I got stuck at an airport. I may as well write.

Who wants another rant about socialism?

Before I go off, let me figure out what I actually mean by "socialism."

I don't really believe in a fully-flat society. I don't think evry person in the world should receive the same stipend from the government for very different work performed.

Or...I do in theory. I could write a sci-fi story about a communist utupia (I probably will) where every templated job is handled by robots and the only thing left for humans to do is be creative.

But we're not there yet. I get that. Just by looking at the inneficiencies and corruption in today's government offices, it's obvious we don't have people in place to change the system. I would not trust anyone in power with full control over the allocation of resources.

I'm also not so naive as to say that the competition fostered through capitalism is bad. Competition is not bad. Competition can be fun! Imagine sports with no stakes. They wouldn't be fun and we'd lose some of the most impressive and entertaining live moments humanity has to offer.

Competition for competition's sake? Great!

Competition when desperate, though? That's not fun. That's dangerous. That's going to end the world one day.

That's what I urge with all my socialism talk: end desperation. Ensure that, while we await the day we evolve past the need to posture and compete, we at least aren't fighting for survival. Ensure we don't have to lie, cheat, steal, and kill to put food on the table, clothe our children, and live with dignity. End hunger (both metaphorically and literally). Get people out of survival mode and into a more productive and creative type of competition.

That brings me to the rant of the day:

What would happen without the hunger?

As people continue to complain about labour shortages at low-paying, low-engagement jobs as we come out of COVID-related stimulus cheques, it's evident that the big sticking point with a communal societal structure is: if people aren't hungry, who will do the dirty jobs?

That's the question asked by every conservative pundit (and most people with money). It's the question asked by every single dysopian book condemning socialism.

Spoilers follow:

Brave New World--which you can watch on Peacock now if you don't want to read the book--introduces a society in which you're handed a social class and a career trajectory based on genetics. You're bred for a specific role; you get put into it; and you don't leave it.

They breed janitors, and groundskeepers, supervisors, and architects. Those in charge claim it's liberating: everyone does what they're meant to; they're content with their role; no one gets the quarter-life crises us millenials are now famous for.

It doesn't work like that, of course. Plenty of people are unhappy. The "golds" are basically trust-fund kids. The "reds" feel like slaves. It's organized and efficient, but there's no sense of freedom, and the entire populations is kept sane only through the use of euphoric drugs.

In this world, they force people into roles at birth, weed out all thoughts of social mobility (to the point where promotions are foreign ideas) and pacify anyone who gets antsy with an all-expense-paid Soma vacation.

That is bad, but that's not what a desperation-free world has to look like.

In 1984, and a lesser-known short story, Anthem (by Ayn Rand), citizens are trained (brainwashed) to think only of the collective good. They lose a sense of personal identity. (Neither names or the pronoun "I" exist at all in Anthem.)

In these stories, necessity has driven societies to function like ant colonies. For the survival of the whole, every individual becomes an unthinking drone. They might have their own ideas every now and then, but those are driven away by a sense of duty, like service in a never-ending war.

These are also bad--especially when you lose the right to choose your friends and partners—but again: they're fiction.

So, let's go back to the question from the beginning: how, when people aren't fighting for survival, will you get people to do the jobs no one wants to do?

Brainstorm session:

One: you can make those jobs suck less. Being a line cook at McDonalds, driving taxis, paving roads--a lot of jobs suck because we don't care that they suck. It wouldn't be hard to make kitchens cleaner or deep friers safer. We could reduce the stress on a cabbie if they aren't running reds to make a dime. We could make manual labour easier with better gear. We'd all be surprised by the number of volunteers when jobs aren't dangerous, dirty, and demeaning. I personally wouldn't hate working a landscaping job—if it weren't for the hard hours and the heat in heavy uniforms.

Also: the rest of us could just be less...assholey. If we put our shopping carts in the corral, it sucks less to be a grocery store attendant. If we sort our garbage properly, it sucks less to be a garbageman. That's the "collective thinking" socialism would actually employ.

Two: you can still attach incentives to harder jobs. If one job is more physically demanding: work fewer hours. If a job is dangerous, you get social praise. You could even add extra compensation; socialism doesn't have to mean everyone gets the same paycheck. Hell--flip today's pay structures entirely on their head: reward those who sacrifice the most. You don't have to pay a movie star or an athlete a million dollars. They get plenty of perks. Their job is fun; they get social credit; their hours are good; their health is prioritized. We don't have to incentivize anyone to do those jobs. Why not pay an end-of-life nurse Johnny Depp's salary? Their job is harder and takes more of a toll on them. We want great people in those roles--make them attractive.

Three: you can mandate community service in non-fascist ways. We force kids to go to school. Some countries force citizens into military service. We can force people into community-serving jobs as part of their education. Kids aged 16-22 could have to work an "undesirable" job (already made to suck less) for one shift/week. They'll build character and all that.

Four: this entire issue becomes less relevant every passing year. We're eliminating dirty jobs. We're getting rid of cashiers. We're getting rid of burger-flippers. We'll soon lose taxi and truck drivers. There won't be data-entry jobs for long. Humans won't pick up customer service calls. Automation is accelerating. Robots and basic AI will handle what no one wants to touch--and they'll do it soon.

Within my lifetime, millions of jobs will cease to exist. Millions of "undesirable roles" will no longer need to be filled. In fifty years, we won't have to force many people to do anything they don't want to do.

Now: mirror time.

We face the same issue today that Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Ayn Rand confronted: we need people to do jobs that no one wants to do. It's not a special issue. It's existed throughout human history. The answer, until the 1900's, was just to use slaves.

Defenders of today's status quo will praise capitalism because people are "free" to choose bad jobs for themselves—with the implication that they couold also choose something else.

Except: their other choice is starvation, homelessness, loss of opportunities for their kids, and incarceration.

Lots of freedom there, eh?

Our current solution to this bad-job problem is to force people into them through desperation. They do the dirty and dangerous deeds because the alternative is exile or death.

How is that better than those dystopian stories? Is it because it's *technically* possible to elevate yourself above your station? One person can take a demeaning role as a janitor and either work their way up or take night night classes to eventually change their situation?

It's true: one person can do that, and for that reason, capitalism IS better than rigid caste systems found elsewhere throughout history. However: in the US: over 40% of kids born into the poorest households never make it out of that income bracket—and that rate is going up. Consider: the rate of inflation vs. minimum wage is increasing. The poor are consistently getting poorer, and the number of people below the poverty line is growing year after year.

Capitalism's promises are dying...

Even still: if we give the model the credit it does deserve, how much does one person's success story matter in the end?

Capitalism is still set up to prey on the desperate. If no one had to choose between shit work and death, no one would do shit work. This system fundamentally relies on a steady stream of refugees, convicts, addicts, dropouts, and teen pregnancies. The American Dream cannot, by it's very structure, be realized by everyone. Someone has to flip burgers and clean puke out of cabs. If one desperate person climbs their way out of poverty, we require another sacrifice. We answer the question of "who will do what must be done," with "who is the most desperate?" That is an inherent part of a free-market model.

Every time I write some condemnation like this, I think of all the people I personally know who are not only thriving under today's model, but are doing so with integrity. I know so many people who are both genuinely helping thousands of people—and benefiting from the capitalist game they participate in.

So I will say: I hold absolutely 0 judgement for anyone. There is issue whatsoever in operating within the incentive structures of the day.

The model is what deserves attention. The quesion is never, "how are you making money," it's always, "why someone would work a shit job."

And listen: if your answer is, "fuck 'em—" that's allowed. I say "fuck 'em" to most of the world. People literally died to make the computer I'm typing this on and I'm not doing anything to rectify that. That's a "fuck 'em" on my part.

None of us are personally responsible for saving everyone else in the world. You don't have to care—you CAN'T care about everyone.

Just be honest. Don't lie to yourself about people "choosing" to clean up after you. They're not.

They're not.

No one is "choosing" a job that you wouldn't choose for yourself or your children. Their options just suck more than yours.

If you don't want your own kid to work at McDonalds the rest of their life...well, someone has to, so who's kid will it be?