#electricians and plumbers and carpenters are absolutely not unskilled laborers lmao

[tchaikovskaya]

again, this isn't to condescend or demean the people who work these very important jobs. i don't want to imagine what our world would look like if nobody collected garbage or cleaned public restrooms or stocked grocery shelves. their labor is so important that it is often invisible to us. they all deserve more money, as well as the respect and security and standard of living that should be guaranteed to all humans.

but if you call yourself a socialist/communist, and you don't bother learning about this kind of stuff, that worries me. in an ideal world, yes, we are all fed and housed and clothed and nobody has to worry about how they'll manage to afford to live. but that ideal world requires some rigorous planning and organization. in a post-capitalist world, you won't have the abstract concepts and economic pressures of free market "supply and demand" to drive people toward specialized well-paying jobs.

are some welders passionate about welding? yes i'm sure many are. but many aren't, welding is not their calling in life, they don't give a shit about welding. they go to work and do their jobs and go home and their free time is when they can do what they love. they do the job because it's good money. and that's a job that requires specialized training and skill that you can't just learn as you go once you're hired. just as much as we need garbage collectors and construction workers and vegetable pickers, we need engineers and electricians and doctors. you can't lose your job and just go apply to entry-level positions in those fields with zero prior knowledge of the craft. in a planned economy, filling those vitally important positions is one of the most important things, your society cannot move forward without covering those basics first. and that means that you have to orchestrate training people, enough people, to do those jobs. this is why the distinction is important.

I fully understand the motive behind the “no labor is unskilled” rhetoric because it’s of course ultimately about getting people to see the value of workers doing jobs that people take for granted or dismissively refer to as “burger flipping” but like. it’s a meaningful distinction lol.