The division of labor under socialism/communism?

This is an interesting thought experiment. I'd raise two points:

1) It is important to make the distinction between the social division of labor and the detailed division of labor. The former being the way that social production necessitates particular economic roles (jobs or careers under capitalism, that "sphere of activity, which is forced upon [one] and from which [one] cannot escape") and the latter being the way that labor is socially organized within a production process (jobs or careers within a particular workplace under capitalism).

Communism implies (in my mind) a post-scarcity situation. I believe it is in chapter 13 of Capital Vol. 1 that Marx talks about the great efficiencies created by the detailed division of labor within capitalist production. So for real shit jobs that are highly capital intensive (making steel, producing electricity, safely disposing of human waste, etc.) I'm not sure that we would want to revert to small scale 'artisan' production without an advanced division of tasks. I'd think we'd want that work to be evenly distributed amongst members of a community/syndicate/whatever, while grudgingly keeping some detailed division of labor to make this production less time consuming for everyone. Of course, unlike capitalist production, full effort would go into making this work as safe and easy and automated as possible.

Which of course leads to the social division of labor. Within this wider category people could be free to engage in whatever their interests are: from flying, to philosophizing, to fishing, to whatever. When production for the sake of surplus value creation has been eliminated we would logically have much more time to spend on learning various skills and applying them to whatever we saw fit. So while there would still be some division of labor across society, it would not be an alienated economic division, but one based on particular predilections, personal fulfillment, community values, etc. If you're really good at woodworking, enjoy making rocking chairs and people enjoy sitting on them then when you give them away to others you're filling a particular role within society, but one that is self-directed as opposed to enforced by a wage system.

2) As for the pilots question (which really deals with training and the certification of skills by those with the knowledge to do so), in this particular case I think it's important to remember why commercial flying is so frequent and necessary these days: mainly the circulation of global circulation of workers and the lack of free time under capitalism.

Business people fly because they have to get places quickly to exchange things for a profit. Vacationers fly because they have to get to destinations quickly because they only get one to four weeks of holiday a year under capitalism. Without these enormous time constraints placed on people by capitalist society, wouldn't it be a much less wasteful and much more enjoyable think to just sail to your destination instead?

I don't think that flying should be abolished or anything - there will clearly be cases where people need to get somewhere fast, like a sick relative or something - but I think its importance will decrease substantially when we are not forced to work 40 to 60 hours a week doing horseshit for some asshole boss. Many people really enjoy flying and learning the skills doesn't take too long, so I'd imagine that a flying club could be set up composed of individuals who enjoy it and would want to help others in need get to where they need to be quickly.

Of course, society would have to decide how many resources it wants to put into making and flying planes, but that is a whole other kettle of fish...

EDIT: for clarity

I'm sorry you felt threatened by what I said, because it wasn't meant as a threat, but to illustrate the absurdity of using an assault rifle to kill deer. The inference is that 'assault', by its very nature, requires an appropriate 'defence' to be overcome. Since the deer doesn't have such a defence, it seems that its defence rests with us humans.

Hence, my proposal to our democratic commune to arm proletarian 'deer defenders' with sniper rifles, to take out the hunters!

Thanks for your support, Comrade! I take it you'll be voting for my 'armed bambi protection' proposal?

They will be if my suggestions are adopted at the appropriate commune level, mate!

Belt-fed machine gun deer-defence platoons next. Watch those poorly-armed AK47-wielding individual hunters scatter!

LBird, the AKs that you can actually buy (without special licenses) don't even qualify as assault rifles. If you really can't stand that at one point (unless manufactured strictly for consumers) that this gun qualified as an assault rifle, you can go ahead and get a Saiga semi-auto. The difference? It has a buttstock and different magazines. That's about it. And just because of the buttstock, the gun is marketed as a hunting rifle. It's made with the same parts in the same factory. Not that this issue is really pertinent to the greater discussion, but the only concern you've raised is that AKs have been called assault weapons. Not that they are impractical, nor that they are dangerous for hunting. They're certainly not the best gun for hunting, but they're far from the worst.

As far as arming animals goes, I'd probably go for the ones that are enslaved first. The belt-fed machine gun cow brigades would do more damage to capitalism.

As for the ethics of hunting, I only hope that everyone raising those concerns is a vegan. Otherwise, you've got a whole lot of ethical questions to sort through before you get to hunting. If meat-eating is allowed in a society, you're going to have a hard time finding something more humane than hunting. Consider that there are people who have medical conditions that necessitate a diet with meat in it. I am one of them. I was vegan until I got diagnosed, weighed 110 lbs. (I'm almost 6 foot) and realized, with lots of medical counsel, that I need meat in my diet in order to just maintain what is a healthy, but pretty slim weight. If you know of a more humane way to get meat in your diet, then let me know. I would actually be very interested. It would save me from explaining myself to radicals that are either afraid of guns or afraid of non-vegans.

Birthday Pony, you seem to be missing the point of my original post, which omission Railyon highlighted.

The ‘AK47’ and ‘hand grenade’ for ‘hunting and fishing’ joke was really about ‘who decides?’. I really thought that it would be uncontroversial to use the idea of ‘military weapons being employed to mass destroy mammals and fish’ to show that ‘individual’ proclivities and specialisations would have to be under our democratic social controls. I really didn’t forsee any Libertarian Communist being actually in favour of either assault rifles or grenades to kill animals. Shows how much I know, eh?

The real discussion of this thread should be returned to croy’s point about ‘democratic authorisation bodies’ and LefterThanThou’s point about the ‘weighting of experience’. It’s too important a discussion to be sidelined by the definition of ‘assault rifle’.

Oh, yeah, and the proletarian ‘bambi defence squads’ will also use dum-dum rounds, to ensure those ‘hunters-for-fun’ really squeal, and so they truly know the fearful meaning of ‘the hunt’.

I would really appreciate if you stopped with the hunting jokes. My diet, which was, is, a very important part of my life, got flipped upside down a few years ago. And it was a painful experience (physically and ethically) finally coming to terms with how I had to change it. If you are against hunting, I'd rather you suggest a more humane way of getting meat than go on about bambi squads, and if you're not then I just ask that you stop. Anyways...

You seem to be missing my point that the general population doesn't really know everything about everything to the point of being able to regulate everything, as evidenced by your knowledge of what actually qualifies as a reasonable hunting rifle. I should also note, that when it comes to "mass destruction of animals for fun," you're really the only one tooting that horn.

And at this point, the tension between your claim that division of labor is inevitable and that a majority of the population is qualified to qualify specialists should be pretty evident. If people are busy gaining a wealth of knowledge in one area at the expense of others, then how are they able to judge who is qualified for what outside of their area of expertise?

The surgeon example comes from how surgeons actually are currently certified. They need to pass exams, put together and assessed by those who have been doing surgery (and very likely taught them) for a very long time.

LefterThanThou's point is simple enough to fix. Just because surgeons tend to know more about surgery than the average Joe doesn't mean any of their associations should not be accountable to the average Joes of the world. Doctors are pretty regularly evaluated, and should be, by patient advocates.

LBird did not say that, it was I that said something along those lines about hunting. Im not a vegan, and most of my diet is based on meat, but I still think hunting is not ethically OK. You act like theres no other way to humanely kill animals other than going out stalking them in the woods and shooting them with whatever gun is approppriate (please shut up about the assault rifles etc, you keep on saying lets stop and then replying to a point about it). Do I you really think thats how we get our meat products today ? No, its more like we raise them in "factories" (im not quite comfortable with using that term in this context but its the only one I could think of) and feed them until its time. Im not a fan of the places where chickens are kept in those dark sheds with no light really cramped and stuff though. To be honest, I dont want know what Im talking about and am out of my depth, but I know KFC dont employ people like this for the job

http://youtu.be/ztDdFra_Yy4 (excuse the music)

I don't disagree that the ethics of hunting is a good example of potential problems with decision making, I disagree that this is the time and place to actually discuss and make decisions over the ethics of hunting. Surely we should be discussing the sorts of frameworks that might successfully enable that to happen in the future. Anyway, I will try to reply more thoughtfully later with points on the discussion rather than the discussion of the discussion.

Consider it water under the bridge. I've spent more time than most people I know thinking about my diet out of necessity. I had a winter of losing 30 pounds and shitting blood, so I get defensive when people tell me my decision to start eating meat again is ethically bankrupt without proposing any attainable alternative (attainable and not ideal because I need meat right now to survive). It's not a big deal to me now that I've calmed down. Sorry for adding to the massive derailing of this thread. I would suggest, however, that you learn where your meat comes from before you start talking about it.

The topic is the final stage of communism, not your current constraints. If you have a biological reason you must eat meat, that's actually very interesting, but I don't think anyone was suggesting you're morally bankrupt because you can't access nutritious plant food.

When the final stages of communism are completely divorced from any recognizable reality, it seems more like we're having a circle jerk than a worth while discussion.

Can you point me out to where you are getting this information? It's news to me.. my classes in archaeology, anthropology, history of civilization, etc have pointed out that the division of labor wasn't present in Neanderthals.