Fucking hate that myth
it's a matter of motivation
Submitted 1 month ago by bearboiblake@pawb.social to [deleted]
https://quokk.au/static/media/users/fp/iZ/fpiZzYGU8x7nmEi.jpeg
Comments
peteypete420@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Mac@mander.xyz 1 month ago
Damn, they never heard of hobbies, huh?
hubobes@piefed.europe.pub 1 month ago
Just FYI at least here I get compensated for my work as a voluntary firefighter. Not sure how much anymore but it is around 25 bucks per hour. Made like 1k last year, had not really a lot to do except training and 2-3 smaller incidents.
But yeah I don’t do it for the money, I learned about that in basic training 😁
jj4211@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Now let’s discuss all the people eager to volunteer to work sewage treatment plants.
The proportion of people with more innate motivation versus need for a job to be done varies wildly between jobs.
But when someone approaches work with innate motivation, amazingly better stuff happens compared to people in it just for the paycheck.
bearboiblake@pawb.social 1 month ago
If something really needs to get done, like repairing necessary sewer systems, then it will get done, because it needs to. Do you really think that people who have the skills to repair the water treatment plant are going to just deal with sewage backing up into their home because they don’t want to do the work?
For a more comprehensive analysis of the question, I’d direct your attention towards an anarchist FAQ. I’ll quote a few choice sections below, but the link goes into great detail, comparing and contrasting multiple approaches to handling the problem.
There are some jobs that few, if any, would enjoy (for example, collecting rubbish, processing sewage, dangerous work, etc.). So how would an anarchist society deal with it?
[…]
It would be easy to imagine a free community sharing such tasks as fairly as possible between a community’s members by, for example, allocating a few days a month to all fit members of a community to do work which no one volunteers to do. This would soon ensure that it would be done, particularly if it were part of a festival or before a party. In this way, every one shares in the unpleasant as well as pleasant tasks (and, of course, minimises the time any one individual has to spend on it). Or, for tasks which are very popular, individuals would also have to do unpleasant tasks as well. In this way, popular and unpopular tasks could balance each other out. Or such tasks could be rotated randomly by lottery. The possibilities are many and, undoubtedly, a free people will try many different ones in different areas.
[…]
Of course, no system is perfect – we are sure that not everyone will be able to do the work they enjoy the most (this is also the case under capitalism, we may add). In an anarchist society every method of ensuring that individuals pursue the work they are interested in would be investigated. If a possible solution can be found, we are sure that it will. What a free society would make sure of was that neither the capitalist market redeveloped (which ensures that the majority are marginalised into wage slavery) or a state socialist “labour army” type allocation process developed (which would ensure that free socialism did not remain free or socialist for long).
In this manner, anarchism will be able to ensure the principle of voluntary labour and free association as well as making sure that unpleasant and unwanted “work” is done. Moreover, most anarchists are sure that in a free society such requirements to encourage people to volunteer for unpleasant work will disappear over time as feelings of mutual aid and solidarity become more and more common place. Indeed, it is likely that people will gain respect for doing jobs that others might find unpleasant and so it might become “glamorous” to do such activity. Showing off to friends can be a powerful stimulus in doing any activity.
jj4211@lemmy.world 1 month ago
allocating a few days a month to all fit members of a community to do work which no one volunteers to do. Ok, this basically sums up the answer: the community forces labor one way or another. What is the enforcement, carrot vs. stick for making people do their fair share. How do you reward people for doing unwanted work? How do you deal with someone refusing to do it, or “maliciously complying” and doing it terribly to make the job easier and/or get out of doing it again in the future?
So the agreement is that there is work that needs some external impetus to happen, because not every job has enough people intrinsically interested or civic minded to make it happen. The question becomes which solutions manage to be more fair than others? For unskilled and unwanted jobs, the current answer has a lower class overworked because they are the most desperate, and that’s bad. A forced labor system might manage to distribute the burden more fairly, though thanks to people being crap it’s likely for a system set up to do that to be abused to overwork some demonized demographic, ending in a similar outcome a different way.
Whatever the case is, it’s not as rosy as “people freely work on wikipedia and programming, therefore people will freely work on anything society may want or need”
Martyy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Except these people are very rare and I doubt an averege Joe would do 40 hours work for community just because its gonna benifit somebody else
Magnum@infosec.pub 1 month ago
Well all of those spaces actually pay a wage too.
bearboiblake@pawb.social 1 month ago
As an open source developer, I fucking wish. Some devs do a bit of work paid by big corporations, but most do not. Others have patreons and such, but rarely make much.
Magnum@infosec.pub 1 month ago
Well yeah, but still, the founders of wikipedia paid themselves a wage. Open Source has lots of jobs attached to it, firefighter is also available as full time paid job - yes there is a shit ton of free labor work being done there, but there’s also the opportunity to work in that space professionally.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 1 month ago
And yet there are still people who those strings completely for free.
Martyy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Also wtf do minecraft players have to do with working for free?
Jako302@feddit.org 1 month ago
If I’m not completely wrong that picture is from the uncensored library, a massive project that allows users to search most of Annas archive in Minecraft. Its used to circumvent state censorship and allows for freer access to knowledge.
teslasaur@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Would you work if you werent paid?
PattyMcB@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Better question: would you work if you got paid, but didn’t have to work for it?
OP is talking about communism. Socialism is far better, since you still have to work, but there are safety nets and limits on Oligarchy
zloubida@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
I don’t do my job for the pay. I could do something else and be paid far much, but I chose the one in which I kind of struggle financially but that have meaning. A lot of people do that.
So the answer is: yes. I’d prefer to do my job in a money-less society than in ours!
teslasaur@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m only working so that i can afford the things that other people make. A moneyless society would just have other types of debt, with fewer things to do in general.
I could probably also take a job that pays more, but that wasn’t the question. Would you do take responsibility for other people without compensation is probably a more apt way of phrasing the question.
Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
If I got to do what I choose to do and didn’t have to worry on being able to afford the essentials or paying to learn the job? Absolutely. There’s been quite a few jobs I’ve wanted to do, but can’t either due to no openings or expensive schooling even with assistance. Shit I’ve often wanted to keep working at my current job past quitting time cause it’s nice and relaxing. Only problem I’ve ever had with it is it’s a morning shift and the place is closed in the afternoon. Start me at 2 PM and I’d work for 10+ hours.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 1 month ago
For sure
Pacattack57@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Reddit mods?
PattyMcB@lemmy.world 1 month ago
They don’t do any “work” but I’m sure they get off on being total dickheads