-- the argument about 1500 people in the community meaning a surplus of potential garbagemen might not add up when one accounts for ALL of the 'dirty' jobs that need to be done, and it could follow that some people might shirk their responsibilities or perform their 'dirty' duties poorly. And then there's the question of how to convince people to do jobs that are actually dangerous, like oil rigs, toxic waste disposal, etc. I mean, it's one thing to not want your community to be dirty, but when you're risking your life I have to wonder if the 'good of the community' is enough to motivate you. Of course, this is assuming that less dangerous alternatives haven't been developed.

It could also be that most of the reason people don't want to be garbagepeople (and this extends to the activities that garbagepeople do) is because of the way garbagepeople are viewed in capitalist society... they are typically poor, working class people who are therefore denied the respect and social value of say, an actor or a basketball player. Part of being a 'success' or part of Veblen's 'leisure class' is knowing that you don't have to do the dirty/dangerous/boring things that other people do.

I suppose the big question is whether or not the service itself is inherently repugnant or if simply participating in 'low' class labor is the worst part.

[Slavic]

Robots eventually.

I hate that answer, it is literally as lazy as the trashman argument.

As others have stated, I think the question comes up from a lack of understanding of how a socialist society would function. Without the drive for profits, there would be no need for maintaining the bare minimum employees to perform a certain task.

Instead of working 40+ a week picking up trash in order to make the bills, you could be working 16 a week and not have to stress about paying rent and buying food. There are many people who find joy in working outside with their hands. I'm plenty sure if these people didn't have to grind out the 40+ a week to make their rent, they would enjoy working a few days a week picking trash.

Hell if I could be guaranteed free housing, food, and medical services, I'd pick trash 2-3 days a week in a heartbeat.

@Brandon's
I grew up in a rural town too where we had to drive to our dump. It was one of the social hubs of the town. Everyone has trash, everyone meets at the dump.

[The Feral Underclass]

The big difference between work now and work in a communist society is that the work you do in a communist society belongs to you. By that I mean the work has meaning to you as an individual. In a capitalist society the work you do is devoid of meaning, it's devoid of ownership to you as an individual. You work because you have to and the work you do is meaningless to you. It is done for the enrichment of people who have authority over you. You receive grossly disproportionate remuneration for doing work that does not help you live your life in any way beyond it contributing to paying your bills -- that completely unsatisfactory, nonsensical and at times debilitating life process.

In contrast, the work you do in a communist society is meaningful because it actively makes the community, society and world you live in function for you and for everyone else. You own that work because you have a direct say in how it happens, why it happens and for whom. You are no longer alienated from the things you do with your hands because the things you do with your hands actually have significance to you; you're not simply a cog in a machine that suffocates your creativity and binds you to menial task that benefit an individual you've likely never even met.

From that, work in a communist society will be looked upon as a social contribution. The reward of performing these tasks will come through the accomplishment of making society function. Satisfaction in this work will come through seeing how your task has helped the community in which you live.

To ensure that society functions properly and that my family and community live safely, I'd happily clean rubbish. Or work in the sewers. Or do anything that was asked of me. I would do it because it's the necessary and ethical thing to do. More importantly, I would do it because I will finally be empowered as a meaningful part of society doing something with purpose and virtue, rather than some alienated, automated slave drifting through existence with persistent ennui, constantly thinking I'm on the brink of total despair -- a state of mind that anyone who has worked a shitty job can empathise with.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

@Brandon's
I grew up in a rural town too where we had to drive to our dump. It was one of the social hubs of the town. Everyone has trash, everyone meets at the dump.

And everyone pitched in and helped each other dispose of their garbage, didn't they? Same thing with me.

See? Socialism works, people!

[BIXX]

I'm having a really hard time finding a reason to post in any of these threads because it seems everyone here does such a fantastic job of saying everything that needs to be said as soon as the question is asked.

I will say that I think there could be a difference between taking care of one's own house and taking care of the community. But to play devil's advocate-- the argument about 1500 people in the community meaning a surplus of potential garbagemen might not add up when one accounts for ALL of the 'dirty' jobs that need to be done, and it could follow that some people might shirk their responsibilities or perform their 'dirty' duties poorly. And then there's the question of how to convince people to do jobs that are actually dangerous, like oil rigs, toxic waste disposal, etc. I mean, it's one thing to not want your community to be dirty, but when you're risking your life I have to wonder if the 'good of the community' is enough to motivate you. Of course, this is assuming that less dangerous alternatives haven't been developed.

It could also be that most of the reason people don't want to be garbagepeople (and this extends to the activities that garbagepeople do) is because of the way garbagepeople are viewed in capitalist society... they are typically poor, working class people who are therefore denied the respect and social value of say, an actor or a basketball player. Part of being a 'success' or part of Veblen's 'leisure class' is knowing that you don't have to do the dirty/dangerous/boring things that other people do.

I hope that jobs like oil rigs and toxic waste disposal will not be required in the future.


I suppose the big question is whether or not the service itself is inherently repugnant or if simply participating in 'low' class labor is the worst part.
Probably the latter.

[bricolage]

Well for starters it’s not like capitalism is particularly excellent at dealing with garbage. There are whole swathes of the world that have limited or no sanitation provision and in which masses of people depend on the informal economy of scavenging or ‘gleaning’ for survival. Even where there are advanced sanitation systems it’s not always very effective; in New York for example commercial waste is privatized to the extent that a road of ten businesses could have a different company serving each one.

On the other hand to just say that of course we’re going to take out our trash because we don’t want to live in shit is a bit simplistic. Sure we will but in a major city sanitation is a lot more than taking out the trash and a lot more than just picking up the trash. Bins have to be sorted and replaced, collections have to be directed, recyclables have to be separated, recyclables have to be recycled, dumps need to be managed (they are exceedingly dangerous) and stuff has to be transported in trucks, barges, trains, whatever. And then of course if you live somewhere where it snows there’s the whole issue of snow clearance. It’s a massively complex operation and I think if you are somewhere where it works well you don’t notice it because it does work so well. But you sure as hell would notice it if crap was piling up and disease was spreading. That’s why I think things like the rubbish bags in the Winter of Discontent or the Young Lords dumping trash in the Avenues of East Harlem were so visceral.

But I think the point is that we are talking about communism; a social, economic, political and, dare I say, psychological change that surpasses anything that has ever happened before. Maybe it is hard to picture running such an operation outside of wage labour but that’s because communism is inherently hard to picture. We don’t know what it will look like beyond the abolition of work and the liberation of time. Yet that being said I think there are a few points we can make:

1. The end of ‘jobs’. So people have picked at this quote for years but we can still go back to the famous Marx line that;

‘In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.’

To be honest I probably don’t want to rear cattle or go hunting but the point is we will no longer think about people as having ‘jobs’ or ‘professions’. For starters an infinite amount of jobs today that exist just for the functioning of capitalism will be eradicated. Beyond that we can imagine that tasks will become much more a part of everyday life as opposed to something you do to purchase the means of survival. I don’t want to speculate but sure some kind of rotation system seems plausible. Although to add to that…

2. Automation! Ok so I get that people have this whole ‘you can’t automate your way to communism’ idea and ok you can’t but I still firmly believe that we will be able to replace lots of tasks with machinery. When I see the capacity of capitalism to eradicate jobs now with technology and the carnage it causes I can’t help wonder of how we could use that same technology for better purposes. And if scientists, engineers etc were working together as opposed to in competition, the possibilities are endless.

3. And finally to go back to sanitation I think it’s pretty likely to refuse will differ from how it is now. I’m not a hippy environmentalist but I do think that the culture of planned obsolescence that has built into capitalism will surely end. I would also like to think we’ll have new ways of packaging material, recycling it. In total I think we’ll have to see some sort of reduction – I don’t know how – in the sheer amount of waste we produce.

So that’s my attempt to sketch out a brief idea of sanitation under communism. There’s always the caveat that we just don’t know what it will look like but then call me an idealist but I’ve always thought that if we’ve been able to overthrow capitalism then we’ll be able to find a way to deal with our rubbish afterwards.

[cyu]

In a communist society, who will run the marathons? It's grueling work, injury-prone, and what do you have to show for it at the end? I don't see how any liberated workers would volunteer for such difficult and unrewarding behavior.

[Loony Le Fist]

Well for starters it’s not like capitalism is particularly excellent at dealing with garbage. There are whole swathes of the world that have limited or no sanitation provision and in which masses of people depend on the informal economy of scavenging or ‘gleaning’ for survival. Even where there are advanced sanitation systems it’s not always very effective; in New York for example commercial waste is privatized to the extent that a road of ten businesses could have a different company serving each one.

On the other hand to just say that of course we’re going to take out our trash because we don’t want to live in shit is a bit simplistic. Sure we will but in a major city sanitation is a lot more than taking out the trash and a lot more than just picking up the trash.

…

1. The end of ‘jobs’. So people have picked at this quote for years but we can still go back to the famous Marx line that;

…

2. Automation! Ok so I get that people have this whole ‘you can’t automate your way to communism’ idea and ok you can’t but I still firmly believe that we will be able to replace lots of tasks with machinery. When I see the capacity of capitalism to eradicate jobs now with technology and the carnage it causes I can’t help wonder of how we could use that same technology for better purposes. And if scientists, engineers etc were working together as opposed to in competition, the possibilities are endless.


The concept of a job has to go. Too add, the concept of a consumer should go too. It is much more efficient for individuals to take on a prosumer role. Economically it is also better represents the reality. Capitalism at best ignores and at worst inhibits the dual nature of the individual as both a producer and consumer. Why should we limit ourselves within the framework of such a silly system?

Yep. Automating garbage collection seems like an excellent idea. It seems to be going in that direction. Many municipalities provide containers for residents so that the truck operator need only pull up next to the garbage bin requiring only a single operator, compared to 2-3 operators. They don't even need to get their hands dirty that often either.

Of course there are privacy issues, since in many municipalities the bins are serial numbered and barcoded and a laser scanner in the pickup arm reads it.



3. And finally to go back to sanitation I think it’s pretty likely to refuse will differ from how it is now. I’m not a hippy environmentalist but I do think that the culture of planned obsolescence that has built into capitalism will surely end. I would also like to think we’ll have new ways of packaging material, recycling it. In total I think we’ll have to see some sort of reduction – I don’t know how – in the sheer amount of waste we produce.

So that’s my attempt to sketch out a brief idea of sanitation under communism. There’s always the caveat that we just don’t know what it will look like but then call me an idealist but I’ve always thought that if we’ve been able to overthrow capitalism then we’ll be able to find a way to deal with our rubbish afterwards.

You seem to know something about the logistics of waste management. I agree, we've got to either produce less garbage or find ways of turning trash into treasure.

[RedWorker]

It is curious... not only this question but its opposite is often asked. Some say "everyone will educate themselves and only work in non-dirty jobs", while others say "nobody will educate themselves, everyone will work in dirty jobs". Does this not indicate that there are two types of people, and that these would complement each other, not even going into the reconciliation of mental and manual labour?

[RedMaterialist]

Why not just have everybody take turns doing the dirty work? Everybody whose last name is between AA to CC shows up Monday morning to drive the garbage trucks, etc.

[Illegalitarian]

Bob Black has the weird idea of children doing dirty jobs.

Not in the early industrial era "GO DO THIS SHIT OR YOU'LL DIE" sense where kids lose limbs and what have you, but basic like garbage collection etc, since kids love getting dirty anyways.


Idk how to feel about that I mean it sounds kind of dumb but maybe he's on to something.

[Loony Le Fist]

In contrast, the work you do in a communist society is meaningful because it actively makes the community, society and world you live in function for you and for everyone else. You own that work because you have a direct say in how it happens, why it happens and for whom. You are no longer alienated from the things you do with your hands because the things you do with your hands actually have significance to you; you're not simply a cog in a machine that suffocates your creativity and binds you to menial task that benefit an individual you've likely never even met.

From that, work in a communist society will be looked upon as a social contribution. The reward of performing these tasks will come through the accomplishment of making society function. Satisfaction in this work will come through seeing how your task has helped the community in which you live.

To ensure that society functions properly and that my family and community live safely, I'd happily clean rubbish. Or work in the sewers. Or do anything that was asked of me. I would do it because it's the necessary and ethical thing to do. More importantly, I would do it because I will finally be empowered as a meaningful part of society doing something with purpose and virtue, rather than some alienated, automated slave drifting through existence with persistent ennui, constantly thinking I'm on the brink of total despair -- a state of mind that anyone who has worked a shitty job can empathise with.

Yes! I completely agree. Thank you The Feral Underclass (formerly known as TAT). While we have our disagreements, this is a point of agreement I must recognize. Even broken clocks are right twice a day. :grin:

[Rafiq]

Who knows.

Any other answer can only be a hypothetical abstraction with no bearing in our reality (not that they are impossible or ridiculous).

[consuming negativity]

Who knows.

Any other answer can only be a hypothetical abstraction with no bearing in our reality (not that they are impossible or ridiculous).

I nominate Rafiq for the position of RevLeft garbage collector. In his posts, he has shown a high willingness to cut through the garbage and to dismantle it entirely at the source, and this has been without a title but from his own personal desire to rid our electronic commune of garbage. All in favor, say "aye". All opposed, please step on the train to the glorious people's Siberian commune after surrendering your belongings to Comrade Communer.

[DaPartigiano]

I think you're all approaching this from a pretty bourgeoise point of view. I mean, yeah, all wage-labor is per definition not voluntary, people have to be forced to do it because otherwise they'll starve or live really hollow lives. But i don't think that work in it's nature is you know, a drag, if it was in their interest and not for someone else's profit, people wouldn't have to be forced to do it. With the elimination of class, it would just seize to be an issue.

[adipocere12]

If you've ever lived in a shared house with a group of friends, how did you figure out who would do what chores? More than likely some volunteered to do some and the rest were put on a rota of some kind.

I'm not saying this is necessarily how it would be, but I think most skeptics of communism routinely do work and divvy up responsibilities without the need for money and markets without even realising it

[BIXX]

I nominate Rafiq for the position of RevLeft garbage collector. In his posts, he has shown a high willingness to cut through the garbage and to dismantle it entirely at the source, and this has been without a title but from his own personal desire to rid our electronic commune of garbage. All in favor, say "aye". All opposed, please step on the train to the glorious people's Siberian commune after surrendering your belongings to Comrade Communer.
Aye

[Slavic]

Why not just have everybody take turns doing the dirty work? Everybody whose last name is between AA to CC shows up Monday morning to drive the garbage trucks, etc.

I'll vote for your plan at the next monthly Utilities Planning and Execution Committee.

Honestly though, with labor detached from wages, the community will be much more flexible with how and where they apply their labor. All that needs to be done is for the community to get together and hash out a plan to ensure timely waste disposal, like the plan mentioned above.

Its not really a hard concept.

[bricolage]

So it's interesting that a lot of people are talking about this in terms of 'communities' and these communities, for example, taking votes on matters. I get the impression that this is perhaps referring to small-ish communities, I mean having votes in cities of x million would be pretty unfeasible. I don't want to get into an argument about how federalised communism will be (because of course we have absolutely no idea and we shouldn't be into the game of speculation) but I think it's worth remembering that the majority of the world is urbanised and this is increasing every day. On top of those vast amount of these urbanised populations are in so-called mega-cities and this will also continue to increase massively. So coming back to the initial point of how will we deal with rubbish, these things have to be thought of on massive scales not just small communities.

[Illegalitarian]

I imagine people in urban centers will vote much in the same way they vote now, that is, by community. Why is this such an obstacle, it's something we do even now.

[bricolage]

Yeah that's true, my post was kind of trollish.

What I was trying to get at was more the idea that we can't just say a 'community' will sort it out, because we don't just live in communities anymore, we live in massive accumulations of people. Obviously new forms of community would be forged by something as massive as a communist revolution but it would never be total.

And for the record, as I've stated, I think it would be more than possible (and not even hard) for any revolutionary society to run municipal services, I just don't think it would be done the way a lot of people envisage.

[Slavic]

Yeah that's true, my post was kind of trollish.

What I was trying to get at was more the idea that we can't just say a 'community' will sort it out, because we don't just live in communities anymore, we live in massive accumulations of people. Obviously new forms of community would be forged by something as massive as a communist revolution but it would never be total.

And for the record, as I've stated, I think it would be more than possible (and not even hard) for any revolutionary society to run municipal services, I just don't think it would be done the way a lot of people envisage.

Do you live in a city?

A city is also a collection of communities. There is no such thing a a giant homogenous city block. Different segments and communities within a city have different needs and can provide different services.

Trash is already picked up at the community level. The city may have a central utilities department, but the city is sectioned off into smaller trash collection areas. I don't know why this same method of trash collection can't be applied post-capital.

[MonsterMan]

In a communist society where money no longer stands in your way for education, what will be the motivation to become for example a groundskeeper or a garbageman? I mean, there is alot of people who enjoys these kinds of jobs, but alot of them are there because they cant do better (cant afford education etc.). Will there be a lack of people doing these professions? And how would we solve this?

all these jobs will still need doing, but perhaps on a part time basis - that wouldn't be so bad, esp if everyone was on a more equal wage

[Blake's Baby]

'Wage'? What are you talking about?

Isn't this a discussion about communism? What part do you think money plays in that?

[MonsterMan]

I was thinking more of the phase of socialism to communism, when wages would still be used