>Actually, surgery is a lot more intrinsically rewarding than cleaning
>hotel rooms (as my dear father, a surgeon, will attest) yet the
>former pays vastly more.* One could imagine doing surgery for free;
>one could not image picking someone else's pubic hairs out of a drain
>for any reason short of the threat of starvation.
Quite so. Horror of horrors, we might all have to unblock our own drains in a socialist economy. I imagine that we might still be able to call on our friends for help, but we won't be able to command them.
>I am prepared to admit that being an accountant isn't intrinsically
>rewarding but tends ot pay better than being a maid...however, the
>point is moot; without money we'd have no need of accountants anyway.
Doing the accounts is part of the unpaid work I do for my co-op. Should be doing it now in fact. The reward isn't confined to the intrinsic pleasure of doing it, there is also the satisfaction of doing a job that needs to be done and the appreciation of comrades. Of course in my case I'm the only one who really appreciates the importance of it, the other bastards take it for granted a bit. Which is probably why I've been getting a bit behind. But I do get some satisfaction out of solving some of the problems that turn up.
Plus there will always be the need to keep track of where things are and what raw materials and labour went into them. For the purposes of routine cost/benefit analysis. A socialised industry has to make some effort to avoid waste. Has to be able to justify its requests to suppliers of inputs, society in general, who may otherwise decline to support it.
But it doesn't sound like you enjoy accounting anyhow. Maybe you might like to try your hands at drains? It isn't as bad as it sounds really, quite a bit of room for creative problem solving there, some intrinsic rewards, but more to the point heaps of appreciation from those whose drainage problems you solve. Would be up there with surgeons probably. Similar sort of work, come to think of it, surgeons are really just glorified plumbers too, in their line of work they also have to unblock their client's plumbing and endure the smell of human waste and pubic hairs.
At least plumbers get to work with nice standard pvc fittings. And properly engineered sump pumps that last more than 5 minutes might be looked forward to in a future utopian socialist society.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas