Motivating People to Work - All of the theories and philosop

[I Will Deny You]

The problem all of the capitalists say exists with communism is that people need monetary rewards for working. I know a lot of different philosophies on how to transform man and get him to work and be as productive as possible for the benefit of the people. But I know that I can't possibly be familiar with all of these theories so I was wondering if someone who's a bit smarter than I am could give me a little bit of background information on the different philosophers/groups and their ideas. Thanks.

[Supermodel]

Well, IWDY I will not pretend to be smarter than you, but Che had a theory of the New Man, who was motivated only by the greater good and not by selfish or personal goals. I have only read about this in books about Che, maybe someone can point you to one of his writings on this.

However it is undeniable that throughout time there have been individuals who gave all, including their hard labor, for the good of society and not themselves. What about the kibbutzim that were so popular in the 60's? Also, the existence of some monastic orders, and Mother Teresa's organization, point to a desire to work for a greater good.

From these examples, I suppose you could conclude that only those who are disenfrachized from everyday, average life (like there is such a thing) would choose a non-traditional lifestyle such as this.

However I think there is somewhat of a tradition in western society to work for money while supporting your family, then to move to meaningful and perhaps unpaid work later on in life.

Great question.

[Moskitto]

People need more than money to be motivated. The motivational pyramid goes.

Self Actualisation - The need to achieve full potential
Self Esteem - The need to achieve
Love and Belonging - The need to belong
Saftey - The need to feel secure
Physiological - The need to survive

Wages provide Physiological needs, but this is only an example of how they can be forfilled. A slave for example gets to the saftey level, but he cannot get higher because he does not belong. If you can think of annother way of forfilling these needs without money, you've done well.

[Supermodel]

Opening Pandora's box here...what motivates a slave to work? Is it purely the fear of death or abandonment, physical abuse? Or does psychology play a role in accepting the conditions you are given?

[Fires of History]

People have worked hard for hundreds of thousands of years before even the advent of civilization.

Prehistoric humans (and I use this example because it takes humanity out of any complex context) was driven by a SOCIAL NEED and a reliance on COMMUNITY.

Modern capitali$tic cultures have shifted the reliance on the community to a reliance on money.

We have slowly been trained to worry about money instead of our community.
All human worth has slowly been translated into a monetary value instead of everyone's worth within the community.

Power to the People,
Trance

[Cobra]

Originally posted by Fires of [email protected] 6 2002, 01:04 AM
People have worked hard for hundreds of thousands of years before even the advent of civilization.
No they didn't. Humans have only worked hard because of civilization.

Civilization depends on the labor of food producers to support itself. Those who produce food need to work to support not just themselves but also the entire urban population. If the urban population did not exists, food producers would only need to grow/hunt/gather enough food to sustain themselves. Also, another atribute of civilizations is that the Urban population is reduced to slaves. Four months of a years income is taken as taxes. If these taxes are not paid the Elites can force people to go to jail. Civilizations can also force you to join the army against your will, deprive you of food and water, and allow you to freeze to death in the winter.

In Prehistoric times, before civilizations, people were free. A couple hours out of the day they might go kill a Mastadon and make a fire, but thats it. Most of the day they were free to do anything they wanted. Want to express your creativity and paint on the cave's walls, explore those mountains you see in the distance, pillage the neighboring tribe and rape their women? Sure, go ahead. Whos going to stop you. No need to worry about starving either; If your tribe was lucky enough to kill a couple Mastadons you'll have enough food to last for weeks.

Whos going to tell you what to do? No one! You are your own master. Your tribesman are you close friends and you feel obligated to help them. But if you don't feel like hunting today, you don't have to. Sure, some people will be like : "Kir'Tar, you lazey bastard", but no one is going to force you to do anything.

So my point is that your statement is completely wrong. Prehistoric people hardly had to do any work at all, and the work they did was fun. Imagine how exiting it would be to try and take down a giant wooly elephant with only a stick, the thrill of taking out a Sabre Tooth Tiger that just bit off your leg, and just the feeling that no one is going to boss you around. Thats all I have to say bout that...


As for motivating people to work within the "communist" system:

I think the biggest motivater is respect. By working hard, you gain the respect of your comrades. Respect might not seem like much, but I think its one of the most important things there is. If people don't respect you, they will look down on you and treat you like shit. No one likes to be treated like shit. If someone is treated like shit all their life they will probably hate themself and end up committing suicide. So by working hard you are a happyer person.

[Don't Change Your Name]

You don't work = you don't eat

That's simple. We should create a new working conscience, not anymore "working hard to gain money and be rich" and "working for society's good". The problem with those socialist systems used so far was that people work but don't seem to be interested in working at their better level. So a new society should have workers-controlled workplaces which establish how many hours will they approximately work, and if you work more than that you get access to special "benefits". Plus schools should play a larger role in all this, and people should start thinking about creating technological improvements so that they don't have to do so much hard work and do more simple tasks, like improving that technology.
I want a society where if you work you get access to everything, but if you don't you get some help at the start but then the society doesn't help you anymore so that you work.
Also improving and making things everytime closer to perfection, and introducing some competition will keep things going well. Those who work hard should be respected, it doesn't matter if they design skyscrapers or clean toilets.


In Prehistoric times, before civilizations, people were free. A couple hours out of the day they might go kill a Mastadon and make a fire, but thats it. Most of the day they were free to do anything they wanted. Want to express your creativity and paint on the cave's walls, explore those mountains you see in the distance, pillage the neighboring tribe and rape their women? Sure, go ahead.

Good point that about their freedom, but they didn't have much to do apart from that, so nowadays that we have things like TVs, computers, sports, etc. we need to work more to have those things. Plus raping and pillaging the neighbours isn't a very nice thing. You are taken away their freedoms for your stupid freedom. "Civilization" gave us good things (better technology, more freedom's guarantees) and bad things (the state, capitalism, authority on every level, religions). Now if we could get rid of those bad things while keeping those good things I would be happy.

[SittingBull47]

Yea, frankly I think it just can't work in some places. There'll always be greedy or ignorant people who can't see the big picture. To have a civilized societe drudging away at a common goal for the advancement of man would in itself be an advancement. First, it would require alot of enlightened beings...and that would probably be the last step.

[Retro]

I will keep this short, as i am tired and spent the evening with a great lady...

Money only:

-motivates people to alienate each other
-causes people to compete against one another
-causes greed and corruption
-causes a class struggle.

::yawn:: Don't really see this motivating me to do anything...seems depressing

Feel free to add more...im sure if i was in a more awake state of mind i could write more...sorry :D

[Cobra]

Originally posted by El Infiltr(A)do+Mar 2 2004, 01:03 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (El Infiltr(A)do @ Mar 2 2004, 01:03 AM)1) people should start thinking about creating technological improvements so that they don&#39;t have to do so much hard work and do more simple tasks, like improving that technology.

2) I want a society where if you work you get access to everything, but if you don&#39;t you get some help at the start but then the society doesn&#39;t help you anymore so that you work.

3) Raping and pillaging the neighbours isn&#39;t a very nice thing. You are taken away their freedoms for your stupid freedom. "Civilization" gave us good things (better technology, more freedom&#39;s guarantees) and bad things (the state, capitalism, authority on every level, religions). Now if we could get rid of those bad things while keeping those good things[/b]

In reply to:

1) Many technological improvements have been made in rich countries, like the USA, but those improvements have not significantly reduced work hours. Example: "efficient" Computers replaced the "ineficient" typewriter, but now people type more than they did before. Idealy, in a socialist society new better technoolgy would be used for the good of the people. Are people going to share their inventions for the good of society and not sell out to the capitalists for their own profit? They might, but it&#39;s unlikely if they have been taught to be greedy. People are not greedy by nature (as the capitalists claim). Numerous egalitarian tribal societys have proven they greed is a learned behavior. So I agree with you completely that education is the key. If people are educated not to be gready, then a strive for more efficient technologies would significantly reduce work hours.

2) I don&#39;t quite understand what mean by access to everything. For example: Would everyone be given a TV that each individual could call their own (private property)? Or, would there be a one bigscreen TV in the lobby of the appartment, that everyone has access to (shared property)? The second scenario would be a better use of resources...

Also, When you say "the society doesn&#39;t help you... [to force you to] work" do you mean deprive them of food? I could be completely wrong, but I&#39;m guessing that&#39;s what you ment by that. Sure, depriving people of food (as done in many capitalist countrys) would definitely get people working. However, I think doing so would be inhumane. If the civilization is so uncaring that it will let its people starve to death on the streets, what is the purpose of it even existing at all?

3) Good point. I&#39;m surprised I didn&#39;t notice that when I was typing that. Absolute freedom would be the feedom to take away the freedom of others. Thus, too much freedom would be a bad thing. However, on the over extreme, you could have a 1984 type police state where you don&#39;t have any freedom at all. So what would be the ideal amount of freedom that the people should have?



[email protected] 2 2004, 06:42 AM


Retro: Money only:

-motivates people to alienate each other
-causes people to compete against one another
-causes greed and corruption
-causes a class struggle.

::yawn:: Don&#39;t really see this motivating me to do anything...seems depressing

Exactly. However money does motivate a lot of people. The Capitalist media and public education system teaches people that if they are rich they will be complete happy people. "Rich people are successful". Everyone else is "unsuccessful". A lot of people in capitalist countires beleive that money is more important than human beings. In real life, rich people are usually very depressed people. Many of them end up killing themselves: Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, the fat guy from Saturday Night Live, Princess Diana, Mikel Jackson (I predict within the next year), and numerous others. Don&#39;t you want to grow up to be just like them? This love of money will die when the Capitalist media propaganda machine is destroyed and the public educaton system starts teaching children the truth about capitalism.

[Saint-Just]

Its a ridiculous argument, that in socialism people are not motivated to work hard. All socialist societies have achieved very much, their people have worker have and they have continually innovated. In capitalism there are many people who work hard to subsist. If the correct work is carried out everyone can be imbued with the ideological spirit to work hard.

[Don't Change Your Name]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2004, 09:24 AM
2) I don&#39;t quite understand what mean by access to everything. For example: Would everyone be given a TV that each individual could call their own (private property)? Or, would there be a one bigscreen TV in the lobby of the appartment, that everyone has access to (shared property)? The second scenario would be a better use of resources...
I meant things like food, clothes, homes, education, healthcare, telephone, free access to different benefits, and a few commodities. The idea of 1 worker = 1 TV is not impossible, but I think we first need to concentrate on more important things. The big TV screen idea is good. Maybe TVs could be "loaned", kinda like cable and satellite corporations do nowadays, that they give you the small decoder (not sure if that&#39;s how it&#39;s said in english) but if you decide to stop using their service you have to give it back. This would be a good incentive: if you work you get a TV with a "decoder" (or whatever is produced by the local workers, which hopefully will have nice quality), but if you stop working then after a while you have to give it back (if you can&#39;t find a job maybe it would be good if that sector of the economy that takes care of producing those TVs, that take care of the service and of this distribution allows you to keep it if you take courses to work there, which will also help that part of the production until you find a job that you prefer over that one. After that you keep it anyway because you keep working)


Also, When you say "the society doesn&#39;t help you... [to force you to] work" do you mean deprive them of food? I could be completely wrong, but I&#39;m guessing that&#39;s what you ment by that. Sure, depriving people of food (as done in many capitalist countrys) would definitely get people working. However, I think doing so would be inhumane. If the civilization is so uncaring that it will let its people starve to death on the streets, what is the purpose of it even existing at all?

Well, I didn&#39;t want to sound like some extremist capitalist but what I suggested was that in case someone refuses to work but still wants to have the same living level the workers have, and doesn&#39;t want to contribute, then over the time society starts giving that people less of everything until they decide to do something productive. On an ideal situation this people wouldn&#39;t be too many because of how people should be educated to give more value to working. I&#39;m not saying that they should be left to die but if they don&#39;t do anything productive they should get less of everything.


3) Good point. I&#39;m surprised I didn&#39;t notice that when I was typing that. Absolute freedom would be the feedom to take away the freedom of others. Thus, too much freedom would be a bad thing. However, on the over extreme, you could have a 1984 type police state where you don&#39;t have any freedom at all. So what would be the ideal amount of freedom that the people should have?

Well, the problem of "excessive" freedom is that it&#39;s not exactly freedom because it takes away other people&#39;s freedom. So as I am an Anarchist I suggest that each city/federation/area establishes some laws that make people who abuses from their freedom pay for that (not by the old-fashioned death penalty and prison system, but by forcing this people to do the hardest type of work for a certain amount of time). I don&#39;t think I&#39;m going against my basic ideals with this because this will prevent the freedoms from being abused, and I would say that justice must be done not by a special jury (unless it&#39;s completely necessary), but by those who live where the crime happened, democratically. Anyway this goes far away from the point of this discussion.