Reply #37: The question is

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

Whether complex division of labor can exist without the formation of classes (and all the baggage that goes along with that). Can we have a classless society that still has separate groups of poets and garbage collectors?

Classes certainly can't exist without the division of labor, except as formal categories of person, and these we would be more apt to identify as clans, phratries, societies, etc.

The idea of class is that someone produces goods and someone else enjoys the profits. It's hard to imagine a society with any non-producers at all if it doesn't have a class system based on the division of labor. Why should the farmers support city folk if not for an arrangement between classes?

The original arrangement was, "You feed me, I'll keep track of the calendar and tell you when to plant." Lo and behold, the priesthood is special and the planters aren't. Most of us here on DU are some version of the original priest. It seems like asking us to give up the class system is asking us to radically rethink our lives and start taking more responsibility for our own support.

This is an admirable thing to do but I also think that, in the imperfect world we live in, most of us do work that is quite valuable despite its low output of soybeans and shoelaces.