What happens if someone refuses to work in a socialist economy?
I live in a socialist society, so basically everything is free. I don’t need money, so what’s to stop me from saying “fuck you” to my family and community, since I don’t have to work? I just want to party, sleep around, do drugs, and drink alcohol 24/7. I don’t want to work or help anyone that’s not me. What happens?
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Comments7
Drugs and alcohol and other non-necessities generally are not free. So I am not sure how you’d fund those things or the partying, depending what that means to you.
But if you choose to do that nothing would happen, society would support the costs of you having safe (although likely fairly frugal) housing, sufficient food, and medical care. There are already people who live that way but without the food, housing, or care; they may resort to crime to meet their needs (negative affect on society) or may just have such poor health that they require much more expensive care (already at the cost of taxpayer in capitalistic society) than they would have if they’d been able to access care before it became a dire emergency.
Research generally indicates that capitalist societies already pay more to address the consequences of poverty than it would cost to provide those people with their basic needs in the first place.
What happens if someone refuses to do any chores in a shared household? There are already plenty of situations where people do work for free because it's in your own interests. In groups like households people take turns taking out the bins and cleaning. In a communist society people will take turns doing the necessary work. If someone refuses, maybe something is wrong in their life, and they need help. At the end of the day, there's no economic coercion in a classless society. If one in a million people don't work for no understandable reason (disability, depression, personal issues, etc) then let them. What else are you going to do? Work or starve? Incarceration? The point of the universal emancipation that communism brings is to do away with those evils.
I don't know if you're looking for something historical, but in the GDR you'd be thrown in prison. Refusing to work was considered asocial behavior.
Relevant part translated:
What's your definition or idea of a "socialist economy"?
Set it up so those that don't work also don't get enough money to do those fun things.
Enough to not die, but not enough to live.
You get disappeared by the secret police.