The famous oft repeated phrase, “from each according to ability; to each according to need” traces to various possible origins but I think the main political point of reference was Marx in this passage:
“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”
Since there will always be a division of labor – some people who do this, other people who do that – getting rid of our current “enslaving subordination” to a division of labor can’t mean that we all do everything. Perhaps it meant getting beyond a particular (“enslaving”) division of labor that forces people to be less than they can be. I like that.
Similarly, since there will always be some tasks that are more mental and others that are more manual, transcending “the antithesis between mental and physical labor” likely meant getting past some people doing mostly mental while other people are left with mostly manual, so that mental and manual are no longer divided unfairly among different sets of people.
Continuing, “labor becoming life’s prime want” sounds very positive, but what about relating to friends or family? What about play, hobbies, or enjoying nature? Why should producing for the social product be our prime want above all other activities? Perhaps it was a little exaggerated and just means labor will be a critically important positive part of our lives.
What about, “wealth flow more abundantly”? I suspect if Marx saw the volume of output per employed worker in the developed world, he would say that as far as productivity per worker goes, abundance has been achieved. But I am sure he would also be horrified at how much pain accompanies the result. So maybe “flows abundantly” meant, “spreads fairly.”
Then comes the most famous slogan: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” where we of course drop the “his.”
The first half of this admonition seems to mean, taken literally, that we should each work at what we can do best in a manner generating as much as we are able to generate. But can it really mean that? What if you would be most productive and best at doing medicine, but you instead want to do music? Why, if you are sufficiently able at doing music – shouldn’t that be okay? And what does “able” mean, in any event? If I think I am “able” at medicine or at music, but I am in fact horrible at each, can I do one or the other as my contribution to work anyhow? Likewise, surely we don’t have to work 16 hours a day seven days a week, even if we are “able” to. But if not, how much does the slogan imply we should work? Is it okay, or even acceptable, to work as little as we want, and at anything we want to do, or even not at all, and still consume?
The second half of the admonition seems to say whatever happens regarding work we do, we should be free to take from the social product whatever we need. But who determines what we need? If each person does so for him or herself, is there no limit in what I can say I need? How do we decide a limit ourselves if we wish to be fair and just, or who would impose a limit if we don’t?
Advocates of an economic vision called participatory economics say that people should get a share of the social product correlated to the amount and the character of their work so that the combination of income and work for each person sums to an equitable overall pattern while also conveying information that permits society to invest in new capacity according to what people desire, and while insuring that each individual’s personal combination of work and consumption is fair. The norm that summarizes this is that each participant should receive income for the duration, intensity, and onerousness of his or her socially valuable labor.
Suppose I am sick and not able to work, or only able to work a limited amount. Or suppose I am too young or old to work. Or I need lots of medical care. In such cases, my needs should of course enter the calculation of what my workload and claim on social product can be. In parecon, therefore, the full norm is that we get more income if we work longer, harder, or at more onerous tasks doing socially valuable work – or if society grants us benefits beyond what our own efforts warrant because of special needs we have that society respects.
Many libertarians reject this approach because they feel that any structure limiting their work and consumption options is coercive. These “from each to each” advocates believe a person should be free to consult his or her own inner self, pick any work level and type that he or she prefers, and then collect any products that he or she wants, without having to balance work and consumption. They claim that restricting the unlimited option to do whatever work we prefer for however long we want and take whatever social product we choose, is coercive.
The pareconist wonders how, even while attending only to their own needs and inclinations and taking anything they want as well as independently doing any work they want, nearly all actors will spontaneously choose a fair and also socially balanced combination? If they won’t, or more to the point can’t, society would collapse from a mismatch of production and consumption or would at least suffer lots of unfairness. The pareconist then notes that the only way to know if I am taking more stuff than I deserve, or if I am giving of my time and capacity less than I should, or, for that matter, if I am doing tasks that I should not be doing, is to have socially agreed standards as well as information that reveals what the relative values of items are and thus what the full value of the items I would like to have are, and thus what kind of workload is needed for society to deliver at that level, and what is my fair share of work and product, as well as where I can be doing socially valued work given my particular abilities. Lacking such information, I can’t make informed and socially sensible choices.
The “from each to each” advocate may reply that even if we need the information, we must avoid all restraints on free choice. The pareconist responds that if I can have anything I want irrespective of other people’s preferences and also of my work, then my different desires for things will have no bearing on my actions and thus will never be revealed. Even I won’t know how much I want one thing relative to how much I want other things, or relative to other people’s desires. I will only know that I want something or not, and thus that I take it, or do it, or not. The pareconist also wonders why my being able to consume only in tune with the duration, intensity, and onerousness of my socially valued labor is deemed coercive, supposing that that norm is adopted by my society to be fair and socially sound.
To assess this coercion claim, would the “from each to each” advocate deem a rule that you cannot kill your neighbor coercive? Or would this advocate consider this aim something everyone should abide of their own accord, so that if someone wouldn’t abide it on their own, then limiting their options would be proper? Assuming the latter it true, then why call an institutional arrangement that gives you no means to consume more than your share of work or special health or other circumstances warrant, coercive? The no murder rule and the no gluttony rule both produce conditions that society deems desirable. If the rules constrain someone rather than simply facilitating the desirable outcomes we all should seek, it will only be because that person should be constrained.
Having gotten this far, the pareconist is typically frustrated by lack of agreement, but so is the “from each to each” advocate.
The pareconist thinks – I made a case that we need the information that pareconish remuneration and its participatory planning convey, and that the associated limits are essential for arriving at equitable outcomes, so what is the critic’s problem unless he or she really thinks it is okay for everyone to consult only their own inclinations to decide what work they will do in what amount, as well as what they will consume in what amount? Do the from each to each advocates believe there is no such thing as unfair economic outcomes? Do they believe we can all have what we want and do what we please? Do they think there is automatically enough for everyone, and that our work is automatically valuable? Or is it that they think all people will always automatically arrive at fair choices, even without relevant information? Lacking answers, the pareconist feels such beliefs are not even utopian but silly – and wonders, why is anyone sticking with such views rather than opting for institutions that generate desirable?
On the other hand, the “from each to each” advocate is thinking, what are the pareconists so agitated about? Why can’t they understand our simple stance? Of course we agree that fairness is critically important. But our point is that we should attain fairness without adopting structures that force us to be fair. We should not assume the worst about people and constrain them as a means to prevent unfairness. We should assume the best about people, and free them to act desirably to attain fairness. And we should do that even if some unfairness inevitably creeps into the results. Honest errors or even malicious or selfish violations by a few will be much less harmful than all of us succumbing to constraints. More, there is something degrading about thinking that one needs an incentive to work. We will work because work is “life’s prime want,” at least when work is un-alienated and self managed.
The pareconist repeats that people can’t arrive at just choices – freely or otherwise – without relevant information – and now adds, as well, that even when we make work self managed and orient it to real needs – as we do in parecon via balanced job complexes and self managed decision making – we will still have other personal and social pursuits that we want to enjoy that might cause us to opt to do less work than our desires for outputs warrant. Moreover, we may still want to do things that we like – surgery, basketball, engineering, or whatever – but that we are not personally good at. And if we are perfectly socially inclined and we also naturally want to work only at tasks that are desired and that we are sufficiently good at, then why wouldn’t we celebrate having institutions that give us the needed information to do just that?
The pareconist concludes that “from each to each” is unintentionally anti social because it allows and celebrates that acting independently of one’s social context is fine. It at least implies that full freedom requires totally unrestricted personal choice regardless of other people’s desires.
The “from each to each” advocate, in turn, thinks the pareconist must believe people are intrinsically anti social because the pareconist advocates structures that make being social the only sensible and in some ways the only possible choice by ruling out anti social choices – thus celebrating a narrowing of choice.
Suppose we try to find a compromise.
A pareconist could say to a “from each to each” advocate, suppose you are correct that even without clear valuations and budgets people will somehow automatically arrive at socially and personally fair and just choices so that parecon’s norm becomes extraneous. Okay, in that case even if due to being cautious we had initially adopted the parecon approach, in time we would discover it was not needed, and we could then dispense with it. I would have no problem with and even celebrate that result. I should admit, however, that instead of that happening, I expect that without structures to convey information and limits there would be a mess, so that even for people who are incredibly well motivated and infinitely socially inclined, allocative structures like parecon’s participatory planning will remain necessary as a tool for revealing people’s desires. The allocative structures of the future, with future incredibly social citizens, will be like stop lights at intersections. They will not solely or even mostly limit those who would otherwise violate good sense. They will overwhelmingly facilitate essential collective communication and agreement.
The “from each to each” advocate could conceivably reply okay, I get that you think participatory planning plus connecting income and work plus balanced job complexes are needed if we are to have classless, equitable, self managed outcomes. And so, okay, I agree that out of caution we can try your structures for a time. But I have to add that I think those structures will be steadily and rapidly replaced by free association relying solely on people’s individual good will.
That would be an agreement, albeit with conflicting expectations. But now comes the fly in the ointment that I think so far has prevented that happy outcome.
Just like the pareconist thinks there is a downside to adopting “from each to each” because of its built in lack of accurate information leading to poor and unjust choices that would be disastrous, so the “from each to each” advocate thinks there is a down side to having pareconish structures constrain choices due to a tendency for all constraints to pervert our natures, alienate us, and grow steadily more intrusive and coercive as time passes.
One thing to immediately note is that to think that some approach intrinsically leads in a bad direction and then rule it out as an option on that account often makes excellent sense. Take ruling out authoritarian forms of organization. We know that in some contexts top down approaches can accomplish various needed results, nonetheless, to say that they should be overwhelmingly avoided in the large because their intrinsic logic leads inexorably to growing authoritarianism at the top and passive acceptance below, makes good sense. In fact, this same way of thinking is why I reject “from each to each” as an allocative norm. I see that it has virtues in many contexts, but that adopted for a whole society it would be disastrous. So why don’t I accept the same reasoning for rejecting parecon’s institutions? The explanation is that parecon’s institutions do not, in fact, intrinsically lead toward negative outcomes.
Parecon’s institutions instead not only get the allocative tasks accomplished justly, they also facilitate desirable personal and social commitments and habits – and, indeed, were conceived with precisely that in mind. Thus, not only are parecon’s institutions desirable as an immediate means to the particular end of fair allocation, they also propel worthy wider ends by being “schools” of desirable behavior. Engaging in balanced job complexes, equitable remuneration, participatory planning, and self managed councils, produces social ties, solidarity, empowerment, and diversity.
The “from each to each” advocate thinks that we should only have free choice, totally unconstrained, and we should take as a given that the free choices people make will somehow sum together to a wonderful mesh that admirably meets overall social needs and develops overall potentials. The pareconist thinks “free choice” in a form that rules out social structures is individualist and anti social in addition to not being able to yield just outcomes. In reply, the “from each to each advocate” thinks that having balanced job complexes and remunerating for duration, intensity, and onerousness of socially valued labor seeks good outcomes but does so by establishing that some choices are not possible, and by thus introducing a constraining power above the individual – even if it is only the social community – and believes that such limits are a stairway to disaster. The pareconist says, no, those institutions and the limits they establish orient people toward solidarity, self management, empathy, participation, and sociality – not away from those aims.
Hopefully, alliance isn’t far off.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate
2 Comments
Mike, you say:
Continuing, “labor becoming life’s prime want” sounds very positive, but what about relating to friends or family? What about play, hobbies, or enjoying nature? Why should producing for the social product be our prime want above all other activities? Perhaps it was a little exaggerated and just means labor will be a critically important positive part of our lives.
Eagleton suggests in “Why Marx was Right” that Marx had a concept of labor/production rooted in the idea/reality of the development of our essential creative potentials through actions that transform reality. He argues that production for Marx referred to any self-fulfilling human activity which might include activities such as playing music, creating artworks, preparing and enjoying a good meal, discussing philosophy, talking with friends, walking in the woods, hiking in the mountains, engaging in political struggle, celebrating the accomplishments of a comrade, etc. When Marx said that production/labor is the essence of human life, according to Eagleton, he was not referring to the kind of narrow notion of coerced labor/production we might hold under capitalism, but more to a notion of “praxis” where free and creative self-realization is connected to actions geared toward individual and social transformation, i.e. activities carried out by people who were substantively free.
Thanks for another insightful, important and clarifying piece. You always leave people with better understandings and much more to think about and do! The struggle continues…
in peace and solidarity, d
Michael, thank you once again for a very clear and concise discussion of questions many can have about a pareconish economy. And for your continued emphasis on the values underlying it, which I deeply share.