It’s funny how that imaginary Chad Stalin quote implies that you can’t do any of that stuff under capitalism, or that capitalism requires any person to be limited to “one sphere of activity.” In the USA we do have the freedom to choose to do any or all of that, and our only limitations towards doing them all are time and resources.
That is generally how it works in most of the world, except for primitive hunter-gatherer societies that live beyond modern civilization.
Except that most countries do have social services to support the needy. If you are poor in the USA, you can get free food and free healthcare from local county governments.
Right limited time and resources. You get more time and resources by earning more, quicker. You typically do that by becoming more skilled. You do THAT by… Specializing in one sphere of activity.
You absolutely can do whatever you want in a capitalist society, but let’s not pretend there’s no incentive to stick in one lane and specialize.
No, it’s how specialization works. True, as you do one thing more, you get better at it. This inherently disincentivizes jumping around and learning multiple skills, if we tie that to earning ability within capitalism. This does not have to be how we assign value, or earning, however. We could do any number of things differently, to incentivize different things.
One radical idea just off the top of my head would be pegging earning to age. Specialists get to specialize if they love a particular thing, and it won’t hurt their earnings. Jack of all trades still finds earnings more aligned to their actual worth to society - flexibility. Right now, being an okay person at everything is pretty crappily rewarded, because you only earn more by doing something REALLY well.
Again, this is just off the top of my head. I don’t think it’s necessarily the way to reorganize earnings in our society. It’s just an example of how labor doesn’t necessarily intrinsically have to lead to specialization earning more.
Lots of people have to work 40+ hours just to survive, that doesn’t leave much energy to do things other than your paid job. And you can’t just switch jobs willy nilly, pretty soon nobody would hire you anymore if your cv is full of jobs you’ve only held for a few weeks or months
There is no law that says you can’t switch jobs whenever you want. We literally do have the freedom to do that within the framework of capitalism and the laws that govern the citizens of the USA. The reality of the situation is of course that employers generally don’t like that, but employers are not the government and they don’t own us. We still have our freedom to choose to pursue whatever we want for employment. These are generally good features of capitalist democracy - it’s also good that employers are free not to choose unreliable candidates.
That’s not because it’s not a communist society, that’s because our government is run by shills paid by corporations to keep it that way.
Who runs a communist society? The people? Do we all take turns being president? What happens if it’s a bad dude’s turn and they don’t want to relinquish power?
The problem isn’t necessarily the economic system, the problem is the leadership appointed, combined with the people’s willful ignorance of their actions. Late-stage capitalism is definitely a problem, but in its current implementation more of a symptom of the points above.
tl;dr every system suffers from the same vulnerability: shitty people
It’s funny how that imaginary Chad Stalin quote implies that you can’t do any of that stuff under capitalism, or that capitalism requires any person to be limited to “one sphere of activity.” In the USA we do have the freedom to choose to do any or all of that, and our only limitations towards doing them all are time and resources.
You have the freedom, if you have money. Otherwise you don’t. You just have the freedom to be homeless and starve
That is generally how it works in most of the world, except for primitive hunter-gatherer societies that live beyond modern civilization.
Except that most countries do have social services to support the needy. If you are poor in the USA, you can get free food and free healthcare from local county governments.
Sooo… how does that relate to your point? That you can supposedly do what op is saying in America because freedom?
It’s a reply to your comment, it says what it means already and needs no further explanation.
Right limited time and resources. You get more time and resources by earning more, quicker. You typically do that by becoming more skilled. You do THAT by… Specializing in one sphere of activity.
You absolutely can do whatever you want in a capitalist society, but let’s not pretend there’s no incentive to stick in one lane and specialize.
That’s just kind of how labor intrinsically works though. It’s not a capitalist thing.
No, it’s how specialization works. True, as you do one thing more, you get better at it. This inherently disincentivizes jumping around and learning multiple skills, if we tie that to earning ability within capitalism. This does not have to be how we assign value, or earning, however. We could do any number of things differently, to incentivize different things.
One radical idea just off the top of my head would be pegging earning to age. Specialists get to specialize if they love a particular thing, and it won’t hurt their earnings. Jack of all trades still finds earnings more aligned to their actual worth to society - flexibility. Right now, being an okay person at everything is pretty crappily rewarded, because you only earn more by doing something REALLY well.
Again, this is just off the top of my head. I don’t think it’s necessarily the way to reorganize earnings in our society. It’s just an example of how labor doesn’t necessarily intrinsically have to lead to specialization earning more.
Lots of people have to work 40+ hours just to survive, that doesn’t leave much energy to do things other than your paid job. And you can’t just switch jobs willy nilly, pretty soon nobody would hire you anymore if your cv is full of jobs you’ve only held for a few weeks or months
There is no law that says you can’t switch jobs whenever you want. We literally do have the freedom to do that within the framework of capitalism and the laws that govern the citizens of the USA. The reality of the situation is of course that employers generally don’t like that, but employers are not the government and they don’t own us. We still have our freedom to choose to pursue whatever we want for employment. These are generally good features of capitalist democracy - it’s also good that employers are free not to choose unreliable candidates.
That’s not because it’s not a communist society, that’s because our government is run by shills paid by corporations to keep it that way.
Who runs a communist society? The people? Do we all take turns being president? What happens if it’s a bad dude’s turn and they don’t want to relinquish power?
The problem isn’t necessarily the economic system, the problem is the leadership appointed, combined with the people’s willful ignorance of their actions. Late-stage capitalism is definitely a problem, but in its current implementation more of a symptom of the points above.
tl;dr every system suffers from the same vulnerability: shitty people