In communism does everyone can get anything for free without having to work?

[Grayson Walker]

In Gotha, Marx says "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in proportion." For a while now I've believe that under communism, like socialism, one receives the same amount the put forth; hard workers get to take more from the stockpile; people who don't contribute to society will not receive society's contributions. However recently over revleft I've come across many who say that it is justifed for everyone - regardless of their profession - can take whatever they want from the stockpile whether or not they've actually contributed to society. To me, this is ridiculous. It is not a bourgeois tendency to believe that hard work should be compensated for better than easy work. To me it doesn't seen socialist to believe that all are entitled to take from society if they don't contribute to it; we are supposed to be against those who leech off the worker's labor without working.
Can someone explain to me if communism really is "everyone can take whatever" or not? And if so, tell me how this is supposed to work?

[ckaihatsu]

In Gotha, Marx says "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in proportion." For a while now I've believe that under communism, like socialism, one receives the same amount the put forth; hard workers get to take more from the stockpile; people who don't contribute to society will not receive society's contributions. However recently over revleft I've come across many who say that it is justifed for everyone - regardless of their profession - can take whatever they want from the stockpile whether or not they've actually contributed to society. To me, this is ridiculous. It is not a bourgeois tendency to believe that hard work should be compensated for better than easy work. To me it doesn't seen socialist to believe that all are entitled to take from society if they don't contribute to it; we are supposed to be against those who leech off the worker's labor without working.
Can someone explain to me if communism really is "everyone can take whatever" or not? And if so, tell me how this is supposed to work?


The quick answer is this, from a past thread:





[M]y conception of such a social order *would* readily allow individuals to receive goods *without* providing work themselves, *because of* the existence of machinery that doesn't require much work-effort input to produce mass quantities of manufactured goods.


Currency in Communism

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2697906&postcount=55


So material realities of how things are produced yields this statement to be based in *idealism* and *moralism*:





"The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in proportion."


In other words such a calculation would be impossible to arrive-at in the first place, for the same reasons that it's impossible to determine what fraction of a dollar today is labor-based (as opposed to exchange-value-based).

A simple argument against the conventional conception would be to ask how to handle the benefits of labor on an *inter-generational* basis -- should younger, incoming generations be obligated to rebuild the world anew, from scratch -- ? If not then they're obviously benefitting from *past labor*, which is disproportionate to the limited years of labor they could have possibly put in at such a young age.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

This isn't really a question that you can have a 'quick' answer for but, suffice to say, no-one would be denied anything they might need to live a dignified and satisfactory life. There's a lot more to it than that but I'll try to be concise. Essentially, in capitalism human food production can provide 2.5 times the world's population the daily recommended adult male calorie intake (never mind the fact that half the world's population are women and a large proportion children), capitalism in general is overproducing on a massive scale even despite all the pointless menial jobs people are forced to do (such as selling insurance, marketing etc) that contribute very little to the actual productive capabilities of society. If societies' production and distribution was planned rationally, the amount of labour needed to give everyone a decent life plus all the extras would be far less than what capitalism forces us to do in contemporary society.

Therefore, people could probably logically distribute 2-4 hours worth of tasks for everyone in the community freeing up huge amounts of time for people to be as lazy, productive or creative as they want and I would have no problem with that. If people don't want to do anything one day except drink beer by the pool? Go for it. What might be needed to compensate would be so minuscule that I wouldn't be that bothered.

[Tim Cornelis]

In the most advanced phase of communism, yes, all articles of consumption will be freely available. This presupposes automation to an extend that all human labour required to reproduce social wealth is done entirely through intrinsic motivation. The exact extend to which automation is required for articles of consumptions to become freely available cannot be determined in advance of course, but if required human labour is only 5 hours per week per person I doubt 'leeching' will be a problem.

With the widespread availability of 3D printers on the horizon I don't think that far reaching automation is illusory.

[Loony Le Fist]

Here's the deal. You could take whatever you want, but you wouldn't want to take everything. The whole point of the education part is to break free of the greed that cripples society. The way I read things, it seems as if a communist society is not just about economic organization, but about a whole new way of thinking about the world. We would no longer be hamsters in wheels lusting for shiny new things. The goal would be to become better people. Having stuff would be a side effect, not the sole purpose of life.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Yes and the question I always want to ask people is, it's 2014, we live in the future, why not now?

[ckaihatsu]

---





Here's the deal. You could take whatever you want, but you wouldn't want to take everything. The whole point of the education part is to break free of the greed that cripples society. The way I read things, it seems as if a communist society is not just about economic organization, but about a whole new way of thinking about the world. We would no longer be hamsters in wheels lusting for shiny new things. The goal would be to become better people.




Having stuff would be a side effect, not the sole purpose of life.





[1] [E]liminate all finance, [2] whatever you can't hold on your person or actively be in the presence of will potentially be reclaimed by someone else. No force required. Annnnnnnnd we're done.

[Five Year Plan]

In Gotha, Marx says "The same amount of labor he has contributed to society will be returned in proportion." For a while now I've believe that under communism, like socialism, one receives the same amount the put forth; hard workers get to take more from the stockpile; people who don't contribute to society will not receive society's contributions. However recently over revleft I've come across many who say that it is justifed for everyone - regardless of their profession - can take whatever they want from the stockpile whether or not they've actually contributed to society. To me, this is ridiculous. It is not a bourgeois tendency to believe that hard work should be compensated for better than easy work. To me it doesn't seen socialist to believe that all are entitled to take from society if they don't contribute to it; we are supposed to be against those who leech off the worker's labor without working.
Can someone explain to me if communism really is "everyone can take whatever" or not? And if so, tell me how this is supposed to work?

In the lower phase of communism, reward for work will be determined by a social plan, most probably one that will distribute resources in proportion to work performed (as far as work-capable people are concerned), with the plan taking into account things like intensity of work and the difficulty of acquiring or performing certain skills or engaging in certain tasks. In the higher phase, workloads will be so light due to mechanization, the nature of work so much more creative as a result of planning, and the social concern of people so pervasive and pronounced, that the threat of people trying to "leech" off the work of others will be virtually non-existent, and certainly not a problem widespread enough to require addressing.