Humans are not designed to do s**t-jobs [Part I]

The Communist Economic Problem

Under my previous piece of writing, namely, Challenges and Scepticism towards Communism — A Response, a reader named Marcus commented about his opinions on laziness, what he sees as “human nature.” Here we have some excerpts from his argument,

Laziness was one of the reasons communist societies from history couldn’t achieve “true communism”, or “true socialism” for that matter without economic collapse. As workers are paid equally regardless of work type and workload, therefore causing people to slack off in their production.

Personally, I found the theory of “human instinct” to be a very strong point. It’s a powerful argument that I once staunchly believed in as well. In the following article, I will be presenting my answers towards the question posed, as well as a brief investigation on how labour has evolved throughout history and what the development will culminate in a communist world.

Above all, I would like to express a sincere “thank you” to all of you who are reading this article (and/or have commented on my previous ones). I, as a writer, am not getting paid a single penny, so attention and appreciation from the audience really mean a lot to me.

Just as I’m not getting paid for this article, workers do not get “paid” in communism either — by communism, I mean a full-fledged, pure communist society that communists aim to build. I would like to reiterate that workers don’t passively receive a distribution of resources, — which however is the case in the first stage of communism, namely “socialism,” — but “take” whatever they need and want; “from each according to their ability to each according to their needs.”

One common comment I hear people make on Marxism is that “Commies are bad and all they say is ‘gimme that for free’.” Not only is the claim extremely inaccurate, but it’s also one of the most hilarious jokes I’ve ever heard. The spirit of communism is not about giving-people-free-money, but rather, giving everyone the same status in the ownership of the property — more specifically, ownership of means of production, — i.e. common ownership. Now imagine you’re being trapped in the Sahara desert with some of your friends. You’re running out of water and will very likely die of dehydration soon. Amid despair, one of your friends, Bob, suddenly discovers the existence of a water bottle and says...

In capitalism: “Dude, I found the water first so it belongs to me. What? You’re just as thirsty as I am? Sure then, I’ll let you carry the water through the desert for a few drops of water. Without me, we would have no water source at all - under the principle of free choice, it’s only logical to have both winners and losers.”

In communism: “Nobody ‘owns’ the bottle. The water is there just as it has always been. We share the water in the bottle as needed.”

Of course, Many would argue that it is practically unfeasible in contemporary society because there just aren’t enough resources to go around. Someday or another all water is going to drain from the bottle, leaving us to thirst to death. Here we’re confronted with the fundamental economic problem: insufficient resources vs unlimited wants. What would communists say to it?

Communists do acknowledge the relative backwardness of production forces under present circumstances, thus proposing not to implement the slogan — “from each according to his ability to each according to his need” — to its fullest. According to Lenin, before the realization of full communism, there lies an ephemeral “first phase of communism,” what he called “socialism.” A worker gets paid — yes, paid - a certain amount of money (after a deduction which goes to a public fund has been made) on the basis of the amount of socially necessary work he performs. Of course, the outcome is not necessarily just for everyone, as different labours are paid at very unequal prices. Its defects will be discussed in a future article, On Meritocracy.

Nevertheless, means of production is still commonly owned, and the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible. Such economic policies are not failed attempts of communism, but, as Lenin stated in State and Revolution, an inevitable and unavoidable stage that humanity shall experience before reaching full communism.

Thus in socialism, the trapped-in-a-desert story would turn out to be:

“Okay, we’re in this together. We take turns to carry the water bottle which we own together. And the water will be shared in return for the work we do until it has been exhausted… or until we reach the end.”

But life isn’t usually like desert expeditions. There’s no way you can induce someone to visit a desert with a water bottle and some friends just for the sake of “experimenting communism.” In reality, we’re all fun-seeking animals that strive for the best of our happiness - whether it’s for long-term or short-term. It seems to us, at first glance, that communal societies work only in adversarial conditions or simply in primitive societies (coupled with inadequate production forces and low centralization). In a modern, diverse world without an ostensible threat, on the other hand, it’s only logical that people would “slack off” should they be demotivated by the absence of material rewards. I mean, “fun” is “fun” and “work” is “work.” You need to “work” in order to get the money so that you can have “fun.” Right?

No. Marx doesn’t think so. It remains true that it’s the intuition of humans that we strive for entertainment and liberty. Karl Marx, who instituted his philosophy on that of Hegel, stated that one’s pleasure reaches its peak when we’re producing, instead of consuming values. How is that so?

The nature of homo sapiens are shaped in centuries of evolution, adapted to dealing with social dilemmas that cropped up in the lives of communal hunter-gatherers. For thousands of years, we were used to collectivism and dedication. The bands that failed to develop these morals perished, and those who succeeded in doing so thrived. Nothing much about our morality had changed in the several recent millennia when we left the African Savannah for Mesopotamian fields, Greek city-states, Roman metropolises, Spanish plantations, and British factories.

Our social systems, however, change a lot more abruptly than our biological systems. For our primitive ancestors, there’s no such thing as “relaxation” or “individualism,” for both “not trying” means death straightaway. Hence in our human nature, “fun” is not mutually exclusive with “work” — fun is work and work can be fun. It is the development of class antagonisms and the exploitation of surplus values that eliminated pleasure and entertainment from labour activities. Of the utmost importance, the advent of capitalism that brutally stripped off the personal worth embedded in labour, substituting with naked cash transfers. Facing waves and currents of profit, we’ll no longer stay true to our heart and our free will.

Capitalists, or what they call themselves — “liberalists” — claimed to have struggled for the emancipation of people’s minds and action, yet simultaneously imposing on us the intrinsic feature of the capitalist theory - cash payment - as constraints on our path in striving towards true freedom. Labour has been commodified into capital to be quantifiable. Workers were alienated or distanced from what they truly were as human beings. The things they made alienated them too. The harder the workers worked and the more they produced, the more profit they made for the capitalists (to put it nicer, entrepreneurs). The labour expended by the workers - which is supposed to be a meaningful process of production and dedication - seemed to take revenge on the workers themselves.

The reality is that human beings are not designed to work shit jobs that involve zero creativity, lots of micromanaging, and still not make a living wage. Humans aren’t “lazy” if they reject such dehumanizing work. I’ll give you three examples of how, in an environment absent from capitalistic cash payment, labour can be expended in the sense that working produces fun.

If you’re a gamer, you’ll probably know that there are a lot of good “mods” on the Steam workshop. Mods are alterations by fans of video games that modifies game setting and add more flavour and depth into the gameplay, ranging from small tweaks to total overhauls. Modders spend months if not years creating content that can be just as well-fledged as DLCs developed by professional game devs, while not getting a single dollar of wage. Why would they do that? Because of their love for gaming (and the game itself).

On social media platforms, YouTubers, Redditers, and Quorans and Wikipedia contributors create informative, educational content that enriches our lives. Their creation is valuable because 1. people watch and enjoy them (use-value) and 2. These work required labour to produce (exchange value). For reference, you need to pay hundreds of dollars for a BrainPOP account, and many thousands for school. But the “free stuff” on YouTube or Wikipedia, albeit relatively less reliable, is by no means less competent than those you pay for. Their creators are heavily underpaid by the platform they work on, yet, they enjoy their work and will continue with it if people are watching. Their incentives for work are neither money nor capital, but simply “click, like, and subscribe.”

[ink.] I too have expended hours of labour into writing this article, but would not get paid a single buck from the guy called Marcus who founded the [ink] website. (No doubt he’s not getting any monetary profits out of [ink.], either) I acknowledge that my explanations are not so original or inspiring as that of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Mao. But I’m nevertheless creating values for free. Why? Cuz I enjoy it.

A counterexample was given by Marcus as follows, “If you could, for the sake of argument, grow a six-pack of equal strength by doing 100 push-ups a day, but you can also do this with 50, most would choose the latter, as humans are naturally lazy, and if you could gain something for less work, then you would choose that option.”

The example of push-ups is not necessarily valid either. Not everyone on earth is slothful, unathletic couch potatoes like the two of us (just kidding). There are also people who enjoy work-outs so much that they PAY for going to gyms. They do this for various reasons - whether to reduce weight or to embark on a healthier lifestyle — without having to care about how much they’re getting paid.

In addition, doing push-ups doesn’t create any real value and, even if it does, it should be classified towards manual labour than mental labour. As we have clearly seen, labours that are relatively laborious, exhausting will be gradually replaced by more effective production forces (i.e. AI), leaving human beings with jobs that are more enjoyable and unique, such as musicians, artists and writers.

“Work as prime want” vs “Enjoying work”

“Work as life’s prime want” should not be confused with the notion “enjoying work,” which would appear quite often in people around us. It’s certainly easier to enjoy one’s job under contemporary conditions, where both working environments and living standards have improved significantly compared to Victorian-era industrial factories. When labour is no longer a torment or a burden (as it used to be just a few centuries ago), Communists want to take a step further by claiming that, other than an integral part of our daily routines, work could be merged with entertainment and leisure.

Say I’m a teacher who gets $5,000 a month for being a math tutor of some kinda-smart high school kids. I do often enjoy my work which grants me an opportunity to communicate with people at a similar age level as I do. Yet when I come back home from work, I would have better things to do to enjoy myself. If it wasn’t for that 5,000 bucks, I would’ve read a few pages of [ink.], or play some hours of Europa Universalis on steam, or just take a nice, long nap. Teaching for me can be an “enjoyment,” but not yet an “entertainment”.

Yeah, reading [ink.] is surely some sort of leisure. Click, like, and subscribe to our website if you like this article. What are you waiting for - login now to enjoy a whole lot more of "fun" (I mean fun, literally, fun)!

[TO BE CONTINUED]