Let’s say that the many, many people who are needed to do (relatively) unskilled labor such as restaurants, factory, retail, etc. are not needed to do those jobs anymore due to them being fully automated.

It’s relatively easier to automate those sorts of jobs, but what about the ones that require much more skill: doctors, lawyers, plumbers, electricians. These would take more time to automate compared to the more basic jobs. So when these basic jobs are all lost due to automation, but the skilled ones are remaining, what would a communist/socialist society do to solve this?

Would they force some people to learn how to do these needed jobs in case of a shortage? Would they allow the unemployed masses to survive without labor? What do you think?

  • @CommunistWolf
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    41 year ago

    Mmm, “unskilled labour” is a myth. Particularly when you take productivity into account - all these jobs that are called “unskilled” must, under capitalism, be performed at a certain rate to be profitable to the capitalist. And that rate only increases over time. So you quickly end up in a situation where your “unskilled” labourer - fruit picker, say - is forced to work at a ridiculous pace using highly specialised skills and ridiculous amounts of endurance and dexterity, all at minimum wage.

    The brits got to discover this via fields of rotting produce when they decided to stop letting in fruit pickers from the EU, bless.