[lbo-talk] To each according to work

[Seth Ackerman]

Bill Bartlett wrote:
> 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, I have a question for you. You seem to believe that if work needs 
to be done, there will automatically be someone who wants to do it by 
virtue of the very fact that it needs doing.

Ok, let's take someone who lives alone. He has a set of chores he needs 
to do in order to have the kind of life he wants. These are things that 
need doing. By your lights, he ought to enjoy every one of these tasks 
for the sole reason that they need to be done. Yet empirically, that 
just isn't the case. Millions of people in the world live alone and in 
general they hate doing many of the chores that they do. These chores, 
no matter how much the individuals concerned would like it to be 
otherwise, are not "rewards unto themselves." How do you explain this 
unfathomable anomaly?

Seth