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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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.