How egalitarianism enters into historic materialism?

[Assistant of Deputy]

I understand the idea that, due to development of productive forces,capitalism will enter the crisis, and that private property will have tobe replaced with collective property.

However, I do not know why Marx believes that future society will havesome form of egalitarian distribution, like those from Critique of GottaProgramme? It is not logical necessity. One can imagine collectiveproperty and planned economy, yet inegalitarian, discriminatingdistribution. Why egalitarian distribution is historical necessity?

Did Marx or some other Marxist thinker addressed it or what do you think?

[ckaihatsu]

This is an excellent point.

If we happen to be using 'social production for human need' as an axiom / principle, then that *implies* that distribution will be unequal, since not everyone has the same appetites and tastes for material consumption.

*Worse* would be the revival of the Protestant 'work ethic', to the point where work efforts for the greater social good would be rewarded according to quantity and/or quality somehow, essentially *commodifying* labor all over again (into exchange values), with no regard for unmet human demand.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (German: Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus) is a book written by Max Weber, a German sociologist, economist, and politician. Begun as a series of essays, the original German text was composed in 1904 and 1905, and was translated into English for the first time by American sociologist Talcott Parsons in 1930.[1] It is considered a founding text in economic sociology and sociology in general.

In the book, Weber wrote that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated emergence of modern capitalism.[2] In his book, apart from Calvinists, Weber also discusses Lutherans (especially Pietists, but also notes differences between traditional Lutherans and Calvinists), Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, and Moravians (specifically referring to the Herrnhut-based community under Count von Zinzendorf's spiritual lead).

In 1998, the International Sociological Association listed this work as the fourth most important sociological book of the 20th century.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pr..._of_Capitalism

[Laika]

I understand the idea that, due to development of productive forces,capitalism will enter the crisis, and that private property will have tobe replaced with collective property.

However, I do not know why Marx believes that future society will havesome form of egalitarian distribution, like those from Critique of GottaProgramme? It is not logical necessity. One can imagine collectiveproperty and planned economy, yet inegalitarian, discriminatingdistribution. Why egalitarian distribution is historical necessity?

Did Marx or some other Marxist thinker addressed it or what do you think?

After a speech in 1931 in which Stalin condemned "wage-levelling", the Soviet Union had massive income inequalities. The justification was the necessity of material incentives to increase the productivity of labour. Stalin emphasised a quote by Engels that Communism represented equality as the abolition of class distinctions but not "total" equality of outcome. There was some consistency amongst Marxist authors drawing from a quote that under Socialism, as a transitional phase between Capitalism and Communism, there would be a persistence of "bourgeois right" (of equal pay for equal work). This view was picked up by Lenin in the state and the revolution (as I recall). As the accusation that Communism insists on equality of outcome and does not take into account the need for material incentives is a common anti-communist argument (contary to the evidence of how Marxism was practiced in the USSR and elsewhere), this subject does come up from time to time.

The link here gives some direct quotes from Engels, Lenin and Stalin on the subject and may be helpful; https://espressostalinist.com/2013/0...ainst-marxism/

[BIXX]

I understand the idea that, due to development of productive forces,capitalism will enter the crisis, and that private property will have tobe replaced with collective property.

However, I do not know why Marx believes that future society will havesome form of egalitarian distribution, like those from Critique of GottaProgramme? It is not logical necessity. One can imagine collectiveproperty and planned economy, yet inegalitarian, discriminatingdistribution. Why egalitarian distribution is historical necessity?

Did Marx or some other Marxist thinker addressed it or what do you think?

Egalitarianism shouldn't factor into historical materialism. In fact, egalitarianism shouldn't be what our efforts are toward anyway.

Egalitarian distribution means that there is an economy, work, and the industries that tie the two together are still part of the post-insurgency existant. If we want total freedom, then we cannot continue with the idea of egalitarian distribution. Instead we must decide upon distribution based around desire, both the desire of those who might produce a product, and those who'd receive it. If I want a candle, but neither I nor anyone else wants to produce a candle for me, too bad. However if my friend or neighbor or some dude across the sea want to make me a candle then I'm in luck.

[RedMaterialist]

I understand the idea that, due to development of productive forces,capitalism will enter the crisis, and that private property will have tobe replaced with collective property.

However, I do not know why Marx believes that future society will havesome form of egalitarian distribution, like those from Critique of GottaProgramme? It is not logical necessity. One can imagine collectiveproperty and planned economy, yet inegalitarian, discriminatingdistribution. Why egalitarian distribution is historical necessity?

Did Marx or some other Marxist thinker addressed it or what do you think?

From an historical materialist point of view I thought Marx showed that the idea of equality developed from the necessary relations of commodity production and exchange. In order for humans to be able to sell themselves, their labor power, as commodities, they must appear on the market as commodities, there must be a free and equal exchange of the labor commodity. Just as owners of traditional commodities must relative to each other exist as equals, as people participating in a free bargaining process, thus workers must also have this appearance of being free and equal.

Just as, according to Marx, Aristotle could not understand the commodity relation (ch. one, Capital) because he lived in a slave society where social equality was completely impossible.

Ironically, this egalitarianism of capitalism, at least in form, is passing over into a true equality of socialism.

[ckaihatsu]

Egalitarianism shouldn't factor into historical materialism. In fact, egalitarianism shouldn't be what our efforts are toward anyway.

Egalitarian distribution means that there is an economy, work, and the industries that tie the two together are still part of the post-insurgency existant. If we want total freedom, then we cannot continue with the idea of egalitarian distribution. Instead we must decide upon distribution based around desire, both the desire of those who might produce a product, and those who'd receive it. If I want a candle, but neither I nor anyone else wants to produce a candle for me, too bad. However if my friend or neighbor or some dude across the sea want to make me a candle then I'm in luck.

But egalitarianism is a necessary prerequisite to *enable* the fulfillment of individual desire -- if the materials for candle-making aren't available locally and/or no one is able or willing to do it, then your desire is going unfulfilled because of a lack of egalitarianism in the material-economy.

This isn't to say, of course, that egalitarianism means 'everyone should get equal amounts of all the same things, in common' -- again, everyone has varying appetites and tastes (post #2).

So I'd say that 'egalitarianism' implies *equal access* to all possibly-desirable goods / resources / materials, and services, worldwide. If candle-making is well-known in some other part of the world, perhaps that area could, as a matter of regular protocol / routine, provide a guide on how people can make their *own* candles, for any other part of the world, as a minimum. The *best* would be that all areas of the world that make candles would *coordinate* their candle industry in common, to make sure that *all* areas of the world would have locally-accessible means of expediently obtaining candles from relatively-close areas of candle-making.

This, like any other good or service, then gets into the more complicated question of who *should* be doing the work for the making of candles, or anything else, and who gets to *benefit* from this social production, and why. (The regular problematic being that a robust, fully-functioning communistic 'gift economy' would actually be a social *failure*, because if material production is left to those who are *willing* to do it, then those people are being de-facto *exploited* by all others who are *not* working for the common good, and are only *consuming* from available social production. Fortunately I've developed a system of 'labor credits' to address this overall complexity. Here's a past thread: https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads...nism?p=2824962)

From an historical materialist point of view I thought Marx showed that the idea of equality developed from the necessary relations of commodity production and exchange. In order for humans to be able to sell themselves, their labor power, as commodities, they must appear on the market as commodities, there must be a free and equal exchange of the labor commodity. Just as owners of traditional commodities must relative to each other exist as equals, as people participating in a free bargaining process, thus workers must also have this appearance of being free and equal.

Just as, according to Marx, Aristotle could not understand the commodity relation (ch. one, Capital) because he lived in a slave society where social equality was completely impossible.

Ironically, this egalitarianism of capitalism, at least in form, is passing over into a true equality of socialism.

Can you elaborate on this last part -- ? Is the revolution now underway, and I missed the memo about it -- ? (grin)

[BIXX]

But egalitarianism is a necessary prerequisite to *enable* the fulfillment of individual desire -- if the materials for candle-making aren't available locally and/or no one is able or willing to do it, then your desire is going unfulfilled because of a lack of egalitarianism in the material-economy.

That is exactly OK. If whole industries will be destroyed cause no one wants to do the activities associated with them, then that's alright (then again I don't think this will be an issue for candles- but there are resources that are far more dangerous/unpleasant to create).

[RedMaterialist]

Can you elaborate on this last part -- ? Is the revolution now underway, and I missed the memo about it -- ? (grin)

The revolution has definitely entered a historical pause. One might say that it has gone underground...but it will emerge later with the cry, "Well grubbed, ole mole."

And equality doesn't necessarily mean equality of wages. During the transition to communism there will still be unequal pay for unequal work. The Gotha Programme.​

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