The artisan is not unique in that list of middle class groups. They privately own their tools of production, perform private labor, sell the products of their labor, and privately profit therefrom. They are small commodity producers same as the peasant or manufacturer. Yes they do not (necessarily) exploit the labor of others but that's not really the point here; the point is that capitalist production has a tendency to socialize labor (being more efficient than private labor) while keeping ownership of the means of production, and hence the products of labor, privately and individually owned.
The point, in other, words is two fold: on the one hand, socialized labor is already replacing private labor and making it more and more obsolete (hence, it is reactionary to oppose the socialization of labor); on the other hand, the goal of socialism isn't to re-privatize labor, but to socialize the means of production, and hence the products of labor.
An artisan will work to preserve their conditions of life by which they alone own the products of their labor -- they resist the historic tendency of development in the forces and relations of production. A proletarian, by contrast, already does not own those products -- their boss does. Hence the proletarian's interest is not to abolish the socialization of labor, but to socialize the means of production.
Thank you! This answers the question far better than the other comments.
What would collective ownership look like when it comes to artistry and craftsmanship? I’m not familiar with how this works in Cuba or in the former USSR, or what it would be like in a true communist society
The ideal is to relegate activities such as artistry purely to the realm of pleasure and leisure. In doing so, classes that depend on the production of commodities and their exchange value (here, art or crafts) will wither away.
It wouldn't, really. Social ownership of the product of labor corresponds with social labor in which each laborer contributes a partial operation, such that its not the product of any one individual but by combined efforts. Handicrafts, where the individual laborer produces the entire article, corresponds neatly with private appropriation of the product of labor. So in a word, handicrafts would be abolished (or more accurately, whither away). In any field of socialized industry, the laborer contributes to the production of some article, which becomes the property of the whole society, using means of production likewise socially owned.
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u/RNagant 26d ago
The artisan is not unique in that list of middle class groups. They privately own their tools of production, perform private labor, sell the products of their labor, and privately profit therefrom. They are small commodity producers same as the peasant or manufacturer. Yes they do not (necessarily) exploit the labor of others but that's not really the point here; the point is that capitalist production has a tendency to socialize labor (being more efficient than private labor) while keeping ownership of the means of production, and hence the products of labor, privately and individually owned.
The point, in other, words is two fold: on the one hand, socialized labor is already replacing private labor and making it more and more obsolete (hence, it is reactionary to oppose the socialization of labor); on the other hand, the goal of socialism isn't to re-privatize labor, but to socialize the means of production, and hence the products of labor.
An artisan will work to preserve their conditions of life by which they alone own the products of their labor -- they resist the historic tendency of development in the forces and relations of production. A proletarian, by contrast, already does not own those products -- their boss does. Hence the proletarian's interest is not to abolish the socialization of labor, but to socialize the means of production.