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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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[–] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

To put it as an article I saw the other day said, “who does the dishes after the revolution? Everyone.”

There’s a tendency I see among some leftists, like, “after the revolution I’ll knit for everyone all the time.” Nooo. We don’t need your knitted goods, to be honest. Machines do it better and faster. If you want to knit in your newly liberated free time, that’s fine. You can also help clean the toilets and scrub the floors.

In other words, I don’t really know whether I discount specialization entirely, but I do know that contribution to the various modes of production helps prevent elitism and ensures a comradeship that sitting in an office all the time and relying on others to do the hard work can never bring.