How do you commies feel about division of labor and specialization? Good? Bad...

How do you commies feel about division of labor and specialization? Good? Bad? Do you feel it's not even a relevant issue in our modern economy?

I understand Marx criticized some of the more alienating aspects of highly specialized labor, but Smith made a compelling case for why it's more efficient.

Are commies against specialization as a whole, or is there a way to make it work?

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marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm#a4
marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
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No, commies aren't primitivists, we are for it because that's the inevitable march of technological progress. Thing is that it's another contradiction of capital, things are getting more efficient are specialized, therefore bosses need fewer workers, while some workers just can't adapt fast enough to the reality of the growing specialization and therefore can't find a place in the economy, and the result is a smaller marketplace for a constantly-growing number of commodities. That's a contradiction, that would not have happened if we had socialism to fix it.

Marxist here. Very against division of labor, and it is as much of an issue as it is prevalent in the economy (very). It's not something to attack though, its demise will come about as a result of the end of capital.

When average labor power is highly specialized and automation has made labor largely non-onerous, knowledge work, communism (full communism) is right around the corner

It is probably less efficient in ultimate terms for people to not just pull one lever over and over all day but since the goal is human fulfilment and not arbitrary production, I think it's worth it.

If there's a division of labor there's a class society. It means that one group of people does not have to work for its own subsistence. In capitalism, that's the bourgeoisie. The point of workers' control is that it does away with the artificial barrier between political and economic organization, which in turn largely kills off the bureaucracy that functions as middle-men. Of course, even if this is accomplished specialization will be necessary, and at the same time not all will be able to work. Point being capitalism ensures this division of labor is as pointless and wasteful as possible. So long as we're in a class society it will remain relevant. It's something that will have to be overcome en route to a classless society. If there is to be a division of labor, via specialization, the primary objective should be to ensure that it does not result in a non-proletarian ruling class – i.e. a class that does not actually work.

While alienation of the product is a sad result, specialising labour is essential for modern society. We can take steps to de-alienate people from their labour by giving them more power and agency over their labour in cooperation with others. That in addition to things like automating the menial jobs that are the least fullfilling to do.

Also this. Specialisation and dividing up of labour is also a means to be easily able to replace workers who act up in some way, thus keeping competition high and wages low. Turning work from a whole car to just a few bolts means you can train a new employee in a day.

I'm not even exaggerating the difference that much.

Given how most people who engineer computer hardware can't into computer software and vice versa I would say yes we need specialized labor.

wew

Division of labor makes automation possible. It's pretty difficult to build a robot that makes every component of a wheelbarrow.
*facepalm*

...

Why would you build a robot that makes a wheelbarrow when you can build a robot that replaces a wheelbarrow? Instead of doing the work to build a robot and then the work to use a wheelbarrow, society could just to the work to make a wheelbarrowbot.

It also means that the employees possess barely any knowledge that can be used outside their particular post in the "assembly line" further alienating them from their labor.

Better, make a robot that digs ditches and a robot that fills them in.
Then hire a human to supervise them.

Any argument against the division of labor is inherently idealist and Utopian as there is no alternative in a modern economy.

This.


you

you

you

you

you

you

and you.
You all are fucking retarded or Holla Forumsintelpro

The normie means "division of labor" in the way that the are professions, not in the way you spergs mean it. he means division of labor as in there's a baker that bakes, there's an electrician that installs and maintains etc

They mean it that way too which makes it even more retarded.

Really? But one of them said something about turning bolts and how you can school a worker in a day

But if you're right about the others then they're legit retarded, and maybe the Tripfags were right to say the niveau here took a nosedive

No this is something of a hardline marxist aproach. Marx himself said the division of labor lead to hierarchy and eventually class.

This book I'm reading provides an excellent critique of the utopian and idealist mistakes Marx made, probably unintentionally since they were based around issues he wrote little about (i.e. what socialism and communism would actually look like).

digamo.free.fr/nove91.pdf

holy shit

Yeah. Market socialism is the only materialist approach to a transition imo partly for that reason.

But wouldn't the workers "become their own capitalists" as somebody I don't remember who said?

Precisely, the logic of capital would continue without the capitalist, without class. As that logic must carry out its full course and go through its contradictions in order to produce a level automation necessary for communism. But unlike capitalism, it would do so without nearly as much crisis and inequality.

Professions and shit is exactly what division of labor means. It's just at the extreme form it can have an individual in a factory performing just a small number of specific, short, operations.

Are you FOR the division of labor?

You cannot be against the division of labor and still want to live with all the amenities of a modern economy you dingus. FALC isn't coming any time soon.

All I can say is that we can try to progress towards such an arrangement, and it could be facilitated by social ownership of property.

If we aren't aiming at having individuals control over their own lives, consciously creating their own society and history then what is the point of our efforts?

The modern economy will be destroyed

I don't know enough theory to give you definitive agree or disagree on that, but it sounds coherent and relatively interesting.

I can't physically be able to do everything I need done, no human has the time or capacity.
You just have to imagine all the things you would have to do to sustain yourself alone, and it becomes even more ridiculous when you factor in science.
Is every person supposed to research everything simultaneously, because being a specialized scientist is forbidden? This makes no sense, and reeks of primitivism. I don't accept this kind of idealist bullshit, and I don't think Marx could have meant it that way.

second reply of my last post goes to you, I somehow fucked up the post number.

Sure we are aiming for people to have control over their lives, but so long as we need commodity production to have material control over nature we will need the division of labor.

We don't need commodity production to have material control over nature.

Primitivists please leave.

We do so long as do not achieve full automation. Central planning will be inefficient even with modern technology so long as there is not some post verification like a market.

The flag of anarcho-primitivism should be a green leaf with a smudged, brown strip in the middle because they would use those as toiletpaper.

pic related

user if you don't stop I'm gonna have to ask my local witch-doctor to put a hex on you

you'd have to use language for that though

we grunt at eachother in morse code

too civilized
only gesticulation and facial expressions

This


In The German Ideology (1845) Marx wrote " …the division of labour offers us the first example of how, as long as man remains in natural society, that is, as long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided, man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical development up till now." (Book 1, Part A, "Private Property and Communism") marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm#a4

and in his Critique of the Gotha Program (1875) "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 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!" (Ch I) marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm

I fucked up too. What I mean to say is that communism is about the development of an individual. A scientists has no reason to stop developing his creativity and research interests. A proletarian is constrained and has no control over his life. If communism isn't about developing the individual, creating a society where the individual can appropriate the totality of society (culture, productive forces) in his own life, then all you have is barracks-communism. Division of labor itself stunts the individual and is primitive. Its purpose is surplus value extraction, and if we can develop generalized self-management it will be rendered obsolete.

That quote from the German Ideology is the most utopian idealism tier Marx ever got. It's literally romantic drivel of something not possible in his day even if one had no need to work. You can't fucking become a master at more than a few things without spending the amount of time to master it. You may want to say we can all be Goethe's who are considered universal polymaths, but we actually can't.

You could "do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner", and let met tell you, I wouldn't want anything to do with you since you'd be bad at all of them with that attitude.

Ah yes thank you for bringing in the passages where marx descends into absolute silliness.

Is man to only care for himself under socialism, is he to provide for all his material needs? So much for society!

In order for society to function we need specialized professions, we need surgeons, we need engineers, we need programmers! Certainly one cannot be expected to learn all these things themself?

I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking this.

That's literally impossible. How am I supposed to be able to do EVERYTHING and know EVERYTHING?

What socialism needs to offer is the opportunity to retrain and respecialize. Many require a huge time commitment just to get you caught up to the modern theoretical understanding and attention to detail. You can't be doing it half assed and doing anything else.

Didn't you say communism without humanism is flawed? I know not everyone can be a polymath but people should be allowed to pursue their individual development and creativity. When you have years and years of your life with lots of time, you will probably end up getting really good at a couple of things.


No we do not need specialized professions, the professions are a social relation that exist outside of the objective content of the science. I mean to say the laws of physics exist whether or not we have physicists, or people who understand the principles of physics without being "physicists" in the sense of researchers of professors. What we do need in society includes technology (medical, physics, industry) and systematic, freely available knowledge and mentoring of how to operate it all.


Only as much as you want to know and do.
Like I said to AW not everyone has to know everything or even very much. I know lots of people don't have the desire or capacity to learn a bunch of shit.

Yes, we should have the opportunities to specialize in anything we wish to and can. In the 1st world many of us actually have a very high capacity to do just that. I've studied a wide range of topics that i just had an interest in. I had nothing blocking my learning of these things except for an academic environment and motivation.

Marx's point can be charitably read as that (besides the utopian management of the economy he just assumes). My point is that it's silly regarding his one day example. Of course you can do many things across life, many people do actually (not of their own will, or for what they would want). However, suppose you wanted to teach, and you're a bad teacher that no one likes? You're fucked :)

Do you think marx was wrong about planning?

THAT LITERALLY CONTRADICTS YOUR STANCE, HOW MANY LAYERS OF IDEALISM ARE YOU ACTUALLY ON?

...

An idealist calling Marx a utopian idealist pejoratively. Nice irony.


He was sketching what a communist society could do for the individual, nothing more or less than that. As it stands, the production process is still out of our control, monopolized by the owners of capital, and bringing it under our control is a means of overcoming the impositions of the division of labor.

If you can agree that the development of the productive forces of society in the first world has already allowed the individual a larger degree of latitude to develop themselves, then you're already experiencing a demonstration of what Marx argued was possible.

10/10 critique, Marxists will never recover.


Fucking this.

This is 1845, still humanist phase, give young boi a break.

It's not a sketch when it is literally romantic hooplah. Nothing in that statement says anything about how communism could work. This is the same garbage we burn anarkiddies for all the time! You can't just posit some ideal end and say "yep, that's it!" and then just say "lel someone will figure out how to get there".


Yeah, but that's not what that passage immediately means. Marx wasn't the only person saying this shit in his day, just letting you know. What he says there is literally typical romanticist stuff based on an idealization of human capacities.

That technology allows for greater freedom and yet in capitalism enslaves and impoverishes us is of no question, one need not be a Marxist to see it.


I love my boi Marx, I just think he gets too easy a pass on the left when it comes to his philosophical statements. He gets less respect than he deserves for his econ, and far more for his humanist communist musings.

On the contrary, you can posit an ideal end, but pretending that you know the way beforehand is utopian, and exactly the kind of thinking Marx juxtaposed himself against.

"Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples “all at once” and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with communism."

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence."

In other worlds, what communism will actually entail will be determined in the process of building it, on a global scale.

You may as well argue his critique of capitalism was utopian because he refused to outline an alternative system in its entirety.

You're refuting nothing.

Lmao, not quite bucko