[lbo-talk] A Note on Equality was RE: (no subject)

Colin Drumm colindrumm at gmail.com
Thu Apr 26 11:50:57 PDT 2012


That appeal to anthropological evidence seems a bit nebulous to me; aren't most primitive societies dominance hierarchies? Anyway, I think the idea of species-being as a return to a primordial state is really confusing the matter - it is not a return to the garden, but a fulfillment that could not have been accomplished WITHOUT history, so I'm skeptical about any appeal to what is probably a thoroughly imaginary "state of nature."

Perhaps another way to look at it would be that in post-scarcity, material wealth simply loses its power as a motivator for productive action and is replaced by social regard, trust, respect, etc. What I'm getting at here is the question of what is the transformation of psychology under communism that allows "from each according to need" to function without being itself oppressive, which is the neoliberal worry. And as the complement to that, what is the psychology that allows "to each etc." to function without being stifling or simply not any fun. I think a lot of Marixists neglect that participation in economic activity can be fundamentally joyful (including the joy of competition) and is therefore an important aspect of species-being.

On Apr 26, 2012, at 8:23 AM, c b wrote:


> CB; I'd say you are describing the transitional society in which the
> "rule" is "from each according to ability , to each according to
> _work_" , not communism which is "to each according to need".
> Marxists anticipate that in communism there will not be uneven
> distribution based on differences in work but rather based on
> differences in need.
>
> The anthropological evidence is that "upward mobility" as motivation
> for work is _not_ part of human species-being. The original human
> societies and for tens of thousands of years, most of the time of th
> existence of the human species, operated by the principle "to each
> according to need". They were communist societies, not economic upper
> and lower classes.
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