Guys, i need to know

From each according to his ability to each according to his needs.

That is to say, the brain surgeon might be more irreplaceable but the hospital cleaner works as hard and neither could work without the other, everyone should do what they're suited to and be provided for equally.

Equality of outcomes as in equal material conditions shared as best as possible (which would be far better than what you, probably, have now, as would go for most people) is not impossible whatsoever. It's entirely rational.

Equality of life outcome, as in, everyone will be your friend no matter who you are, is much less possible. I'm guessing you're one of those people who are completely blind to capitalism and economic structure, so it has to be about social things (and "impossible outcomes! everyone being the sameomg!") because you can't, won't, or refuse to look at basic simple things like the material conditions you live under.

a very good question.
and by that i meant different cultures and different religions. but i agree on the fact that a more equitable management of resources would smooth things quite a bit. if that's what you meant.

yes and no. yes, in the sense that i wanted to actually talk to a few "equality of outcomes" kind of people. no, in the sense that, as you can see by the shitloads of questions i loaded a few posts with, i'm actually curious.

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm

Nobody here wants equality of outcome, that has nothing to do with socialism. You're responding to a troll.

true…sort of.

to make my little anecdotal example.
my family was not rich. small farmers.
they worked, they saved money and they bettered their condition.

what i'm going to with this is: how do you keep
wealth with a capital W from starting to aggregate again?
a small enterpreneur from getting too big and causing this?

and this is exactly why i started this thread.
on that statement, ideally, i agree 100%.
but what does it mean?

yet, affirmative actions and quotas exist.

i'm the OP. i notice now that you don't have IDs around here.

anyway, have to leave now. i will pick up where i left eventually. and i will give this a read.

thanks guys. i won't deny that while i don't like labels i don't consider myself a leftist and that i'm sure i have lots of ideas that people here might not like, at all. but this was not to make fun or convert anyone.

This.

Depends what kind of socialist you talk to, I'm a statie so I think everyone should get paid the same (or close to the same, I guess I'm open to some incentive scheme) in labour vouchers. The harder or more unpleasant your job the less hours you should work ideally, though for highly skilled stuff that might not be possible in reality, I don't know.

Anyway, to me, all you can ask for is ever worker to do their best. If you're disabled you do what work you can do (or none if you can't do any), if you're dumb you do what work you can do. We all work together.

Propagandize harder. The Socialist Alternative thanks you.

i'm personally for equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.
its just my personal opinion tho

ook. that's what i was talking about.

what does it mean?

is he talking about making human beings "new"? is that his solution?

i agree with you with taht

It means that just because some are smarter, stronger or work harder does not mean that they get to tell the others what to do.

it's not about telling others what to do.
it's about being rewarded for what they do.
have you ever considered that the lack of incentives for exceptional people to be exceptional is a major handicap in leftist regimes?
i know this is a very broad statement that will not sit right with most people here. again not trolling but think about it.

especially because some professions do not require just natural endowments but years of training, and hard work on oneself.

why would anyone subject himself to that?

Socialism is more about equitability than equality tbh lad.

He's talking about the theoretical higher stage of communist society where technological and social advancements have either obviated the need for work entirely or at least provided for all the necessaries of life to everyone that needs them, shelter, clothing, food, education, etc.

At that point material abundance has proliferated to such a degree that individuals or collectives are free to produce according to their desires and to consume according to their needs.

In effect he's theorizing that continued economic and technological development, if guided rationally and toward the communal benefit of all rather than the enrichment of a few, will continue the trend of scarcity elimination begun by capitalism. Whether this means commieblocks for everyone or Fully Automated Luxury Communism ala Star Trek is impossible to say, because unlike Socialism which has real world instances of trial and theory, Communism represents a theoretical future ideal.

In regards to the theory that the material base informs and shapes the cultural superstructure (and vice versa), any development in the means of production will have drastic effects on society.

In ancient society, killing wasn't a big deal. If you killed a serf, you paid the owner of that serf for his trouble. If someone had a better kingdom than you, you get a bunch of thugs together and you kill everyone until either you're killed or you win.

In modern society however murdering someone isn't just a sinful act but is recognized as a socially harmful one, and so society has arranged itself to mitigate the causes and effects of such an action. Some Communists theorize that by eliminating the root cause of most crime, ie material want, as well as the social anxiety and pressures created by this scarcity, future human society will similarly improve. Instead of forbidding starving people to fight over scraps and jailing or executing those that do, the Communist solution is to develop the means of production to such an extent that fighting would be pointless because there's plenty for everyone.

Also you should get a gold star for actually reading the provided material. Good work user.

makes sense.

especially in the light of this sentence of yours.

but i'd like to add that murder was a bigger deal back in the day than you made it out to be.

bad blood and feuds are and were "socially harmful" and very much so.

had to look it on the dictionary.

seems fair.

anyway, thanks guys. it's been interesting.

yeah, I know what you mean.

Like most people who use the word, we mean equality under law and of opportunity. Not equality in outcome. We disagree that capitalism is "meritocratic", especially given everyone seems to throw this word around nowadays. We also disagree that markets under capitalism can ever be "free" because capitalism races down into exploitation, if one doesn't already accept like many here that capitalistic interaction is inherently exploitation.

the fuck is up with my trip

anti fascist bump

...

Liberal Professor Mr. Tugan-Baranovsky is on the war path against socialism. This time he has approached the question, not from the political and economic angle, but from that of an abstract discussion on equality (perhaps the professor thought such an abstract discussion more suitable for the religious and philosophical gatherings which he has addressed?).

“If we take socialism, not as an economic theory, but as a living ideal,” Mr. Tugan declared, “then, undoubtedly, it is associated with the ideal of equality, but equality is a concept … that cannot be deduced from experience and reason.”

This is the reasoning of a liberal scholar who repeats the incredibly trite and threadbare argument that experience and reason clearly prove that men are not equal, yet socialism bases its ideal on equality. Hence, socialism, if you please, is an absurdity which is contrary to experience and reason, and so forth!

Mr. Tugan repeats the old trick of the reactionaries: first to misinterpret socialism by making it out to be an absurdity, and then to triumphantly refute the absurdity! When we say that experience and reason prove that men are not equal, we mean by equality, equality in abilities or similarity in physical strength and mental ability.

It goes without saying that in this respect men are not equal. No sensible person and no socialist forgets this. But this kind of equality has nothing whatever to do with socialism. If Mr. Tugan is quite unable to think, he is at least able to read; were lie to Lake the well-known work of one of the founders of scientific socialism, Frederick Engels, directed against Dühring, he would find there a special section explaining the absurdity of imagining that economic equality means anything else than the abolition of classes. But when professors set out to refute socialism, one never knows what to wonder at most—their stupidity, their ignorance, or their unscrupulousness.
marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/11.htm

Goddamn I thought this is a variant of that Navy Seals vs Marxist professor at first.

a so called strawman.

but let me ask you a question.

supposing you abolish classes. how do you keep them from forming again. maybe in other guises, maybe even claiming to be real socialists.

nytimes.com/1995/03/24/world/reggio-emilia-journal-tell-these-italians-communism-doesn-t-work.html

that's my hometown. what you read in the article is all true, but that was twenty years ago.
now i can tell you that all that apparatus turned out to be very very much corrupt. and cooperatives, we have very big, very powerful ones, turned out to be prime exploiters of workers in general.

to give you an example among many when workers in big retail shops went on strike, this year, guess where the union turned a blind eye?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coop_(Italy)

how do you keep that from happening?

maybe you could say that these institutions do not operate in a classless society, so they are set to fail or have it much harder.

but then, what must be done to bring a classless society in existence?

If anything the principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" better takes into account the differences in people than the liberal "everyone is the same before the law."