The original definition of communism is well summed up by the phrase: "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need."
It now seems that most communists take it further. Free access is widely considered a requirement of communism, and if there's not free access, it's not communism.
I, too, have gotten used to thinking of communism this way, to the point that I forgot that this is not the classic definition. I was only reminded recently in a conversation from another thread, where I said that communism necessitates free access, but was then corrected and told that it only necessitates "to each according to their needs."
Kropotkin, perhaps the most famous anarchist-communist in history, describes his vision of communism in his 1892 book Conquest of Bread. He recommends free access for necessities but that people must work extra hours in order to access luxuries.
When did the definition of communism shift from the classic "to each according to their needs", as described by Kropotkin, to what seems to now be the current definition of "free access"? How did this shift occur? And why?
Or am I wrong about there being a shift? Is the classic definition still the current definition? Is free-access just one interpretation of that, and not necessarily the dominant interpretation?
(Edited to make post more concise)
The idea predated the Gotha
The idea predated the Gotha programme;
Letter from Engels to Marx, in Paris, [Barmen, beginning of October 1844]
The Teutons are all still very muddled about the practicability of communism; to dispose of this absurdity I intend to write a short pamphlet showing that communism has already been put into practice and describing in popular terms how this is at present being done in England and America.The thing will take me three days or so, and should prove very enlightening for these fellows. I’ve already observed this when talking to people here.
And that led to;
Description of Recently Founded Communist Colonies Still in Existence
Written: in mid-October 1844
The sect of the Shakers originated some seventy years ago. Its founders were poor people who united in order to live together in brotherly love and community of goods and to worship their God in their own way. Although their religious views and particularly the prohibition on marriage deterred many, they nevertheless attracted support and now have ten large communities, each of which is between three and eight hundred members strong. Each of these communities is a fine, well laid-out town, with dwelling houses, factories, workshops, assembly buildings and barns; they have flower and vegetable gardens, fruit trees, woods, vineyards, meadows and arable land in abundance; then, livestock of all kinds, horses and beef-cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry, in excess of their needs, and of the very best breeds.
Their granaries are always full of corn, their store-rooms full of clothing materials, so that an English traveller who visited them said he could not understand why these people still worked, when after all they possessed an abundance of everything; unless it was that they worked simply as a pastime, having nothing else to do. Amongst these people no one is obliged to work against his will, and no one seeks work in vain. They have no poor-houses and infirmaries, having not a single person poor and destitute, nor any abandoned widows and orphans; all their needs are met and they need fear no want. In their ten towns there is not a single gendarme or police officer, no judge, lawyer or soldier, no prison or penitentiary; and yet there is proper order in all their affairs.
The laws of the land are not for them and as far as they are concerned could just as well be abolished and nobody would notice any difference for they are the most peaceable citizens and have never yielded a single criminal for the prisons. They enjoy, as we said, the most absolute community of goods and have no trade and no money among themselves.
It is often not appreciated but the communist examples of the Shaker communes was more widely understood and known about in the 19th century, eg?
CHAPTER XVI. SOCIAL ARCHITECTS
The great facts of modern Socialism are these: From 1776—the era of our national Revolution—the Shakers have been established in this country; first at two places in New York; then at four places in Massachusetts; at two in New Hampshire; two in Maine; one in Connecticut; and finally at two in Kentucky, and two in Ohio. In all these places prosperous religious Communism has been modestly and yet loudly preaching to the nation and the world. New England and New York and the great West have had actual Phalanxes before their eyes for nearly a century. And in all this time what has been acted on our American stage, has had England, France and Germany for its audience. The example of the Shakers has demonstrated, not merely that successful Communism is subjectively possible, but that this nation is free enough to let it grow. Who can doubt that this demonstration was known and watched in Germany from the beginning; and that it helped the successive experiments and emigrations of the Rappites, the Zoarites and the Ebenezers?
These experiments, we have seen, were echoes of Shakerism, growing fainter and fainter, as the time-distance increased. Then the Shaker movement with its echoes was sounding also in England, when Robert Owen undertook to convert the world to Communism; and it is evident enough that he was really a far-off follower of the Rappites.
France also had heard of Shakerism, before St. Simon or Fourier began to meditate and write Socialism. These men were nearly contemporaneous with Owen, and all three evidently obeyed a common impulse. That impulse was the sequel and certainly in part the effect of Shakerism. Thus it is no more than bare justice to say, that we are indebted to the Shakers more than to any or all other Social Architects of modern times. Their success has been the solid capital that has upheld all the paper theories, and counteracted the failures, of the French and English schools. It is very doubtful whether Owenism or Fourierism would have ever existed, or if they had, whether they would have ever moved the practical American nation, if the facts of Shakerism had not existed before them, and gone along with them.
But to do complete justice we must go a step further. While we say that the Rappites, the Zoarites, the Ebenezers, the Owenites, and even the Fourierites are all echoes of the Shakers, we must also acknowledge that the Shakers are the far-off echoes of the Primitive Christian Church.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35687/35687-h/35687-h.htm#CHAPTER_XLV
And from Lenin, spit, in 1920;
V. I. Lenin, From the Destruction of the Old Social System, To the Creation of the New
Communist labour in the narrower and stricter sense of the term is labour performed gratis for the benefit of society, labour performed not as a definite duty, not for the purpose of obtaining a right to certain products, not according to previously established and legally fixed quotas, but voluntary labour, irrespective of quotas;
it is labour performed without expectation of reward, without reward as a condition, labour performed because it has become a habit to work for the common good, and because of a conscious realisation (that has become a habit) of the necessity of working for the common good—labour as the requirement of a healthy organism.
It must be clear to everybody that we, i.e., our society, our social system, are still a very long way from the application of this form of labour on a broad, really mass scale.
But the very fact that this question has been raised, and raised both by the whole of the advanced proletariat (the Communist Party and the trade unions) and by the state authorities, is a step in this direction.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/apr/11.htm
Quote: The original
Free access is sort of what 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need' means: people contribute what they can and take what they need (within reason).
Take Pankhurst's description of a communist society for example: Pankhurst
I don't think Kropotkin argued 'free access to necessaries, but you must work so and so hours for luxury items'. It requires work to produce most useful things (especially in the 1800s when Kropotkin was writing) regardless of whether it's a necessary or luxury item. I think his vision of a communist society assumed a certain amount of work from everyone, and in return people could take whatever they need (and if there's enough to spare then people who don't contribute could satisfy their needs too):
Kropotkin
Kropotkin
Our productive powers, technology etc. have improved since the 1800s, so it really shouldn't be an issue satisfying everyone's needs within reason today, even if not everyone wants to contribute.
I imagine that such a
I imagine that such a definition was never that fixed? Perhaps that, as the circle of social relations that people depended on grew larger, the quite uncomplicated notion of "omia sunt communia" and "from each/to each" was deemed not enough of a guarantee, and notions of maintaining commensurability between benefits and efforts crept back in? So I guess as communism went from a peasant communitarian thing to an urban social movement, the simplicity of that principle started to appear as a problem, at least an organizational one.
In smaller-scale communities that entertained notions of communism, that link would likely be kept by the fact that people knew each other, co-produced wealth in more tangible ways etc., so mutual dependence and mutual benefit were joined. Then the later communist aims were projected onto the terrain of large-scale society, so this at least became a question for them in theory if not often in practice. So you get all sorts of solutions to the conundrum in a situation where money is abolished, but some accounting is seen as necessary, e.g. in the form of labour-time accounting that settles accounts between collaborative workplaces that people participate in, or individually, with labour vouchers issued for hours of work done, and so on.
As we - through the world market - currently tend to produce stuff for people we generally don't know, and who in turn produce stuff for others they don't know, the notion of producing everything for everyone beyond all commensurability or measure does lead to those kind of questions.
Personally I used to hate these kind of questions because they're the default trap you end up in when an idiot hears you have anticapitalist ideas, and the discussions had tend to be futile.
Lucky Black Cat wrote: The
Lucky Black Cat
There's no conflict between the two definitions. To understand it properly I think you [people in general] need to understand that communism is about freedom, and not equality in the egalitarian sense of the word, and to think about what freedom and needs are.
Watch the videos on this Youtube channel as a starter:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsln1E-ttrNPsMivrnf9V7w
Most likely the most dominant definition of the word 'communism' these days is still probably one that refers to the USSR and such like though.
Words always have shifting and broad meanings..
The first part of Marx's
The first part of Marx's critique of the gotha programme has elements of both:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
Marx
So he more or less says that as communism is emerging from capitalism there could be a system of labour vouchers or similar, but that this would be an inherently unfair system because there's no such thing as 'equality' in reality, but then a 'higher phase' of communist society these have been done away with. Some people have interpreted this as a long transitional phase but you could also read it as an insurrectionary/immediate-post-insurrectionary situation vs. as soon as things start to settle down.
Some discussion of this here: https://libcom.org/library/marx%E2%80%99s-critique-socialist-labor-money-schemes-myth-council-communism%E2%80%99s-proudhonism and https://libcom.org/forums/theory/dreaded-labour-notes-02042009 and probably other threads and articles.
On Kropotkin:
It's not stated explicitly here, maybe elsewhere, but at least implicitly he's arguing that in order to minimise the amount of time any one person spends on producing necessities (however defined), everyone should contribute to doing so. Then once that's done, you could obvious dedicate time to producing non-necessary stuff, or not bother. But Kropotkin isn't advocating for measuring exactly what time people spend on what, just some social pressure if someone is obviously not contributing at all.
The post of darren p #5,
The post of darren p #5, pretty well sums up my opinion on the thread topic.
Just a further comment, as the point has been raised.
Mike Harmon #6
‘But Kropotkin isn't advocating for measuring exactly what time people spend on what, just some social pressure if someone is obviously not contributing at all.’
What qualifies as ‘obviously not contributing’? We live in a society, past and present, obsessed with ‘spongers’, and people ‘living on benefits’. Is there an expectation that these attitudes and behaviors will be carried into the new society?
Will the future society continue to separate out the deserving and the undeserving? If so, what a poverty of ambition.
It was raised on another thread something about the drudgery of cleaning toilets, well I’ve worked in places where the toilet cleaners (incidentally all men) took pride in their work to the extent of polishing all the copper pipes on the urinals! Lads working in boiler houses (ex-sailors mostly) took the same housekeeping pride in their work. Importantly their work was recognized and appreciated.
Auld-bod wrote: The post of
Auld-bod
Yeah I think Kropotkin was insufficiently optimistic too.
Mike Harman wrote: but that
Mike Harman
Most likely a slip of the pen, but I don't think 'fairness' is the right way to frame it either. Eg. Communism is not better than capitalism because it is more "fair". Communism is desirable because capitalism places un-necessary restrictions on the development of human potential, on the development of individual and social powers. Communism is more desirable to capitalism because it structures society in such a way that the "free development of each" will be the "free development of all". We are free to the extent that we have the power to develop and nurture our human potential. Once we have achieved subsistence etc, our most radical need is the need to develop that potential. So communism isn't about making sure that everyone has the same amount of stuff, or making everyone the same - it's about structuring society in such a way that everyone can freely develop their potential as much as possible, regardless of what differences they may have. Concepts such as "fairness", "justice" and "equality" collapse into contradiction when sufficiently probed, we should be careful when invoking them.
If anyone wants a better explanation, watch this series of lectures on Marx by Raymond Geuss
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfqdvDnX3lbAGzd770mJOFyRI4Khz50Uq
Hey, sorry I haven't replied
Hey, sorry I haven't replied until now. Thank you to everyone who took the time to write a reply.
It's been a long time since I've read Conquest of Bread, and it seems I got things a bit wrong. But I wasn't too far off.
Kropotkin, Conquest of Bread
So he's saying that if you want luxuries, you have to directly participate in the labor it takes to create them. This is different from just putting in extra work hours in general (regardless of what type of work you're doing). But it does demand that you put in extra work.
It seems the consensus view here is that there is not a distinction between free-access and "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need." I agree that there is not necessarily a distinction, but they are not necessarily the same thing, either. It seems to me that free-access is one interpretation of "from each... to each." Another interpretation is free-access for necessities, conditional access to luxuries. (For Kropotkin the condition being that you contribute your labor to creating them, though there could be other conditions, instead, like contributing extra labor, regardless of what type of work it is.)
I'm not trying to argue that one interpretation is better or more valid than the other, I'm just wondering when free-access to both necessities and luxuries became the dominant interpretation.
Darren P - thanks for recommending the youtube channel! Red Plateaus makes good videos.
Regarding equality, I like
Regarding equality, I like Marx's point that we should focus on the development of human potential (which is what Red Plateaus explores in their first video), but I don't want to abandon the championing of equality. The notion of "equality" is inspiring to many people, it stirs something deep in their heart, it has great popular appeal. To abandon it seems like a missed opportunity to connect our politics to people's desires.
Yes, if interrogated, equality can be shown to be impossible or even undesirable. But that only happens if people accuse you of seeking equality in all ways for all things. But that's a strawman, and can easily be brushed aside by clarifying what you mean by equality.
Isn't free-access a type of equality? Everyone is equally entitled to the various goods and services.
I guess even this could fall apart if interrogated closely enough. As mentioned in another thread, we wouldn't all be equally entitled to MRI-scans, only those who need them would get them, and it wouldn't be something you could just do on a whim because that's how you like to have fun. But even this is a type of equality: We are all subject to equal standards of whether we qualify for getting an MRI-scan.
In communism, I'd expect that people's material quality of life would be equal. This isn't the same thing as saying our material conditions would be equal, since things like differences in climate, population density, and so on would ensure that's not the case.
As for the development of human potential, doesn't this necessitate something approximating equality in material quality of life? If there were significant disparities in this regard, then some people would have their ability to develop their potential stunted by that disparity.
It's not a perfect equality but it's a rough equality. I'm sure many holes can be poked in it, even insofar as I've described it, it is certainly not philosophically or logically air tight. But I'm still not convinced it should be abandoned, due to its deep popular appeal. Our politics are already so alien to most people. Anything we can do to connect to popular desires, ideals, and values, we should try to do so.
Lucky Black Cat wrote: The
Lucky Black Cat
I think there are two main different ways of thinking about equality. There's the egalitarian - distributive justice - way of thinking about it. Then there's the way of thinking about in the sense that everyone is of equal moral worth, deserves equal respect etc. It's possible to be one without being the other I think. So when people talk about equality it is important to think about what they are talking about; equality of what? So yes, you could think of the human capacities way of thinking about it as everyone being equally able to develop themselves..
One thing though - Socialism is often described as being about distributive equality and capitalism about liberty or freedom - It's useful to dissolve this I think..
I have more I could say about this but little time this morning. Marx's concept of freedom came from Fichte, as far as I understand, it would be interesting to find out if Fichte was an influence on Bakunin too. Both were schooled in German philosophy so it's quite likely...
There's a difference between invoking a principle to inspire or motivate people, and that principle being coherent. The Diggers used appeals to God to justify what they were doing - I don't think we should be doing that...
The Geuss lectures are more detailed than the Red Plateaus one - I'd also recommend his book "Philosophy and Real Politics" if you want to look into the questions about "equality" further. Allen. W Wood's "The Free Development of Each" is good too, it's about the concept of freedom in classical german philosophy - Marx included.
Quote: So he's saying that if
It's been a while since I've read Kropotkin as well, though I doubt he's saying there that to enjoy a piano (or whatever is considered a luxury) one has to directly participate in its immediate production. For example is growing food in a communist society to feed piano-makers not also essential to piano production? Or how about collecting the raw materials (wood for example) that go into the production of a piano, or making the instruments used in piano-making (hammer I guess), as well as the transportation of these means of production to the site where pianos are made?
darren p wrote: One thing
darren p
Yes, when talking about communism/socialism/anarchism, I like to emphasize both freedom and equality. It's very important to highlight the ways capitalism limits our freedom and communism can expand it.
Most of all, though, I think we should emphasize how it expands and enables human wellbeing. (Expanding and enabling the development of human potential is part of that.)
darren p
Fair point. So I wouldn't recommend invoking a principle simply because it's popular. It would have to have a genuine connection to communism, and I believe that is the case for equality.
I think any concept, if you interrogate it, can be shown to have problems, at least by extreme interpretations. Like freedom. Freedom taken to the extreme would be anything goes, and allow people to literally get away with murder.
Lucky Black Cat wrote:
Lucky Black Cat
Well, only if you took freedom to be "freedom to..."
Somewhat related - since when
Somewhat related - since when socialism was so simplistically defined as 'workers control the means of production', so as to include co-operative capitalism under the umbrella? It seems to be more prevalent than ever. In the classic literature of Marxism or anarchism, I would assume that the term has a stronger and meaningful definition, so much so that it wouldn't be a problem, since most of the socialist movement derives from those two traditions. Or I am mistaken in this view? Or is it because folks don't even refer to the classic literature anymore - instead relying on other means of picking up ideas?
I think there has been some
I think there has been some kind of "unmerging" between the labor movement and the left which has led some leftists to turn their heads away from the working-class and to co-ops and small scale-production. Groups like the BSA openly support like small business associations as "progressive", along with the general sudden thought of a "youtuber union". It becomes especially clear in what people call "economic democracy", which has at least in the social-democratic worker's movement has just in general meant that workers get "a seat the table" and insight to the firm that they work for. In other words, unions are turned into organs for class collaboration to achieve "peace on the labor market". Now (in internet discourse) it just means co-ops.
Agent of the International
Agent of the International
There's never been a singular definition - look in the back of the Communist Manifesto. The word has been used for a mixed bag of things the whole way through.
As far as Marx and Engels go
As far as Marx and Engels go they apparently switched between "socialism" and "communism" at different times to avoid association with certain people. This 1936 Socialist Standard response to the Daily Worker I think has some informative bits on Marx and Engels' usage, which also chime with Engels' preface to the Manifesto.
Engels
Socialist Standard
Regarding Lenin's usage of socialism and communism
Socialist Standard
The last few issues of Weekly
The last few issues of Weekly Worker has articles debating the socialism/communism differentiation.