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What are socialist views on specialization of labour compared to task generalization / job rotation? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 6 months ago by power@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/socialism@lemmy.ml

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I see many self-identified socialists imply that, in a socialist society, people would constantly be doing different jobs and would split their labour between many different jobs rather than specialize. It definitely makes sense when it comes to jobs that don't require too much specialization, but how does this work with highly specific jobs that require a disproportionately high amount of resources to become skilled in? Would they spend more time on a specialization, would they frequently rotate the same as everyone else?

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[–] derekabutton@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

People don't become research scientists to make money, especially after they take on tons of debt that will take decades to pay off. Does more need to be said about their motivations? If you give people what they require, they will do what they want. Many of them want to do specialized jobs because they want to. Just because many will not specialize does not mean that nobody will specialize.

Choice is the point. And some will choose to specialize.

[–] power@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think you missed the point of the post. This is about if and/or how division of labour is used in socialism, not whether people will do jobs.

[–] derekabutton@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Perhaps I do misunderstand. What do you mean by how the division of labor is used?

My point was that people will do what they want, and if they want to do those jobs now, they would also likely want to do them in this hypothetical situation.

These Individuals may rotate as others are expected to, but they could do that relatively easily in the current system already. High valued education and experience is sought after and the opportunity for them is higher than your everyday person.