On Wed, 17 Sep 2003, Chuck0 wrote:
> Let me explain this another way. Leftists have been going on ad
> infinitum for centuries about the need for workers to "seize the means
> of production." What if they did that, decided they didn't want to work
> in factories and offices anymre, and went home to live differently? Who
> is going to compel them to go back to work in a factory or some office?
> What are you going to do if a significant amount of the world's
> population decides that they don't want to work shitty jobs anymore? In
> a society of free people, how are you going to find volunteers to run
> the plastics manufacturing plant?
>
> Chuck0
I don't get why this seems so implausible to Chuck. I don't think there would be any problem producing and distributing "high" tech in a socialist world. Here's my (personal) take on this: when my daughter was born, her kidneys didn't function. She was in intensive care for six weeks. Most of the equipment that kept her alive--the ventilator, the IV tubes, the peritoneal dialysis equipment--was made out of plastic. She is now a happy 13-year old girl who watches (too much?) Court TV and wants to get A's in junior high so she can be a lawyer when she grows up.
If you said to me, look, you can do a shift a week in the plastics factory to produce the equipment that saved your daughter, or we can shut down the factory and other infants with kidney problems will die, you wouldn't need to strong arm me. I'd be there. So would everyone else in my family.
Why is it so hard to believe that people will want to do things for the common good, especially when they see the positive results in their own lives? Is our conception of human nature so stunted by the capitalist ideology of self-interested individuals that leftists can't imagine how people would be happy and willing to work for the benefit of one another?
Miles