doubt in theory of communism

[akshay]

today i was talking about communism with my friend, then he put two points that if in communism jobs will be secure than why a person will give his 100% for the job and if jobs will be sheore than why student will perform good in there studies?
so please give me answer for it
thanks

[Roel85]

At the first question i maybe can give some little advice. Just say when someone says that those people ENJOY work instead of going to work for the MONEY. Why do boring work and earn alot, when you can earn a little bit less and enjoy the time at work?

And why does people give themselfs 100%? It results in a burn-out, or getting tired when the end of the day is near? Isn't 90% enough? And enjoy the time when you go home and go out with friends (because you aren't tired)?

What do you prefer? It's just a counterreaction, just think of it... :D

Sorry for bad English :P

[spartan]

For the survival of his/her family and the self sufficient commune that they live in. What better motive for giving 100% is there than that? Also doing well will insure a more comfortable and enjoyable and easier life than being disillushioned and lazy all the time. Besides not wanting to give 100% is generally associated with a Capitalist society so not wanting to give 100% will be almost non existent in say a Communist society where there will be no boss or manager to bring you down and no threat of being sacked for no reason at all and where you get to make to make all the decisions effecting the sector you work in as in a Communist society workplace direct Democracy will be practised. So unless you are an easily depressed person then there is nothing to not make you want to give 100%.

[Roel85]

I dont think 100% is reasonable, giving yourself 100% will say that you do nothing then work, not be social with colleages and stuff. So Maybe the 90% i had in mind to make work more comfortable is reasonable i guess :)

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Teachers aspire to rear the smartest children. Software designers aspire to create the best software. Doctors aspire to help people in the best way possible. Scientists aspire to learn the most. Writers aspire to write the best they can. Artists aspire to craft the best art. Firefighters desire to save lives and property. Bibliomaniacs aspire to be around the most books. Engineers aspire to build the best creations. Chefs aspire to cook the best foods.

Without a direct loss/gain system [money], people would do what they want. People are naturally driven to succeed at what they like, from video games to work. The jobs that people DON'T want but pay good as an incentive are largely based on capital: banker, stock manager, cashier, bookkeeper, accountant, to name a few.

The jobs that are less desired are also [relatively] less in demand. A graveyard would only require one graveyard attendant.

In those rare exceptions where jobs are less desired for but in higher demand the issue would be resolved by the worker councils. A shortage in janitors could be resolved two ways: creating an incentive for future janitors [easy work weeks, plenty of holidays] and/or the end of specialization for janitors in that particular work force. Teachers and students would be responsible for keeping their hallways and classrooms clean, for example. If they don't, they'll directly suffer as a consequence.

Almost everyone wants to learn. History, discussion forums, politics, and real life situations prove that. What kids turn away from is the current school structure. They're taught to accept what they learn just as curriculum. You'll have those few teachers who drive a student to question and learn beyond the books, but even they are forced to work within a framework. Why do we need two years of college where you're basically going over what you should have already learned?

Believing humans can resolve problems through their own natural aspirations is vital to being a socialist, and that's one step not many people are ready to take... yet. :)

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 03:09 pm
today i was talking about communism with my friend, then he put two points that if in communism jobs will be secure than why a person will give his 100% for the job and if jobs will be sheore than why student will perform good in there studies?
so please give me answer for it
thanks
In the sort of communist society that i see, jobs will be orientated around the passions and aspirations of the people who work in them, workers will not have to orientate themselves around the wants of the market. This will remove the employment alienation endemic within capitalism.

[blackstone]

Originally posted by Ulster Socialist+October 03, 2007 07:40 pm--> (Ulster Socialist @ October 03, 2007 07:40 pm)
[email protected] 03, 2007 03:09 pm
today i was talking about communism with my friend, then he put two points that if in communism jobs will be secure than why a person will give his 100% for the job and if jobs will be sheore than why student will perform good in there studies?
so please give me answer for it
thanks
In the sort of communist society that i see, jobs will be orientated around the passions and aspirations of the people who work in them, workers will not have to orientate themselves around the wants of the market. This will remove the employment alienation endemic within capitalism. [/b]
Workers may not have to orientate themselves around the wants of the market, but they still have to orientate themselves to the wants of society. I don't know how much passion has to do with it..

[spartan]

blackstone:
Workers may not have to orientate themselves around the wants of the market, but they still have to orientate themselves to the wants of society. I don't know how much passion has to do with it..
Well then workers will want to do their best so the equal and fair society they live in survives. That is incentive enough to give 100% in my opinion.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by blackstone+October 03, 2007 08:03 pm--> (blackstone @ October 03, 2007 08:03 pm)
Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 03, 2007 07:40 pm

[email protected] 03, 2007 03:09 pm
today i was talking about communism with my friend, then he put two points that if in communism jobs will be secure than why a person will give his 100% for the job and if jobs will be sheore than why student will perform good in there studies?
so please give me answer for it
thanks
In the sort of communist society that i see, jobs will be orientated around the passions and aspirations of the people who work in them, workers will not have to orientate themselves around the wants of the market. This will remove the employment alienation endemic within capitalism.
Workers may not have to orientate themselves around the wants of the market, but they still have to orientate themselves to the wants of society. I don't know how much passion has to do with it.. [/b]
The workers and society are and will be the same thing. Capitalism lulls us into drawing a distinction between the two.
As I said in a previous thread, for the society in which I envisage- menial labour, for which no-one can be found to take an interest in would be taken over by technology and automation. The former workers would then be provided opportunties to accept jobs and/or training that are relevant their personalities (providing they carry a positive purpose).

[Killer Enigma]

At the first question i maybe can give some little advice. Just say when someone says that those people ENJOY work instead of going to work for the MONEY. Why do boring work and earn alot, when you can earn a little bit less and enjoy the time at work?
This is an unsatisfactory response. Though socialism would eliminate the abusive employer/worker relationship, you have not/cannot prove a correlation between eliminating such a variable and worker-productivity increasing. Furthermore, this entire claim is a statement based on false premises, because you assume that all work will be enjoyable in a hypothetical socialist society. If, as I assume you mean, all will be able to pursue their career of choice, there will undoubtedly be imbalances. It's fact that doctors and general medical staff are not as heavily motivated by salary as they are for duty but there will undoubtedly be a shortage in many necessary occupations.

The answers to these questions exist but I would suggest not putting forth poorly-constructed, fallacious arguments. Pointing to an argument based in a realistic world outlook will do wonders.

[Killer Enigma]

For the survival of his/her family and the self sufficient commune that they live in. What better motive for giving 100% is there than that? Also doing well will insure a more comfortable and enjoyable and easier life than being disillushioned and lazy all the time. Besides not wanting to give 100% is generally associated with a Capitalist society so not wanting to give 100% will be almost non existent in say a Communist society where there will be no boss or manager to bring you down and no threat of being sacked for no reason at all and where you get to make to make all the decisions effecting the sector you work in as in a Communist society workplace direct Democracy will be practised. So unless you are an easily depressed person then there is nothing to not make you want to give 100%.
"Giving 100%" and "going above and beyond the call of duty" are two separate matters entirely, the latter of which society thrives upon. Capitalism offers an incentive, albeit a poor incentive, to carry out the latter. You have not proven with your above statement that socialism will accomplish the latter more efficiently than capitalism, which I feel is necessary to win such a debate.

Moreover, many jobs simply will not be attractive and as I mentioned in my previous post, there may be shortages. Such a problem could be dealt with by assigning temporary roles for each person in the community, but nevertheless the role is undesirable and thus people will have no incentive to carry out this duty well.

In response to these troubles, I am reminded of Marx's words from [i]Critique of the Gotha Programma in which he addresses the issue of incentives, rights to labor, and the like. Contrary to popular belief, from both "communists" (I use the term loosely in this case) and all others, Marx never wished socialism (in reference to the dictatorship of the proletariat) or the first stages of communism to eliminate the incentive system (reward proportional to labor). He recognized that since men have different abilities, different gifts, that they would need to be paid in different manners:

"In spite of this advance, this equal right [to the products of the community] is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor."
...
"Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal."
...
"Quite apart from the analysis so far given, it was in general a mistake to make a fuss about so-called distribution and put the principal stress on it."

Your response to the aforementioned concern should be that certain tasks, certain occupations, and certain jobs will require extrinsic motivation. This is not an inherently capitalist element of society, as it has existed throughout history's assorted modes of production. The difference is that socialism eliminates the abusive property relations between employer and worker and thus workers are given the full value of their labor. Equality is in the standard and not necessarily the reality.

[Killer Enigma]

Originally posted by Ulster Socialist+October 03, 2007 07:40 pm--> (Ulster Socialist @ October 03, 2007 07:40 pm)
[email protected] 03, 2007 03:09 pm
today i was talking about communism with my friend, then he put two points that if in communism jobs will be secure than why a person will give his 100% for the job and if jobs will be sheore than why student will perform good in there studies?
so please give me answer for it
thanks
In the sort of communist society that i see, jobs will be orientated around the passions and aspirations of the people who work in them, workers will not have to orientate themselves around the wants of the market. This will remove the employment alienation endemic within capitalism. [/b]
The "communism [you] see" is described by Marx in Critique of the Gotha Programme:

"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want...

Such a society should never be used for arguments' sake because (1) Marx himself denotes that it is of a "higher phase", thus making arguing about it fruitless because (2) such a phase cannot be realistically appraised until its antecedent is in full view. When arguing for "communism", the argument needs to be instead for socialism, as that is the first phase of communism which can be realistically appraised because capitalism exists currently.

[Killer Enigma]

Originally posted by Ulster Socialist+October 03, 2007 10:35 pm--> (Ulster Socialist @ October 03, 2007 10:35 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 08:03 pm

Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 03, 2007 07:40 pm

[email protected] 03, 2007 03:09 pm
today i was talking about communism with my friend, then he put two points that if in communism jobs will be secure than why a person will give his 100% for the job and if jobs will be sheore than why student will perform good in there studies?
so please give me answer for it
thanks
In the sort of communist society that i see, jobs will be orientated around the passions and aspirations of the people who work in them, workers will not have to orientate themselves around the wants of the market. This will remove the employment alienation endemic within capitalism.
Workers may not have to orientate themselves around the wants of the market, but they still have to orientate themselves to the wants of society. I don't know how much passion has to do with it..
The workers and society are and will be the same thing. Capitalism lulls us into drawing a distinction between the two.
As I said in a previous thread, for the society in which I envisage- menial labour, for which no-one can be found to take an interest in would be taken over by technology and automation. The former workers would then be provided opportunties to accept jobs and/or training that are relevant their personalities (providing they carry a positive purpose). [/b]
Marx also points out the possibility of technology taking away the need for undesirable labor (I would avoid the term "menial"). However, if you are realistically trying to make a viable case for socialism to someone, I would avoid basing your position on arguments based on false premises, because there is no means of insuring that such technology will be readily available, no less in the numbers which would be demanded for such a scenario, once the workers control the means of production. I advise everyone to base their arguments in reality and not using amorphous or futuristic conditions to prove it.

[Killer Enigma]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 10:30 pm
blackstone:
Workers may not have to orientate themselves around the wants of the market, but they still have to orientate themselves to the wants of society. I don't know how much passion has to do with it..
Well then workers will want to do their best so the equal and fair society they live in survives. That is incentive enough to give 100% in my opinion.
If on the opposing side, my first response would be telling you that "[your] opinion" doesn't matter to me, nor to reality. Avoid discounting your arguments by making statements opinionated and certainly avoid full-out stating such. Many think that it adds to the strength of one's argument, seeing that it is "your opinion" and cannot be reasonably opposed. However in the end, it weakens your argument because although no one can/should take away your opinion, no one can/should care about it either.

Remember, opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one, they all stink, and most people would rather not hear about yours.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

When talking about productivity, we should first realize that an efficient system is not only idealistic, but required for the revolution to survive. Workers won't give a spit about their employer's abuse being destroyed if the society and living conditions they must now deal with are worse.

One common thread I see in these type of threads is a grasping at a different incentive. I'd wager not too many Leftists see the existance of money as ideal. If there is a way to capitalize on collaboration and other non-destructive incentives to achieve maximum productivity and quality, let's put our heads together and think.


One suggestion I have is the use of worker cards instead of "hourly tenders." Have the communes recognize worker councils, which could then distribute worker cards to its active members. In this scenario we protect the community from those who would leach off public services and goods. The worker councils could handle the direct issues with employment and leisure time. To me "hourly tenders" would be counter-productive to the reduction of labor. I'd also suggest we extend these "worker cards" to a single parent having to rear infants before pre-school [or if homeschooling is allowed, to give homeschooling parents a card], minors, and elders.

[Roel85]

Originally posted by Killer [email protected] 03, 2007 10:52 pm

At the first question i maybe can give some little advice. Just say when someone says that those people ENJOY work instead of going to work for the MONEY. Why do boring work and earn alot, when you can earn a little bit less and enjoy the time at work?
This is an unsatisfactory response. Though socialism would eliminate the abusive employer/worker relationship, you have not/cannot prove a correlation between eliminating such a variable and worker-productivity increasing. Furthermore, this entire claim is a statement based on false premises, because you assume that all work will be enjoyable in a hypothetical socialist society. If, as I assume you mean, all will be able to pursue their career of choice, there will undoubtedly be imbalances. It's fact that doctors and general medical staff are not as heavily motivated by salary as they are for duty but there will undoubtedly be a shortage in many necessary occupations.

The answers to these questions exist but I would suggest not putting forth poorly-constructed, fallacious arguments. Pointing to an argument based in a realistic world outlook will do wonders.
I was more pointing at the fact that you dont be depressed and get less money then your boss, the boss will make himself better with your work :) You know what i mean?