The socialist division of labor (was Re: Mommy, what's an intellectual?)

[Michael McIntyre]

>>> furuhashi.1 at osu.edu 07/09/01 03:14PM >>>
>>"Suggests" is incorrect.  If one constructs a meaningful
>>category of intellectuals, perforce there must as well be a
>>non-empty category of non- or unintellectuals, who presumably
>>do not do or cannot do the things intellectuals do.  But what
>>do intellectuals do that other kinds of people don't do?
>
>Oh, puleeze. Intellectuals read, write, and interpret difficult 
>abstract concepts in disciplines requiring special training and long 
>study. Most people read, write, and interpret something or other, 
>but that no more makes them intellectuals than the fact that I 
>occassionally knowck together a few shelves makes me a carpenter. 
>The fact that my sister, a journeyman carpenter, reads a book or 
>writes an email now and then doesn't make her an intellectual; she 
>would bew as helpless placed in front of Rawls or Adorno as I would 
>be if you told me to hang a door. I am not saying that one is better 
>than other. Carpentry is also a discipline requiring study and 
>training, which I aint got. Btw, most professors and professionals 
>are not intellectuals, if that is supposed to mean persons of wide 
>culture. Most philosophy, law, and political science profs I know 
>(to take the disciplines I knnow best) are narrow technicians. --jks

I boils down to questions concerning the division of labor.  I think 
the division of labor is here to stay even if we get around to 
establishing socialism, though that is a thought unacceptable to some 
LBO-talkers.

Yoshie

How about "a" division of labor?  If one of the aims of socialism is to foster the development of persons-rich-in-needs and if those needs are met not by consumption but by the actualization of powers, then of necessity the amount of time spent at paid labor would have to decrease and the amount of time spent at (unconstrained) work would increase.  (Modified market socialism here.  The sphere of necessity/exchange never goes away, but it becomes a smaller part of our lives).  One can still imagine a division of labor within the realm of freedom (I play viola and you play cello in our quartet), but its purpose is no longer to maximize production.  And if intellectual work at its best is really as wonderful as some of us have convinced ourselves that it can be, then lots of people will do intellectual work without, for all that, ever "being" intellectuals.  Or for that matter (we hope) "narrow technicians" (ouch!).

Michael McIntyre