This was a question or rather a series of questions I heard over the weekend as I was discussing Marxism, class, labour etc. with a friend and I frankly couldn't really answer their questions. So here I am again asking it because this community provides incredible answers <3
The discussion was about work and their question was: "If class is abolished in communism and the people are taken care of, why would anyone work at all? Who is going to work in coffee shops, pick up trash, work in stores etc.? What would be the incentive for people to do anything productive?" I did my best saying that those jobs would still exist, but I kind of fumbled the argument.
True, they analyze communism and socialism (alongside other related theoretical and practical parts of Marxism) with a capitalist lens and fail to understand that it is like analyzing a train with the understanding of a carriage: an example of outdated thinking. They do not realize that capitalist formations (superstructural and base) are not inherent to humans or societies in general, but are specifically existing because capitalist contradictions led to such things existing. Also unintentional anarchism dunk :)