"...to each; according to his need"

[Awful Reality]

I've been thinking recently about this quote and there's one thing that bugs me. How does one determine what one needs?

My answer is as such: Need is defined by the necessity for one to continue to produce, so that goods can be re-distributed. However, this explanation treats the workers as a mass, as a single whole- that which they cannot be under the analysis of the quote- as it is from each. So how, exactly, would you define need. I'm just asking for your personal opinion.

[BIG BROTHER]

Well at least in the terms of food, one needs at the most whatever you can eat until you're full. A family for example would need a houe that's just big enough to hold them comforatbly without being too big like a mansion or too small. so yea that's at least how I see it, sorry I couldn't explain it better.

[RNK]

Many mass organizations, NGOs and NPO's and so forth have worked for decades to determine the basic necessities of what a person needs to survive. The "poverty level" is one indication (though a bare minimum). Effectively, need and desire are sometimes synonymous and overall everyone should be accorded a relative equal share of what is available.

[Freedom Through Anarchy]

Well at least in the terms of food, one needs at the most whatever you can eat until you're full. A family for example would need a houe that's just big enough to hold them comforatbly without being too big like a mansion or too small. so yea that's at least how I see it, sorry I couldn't explain it better.

I agree
The amount of food and such necessities that the individual person would need to live comfortably to be able to be healthy and fit.

[Awful Reality]

But, are luxuries considered a "need?" One cannot argue that one "needs" luxuries, it's basic human nature. There's nothing wrong with wanting more, as long it does not involve exploitation or greed.

[mikelepore]

Please read the actual context in _Critique of the Gotha Programme_, section 3. It has nothing to do with need as opposed to wanting luxuries. It means just take whatever you need as opposed to having to pay for it. Its a discussion of whether its feasible to abolish money and distribute goods for free. The slogan came from the Bible -- "... and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." - Acts 4:36 ... and it had been quoted by such writers as Saint-Simon and Blanc, which is what Marx was replying to.

I wish more people would study that passage because I think it's clear that Marx is NOT endorsing the slogan as part of any socialist program, merely speculating that a future society could consider it. It's also a very minor speculation, which we can tell from the fact that Marx had a habit of carefully reediting and finally publishing whatever he really wanted to propose to the working class, and this phrase appears only in a private corrrespondence that he didn't want published. So to all the authors who claim it's a Marxian principle, I say that incorrect.

[Kropotesta]

Please read the actual context in _Critique of the Gotha Programme_, section 3. It has nothing to do with need as opposed to wanting luxuries. It means just take whatever you need as opposed to having to pay for it. Its a discussion of whether its feasible to abolish money and distribute goods for free. The slogan came from the Bible -- "... and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." - Acts 4:36 ... and it had been quoted by such writers as Saint-Simon and Blanc, which is what Marx was replying to.

I wish more people would study that passage because I think it's clear that Marx is NOT endorsing the slogan as part of any socialist program, merely speculating that a future society could consider it. It's also a very minor speculation, which we can tell from the fact that Marx had a habit of carefully reediting and finally publishing whatever he really wanted to propose to the working class, and this phrase appears only in a private corrrespondence that he didn't want published. So to all the authors who claim it's a Marxian principle, I say that incorrect.

The quote was origionally by Louis Blanc, a french historian and politician.
He used the phrase to critque competition as corrupting and advocated equalization of wages and personal interests to be directed into the interests of the common good.

[Led Zeppelin]

This should be in Learning.

Moved.