>
> > Distasteful work will still have to be done and peoples' social
>obligations
> > will still have to be met.
>
>I never argued that distasteful work will be avoided. However, there is
>a difference between alienated work that only serves to create profit
>and shitty work that people need to do to live. Cleaning a toilet can be
>distasteful work for many people. Working in a cubicle or factory is
>alienating for most people.
>
>Isn't this like basic Marxist and socialist theory?
>
Right. I agree that if we could get rid of classes and class exploitation, we might be able to reorganize work, including much work that is now organized as it is mainly to maximize extraction of surplus value, in a way that is more pleasant for people. I say _may_, because the empirical evidence is unclear. Greenberg's work on cooperatives makes the rather striking point that workers in US cooperatives (mainly lumber coops on the west coast) like their coops well enough, but aren't significantly less alienated than workers in conventional capitalist firms. Likewise in Mondragon, the organization of work is pretty conventional. Still: maybe we could make work better. I hope so.
Nonetheless the point remains, even if work is fairly pleasnt, many people would rather be doing something else less demanding, and if this is tolerated and encouraged, it would undermine a socialist society by creating widespread resentment at exploitation by goofoffs and shirters. No doubt that is a better sort of exploitation to worry about that exploitation by bosses, since the bosses have power over you, but you, potentionally, have power over the shirkers and goofoffs. That doesn't mean, howeve, that the second type of exploitation should be countenanced. It isn't right and it isn't prudent.
jks
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