How would freely associated labor work?

[Jacob Cliff]

I understand communism is a society where consumer goods are freely accessible and people take what they want while contributing to the best of their abilities. I understand human nature is completely malleable and can be molded in a pretty "selfless" fashion. But I feel that a society run on freely-associated labor may come across a multitude of problems.

For example, I'm sure you've heard "who will do the dirty jobs?" or "who will work at fast-food restraunts?" and such. I know the rebuttal of "many people like to cook." Yes, that is true, but can we expect enough people to fill in boring, dull, unfulfilling jobs like a burger-flipper or truck-driving? Those jobs are very important but pretty unfulfilling and I wonder if there will be enough people to work them, especially globally.
How would global, centralized planning be compatible with people working what they want? If it is required that to feed a certain area that 400 bushels of wheat is needed, but there is far too little farmers, what happens?

Sorry for my ignorance here, but I'd like to hear the communist perspective on this.

[Sinister Intents]

I think CKaihatsu and a few other members can take care of this better, but people will do exactly what is necessary for survival, without the bourgeoisie or some authority dictating to people what to do, and without people being economically forced to work or starve. All people will do the work out of mutual aid and necessity for survival rather than out of necessity of achieving a wage of some sort. People will be able to produce to their ability and to their need and be able to assist others voluntarily. Everyone will do work that is necessary and supply and demand will be met by the people themselves. Communities will be able to take care of themselves and will appear and function much differently than they do today, in fact cities are the way they are because of capitalism, in cities class antagonisms are very apparent. With the end of capitalism, and achievement of a post scarcity society, all resources, land, and productive facilities will be utilized for mutual benefit rather than for the gain of the few.

[oneday]

I understand human nature is completely malleable and can be molded in a pretty "selfless" fashion.

If you believed that, then your potential problem wouldn't exist.


For example, I'm sure you've heard "who will do the dirty jobs?" or "who will work at fast-food restraunts?" and such. I know the rebuttal of "many people like to cook." Yes, that is true, but can we expect enough people to fill in boring, dull, unfulfilling jobs like a burger-flipper or truck-driving? Those jobs are very important but pretty unfulfilling and I wonder if there will be enough people to work them, especially globally.
How would global, centralized planning be compatible with people working what they want? If it is required that to feed a certain area that 400 bushels of wheat is needed, but there is far too little farmers, what happens?

For one, the harsh division of labor in present society does not need to exist. One could potentially do 4 hours / week of the 'unpleasant' work. I'm confident that people would prefer to do different types of work, instead of the same thing, 8 hours a day / 5 days a week for 40 years straight. I'm also confident that a large percentage of work available can be learned rather quickly and the emphasis on specialization is overblown.

The unpleasantness could be reduced as much as possible to increase desire to do the work. Rewards and recognition could go a long way. Also, the cooperative spirit would be emphasized in society instead of the competitive, selfish drive. People would want to contribute their share, especially since the 'unpleasant' work would no longer be as burdensome as it currently is.

[Ele'ill]

I understand communism is a society where consumer goods are freely accessible and people take what they want while contributing to the best of their abilities. I understand human nature is completely malleable and can be molded in a pretty "selfless" fashion. But I feel that a society run on freely-associated labor may come across a multitude of problems.

There will be a lot of problems, some big, others small, but that's life.


For example, I'm sure you've heard "who will do the dirty jobs?" or "who will work at fast-food restraunts?" and such. I know the rebuttal of "many people like to cook." Yes, that is true, but can we expect enough people to fill in boring, dull, unfulfilling jobs like a burger-flipper or truck-driving? Those jobs are very important but pretty unfulfilling and I wonder if there will be enough people to work them, especially globally.

If nobody wants to carry out fastfood work or kitchen work, or whatever than it literally won't be carried out. It will vanish and that's okay. If folks don't think its okay than they can do something about it. I don't think we can predict exactly what communism will be like but we can take some informed guesses. I am kind of hesitant to say this but I think regardless if you are of a current that desires keeping infrastructure intact or if you are of a current that sees a more absolute destruction of society and civ, we can imagine everything drastically changing, the shipping flow across the world as it is now probably wouldn't continue as it is, the flow across continents would change, through cities, the city itself, etc..





How would global, centralized planning be compatible with people working what they want? If it is required that to feed a certain area that 400 bushels of wheat is needed, but there is far too little farmers, what happens?


It wouldn't be compatible.

[Tim Cornelis]

Maybe we won't have fast food workers, maybe we'll have self-service. As for truck drivers, fortunately we'll have self-driving cars in the near future so I don't even have to think about that one.

Also, communism is not a society where consumer goods are freely accessible, this merely applies to certain goods and service which are available in abundance.

[oneday]

How would global, centralized planning be compatible with people working what they want? If it is required that to feed a certain area that 400 bushels of wheat is needed, but there is far too little farmers, what happens?


It wouldn't be compatible.

I don't understand this position. While nothing is absolute, I would certainly hope that there is an increase in people working in areas they enjoy in a socialist society. A reduction in such freedom from the present situation would not be acceptable.

[Ele'ill]

I'd like to quote this post by TGDU from the other thread in this forum area, I think it's a good post and is relevant here as well:

Consider the operation of the human body - according to what plan does your heart beat? Who "directs" the growth of new tissue? The onset of puberty? Hunger? The body is a brilliant display of "anarchist economics" in practice. The autonomous activity of billions of cells playing out their roles, not according to a central plan, but in constant (chemical, electrical) communication across a complex and chaotic system.

The "mind"/brain is not state-like - the "individual" is an effect - a consequence emerging out of chaos (like lightening in a storm).

I see no reason, outside of liberal/Judeo-Christian-Islamic ideological hegemony, why society ought not to be possible according to similar organizational models.

[Jacob Cliff]

Maybe we won't have fast food workers, maybe we'll have self-service. As for truck drivers, fortunately we'll have self-driving cars in the near future so I don't even have to think about that one.

Also, communism is not a society where consumer goods are freely accessible, this merely applies to certain goods and service which are available in abundance.
So for goods not able to be freely accessible, is it still distribution according to contribution?

[Jacob Cliff]

I'd like to quote this post by TGDU from the other thread in this forum area, I think it's a good post and is relevant here as well:
The millions of cells in the human body don't have their own free will or choice of other jobs. A heart is a heart. It's only purpose it to pump blood. A human does not have a single *purpose*; we can choose our own. What I'm fearing is if people simply begin to not work generally or if all the necessary but unfulfilling jobs go vacant.

[oneday]

So for goods not able to be freely accessible, is it still distribution according to contribution?

I don't see why that has to be the case. If things aren't abundantly available, they could be divided according to a plan deemed fair by the community, or equally, or by place in a queue, or by a roll of the dice.

[Црвена]

Maybe undesirable jobs will vanish, maybe they'll be divided up using some sort of a rota system, maybe people will realise that they need to be done and choose to do them, just as everyone does e.g. housework today even though it's no fun.

As for the planning issue, it will be much easier to send something like wheat to the other side of the world in full communism since there won't be national borders and the associated protectionist measures. So if wheat isn't produced in a certain area, it will be sent there, and this will be included in the plan.

[Rafiq]

Firstly, it should be established that the free association of labor, as it is employed by Marx, does not designate a society wherein all individuals have the freedom to pursue what they, accordingly and individually please. Freedom for Communists, in this 'utopian' sense should be understood radically different than what we are used to thinking when we think of freedom: Which is a perversion of consumer societies. Freedom is not the freedom to do as one pleases anymore than freedom for a cow is the freedom to take a shit wherever it wants in its enclosed area. Freedom in a Communist sense should be understood in terms of boundlessness, to be unbound by identities with social connotations beyond their proximal connotations. This is arguably a radical extension of the enlightenment project: one could be a fry cook in the morning and a doctor in the afternoon. This, of course, must be understood very carefully. Marx wrote: 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.

What is profoundly radical about this is not the fact that it encapsulates the ability for us to choose this or that based on our pleasures, for we can envision that some tasks might be necessiated by society independent of this or that will. It is the fact that extra connotations of labor in relation to society, beyond this labor immediately, would not exist. The question is - how is this society, a hypothetical society, how will a devolution into some kind of caste society be impossible, in consideration of the neolithic revolution? Precisely through establishing conditions of boundlessness wherein the fragility of survival do not have their basis in fixed roles to production. This is immensely hard to imagine, because we cannot think outside of capitalism or the history which proceeded it. It's why that, these speculations are nothing more than that, the vision of a future Communist society is wrought out from the sophistication of real existing struggles within capitalism, which mature to the point wherein they can culminate in the possibility of the proletariat assuming political power. Even the idea of the free association of labor doesn't stem from some kind of wishful thinking, but from real social antagonisms present in capitalist society. That's why small struggles and demands, like the 15 dollar wage are so important - it breeds the maturity of struggle wherein the impossibility of reformism becomes apparent, where radical demands have a context. From the onset, struggles don't require an affirmative character, but a negative one. Invested in the idea that this doesn't have to be can be a blank alternative, and it can still be immensely powerful. This is in the spirit of Proudhoun: That property is already theft! What this means is that the burden of power, so to speak, belongs to those in power - it requires immense energy to reproduce the existing order.

These "specific" matters are a distraction - one requires faith that people can collectively solve problems, and that these problems will be addressed in a time when they have to be addressed. What is important for a Communist is the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship, the destruction of the class enemy from which all matters will be dealt with. Matters of competence and skill can only ever be secondary to the political importance of seizing power - not to realize some kind of beautiful ends, but from real conditions of existence now in place. When the problem is SOLELY posed as a matter of possibility: "How can this be done?" or "how will this be done", it is already a victory for Communism, because the space for asking questions in common is opened up.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'd like to quote this post by TGDU from the other thread in this forum area, I think it's a good post and is relevant here as well:

[...]

That is tantamount to the "invisible hand of the market", the myth that, if we just close our eyes and have faith in blind, directionless processes, everything will turn out for the best.

And I mean, in the end there is no real guarantee that everything will be alright. Socialism places the direction of society in human hands. Now, if we're just that terrible at cooperating and coordinating, we all die naked in the dark. Fortunately, it seems people are good at cooperation, if nothing else (well we're also fairly decent at tool use and reality television). In fact, even in the capitalist society, where every worker relates to other workers, not simply as individuals with the same class interest, but as competition in the short term, capitalism has to actively fight against the spontaneously-occurring cooperation of workers, even across serious social lines. And all of us do - well maybe not if you're my roommates, but most of us do - things that are unpleasant but have to be done to prevent further unpleasantries (like dying naked in the dark).

And socialism also means a fundamental change in the way we expend our labour-power. If work remained largely as it is today, no one in their right mind would want to work. Sure, dying naked in the cold and so on, but even that is preferable to slowly dying inside as you waste your years and health on work. In socialism, however, the tasks that have to be done will be restructured, and most importantly, the boundary between labouring and play will disappear. Labouring will be the free expression of the human personality, a sort of jouissance rather than an external imposition.

So some jobs are probably going to be eliminated, probably including the notorious burger-flipping. Others are going to be restructured - truckers, for example, will be given much more rest, will take a couple of people with them and so on. Again, the line between "work trucking" and "driving around at night with your friends" will disappear. Actually driving around at night with friends sounds pretty cool to me.

As for central planning, again, here the cooperation of the labouring population is essential (which is why fairy-tales about central planning in socialism being "authoritarian" are nonsense). The planning bodies can tell us that if we're to produce X units of wheat (and we expect demand for wheat to be somewhere below X) using method A, we need Y man-hours of input. After that it's up to society to decide if these targets are acceptable. Here the consensus nature of the socialist society is key - we need to reach an agreement on whether the numbers involved are acceptable to us. If I think that there is no way I would ever give Y/n hours in that particular line of work, I would vote against the plan. And so on.

And for people who claim that certain products will be rationed in socialism, I'm curious, what products do you think those will be? It seems quite odd, to me, given that there is no real need to ration products even now.

[Ele'ill]

That is tantamount to the "invisible hand of the market", the myth that, if we just close our eyes and have faith in blind, directionless processes, everything will turn out for the best.

I think you might be taking their post a bit too literally. Take it or leave it I don't realy care it isn't central to my point. The lack of a governing body managing, assigning, and enforcing work, over another body of people, i.e. coercion, does not inherently end up as directionless processes. Arguably the coercion is what creates the directionless process as civilization and society.



And I mean, in the end there is no real guarantee that everything will be alright. Socialism places the direction of society in human hands. Now, if we're just that terrible at cooperating and coordinating, we all die naked in the dark. Fortunately, it seems people are good at cooperation, if nothing else (well we're also fairly decent at tool use and reality television).

Are we really talking about cooperation and coordinating or are we talking about compromising where the non-managing, non-enforcing body of people with vastly different needs and desires and handed the prefigured world, that looks a lot like the old one, and essentially denied the capacity to destroy and create.


In fact, even in the capitalist society, where every worker relates to other workers, not simply as individuals with the same class interest, but as competition in the short term, capitalism has to actively fight against the spontaneously-occurring cooperation of workers, even across serious social lines. And all of us do - well maybe not if you're my roommates, but most of us do - things that are unpleasant but have to be done to prevent further unpleasantries (like dying naked in the dark).

And socialism also means a fundamental change in the way we expend our labour-power. If work remained largely as it is today, no one in their right mind would want to work. Sure, dying naked in the cold and so on, but even that is preferable to slowly dying inside as you waste your years and health on work. In socialism, however, the tasks that have to be done will be restructured, and most importantly, the boundary between labouring and play will disappear. Labouring will be the free expression of the human personality, a sort of jouissance rather than an external imposition.

Than why is it that in discussion or on internet forums when the concept of work arises and someone says 'you will have to work', this very ambiguous defense that essentially negates the 'you will have to work' gets put into play half way through the conversation, it is the point brought up against society itself operating coercively against the desires as well as the needs of the people living within it.


So some jobs are probably going to be eliminated, probably including the notorious burger-flipping. Others are going to be restructured - truckers, for example, will be given much more rest, will take a couple of people with them and so on. Again, the line between "work trucking" and "driving around at night with your friends" will disappear. Actually driving around at night with friends sounds pretty cool to me.

I am still not okay with people having to do it. If they want to okay.


As for central planning, again, here the cooperation of the labouring population is essential (which is why fairy-tales about central planning in socialism being "authoritarian" are nonsense).

"Our cooperation is essential" is coercive as is "your cooperation with us is essential". The only time cooperation is essential is when it isn't happening or might not happen. Why wouldn't it happen? Seemingly directionless processes, but directionless in immediate relation to those in planning, power, positions who want the society to have different desires and needs.



The planning bodies can tell us that if we're to produce X units of wheat (and we expect demand for wheat to be somewhere below X) using method A, we need Y man-hours of input. After that it's up to society to decide if these targets are acceptable. Here the consensus nature of the socialist society is key - we need to reach an agreement on whether the numbers involved are acceptable to us. If I think that there is no way I would ever give Y/n hours in that particular line of work, I would vote against the plan. And so on.

How is consensus not going to end in coercion, over thousands, hundreds of thousands of people in various industries/occupations/fun

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I think you might be taking their post a bit too literally. Take it or leave it I don't realy care it isn't central to my point. The lack of a governing body managing, assigning, and enforcing work, over another body of people, i.e. coercion, does not inherently end up as directionless processes. Arguably the coercion is what creates the directionless process as civilization and society.

Yes, I realise this analogy wasn't central to your point, I just wanted to comment on it because a lot of really wooly "decentralist" thinking revolves around such analogies. As for your point, I'm not sure we disagree, not much anyway. I don't think the socialist society is going to have some kind of "governing body... enforcing work". That would make socialism some kind of state society, which is nonsense from a Marxist standpoint. I do think there is going to be some kind of central coordination, because the scale on which production happens necessitates central coordination. But that's another thing entirely.


Are we really talking about cooperation and coordinating or are we talking about compromising where the non-managing, non-enforcing body of people with vastly different needs and desires and handed the prefigured world, that looks a lot like the old one, and essentially denied the capacity to destroy and create.

I'm afraid I don't follow.

Humans labour to change their environment, and they labour socially. This requires cooperation and coordination, and these things exist in any combined mode of production. What happens in socialism is that cooperation is decoupled from coercion.

I also don't think the socialist society will look anything like "the old world". For one thing, as we all agree, there would be no coercion, the line between work and play would disappear etc.


Than why is it that in discussion or on internet forums when the concept of work arises and someone says 'you will have to work', this very ambiguous defense that essentially negates the 'you will have to work' gets put into play half way through the conversation, it is the point brought up against society itself operating coercively against the desires as well as the needs of the people living within it.

I think you're conflating me with other people, who might or might not think the things you impute to them here. I'm not saying anyone in particular will have to work. Work will have to be done, because we haven't discovered magic yet, but this doesn't mean that anyone will be forced to work. "Work or starve" is nonsense pushed by members of the petite bourgeoisie who are terrified of others "stealing" their work.


I am still not okay with people having to do it. If they want to okay.

I never said people will have to do it. I'm saying human desires are broad and numerous, and most people will do mildly unpleasant things to stave off some further unpleasantness down the line. Therefore, I don't think this constant worry over "motivating" people makes sense.


"Our cooperation is essential" is coercive as is "your cooperation with us is essential".

It's only coercive in the sense in which the laws of nature are coercive. Since in socialism there will be no Socialist Police (and believe me, some people desperately want there to be a Socialist Police) to force people to work, the only realistic plan is one that people are willing to carry out. If the plan calls for thousands of man-hours put into uranium smelting and no one wants to do that, it was a bad plan.


The only time cooperation is essential is when it isn't happening or might not happen. Why wouldn't it happen? Seemingly directionless processes, but directionless in immediate relation to those in planning, power, positions who want the society to have different desires and needs.

I've lost you again.


How is consensus not going to end in coercion, over thousands, hundreds of thousands of people in various industries/occupations/fun

Consensus would be coercive if, well, if people were coerced. If the Central Council votes for plan A, so therefore Mariel and Vincent have to work in uranium smelting, whether they want to or not. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Vincent and Mariel expressing, through some mechanism or another, if they're willing to do the work. And then aggregating these results to see what sort of labour is at society's disposal.

[cyu]

I would say the following two parts are mutually exclusive:


I understand human nature is completely malleable and can be molded in a pretty "selfless" fashion.



"who will do the dirty jobs?" or "who will work at fast-food restraunts?" and such. I know the rebuttal of "many people like to cook." Yes, that is true, but can we expect enough people to fill in boring, dull, unfulfilling jobs like a burger-flipper or truck-driving? Those jobs are very important but pretty unfulfilling


If the second is true, then either you don't fully believe in the possibilities of the first, or society is still in a transitional state, such that the first part is just beginning.

...in a somewhat related conversation elsewhere, I mentioned that if you were raised eating caterpillars in every meal, you'd think that's normal, and you might think people who eat rice are weird :lol:

[ckaihatsu]

[C]an we expect enough people to fill in boring, dull, unfulfilling jobs like a burger-flipper or truck-driving? Those jobs are very important but pretty unfulfilling and I wonder if there will be enough people to work them, especially globally.
How would global, centralized planning be compatible with people working what they want? If it is required that to feed a certain area that 400 bushels of wheat is needed, but there is far too little farmers, what happens?

Sorry for my ignorance here, but I'd like to hear the communist perspective on this.


This is a complex topic, but one that's often overlooked by political circles because it deals with the less-than-social *material* side of things which is presently a domain of lower social status.

Just offhand there are several approaches to this topic. I'll go in the order of fallbacks (descending strategies)....

First, I'd say, would be the matter of scale -- we'd want to have a global 'meta' layer that can point to willing and available liberated labor, to direct it to where its efforts would be most effective. The fallback to this would be more of an ad-hoc approach, where localities and regions self-coordinate as broadly as possible, for as much general coverage of coordination / administration as possible. The less coordination that is able to happen, at whatever scale / extents, the more localities will have to be self-reliant, yielding increasing redundancies of effort over the whole -- more people would have to farm if farming couldn't be generalized and made efficient for billions.

Another fallback would be increased reliance on transport and shipping, which could maintain high levels of productivity, but with the inherent trade-off of 'commerce' so-to-speak, or the coordination of liberated-labor in more abstracted and 'economic' ways -- not that this is necessarily a *bad* thing, just a complex one.

Failing that, people might start to reassess what 'hunger' and 'food' are, and begin to look for alternatives to conventional farming -- maybe science would be prompted to investigate certain directions and corners of experimentation so as to alleviate dependence on traditional agriculture and organic foodstuffs.

Finally, people would also have to reconsider what their 'needs' are, versus their 'wants', if social coordination and material availability were sorely lacking, for whatever reason. Less productivity means a smaller 'economy' of work participation and resulting pool of goods.





[F]or one, the harsh division of labor in present society does not need to exist. One could potentially do 4 hours / week of the 'unpleasant' work. I'm confident that people would prefer to do different types of work, instead of the same thing, 8 hours a day / 5 days a week for 40 years straight. I'm also confident that a large percentage of work available can be learned rather quickly and the emphasis on specialization is overblown.


While people should be able to do whatever they like, preferably in socially beneficial directions, I take exception to the staid position of 'rotating work duties' as a cure-all answer to how unpleasant labor could get done.

I'll remind that increased personnel-shifting results in increased logistical complexity, such as how people would find their way to a new geographical area for a new work location. If certain outputs have to be maintained at every location there would have to be some way of *guaranteeing* that some person from somewhere will always be able to be at whatever spot, for any given day of the week.

Again, not necessarily *inadvisable*, just complex.

I'll also add that if a work-rotation system remains relatively *static*, it incurs the following problematic of 'fused interests':





[E]ven though it's moneyless, in practice it would tend to be too *inflexible* and *restrictive* for the participants since they would be "stuck" both economically and politically in it, due to the economic aspects and political aspects being *fused together* as one and the same.

(In other words, if everyone in the work-role rotation basically approved of its 'politics' -- what it's producing -- they may *not necessarily* like its *economics*, meaning what they're getting from that production, in regards to their own personal needs. And, obversely, if a participant happened to like the work-role rotation *economically*, meaning what they're getting personally from the group's collective production, they may not also like it *politically*, in terms of that same output for the greater public good. Either way they'd basically be stuck having to "like" the output both on a societal level *and* on a personal level, due to its inherent inflexibility.)


Rotation system of work roles



http://s6.postimg.org/96tf7ovld/2403306060046342459_Gtc_Sd_P_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/6pho0fbot/full/)


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The unpleasantness could be reduced as much as possible to increase desire to do the work. Rewards and recognition could go a long way. Also, the cooperative spirit would be emphasized in society instead of the competitive, selfish drive. People would want to contribute their share, especially since the 'unpleasant' work would no longer be as burdensome as it currently is.


I'm sorry, but this is downright patronizing and even dangerous -- it really smacks of the stereotypes of Stalinism as it relates to social control. You're effectively recommending the functioning of a *state* here, because 'rewards', 'recognitions', and 'emphasis' all imply the social-political efforts of an 'in-group' that coordinates within to present a political culture to everyone else, even if it *is* for the common good, at best.





[W]hile nothing is absolute, I would certainly hope that there is an increase in people working in areas they enjoy in a socialist society. A reduction in such freedom from the present situation would not be acceptable.


Agreed, but I'll also argue the flipside as well, that material *standards of living* should not be affected, either -- so we *do* want it both ways: More individual 'freedom' *and* more 'stuff'. (Hence the need for increased and comprehensive automation.)





So for goods not able to be freely accessible, is it still distribution according to contribution?


This approach of 'rewards according to labor inputs' is *very* problematic because of its similarity to commodified labor, and, I would argue, is antithetical to an axiom of communism, 'free-access'.

I won't sidestep the issue, though, which is 'Who gets the goods if there really aren't enough of them to go around?' -- I have a custom approach to this perennial question of 'semi-rare' goods, called 'Additive Prioritizations', at tinyurl.com/additive-prioritizations.





[W]hat I'm fearing is if people simply begin to not work generally or if all the necessary but unfulfilling jobs go vacant.


I developed a model, or framework, that addresses this kind of contingency in full:


labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'



http://s6.postimg.org/nfpj758c0/150221_labor_credits_framework_for_communist_su.jp g (http://postimg.org/image/p7ii21rot/full/)





[If] simple basics like ham and yogurt couldn't be readily produced by the communistic gift economy, and were 'scarce' in relation to actual mass demand, they *would* be considered 'luxury goods' in economic terms, and would be *discretionary* in terms of public consumption.

Such a situation would *encourage* liberated-labor -- such as it would be -- to 'step up' to supply its labor for the production of ham and yogurt, because the scarcity and mass demand would encourage others to put in their own labor to earn labor credits, to provide increasing rates of labor credits to those who would be able to produce the much-demanded ham and yogurt. (Note that the ham and yogurt goods themselves would never be 'bought' or 'sold', because the labor credits are only used in regard to labor-*hours* worked, and *not* for exchangeability with any goods, because that would be commodity production.)

This kind of liberated-production assumes that the means of production have been *liberated* and collectivized, so there wouldn't be any need for any kind of finance or capital-based 'ownership' there.


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I don't see why that has to be the case. If things aren't abundantly available, they could be divided according to a plan deemed fair by the community, or equally, or by place in a queue, or by a roll of the dice.


Resorting to a queue or to randomness is a *dodge*, politically, and won't be robust enough to be satisfying to all of those involved -- they're more trouble than they're worth, basically.





In socialism, however, the tasks that have to be done will be restructured, and most importantly, the boundary between labouring and play will disappear. Labouring will be the free expression of the human personality, a sort of jouissance rather than an external imposition.

So some jobs are probably going to be eliminated, probably including the notorious burger-flipping. Others are going to be restructured - truckers, for example, will be given much more rest, will take a couple of people with them and so on. Again, the line between "work trucking" and "driving around at night with your friends" will disappear. Actually driving around at night with friends sounds pretty cool to me.


Apologies to you as well, but I happen to find this take to be *intellectually* patronizing -- more realistically *no one* will be able to guarantee that you will be able to have boundless fun along with whatever your social 'chores' may happen to be, and I don't think society should be organized around this kind of principle, either.

I think it's more intellectually honest to admit that work is work and that fun is fun, and that time and attentions at work should probably be *undivided*, because that's the nature of work. I happen to see it as a matter of *time*, anyway, in that my efforts towards work is time that I don't have to myself at my discretion, necessarily.





I also don't think the socialist society will look anything like "the old world". For one thing, as we all agree, there would be no coercion, the line between work and play would disappear etc.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Apologies to you as well, but I happen to find this take to be *intellectually* patronizing -- more realistically *no one* will be able to guarantee that you will be able to have boundless fun along with whatever your social 'chores' may happen to be, and I don't think society should be organized around this kind of principle, either.

I think it's more intellectually honest to admit that work is work and that fun is fun, and that time and attentions at work should probably be *undivided*, because that's the nature of work. I happen to see it as a matter of *time*, anyway, in that my efforts towards work is time that I don't have to myself at my discretion, necessarily.

I don't think it's intellectually patronising. Of course no one can guarantee that anyone will enjoy doing their work - human beings being fairly complex - but no one can guarantee that anyone will enjoy play, either. We've all had bad sex, or parties that bored us to death. But in socialism, labour is not something imposed on us, but a free expression of our personality. Just as play is in the present society. This doesn't mean that we will play with LEGO with our welding mask on and the rest of the workers waiting for us to finish - it means we will view welding like we view playing with LEGO, to an extent.

I imagine some lines of work will never be appealing, ones that involve breathing asbestos and dying young of lung disease for example. So these would simply not be done. But as for the rest - I think all of us can think of times when we had genuine fun doing something that would be considered tedious otherwise. In fact enjoying your work means an increased labour productivity.

[Ele'ill]

Cooperation being essential is prefiguration, it is a program, and it requires coercive forces to function. Cooperation probably going to happen when it happens is free association. think what you want of it but from the coming insurrection:
coordinations are unnecessary where coordination exists, organizations aren’t needed when people organize themselves.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Cooperation being essential is prefiguration, it is a program, and it requires coercive forces to function. Cooperation probably going to happen when it happens is free association. think what you want of it but from the coming insurrection:

Cooperation being essential is no more a programme than electromagnetism is a programme. A combined mode of production requires people to work together. In class societies this cooperation is ensured by coercion. In socialism there is no coercion so we have to reach a consensus on how we're going to cooperate. I.e. I want X units of chocolate in the next period, and I'm OK with working Y hours on this task, Z hours on this... if we can't reach an agreement, then we die naked in the cold, but there is no real reason to suppose we won't reach an agreement.

I'm not sure what the problem is, to be honest.

[Ele'ill]

Cooperation being essential is no more a programme than electromagnetism is a programme. A combined mode of production requires people to work together. In class societies this cooperation is ensured by coercion. In socialism there is no coercion so we have to reach a consensus on how we're going to cooperate. I.e. I want X units of chocolate in the next period, and I'm OK with working Y hours on this task, Z hours on this... if we can't reach an agreement, then we die naked in the cold, but there is no real reason to suppose we won't reach an agreement.

I'm not sure what the problem is, to be honest.

I could literally just copy my last post as a rebuttal to this. Cooperation is a program and is coercive within a society of producers. I don't have time to reply atm so I am aware that this is a sloppy post also you're not going to die nake in the cold because you nobody wanted to help you get chocolate, hardly anyone even likes chocolate.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I could literally just copy my last post as a rebuttal to this. Cooperation is a program and is coercive within a society of producers. I don't have time to reply atm also you're not going to die nake in the cold because you nobody wanted to help you get chocolate, hardly anyone even likes chocolate.

Yes, you could copy your last post, but I still wouldn't understand it. I'm not saying "everyone has to cooperate or they get shot". I'm also not saying "work or starve", in fact I think that's PB nonsense. I'm saying that humans will either cooperate - to make chocolate, among other things, but also to make food, clothes, shelter, and so on - or people's needs will not be satisfied and in the end, yes, we'll starve or die of exposure. Needless to say I think cooperation is a good thing. That's not a "program", though, I don't think that even needs to be said as anyone who has lived in the real world for a while will know that. I think you're constantly lumping me with people who want some kind of incentive-based economy when that's as far from my perspective as is humanly possible.

And yes, socialism will be a society of producers. The trouble is, we only know how to make things by expending labour-power. People who think everything is going to be just magical and we won't have to work anymore because nanobots are just deluding themselves (and they don't understand microfluidics). Is that "coercive"? Only in the sense in which it is "coercive" that you will starve unless you eat.

[ckaihatsu]

My understanding of this is that perhaps many think that any kind of coordination for production should be *emergent* -- that is, wholly organic and bottom-up, without a pre-planned plan.

I, for one, think that social production should be bottom-up, but that it *could* be planned in advance, collectively, over broad ranges of geography, and up to the whole globe at some point.

[Ele'ill]

Emergent as/through an insurrectionary break(s).