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.
Under Maoism or Stalinism, aka the dictatorship of the dictator pretending to act for the proletariat? You are ordered to do it, for your own good and the good of the Party. If you don’t follow orders, you just get shot; and your family is put in a prison camp, your children raped and beaten and forced to labor.
Under real stateless, classless communism? Nobody knows, because that hasn’t existed yet. Anyone claiming to know exactly how it might operate is talking out of their hat. Marx is pretty clear on that.
Without subversive profit incentives, the incentives become to make necessary-but-undesirable jobs more safe/pleasant/automated. Without worrying about their next paycheque, people can spend time on the issue.
This requires a post-scarcity society that is fairly well developed, before they try to convert to communism.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that capitalism pays dangerous or unpleasant jobs well, though. Some do, but lots don’t.
Short answer: We don’t know
Longer answer: We hope technology will be fully developed by then to do that stuff for us
One of my favorite answers so far, thank you!
For advanced STEM degrees, there are people who just enjoy learning that sort of thing and applying their knowledge.
In the same vein, some folks are just attracted to dangerous and difficult jobs because they get a sense of purpose or identity from it.
Others it’s community. I knew a guy who did 20 years active duty military, then joined the national guard, then took a job for the same national guard unit as a DoD civilian and stayed on until they forced him to retire. They had practically drag the guy out. He never did anything but bitch and complain about the work he spent more than 40 years doing, he sounded like kinda hated his job, but he liked being a part of the military.
You get more stuff, more status, etc. Or alternatively, penalized, threatened, etc. Whatever it takes to motivate people to do the job. Even if paper money isn’t a thing in communist societies (which it still is), money’s just a symbol for debt. You’re going to get something, somehow, for a job people greatly desire to be done without enough doers and they’ll become “indebted” to you disproportionately for doing it.
In Soviet society for instance, you might be provided a nice apartment in central Moscow if you were doing something “important”. This assignment would be via your government-controlled employer and their agreements with some other government bureau that officially managed the buildings to dole them out to select people.
So, same deal as anywhere else, just a different mechanism. Higher ration, bigger dacha, jump to the front of the line to get a car, etc.
Compensation is usually not much about how dangerous a job is, though. It’s more about how many people are willing to do it for any number of reasons. Some people are just not very risk-adverse, and figure they’re going to be fine at a job that is more dangerous. And they’ll be compensated at a normal level as long as there are enough such people to fill the need.
There’s definitely motivation outside of pay. People can value doing jobs that are critical for society knowing that they’re helping
Same for people who maintain septic systems, like diving in lakes of feces. I’m not sure how that would look
based on history: not being sent to gulag?
I happen to find working with patients at high risk of violent behaviors to be fulfilling. That said I think if people were less worried about what immediate benefit my patients have to society (as opposed to the fact that any of those people in the community could slip in the shower and get a TBI and become a very unpleasant person in under a month and would want someone to care for them too) I would probably be allocated more resources to do my job a lot more safely.
I did that when I was young, troubled teens. Horrifically difficult gig with a disgustingly low level of pay.
Not to pry but what do you consider “good pay” for those conditions?
Around 55 an hour on average in my field but lots of fluctuation based on location.
So you evaluated that 114k a year is worth a chance at your life? What’s the lowest you’d go?
The biggest problem is that’s not really a considerable sum of value compared to what the upper 1% makes. There’s ALOT of wealth to go around that has been systematically stolen from you. I wouldn’t doubt a socialist society could provide you, and most people actually, the same level of luxury you are afforded today.
I don’t care what other people make though, millions of people work significantly more dangerous gigs for significantly less and millions of people work completely safe gigs for way more. I do this because I love it AND it pays well.
So I guess that answers your questions. In a socialist society you’d probably have the same material wealth and could work the same job
Fair enough
Isnt this a little contradictory to your earlier statement? Your income is what everyone has to make to live comfortably, a state which could easily be provided by many systems, and now you say you love it even though the luxury it affords you is around the same as an experienced flight attendant. Would that mean you’d work the same job for any system that provided for you? Considering your affinity for the job?
None. But highly dangerous and specialized fields were always something the creative explored regardless of the ideology.
Pioneers will always exist whether capitalism or communism.
So the creative pioneers are going to work in the steel mills, okay.
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Because it provides for the family and they enjoy it.
But how would it provide for the family. You really think an iron foundry worker would do that gig because its enjoyable?
There are those who do enjoy a day of hard work.
Alright.
Do you have any hobbies?
Sure, I engage in dangerous hobbies (shooting, kickboxing and driving). But I do them because they are fun and take up a relatively short amount of time. That’s much different than at least 40 hours a week doing something like logging or working in Alaskan commercial fishing.
Someone who enjoys being out at sea, or in the woods might find those occupations fun 🤷♂️
So we’d bank the species survival on the hope enough people will enjoy these jobs with no added incentive aside from the intrinsic reward?
Im not saying that nor advocating communism, im just stating that what you said about the reason you think people only do those jobs, I believe at least, is false simply by counterargument. Ask any one of the people who enjoy that kind of work environment if they would ever work in an office, closed in a room seated at a desk all day, and most would probably say you couldnt pay them enough to do it. To them, even if you DO give them more money, its not a reward/compensation because they value different things.
Im one of the office-type people. Id like to think what I do has value to society, and I believe I would do it regardless of the compensation/regardless of if I got the same money as a lumberjack, because I enjoy it. Thats another angle: if everyone is paid the same, why not do what you enjoy. If what you enjoy is being in the woods cutting trees, or on a boat in the sea, or in a tower in isolation for weeks (fire watcher), or any number of other “undesirable” jobs, and youd still get paid a living wage for doing that, same as everyone else, why would you ever subject yourself to something miserable for you, for no better reward?
Why would anybody need to work 40 hours if it wasn’t for someone else’s profit?
24/7 organizations will exist regardless of profit like mine, electricity, Healthcare and hell even production environments for needed goods will have to operate.
