this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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Antiwork
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For the abolition of work. Yes really, abolish work! Not "reform work" but the destruction of work as a separate field of human activity.
To save the world, we're going to have to stop working! — David Graeber
A strange delusion possesses the working classes of the nations where capitalist civilization holds its sway. ...the love of work... Instead of opposing this mental aberration, the priests, the economists, and the moralists have cast a sacred halo over work. — Paul Lafargue
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. — Karl Marx
In the glorification of 'work', in the unwearied talk of the 'blessing of work', I see the same covert idea as in the praise of useful impersonal actions: that of fear of everything individual. — Friedrich Nietzsche
If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves. — Lane Kirkland
The bottom line is simple: all of us deserve to make the most of our potential as we see fit, to be the masters of our own destinies. Being forced to sell these things away to survive is tragic and humiliating. We don’t have to live like this. ― CrimethInc
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You are simply moving the goalpost. Basically all the comments chain talks about advanced skills. I can see there is a general consensus (and I agree with this as well) about the fact that learning basic skills in multiple areas is both beneficial and achievable.
The whole point of this comment referred to complex skills, and plastering a wall was given as an example of such complex skills. To which you answered "I am going to plaster a wall". Try admitting that you might have made an overstatement or simply have been too geberic sometimes, nobody is keeping score.
Fixing a toilet should be considered a basic life skill, in my opinion. So is plastering, which is basically just large-scale patching. Toilets are important for quality of life, or are you going to try and disagree with that too? You're literally the one moving the goalpost and you admit that by referring to the comments rather than the post, which was what I was talking about, and have always been talking about. Maybe stop throwing a fit just because I said the people deserve better education and that capitalism sucks. Both are true whether you like hearing it or not. Anarcho-communism believes in strengthening the individual so that if the society fails, the people can still survive well. It's called self-sustainability. Be mad at it if you want, doesn't make it wrong.
Fixing a toilet doesn't mean much. Unclogging a toilet is a thing, replumbing it is a complete different thing. I would say plastering a wall is also complex. That said, my objection has nothing to do with not liking your opinion, I am very much a critic of capitalism myself and I consider myself a communist. I simply disagree with you in where the bar is with regards to what people "should learn" to do and what instead should be done by professionals who do that thing day in and day out. The argument is simple: you can technically learn anything but you won't have the time or the possibility to learn well everything. If society fails you will need to give up stuff, despite whatever this prepper version of anarcho-communism says, because you simply won't be able to be a competent farmer, electrician, builder, doctor, plumber, etc. This has nothing to do with capitalism, it has to do with the fact that complex skills need to be practiced to be maintained or acquired.
Actually, it has to do with hierarchy, and as a communist you should be able to see that. Capitalism itself is a hierarchy, and you're putting the professional over the individual. You're denying people the right to learn how to take care of themselves. You're also making it more difficult to cross-profession. You're perpetuating the system. You need to check yourself before you wreck yourself. I'm not talking about learning everything. I'm talking about learning to be self-sufficient, which I already said. If you are actually a communist, being such a clearly not anarchist one, you need to consider putting your focus on arguing with the right-wing instead of your comrades.
Being self-sufficient is an empty expression. To reach what standard? Living in caves and off the land, roaming like 100k years ago? Living similarly to how we live in the West in the present? The former is possible, and so are middle grounds hence me saying "you need to give up stuff", but the latter is not.
Also, a professional is just another individual, possibly a member of the community, which I consider to be the smallest viable social unit for self sufficiency based on modern society. I believe in mutual aid. Capitalism's hierarchy is based on ownership of resources and means of production, not skills, so your argument seems completely pointless to me. A society in which professionals exist is completely compatible with a classless society.
Also, I am not denying anything to anybody, I am just stating that learning certain things is unrealistic and this should not be the blueprint for a post-collapse society in my view because it is bound to fail in my opinion. If someone does manage to be fully self-sufficient, all power to them.
I argue with whoever I want, including with leftists if this means building a common vision. And from what I can tell, my vision of what society should look like is completely different from yours.