>>> Ted Winslow
Charles Brown wrote:
> ed Winslow
>
> "From each according to his
> : ability, to each according to his needs!"
> :
> : That such a principle proved impracticable in the former Soviet
> Union
>
> : doesn't invalidate this claim since the requisite individuality
and
>
> : developmental conditions didn't exist there. In fact, they have
> never
> : existed in any community.
>
> ^^^^
> CB: Actually,they have existed in pre-class communites, "primitive"
> communist communites, as in the Western Hemisphere before the
> Europeans
> got here, or many parts of Africa, Australia; everywhere before the
> rise
> of "civilization".
>
> That's part of why we know it is not contrary to human nature to
> organize society on this principle. It existed for most of the time
of
> human society, 200,000 years before class society started.
How can this claim be made consistent with Marx's claim that the principle "only" becomes practicable when the conditions specified in
the preamble have been met, conditions which include "the all-round development of the individual" and with his claim that such fully developed individuals, "universally developed individuals,"
^^^^ CB: It could be made consistent with this if the individuals in primitive communism were universally developed individuals, no ? Why don't you think individuals in elementary societies cannot be universally developed ?
^^^^^
"are no product of nature, but of history. The degree and the universality of the development of wealth where this individuality becomes possible supposes production on the basis of exchange values as a prior condition, whose universality produces not only the alienation of the individual from himself and from others, but also the universality and the comprehensiveness of his relations and capacities"?
^^^^^ CB: Why is it that you think primtive communist societies could not meet these conditions ? There is nothing in there about high development of technology ? Have you read _Stone Age Economics_ by Marshall Sahlins demonstrating that hunting and gathering societies and by implication ancient hunters and gathers often have more leisure time than modern industrial societies ? The relations in such societies are famously, largely those of mutual recognition and respect
Ted ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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