[lbo-talk] To each according to work

Robert Wrubel bobwrubel at yahoo.com
Sun Apr 20 14:09:49 PDT 2008


Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:

"Are there enough people intrinsically interested in cleaning public toilets so that we

need no social or economic coercion to make sure all the public toilets are cleaned?"

(BW) Apparently, no one on this list was in the military, or has heard of KP duty. Although the military is a coercive system, there is a difference between doing something because a sadistic sergeant is screaming at you, and doing it because you realize it has to be done.

All the unpleasant work just needs to be divided by the number of physically capable people in the society and each person then required to do his/her part.

A lot can be accomplished informally by socially honoring work, as in Japan apparently older people consider it a priviledge to be responsible for keeping some part of a public space clean.

I dont really get the argument that there will always be slackers. It seems to me a culture that is designed to further the well-being of everyone in it, instead of distorted by the imperatives of competition and survival, will naturally teach its members to find work fulfilling.

This has been a totally fantastic thread -- any philosophy or social science teacher on the list should just print out the whole thing and spend a month of class on it.

BW

Bill Bartlett wrote:
> At 12:41 AM -0700 19/4/08, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
>
>>There is nothing wrong with coercing people to work (by formal or
>>perhaps, as JS Mill onserved in another context, even more effective
>>informal) methods, any more than there is with coercing people to
>>pay taxes to provide public goods --
>
>
> Except that the social mechanisms necessary to coerce people corrupt
> those whose function it is to do the coercing. In a social system
> based on class rule, all those things are a necessary evil, but in a
> socialist society such coercion, whether by brute force or economic
> force, would be unnecessary.

I have to say I want to side with Bill and John on this one, but I'm don't follow the argument here. How will a socialist society ensure that all of the useful and necessary work is done? Will there just be enough diversity in interests and preferences so that all of the work will be accomplished without coercion? (Are there enough people intrinsically interested in cleaning public toilets so that we need no social or economic coercion to make sure all the public toilets are cleaned?)

Miles ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

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