[Leninist]

I have worked in several labour intensive jobs. My favourite was working as a shelf stacker at a supermarket because I worked by myself and didn't have to talk to anyone. I also had an enjoyable level of autonomy. I also volunteered at a charity bookshop operated by Oxfam. I found the work dull as there wasn't enough going on to allow me to perform a diverse range of tasks and it lacked structure due to the lack of a profit motive motivating the manager to motivate me. It didn't particularly matter if and when the work got done.

If the management or co-workers in the supermarket kept checking up on me and threatening to punch me in the face if I failed to complete the workload within the appointed time I would quit and seek work with another retailer. Capitalists compete for labour and are unable to treat their workers like shit if the demand for labour is greater than supply i.e no unemployment. Even with unemployment the cost of seeking, hiring and training new workers as well as the oppourtunity costs in the meantime promote the retention of workers.

If the workers would be so quick to resort to violence then I'd prefer to work for a capitalist who would provide training and motivation rather than threats and punches. I don't want to have a positive right to a job. I want to have negative rights to my teeth.

Historically speaking, Capitalists were motivated firstly to threaten violence against workers who were either lazy or collectively demanded fairer conditions, and only if the workers held fast would they try to work with them. Here in America, we have had a very violent history of worker/employer relations, and Britain can say the same.

[Coyote]

I imagine that your fellow workers would make sure you didn't have a job and you'd get no, "certificate from society" as you would have furnished virtually nothing an amount of hour. Personally, I would be surprised if you left with your teeth intact. I don't know if you've ever had a job, but there's nothing that endears you less to people that signing up to take their money (or resources or whatever) and doing absolutely nothing but getting in the way while they do the actual work.

Ha!

There is something worse. If you want to alienate yourself from your coworkers, simply exceed what is expected of you.

Show that twice the work can easily be done, in half the time, and their curses will ring in your ears.

And this is why communism fails, and always will fail. Because it is inevitably a race to the bottom. The weak dragging down the strong, in the spirit of egalitarianism.

[The Immortal Goon]

The underpinning is a materialist conception of history though. Just as most heirlooms have something of a feudal conception of history that is tied to them (that is, they are the property of the family instead of your personal property in most people's minds), and just how current ownership of virtually everything else is tied to private ownership now, the theory is that a change in how we produce things will result in a different way we see the world.

Surely you have friends. If your friends were in trouble, you'd work extra hard to help them out, yeah? So if you were no longer in the individualistic competition that you propose—that you're all competing completely for yourself against everyone else; that instead you were part of something else—a group of friends, a respected group of colleagues, a family, your view on your work would change as would your view of everything else.

I'm sure I could get far more jargony or wall-of-texty, but the idea—beginning at least with Epicurus (though Plato explicitly rejects such sentiment which means it must have been around before him in another form) is that your environment and how you interact with it affects how you see and understand the world.

When the Tudors came into Ireland, they had to take all the land they could from a clan of people and then give it back to the chief-of-the-name right away. Why? Because it was the first step in changing the clan system into a feudal system to have one person that owned the land instead of the land belonging to the clan. They hadn't yet shifted into the mode of production that was coming and had to be led into it; and once into it, their entire structure and understanding of each other changed. The chief-of-the-name became a duke or baron.

So you see, the objection is an objection to Owenism, not Marxism.

[Coyote]

The underpinning is a materialist conception of history though. Just as most heirlooms have something of a feudal conception of history that is tied to them (that is, they are the property of the family instead of your personal property in most people's minds), and just how current ownership of virtually everything else is tied to private ownership now, the theory is that a change in how we produce things will result in a different way we see the world.

Surely you have friends. If your friends were in trouble, you'd work extra hard to help them out, yeah? So if you were no longer in the individualistic competition that you propose—that you're all competing completely for yourself against everyone else; that instead you were part of something else—a group of friends, a respected group of colleagues, a family, your view on your work would change as would your view of everything else.

I'm sure I could get far more jargony or wall-of-texty, but the idea—beginning at least with Epicurus (though Plato explicitly rejects such sentiment which means it must have been around before him in another form) is that your environment and how you interact with it affects how you see and understand the world.

When the Tudors came into Ireland, they had to take all the land they could from a clan of people and then give it back to the chief-of-the-name right away. Why? Because it was the first step in changing the clan system into a feudal system to have one person that owned the land instead of the land belonging to the clan. They hadn't yet shifted into the mode of production that was coming and had to be led into it; and once into it, their entire structure and understanding of each other changed. The chief-of-the-name became a duke or baron.

So you see, the objection is an objection to Owenism, not Marxism.

My views are not of this world. My observations are.

I am troubled that your Irish example is one of deceit. Of sophistication.

Indeed, I yearn for more innocence in this world.

[Leninist]

Ha!

There is something worse. If you want to alienate yourself from your coworkers, simply exceed what is expected of you.

Show that twice the work can easily be done, in half the time, and their curses will ring in your ears.

And this is why communism fails, and always will fail. Because it is inevitably a race to the bottom. The weak dragging down the strong, in the spirit of egalitarianism.

In capitalism, people despise you if you exceed them because you are only aiding yourself and perhaps harming them. In communism, you aid everybody. But in communism, we don't necessarily want a system where everyone does as much as they absolutely can, unless there is a war maybe, or we'd have people with 14 hour work days. We want a system which balances creative, productive and social out put. That means working a certain amount, not the most you possibly can, but however much is needed to meet what is required. Another way I might describe it is so: capitalists are always trying to replace people, either with cheaper people or machines. If you prove someone is not necessarily essential to the system, then they are out. This will allow maximum profit. I do not think we need to completely mechanize the economy, even if it is communist, because work is good for you. So what we do is find a good balance between machine and man which allows a factory or farm to reach a high output, and still employ a reasonable amount of people, but not be overly difficult. It would be easy to say "we could do more" and perhaps some people would, but they would be thought of as selfless and hardworking, not worthy of condemnation.

Mr. Coyote, your only problem with grasping why we believe communism works is that you don't seem to have the right level of perspective about you. I do't mean to insult you, and I may well be wrong, it's just what I think. Communism isn't just a belief based on ideas about humanity, it is also based on interpretation of history. In fact, that's the basis of Marx's theory of revolution, that human history is a series of reactions against the old oppressive ways, either in search of wealth, as in the Bourgeois revolutions, or liberty, as in the proletarian. And the fact is, that without a knowledge which stretches all the way back to the reasoning behind the first bourgeois revolutions, and how they affected the common people then and up to modern times, you can't really grasp what Marxism really is. You can get the general idea, but not truly understand it.

[The Immortal Goon]

I have removed the disrespectful and arrogant posturing. There will be none of this.

-TIG Edit

[Esper]

In capitalism scarce resources are rationed by wealth. This leads to the whims of the wealthy being well catered for whilst lower classes are expected to suffer any shortages in silence and are greeted with force when they're complaints grow too active.

How would resources be distributed by communists? How are disputes over the use of resources mediated and resolved?

Well, I think the question is another one: Who is allowed to produce the resources? It is a question about distribution of "work". The distribution of resources would be planned. The primary criterium would be the sufficient distibution to all to assure the satisfaction of basic needs. The disputes over the just use of resources should be discussed by participation of all involved. And if this does not lead to any decision, than there could be a jury who decides - like judges or somebody like that.