Socialism which funds leisure at a level such that one has a genuine choice of having a full-time job, a part-time job, or no job at all, is the only salvation as I see it. Socialism which has people working because they like to work and not because they wish to amass wealth, is the only salvation as I see it. Absurd?

No, inevitable! When machines first started to take over the hard, the dirty, the repetitive and tedious jobs the die was cast. Society has been drifting towards a work-for-enjoyment status ever since the industrial revolution.

aklink

Sort of Brian but right at the moment Oz is close to full employment. There will always be people who don't want to work or can't work. Need to look after the latter. I'd say we're entering a 40 year period where older workers nearing retirement will be enticed to work part time to top up savings and younger people's labour will be in high demand.

Alfred,

I think Mr Holden is having a lend of us.

If by socialism you mean that people who do not want to work, don't get paid, that's fine with me :) As someone once said, 'he who does not work, neither shall he eat.'

Yes, there may be a few Benjamin Brandysnaps out there, while the other guys sit up in their tree-house, but in real life they don't last long. I beavered away on a vegetable garden at an Aboriginal community for a couple of years, before I realised that I was just a mug.

The strange thing about so many people on welfare is that they don't feel they ever have to reciprocate - the feeling seems to be that if you can do it, and they can't, then you should keep on doing it, and they will - by virture of their lifelong, terribly oppressed condition - never owe you a thing. Because they can't, you see :)

I guess the history of collective farms in the USSR and China is also a pretty salutory lesson for the Benjamin Brandysnaps of the world.

A very wise man named Tony Ryan once wrote that, in community development practice, if people can do something for themselves, you never do it for them. Never. I'd certainly second that.

It's also called 'self-determination'.

Cheers,

Joe

Good points, although I bristle at the endorsement of "socialism", as I do with any other "ism" for that matter.

However I think it would be fair to require that all of us who benefit from society should contribute to it - equitably. This requires an agreement to be reached about contributions that society would value, and accountability for the contribution made.

We already have this mechanism for accountability and the recognition of community work in Centrelink benefits for the unemployed and mutual obligations agreement, but its terms are currently too restrictive (except for over 55's) to accommodate your ideas.

There is a campaign to broaden the opportunity and extend it to all ages which you might like to consider. (View forum - Employment | myregion: http://bit.ly/npPdMg) The pros and cons of reform are being addressed there.

Interesting article - based partly on the premises of genuine or 'pure' communism as imagined by Marx in the Communist Manifesto.

Problem is without mutual disarmament worldwide there will still be pressure to maintain arms budgets.

And while for some personal growth and altruism will be enough to enter into professions such as teaching and medicine - others will reasonably expect material reward... SO there must be a level of differentiation... And these areas of the social wage will still need to be paid for somehow...

The answer would be a mix of incentives - but with flexibility for workers to trade off consumption for free time; and support for the use of this free time - including funnily enough through voluntary work. ie: Marx's idea of work 'becoming life's prime want'. That's what we can reasonably achieve right not.

We're getting closer to the point where Marx's interpretation of communism becomes possible on a large scale; but we're not there yet.

No Brian, that is by far the absolute worst idea I have ever heard in my entire life.

NOBODY wants to work to support strangers who are simply too lazy to do any work themselves- the French had a revolution against a nobility elite that did precisely that very same thing (scabbed off workers and did nothing).

Not only would this system NOT work simply because nobody would want to be the appointed molochs to uphold the luxuries of a lazy self-absorbed society denied to themselves; is the fact that this idea is not even an idea- but a manifestation of selfish ego-centrism and self-entitlement, that conveniently blames capitalism, evil businesspeople or some other external threat whose fault it is rather than yours that other people aren't generously making sacrifices for your benefit.

A better idea is to emulate Mediterranean European countries that are actually more realistic about workloads and cut the working day to drastically shorter lengths, or implementing extended break periods.
THAT would be more realistic, and mean that people who DO work, are not worked to exhaustion.