this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's not what Communism is, though. Even Marx says that Skilled labor is represented in value by that which labor power is required to recreate it, ie training adds value to labor.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Cool, so what is that value then? Bigger home? More land? Larger car? You see where I'm going with this right? Cause if you're not going to reward someone for doing more, then they'll just do the least...and if you do reward them, then isn't that just capitalism with more steps?

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

In earlier stages of Communism, they can receive more labor Vouchers as representative to the value they create, ie in comparison to Socially Necessary Labor Time. In higher stages, the effect of training is more diminished as production must be even higher to reach such a status in the first place.

Either way, you hint at thinking Capitalism is when people are paid wages, which is incredibly wrong.

Capitalism is a Mode of Production by which individual Capitalists buy and sell Capital, and pay Workers wages to use said Capital to create commodities. It is not the only form of economy where people can be paid, it's a specific model that arose alongside the Industrial Revolution.

People get paid in Worker Co-operatives, yet those are Socialist entities. You don't need a Capitalist to be paid to work.

Not trying to be rude, it's just a huge misconception here.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You're first paragraph just described basically capitalism though, just instead of money it's work vouchers. The other issue is you've now just told that doctor he has to work even harder to get slightly more than the guy who flips burgers.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't. Capitalism is a specific mode of productuon with individual Capital Owners, if Workers share ownership it's Socialist. Secondly, who says it would be slightly more? You? Why?

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Again, you assume a doctor will want to be paid the same for his hard work as someone who flips burgers. Or what about a heavy equipment operator or a brick layer? The reason communism never can work is because people do not want to do something without the appropriate returns for it. This isn't some magical formula it's human nature.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't assume that, you are, lmao. You can get higher returns for different labor, as labor has different value given by that which is required to replicate it (in other words, training increases value).

I really think you should just read Marx at this point, it's clear that you don't understand what we are even talking about so this conversation is useless.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You're entire argument (and communism)hinges on people willing to work harder than others and receive the same benefits as someone who does not work as hard. It's literally what you have stated just in this talks. Communism works on paper, and in a world where star trek replicators exists, but not in reality.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It does not hinge on that. I don't know why you think everyone would get the same outcome, lmao.

Please read Marx, this is a dead-end if you don't even understand the basics of basics of what we are talking about.

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's the whole point of communism is for everyone to be equal, and for everyone to own everything and not own anything at the same time. That's the entire foundation.

Our mutual value is for us the value of our mutual objects. Hence for us man himself is mutually of no value.

Communism assumes all men are equal, and all labor is equal. All things belong to everyone and no one.

This doesn't work in reality, people want to get more than others if they work harder.

It sounds like you need to go back and read marx.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago

No, the point of Communism is not for everyone to be equal and own nothing at the same time, holy shit that's the literal opposite of what it's about. This is a long section of Critique of the Gotha Programme, and its critical that you read it.

"But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only – for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"

Marx is not saying that everyone is equal, he's advocating for improving the productive forces so that Communism can eventually be achieved. You're trying to critique higher stage Communism on the problems faced by lower stage Socialism, which is extremely frustrating to see when you've been repeating the same wrong statements over and over.