>>>>
mbs: No, but once having obtained 'basic use-values,'
everyone would want more.
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CB: But sometimes it seems some people are saying because people would want
more if everyone had basic use-values, we shouldn't organize to provide
everybody with basic needs. That's SNAFU logic. . . .
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mbs: some people maybe, but not me.
>>>>>>>>
cb: . . . Nonetheless, on the original point, there is not scarcity in the
sense that RIGHT NOW there exist sufficient use-values to meet everybody's
basic needs. Contra your original statement,
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mbs: if everybody is those in the U.S., there is plenty to satisfy all 'basic needs' (reasonably defined). Include the rest of the world and I don't think so.
>>>>>>>>>>
. . .Further, there is "rationing" now. Socialization of the means of
production/elimination of classes would not require more rationing than now.
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mbs: right. there is rationing in all economies. never said otherwise.
I agree that scarcity in the sense of basic needs originates in politics and not in productive capacity or potential.
It might be noted that raising incomes of those outside the relatively prosperous capitalist- industrial core will not be done by much redistribution of income, but by changing capital flows and institutional fetters on growth in low-income places.
No politics premised on getting U.S. families to sacrifice much for Third World development has a snowball's chance in hell.
Look at it this way. U.S. GDP is less than $9 trillion. Divide that up among 270 million, you get $33,333 per capita. Total public spending is roughly 30% of GDP, or $9,999 per head. Suppose we somehow scraped together 10% of GDP -- the equivalent of almost the total cost of all state & local government in the U.S. That's $900 billion. Divide it up among just a billion people. That's $900 bucks.
Median household income is in the neighborhood of $40K, which most would think of as a relatively austere approximation of 'basic needs.' A huge contribution from the U.S. doesn't come anywhere near filling the gap between subsistence income and our version of 'basic needs' for the rest of the world's people.
What's really in question is how these other countries will be able to grow.
mbs