July 16, 2017 at 06:49PM

Reddit scan:It's a strong statement but an honest question. I'm an engineer, and struggled to get there. I've never been a particularly good student. My life in college was far more demanding than it is now or was when I was working unskilled part-time jobs. But, for all its vices, the pseudo-capitalistic society we live in provided me with strong a strong incentive to finish my degree, it was the best way for me to provide a reasonable quality of life should I ever have a family. I don’t particularly care if I’m ever rich, I just want to have enough. In a more needs-based economy, I’m not sure that people like myself would have the necessary motivation to make the best of ourselves. If there was an easier path to comfort, I believe I would have taken it. That might be selfish, but I’m just being honest. I’d still be tinkering in my garage (or some public makerspace or whatever) if I had the opportunity, but I wouldn’t have developed the necessary skills to perform all the analysis required to produce a product that is reliable and safe for the humans depending on it to function as-designed, and would be ill-fit to work on any safety-critical system, like human-operated and maintained assembly line machinery (example, I work in an also safety-critical industry that provides services rather than goods).So, in a world where a production-enabling technology is owned by the people, what incentive will people have to develop the skills required to improve that technology? If socialism came tomorrow, some of us would keep doing what we do because we’ve already done the hard part. Others would be so passionate about what they do that they’d pursue it anyway, but my college experience has led me to believe that’s a rarity compared to the demand for such a skillset. Many of us need the motivation of not having an easier option to succeed.I’ve given this a lot of thought. It’s impossible to accurately imagine what a socialist world would look like. I can’t seem to get people to agree on whether or not some form of labor would even be required under a socialist system. Assuming it is and I could go to college in place of part of that requirement, I might still pursue an engineering bachelor or a technical associate and just do it at a more manageable pace. I might still end up where I’m at in that case, but I find myself there years later. I don’t provide the skillset for as many years of my life, an efficiency hit compared to our current system.If you think I’m singing capitalism’s praises, please re-read my statement. But, it has forced me to develop a useful skill that, frankly, I’m not sure I would have bothered with under a more forgiving system. http://ift.tt/2t5nszl by Towson Makerspace