Basics of Socialism

C: [in response to someone else] The fact that you keep using that word ['proletariat'] tells me you're no different than any other rebellious teenager who hates the idea of having to work for a living. Stop leeching off your parents and the rest of society. Contribute for once in your life and maybe you'll feel a sense pride that will overshadow your profound jealousy of your betters. 

I: You're an idiot. No socialist dislikes work (socially useful labor time). What they oppose is work based on wage-labor, which is fundamentally exploitative and therefore should be dismantled. Socialists envision a society where work-places are democratically managed, and where labor and resources are freely used and contributed to. In addition, work in a socialist society has infinitely more utility than it does in a Capitalist society.

C: [Quotes me]. That's the thinking of someone that doesn't understand how economies work. It's not exploitative, it's voluntary. "Socialists" envision a society where they can get the same as people smarter and harder working than they are without putting in as much effort. The idea that everything should be mutually owned and shared is childish nonsense.

I: Haha, no. The extraction of surplus value which constitutes the profit that the employer pockets from his wage-slaves, and forms the basis of exploitation, is not at all voluntary. 'Surplus value' refers to the labor time for which the employee is not compensated for. Employers pay their workers less than what their labor is worth. Therefore, workers can only buy back a limited amount of what they produce. 

The continued exploitation of labor creates a large disparagement in wealth between the worker and the owner because the worker has a set salary while the owner can continue to profit as he hires more wage-slaves and profits from the additional labor.

The working class cannot rise above its condition because their labor is being undersold to them and labor’s product is being oversold to others, creating a cycle where they must earn more than their initial labor to buy back something worth much less. 

These conditions create and sustain social relations based around hierarchal structures of power. Those who control the means of production and distribution have the power i.e. the Capitalist elite. You cannot voluntarily enter into contracts with someone who claims a monopoly on the means of production: your existence is dependent on your access to those means, meaning usage is involuntary, not voluntary. 

This places people who don't have access to those means at a disadvantage as they must sell their labor-power in order to continue living otherwise. Limiting who may have access to and control those means, is to say the least, is undemocratic as it creates social relationships based on authority. 

You don't understand how economies work, never mind the fact we're not discussing economics, we're discussing the social relationships that wage-labor perpetuates. Capitalist economics depends on wage-labor to maintain its coercive monopoly on the means of production and distribution. 

It cannot be voluntary, as resources are bought with wages, which comes from hiring out your labor power. On the other hand, people may freely contribute to and use resources in a socialist society, which is inherently opposed to wage-labor. 

You've completely ignored my rebuttal. That socialists oppose wage-labor doesn't mean they oppose work. My point is that socialists oppose how work is oriented in a Capitalist society. The utility of Capitalist work serves only to sustain the Capitalist system and thus has no use to the individual performing that work. Work in a socialist society is of infinitely more utility, so people have much more incentive to do so (as it wouldn't be seen as drudging wage-labor, but rather socially productive labor time). 

Now that you've mentioned economics, I should point out that Capitalist economics is thinly veiled apologetics designed to wave-away the 'naturally resulting' inequalities of the 'free-market' system. 

That is to say, economics isn't a science, so understanding its biased suppositions is not necessary in terms of qualifying its truth-value. What is necessary to understand about capitalist economics is how it's designed to serve the interests of private tyrannies and how it adapts to changing social conditions to reflect this fact. 

Capitalist economics has been shown several times to be extremely unscientific. It continues to rely on suppositions which have been proven wrong, has numerous problems with internal consistency, and if it does change in it assumptions, takes a long time to react (essentially as long as those assumptions about reality serve Capitalism. They're discarded once exhausted of utility). 

I know you think "socialism" (as you put it) is some selfless utopian theory that's completely opposed to human nature. Well, I only have to observe your attitude to know that you understand nothing about socialism. 

In the first place, socialism is not altruistic. To be altruistic means to care for others at your own expense. You have nothing to lose by contributing to a socialist society. Socialism offers incentives that greater fulfill ends than could be satisfied under capitalism. 

Whereas in capitalism you're focused on economic self-preservation (which is naively mistaken by conservatives as 'individualism'), socialism is focused on true individualism (self-affirmation and expression) and solidarity (popular unity whilst recognizing individual autonomy). 

Secondly, socialism isn't a 'utopian theory'. It's at once both a methodical analysis of the socioeconomic nature of capitalist phenomena and its mechanisms, as well as a reaction to it in the forms of a workers' program (democratic takeover and control of the means of production).

In short, it has much greater truth-value, as its suppositions about Capitalism aren't metaphysical, but grounded in testable observation of its phenomena. It's very scientific in its methodology (how it approaches its analysis of capitalism). This means the theory can be adjusted to offer a more accurate account of Capitalism's machinations as developments unfold. 

Hence largely why original Marxist analysis of Capitalism is out of date: many changes have taken place within Capitalism since then. We must remember that his analysis was written in the context of an industrial capitalist society. Nations have moved into post-industrialism; commerce is now fully global and stream-lined. 

Several large changes have taken place which Marx could not have predicted. Our behaviors and subsequent social relations are shaped and influenced by these changes. Policies in reaction to new technologies, for example. Technology is much more efficient today at de-skilling the worker so he's more easily replaceable and his labor more easily exploitable. This creates a permanent labor market of unskilled workers. 

Whereas Marx wrote in a context where skilled craftsmen occupied the ranks of the proletariat, today unskilled laborers occupy the bulk of the working poor. What this means is that workers today are much less involved with the products of their labor: alienation of man from his labor has been greatly increased, as now even intangible services can't escape commodification.

[I quote him]. I didn't assert that everything tangible should be mutually owned. The means of production which is to say the means of sustaining life, which is impossible to avoid using, should be democratically owned as everyone is dependent on the fair allocation of resources to meet each of their needs. To claim a monopoly on the means of production, thereby alienating persons who have a right to cultivate its fruits, unfairly raises dependency on its use. In would be sensible to eliminate extraneous dependence and therefore relinquish the means of life to common ownership. You are dependent on it as well. Why should you be forced to sell your being to survive? Cut out the middle man.

Marx certainly wasn't correct in all his assertions, and I have yet to read all those assertions to pass any judgment on them. He wasn't perfect, so you shouldn't take this to mean that I revere him. But it's a shame to see that one of his most valuable contributions to society is so poorly misunderstood.

Selfishness In A Socialist Society

C: [This capitalist proponent is different from the previous one]. Human behaviour stems from human nature (unless you think there is something non-physical driving our brain functions), and it seems that capitalism is close to said 'nature'. Human selfishness does not only explain why capitalism works in our society, it also explains why every socialist attempt so far (communist or other) has failed: smart and able people, under produce because the return for their work is capped. A smart selfish individual will deduce that since there is no extra gain for his services, it is beneficial for him to work as much as the lowest producing worker in his unit.

I: This is exactly my criticism of Capitalist proponents. Capitalism is not reflective of human nature, it's four hundred years old. Unless you mean to say that the behaviors that Capitalism specifically selects for are 'natural', I can assure you they aren't as they are selected for, they don't bubble up to the surface. It's also more accurate to term these behaviors as 'self-preservation' (e.g. working for a much lower wage). In a socialist society, the same selfish behaviors would serve a different end which end up having a greater utility to the individual, as there's much less to lose and much more to gain in terms of self-advancement.

Successful socialist societies have flourished all throughout human history. Even before Capitalism was in its genesis, communes exhibiting largely socialist features (e.g. democratic control of the means of production and resource allocation) worked with other communes to meet the needs of individuals. These societies were crushed as merchants and other feudal puppeteers took advantage of the potential these growing communes had, which eventually took the shape of small towns, and eventually cities. Laborers, once free to cultivate and freely disseminate the fruits of their labor, were subsumed to the will of the upper class. 

This had been in cycle in many places around the world at this point, but mostly concentrated in Europe where this historical mode was predominant. Once feudalism collapsed, people were free to exchange goods without fiscal constraints (i.e. money itself) or having to follow the edicts that social relationships flowing from unlimited property rights produced. 

Capitalism disproportionately rewards people who happen to have skill-sets it arbitrarily values. This is why stock-brokers, investors and so forth can make far more than the common laborer without as much effort. Realistically, his labor investment is a pittance compared to what the worker has to expend. Think about it. Does someone who earns $600,000,000 a year work 20,000 times harder then someone who earns only 1/20,000th of that amount? No. For a fraction of a fraction of the same effort, the broker is awarded 20,000 times the amount. 

The Capitalist upper class historically constitute the bulk of earnings with little productive hours spent compared to the working class. This is not a sign of their efficiency; it's a sign that Capitalism disproportionately awards people for the same amount of effort. This system cannot be meritocratic (i.e. hard work leads to reward) in light of this fact. 

Not to mention that in order for an upper class to exists, there needs to be a permanent working class tier to feed the rich and build the toys they play with. In other words, there are many who will be consigned to selling their labor power their whole life to sate the petty needs of the elite. 

I have already explained why the working-poor and petty bourgeois engage in the behaviors they do: capitalism offers ultimatums (disguised as genuine incentives) to the working class that are designed to greatly benefit the elite. This leads the working class to enter into self-preservation mode: acquiescing to a lower wage, competition amongst workers and so forth. 

The elite don't engage in these behaviors; they draft policies which encourage them (tax cuts for the rich, wage slashes, firing without cause, etc.) whilst getting disproportionately awarded off non-labor income. 

If behaviors were truly selfish, they'd have greater utility to the individual as they'd entail self-advancement. Working for a lower wage is not beneficial; there's no other option. It's either work for pittance or die from hunger. Ostensibly it may somewhat resemble behaviors in socialism, insofar that self-interest is limited toward preservation and not advancement of said conditions. 

Socialism is much more selfish than Capitalism as it involves seizing the means of production for the worker's benefit, not the exploiter's. That's what it boils down to, if you want to discuss selfishness. Never mind the increased utility of labor and free time individuals have to themselves in a democratic socialist society.

C: Too much text that has nothing to do with my point: why would a skilled worker put anything but the minimum effort since his returns are capped? Example: You can produce 3 TV sets per hour working at your best while I can produce 1 per hour working at my best. Why shouldn't I produce 3 per hour (no-one will complain), and have it easy? If you need real life examples of the above visit Cuba or any government paid agency in my country.

I: Cuba isn't a socialist country. By definition no socialist country can exist, unless it's a transitory stage as conceived by Marx wherein the means of production are democratically held by the workers, who elect recallable representatives to socialize property of public utility. Once property of utility to the public has been relinquished to common ownership, the delegates are recalled and the transition to communism has ended. That is the socialism Marx describes.

In its general usage, 'socialism' is an umbrella term which refers to schools of sociopolitical thought which seek to change the relations between labor and capital in favor of the people who use the means of production. This includes communism (and its various strains), libertarian socialism (which flows into anarchism and its numerous strains) and other movements which seek to abolish all hierarchy (including the State) in favor of a stateless socialist society. 

The above is a summary of what the basic tenets of socialism are and what it's used to refer to. 

In contrast, Cuba's a state-capitalist enterprise. The difference between a socialist society and a state-capitalist one is the usage of wage-labor. In the former, the workers control the means of production, thus circumventing the notion of wage-labor. All capitalist societies use wage-labor. Therefore, Cuba is capitalist. 

Let's keep it simple. Communism (and socialism) aren't about equalizing wages or the amount of resources people can produce and consume. To ensure that all outcomes are equal requires State force. Socialism is opposed to the state. It doesn't view 'equality' as equal allocation of resources or abilities. Rather, it champions the notion that each individual should be free to pursue their own goals, in addition to freely contributing to (and using) communal resources (tools for work, recreation, expression, and so on). 

Government-owned agencies aren't exemplary of socialism. They are capitalist, hierarchial enterprises whose head is a government bureaucrat which nominally represents the public as opposed to a private bureaucrat who represents private interests. Aside from who's in charge, the concepts are exactly the same. 

I can't address your point directly since it completely strawmans socialism. It's not my burden to answer your question. The onus is on you to properly educate yourself about socialism.

C: So much text without answering a simple question: why should I put the effort to do my best without reward? There is no burden for you to answer anything, this is the Internet after all, but can I assume that according to your reply, if I educate myself in socialism I will find a reason to go against my self interests in my hypothetical TV building scenario?

 I: Your question assumes that you work under a society that uses wage-labor. Correct me if I'm wrong. In that case, I should point out that in a socialist society (Cuba is not socialist so it's not an example), people are free to produce as much as they please. Likewise, the needy can take as much as they require. People generally have enough sense to not consume more than they need, so there's no worry for depletion.

In terms of reward for labor. You're not paid in wages, as the method of resource distribution is different. It's more accurate to say that the community 'rewards' you by allowing unhindered access to its recreational resources. The point to understand is that there's no contract of work involved. People are free to produce and distribute the fruits of their labor, keeping whats necessary to satisfy their needs. 

In Capitalism, wages are used to purchase goods like televison sets. The purpose of producing these televison sets isn't to directly satisfy someone's needs to watch televison, but to sell for profit. However, the only way you can continue to purchase goods is if you continually hire your labor power for wages, which you then use to purchase goods. 

In other words, your access to resources is dependent on your ability to work, whereas your reliance on those resources to live isn't. This means in a socialist society, people who can't work (due to disability, etc.) still retain access to resources to fulfill a meaningful life. Both consumer and producer are rewarded alike because of their unhindered access to the means of life. 

That's about the best way I can answer your question. It's not that you aren't rewarded for your effort. Rather, you're rewarded in more meaningful ways.

C: What you describe is a 'saints/angels' society: produce what you can, receive what you need. Even if you can imagine a society which covers "all needs", some people will want something "better" in order to apply their talents. Case in point: if you compare the average western world citizen with his counterpart 300 years ago, he should be happy, he has everything without working via the state unemployment benefits: a house, food, basic medical care. Still he will not contribute to the society unless payed: why?

I: You describe a society where contributions are valued as number of hours worked or wages earned. People who are on disability or other state benefits are seen as not being able to contribute to society. Indeed, they cannot 'contribute' to capitalist society, as they have no labor power to be exploited.

The term 'contribution' here I think is a loaded one. It's meant to have a positive connotation, and it's a pretty exclusive notion. That is to say, contributions are what society values to be useful. All labor power is useful, but it's not the only thing that can be contributed, or of utility. 

How does someone on unemployment not contribute to society? This may be easier for people entrenched in Capitalism to answer. But you still retain your creative and expressive power on unemployment. Authors are a great example. J.K. Rowling was a single mother on welfare before she became an author. People valued her work enough that she was able to pull out of welfare. 

Unfortunately, other people with unique talents or abilities not valued by Capitalism aren't so easily noticed. It takes a lot of luck to be successful in a Capitalist world. In socialism, you can advance in society on your abilities alone. Not in terms of material wealth, but certainly in reputation and authority (in the sense that Noam Chomsky's an authority on linguistics). 

We can't assume that people don't have the ability to give back to society just because they're on the receiving end of it.

[I quote him]. It's not that he refuses to contribute. He has no choice. Acquiescing to wage-labor is the only way the working class can sustain a living (unless you have no labor power to be exploited, e.g. disability) since we're so entrenched in it. If it were easy to abandon Capitalism, there'd be no need to consign yourself to wage-slavery since there'd be more efficient ways to obtain the resources you require.

C: No choice to contribute, [seriously] now? Why can't they (people on unemployment benefits) pick up the trash from the street? Who is stopping them? Carry the bags for the elderly? Clean their houses? There is so much free shit that an unskilled unemployed worker can do, if your theory is correct, they should be lining up on the street offering their free services (the society is covering their needs after all)

I: Hmm? Who says they don't do that? My point was that contributions that capitalism values are the ones that can be exploited, and more importantly, used to perpetuate its existence. Purchasing a television set in a commodity market fuels commerce and by extension capitalism. The profits from the TV you bought with your wages is piled on top of the company's profits, who can hire more employees to earn them more profit (or technology to further deskill said employees). What you consider to be a contribution is irrelevant. Not trying to be antagonistic. Just stating the case.

C: Where is this place that you live and you witness the majority of unemployed (living under benefit programs) lining up to serve society for free? Tell me and I will visit. There can be no exploitation under capitalism because by definition both parties must agree to the exchange: the company cannot force the customer to buy their product and the customer cannot force the company to sell at his price. Unless they both agree, the transaction will not be done. The same applies to workers: they are free to leave for better jobs, and the company is free to get better workers.

I: [I quote him]. They don't have to be lining up anywhere. It happens. Do you think they just sit at home all day, sitting on the couch and munching potato chips? Not every unemployed person volunteers, as some may be in no physical position to do so. This detracts from my point though. The point is that Capitalism is a global, hegemonic economic system. For its effects to be extinguished on any reasonable scale, we must institute world socialism.

The incentives and utility of voluntarily producing and distributing goods is easier to see when the entire world is engaged in it. Not literally every person, but a great portion of what are now the laboring class, expressing their abilities to greater serve themselves and the population. Work would not be seen as back-breaking or drudge weary. 

It would manifest under a fresh paradigm: one of solidarity and self-affirmation. People work harder at something when they enjoy it. They may enjoy it because it best expresses their talents, or merely because they are helping to build a society where everyone's basic needs are met (which is not necessarily altruistic, since every person shares this same interest of fulfilling individual needs).

[I quote him]. Weak argument, sorry. The bargaining power between an individual who has to sell his labor power to survive and someone who claims a monopoly on the means of life is not equal. The 'agreement' is a rubber stamp. Sure, you can leave for a better job, but many don't have that opportunity. What entails a better job? Higher salary? Better working conditions? Higher retention? Worker benefits (vacation time, sick days, etc.)? Besides, you still won't escape from the dilemma of having to sell your being for wages.

You're just better off than the tier below you. And unless you have the skills and connections, you won't advance much higher. The decision to purchase commodities itself (and thus adopt a consumer role in the capitalist sense) isn't voluntary. Again, your continued existence depends on the continuous expenditure of necessities. 

Sure, you get a choice between different brands, but that's about as voluntary as it gets. Someone who has a nice-paying job can purchase greater amounts of commodities, but that's not fair to the destitute who get priced out of the market thanks to the profit motive. Needs could be greater fulfilled if there weren't barriers to resource access. The solution isn't to find a better paying job, it's to overthrow the construct that unfairly perpetuates inequality and to institute a sane system based on equitable resource distribution.

C: It happens in an invisible minority, while is should be the norm for the majority of unemployed with benefits (under your theory of course). Just because "some" do it, does not support your theory.

Who has a monopoly on the means of life? (unless you are referring to the pre-fall USSR [Soviet Union], where I would agree that the state could target you and deny you EVERY single job). The rest of the post is based on this baseless assumption (unless of course you mean USSR, China, [North Korea], etc. of course)

I: [I quote him]. My point again was that what you consider to be 'contributions' are irrelevant. Your personal musings concerning the matter don't change the fact that labor-power is not as socially useful as it would be in a socialist society. Debating whether or not the unemployed can 'contribute' detracts from my point.

Labor-power under Capitalist dominion has a specific utility and purpose which inherently stunts its liberatory potential. Thus, its 'contributions' toward society are limited in scope as they don't advance a state of affairs for either an individual's or society's benefit. 

Participating in the commodification of life is not liberating, it's alienating. My second point was that whilst labor-power can directly contribute, its not the only tangible concept that people can consider to be of value. 

Ideas themselves contain value. Thus books contain value. My example to support this was J.K. Rowling and her literary success. Unfortunately, ideas containing genuine value are also commodified, which does not help to stall the degradation of society's deplorable state.

[I quote him]. No, it's not a baseless assumption. It's an observation very strongly backed by centuries of Capitalist development. The Capitalist elite (that is, the super-rich and politically powerful): the ones that draft policies concerning wage-labor, regulations regards working hours, compensation, wages, etc. are those which ultimately control the means of life. The corporations and other private interests which fund these policies have their piece of the pie as well, as corporate welfare and subservience help establish a permanent labor and consumer market which the former can freely penetrate to their satisfaction.

The means of life should not belong to any single individual, state or capitalist. It should be relinquished to common ownership where it can be used to its greatest effect, as I have explained previously.

C: Lets keep it simple: according to your socialist theory (as described in your posts, please re-read what you write), individuals take what they need and offer what they can.

Unemployed citizens under benefits, receive from society what they need: food, shelter, medical utilities (my country sends them on vacations too). Their possible contributions (which they CAN give unless handicapped) are too numerous to list but lets give it a shot:

Pick up the trash, help elder citizens, reforestation, road building, etc etc, you get the point.

But, they do nothing of this sort. You have to explain why your theory is falsified by this simple observation: they receive but offer very very little (the "little" is from your personal anecdotes, I am still waiting to see someone cleaning the roads if not employed by the city, or getting a call from my grandmother telling me that I do not need to do shopping for her because a young unemployed man is offering to carry the bags)

Theory does not stand against observation.

I: Completely incorrect. You fail to take into account that your observation takes place within capitalism. In order to prove that my argument is incorrect, your suppositions must be formed within a socialist context.

I see you've made some assumptions in your argument which I'll have to address.

You suppose that the same people who are currently unemployed in Capitalist society will not participate in its socialist equivalent. However, work in a socialist society is voluntary, as it's not dependent on wage-labor. Consequently, we see a distinction between the incentives to work in a socialist society and in a capitalist one. 

What drives incentive to perform work in a socialist construct? There are several. The satisfaction in expressing your abilities and thus affirming your being is one. Many people work harder doing something they enjoy. Indeed, many professional craftsmen enjoy what they do despite the weary fact that their being is tied to wage-labor. The knowledge that you're secure in your access to necessities is another. People have much more free time to contribute in meaningful ways since they aren't occupied earning wages to sustain a living. 

What drives incentive to work in a Capitalist society? As previously mentioned, people work to sustain a living. Indeed, ostensibly in both socialism and capitalism, work is needed to continue living. But this superficial glance overlooks the subtle differences between the two states of affairs. Whereas labor within its socialist conception is life-affirming, labor in capitalism is performed to earn wages to continue living. This is life-degrading. But you can't continue living without having to earn wages to access the commodity market to purchase goods which were sold to you at a profit. 

There are two principal ways in which consumer-workers perpetuate capitalism. The first is purchasing products with wages. The second is consigning to wage-labor. It's within this cycle that the proletariat (working class and people who otherwise would be, such as the disabled) must escape to liberate their being. Since the proletariat constitute the bulk of capitalist society, ending our forced participation in it by seizing the means of production for our benefit would essentially consign capitalism itself to the history books. 

It's in this way that socialism is also much more selfish than capitalism, since the means of production are used for the benefit of the worker.

Participating in the market in any capitalist sense (either by being a consumer, or laborer; both whose existence is reliant on wage) means that labor is used to sustain capitalism, and consumption of commodities continues this production. 

This is because labor is used to produce commodities which necessarily accrue profit for the owner of the means of production. This is what I mean by 'labor has limited utility in Capitalism'. It alienates the worker from the production process (he cannot keep what he produces), from other workers (competition), and his self (self-worth). The end result of labor is to accrue profit. In socialism, it's to realize the self. This benefit, coupled with the incentives people are offered to voluntarily perform labor, is one of the prime reasons why socialism is a preferable alternative method of economic organization to capitalism.

In the end, your observation does not translate to the failure of socialism, as it was observed within a capitalist context. This speaks more towards the shortfalls of Capitalism: people are so dependent on wage labor or other means of income that they rarely contribute in other ways; merely because those efforts won't be reciprocated in a capitalist construct. There's no incentive to voluntarily work (indeed, that is the antithesis of capitalist doctrine), so that's a failure on its part, not socialism's.

C: [He quotes me]. There is voluntary work in a capitalist society, but unemployed under benefit programs don't do any. Invalid argument due to observation.

[He quotes me]. Why would they not be satisfied with helping via voluntary work? Senior citizens would thank them x 1000. Your assertion is baseless.

[He quotes me]. Unemployed under benefits have all the free time in the world to contribute - they do not have a job to do, remember? No-one is asking them to do anything, they can volunteer for whatever they choose/like/etc.

I am not advocating that the lack of voluntary work is the fault of socialism, I am simply pointing that PEOPLE do not volunteer even if their needs are covered and nothing is required of them.

Nothing is stopping them from voluntary work, and the last sentence in your post contains all the truth of the matter: There's no incentive to voluntarily work.

I understand your pipe dream: somehow in socialism people will get satisfaction from voluntary work (that they do not get now), and they will start doing so. 

I hope you understand that this is a baseless assertion: I could argue for example that dodekatheism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_Polytheistic_Reconstructionism) will help people realise themselves and become the true incentive to work. Actually, you can repeat your whole post, and replace socialism with any -ism you choose. There is no evidence/explanation, why people will start behaving differently.

I: [I quote him]. No, there isn't. If you've failed to comprehend my argument thus far, it's useless to pursue further discussion with you. It's not voluntary if dependence on the means of life is involuntary and extraneously elevated thanks to an illegitimate monopoly on it. Your observation is invalid since you've formed within a Capitalist construct. Do you not understand this? Have you not seen my reasoning? I've made it clear as day.

[I quote him]. Invalid supposition due to the fact that your supposition is founded on a capitalist basis. You really don't get this, do you. There's no incentive to voluntarily perform labor in a capitalist society. That's the anti-thesis of capitalist labor. It won't be reciprocated on a large-scale in the sense it would be in its socialist equivalent. Capitalism isn't designed to benefit the common man, its to benefit the exploiters of his being. I'm completely skipping over your next point since it's based on that same invalid supposition.

[I quote him]. I've belabored specific parts to my post germane to my point. Socialism has been realized in communes before, during and after the development of Capitalism, as I explained in my first reply to you. Right as I type this, there are several hundreds if not thousands of participatory communes in which people voluntarily perform labor and retain free access to resources. If it were on a large-enough scale, they'd be much more successful than they are now (hard to keep a commune together when it's so difficult to keep distance from capitalism itself).

People are afforded limited insight into the complex machinations of capitalist phenomena since they view it through a capitalist framework: false consciousness. If you constructed a framework which exposed the realities of capitalism quite neatly, people would gain clarity into the possibilities and benefits a socialist conception of society has to confer.

 C: [He quotes me]. Why? Because you say so?

In order to avoid playing with words allow me to paste the definition from the dictionary: 1. Done or undertaken of one's own free will 2. Acting or done willingly and without constraint or expectation of reward

Is an unemployed person (under benefit programs) free to pick up the trash (hence helping voluntarily) whenever the fuck he wants to or not? If not, what is stopping him? (be specific pls). Will there be anyone con-straining him from doing so? If yes, who and how? Is there any reward from picking up the trash on your own? 

In order to dismiss this basic observation that refutes your theory, you are trying to redefine the meaning of "voluntary": there is a "capitalist voluntary" different from "socialist voluntary" (and I guess different from "whateverist voluntary")

To sum up, discussion has come to a "no true voluntary fallacy", it seems there are more things needed to be called voluntary apart from free will, willingly, without constraint and no reward.

I: [I quote him]. No, I have explained to you already why there are no incentives to work voluntarily in a capitalist society. I thought I had made myself clear. There's no "capitalist voluntary"; it's literally coercion dressed as free agreement. This is distinction I had made in my argument. You can't accuse me of the No True Scotsman fallacy when I had explicitly said that capitalist labor is coercive. Nowhere in my argument did I attempt to redefine 'voluntary.

You're the one forwarding the definition of voluntary without critically considering the capitalist shortfall to it. Hence why you belabor that capitalist labor is voluntary, which involved redefinition on your part, ironically. I have sought to explain why it isn't. The general usage of voluntary (found in a dictionary) is directly contradicted by the notion of capitalist labor.

[I quote him]. Belaboring this point. Nowhere have I said he isn't free to pick up the trash. My point is that wage labor isn't voluntary. Picking up the trash is voluntary unless it's under wage-labor. In which case, picking up the trash to the extent you're free from physical constraints to do so, is a means to satisfy the end of earning wage.

Now, why is wage-labor coercive? Simply put, as I have expressed before, it's married to your continued existence. 

In order to live, you must eat. In order to eat, you must have food. In order to have food, you must purchase it from a commodity market, which itself sells products manufactured under the exploitation of labor-power to sell at a profit. 

To participate in the commodity market as a consumer drives the production of these products, and thus by extension, capitalism. To purchase products, you must earn wage. To earn wage, you must hire out your labor power. Labor-power is undercompensated. 

This is what socialists call "appropriation of surplus value". In other words, employers only pay for a fraction of what your labor is worth. This payment is the 'wage' portion of labor. That which isn't compensated is the profit. The employer can sell the product of your labor (whose value is derived from the labor you invested into it) for higher than what your labor is worth. 

This is the source of illegtimate appropriation: the employer is making money off what you produced, but weren't paid for. This appropriation constitutes the basis of profit and necessarily capitalism. Why? Capitalism is concerned only with investing capital. 

What is capital? A tangible/ntangible asset which can be invested for future returns (profit). Labor-power constitutes a portion of the pantheon that is capital (which includes tools for the performance of work, such as machinery, and tools dedicated to the streamlined erformance thereof, such as automated systems, which deskill the worker as the system performs essentially the same work more efficiently -- suited to the purpose of commodification rather than quality, of couse). 

The means of production is married to profit. It isn't used to satisfy need; rather to continuously accrue profit. Usage of the means of life is involuntary. If you restrict access to it, you unfairly raise dependency on its use. 

Case in point: why can no worker keep what he produces so he may distribute it? It's instead directed to a commodity market designed to accumulate profit for the owner of the means of life. This is because the capitalist has monopolized the means of life and is using to profit. If the means of life were socialized and used to directly satisfied need, as socialism advocates, real demand could be properly satisfied without worries of overconsumption. (Capitalism artifically induces scarcity and demand. Very rarely do prices reflect supply and demand, and if so, to a negligble degree). 

Instead, the laborer is required to dole out the same product for pittance whilst being alienated from the production process.

Thanks to the profit motive, those who require necessities moreso cannot adequately satisfy those needs, whilst those who're better off are encouraged to buy more than they can consume. Such is the nature of the commodification of our precious resources. 

No company would produce to satisfy need since that's anathema to the profit motive (whose betrayal has economic and legal implications for the company). How may more people could obtain the resources they require if this weren't the case? 

People with genuine needs are cornered then, into selling their labor-power to access the commodity market to satisfy those needs. This is why wage-labor is both coercive and involuntary. It's not that you agree to wage-labor, you have no choice to unless you're disabled. It's the lesser of two evils. The second evil is starvation and inevitably death. This is the truth. To argue otherwise is the domain of a naive apologist. 

I'm not the one redefining free agreement to fit an agenda. However, you're unwittingly playing into the agenda of the bourgeois.

C: [He quotes me]. Finally, yes! on topic!

My observation involves unemployed people (under benefit programs), who do NOT work, and are NOT under wage-labour or any labour. Food, housing, health, education, vacations are provided for FREE, and nothing is required of them (apart from filling up the paperwork). These people live with the above facilities as we speak in most western countries (mine is one of them). These are the facts, and my observation follows:

Why don't you see any of these people, go out on the street, on their own FREE WILL, start picking the trash voluntarily? Again: they don't have to, no-one can force them to (no-one will look down on them for not doing it either), they can do it whenever they feel like it for however long they wish. They also know that no reward is given apart from a possible applause by the bystanders, and a possible feeling of good doing for themselves.

According to your theory, we should be seeing most of them doing this or something similar (or at least the majority)

[He quotes me]. Please explain the coercion done to an unemployed who DOES decide to go out today and do something good for the planet: pick up some trash.

I: [I quote him]. I didn't say that. I don't think you understood that part of the argument. In fact, I don't think you even recalled it correctly.

[I quote him]. You have completely failed to note the connection between the necessity of wage-labor in capitalist society and how it differs from free agreement in its socialist equivalent. If you truly have that much difficulty comprehending, then I will sum it up for you: access to means of life. That's it.

An unemployed person's efforts will not be reciprocated, so there's no incentive to voluntarily perform labor. Why won't it be reciprocated? Because no one else can direct the fruits of their labor to a communal pool where such can be freely taken from thereof. If there were a communal pool swelled with resources of public utility, people would find much more time to propel their own interests in meaningful ways. 

How so? People can freely take from and contribute to the communal pool, instead of spending the majority of their time occupied earning wage to obtain such resources. Hence, your incentive to voluntarily work in a socialist society. Your being isn't attached to wage-labor, and consequently your labor-power is much more life-affirming. 

The products your labor-power produces are much more useful since they aren't produced for profit, they're produced to directly satisfy need. This is not the case in capitalist society, since the means of life aren't held in common. Hence why there's much less incentive to voluntarily perform labor in capitalist society. There is your answer, in summation. 

You want evidence of voluntary labor happening? Look at socialist communes all throughout history. Their actions are a result of the incentives that a socialist construct offers. Further, the decisions to perform these actions on any large-scale are freely agreed upon, democratically. Persons affected by the decision have a say in how the decision affects them. 

You're operating from the premise that voluntary labor is necessarily altruistic and thus should not require incentives to be performed. My argument is that voluntary labor is inherently selfish, since there are many more incentives to do so which greater fulfill our selfish ends. In contradistinction, wage-labor is not selfish, as you have argued; it's limited in its utility to serve selfish ends, as I've explained earlier. That's the full answer to your question. 

Voluntarily labor is selfish, not altruistic. Hence why it cannot be performed as expected in capitalist society: there are no incentives to fulfill our selfish ends to voluntarily perform labor. You must detach yourself from the naive preconception that voluntarily labor is altruistic, or that any aspect of socialism is such. 

However, there's a task all socialists must partake in to incentivize voluntary labor. We must seize the means of life so that we may produce and distribute for our benefit as opposed to the capitalists'. With people producing to satisfy their needs, much more time will be allotted for leisure and so forth. Though seizing the means of life, we also transform the notion of labor from a dreary one to a life-affirming one that best fulfills our selfish ends.

C: [He quotes me]. Of course they will not be reciprocated, because that would imply a reward of some sort (thanks dictionary again), making the "voluntary" nature void. Are you trying to troll me with circular logic?

Let's try to stay on topic: If you read the rest of the partially quoted paragraph and put it as a reply to my question you get this: An unemployed person will not voluntarily pick up the trash because there is no communal pool swelled with resources of public utility, which would allow people to find much more time to propel their own interests in meaningful ways. 

Wut?

I: I did fudge up on the term 'reciprocated' a bit. My apologies. The last paragraph is my direct answer to your question about free labor in a capitalist society. I recommend reading the following two paragraphs to understand where I'm coming from before reading the last one. The text in-between isn't needed to get the gist of what I'm saying.

What is "reciprocated" is the act of contributing to society itself on a large-scale. That is to say, no individual should have to worry about contributing involuntarily to society in some shape (such as through wage-labor) since its been abolished. In its place, many people partake in the same activity of contributing to and withdrawing from resources. In this sense, 'reciprocation' is not an individual expectation, as in a contract between two parties, but a secured societal expectation regards access to necessities. 

In other words, you can nearly always expect to obtain what you need (the extreme but unlikely cases include freezing to death in a subarctic plateau somewhere) without first currying society's good will. It's not an explicit contract between society and yourself to secure a service or good, but it's mutually understood to exist in a passive sense. This is what I meant by 'reciprocated'. You can see the thought is quite complex, so I had difficulty describing it initially. This does not render my previous commentary irrelevant, however. It just turns out I have a lot to say. I have difficulty being succinct, as you can see. I think that many points are germane to this exchange, so I work them into my case where possible. 

In contrast, capitalism does not secure the same expectations or offer the same incentives to voluntarily labor. In capitalism, many disadvantaged people suffer and even die thanks to lack of basic necessities. Why? The infrastructure for work itself may be inadequate (think severely underdeveloped business co-ops in Africa, south-east Asia, etc.), the economy may be in a depression, and other structural deficits which rely on the robustness of the economy to forestall their decay (but nonetheless can still appear. Refer to Attawapiskat in Ontario, Canada). This intricate connection to the economy in some ways stalls the potential for progress since its so reliant on capital to propel itself. 

The solution in the short-term may be to turn to radical self-reliance (and communal co-operation to bear the grunt of crisis) in the face of this austerity, but the sensible answer would be to overthrow the system that perpetuates inequalities and stalls progress. This is how structural asymmetries (wage-gaps between sexes, races etc.) can be extinguished, since everyone would have an opportunity to benefit from access to the means of life, as opposed to merely drifting in tandem with the fortunes bequeathed upon capital. 

Returning to societal expectations. For example: clothes, tools and sustenance will be voluntarily produced. The neat thing is that whilst production is socialized, socialists aren't picky about personal property rights. Items designed for personal use, such as clothing, are considered your possessions, since you use them for personal purposes over an extended period of time. 

People have opportunity to work for their benefit, and not the capitalists'. They will work to directly satisfy their needs as they get to keep what they produce, whereas in capitalism what you produce is sold to the consumer for profit. In this way, you directly control what you may receive and contribute to society. 

If someone is too ill or otherwise cannot reasonably contribute in some form to society, he won't be shunned. There are more than enough able-bodied people to provide for their self-interest and secure the health of another. I will point out that this isn't altruism, but rather an enlightened form of self-interest. We necessarily all share the same interests. No expenses are incurred caring for someone else in a construct where the cost (which can be socialized by the combined efforts of society) is worth the result. 

Co-operation is not a linear transaction. It remains in continuous flux amongst the rising and falling of different tides; persistently punctured by the incongruities present in between the varying needs, abilities, and decisions formed between people in free agreement within the flow of time. That is to say, humanity itself is in constant flux within socialism, since it has fully expressed its nature and cultivated the fruit of its labor: never again to be rendered predictable by economic trends or constraints. Resources and man himself has been liberated. You cannot compare the two states of affairs. 

That last paragraph was more poetic prose than concentrated argument. I decided to end with a flourish. In summation, capitalism does not secure the same incentives or societal expectations that socialism does. There's no mutually understood expectation that your needs will be sufficiently met in capitalism. You might say that socialism offers a wider and more useful safety net than capitalism ever could. That's oversimplifying the point, but captures its essence well. 

The apathy one encased in a capitalist construct feels, in the knowledge that he isn't secure in his well-being, leads him to think his efforts are of no use. The disenfranchised are alienated. The issue isn't the lone instance of 'voluntarily picking up trash'. It's the lack of security behind that principle that's so foreboding.

C: I have to give it to you: you win the argument by sheer force of out-of-topic wall of text :-)

You wrote a bazillion words about capitalism and socialism, while our topic is a simple real life observation: unemployed under benefit programs do very very little voluntary work (free work, under their own free will), that could contribute to our society.

[He quotes me]. Let's format your explanation together with my observation: unemployed do not volunteer in our society because they are not secure for their well being (A), they think that their efforts are of no use (B) hence they are alienated (C).

(A) False: their well being is secured by law (they are under benefit programs). If some believe they are not secured there is nothing to be done, it is their free will to believe things not based in reality (some believe this planet is 6000 years old)

(B) Do you think unemployed people are retarded or uneducated (or both)? What can possibly prevent them to come to the conclusion that picking up the trash is not useful? 

(C) That's a big assumption. Unemployed take part in our society 100%, 50% of the people I know are unemployed [for fuck's sake]!

[I didn't respond further because I was exasperated by this point, frankly. If he won't get it, I'm more than happy to leave him wallowing in his pathetic, myopic delusions concerning reality. I hope you enjoyed this exchange.]