The unfairness that many people, enough to undermine a solidaristic system, will feel, is that some benefit at the expense of others without returning anything.
It doesn't make any difference if I'm responsible and fair and don't take advantage of my ability to exploit my fellows as they exploit me. I will still resent their exploiting me.
I think the key is, you think that's not a problem because on your conception of human nature, you think the problem just won't arise very much, most people will want to pitch in. I think that is overoptimistic. You worked on Habitat, that is commendable. I never said there weren't good people who go the extra mile. Did you notice that most of us didn't work on Habitat? Why does that fact that some people are willing to volunteer a refutation of the fact that there's going to be a problem if most people won't?
As for differential pay, you recite Marx's objections. They have force, and I'm not attached to it, if someone can think of another way to reward effort and contribution, encourage productivity, and discourage free-riding and laziness -- a way that also isn't unacceptably authoritarian. I presume that none of us want equal pay but labor discipline enforced by the police. AS it is, pay according to work, with all the worries that raises about rewarding undeserved natural endowments, is the best method I can think of.
Incidentally, Rawls, who supports differential pay as an incentive, rejects the idea that anyone deserves anything because of natural or even developed talents and capacities that he did nothing to create. ("And if you are very strong, that is a gift of the gods," Agamemnon to Achilles, I can't seem to get away from those Greeks.) Rawls thinks you can have a right to unequal earning you ultimately don't deserve because it would be socially beneficial for you to have those incentives (so you would agree to them if you had all and only the morally relevant information). That is one way to get around the issue of desert.
I believe in desert, myself, but I think it's only one factor in a determination about remuneration. I'd approach the matter by saying that the fruits of the earth belong to all but the earth to no one (Rousseau), I do not have any initial entitlement to the stuff I work _on_, so my claim to deserve something in virtue of having exercised by talents and capacities on that stuff gives me no claim to any specific reward that antedates any democratic decision we make about just distributions. It does factor in to what counts as a just distribution, though -- it's not right to ignore the work that I did or the contribution I made, and my claim is stronger the greater those are. However since the stuff I work on is ours collectively, we have to decide collectively how to divide it up, what values we wish to promote by specific principles or mechanism for distribution.
This answers the more detailed questions you=u made in the spirit I suggested earlier: don't write recipes for the cookshops of the future. Don't get too detailed about hypothetical institutional arrangements. Thinking about them has a value -- it show that alternative models are possible and reveals possible problems and solutions in various alternatives. Get too detailed in the manner of Owen or Albert and Hahnel and you'll go blind. In the end, the specific decisions about remuneration are ideally democratic and political, which means rough and ready, among other things.
--- On Sat, 4/19/08, John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> From: John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] To each according to work
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Saturday, April 19, 2008, 6:29 PM
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> > Good questions. The problem is exactly the fair
> distribution of benefits and burdens. It's unfair, and
> it undermines social solidarity and stability, for some
> people to get struck doing drudgery or dirty, dangerous
> work while others do nothing. It's good if people enjoy
> their work, and I do not assume that work HAS to be
> unpleasant, I just observe that some necessary work IS
> unpleasant. It people enjoy their work, that's a
> benefits, also to be distributed fairly.
> >
> > 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.
>
>
> I get out plenty.
> I did some work today for Habitat for Humanity. Building
> screens for a
> back porch. Imagine that, people actually building an
> entire house
> without getting paid.
> I delivered meals on wheels earlier this week. People
> cooking, cleaning
> dishes, delivering food, etc. without getting paid.
> Pet therapy has people training, housing, feeding animals
> at their own
> expense for use as therapy for the benefit of other people
> unrelated to
> them.
> Walking Books is another example.
> The list of such work that gets done daily is quite
> extensive.
> To imagine we need unequal remuneration in order to coerce
> people to
> work is short sighted.
> A viewpoint of someone who doesn't get out much
> perhaps?
> Before anyone gets the idea that I'm all about blowing
> my own horn I
> list the above work as examples because I know of them
> firsthand. I'm
> incredibly lucky that in being self-employed I have the
> ability to do
> those things. When I worked 45 hours a week at the store I
> co-owned I
> was not able to do anywhere near that same level of
> volunteer work.
> The work for Habitat for Humanity is also only worthwhile
> in conjunction
> with the work of countless others. No one builds a house
> alone. It is a
> cooperative effort with bosses that serve only at the
> pleasure of the
> other workers. It is a great example of cooperative work
> that offers no
> pay differential regardless of effort and supervisory roles
> being filled
> by those who are capable but who cannot coerce others. It
> is extremely
> fair and egalitarian in its divisions of labor.
>
> I do of course know that under such a plan some people will
> choose to do
> nothing but not in sufficient numbers to be a drag on
> productive work
> being accomplished.
> You seem stuck on the idea that if I work my ass off 50
> hours a week it
> it "unfair" that someone who works no hours per
> week should be paid
> equally. It isn't unfair if the option to do nothing
> exists equally for
> me. Equal opportunity (as far as is possible) is the very
> essence of
> fairness.
> You also say it is exploitation if someone gets paid the
> same for doing
> nothing while others work but that it not the definition of
> exploitation.
> Without coercion there can be no exploitation and with
> equal pay
> irrespective of input there can be no coercion.
> You don't seem to know what the words coercion and
> exploitation really mean.
> You write "It's unfair, and it undermines social
> solidarity and
> stability, for some people to get struck doing drudgery or
> dirty,
> dangerous work while others do nothing."
> This suggests you haven't understood what I've
> proposed. How can you be
> "stuck" doing any job if you can leave that job
> at will, anytime, and
> not suffer any corresponding reduction in income?
> The answer is, you can't, so the unfairness you keep
> insisting exists in
> such a system exists only in your mind.
> If you want to argue that not enough work will get done
> that is
> certainly a point to be considered but there is nothing
> unfair about,
> and no way to get 'stuck' doing a job you dislike,
> if you will be paid
> exactly the same whether you do the job or not. There is
> nothing
> coercive about such a system, there is nothing exploitative
> about such a
> system, and there is nothing unfair about such a system. If
> you cannot
> see that there is nothing coercive, exploitative, or unfair
> about such a
> system then you do not really understand what is being
> proposed.
>
> Someone will want to mine coal. They will enjoy it if they
> have the
> opportunity to stay out of mines they feel are not safe,
> have
> unrealistic quotas set by others, have asshole bosses, etc.
> They may
> only work 5 hours a day 3 days per week but someone will
> want to do that
> job.
> Someone will want to teach, be a doctor, nurse, dentist,
> run an electric
> generating power plant, treat drinking water, etc.
> There is no job that will go undone unless that job paid
> more than
> another job.
> Do you imagine there will be no roofers if roofers
> can't be paid more
> than carpet layers? After all roofing is done outdoors in
> the sun, wind,
> cold, hot while carpet layers get to work indoors in
> climate controlled
> environments, right?
> If you believe this then how do houses get built by Habitat
> for Humanity
> workers?
> The existence of Habitat homes helps dispel the idea that
> pay
> differentials are necessary to get people to do jobs that
> are
> accomplished under different working conditions.
> We don't have any large scale experiments that show
> such pay differences
> can be dismissed but the work of groups like Habitat for
> Humanity offer
> us a glimpse as to what may be possible. It does
> demonstrate that what
> some people claim is impossible or nearly impossible is not
> as difficult
> as they imagine.
>
> There will be people who are not satisfied unless they have
> more than
> their neighbor but fuck them and their selfishness.
> These types of tastes should not be catered to since they
> are
> destructive to society.
> They will also be exceedingly rare in a generation raised
> to accept the
> idea that equal pay just for being human is everyones
> birthright.
>
> The fact is no society has ever existed that has been free
> of
> exploitation and coercion in work relationships but such a
> society
> really is within our grasp. I'm not foolish enough to
> imagine it will
> happen in my lifetime but it is feasible and claiming it is
> against
> "human nature" is not a valid argument. I'm
> surprised to see anyone even
> try to make such a case. Appeals to "human
> nature" are generally a sign
> of grasping for straws. The real hooey is imagining
> coercive work
> relationships are an inescapable part of "human
> nature".
>
> How would you decide what jobs paid more than others?
> By importance to society?
> By numbers needed in society?
> By physical difficulty?
> By mental difficultly?
> Imagine an unattractive man of slight build, maybe
> 5'4", with an IQ of 85.
> He cannot accomplish as much physical labor as someone with
> a much
> larger physique nor can he accomplish the mental tasks of
> those who are
> much smarter.
> This person will always have a very large portion of
> society making much
> more money than he ever can. You seem very concerned about
> fairness but
> how is such a system fair to this person? How can this
> person ever be as
> free to accomplish what they desire as a handsome man who
> is 6'4" with
> an IQ of 130? A beautiful woman who is 6'1" with
> an IQ of 150? They
> cannot unless all remuneration is equal. Such a persons
> opportunities
> will never be equal to those whose endowments, through
> random chance,
> are much greater.
> If, under a system of equal pay after compensation for
> differential
> needs, you feel you are not being remunerated sufficiently
> for your
> labor you are completely free to reduce your labor until
> you feel the
> labor expended is equal to your remuneration. To call that
> unfair is to
> have no idea what fairness is.
> Are you going to try to determine peoples effort expended
> to determine
> remuneration? If you believe our hypothetical man of low IQ
> and slight
> build is 'trying' to dig coal just as hard as the
> miner with a large
> build will he be paid just as much as the larger man even
> if he only
> digs 1/3 as much coal? Is that fair to the larger man who
> dug 3 times as
> much coal? Won't the larger man resent the unfairness
> of being paid the
> same as the slight man who accomplished less? Is it fair to
> pay the
> slight man less when his effort is equal to the larger man?
> How is
> effort to be determined? Their unequal endowments due to
> their genetic
> differences should not be rewarded/punished should they?
> How is that fair?
>
> I have firsthand working knowledge of how equal pay for
> unequal work can
> be implemented. It does cause resentment for people raised
> with little
> very understanding of solidarity but people can come to
> understand the
> merits of such a system. The fact that they can see the
> obvious merits
> in such a system in spite of the fact that every aspect of
> our society
> tells them just the opposite should be very encouraging.
> Unequal remuneration ultimately causes more problems than
> can be
> justified if your primary goals are fairness of
> opportunities for the
> maximum number of people and elimination of coerciveness in
> working
> relationships.
> I'm not a starry-eyed optimist. Far from it; I'm
> exceptionally
> pessimistic. I doubt humankind will reach such a stage in
> social
> development before we kill vast numbers of people. Even
> then, while I
> hope we make such a transition, my faith in our ability to
> do so is low.
> Unfortunately any new society must bring with it some
> aspects of the old
> society and therein lies the problem. Some remnants of the
> old poison
> must remain.
>
> John Thornton
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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