Under capitalism, a lot of the time, highly dangerous jobs are also highly paid. Kind of a balance that the individual decides to engage with. Same idea behind getting an advanced degree in STEM or law. I think of my job by example, I’m a power plant operator at a large combined cycle plant. No fucking shot I’d be doing this if the pay wasn’t good. I’m around explosive and deadly hot shit all day.
Yeah. I opened the comments because I was genuinely interested in how communism tackles this and was kind of looking forward to a thought-provoking answer. The above just kind of dances around the question entirely. I especially loved this line:
Gives me major “trust me bro” energy. Kind of reminds me of the religion I was in as a kid where every difficult question was answered with “no one fully understands God, you just have to have faith”.
Sorry, I figured if people were asking questions that maybe they would have done some reading beforehand and gotten some contexts.
A communist society is an academic or theoretical concept, much like a capitalist society is. Every country in the world that has implemented capitalism has done it with different specific characteristics.
No one has yet made a communist country, only communist parties that set building communism as their goal.
It’s not about “trust me” or “have faith”. You can look at every country ever run by a communist party and the incentives for dangerous work have always been more salary. The incentive for more difficult or rarified work have always been more salary.
But that’s not that useful of an answer because obviously there has to be difference between capitalist and communist countries.
So I tried to explain how we think of it theoretically. Difficult and dangerous work has always existed as it has always been socially necessary. Solving for how this work gets done is the job of a society. It has been solved through collectivism (primitive society), physical violence (feudal and slave society), and wage slavery (capitalist society). Communism will solve it through collectivism, because that’s what it definitionally means, and so long as it’s solved through wage slavery or physical violence, it doesn’t meet the definition of communism.
No one knew what capitalism would look like before it emerged either. Capitalism in its current form took centuries to develop in fits and starts all over Europe. And while it tried to emerge, monarchs and feudal lords fought against it, hard and violently.
So when I say no one knows what communism looks like, I am not saying “trust me”. I’m saying it’s a problem to be solved through the process of building society. Just like there were new problems to be solved under capitalism that not only did people not understand but many problems emerged that people could never have predicted.
I posed the question because I’m not a communist, but, I’ve also not looked into it very much. I’m not fully in support of whatever the fuck is happening right now. So I figure, maybe some good answers will help me grasp why so many people recommend communism. Turns out its kind of a cliche question, yet, nobody seems to have an answer. Wild to me, personally, to advocate for something so world shifting without clear answers to massive questions like this. I love the comments that are just like “well some people just really like to work hard” alright, I’m not betting society on the hope some people are willing to work a 10× harder/more dangerous job for the same level of benefit.
I think it’s more nuanced then you let on. People in general have vastly different aptitudes, interests, risk tolerance, etc…, as I’m sure you’re aware. Not everyone would be a hippie artist given the chance. I don’t think it’s crazy to assume that when society provides for everyone’s basic needs, including the ability to pursue leisure activties, there would still be people that want to work in combined cycle power plants because that interests them and it’s something that provides real value to society.
I think another important thing to consider is that when the need for capitalist growth and profit motives are removed from society we wouldn’t need as much power and as many combined cycle power plants. People wouldn’t be addicted to hoarding shit and consuming, advertisers wouldn’t be trying to convince people to do so, and we wouldn’t be making as much stuff. We would be allocating resources in a way that is just and equitable for all members of society and the environment. Workers could work a few hours a day or a week a month, because the plant wouldn’t demand the maximum amount of labour value they can legally get out of each worker. That doesn’t sound like so bad a life to me, I think enough people would think so too.
At the end of the day, it’s like a lot of the other comments are saying: it’s hard to imagine a world without capitalism because we haven’t tried it.
Please keep in mind that I have read very little of the actual literature and am woefully uninformed on the topic of communism. This is just my interpretation of things might work based on the little I’ve managed to pick up on the subject, but I thought my input would still be valuable.
Edit to add: The job might not be as dangerous either. Without profit incentive you wouldn’t need maximum up-time. You could do more shut downs and preventative maintenance. Take slower/safer approaches to tasks. I’ve never worked in a power plant, but I don’t think I’m too far off what might be posible.