Steve over at The Skeptical Optimist is pondering an interesting quandary.
I’m stuck on what seems like a flaw in the the basis for marxist/socialist thought. According to Marx’s labor theory of value, the individual worker does not receive full value for his production, because the greedy, exploitive capitalist pockets a portion for himself. Whether or not that is true, here’s the apparent logical inconsistency…
The paradox: Given the labor theory of value, why does one of the main guiding principles of socialism/marxism/communism say:
"…to each according to his need"
as opposed to:
"…to each according to his production"?
If this apparent logical flaw was truly a mistake by marxism’s slogan-crafters (aside from the sexism), then it seems to me the full slogan should have been as follows:
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his production."
The numerous comments on his post go on to analyze the marxist/pre-communist/socialist/liberal tendences of that conundrum, but the manufacturing geek in me is a bit more intrigued by the flow characteristics. Push versus pull, supply versus demand. The flow of value. Is the flow toward someone in need, or toward a provider? Is demand flow marxist?
Beats me; I’ve got a headache.
Neutron Jerk says
You lost me… what’s this have to do with “value” from a lean perspective? Why rack your brain worrying about communism? Write more about lean… that’s what I “value” as a reader. Go drink some wine…
anewell says
You are right~ it is a fatal flaw to think that people will be satisfied with producing to the best of their ability if the fruits of their labor are redistributed to those in need (by the state). This is what Marx and Engles put forth. Who decides each person’s need? Who decides what should to be produced? You can see the failure of such a system all over the world because of the predictability of human behavior. That is, people expect to be fairly compensated for their production. If they feel they are doing someone else’s share, their production will lag, and the system collapses. (Yet politicians persist in saying that’s the way it should be.) Marxism is a supply-push system, not demand-pull as I see it, but it’s a stretch to make this comparison.