>How are people monitored? I dunno what others would say, but maybe the
>same way I am monitored at work. By my coworkers.
Not if you don't turn up for work they won't. It is useless pretending that monitoring and policing is a voluntary and egalitarian process. I may not have had a job for some time, but I think it still works the same.
> The same goes for waitresses who leave their sidework for
>me to do when I close for the night. People who slack off are warned,
>warned again, and fired. You know, just like in real life. My workplace
>is a little unusual in that management mostly stays out the way, but I
>think you get the idea.
Right. Management don't bother to check if people are turning up for work, they just pay their workers and stay out of the way do they? Nice work if you can get it, but hardly "real life".
> >But the notion is ill-conceived to begin with, the object of socialism is
>not to reduce the ruling class to >proletarians,
>
>Steve:
>
>i fail to see how BJCs do this
What's a "BJC"? Please don't speak in jargon.
> >but to make the proletariat as free as the present ruling class.
>
>Steve:
>
>BJCs, ideally, bring everyone up a notch (almost everyone, anyway), as you
>say you hope socialism would, but they don't make everyone "as free as the
>ruling class." Why? The freedom of the ruling class depends on the
>enslavement of everyone else. A trust fund baby with a billion dollars and
>a private jet is very "free," but how can you expect _any_ economic system,
>short of one that includes magic lamps, to grant total freedom to every
>person?
By "magic lamps" I deduce you mean a total absence of the need to do any work at all. However I'm not assuming there will be no need for productive work, I'm assuming there would be no need to coerce people to coerce people to do socially useful, by threats of starvation if they don't do what they're told. As I say, you presume the opposite, that people must be forced to work. This is the doctrine of the ruling class everywhere, their reason for existence.
However it simply isn't true. Let me give you an example, this is an El Nino year in Australia, most of the country is ravaged by bush-fires, threatening homes. property and lives in rural areas and even suburban fringes. Most of the people fighting those fires are from volunteer rural brigades. Almost all rural fire brigades are entirely staffed by volunteers, they get no pay, they are not conscripted or forced, they do it simply because it needs to be done. Some of them are rich farmers, some average workers, some are unemployed.
The work is of course not only unpleasant, (OK, I guess they get to play with fire engines and sirens at the regular training drills, that might be fun) but often quite dangerous and also disruptive. But thousands of people volunteer to do it and dedicate themselves to doing it in their spare time. Sometimes they even have to miss out on going to the footy. ;-) Why do they do it? According to your theory, they won't do it unless they are made to do it, but they do.
Your theory, the theory of the ruling class, is wrong. People don't need the whip applied to get them to do useful work. People will do work that they judge as socially useful, particularly if they perceive that their efforts are recognised and appreciated. That's all that is necessary.
Now there would probably be jobs that won't get done is a free society, a society where people are economically free and secure. Where the right to the means of life is not linked to what work one does. But You really have to ask yourself, if you can't find anyone to do a particular job, if no-one perceives that job as being socially useful enough to do it themselves, then maybe that unanimous verdict might be the correct one. Maybe the job really isn't valuable or worth doing. Like washing up other people's dishes at a restaurant, out of sight and out of mind. Maybe the diners ought to think about doing their own dishes?
At least they'd know they were cleaned properly.
But frankly, I think someone would do it. Unfortunately. There aren't many jobs that wouldn't get done. You'd probably even get people to keep coming to take away your rubbish, though you would need to be very polite and respectful about putting it out.
>To my mind, this is a choice between "wasting" training and wasting human
>beings. A life of dishwashing in some sense wastes a good part of the
>worker's potential for creative work. At the same time it does very real
>damage to his or her intelligence and physical as well as mental health.
I agree. Do away with the job.
> >First of all, I should think a person who is doing work they don't have
>any particular ,,motivation or aptitude for, will not be very productive.
>>
>
>I don't see how Parecon forces people into work they have no motivation or
>aptitude for any more than the present system does, in fact much less so.
I didn't say it forces people into work more than the present system does. But I don't see how it does that any less than the present system either.
>Unless you think that all those people pushing brooms 40, 50 hours a week
>have no motivation or aptitude, or potential aptitude, given access to
>education and job training.
An interesting question, but a diversion. You see, I am not defending the present system of using economic coercion to force people to do work they are not suited for, or is damaging to their physical and mental health. My problem is with any such system, including yours. Your main objection seems to be that not everyone is currently suffering equally. I want everyone free, you want no-one free. We are both egalitarian in our own way and neither of us apparently likes the current system. So please don't suggest that I'm in favour of it.
>
>>But I think perhaps the biggest inefficiency involved is the enormous
>inefficiency inherent in any system >that MAKES people do work.
>
>
>Where are the magic lamps? The armies of robot-slaves? I've heard these
>"workless" socialism theories before. They remind me of Objectivism in the
>way they treat all social obligations as slavery.
I have no idea what "Objectivism" is, perhaps you could explain. While you're at it, could you explain again why you think that no-one would be willing to lift a finger voluntarily? That seems to be the premise of your conclusion that without compulsion to work, everyone will stop work.
> > The burden of administration, monitoring and policing of such a system is
>enormous in purely efficiency
>>terms, never mind destructive in social terms.
>
>I would expect council democracy to cut management costs tremendously.
Now THAT's an interesting theory. Do you know anything about management costs in coercive systems? Dressing it up in "democracy" doesn't reduce costs, it increases costs. Democracy is not really compatible with coercion, because people subject to coercion are not in a position to exercise good judgement.
I've sat in housing co-op meetings where people have enthusiastically discussed ways to make new members pay higher rent to subsidise existing members. And worse things besides. Democracy is rule of the majority over the minority, at best. Its the best way of making many decisions that involve hard choices, but far from the best way of deciding who gets what, who must go without and who suffers how much.
If those decisions have to be made, the best way is to have a small clique of rulers decide. They will be selfish too of course, but at least they are a reasonably small burden. If a minority of the whole population has to support the burden of a ruling class composed of a vast majority of the population, that is an insupportable burden.
So basically what I'm saying is that democracy is a good way of deciding wider social issues, like what to produce and what are overall priorities. It is an excellent way of determining what's in the overall best interests, but a terrible way to decide which individuals should do with their lives.
You want to have a democratic vote on who is allowed to devote themselves to the arts? Or science. Einstein would have finished up cleaning toilets. People must have freedom if they are to realise their potential and if people can't realise their potential we will all be much poorer.
>1 We can't do away with division of labor unless we want to revert to
>subsistence farming.
I am not talking about reverting to subsistence farming, I am talking about doing away with this whole "service economy", where people expect to have servants take away their garbage, cook their meals, clean up after them, etc. You seem to presume it is actually necessary to have restaurants. It isn't. I'm not against them existing on the basis that people who want to provide such a service to others do so voluntarily, but I don't see that it is so essential a service that we must have labour conscription to keep it going.
>2 I'm talking about public toilets, not the toilets in your house.
But the same principle applies, the people who will presumably use the public toilets could take a few seconds to clean them. Why the hell is that particularly inefficient? Just leave to tools handy and someone will do it.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas