Hi Flora. Nice to see you went to so much trouble over what we thought, but unfortunately the mud isn't any clearer for us.Please explain:-
How the processes of production and consumption would be run for use / need. And who decides what how much is the right amount for use / need? How do you take account of core human emotions, like greed, self interest ? The tendency for some people to be greedier than others isn't going to be easy to eradicate. Unfortunately (for the needy) if you take profit out of the equation, you remove the motivation for people to use their skills to achieve your aim. It's sad, but there are too few philanthropists out there. Like it or not the majority of people in the Western world want to make more money. How are you going to convince them that subsistence is far more desireable? People have been reared on consumerism. You can't ignore that fact. What you want to do is change the way people have lived and thought all their lives. That's not easy, unless you have a rabbit to pull out of your hat.
What kind of things people do for a living at IWW ?
Do you all manage to exist outside the system that you abhor ? Or do you all lead a double life, by day, flog your guts out for the money grabbing capitalists, and by night, organise etc ? We know it's a personal question, but so many of you seem so principled, we just wonder how far you take those principles into your everyday lives. We're sure you find it hard, what do you do at the supermarket ? All the companies with products on the shelves have them there for a reason - PROFIT ! Even the organic alternatives are there to make money. Where do you live ? How do you pay your rent, mortgages ? How do you survive without being part of the evil capitalist machine ? Or is it OK to be part of it as long as you express a desire to want to change it ?
Why the IWW hasn't come up with a workable alternative to replace the wage system. If you are going to create a new utopian ideal, people need to understand the nitty gritty of how it's going to operate.
You are having to guess at what the IWW would like to see wages replaced with. That's too vague. You can't expect people to change the way they live and simply make it up as they go along. People have to know how something is going to operate before they buy into it. (for want of a better phrase)
It's no good jumping up and down and calling for abolishing this and that, unless you have a workable solution to replace it with. Otherwise you'll just fall at the first hurdle, and look silly.
How will you recognize the "appropriate level of organization" Who is going to coordinate a presumably enormous group of workers ? Who will ensure that everyone follows the same ideal ? There will have to be LEADERS, won't there ? It will happen naturally, some people are just better at it. BUT will they do it for the common good, or will self interest start to weasel it's way in ?
You see, this is where the theory, in our opinion, starts to come apart at the seams. It assumes that everyone has the same motivations, emotions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and wants to work for the common good. But human nature isn't like that. OK, so human nature got us into this mess. But don't expect everyone to unite and solve all the problems - we can't even agree on what the problems are.
We realise that people like you feel you have the winning ticket, but your solutions are only any good for people who have the same views as you, and unfortunately, the majority of people don't.
It's not that we don't feel you're entitled to believe whatever you like, just don't ask everyone else to follow you UNLESS you can come up with realistic, practical, workable solutions and alternatives. Having ideas is easy, it's making them work that is tough.
Finally, we are not necessarily pro employer. Why is the IWW so black and white on issues ? We are workers too, you know. Why do we have to be one or the other? Just because we disagree doesn't make us your enemies. We prefer to think of ourselve as realists. We take stock of how the world around us is operating, but we don't see any way that it can be radically changed. The world and it's people are too fragmented. How can you expect everyone, or even a sizeable proportion to all start dancing to the same tune ?
None.
