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An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor or To each the full product of his labor is seen by
Marxists and some other socialists as a
characteristic of society after a socialist revolution and before the transition to communism. It has been mentioned, in some
form or another, by many members of the
Definition and Purpose
The term means simply that in a socialist society, each worker is rewarded in accordance with the amount of labor that they contribute to society. This translates into productive workers earning substantially more than mediocre workers. It could also be extended to mean that the more difficult one’s job is (whether this difficultly is because of greater training requirements or intensity) the more one is rewarded for one’s labor.
The purpose of the principle, as Trotsky would later state, is to promote productivity. This is done by creating incentives to work harder, longer, and more productively. Furthermore it invalidates the old bourgeois argument that socialism is unreasonable because it provides no incentives for workers.
History of the Term
The principle has its roots in the way that capitalism manages its affairs. That is, each is rewarded according to how much he produces. Monetary payments increase as the amount of hours worked increase. However within capitalism, the means of production are owned by a small minority who does not produce, but rather lives off the labor of others.
One of the first times that socialists proposed rewarding people based on deeds and not giving all an equal stock, was during the drafting of the Gotha Programme. Before this point most socialists were utopians and thus most leftist thought was along utopian lines.
Labor is the source of all wealth and culture, and since useful labor is possible only in society and through society, the proceeds of labor belong undimished with equal right to all members of society.
So reads the first article of the Gotha Programme. Soon followed by:
The emancipation of labor demands the promotion of the instruments of labor to the common property of society and the co-operative regulation of the total labor, with a fair distribution of the proceeds of labor.
The programme was mainly the work of Lessalle. And it is soon challenged by Marx himself in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, with each article targeted and dissected. However Marx takes the two articles above together and decifers them to mean "the proceeds of labor belong undimished with equal right to all members of society." He claims that such a thing is impossible as some of the proceeds will be needed to maintain infrastructure and so forth. Marx explains this in these paragraphs:
What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
He continues with:
Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.
Marx says that such will be the way that society will manage the distribution of goods during the lower phase of communist
society. And this will be replaced during the higher phase of communism, when the standard shall be "from each according to his ability, to each according to his
needs" as Marx's famous slogan states.
Lenin quotes the Critique heavily in his State and Revolution. He even categorizes the "first phase of communist society" as socialism. Furthermore in chapter five, under "The first phase of communist society" Lenin addresses several economic questions aimed at socialism and provides answers for them from Marx's works.
Lenin claims that socialism will not be perfect since, as Marx said, it is a society "which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society." This society, socialism, will be unable to provide people with total equality, precisely because it is still marked by capitalism. He also explains the difference between the old society and the new as:
The means of production are no longer the private property of individuals. The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it.
Lenin states that such a society is indeed socialism as it realizes the two principles of socialism "he who does not work, neither shall he eat" and "an equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor."
His ideological descendants Joseph Stalin who largely perverted his ideas, and Leon Trotsky who advanced Leninism into Trotskyism and worked to overthrow the totalitarian Stalin, both mentioned the term in their works.
Stalin uses it most famously in his Constitution along with the other principle. He writes:
The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.
Trotsky writes in chapter three of his famous The Revolution Betrayed:
Capitalism prepared the conditions and forces for a social revolution: technique, science and the proletariat. The communist structure cannot, however, immediately replace the bourgeois society. The material and cultural inheritance from the past is wholly inadequate for that. In its first steps the workers’ state cannot yet permit everyone to work “according to his abilities” – that is, as much as he can and wishes to – nor can it reward everyone “according to his needs”, regardless of the work he does. In order to increase the productive forces, it is necessary to resort to the customary norms of wage payment – that is, to the distribution of life’s goods in proportion to the quantity and quality of individual labor.
References
See also
External links
- Capital: Volume I Marx's socioeconomic analysis of capitalism.
- The Critique of the Gotha Programme The pamphlet from which Lenin draws much of his arguments for the State and Revolution.
- The State and Revolution the complete text of Lenin's main philosophical work.
- The Revolution Betrayed the complete text of Trotsky's most famous and important work.
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