Rev Left Radio - Red Hot Shot: From Each According to Their Ability, To Each According to Their Needs

Episode Date: October 1, 2022

"From Each According to Their Ability, To Each According to Their Needs" is still the best standard for the possiblity of a just, equitable, civilized society.  Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. This famous quote by Marx remains the single best, most succinct standard for a flourishing, cohesive, cooperative, democratic, free society. Every society that fails to live up to this standard, which is every society under capitalism by definition, is in the final analysis, an unjust society. a society where some live in a state of absolute destitution, sleeping on the streets, while others toil all day every day, making huge contributions to the basic functioning of society but can barely pay their bills, while still others live lives of extreme luxury and comfort while never contributing anything of value to society at all. To disagree with this famous quote by Marx and the standard it sets is to implicitly assert that

some people shouldn't have even their most basic needs met, while others, namely the rich and the kids of the rich, need not contribute anything valuable at all in exchange for their lives of extraordinary opulence. In order to defend liberalism and capitalism, one must reject this basic standard of societal justice, and thus must defend explicit, obvious injustice. If, on the other hand, a liberal insists that this standard could be approached and maybe even met under conditions possible within the liberal capitalist framework, we need only respond that the free market itself, with its very roots embedded in the existence of private property,

is precisely what ensures that this standard can never even be approached, let alone met under that framework. If a liberal were then to announce that they are okay with doing away with private property and the free market in order to strike out at this goal, then they would cease in that very instance to be a liberal at all. And so the liberal finds themselves in quite a pickle. He wants to see himself as a good progressive person that detests injustice and stands against inequality and yet remains deeply committed to an ideology and a mode of production that necessitates

injustice and inequality in order to function at even its most basic level. Therefore, the liberal must choose. Do I abandon liberalism in favor of justice and equality? Or do I abandon justice and equality for liberalism? Thank you.