[lbo-talk] To each according to work

Charles Brown charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us
Wed Apr 23 10:02:09 PDT 2008



>>> John Thornton
Charles Brown wrote:
> John Thornton
>
> My reply was to both you and Charles. Charles did make a claim
> concerning human nature. I though that was clear but apparently not.
>
> ^^^^^
> Charles: I didn't say, nor do I think ,anything said below about
human
> nature.

You wrote this:

This claim embodies some unpleasant but true assumptions about human nature than we may transcend someday, but we deal with the new society as it emerges from the womb of the old,

^^^^^ CB: No I didn't write that. Somebody else did.

The mutable things we still have to deal with as the new society emerges from the womb of the old are not human nature , but historically specific characteristics of capitalism and class divided society. If they were part of human nature, we couldn't get rid of them, since we will still be humans in the new society.

Communism will still have to provide for physiological necessaries - eating, sleeping, breathing, shelter, reproduction - Those are the parts of human nature that will,of course, persist. Production and activities to carry out these will not require coercion, so coercion will eventually be discarded, even as there will remain some toil required to meet the necessaries, though it is conceivable that consciousnesses may be cultivated that don't experience what we consider toil to be unpleasant. The state will whither away , too. But in the transition to full communism, there will be a period where "to each according to work " and the state will be retained. This phase is commonly referred to as "socialism" and the next phase as "communism".

^^^^^

That was what I was responding to. Not the section you snipped.

John Thornton ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

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