Free Access: What would be the incentives to produce anything at all?

[robbo203]

Ike Pettigrew wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

The party also  needs a  pamphlet directly dealing with the human nature argument because it is consistently the number 1 objection to socialism.  The "Are we prisoners of our genes" pamphlet  is good but does not deal with the argument directly in my view which break down into 3 basic assertions: –  human beings are inherently lazy-  human beings are inherently greedy-  human beings are inherently warlike and aggressive We need to deal with each of these claims once and for all – systematically and comprehensively – within a single publication And Vin, in answer to your tweeter, you could point out  that most work even under capitalism is UNPAID and the so called grey (non-monetary) economy is larger than the official white and unofficial black money economies combined in terms of hours worked 

No doubt you would accept that people can be lazy, greedy and warlike/aggressive; are you suggesting that these attributes – which you assume to be negative – are the result of capitalism alone?

 IkeThe point is that these attributes are invoked as a reasons why socialism is not possible.  I dont say capitalism qua capitalism is responsible for them because I dont actually think they exist by and large or at least not in the sense that they are imagined to exist – as essentialistic features of human beings.  Actually if the workers were truly greedy or lazy why would they put up with a system that exploits them and compels to labour for a capitalist minority?  Why settle for crumbs when you can take  the whole bakery?  There is something distinctly ungreedy about such behaviour My point is that capitalism needs to perpetuate the myth of the lazy greedy or aggressive worker to secure its hegemoney.  It needs to individualise blame, to attribute poverty to the indolence or sloth of individual workers so as to deflect attention from the structural factors that underlie poverty. The human nature argument against socialism appeals to some kind of quasi original sin, some inherent flaw in the human make up that forever denies us the possibility of establishing a decent society.   It is based on a myth and the empirical evidence suppplied by capitalism itself shows it to be a myth

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