Ask Lemmygrad

I make coffee and tea for my family and friends for free all the time.

If you look towards history, this question has been asked many times:

• In slave societies, if you abolish slavery, who will do the harvest / work in mines / construction?
• In feudal society, if you abolish serfdom, why wouldn't the serf just leave? How would the serf work to supply the Lord and the city with food and services?
• In capitalist society, why would anyone work without wages or profit incentive?

The reality is, when society changes, the material incentives for work also change. In slave society, the material incentive was violent coercion, in feudal society, the serf would be able to keep part of his work but would also be coerced through an oath to their Lord, in capitalism the worker is coerced through a wage and through the fear of unemployment.

In communist society, which now is only an idealized abstraction, society will have its own material incentives. But speaking of today, we do have blueprints for what could evolve in the next stage. We could all have a share on both in direct wage or in the capital accumulated, in case of cooperative enterprises. We could have an incentives based on goals and performance, as it happens in state owned companies. The wage system won't disappear overnight, but wage is not necessarily a problem if you don't have labor-capitalist social relations.

Even in a classless, stateless, moneyless society, people can still get together and organize themselves, make plans, assign tasks, assign roles, reward or recognize individuals for extraordinary achievements while reprimanding and correcting individuals whose actions (or inaction) damage the collective. It doesn't mean everyone just does what they want with no regard to the interests of the whole society.

What's important to remember is that we don't believe that these conditions can be achieved overnight. The whole point of the period of socialist construction under the dictatorship of the proletariat is not just to create the material base for communism but also the human base. This means instilling in the people values of community and solidarity and collective action while unlearning the individualism, egoism and greed of capitalist society. This new culture is then reinforced through positive incentive structures which reward social and collaborative behavior, in a diametrically opposite way to how capitalism teaches and rewards anti-social, exploitative, "every man for himself" behavior.

I feel like this kind of thinking presupposes that people are naturally lazy leeches who won't put in work unless a sword is hanging over their head. How did people in hunter gatherer societies do their part without the incentive of per berry payment? This kind of reactionary thinking is sort of Thatcherite. The willingness to work or lack thereof is not immanent to human neurobiology. It is a product of the culture and society.

Regarding how the economy and supply chains will be organised, it is important to keep in mind classless communism is only expected in a very very advanced stage of societal development. This hard to foresee but not entirely pointless to ruminate about. Not being able to imagine a better world doesn't mean that a better world is not possible. If you take an example of a less fun job like garbage collection, there are various possibilies. It's possible that the technological advancements have made manual garbage collection obsolete. Or that maybe you are provided equipment that makes it safe, you work for 6 hours in a day and free for the rest to do as you please, not having to worry about rent, medical costs, paying your kid's tuition etc. Either way it won't be like manual scavenging in today's India.

The question "how would communism look like / function" (which is what your question boils down to) is the most difficult one because the correct Marxist answer is "we don’t know". We cannot predict the future.

However, we can theorize based on current conditions. To answer "why would people work for free" we can look at volunteer work, of which there are so many! People volunteer to write wiki pages, make mods for games, but also to work at soup kitchens or community gardens. There are several aspects to why people volunteer. It might be fulfilling creatively, or they might be community expectation around this work. If you lived with others im sure you had to do a round of chores.

So this is how I see work in a communist society. People do it because it is either fulfilling or there are certain community expectations around it.

I think there will be more coffee shops under communism than capitalism. The removal of the Starbucks monopoly and people would probably rather run cutesy and or chill coffee shops than chase jobs that are higher paying, but are not very fulfilling.

Trash collectors will be a duty to the benefit of the community and should be treated as well as services like doctors and fire fighters.

we are never going to return to this state of affairs before capitalism of communal farming societies with no profit motive, but those are examples you can point your friend to to prove that different reasons for labor have existed and diminished and still we labor, and it's like, pretty certain that in the future labor will still be required just in different conditions that we currently cannot conceive of. but also, like, voluntary labor has existed in every form of society, because we are humans and while ppl in the comments r right that human nature doesnt exist in the way most ppl perceive it, like, you'd be hard pressed to ever find a time in human civilization we weren't just doing a few things for the hell of it. why do cave art when you can't sell it?! were they stupid?!

it’s also that automation might resolve a lot of the need for different types of labour, service sector too, but voluntary labour for things like cooking, art, etc. exist right now and many people will flourish without the need to divert their energy into other things in this, admittedly abstract and not uet real, conception of a communist society.

as star said we don’t know for certain, but it’s silly to pretend like that’s really going to negate anyone’s willingness to do things for the heck of it. not to mention some pf these thankless tasks are crucial to the function of society ajd some people posited communal engagement in these tasks. as for other thankless tasks we do it now in a society entirely centered on capital and people express all the time how they want to if not for that need to subsist and earn wages. does your friend think hobbies will die out or flourish without capitalism?

“If class is abolished in communism and the people are taken care of, why would anyone work at all? Who is going to work in coffee shops, pick up trash, work in stores etc.? What would be the incentive for people to do anything productive?”

Work still needs to happen. This takes coordination and organisation. Production is still required but people won't live in a class based society.

The modern world produces way more complicated things than a cup of coffee. People are still going to own personal possessions under communism. They just aren't going to be able to charge someone else rent to use their stuff.

They are still looking thru the capitalist lens, "me, me, me, what about me" and not as communists, "us, us, us, what about us." "Menial jobs" under capitalism will still be done, only the persons doing them will be elevated to the economic and social status they deserve; can't say the same for management.

I'd make coffee for my comrades, my fellow, caring compatriots and their kin, just as I do for my family. Hell, I'd make about a hundred dozen pupusas with some salsa and curtido for my comrades if I could (I really wish I could).

These people see working these barista jobs as unfathomable since they and the exploitative class have dragged the reputation of the service worker through the mud as much as they've done their wages.

But I'd wager that some folks would love to open a restaurant or cafe or lounge with good friends, build an inviting place of rest for their community if they weren't at the whims of the capitalist looking to extract every last cent out of patrons and every last hour of labor from the workers, all without factoring socialization, and extending decency and kindness unto others into their practice.

They have such a twisted perception of this type of labor but because of the reality they're subjected to under the ruling dictatorship of capital, they can't separate work from the value it produces in terms of money. It's always about money for these people, but that isn't a mistake. The idea of seeing use-value instead of profit-value in things is such a foreign thing to those living with the corruption of bourgeois education. Take a car, for example. How many times you'll hear "you're better off just buying a new one; replacing xy and z plus the labor to put it all together would be unreasonably expensive. Just send that thing to the junkyard!". What if I have sentimental attachment to that car? But how we feel is never important. The human part of us must always be stripped away from these decisions. But sadly, we really are in a bind and we must make the most reasonable choice given our circumstances. Even as a kid, this type of thinking always made me sick, and at this young point in my life, I was decades from ever having read any Marxist theory.

Coffee, pastries, or any sort of good that would bring us so much enjoyment are always given so little value through the lens of the twisted, capitalist worldview. Even the labor to create these things. To think of the centuries of human development, experimentation, experience, and culture that have contributed to the existence of these simple pleasures only for them to have someone say "who the hell wants to do THAT job!? Not me!" leaves me with a deep sadness.

I want there to be coffee brewers, pastry chefs, cooks, and all those laborers who create these simple marvels that undeniably bring us so much joy. And I want them to be liberated from the backwardness, selfishness, and ingratitude that capitalism foments among people.

"But which servant will be there to bring me my footstool when there are no longer nobles?" The people would collectively do the work that matters most, rather than shoving servile roles onto a lower class.

"But without the threat of unemployment, why would anyone do anything?" Human societies were communal before they were capitalist and for much longer. The closest parallel in modern day is how (some) families still act, doing things more on a basis of duty and shared responsibility toward the health and wellbeing of the family rather than looking at it like monetary cost and payoff.

We can look at the sense of security China has nurtured for a glimpse at how this kind of thing works: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11447997

Combination of material changes and culture enforce/reinforce a mindset that makes for a safer environment for most people. And this is with China not even being at the stage of development the question is about, yet it still has substantial, noticeable differences compared to the capitalist norm.

Incidentally, one thing I remember coming across in trying to learn Chinese is that the word they tend to use for the equivalent of "everyone" in English is 大家 (which literally translates to "big family"). Ain't that telling? We don't have to only imagine, we can look at the successes of AES states for glimpses of what developed communism would look like.

The problem with capitalism-brained people asking these questions is they are essentially asking, "What if individualism and idealism (the current superstructure) with communist societal organization (a future base)? How would this be sustainable?" They are right to be confused when they mash it together like that, but it's not how societal changes happen and it's one of the pivotal reasons that transition is such an important concept in ML. We know the current way of thinking and behaving will not change immediately. There is a process of getting there and AES states are living proof that it's possible to make progress on it!

While I cannot exactly answer everything about communist society, I will say that this question from your friend (seemingly not Marxist, I might add) is a bit strange: Do they think people just do not do things unless they have a wage or profit incentive?

I would imagine (again, I have not studied this part of communism) that under communism, there would be people who would want to do some of the things you mentioned because there would actually be a sense of community under communism (no class divisions means that there will be no exploiter-exploited relationship to divide people), and people would not need an "incentive" (if we mean incentive in the context of money being given so that people can do things) to provide services or do anything productive (hell, the wage incentive existing does not prevent people from helping others out despite it not being related to their wages).

In fact, profit gets in the way of incentives for doing productive things because it is only productive insofar as it relates to profit. If there is no profit, nothing productive in a given field is likely to be done. Eliminating classes would eliminate the fetters of capitalism on people in doing the things that they want to do, but they would also be able to better help out their community.

I think of it like this: Under capitalism, class divisions created in society not only cause them to experience capitalism differently, but feel the effect of things (like trash buildup) differently due to their different economic statuses causing some to experience the same situation differently or different experiences to exist entirely. The out-of-touch capitalists know little and care little about trash buildup in an impoverished neighborhood if they do not have to go there and if it does not serve as an anti-profit obstacle, so they would have no reason to pay others to clean it up (even if they pay others to clean up trash, others are cleaning up the trash, not them, so they will not understand the severity of the problem). On the other hand, if no class distinctions existed, people would have different roles but would experience similar environments (if they live in the same approximate area), and if something negatively affected a community, then there would be no "shield" from it in the form of capitalist privileges and no distancing from the problem because a negative thing affecting a community would affect all members of a classless society in a roughly equal manner (of course, I only mean roughly, because other factors would certainly affect the relative desire of any given person to provide a service to the community, but it will be less of a factor than it would under capitalism).

Sorry for the answer not explaining all aspects of the question, but your friend does not seem to understand that people do not stop doing things because of no classes existing.

Edit: I wrote this using my last remaining brain fumes before going to sleep, so some stuff might be inaccurate but I just really wanted to answer the question because it involves annoying arguments some libservatives make (yes I combined those two), yet are hardly difficult to counter if you understand basic human empathy.

The soviet union had cafeterias.

yesterday i was making my usual coffee and i thought about how i would make coffee for all my friends

No coffee under communism. Stalin ate all the coffee beans.

when the same question gets asked "Who will scrub toilet under communism" I'm always there to pitch in and say that I would. I love maintenance and janitorial work, but they do not pay me enough to survive.

Class won't be abolished, but the structure of class society will be such that it leads to its own negation, which ostensibly for the proletariat is no class at all. The difference implies a gentler slope than "no more class" (a mistake Kruschev committed as we know), and also situates us in history: the aristocracy did not get abolished per se, there were laws and some were executed but we see that the people composing this class eventually became old money bourgeois. They followed the order of the day and stopped complaining.

With this in mind we can place communism back as a continuous process, just like the transition from feudalism to capitalism was a long process with setbacks and uneven development - there are some countries that went from bourgeois rule back to aristocratic rule (France is a famous example), and others that are still technically monarchies today, with varying degrees of recognizing the power of the monarch. They ask "why would anyone work at all", but have they seen the humanoid robots already doing work in China? This is who will work - for the most part. But that requires a society that has sufficient productive forces to actually make that happen in the first place. The robots don't come out of nowhere. There's no prescription that says communism has to happen in five years or it's revisionist and doesn't count. This is an idealist precept - on whose authority?

You'll still want meaning and experiences, and it's entirely plausible there will be community coffee shops just for people who want human contact and something to do, maybe 2 hours and then you go on with your day. Or maybe by then our ideas will have changed such that we will see human baristas as archaic and a late form of social torture. Who knows! Who even knows what job they will be doing 10 years from now, how can we assume the culture of a people we not only don't know, but don't even exist yet?

Either way, today in capitalism restaurants are notoriously difficult businesses to run and often go bankrupt or through new management (when a restaurant changes its name that's usually what happened). They don't make a lot of money especially in a world where people can't justify the luxury - and it is a luxury when they can cook at home. So who will make coffee in communism? Mate, getting your food served is already becoming extinct right now! (Maybe that's the true actually existing socialism lmao).

If they mean socialism then they can just look at how China does it and why their state structure as a DotP makes their system wholly different from our own even if on the surface it seems like capitalism (because you see, people in China go to work, and I also go to work!), but that would probably lead to an even deeper discussion explaining China's system and why it's qualitatively different from ours.

Others have given great responses, but I'll simply add that the process of communism is in achieving a society where the products of labor are distributed based on need, along a common plan. Gradually formations we think of as natural today will likely be phased out, and we cannot concretely predict what will take their place. Automation will cover most menial tasks, and what remains for humans to do will eventually be what humans enjoy doing, which requires building the necessary productive forces for such a society.