At work, I was having some casual political small-talk with a coworker I thought was a liberal, and I threw out the “maybe we should make everyone do a year or two of customer service or retail before they officially become citizens” take.
She responded with “That’s literally Maoism.” She then explained to me that the central pole holding up the umbrella of Maoist philosophies is that the government has the responsibility to create moral citizens by requiring them to directly serve their country, such as farming or millitary service.
This feels correct, but I also feel like I am missing a lot.
“Maoism” is a floating signifier. The policies of Mao starting either from the GLF or the CR are “Maoism,” the disparate ideologies of several different segments of the Red Guard are all “Maoism,” Gonzalites are “Maoism,” Naxalites are “Maoism,” some Nepalese electoralists are “Maoism,” etc. Most of these are different (I think Mao’s two entries and the Naxalites are probably the most similar, along with some of the Red Guard splinters probably).
Your coworker was right in that it was literally an approach of Mao’s to have bourgeois, intellectual, and bureaucratic segments of the population do proletarian labor to have a better understanding of it (and maybe even empathy), most famously the “Down to the Countryside” movement. I think it’s reasonable, though in a richer country you probably shouldn’t be putting children in factories as was done then (just wait until they are young adults).
I agree with others that this is not the core of Mao’s thought or approach, not even remotely, it was just one of the many things that he did to try to oppose having an elite class disconnected from the masses. See also how he complains about some people reading a lot but never investigating things themselves.