Please note that Bill didges the question John raises and I was discussing, that some able bodied people should be permitted to do _nothing_ -- not good work, not bad work, just goofing off -- while enjoying the benefits created by those who do work. John doesn't believe there are such people. Maybe Bill doesn't either. I don't think they get out and around enough.
In some rough and ready way, people should me made to share the benefits ands burdens of social life on terms they find mutually acceptable. That means that no one who can work gets to goof off at other's expense -- that is exploitation. It means that unpleasant work or qualitatively similar burdens should be distributed fairly.
Likewise pleasant work. That's not equal expoloitation because people don't benefit unfairly at the expense of others. It does mean that we all end up doing stuff we'd rather not, all things considered. We should all have roughly equally unpleasant lives. Also roughly equally pleasant lives. (Call that Calvinist if you like. I'm Jewish, actually.) What's the alternative, that some of us have really pleasant lives at the expense of others, who have really ubpleasant lives?
So, yes, just distribution of suffering is an issue. It requires rules that are enforceableable, what Bill calls "slavery," apparently failing to grasp that slavery as a social state involved chattel ownertship and social death, where I am just talking about fair distribution of sufferiung and pleasantness backed by enforceable rules -- by coercion.
So, I don't think we can by happy happy happy all the time. We can be a lot happier than we are. We don't have to put up with all the shit we do. But mixed in with the incresaed happiness there will still be drudgery, suffering, pain (of an unpleasant sort), tedium, boredom, dangerous and dirty work. We can minimize it, but it's stupid to think it can be made to disappear and idiotic to think we can be brainwashed into loving it like hapopy peasants in the Cultural Revolution. We just have to distribute the good and and nad stuff fairly -- that will will make us happier. It will require coercing the lazy. That is better than exploiting the industrious, provoking resentment, and smashing solidarity.
--- On Fri, 4/18/08, Bill Bartlett <billbartlett at aapt.net.au> wrote:
> From: Bill Bartlett <billbartlett at aapt.net.au>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] To each according to work
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Friday, April 18, 2008, 11:00 PM
> At 6:47 PM -0700 18/4/08, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> >Why? Those who can't work, I can see that. I can
> see an expanded
> >definition of work to cover nontraditional categories
> of labor. I
> >can see a minimum income so nobody starves, however
> lazy and
> >unproductive they may be.
> >
> >But if someone wants to sit on the beach and read John
> Grisham while
> >I take out the garbage and clean up after dinner,
> that's not fair or
> >reasonable if he gets, in addition to that, the same
> material
> >benefits as those who assume the burdens of necessary
> labor.
> >
> >Why should he get equal benefits? He's enjoyed the
> benefits of
> >amusing himself while I have undertaken the burden of
> doing
> >something necessary and unpleasant. Why should he get
> everything
> >that I get? Hasn't he already got his?
>
> It sounds to me as if it isn't so much that you have a
> problem with
> someone being unproductive, as you have a problem with
> someone not
> suffering unpleasantness? You assume work has to be
> unpleasant,
> therefor people have to be compelled to do it. And those
> who won't be
> compelled should be made to suffer, so that they don't
> put the
> obedient slave at a disadvantage to the disobedient slave.
>
> But how are you going to deal with those bastards who
> actually enjoy
> their work? It isn't fair, perhaps they should be
> forced to sit on
> the beach, do you think? That way they will suffer as much
> as the
> person compelled to do the work he hates.
>
> >Isn't it in fact exploiting me to say, OK, now we
> all get equal (I
> >simplify) shares, John, and Justin alike? But but, I
> squawk. Now
> >now, John says, We are socialists here. Guess who's
> gonna do the
> >garbage and the dishes next time? Not moi. Short
> sighted? I don't
> >think it is me who is being short sighted.
>
> You want everyone to have equally unpleasant lives, you
> want everyone
> to be exploited equally? Is that it? Well I am trying to be
>
> charitable, but it does seem short-sighted, yes.
>
> Given that people who enjoy what they do are more
> productive by far,
> might it not be better for everyone if people were given a
> bit of
> economic freedom? I know the wowser Calvinists will hate
> the idea of
> anyone actually enjoying life, I know some people think
> that everyone
> is put on earth to suffer, and perhaps that is an ideal
> philosophy
> for people for whom there there are no other options
> anyhow. But it
> isn't much use as a philosophy for a prosperous and
> free people.
>
> In a nutshell, instead of assuming that all work has to be
> unpleasant
> and people have to be compelled to endure it, why not
> assume that
> productive labour can and should be made pleasant and be a
> reward
> unto itself? Then everyone can be happy, rather than
> everyone be
> miserable. It that such a vile concept? It is to the
> Calvinist of
> course, but that philosophy is the problem.
>
> Bill Bartlett
> Bracknell Tas
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ