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Comment by danbruc | Hacker News Reader

We obviously have to work because goods and services do not suddenly appear out of the blue. And we should obviously try to spread the required work as evenly as possible across all the people so that everyone does his fair share of the necessary work. It also is obviously a good thing if we manage that as many people as possible can do work they like to make the necessary work even easier to do. But beyond that? Are there really people seriously believing that work is more than a means to an end? I have a hard time imagining this.

EDIT: Would someone downvoting this care to explain why? Because you are really believing necessary work has some intrinsic value or goodness or whatever? If yes, what is it?

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Are there really people seriously believing that work is more than a means to an end?

Probably, but this argument is mainly a strawman to avoid debating actual classical economics. The classical viewpoint is that no job would exist if it didn't serve some useful purpose, and requiring people to find a job instead of getting welfare, is a way of preventing people using other people's tax dollars for their sustenance, instead of getting it by performing some useful task for someone else.

You are speaking from a communist ethos that not everyone agrees with.

Communist ethos? In seriously don't get the connection. The premise is uncontroversial, isn't it? Until we automated everything humans will have to do necessary work to sustain our livings and doing unnecessary work for the sake of keeping everyone busy is a dumb waste of resources. After that I really don't care. If someone is not into fairly sharing this necessary work, go for it, work long hours. I will happily work less and spend my time with stuff I love to do if you really want to do all the work. If you want to do work you don't like, I won't stop you. What am I missing?

I think (s)he's referring to the part about "spreading the work as evenly as possible", though the post sounds like a Red Scare parody to me.

"Spreading the work as evenly as possible" is not communist ethos (likewise, evenly distribution of wealth is also not communist ethos). "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is the classic Marxism principle (it's the same for any other communism - they differ in the method to get there, not the principle).

There are a lot of problem in practice with trying to evenly distribute the work. And they're mostly the same reasons why we have to rely on free market to distribute the majority of wealth: the centralization and power issue, the inefficient issue, identity issue when your worth is tied to the minimum work you need to do (granted this is already a problem nowadays). And to determine a minimum fair share of work means to determine the minimum total work that a society needs to do, which is equivalent to determine the minimum amount of wealth to be produced. Ask 10 people and you will have 20 different answers on what is the "minimum living standard should be".

Also, it stops (or drastically slow down) society from technological progressing. Whether it's a good or bad thing is up for interpretation.

I am not sure if and where I disagree with you or if I just misunderstand you. I don't see the distinction you are drawing between "Spreading the work as evenly as possible" and "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". But I also don't think that this is the heart of Marxism but it is about getting rid of the possibility to exploit workers by the possession of the means of production by a small elite. Likewise I don't see that Marxism necessarily implies some kind of centralization or inefficiency, i.e. I don't think there is a contradiction between free or partially regulated markets and Marxism, they look almost orthogonal to me.

Everything you said is correct! There was just a few details I didn't have in my post that make it slightly confusing.

"Spreading the work as evenly as possible" and "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" differs because people's ability is different, and because the work itself is not interchangeable (specialization and what not). This is more of a technicality than anything else, because the former might imply that everyone has to be doing similar work (in term of wealth producing efficiency, time working etc).

Getting rid of the possibility to exploit workers by the possession of the means of production by a small elite is definitely the overarching motivation for communism. I can't remember it right now, but I think there is a line of practical reasoning that leads to the principle mentioned (which is to says that for practical purpose, one will lead to another). I will have to look it up.

Marxism (at least the motivation and principle mentioned above) by itself definitely doesn't implies centralization! It's unfortunately that this the insight is often missed by people. However, according to Marx, to get to communism, we have to transition through socialism first, which is the abolish of private ownership for major means of production (in Socialism society, means of production is owned by public enterprise, as opposed to being held in common in Communism society). This step poses a centralization issue (as the power that be won't relinquish their power), and inefficiency is just a byproduct of centralization (because of corruption and lack of creative destruction, mostly).

We have not found a way to transition directly to communism from a capitalism society (assuming that communism is desirable).

If they want to do more than their fair share of the necessary work, they are either just dumb or altruistic and should feel free to go for it. If they want to do less than their fair share of the necessary work, they are either just lazy or actively trying to exploit the others and should be punished by them. Everything other than fairly sharing necessary work seems suboptimal to me, either for individuals or for the society as a whole.

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