>Bill,
>What do you mean by "everyone does their own grubby
>work"? I'm talking about work like road-building,
>serving in the military, what orderlies do in
>hospitals, etc.
All I'm trying to get at is that things might have to change in a socialist society. As a broad principle, the social organisation of work would need to accommodate what people are willing to do, rather than designing a social system based on what we want people to do and then making us fit that model.
A socialist economic system must serve people, not the other way around.
If few people we willing to work at building roads, then we would simply have less roads and society has to organise around that fact. If not enough people are willing to work as hospital orderlies (whatever that is, I will presume it is some kind of hospital support worker who cleans or cooks or changes bed linen or something) then patients and their families might have to help out a bit. I really don't see any problem with that, most of us can do their own shit work and a social system where they don't have to because the system conscripts others to do your shit work for you isn't worthy of being called "socialism".
Mind you, in all probability there would be enough people willing to do shit work voluntarily most of the time. There is today, under capitalism, so it seems likely that people aren't going to suddenly become more selfish under a socialist system. But no doubt either that there would be exceptions and to me that suggests that the job itself needs to be abolished, not that someone needs to be forced to do the job.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas