- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Gerontocracy?

Posted by: Barry Stoller on January 19, 19100 at 23:23:17:

In Reply to: Freedom as the Recognition of Necessity posted by Krasny on January 19, 19100 at 11:02:23:


: If I may be frank Mr. Stoller, it is the fetishistic quality of your postulated job rotation that rankles with me. And it is this notion that socialism somehow flows from the very concept of 'job rotation' that your opponents are using against you.

Well, job rotation would end private property.

And ending private property is the essential goal of communism.

Plus, as Marx and Engels pointed out repeatedly, classes spring from the social division of labor---and abolishing classes is another (concomitant) essential aim of communism.

So, my 'fetishistic' concern with it, I believe, has some merit...

: Since it is clear to me that you see the concept of job rotation as the preferred method for bringing relationships involving production, in line with the new social (political-economic) relations inherent to socialism, can you see any other method(s) in which this might be achieved... or perhaps some method for transitioning from the bourgeois (private) division of labor => full blown job rotation?

I see the dictatorship of the proletariat as the 'method for transitioning from the bourgeois (private) division of labor => full blown job rotation.'

: Would, for example, limiting the total time spent in undesireable work (as defined by who?), either yearly, or even in a person's lifetime, be one such alternative method? Right now, most Captains of Capitalism would claim (speciously of course) that minimum wage jobs are performed by teenagers seeking entry level positions... but what if that really were the case under nascent socialism and no one need work beyond a certain age in such employment?

This is not exactly a new idea.

Owen was big on it, so was Shaw.

My problem with gerontocracy is that it would provide a justification for adults (of a certain age) to take charge of the state (after the revolution)---without having the perspective of the younger workers who will be expected to do the unskilled work.

I believe this would be a problem: when people make decisions that they are NOT personally affected by, then corruption is possible.

That's the core belief behind my support of job rotation.



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