Personally I'm quite the fan of capitalism and think that, while not perfect, it's most definitely the best economic system that we have and that I, at least, can conceive of. That said, I've never been able to rationalize for myself, nor have heard others rationalize, what a society with socialized production would actually look like and how we'd maintain the same quality of life as we have today. Hence, this post. I'm really hoping that someone on the "other side" (though that sounds a bit too adversarial for my taste) can eloquently explain their thought process. Not trying to spark hostility, just want a thoughtful discussion.
Some of the big questions I have are:
1. Who does the hard/dirty jobs in this society? Farming being one. But also construction, sewage, trash, ad inifitum. There are a lot of undesirable jobs and while maybe some people would be willing, I doubt our needs could be met when the same individuals could just work an easier job for the same reward.
2. How are "needs" defined? Food, shelter, clothing. Then what? Electricity? Internet? Smartphones? Gaming consoles/PC's? Games to play on those? Music? Memory foam mattresses? Etc. If all of these aren't needs, then how would individuals with varying interests actually choose what they want to own?
3. What are the incentives to advance amd become highly skilled? Take doctors. Some are really passionate about what they do. Most may be a little passionate, but are mainly just intelligent people drawn by the money and prestige. Assuming medical school and university still exists, for what purpose would someone go through that pipeline when they could do something far easier?
The only answers I've received to these thus far are something along the lines of "Well humans would just have to fundamentally change their nature and learn to live like x." Which isn't an answer at all.
This is the argument I usually don't understand. Sure, it's hard. But well working in heavy industry is hard. Working customer service is damn hard. I'd be happy to read a lot of books and sew someone's wound up and get fed for it.
Maybe a better argument is why doctors and nurses get paid so differently. You probably need more nurses than doctors for a medical procedure. But the supply of doctors is lower. It's not that being a nurse is easier. It'd that the people who become nurses often don't qualify as doctors.
For me, things I'd qualify for might be writing, cooking, drawing, and programming. One of these pays far more than the others. Cooking professionally is probably a lot harder and yet more fun, but the economics don't add up. I can serve maybe 100 people a day at a restaurant, but I can serve millions/day writing code.
I think there's a kind of moralism here where people want to think they're richer because they had to sacrifice more. But often it's because they lucked into a well paid skillset.
But of course there are not any ideas except one programmer's joke that all the governments might be replaced with one little script of code. Maybe we should return to this discussion after some examples of the script will be appeared somewhere.
Your first question assumes that jobs can be ranked on a shittyness scale. This is true in a capitalist society, but why is it true? Why is developing software at Microsoft less shitty than frying burgers at McDonald's? Is the act of frying burgers shit and the act of typing source code on a computer less shit? Is walking dogs more shit than lecturing at universities? The answer to these questions are no, or else people wouldn't fry burgers at home and they would not buy dogs.
The shittyness of a job is more dependent to the employee's circumstances, like how much autonomy they have, their social standing, job security, treatment by others, etc, than the actual tasks performed.
Think about what you're saying here. Why don't the people who do these jobs currently not just work at an easier job? If the answer is because they live in a societal trap that prevents them from exploring better options then clearly there is something worth examining here. We shouldn't support social systems that rely on exploitation to function.
Personally, I am not convinced that "progress" is an unmitigated good that should be pursued at maximum speed and efficiency, so I am not convinced that all of these undesirable jobs are truly necessary for society to flourish. For the jobs that are necessary, I think people would do them, even without special compensation, because the costs of not doing them would rapidly become apparent.
I don't agree that socializing all means of production is the best antidote to what ails us, but I do think that "all-in" on capitalism has failed as a general policy. I would like to see meaningful limits placed upon any private entity's ability to consolidate cash and market share across vast swathes of the earth's surface. As it is the financial health of local communities are at the whim of a handful of multinational juggernauts who let their pools of capital trickle across the globe in arbitrary rivulets. The result is that the members of most communities have little chance of effectively competing in local markets, the mom and pops get replaced by the walmarts and the starbucks and everyone is stuck working to move the fruits of their labor upstream and out of their community.
Alternatively, some sort of "basic income" could potentially alleviate some of the pressures, but I see this solution as more of a temporary band-aid.
The only thing coming close is Social Democracy. But in Social Democracy there is usually lots of capitalism going on. Sometimes with highly perverse incentives, if the markets has been altered in a ham-fisted way.
In conclusion, the track record for socialized production is not stellar. Far from it.
An alternative way of organising society and production would be to optimise for the good of society instead of just profit.
Attempts have been made to fix capitalism via regulations such as "the non-baby kill act of whatever". However, our "democratic" system is not really democratic, it more like an oligarchy. Therefore, MR CEO has to take into account bribing politicians to influence regulation in order to maximize profits.
Instead of patching capitalism, a better idea is to introduce democracy from the ground up. That is we acknowledge that the work place has a greater impact on our daily lives than the government itself. If the workplace is ruled as a dictatorship, then workers of that place spend most of their productive time under an authoritarian regime.
Democracy of the workplace would mean that every worker has a vote on how the company is ruled.
Compensation would be a matter of concensus between the workers. Which would address the inequality we currently face.
The idea that your friend had of a farmer working for free or some sort of barter is not something I share.
This is the answer that Marx gave (Communist Man) and the deepest answer we'll ever get because it's nonsense at the fundamental level.
1. Who does the hard/dirty jobs in this society? Farming being one. But also construction, sewage, trash, ad inifitum.
I suspect quite a few people would be happy to spend their time farming or construction if they had their druthers. But that aside, you're asking "Without desperation and poverty, who's going to do the dirty work?" I don't do the job I have now because it's the thing I always want to do, but it carries incentives. If a garbage man's schedule was from 5am-9am every day, for example, maybe a lot of people would sign up to be done working that early.
But what if you really changed your thinking? What if we didn't need garbage men because we found a way to automate their job? Or because things were set up completely differently and people just bring their own garbage to a collection point in their neighborhood?
People are cheaper than developing automation in many sectors. Without perverse economic incentives, how many shit jobs could be done by robots or computers?
2. How are "needs" defined?
Everything you listed is a need. Some of those needs could be met without private ownership, as we already have libraries for sharing books / movies / games without needing to buy them. There is no reason you need to own all those things.
And the things you do want to own like your mattress, for example, could absolutely be free. Why would somebody hoard them?
3. What are the incentives to advance amd become highly skilled? Take doctors.
Doctors are a really poor example. Many doctors go through the process out of a genuine desire to help, only to find themselves kneecapped by debt. They often complain about the need to spend too much of their time dealing with insurance paperwork, and would rather just help people.
And while some do it for the prestige and money, and maybe some of those people would go on to other professions, do we really want them? How many other people would love to go to medical school but don't for financial reasons?
> Well humans would just have to fundamentally change their nature and learn to live like x.
It's not about changing your nature. It's about understanding how much of what you consider "nature" is a learned response to an environment. The entire capitalist structure is artifice; nature doesn't even come close!