Question about high wage workers

[dedelste]

I am a Canadian who is both sympathetic and skeptical about your ideas.  I actually have many questions, but let's start with this one.  Why is socialism clearly in the self-interest of a 45 year old accountant who earns 175,000 pounds a year but lacks the capital to qualify as a capitalist?  (I hope my scenario is realistic in terms of British incomes, but hopefully it get the idea across at least.)  From reading your material (please correct me if I'm wrong), I gather it's because he's vulnerable to losing his income if he's sacked, falls ill, or something, and because he's a "well fed wage slave," who must work according to the dictates of capitalists, or as I might say, lacks autonomy.  But he lives much better than most of the UK population (let alone the world), and is probably not really that vulnerable to long-term loss of income (given the current severity of crises).

Under socialism, unless the average standard of living is much higher than today (I gather this is assumed, but really how much higher?), his standard of living would drop substantially.  He might be foolish to prefer all the nice things his money buys to greater security and autonomy, but I don't see how you can assert that with the confidence you do.  I don't think most people value security and autonomy so much that they outweigh large drops in living standards, and it isn't clear to me that this is irrational.  The same question arises with anyone above the average income level, although the argument gets weaker as income drops.

As an aside, even if socialism really is in his self-interest, it seems to me your chances of convincing him are near zero.  It's exceedingly difficult to convince most similar people even to vote for the social democratic NDP here (and I'd imagine the same is true for Labour in Britain), let alone support socialism.

Thanks for considering this.

[twc]

The accounting profession serves no humanly necessary purpose.The accounting profession produces no humanly necessary use values in the sense of socially produced goods that service society in general—as distinct from socially produced goods that ensure the capitalist class amasses surplus value.The accounting profession’s social function is to compromise all human plans in the service of capital;  to kill off human aspiration;  to stand between human need and its realisation.All this, before we address the intellectual stupefaction that must arise from the moribund humdrum monotonous automatic mind-deadening unsatisfying life activity of accounting.  But I intend nothing personal.  Your profession, like many we are forced into, shares its attributes with the myriad anti-human professions that are absolutely necessary to amassing surplus value:  e.g., banking, advertising, retail trade, social coercion,…A world, implemented according to our Object and Declaration of Principles, will reveal your apprehensions about socialism as misconceptions necessarily clouded by our capitalist-limited anti-human view of the world.Join us.  We have a far better human world to win.

[alanjjohnstone]

We, of course, argue that it is in the self-interests of those better-off workers to join us in abolishing wage-labour. You indicated a few reasons…mounting  insecurity…stagnating salaries…increased working hours … intensifying working conditions. In the US university lecturers protest lack of tenure. Doctors in the UK are out in the streets protesting wage-cuts. In Iceland the police are striking by taking sickies in mass. More and more of the "old professions" no longer consider industrial action as something only blue-collar manual workers do. They leave university in debt and remain in debt for much of their working lives. But there are more than just the share of the surplus value that convinces people of the need for radical change. We have the environment where it is very clear that it is the economic system which drives global warming. Climate change will very likely impact on your accountant and most definitely upon his offspring. Many will be joining the ranks of the refugees seeking to re-establish a life elsewhere and thus endure all the bitter competition that will entail… I think we can question the happiness and contentment of your accountant, locking himself in his gated housing development, mortgaged to the hilt, investing in house security, fearing all those phantom terrors the  media gleefully announce in regard to every dark shadow.They risk bankrupting themselves with private education and private health-care costs because of social spending cuts. Each day he exposes himself to the threat of pollution or food adulteration that no amount of personal "healthy" lifestyle can mitigate. You may argue that he would take a drop in living standards in socialism, something that can actually be contested but we argue he will have a far higher quality of life for himself and his family. TWC discussed the social irrelevance of all his training and studying to become an accountant, we suggest that there will be much more job-satisfaction in the constructive contribution towards the community he could be making in some other job rather taking kudos from making a living from helping people and businesses to avoid paying taxes which indirectly causes much of his stress and worries. I'm not sure, you can correct me if i am wrong but i think accountancy training may help with cost benefit analysis, one of the tasks planning in socialism will still need even if it is not in dollars and cents but instead hours of labour and amounts of material.  But you are right that we do have our work cut out to try and convince those who consider themselves fortunate that capitalism "rewards" them with larger scraps from the table and award them with a little bit more status, the occasional slap on the back. We could use your help as someone who is part of the "middle class" myth in exposing it as the sham that it is.  

[Young Master Smeet]

In the Roman empire, the slave of the Emperor was immensely rich, could cheek senators, and ate fine foods and wine.  He was still a slave.  Such a  slave may have opposed emancipation, but would still have been freed if Roman slavery were abolished, and thus would have gained.High paid workers benefit from the same fruits of struggle as the rest of us, labour protection, rights at work, rights to holidy, etc. They would also benefit if we stopped doing useless toil, and found a way to feed clothe and house everyone for about two days work a week each: so much more free time. Freed from the worries of international rivalries between governments and states, freed from the worry of the threat of poverty, security in their home ownership (even some very wealthy workrs are only a couple of missed pay cheques from defaulting on their mortgage). etc.

[ALB]

Speaking of the Roman Empire, here's a quote from Marx about it (from chapter 25 of Volume i of Capital):

Quote:

But just as little as better clothing, food, and treatment, and a larger peculium, do away with the exploitation of the slave, so little do they set aside that of the wage-worker.

(Definition of peculium here). I realise that having more money is not the issue here but rather the perception of (wage) slaves  in this position. Admittedly, they don't see themselves as exploited (even though they are).

[Young Master Smeet]

Also, on living standards: we would expect the mass of use values for most people to grow, what a high earning wage worker would lose would be mostly the nominal exchange value of their assets.  thus their house, car, etc. might suddenly become 'worthless' but they would probably still have them, and indeed, would have their debts wiped.

[dedelste]

Thanks for your responses.  I personally would love to live in a socialist society, if I believed it could work as described, which I'm not sure of.  BTW, I'm not actually an accountant, it was just a hypothetical.  I'm an academic who is doing pretty well, but not that well.I essentially accept the two class theory, but I'm sure you are aware that there are objections from the bottom of the working class that may be as intense as from the top.  I know a young woman who is truly poor who I've discussed these issues with, and she told me that she found it "offensive" to have her struggles to literally get enough to eat compared to the problems of a doctor, who she considers "rich."

[robbo203]

dedelste wrote:

As an aside, even if socialism really is in his self-interest, it seems to me your chances of convincing him are near zero.

That's assuming the case for socialism is solely based on  self interest. I don't think it is and I don't see how it can be.  Necessarily the case for socialism is also a moral one.If the case for socialism was solely based on socialism why would a capitalist like Marx's friend and collaborator, Frederich Engels, take an interest in socialism at all? Saying that there is more to the question of "self interest" than an increased standard of living (which surely would not  be a reason for a capitalist to want socialism since her standard of living is almost certainly going to drop substantially and quite rightly too!) and that it would be in the self interest of capitalist to want socialism for other reasons (e.g. a  society without war), could be construed as suggesting that the capitalists and the workers have a commonality of interests in seeking socialism.  That's skating on thin ice in my view.  We have to recognise that it would not be in the interest of the capitalists to want socialism and insofar as they do as individuals, it is for reasons other than their self interest I think this whole argument that "I want socialism because it is in my self interest" plays directly into the hands of the capitalist ideologists.  Actually if all you were concerned about was your self interest as an individual then what's the point in advocating socialism? You might as well get out there, make a few millions bucks and feel nothing about stabbing your fellow workers in the back as you clamber up the greasy pole.  The unbridled pursuit of self interest was the fundamental premiss behind Adam Smith metaphor of the invisible hand of the market and it is astonishing, to say the least,  that any socialist would want to accept that self same premiss unalloyed and without any question asked.What about class interest? Doesnt that count?  If you accept the necessity for pursuing our class interests as a working class then ipso facto that position necessarily and logically  entails an altruistic aspect.  You are concerned for the welfare and wellbeing of your fellow workers, not just yourself.That is why the case for socialism has to be a moral one  as well as one based on self interest

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