Many anti-communists are under the impression that communism is utopian and divorced from reality. I.e. on that dumbass sub enoughcommiespam, they say that having robots do janitorial work is idealistic and that there needs to be a division of labor for society to function. How do yall respond to that?
These people don’t read about AES and their problems. Of course it’s not utopian, thinking longer than 5 seconds will bring you to that conclusion. People still have to work in supermarkets, factories, do heavy labour, do jobs they might not like etc. and it will bring with it some new problems.
Michael Parenti, in his book Blackshirts and Reds, gives an example of work related problems in the Soviet Union. Workers were sometimes discouraged to do their work out of boredom and since employment, food and housing was taken care of by the state, you’d find some of them slacking. Turns out that if you do not have to worry about unemployment, starvation or losing your house, you are less likely to work your ass off for rude customers for example. People would sometims leave their jobs in the middle of the day to go shopping, leaving lots of customers behind at the store. Factoryworkers would work until their quotas were reached and did not go any further, because then they would receive new quotas and have to work harder.
Communism will bring real problems that require real solutions. But I’d rather have to find a solution for boredom than having to find a solution to issues that capitalist ideology brings, like homelessness, food insecurity, unemployment etc.
In no way will communism be an utopian society where no problems exist at all. That’s a foolish point of view.
This is also communisms curse. For many people to consider it, it has to be perfect. It has to be flawless, otherwise they don’t want to try it. It’s not going to be perfect straight away, or ever. But it is a vast improvement from capitalism. I’d rather implement an 80% functional communist system than our current capitalist system.
History doesn’t end and will never end as long as our species exists. Contradictions will always be there. The “faith” we have as communists is that under socialism we will be able to solve these contradictions non-antagonistically, not through warfare, which is what capitalism demands.
Nah they’re just advocating for hierarchies. Like a fascist would… It’s not an honest argument.
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That’s a tactic anticoms will often use. They’ll try to bog you down in very specific whatif scenarios and then drive you to saying something that sounds like a utopia.
I find it helpful to point out how their whatif scenarios are not achievable under capitalism and hence not realistic or serious arguments even from their own point of view.
Exactly, you have to stay grounded in material reality. Capitalism has had 300 years to get its shit together. Why do our everyday lives suck? Show them drone flyover videos or walkthroughs of Chengdu. Tell them that Vietnam legalized social transition for transpeople and has a land grant program for indigenous people. A better world is already becoming possible right now without reaching for utopianism.
Is “division of labor” a code for “you work, I take rent”? Look, I’m very much a newbie to the Marxist theory, but isn’t it very much not against people working (and working different professions), just as it is not against markets and even personal employment? Please correct me if I’m wrong.
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Division of Labor is the specialization of tasks in the production process, which was born out of the transition away from feudal agrarian societies. It leads to efficiency, and that has come with pros and cons. Like automation, DoL is not a “bad” thing itself. It’s just that under capitalism (and especially as it’s evolved with globalization) these things lead to further exploitation.
There is no reason that these processes that have been instrumental in the development of capitalism cannot also be used to the betterment of humanity under socialism. Efficiency in production is a good thing if production is aimed towards common human goals that centers the needs of workers, rather than an unsustainable chase towards a few individuals’ unsatiable appetite for profit.
Thank you for the explanation!
They seem to believe that we expect Fully Automated Gay Luxury Space Communism™ to immediately replace capitalism. There will be more than enough people who can fill most necessary roles when all the pointless jobs are eliminated. Of course there will be problems, but I do believe there are a couple of books written about this by some obscure authors
If you are a book-enjoyer:
- Engels’s Socialism: Utopian or Scientific
- I’ve heard that Towards a New Socialism is good
I’ve read engels. But I havent read cockshott’s book. I’ll ignore his reactionary views on LGBTQ+ people and give it a read
Shit, I didn’t know about that last part
No worries. He was railing on his blogs and on twitter about it. Quite unsavory.
My man Engels clapping back on arguments we’re still having!
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Socialism works great, its Capitalism that doesn’t work.
Flip it on them: say that capitalism only works in theory, not in practice. Socialism works in practice.
How does robots doing janitorial work preclude the division of labour?
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Well to this particular argument i would say that contemplating something that will probably not happen and surely not in the forseeable future they are 100 times more idealist, not to mention is derailing tactic from real issues.
Why labour division even came into the discussion? It’s not something you are for or against it, it is something that historically happened and won’t disappear until we either get rid of entire civilization or get rid of entire labour, therefore it won’t and shouldn’t disappear. I think it was Proudhon that wanted to get rid of the labour division in socialism and got absolutely demolished by Marx in “The Poverty of Philosophy”.
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“having robots do janitorial work is idealistic and that there needs to be a division of labor for society to function.” There’s people going to control the robot, libs, for fuck’s sake, it’s not even that different from today in most places!
