Incentives and motivation

[Don't Change Your Name]

I'll admit it: I'm starting to doubt. A lot.

I fear that in an "ideal" society people will not care too much about things. I really need somebody to give me some ideas concerning how would a future society use their resources well, respect freedom, take care of the environment and respect others without resorting to authority. It might be said that education, direct action and organization can help but I'm still worried. I am NOT giving up my ideas about the non-existance of human nature but some attitudes people have nowadays really suck. It's probably capitalism, but I'm still worried.

I know this post sounds stupid but I think it's an important issue. We need to argue how a future society will "work" or we must be facing a disaster (I mean, there are lots of problems around us, but I don't see a solution to any, in any society, so we might be condemned to an eternal slavery).

There's no known alternative that can reduce the problems we are facing. I feel we will always be enslaved in some way or another. I know this sounds more like a thread that belongs to the Philosophy forum but it's important to discuss this here.

[Morpheus]

We need to argue how a future society will "work"

http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secIcon.html
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archi...nquest/toc.html (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/kropotkin/conquest/toc.html)
http://www.zmag.org/books/pareconv/parefinal.htm
http://www.radio4all.org/redblack/books/Program.html

[ComradeRed]

Well, we must ask "Is it 'human nature' or is it the nurture in the capitalist society?". This is perhaps one of the hardest, most arduous discussions that plagues the question "will communism work?". As a matter of fact, at the begining of the school year my history teacher gave the class a project --- we began as a "classless" society that had to survive on an island. However, there was no government - which was formed - and no leader - who (like bush) was self-appointed - and he 'demonstrated' that a classless society doesn't "work". I argued it was because there was no socialist transition, and that it was nurture in a class society that we created another; that we didn't know how to live in one without classes. But people will have the drive to work, imho.

[redstar2000]

I really need somebody to give me some ideas concerning how would a future society use their resources well, respect freedom, take care of the environment and respect others without resorting to authority.

Why?

Are you capable of doing all those good things without someone standing behind you with a whip or a gun?

Presuming the answer is yes, why would you think that others are not just as capable?

Of course, looking around us, we see an awful lot of assholes who appear to choose to be assholes because that's what "pays off" in capitalist society.

What happens when it no longer "pays off"?

Are some (many? most?) people "incurable assholes"?

Or is "assholistic behavior" a direct product of an assholistic social order?

See, I don't think there are any "magic mechanisms" for "making" people behave in a "good" way...we could talk endlessly about the possibilities of communist society but there are no guarantees.

We can certainly devise solutions to make it quite difficult to behave in certain particular bad ways...but if humans are "inherently assholes", then they'll easily find new ways to behave like assholes and all our hopes are nothing but delusions.

(The capitalists tell us this every day in Opposing Ideologies.)

From history, we know that humans have always behaved like assholes...but in different ways.

This suggests two equally reasonable conclusions. Humans are inherently assholes or human behavior is socially determined and a non-asshole society would produce non-asshole humans.

Since, on occasion, we actually observe humans not acting like assholes, even if it would be to their advantage to do so, I think the weight of evidence is on the second conclusion.

Behaving like an asshole is a "social construct"...and in a genuinely free society, most people wouldn't do it.

And those who did it anyway would be dealt with...in an authoritative fashion.

[Don't Change Your Name]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2004, 03:04 PM
Why?

Are you capable of doing all those good things without someone standing behind you with a whip or a gun?
I guess I am. The problem would be many people that will try to blame others and such things. Please note that I wrote this thread in a very pessimist moment. I'm just a bit worried about how people would react in a "better" society if they don't become responsible enough.


Presuming the answer is yes, why would you think that others are not just as capable?

Of course, looking around us, we see an awful lot of assholes who appear to choose to be assholes because that's what "pays off" in capitalist society.

What happens when it no longer "pays off"?

I guess you're right.


As a matter of fact, at the begining of the school year my history teacher gave the class a project --- we began as a "classless" society that had to survive on an island. However, there was no government - which was formed - and no leader - who (like bush) was self-appointed - and he 'demonstrated' that a classless society doesn't "work". I argued it was because there was no socialist transition, and that it was nurture in a class society that we created another; that we didn't know how to live in one without classes

And you were probably right. In such a situation people would resort to recreate an order they "know". That might be the explanation to that.