@RiverDelta , 1 hour of human labor is still equal to the 1 hour of human labor, so first the contribution one makes is not distinguished and differently valued from any other. Socialism is free activity in free association in which labor regains its creative essence, thanks to overproducing. Labor regained its creativity, agency, and complexity the variation in the activities and the skill. We're off with the dehumanization of workers.
But it seems we are talking past each other.
Labor specialization as you describe it is still a necessity in many ways. You can't know everything right? Also on some level, people seem to gravitate towards areas of interests and become experts in those areas and or have unique proficiency and skill. So there is something about specialization which also doesn't seem to be necessity, but a human want/desire and part of the diversity of humanity.
Currently achieved 'socialism' is a merging of gendered, skilled/unskilled, manual/mental labor, along with ability of a worker to do potentially any job they want. Individual workers can be reassigned to different jobs with much ease. I don't know how it's possible to totally abolish the every sign of division of labor, but at least modern socialist economy doesn't have permanent roles
in the division of labor.
Marx once said 'In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me
to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner'.
Isn't that enough for you or you'll continue to demand abolishing the very existing
of a different professions?
...No, this would actually be fine for me. I admit that I'm still learning as far as Marxism goes, but as far as I can gather, this seems to be pretty legitimate. Good job, though, in citing something that isn't relevant, because this model of division of labor would be completely acceptable...in a socialist society. Not, however, in a capitalist society, and it is capitalist societies that are allegedly (According to you) using it.
Currently achieved 'socialism' does not exist. It's chained to the value form, still has alienation, still has private property (sometimes, but not always, in the duplicitous form of collective property, which fails to abolish property at all as a concept)...See this comment I posted earlier on the USSR for my general problems with AKSHUALLY EXISHTING SOCIALISM.
Okay, for one, the Soviet state acts as a capitalist and the collective farms and peasants with their individual plots (private property is enshrined by law in the form of "collective" farms) also act as capitalists. Markets still exist in the country, even a "free" market, and if you don't believe that the Soviet Union has a black market I really don't know what to tell you. Also...Yeah. There's still a need for surplus extraction, which is a characteristic of the capitalist economy. Besides, capital still runs Russia and the other Marxist-Leninist "radical" social democracies. The law of value makes itself known through shifting changes in prices and wages and on what's produced in the country.
Labor is still alienated and there's a constant drive to push down wages and make labor more productive along the very same lines that countries like the United States did, and unemployment is often widespread in the country, dependent on economic downturns. On top of that, there's conspicuous social differences, wage differentials, and division of labor.
The Soviet Union and really Marxist-Leninist (Can we just call them Stalinist? After all, we know who really turned Leninism into Marxism-Leninism, and it wasn't Lenin or Marx) are oppressive capitalistic states. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Although, I mean, at least the old boss didn't claim to be the ultimate expert on Marxism or anything. Speaking of which, left communists aren't hipsters - left communism is a long and storied intellectual tradition that seems to be the only ones to have any idea what Marx is actually trying to say.
There. See. It's not just Cybersyn or co-ops or whatever that make something socialist, and 'socialism in one country' is a filthy lie, anyway, given that socialism by definition is an international movement, and the dictatorship of the proletariat and the revolution are one and the same.
So, you seem to grasp division of labor in socialists societies.
Shame that that's all you seem to get about socialism.
Anyway, in case anyone wants to know what I've been doing, I got hit by a car driving at low speeds and broke a leg, so I've been taking sick days off of work. You know, reading, watching TV, using the internet. California's a great welfare state, but those never last, and the fact that it calls itself 'socialist' is just insulting more than anything.
At least California's pretty free, unlike some other formerly US countries. I can get, for example, Bordiga at my local library along with Marx. My sister, she keeps bothering me. She got incredibly successful as a webcartoonist and graphic novelist, but...yeah.
She was always a huge fan of the US, and until we learned not to talk politics, we didn't really get along very well. She voted Republican until it got to the point where voting Republican wouldn't do anything, was what you'd call a 'William F. Buckley' Republican on certain matters, though she leaned to the left on a few social issues and was pretty nice.
She's nice, I guess, we still talk, but she's fabulously successful and I'm...not. Honestly, the great and mighty Addison Hargrove has had to learn to hold her tongue more and more these days, but privately she keeps calling me and talking about how much she misses the old US, how much she misses having voted in the last decade of its existence. She's older than I am, I guess.
There was some black girl she used to hang around with, someone she'd hire to ink her writing, but I think as soon as the revolution happened and California split off, that black girl stopped really caring about Addison.
Fuck, I don't know, I'm just tired and my leg stings like a bitch.