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Originally Posted by hershie
"From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs"
I think that is the famous Marx line of what Marxism is in a nutshell and it makes a lot of sense (unfortunately only in theory).
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Actually it doesn't. Which is why it didn't work.
Let's take a simple factory as an example:
You have guys that work hard and have good ideas on how to improve products. Then you have guys who only do the minimum but complain a lot. According to that theory you'd punish the first
for being good (by giving them more and more work without reward) and reward the latter
for being bad (by giving them less work but more pay, because they "need" it).
The theory is complete nonsense. It's the essence of injustice. It's not that it was a great theory that unfortunately didn't work because people are assholes. The reason it failed was because it cut off the natural connection between work and reward. The natural result was a massive drop in production and then (oh wonder) all of a sudden there was nothing left to distribute. The mistake made is that man's wealth is not a natural resource that's just there an then unevenly distributed. Need doesn't make bread magically appear. Wealth has to be produced and it belongs to him who produced it. The economic theory behind that basic insight is capitalism. The theory that ignores it is socialism in any way shape or form.
So it's not "nice theory, bad practice". It's "the theory sucks and produces results accordingly".
Just had to say that. It hurts me inside when I hear people refer to socialism as a good but impractical theory. I