[SolarCross]

You have to pay him because he has no other means of acquiring commodities except to extract the money-form in a piecemeal fashion by selling a service. This situation is unique to capitalism and people can only be expected to behave according to those rules.

No, he has other means, just this way suits him best or pays best. Regardless he is not a slave so he does not work for free. No one sane does.

[Donna]

How can it be? Orwell there was explicitly talking about middle class (pseudo) intellectuals, people who had never worked a day in their lives and 9 times out of 10 had never even met a working class person. He even is referencing them by name! Odious puss bags like George Bernard Shaw. These people are not the "labour aristocracy" because they are not working class nor have any connection with the working class. The "labour aristocracy" are like senior trades unionists and what not, people who generally at least from some kind of working class background and worked a job at some time in their life. Arthur Scargill or someone like that for an example. Perhaps they are problem people but they are a completely different problem to the "intellectuals" that Orwell is talking about in that passage.

I'm not using the term labour aristocracy to describe middle class leftists or union bureaucrats, I'm using it to describe the white working class within the epicentres of imperialism.

No, he has other means, just this way suits him best or pays best. Regardless he is not a slave so he does not work for free. No one sane does.

What are you saying? That he doesn't need the income from being a mechanic, but does it anyway but demands to be paid out of some lofty personal principle?

[SolarCross]

I'm not using the term labour aristocracy to describe middle class leftists or union bureaucrats, I'm using it to describe the white working class within the epicentres of imperialism.

The point is what you said has absolutely nothing to do with what Orwell was talking about.

What are you saying? That he doesn't need the income from being a mechanic, but does it anyway but demands to be paid out of some lofty personal principle?

I am saying he would not be a mechanic without the reward. So you want to bring back slavery is that it?

[Donna]

The point is what you said has absolutely nothing to do with what Orwell was talking about.

I'm not disputing what Orwell wrote. I very much agree that déclassée socialists are insufferable more often than they're not.

I am saying he would not be a mechanic without the reward. So you want to bring back slavery is that it?

Exactly. He would not be a mechanic without the possibility of getting paid for it. Where we disagree is that I believe those expectations are socially conditioned whereas (I'm assuming) you believe they are conditioned by "human nature" or some other ideal abstraction.

[SolarCross]

Exactly. He would not be a mechanic without the possibility of getting paid for it. Where we disagree is that I believe those expectations are socially conditioned whereas (I'm assuming) you believe they are conditioned by "human nature" or some other ideal abstraction.

What work do you do for free? 8 hours a day, 5 days a week actual work, not playing videos games or masturbating but actual work for the benefit of someone other than yourself?

[Donna]

What work do you do for free? 8 hours a day, 5 days a week actual work, not playing videos games or masturbating but actual work for the benefit of someone other than yourself?

Are you asking me if I laboriously strain myself or carry out favours for other people with no expectation of monetary payment?

[SolarCross]

Are you asking me if I laboriously strain myself or carry out favours for other people with no expectation of monetary payment?

I did not ask "if" I asked "what". That you apparently expect the mechanic to work for free suggests this is something you already do but do not have enough experience of alternative perspectives to understand why someone else might prefer to be paid for what they do.

[Donna]

I did not ask "if" I asked "what". That you apparently expect the mechanic to work for free suggests this is something you already do but do not have enough experience of alternative perspectives to understand why someone else might prefer to be paid for what they do.

Why are you making this so personal? I'm not disputing the social rules of the money-form and I sympathize completely with your mechanic. Labour isn't free and time is money. It's just my belief that these dynamics are socially conditioned and do not emerge organically.

[SolarCross]

Why are you making this so personal? I'm not disputing the social rules of the money-form and I sympathize completely with your mechanic. Labour isn't free and time is money. It's just my belief that these dynamics are socially conditioned and do not emerge organically.

What does "socially conditioned" mean? Like communist brainwashing? Room 101 type stuff?

[Donna]

What does "socially conditioned" mean? Like communist brainwashing? Room 101 type stuff?

It means something is that intersubjective and impermanent, ie something that exists as a convention and changes in order to adapt to different conditions.

[SolarCross]

It means that something is that intersubjective and impermanent, ie something that exists as a convention and changes in order to adapt to different conditions.

Hmmm, see I do not think I can trick him into working for me for free by saying stuff like that, he is not stupid. That will not work any better than @ckaihatsu's pretty pictures. You also will have to go back to shooting people in the back of the head and ripping fingernails off with pliers.

[Donna]

Hmmm, see I do not think I can trick him into working for me for free by saying stuff like that, he is not stupid. That will not work any better that @ckaihatsu's pretty pictures. You also will have to go back to shooting people in the back of the head and ripping fingernails off with pliers.

Sounds like you're not even giving @ckaihatsu's point of view a chance. People in different societies through out history behave very different from one another. This is an incredibly powerful fact and the idea that there is a "golden thread" that runs through all human experience or human faculties has been discredited by natural science. Human societies are built upon the intersubjective.

[SolarCross]

Sounds like you're not even giving @ckaihatsu's point of view a chance. People in different societies through out history behave very different from one another. This is an incredibly powerful fact and the idea that there is a "golden thread" that runs through all human experience or human faculties has been discredited by natural science. Human societies are built upon the intersubjective.

That won't work either.

[Donna]

That won't work either.

Not sure what you mean

[SolarCross]

Not sure what you mean

I can't get out of paying the bill by saying stuff like that.

[Donna]

I can't get out of paying the bill by saying stuff like that.

Saying stuff like what?

[SolarCross]

Saying stuff like what?

I can't tell him I don't have to pay because in other societies they are intersubjective in different ways. Seriously has that ever worked for you?

[Donna]

I can't tell him I don't have to pay because in other societies they are intersubjective in different ways. Seriously has that ever worked for you?

That's definitely not what anyone in this thread is asking you to do.

[SolarCross]

That's definitely not what anyone in this thread is asking you to do.

What then?

[Donna]

What then?

No one is asking you to do anything. Stop being so stand-offish.