In A Nut Shell

[Drotnar]

To read an actual political book or to not?

Think must read Little Red Book.

Here is my shot at the ideal.

Eliminate the institutions of over payment for control positions. Controllers become workers in status and pay. Workers take control of their labor, lose the rigid systems and adapt to changing realities. Automation = if you don't want to work then why should you? Also automation = more time for local art. Access to traditional arts should be defended and financed.

I don't know shit, just made that up.

I am usually far, far off.

[YungTrev]

Automation = if you don't want to work then why should you? [/QUOTE]

What are you trying to say? Haha sorry I am a little confused. If this is one of your opinions of how labor would look in socialism/communism then I would have to say that your part about not wanting to work isn't correct. I imagine everyone would be able to do something they enjoy or maybe they want to help out.
As in nobody really enjoys hard labor, but it weds to be done. If people were to say they didn't want to work at all, then why should the get the needs they so wish? "Each according to his ABILITY, each according to his NEED." You see we would all inevitably be able to do so as we please labor wise. Not just lay around day after day.

[Drotnar]

No one really wants to lay around all day forever. Worth while opportunity to not lay around would be nice.

Technology will eliminate so many jobs. If a workers revolution happened and technology was not lost, does communism have a problem with a leisure option? If machines take care of the work, what is the problem?

I don't get these right wing capitalists that whinge about unemployment, as it seems an essential part of the system, I know having us around as useful scapegoats is a part of the system too, it's just obviously a silly game.

Of course with a bit of organisation the arts, conservation or obtaining new skills would easily create occupations for everyone.

[ckaihatsu]

The typical counter-argument here (not mine) is to say that, post-revolution, everyone will immediately become enlightened and will thus only want to pursue concerns in the field of *humanities* (as opposed to 'science' and 'engineering'), arguing that all of it would be valid as 'work', for the good of society and its people.

All matters of *technical* inquiry and development would be roundly derided as 'socially unnecessary' and would automatically be disdained, the inevitable material result of global human liberation.

Would a post-capitalist society really be an idyllic naturalistic pastoral scene, like that of the Smurfs, or would it actually include technology of some kinds (as from the era of capitalism) -- ?

If it *does* include technology, would it be at a *minimum level* and *static*, with only as much necessary to automate all 'gruntwork', so that everyone can live their preferred socially *humanistic* kinds of lives -- ?

Or would people continue to take active interests in *non*-humanistic, more *technical*-minded avenues, so as to keep a certain pace of uncoerced technological *development* going -- ?

So here it is, for the politically intrepid:

- How would a technologically 'static' post-capitalist society determine who *maintains* the socially necessary machinery that benefits everyone in society -- ?

And/or:

- How would a technologically 'developmental' post-capitalist society determine the social value of the work that anyone does for 'pure science', or for 'applied science' -- ? (How would any scientific endeavors be judged relative to the results of immediate material productivity, as for crops, for example -- ?)