- Capitalism and Alternatives -

That's right

Posted by: Stoller on December 25, 1999 at 12:26:37:

In Reply to: It all comes back to job rotation posted by David on December 24, 1999 at 10:11:44:


: Invariably, the problem associated with all revolutions and uprisings is that they can get real bloody real quick. Castro's revolution was haled as a wonderful peaceful one until in the following weeks there were increasing amounts of anti-revolutionary cleansing.

Yes, revolutions involving the transfer of the means of production from one group or class of society to another WILL invariably provoke resistence. The American Revolution was another such example.*

: What I am interested in is how would jobs be rotated? Would it be Ad Hoc or would there be a sort of comittee to determine that?

I really don't accept the 'ad hoc' business, forwarded by anarchist idealists, that's made the rounds on this debate board. Too vague. Whether or not sewage jobs are popular, sewage maintenance IS popular.

On the other hand, job rotation DISSOLVES entirely the concept of controlling committees. If there was a committee, it too should be rotated...

As I see it, job rotation requires not a committee but a commitment---a commitment to insure that everyone has equal access to the administration of the state (which will allocate work hours here, work hours there, tally up votes, conduct surveys and research, etc.).

: Would people have specific quotas of hours worked in certain areas of work? For instance, would you classify jobs and then say people have to work 15 hours a week in a certain area and 15 hours in another area?...etc

As I mentioned here, how many hours were needed in any field would be determined by society's needs. If the majority of people wanted a lot of toasters, for example, then there would be a lot of production hours needed to make toasters to everyone's satisfaction. On the other hand, if only a few people wanted toasters, then it would be a 'dying industry.' What this infers is that production itself should be decided along democratic lines (meaning the minority doesn't do without, they just simply have less work hours available to make whatever it is they wanted).

: She was trying to point out that your idea of a bourgeoise conspiracy had holes in it. It would also reflect the supply and demand of our economy.

See other post for a response to the 'supply and demand' idea.

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* I'm not really going to defend Castro's socialism, although I have admiration for some of its more evident accomplishments. Because job rotation and state decentralization FAILED to emerge after so many years, however, Castro's socialism can only be judged as Stalinist in structure.



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