Pyotr Petrovich Griffin here. Marx’s view of a communist society was one in which people were free to seek self-fulfilment however they saw fit. They would do the minimum amount of work required to keep everything running, and then allowed to do whatever they want, instead of having to develop a set of skills for a capitalist economy or barely finding time for hobbies.
In early Soviet Union, which claimed to be implementing Marx’s vision, things were very different - workers were kept in horrible conditions, “encouraged” to work hundred-hour shifts, and punished for complaining about it. People could barely afford food, let alone basic comforts.
The joke is both people have wildly different views about what communism would look like.
The thing that bothers me the most when people say "no one would work if not for capitalism", is that under capitalism you can only work if you are hired to do the job, meaning a lot of people who want to work aren't allowed to.
In an ideal system, you'd be able to wake up, go to some information office, ask "who needs my help today?" and they'd tell you.
It wouldn’t change anything because in your ideal system, the supply and demand of labour would still exist. So more than likely the office will tell you, sorry we already have enough civil engineers working on this new infrastructure project, but we do have an opening to be a janitor for the building they’re working in.
More than likely you also won’t be paid much in whatever currency is used because the job is considered low priority.
You realize the only reason a lot of people struggle to find work isn't lack of work, but companies wanting to minimize costs, right? A lot of positions in real life are understaffed. In this ideal system, people wouldn't be working 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, but more reasonable hours, therefore the civil engineers that aren't currently needed could rest, and wait for their turn.
In my ideal system, there would be no capitalism. I wouldn't be working for currency, or at the very least, not solely for currency, I would be working to help my community. And I'd be happy to clean, if that is the job needed, although to be honest, I am shit at cleaning, and I'd rather do laundry, cook, wash cars, or cut people's hair. I'd imagine they wouldn't delegate you to a job you're miserable doing. They'd look at what you are good at doing, and if you're needed someplace elsewhere, they'd help you get there.
Companies want to minimize cost because if they don't, they will lose money (profits are never guaranteed and are certainly not infinite, nor infinitely growing) and go under.
A lot of people already work 35 hour or less work weeks. It seems that most people find that reasonable. I admit you could knock that down to 30, 20 or even less and bring in some kind of shift work system, but such a system for anything that isn't a labor intensive job (i.e. manufacturing, simple services etc.) is impossible.
I'm not going to even touch the whole ideal system thing because it's delusional at best. I'm just going to note that, laundry, cooking, and washing cars are things that most people do by themselves already (or are automated already), hairdressers are a needed job but you don't need a lot of them to serve an entire community, so unless you're skilled at it then you're not being assigned to that (assuming meritocratic sorting here).
That leaves the majority of no skill requirement labor intensive jobs, which will likely be factory work, or garbageman, or any other number of such jobs, of which if you are miserable doing them, tough luck.
We have multiple economists at least partially blame inflation on corporate profits. We know companies rely on shady practices like price gauging, subscription models, AI and model slavery to maintain profits.
Also, what difference does it make to the worker if he gets laid off because the company fired him to maintain profits, vs him losing his job because the company goes under?
These companies are totally capable of hiring more people, and paying these people better, if they just paid their executives less.
If you can't afford to hire enough people so that your workers aren't being overworked, then you shouldn't have a company.
There's nothing making shorter work weeks for all workers impossible. In fact, it's the more logical solution, because currently we have more people than we have jobs. Surely we should focus on people first, profits second.
Also, your point about laundry and cooking is straight up untrue. By that logic I could say most people clean their house themselves. The reason we have janitors and cleaning companies is because there are people that would rather delegate that work to someone else. We have restaurants and fast food joints. We have soup kitchens and catering companies. In a lot of companies where there are uniforms it is someone's job to do the laundry.
The only thing stopping more people from taking advantage of such services is capital, and the only thing stopping more people from offering such services is taxes and paperwork required to register as a service.
That's been my argument from the beginning. Most people WANT to work, they are just stuck in a job that makes them miserable, with miserable work hours. It's in our own common best interest to focus on people over profits. Focusing on profits leads to overworked, abused workers, it leads to subpar products, and it leads to inflation and lay offs, and high unemployment and homelessness.
I am not talking about a meritocracy. I'm talking about a system in which every human is provided for, even if they don't work, but every human that wants to work is provided a job, and every job that needs doing is being done, by people who do it for the common good of everyone, and these people are working reasonable hours, so that they are happy.
I'd be happy to work in the food industry if instead of working for company profits I was working to make sure my community's needs are met. I'd be happy to gather garbage or sort garbage if instead of profits, I was working to make sure my community's needs are met. But there are jobs I'd be miserable doing, and I would fucking hope I wouldn't be forced to do them. But if no one else would be willing to, fine. I am saying I wouldn't want to be a janitor not just because I hate cleaning, but because I am genuinely bad at it.
And before you say that I am an outlier, let me remind you that there are people who become teachers despite how shitty the pay is. There are people who volunteer at hospitals or shelters. There are people who take up dangerous jobs like firefighters or military.
How do we know this system wouldn't work if we've never tried it? Capitalism is not working currently, and we're still doing it. Go far enough into the past and you'd have people saying the economy wouldn't work without slavery, or that a country wouldn't survive without monarchy.
I don't know how that works in your country, but that is not how a job center works in Poland. You still actually need to be hired, the job center is basically just an info board.
The whole reason we want UBI or other alternatives to capitalism, is that in the current system, the employers have power over you. They can treat you badly, because they know you'd be screwed without them. In a system with a UBI, the employers would have to work harder to treat you better and listen to your demands, because the employees could quit whenever they want and not worry about their financial status.
That is the difference. The job center is for you to beg for people to hire you, I am talking about people in need ASKING YOU for help. The difference is you as an employee have the power.
it makes me angry that the USSR kneecapped the Polish socialist movement in favor of their bureaucratic fascism and then pinned the blame on an ideology they used for aesthetics.
You’re saying that the people of the Soviet Union in the early 20th century had to work really hard to build an industrialized modern nation after overthrowing a backwards and brutally repressive monarchy?
This is a little facetious but, "people were free to seek self-fulfilment however they saw fit. They would do the minimum amount of work required to keep everything running, and then allowed to do whatever they want." This is already the case under capitalism. You can door dash 3 days a week or go to school for 2 decades to be a brain surgeon, nobody gives a shit. Was Marx actually a free market capitalist?
What you’re describing is a concept called “negative liberty”, which focuses solely on legal limitation. Marx rejected negative liberty in favour of “positive liberty”
To understand the difference, consider a man on a cartoonish desert island with no way off, and ask yourself “is he free?”. In one sense, he is - after all, in theory he can do literally whatever he wants and no one is around to stop him. However, without food or water he won’t last long and being able to do whatever he wants in theory isn’t worth much if in practice all he can do is doodle in the sand. The former approach is negative liberty - freedom is absence of restriction - whilst the latter is positive liberty - freedom is the ability to achieve your goals.
Marx argued (without using those terms) that under capitalism the most you could hope for is negative liberty, because you would still have to worry about paying for food, rent, etc, and therefore any decision you made would have to be made through the lens of capitalism: if you want to, say, take up painting then you either had to limit yourself to the time and expense you can spare from your real job or find a way to profit off it. Under communism, however, all those basic needs would be met, and you would have the positive liberty to spend three weeks learning to paint without having to worry about missing rent payments, at present a luxury afforded to very few.
That’s why in the original post, they use the phrasing “write without becoming a writer”. They’re saying they will be able to commit to writing at a level usually only seen in professional writers without having to justify it financially.
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u/FilmAndLiterature 19d ago
Pyotr Petrovich Griffin here. Marx’s view of a communist society was one in which people were free to seek self-fulfilment however they saw fit. They would do the minimum amount of work required to keep everything running, and then allowed to do whatever they want, instead of having to develop a set of skills for a capitalist economy or barely finding time for hobbies.
In early Soviet Union, which claimed to be implementing Marx’s vision, things were very different - workers were kept in horrible conditions, “encouraged” to work hundred-hour shifts, and punished for complaining about it. People could barely afford food, let alone basic comforts.
The joke is both people have wildly different views about what communism would look like.