>Whether one puts in socially necessary labour time in
>or not is up to them in a grassroots democracy. In
>other words, the freedom to starve would not be taken
>away in a communist society.
That's big of you. ;-) Isn't exactly the sort of freedom that many people aspire to though. ******************************************************
If they did, I'd really be in despair.
*********
>I figure that it wouldn't be too much time out of
>one's life anyway to put in your fair share of skill
>and time, as the productive capacity which has been
>reach already under the dictatorship of the
capitalist
>class is quite sufficient and I'm confident that we
>can improve on it and reduce snlt even more.
It isn't the improvement of the *productive* capacity I'm worried about, but the intellectual capacity. ******* I'm convinced that free-time, which is built on overcoming the necessities associated with drudge work--can provide the space to expand the intellect.
******* Socialism might only be the next step in the career of humanity, rather than the end of history. *********
Agreed. I reckon that the only way history will end is if humans let capitalism go on until the race self-destructs.
****
>If critiques of political-economy and philosophical
>speculation are your "thangs", then I don't see why
>one couldn't do them either in the academy, teaching
>others or by writing books--both socially necessary.
>And if you're not up to snuff, you can do them in
your
>own time, which should be quite sufficient--ah for
the
>two hour day.
The two hour day is somewhat dependent, it seems to me, on eliminating all the useless and degrading work, such as the work of determining who should be entitled to exemption from work and enforcing laws which protect society against those who refuse to knuckle under to political rules. ************
We can capture a lot of free-time from eliminating work which we do now to make other people wealthy or to keep their inefficient system running. The way I see it, anyone who is able to make a contribution to the still existing, socially necessary work, should do so or go off by themselves and make their own way in the world. Part of what makes socialims attractive to me is throwing the parasitic ruling class and their useless wage-slave drivers off my back.
************** If a 'socialist' society (and I put the term in inverted commas deliberately in this context) is going to maintain an army of bureaucrats to enforce the perpetuation of the capitalist work ethic, then this will I believe require us to all work longer hours to compensate for all this wasted effort. **********
Agreed. Grassroots democracy is the opposite of bureaucratic rule from above. Co:ordinators welcome--bureaucrats can go hang themselves from the guts of the last capitalists as far as I'm concerned.
********
>Poor Marx spent half his life time scrambling around
>for the odd coin or two which Engels didn't
generously
>pass along. Nobody paid him to write CAPITAL. I
>suspect that he did make a buck or a pound or two
from
>sales later but nothing compared to his efforts.
Mike, I don't know when I'll ever be able to get back over to WA. Just missed being there at the same time as you last time. I'd love to get there again, even if it didn't give me the chance to meet up with you. That would be the icing on the cake though, for sure *******
I'll drink to that--at the Brass Monkey. We can invite Grant and have ourselves a commie rant-fest well into the wee hours. ********
My retort, somewhat drunken I suspect, would be: "What the hell kind of society is it you are suggesting, that someone like Marx should be expected to do his *real* work in his spare time for fuck's sake?" *************
How about working two hours on the reference desk at the University of Western Australia each week. The rest is his 'spare' or free-time to do with as he pleases.
"Sehr gut!", says a muffled voice from Highgate.
********** You can say it was his suggestion, I don't know how true that is. I'm not much of a Marx scholar, but from my point of view it isn't consistent with the logical extension of his work. But maybe you're right about it. I don't care, if you are right then he was wrong. ********
No comment......
********* Incidentally, I might be visiting Adelaide in November to go to a conference on social housing. You ever been there?
*********
Nope and right now, I'm so poor, I wonder whether I'll be able to put $20 AUD worth of petrol in the tank for next week's chores.
See you someday, Mike B)
===== ***************************************************************** "--why do you slack your fighting-fury now? It's hard for me, strong as I am, single-handed to breach the wall and cut a path to the ships--come, shoulder-to-shoulder! The more we've got, the better the work will go!"
One of Sarpedon's speeches in THE ILIAD--The Trojans storm the rampart http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal
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