I often daydream about how society would be if we were not forced by society to pigeon hole ourselves into a specialized career for maximizing the profits of capitalists, and sell most of our time for it.
The idea of creating an entire identity for you around your “career” and only specializing in one thing would be ridiculous in another universe. Humans have so much natural potential for breadth, but that is just not compatible with capitalism.
This is evident with how most people develop “hobbies” outside of work, like wood working, gardening, electronics, music, etc. This idea of separating “hobbies” and the thing we do most of our lives (work) is ridiculous.
Here’s how my world could be different if I owned my time and dedicated it to the benefit of my own and my community instead of capitalists:
- more reading, learning and excusing knowledge with others.
- learn more handy work, like plumbing and wood working. I love customizing my own home!
- more gardening
- participate in the transportation system (picking up shifts to drive a bus for example)
- become a tour guide for my city
- cook and bake for my neighbors
- academic research
- open source software (and non-software) contributions
- pick up shifts at a café and make coffee, tea and smoothies for people
- pick up shifts to clean up public spaces, such as parks or my own neighborhood
- participate in more than one “professions”. I studied one type of engineering but work in a completely different engineering. This already proves I can do both, so why not do both and others?
Humans do not like the same thing over and over every day. It’s unnatural. But somehow we revolve our whole livelihood around if.
There’s a couple of countries without capitalism, you could try to live your dream there.
ask the Soviet union how easy it is to decouple from global capitalism
Not sure what your point is, there wasn’t much trade between US and the West until about 80s. Soviets certainly could end all trade with evil capitalists, if they wanted.
Countries like Iran or North Korea even have the luxury of capitalists themselves decoupling from them.
There are countries striving to break away from capitalism, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
I’d hang out and enjoy the fruits of other people’s time being sold. Pretty hard to think of a hobby that wouldn’t cover.
Something new every day. Create. Spend time with my children. Volunteer my time and knowledge.
Humans do not like the same thing over and over every day.
Speak for yourself, I like routine and being rewarded for working hard.
Do you really get rewarded for working hard? Every time I’ve gone above and beyond for my job it becomes and expectation with no increase in pay. There is no reward for us “no skill” jobs that somehow are the very foundation of this god forsaken societal system we uphold.
I’ve left jobs when I don’t get rewarded for hard work. Thankfully we live in a free market that allows me to also freely choose my employer and occupation.
freely choose my employer and occupation.
As long as you meet the dozens of credentials to work for a place, as well as the 5 to 10 hidden ones they don’t tell you about in the job listing or the interview.
That sounds salty.
Are you denying it’s reality?
No, I’m skeptical because it sounds more like disillusionment.
You don’t think that companies have dozens of credentials and requirements for a job? And hidden ones as well? This is very well documented. The first one is easily verified by looking at indeed.com. I take it you’ve never applied for a job before?
Credentials exist for a reason.
I would do loads of degrees. History, English, Psychology, Politics, Spanish, etc. Having the brain space to focus on learning would be amazing. I did my masters part time while working full time and it was a nightmare. Glad I did it but I couldn’t do my best as I was bogged down in work stuff.
I would also like to learn more languages. I do a bit of Spanish and Danish when I can but I rarely have the mental energy after work.
Travel too. Maybe write a book.
Imma be honest I have no idea. I might legit just sit here and be a leech on society playing video games and watching shows. But I’d like to imagine I would go back to school and try and do freelance repair/maintenance for various things. I just honestly don’t know if I’d do enough to consider it a fair contribution to society.
Starve to death.
I don’t understand why these people think they’d have All this free time.
If there wasn’t an industry to sell us all the things we buy, people wouldn’t just volunteer to do it.
You’d be spending all your time learning how to hunt, fighting with your neighbours over territory, waging war over it likely, and dressing your kills to help feed your family.
Your wives would probably be busy trying to avoid being raped by your enemies while you’re out trying to bring home dinner and making clothes out of threads.
People think there would be starbuck’s to just walk into and start making coffees for people? Just some random dude who thinks ‘Hm, today I’m going to go and make coffees for people for a couple hours’ is this guy seriously okay?
Lemmy users do not understand why things are the way they are. They’re …. Childish. Child-like.
It’s almost like they imagine the government will be just like their parents and fund their lifestyle like they did when they were actually children.
Take them to swimming lessons, sign them up for art classes, dinner just magically appears on the dinner table everyday, they can spend all day just hanging out with friends and playing video games or whatever they want to do.
I think lemmy users, for the most part, are stuck having a crisis of changing from childhood to adult hood.
They’ll likely grow out of it, but boy is reading shit like this fucking embarrassing to adults
Here’s a hint, lemmy communists:
Without capitalism, you’ll do what the government decides you will do, for however long they decide you should do it for. If you’ve been farming wheat for 3 years and the government decides there’s too much wheat and not enough apples, you’ll be picking fucking apples for 16 hours a day, without sunscreen or water or breaks.
Or you’ll be shot and your family will be put in prison.
Without capitalism, you’ll do what the government decides you will do, for however long they decide you should do it for.
While the government leaders will live in big mansions free to do whatever they want.
So many words to say that you have a first-grade understanding of what an alternative to capitalism might look like
We have seen many alternatives to capitalism. They are all much much worse than capitalism.
You act as if humanity just popped into existence and started capitalism 200,000 years ago lmfo
This is exactly my thoughts on this. OP feels he’s going to just ‘pick up shifts’ as he feels like it. Nope, it doesn’t work like that. It’s total fantasy, and you’re description is on the money of how it really would be.
“Wow I just really feel like being a garbage man today!” … said no one ever.
exactly
Without capitalism, we would be serving our own interests, not the interests of a minority ruling class, be it a capitalist class or one disguised by a state.
Capitalism gives you the BEST chance to make a living doing what interests you. If you don’t like working for others, open a business and own capital. It’s literally the rules of the game.
It does not. I spoke a bit in my post about why it doesn’t. Owning a business is a bit better, but you’re still operating at the whims of capital, having to do what the market deems a good investment rather than what’s good for society. You also have to make sure not to ever compete with or upset a mega conglomerate with infinite money. You also still have to live with the fact that most of the rest of society is forced to live under this for profit system, which locks their potential.
I’m an intellectually overqualified filmmaker surrounded by anti-intellectuals (I routinely get made fun of for being interested in technical stuff)…and right now, I am on workman’s comp with a broken foot. So: exactly what I am doing right now is exactly what I would want to be doing.
What’s that?
Hanging out with my daughter in my lab,Learning
- Haskell/Plutus
- Purescript
- using Nix to glue them together
- hacking an espresso machine (either with a RISC_V Lychee Pi or an ESP32…haven’t decided yet).
Practicing:
- guitar
Blazing:
- chronic
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I think you’re probably just a dickhead.
Nice
Everyone thinks they’re smarter than the idiots around them. Most are wrong.
In my case, whether I’m wrong or not, they actively discourage me from using my brain.
I’d have more time to become a better artist.
edit: what the fuck was that unwarranted shitty comment.
dont worry about that other commenter. They’re angry that their argument in another comment was argued against, and now they look stupid.
Thanks. It was so out of left field. Like damn, I’ve never even posted my art on lemmy for anyone to know.
They were probably projecting and expressing their disappointments in not becoming their own ideal self. Anyways! My answer was going to be taking in all the wonderful art and creations people like you would have the freedom to create.
Yeah! We’d all have time to do the things we’re passionate about.
and still wouldn’t
So the question made you so angry, you started projecting your anger over people answering it? LOL
my world could be different if I owned my time
Self ownership is the basis of capitalism and you’re already playing the game, you’re just playing it bad.
if you’re on hourly I want you to ask yourself if you would pay someone else what you earn at work to do whatever you just did in the last hour.
if not why not? did you explicitly set aside this time to be unproductive? do you think people doing better than you let themselves slide like that?Humans do not like the same thing over and over every day
Speak for yourself, I love having a routine and getting in the zone. Autonomy and Mastery are worth more to me than money.
What a nonsense reply. Describing any rest as “slipping”.
The number one thing, by FAR, that earns money under capitalism is investment. Not work, not skill, not merit. Just having money to invest and shave off your share of someone else’s work.
The “people doing better” actually rest far more than your average worker. They just have money, so they get to make more money even while they are “unproductive”.
I said slide not slip. and managing your time is the takeaway. can’t slip, or slide, if you are being intentional about your time.
People who don’t think they have the time to do anything are usually not being intentional. you get home from work and kick back with a cold one and that’s the whole plan, then the next minute you’re back at work again and you don’t know where the weekend went.
and if you know how to make money under capitalism without working why exactly aren’t you doing that?
and if you know how to make money under capitalism without working why exactly aren’t you doing that?
You cannot be serious.
Were you too busy doing a capitalism that you forgot to read the comment they made?
The real, unloaded question, should be “what would you do if money was no obstacle”
Presuming capitalism is the reason we have no time is what’s happening here.
But I wouldn’t pay anyone to defend capitalism. oh shit beaten by my own logic.Who wants to go blow up a pipeline?
I would love to respond but I have no idea what you’re saying. Sorry. Why would I pay someone for doing my job? I would not be doing it if I could just pay someone to do it lol.
are you working right now? must be nice to have that much free time. let me guess … Union?
j/k just having a laugh. (I’m also union)
I mean when you’re off the clock is your time worth the same to you?
I don’t mean to say there’s no value in rest but occasionally accounting for your free time is a good idea otherwise you wake up in your 50s and wonder where all that time went.
I think about this at least a little bit most days.
I’d finish some video games again.
Work on more music, ideally practice piani again to get my theory back on track.
Make projects, communal gardening etc…
Outside the selfish self-enrichment kinda stuff, teach kids programming, and participate more in my hema club.
Why is there so much communist content on lemmy?
I know, it’s crazy. Like all of a sudden capitalism is evil. It baffles my mind. Like do people actually believe this stuff?
All of a sudden? Yeah, if over a century of critique counts as “all of a sudden”
Lemmy appears to be going more and more anti-capitalist is all I’m saying. There will always be detractors of any system.
I’m hardly a communist but if this is the first time you’re hearing “capitalism is evil” you live in quite the bubble lol
At the very least I hope you can be critical of the system.
Absolutely not the first time, but is seems like Lemmy as a whole is very anti-capitalist. I can be critical of any system, all systems have flaws. However, I believe that capitalism is the best system there is.
OK so you’re just in an environment where a lot of people disagree. Plenty of online spaces are full of people who are like-minded to you. Lemmy is this way because a lot of anti-capitalists are drawn to the idea of decentralized federation not controlled by a corporation.
That’s what is funny, I am drawn to the idea of decentralized federation as a capitalist because I don’t want stuff controlled by the government.
I mean maybe you should leave lemmy if you can’t handle differing opinions. Reddit would love to have you.
I can handle differing opinions just fine, I left Reddit and will not be returning.
Capitalism has been evil for a long while I would say, and this has been written about for a long while now.
Capitalism has never been evil, people have been evil. Yes, that has been written about for a long time, but it seems like Lemmy has gone off the rails recently
Look at the state of the world right now. It’s pretty bleak - capitalism is the cause of all of this. It had its good days, sure, but in the end capitalism + greed has ruined it for everyone.
You are very much incorrect there, capitalism isn’t the cause of any bleakness you may be seeing. Greed and more importantly cronyism in the government is the real issue
Capitalism allows there to be a wealthy, ruling class that can ruin the world with their greed.
capitalism isn’t the cause of any bleakness you may be seeing.
Bullcrap.
Greed and more importantly cronyism in the government is the real issue
Greed and cronyism which is directly incentivised and rewarded under capitalism.
Apparently one of the instances is extremely pro communism.
Even though communism has been proven historically to be detrimental by nearly every metric. Detrimental economically, detrimental environmentally, detrimental socially, and very much against basic human rights.
The pro-communists call normal people the extremists
Well they can move to Russia and check out the result of the USSR experiment.
Not every criticism of capitalism is communism.
But also, is it any wonder that a platform built without a profit incentive and centred around the concepts of mutual voluntary interaction rather than hierarchical control would attract a more anti-capitalist userbase?
I’m generally baffled that an anti-capitalist user base even exists to be attracted at all.
Having criticism is one thing, but this thread just reads like State Propoganda from the CCCP
And I’m genuinely baffled that anyone can still support modern day capitalism, given the state of the world.
Sure thing, man
I mean no way are you better off than cavemen, hunter getherers, Cubans, Venezuelans, 1940’s Germany or the old USSR.
Medieval England, would you rather live there than here?
Where is this non-capitalist utopia that you’re thinking of when you’re saying this?
I just don’t make the mistake of attributing every advancement of human living conditions to capitalism, all while conveniently omitting all of the horrible conditions capitalism also creates.
Let me just explain something very simple here. The base state of man is suffering.
That’s our default. That’s how living works.
What our system has done is alleviate so much of that base suffering that now, we are so incredibly unused to any real suffering that we just make up things to be ‘hurt’ over.
Capitalism has removed almost all of that base suffering from your life. The ‘horrible conditions’ capitalism ‘creates’ is simply handing you much much too cushy of a life.
I mean, who had time to be offended when you’re too busy trying not to starve to death, hiding in the bushes with a spear, hoping a rabbits gonna run by.
I love hearing this delusional thinking. “we actually shouldn’t complain about anything, we only complain because we have it better! So if things got even betterer, we would complain morer!! Get it?”
If you’re so into suffering, why do you want to involve everyone else in it? We want a better world. No one will force you to live happily.
Let me just explain something very simple here.
No. Sod off with your “explanation” you condescending prick.
Literally just doing the thing I mentioned in my last comment, making “the mistake of attributing every advancement of human living conditions to capitalism, all while conveniently omitting all of the horrible conditions capitalism also creates.”
You’re just parroting Thomas Hobbes uncritically
Listen to some other philisophers
I’m sorry what do you think happened before capitalism existed? Do you think that all Indigenous peoples were struggling to survive before white colonists came and enslaved them? Capitalism has created suffering around the globe.
Everything you’re spouting as a gift from capitalism is exactly what capitalism has taught you to say in its defence.
Look, I’m from Hong Kong, and I despise the CCP.
This is nowhere near anything like the CCP.
I love how the mere idea of thinking about a better world away from capitalism immediately says “communism!” to you people, and you don’t see the irony of it
It’s pretty obvious by the language you’re using that you’re a communist ‘selling your time to capitalists’ isn’t really very subtle
It’s called “describing the reality of capitalist economy” not “being a communist”
The reality of capitalist economies has turned out to be: Living in the freest and richest nations the world has ever seen. If you’re too hot you can set the thermostat to cool down and if you’re too cold you can just turn the heat up.
You have ample choices for food, leisure and activity. More than anyone else has ever had in all of human history.
You only need to work a fraction of an hour for a meal, instead of all day long (and often working for days on end and not ever bringing home anything to eat)
You’re the most comfortable any human has ever been. Surviving is so easy for you, you feel the need to complain that ITS NOT EASY ENOUGH.
Tell everyone you’ve never had to experience hardship without telling everyone you’ve never had to experience hardship.
Millions of Americans have to choose between feeding themselves and housing themselves. You are hardly the “freest” country, haha. Richest? Sure just like every other wealthy country, the vast majority of the wealth is held by the people who tell you how to live your life.
Get a grip pal.
What’s your expectation? You want to be the richest man in the world? Do you want everyone to be equivalent to the richest man in the world?
You’re not making any sense. We all experience hardship.
I’m not American, but what I’m talking about applies to Americans, or anyone in a wealthy western country.
The poverty of western countries isn’t even real poverty. What looks poor to you and I is luxurious to true poverty, or to our ancestors.
What’s your expectation? You want to be the richest man in the world?
The fact that you are asking this as an absurd question while not recognizing this is exactly the false prize capitalism promises everybody is kind of incredible.
What’s the line? “No one is America is poor. They’re just temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Which is why some of the lowest earners in our country still somehow think Elon Musk pays too much in taxes.
If you’re too hot you can set the thermostat to cool down and if you’re too cold you can just turn the heat up.
I sure am thankful for HVAC technology, and the development of science and human technology in general that has been happening since way before capitalism.
You have ample choices for food
I love the agricultural revolution from hundreds of thousands of years ago! And tractors.
You only need to work a fraction of an hour for a meal, instead of all day long
Okay now, pre-industrial societies did not work an entire day for a single meal lmao. That’s something you’d see in capitalism or slavery. The vast majority of human history did not involve that much work.
You’re the most comfortable any human has ever been.
Thanks for technological advancements and not-capitalism!
. Surviving is so easy for you, you feel the need to complain that ITS NOT EASY ENOUGH.
What a boomer statement lmao. Isn’t it ironic that you complain about other people critiquing society, and lash out in caps lock? What if I told you that people have critiqued society since antiquity? I highly recommend you pick up a book. You’ll learn something or two!
Just a heads up you are both discussing in bad faith and neither of you will make any strides with the other.
You can summarize my argument in two:
- no, these things are not attributed to capitalism. They were not a direct cause of capitalism. They occurred during capitalism (and some did before).
- complaining about people complaining about society is not even an argument worth responding to, let alone arguing it’s some recent phenomenon when you can easily verify it has happened for as long as we’ve had writing.
Those advances were not created by capitalism.
They were created during capitalism. Huge difference.
Slavery didn’t create agriculture.
Feudalism didn’t create brickwork.
Well let’s just say that none of these things were created during communism
…and? That’s kind of pointless to say. We’re living under capitalism, so of course it happened under capitalism. It can’t magically happen under communism if we’re not living in communism, can it?
Also, while not communist (though nominally aimed towards it), elsewhere in the world, socialist governments definitely managed to achieve incredible feats of modernisation in starkly short amounts of time. Both China and the USSR went from mainly peasant farmers to industrial giants in mere decades.
People work and create because it’s what humans do, under any economic system. What changes is who it’s made for and who profits. Under capitalism, it’s made for capitalists to profit them. Under communism, it’s made for fellow workers to profit the workers.
Let’s not be confused here. Specialization is what allows for free time. If everyone has to farm and hunt, that’s all you’d do. Specialization is a good thing for humanity and diverse institutions and industries to arise.
Wish I could upvote this 10x
There’s no efficiency while we’re supporting a welfare class of bourgeoisie.
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actually, hunter-gatherer communities ‘work’ significantly less time than we do in our corporate jobs. farming is a different story: here’s one study: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190520115646.htm
I remember reading in The Mating Mind that since hunter gatherer societies long ago had more leisure time, they could spend it socializing, and growing their brain.
That would then mean we would have to support the entire food supply on hunting rather than farming for this to be true, so basically 90% of the population would have to die
Are you thinking that OP is proposing we go back to hunting? I can guarantee that is not what was meant here.
He basically is, he states that I hunter gathering societies that much less work was done, but significantly more in farming societies as a response to another poster saying specialization and careers are a significant contributor to the free time we do have. If he’s not suggesting a hunting society is better I don’t know what the point of his comment is.
They also have sky high infant mortality rates
Is it because they work less, or is it possibly because our technology, sanitary practices, medical expertise and ability to treat diseases based on thousands of years of trials far exceeds there?
I bet it’s because they worked less.
You can read that study and see that it only represents one instance where hunter gathers were more efficient than farmers in the same region. You cant use that to say to our current system is less efficient. I hate pop science so much its unreal.
It’s also pretty evident that we could not sustain the current population on preindustrial farming let alone hunter gathering.
How about this then?
https://www.ft.com/content/dd71dc3-4566-48e0-a1d9-3e8bd2b3f60f
Yup. Hunter gatherers has a lot of free time. Honestly, I think it was pretty swell, except for lack of medical ability perhaps.
Yes, but if we only have to work on our specializations for 16 hours a week each instead of 40+, we would have a lot more time for other good stuff, whether it’s personal development, supporting other specialists, or just hanging out.
i’ve worked for 20h/w and 40h/w. i think 30/32 is a good balance
People are entitled to their preferences. They should also be entitled to overtime after some amount of hours per week that’s lower than forty, I think whatever it takes to bring the rate of unemployment to practically zero.
Typically when unemployment is around 4 percent, that is everyone working that wants to work. The 4 percent is people between jobs and people that are kind of looking for work but not in a rush to work. It difficult to be under that number.
In other words we are often at a point where unemployment is at zero. 4 percent being zero.
I understand and kind of agree with the idea that there is some small amount of unemployment that is practically unavoidable, however, I’m not sure that 4% is it. Per the latest US employment report, we’re at 3.8%. So, it seems like we should set the limbo bar lower than 4%.
That report also breaks down the unemployment rate by demographic and it seems to vary significantly between groups. To say that we are at full employment when blacks and hispanics have about 2% greater unemployment than whites and asians seems incorrect. The minimum practical unemployment rate for all of these groups should be the same. So, if we’re going to adjust OT in order to help achieve full employment, we should be looking at the unemployment rate for the most unemployed race/gender group.
There are also of course problems with how unemployment is measured and calculated, but I suppose that’s a little besides the point.
Regionally there will always be variances. Take Chicago and the loss of the auto industry. It took 25 (???) years for that to clean out. There was nothing to replace it rapidly so either people needed to move or they waited it out till new business evolved. Areas like that will skew the average higher. Maybe you could get an extra percentage nationally but I would say it is pretty close to zero at the moment.
Think about if you had a flat tire in your car. You go to get another tire to replace the one with a hole in it.
But the tire factory only manufactures 300 tires a day. Because they only have a handful of employees who feel like making tires and they only really want to work around 10 hours a week.
Now tires are pretty rare. And that means they are difficult to find. Also, rarity is a supply and demand thing, so now tires are also incredibly expensive. People want a lot of them, but the tire manufacturing plant doesn’t make enough.
Oh, and while you were inside the shop being surprised at the 22 month wait for your replacement tire, and the $3,500 price tag for just the single tire, the other 3 tires were stolen off your car in the parking lot.
Cause people don’t want to pay those prices, or wait that amount of time, which has lead to a massive car tire black market
World War II is a working example of your hypothetical. The country (USA*) had to ration food, shoes, metal, paper, and rubber - so therefore even tires - to name a few. This all happened under capitalism. The country complied and to even make up for the loss of product women joined the workforce - i.e. Rosie the Riveter. I’m not trying to get into an argument but I wanted to point out your example already came and went and the country responded as it would under either economic system.
First of all, I will start with saying that this is a highly unlikely scenario, because modern technology already allows us way way more tires that we need with a fraction of the labor time we put. But let us assume not and entertain this a bit.
This is a perfect example where members of society will find themselves in a situation where there is a big need for tires that is not being met. Instead of hand wavingly complaining and hoping the government or corporations ramp up production, we remember we don’t live under capitalism anymore. We are masters of our own destiny! society is now oriented around human need and wants, not profits! Our prime motivation for working is not to please capitalists in exchange for earning enough to live and a little more. It is to serve the interests of ourselves and our communities, and this is a prime example of a need of ourselves and communities.
So because we are unhappy with the state of tires, we decide to contribute more of the large amount of free time we have to produce more tires (and you only need a tiny fraction of humanity to do this. Consider how many people work in the tire industry right now). The fluidity afforded to us by having both free time and the control over production is a lot greater than you think. We do not even have to imagine this. Many historical civilizations did this already. We can only do better because technology grants us a million times the ability they had to produce.
Historical civilizations were not producing tires or any goods for that matter at industrial scales, so that comparison is useless. If you think that the only reason profit motives exist today is to “please capitalists”, you need to do some more reading into how the industrial economy works.
We only got to producing more advanced things like tires because of how technology made things so much easier to produce with a fraction of the labor time. This is a continuing trend in history.
And yes I do think that society is oriented around profits (and pleasing capitalists, which happens by producing profits. I find it ironic that you chose this truism to argue against lmao). I hope you don’t expect a response to that second part, because it is not argument and not worth responding to.
People would use public transport a lot more. Resulting in much better infrastructure.
Why do we need tire factories working employees 40+ hours a week to make enough tires for everyone? Just hire enough workers so that they all have enough time for a life outside of work. Maybe with a little bit of central planning, we could also reduce the demand for tires by figuring out how to get people to drive less.
Central planning has not been a real benefit to countries that employ it heavily. You just need to look at China, Venezuela, USSR to see the results of current and past ones. It is pretty much a joke.
Considering where they started or what they’re up against, the countries you mentioned do (or did, in the case of the USSR) incredibly well.
Bullshit. The USSR was a house of cards by then end. If it was doing at all well, it would still exist. It same as you stopping all maintenance on your house, car, not buying any cloth for years. Ya you can live well for some time but eventually your car breaks, your house starts to leak and you look like shit.
The USSR may have been able to survive a few more years but the longer they tried that model, the worse off each person would have been and the more unstable they would have become.
You do understand what an analogy used for the purpose of illustrating a point is, right?
What is it with people and being literal to the point of making a conversation painful?
I could explain all of your questions for you, but it takes a lot of groundwork laying that you should have probably picked up on your own by now, and at least a little bit from the education system.
Is all they teach you in school how great Karl Marx is? Did you learn how businesses operate? Assets, liabilities, profit margins, overhead, OSHA, etc?
C-level executives usually set an operational budget per business department. There is a labour budget included in that. It’s a managers duty to use that budget to fill out the labour needs of the business, based on sales and sales forecasts and any other upcoming business changes.
It’s not really as easy as ‘just hire everyone who walks in the door and don’t enforce any attendance policies, if they want to work they’ll show up. Sure, some days we will have more than we need, and other days we won’t have enough, but if the communities needs more tires, I’m sure they’ll just come in and do the right thing.’
Seriously, have you ever had to depend on someone doing their job before? I’m guessing not.
Anyway, we aren’t really talking about societies need for tires, we are talking about capitalism
You do understand what an analogy used for the purpose of illustrating a point is, right?
Yes, we all get that. Not sure what you gain from saying that. It good mental exercise to accept the modifications people make to your anology. Otherwise, we’re not “thinking together”.
It is the prerogative of the “C-level executives” to maximize the rate of exploitation on behalf of the bourgeoisie. When the working class eventually takes power from the bourgeoisie, that prerogative becomes obsolete (and so do those parasitic executives). Instead of utilizing improvements in productivity to increase the wealth going to the bourgeoisie, they can instead be used to improve the well-being of the working class.
So, if it turns out that we really need more tires, or whatever fits your analogy, then we’ll just make more tires. However, the wealth that would have been syphoned off to the idle owner class and their lackeys will instead stay under the control of the workers. Therefore, as the revolution progresses, the workers will gain more and more time, energy, and opportunity for individual and communal fulfillment.
Omg, bro don’t spout this communist manifesto shit at me please!
And to the second part “then we’ll just make more tires” is where the devil is in the details. How is that organized? How is that, more importantly, enforced?
You can’t just “bourgeoisie” and the. “We’ll just make more” and skirt off into the sunset. How will we, how exactly will we, make more tires?
Like really dive in here, because this is where the rubber meets the road. How do we ‘just make more’? Where do the workers come from? How do they know we even need to make more tires? Who tells them? And what happens if …. No one shows up to make any more tires?
What if everyone is too busy hiking, or learning a new language, or doing art or writing great novels to make more tires?
This is quite an in depth solution to sortof what you’re talking about
https://www.thevenusproject.com/
It really only covers making sure people are fed, housed and watered. Personally I think cars are a pain in the arse, I’d rather run or cycle everywhere, but then that’s not everybody. If you really liked them, and you were fed, housed and watered, you’d definitely have time to look at building or contributing to building one, assuming people don’t tell you to fuck off because it’s a noisy, smelly death trap…
Unfortunately, the likelihood would be that a lot of people couldn’t handle being in the same kind of housing as everyone else, because they believe they’re special. But logically this makes much more sense that what we’re currently doing. Capitalism is extremely wasteful.
And before you say, well you’d never get people to agree to this. I think the tankies/fascists have solutions to that problem, you’re just encouraging them…
If you really want to dive in then just go and read Capital. Otherwise, the short and sweet of it is that it would really be up to the workers. The particular solutions will probably vary depending on the industry, location, the status of the revolution and whatnot, but it might involve combinations of time banks, computer AIs, human engineers just doing the math, and/or even some forms of markets and price signals.
Not everyone has to farm and hunt. It was more than 200,000 years ago that humanity figured out how not to get all of us to farm and hunt, way before capitalism ever was a thing.
Speicalization in the context I used does not mean “be an expert at a thing”. It means “Spend most of your time doing just that one thing”. I can see why you were confused, I think my use of “pigeon-holed” was probably better than specializetion.
But the same result would occur in socialism. Even communism. I don’t know what you expect to happen in any societal economic structure that would suddenly give you the freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want. Jobs existed the same way all the way back then as they do now. And that was the birth of capitalism, not before it. Most didn’t own their land. It belonged to a king or emperor. Sure there are exceptions and caveats, but to say capitalism didn’t exist back then isn’t accurate. Capitalism isn’t bad. It’s how it’s implemented that makes it awful. I think we need to migrate to socialism via capitalism. But it requires winning of the minds of the populace and that won’t happen until folks have an accurate understanding of both capitalism and whatever system you want them to transition to. I don’t even know what system you’re supporting with your question. It sounds like you’re trying to describe some sort of star trek utopia that supposedly is advanced beyond economic systems (yet how many episodes revolved around trade deals between planets and races… but I digress).
Jobs existed the same way all the way back then as they do now.
Are you arguing that ancient societies had “jobs”, and in the same way that we do nowadays? I don’t intend to be rude (and sorry if I come off that way), but a simple Google search will tell you that’s false, but I’d be glad to cite you exact resources as well.
And that was the birth of capitalism
While the exact beginning of capitalism may be a subject of a little debate, no expert on the matter believes it goes that far back. Again, simple Google search reveals it, and I’ll be glad to cite you resources if you want.
Most didn’t own their land. It belonged to a king or emperor.
This wasn’t always true. There was a time that preceded class society. And not all class society is capitalism.
but to say capitalism didn’t exist back then isn’t accurate.
It is the scientific consensus that it did not.
I think we need to migrate to socialism via capitalism
Not sure what you mean here. Can you please elaborate?
whatever system you want them to transition to
It is simple. Instead of orienting society around profits and capital, we orient it around bettering the human condition. Instead of working our days to generate more profit for capitalists in exchange for money to buy necessities, we work to serve our interests and our own communities. So much wasted labor is suddenly removed.
Specialization has always been a thing. Probably more so before. A carpenter wouldn’t just wake up and “nah, I’d rather work with pottery today”. The carpenter probably became a carpenter because their parents passed on their carpentering skills to them, so that’s what they do until they die.
I think you misunderstood my comment. I was saying that maybe my use of specialization is incorrect here.
Hi Mr Smith, another loaf of your god awful bread please.
Money was invented before written history began.[1][2] Consequently, any story of how money first developed is mostly based on conjecture and logical inference.
We don’t actually know when money started so it’s hard to say.
But even before money the person with more stuff could acquire more stuff through barter. Even if they weren’t using money it’s still basically capitalism.
The invention of currency basically just introduced universal fungibility to a communities barter system by adding 1 additional step.
It’s a good step. You need something else to trade if the guy that raises chickens needs medicine and the pharmacist doesn’t want chicken products.
Barter being the predecessor of money is actually false, and has never been supported with sufficient evidence.
From what anthropology tells us, money was introduced by force, not by a natural tendency for humans to barter, and wanting a better way to do it.
And no, that isn’t “basically capitalism”. No “capital” involved here in the sense of capitalism.
Yes we do, money started around temple societies in the fertile crescent to control people and keep them centrally located.
Also, there is no known historical example of a purely barter economy. What’s known now is everything tended to work on an informal gift/reputation economy.
Until money came along, was typically forced upon people, and then if the money system failed, people fell back to a barter system. Neither money or barter are natural for the vast majority of human time and society
Yeah, OPs got the spirit but misses the point. We are being pressured to sell our time at a minimum of 40 hours every week. It’s thanks to specialization (and the technology that developed from it) that this quantity of of time is grossly over-allocated. Trade and travel allowed people to create better products in less time, so people were no longer very literally working to live, day-in, day-out. Unfortunately wages are kept low, wealth is kept centralized and culture continues to place value on excess so that we’re continually convinced that we “have” to work as many hours as we can find.
I don’t understand what you think I missed. When I said “specialization”, I meant the idea of just doing one thing and one thing only as a “career”. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t specialize or that people won’t. But if I specialize in construction labor, with the extra time awarded to me I could also participate in design if I wanted.
Im fortunate. I love my career. I’ve been doing since I was 12 what I do for a living now at 39. I’d still do what I do if income were a non-issue.
With that being said, I’d probably only do it three days/week or so, being able to pick a more realistic balance between productivity and burnout would be great. I’d also spend that time making something I want, for me, rather than doing what I’m told. I feel like that’s significant here as well.
What would you when you get in this undefined yet not capitalist utopia and are forced to work long hours at a job you didn’t choose to help further the cause of the revolution?
