Should people be paid what they need or what they earn?

Purple that was a quote from Marx, no not Groucho, Karl

It was the essence of the Soviet model, collective farms and all that. "Needs" meant the basic requirements for living, food, healthcare, shelter, education, security etc. And it worked at that level. Soviet citizens were generally fully employed and had adequate food, shelter and possibly even superior healthcare.

But they had a peep over the wall and noticed that under free markets human needs were
far outstripping these basic necessities and were generally being satisfied at a far higher level. They decided that Marx had failed them and the rest is history.

I was thinking out some of the practicalities of that Marxist "utopia". Going right back to my schooldays. I studied for my A levels. Others didn't. Ok Marx would say those others were not giving of their best but how on earth do you incentivise people to put in the (extra) effort if at the end of the day what society gives back to me is totally independent of what I give to society.

Nonsense, as has already been observed and yet Wiki describes Marx (Karl not Groucho) as the most influential sociologist of all human history.
 
And 'Who is John Galt?' was the catch-cry of Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' where society/economy began to disintegrate when people were only rewarded with what they needed. Which is what happened in Russia - in the end, they didn't really have a choice.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
....how on earth do you incentivise people to put in the (extra) effort if at the end of the day what society gives back to me is totally independent of what I give to society
Click to expand...

That's a very interesting question, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find any society, least of all our own (or indeed any western democracy), that has achieved this to any great extent. Rewards for work have very little correlation to either effort or productive outcome. Some of the most valuable work in terms of society - raising the next generation - had some of the lowest or no pay associated with it. Work that has been traditionally performed by women has been undervalued in general. Some of the highest rates of pay are found in sectors associated with powerful professional groups that control access to entry. I'll accept that within a particular sector, cash can and does work as an incentive to advance, but I think you're on very shaky ground trying to argue that it works at a societal level.
 

Least of all? Ok, please list the non Western societies who have achieved this to a greater extent?

I'm really not sure where you can are going with this. We are talking about the economic structure of a society. Would anyone really want that extended into the nuclear household?

As for undervaluing the work of women, again please find me any large scale society that has valued the work of women greater than Western democracies?
When one compares the rights and freedoms of women in western society with any other large scale civilisation that has every existed (let's leave utopian hunter gatherers out of it), western society is greatest of all, not least of all.

Let's not forget that those societies who tried to base their economic structure on "what they need" had to build a wall around their countries to stop their citizens fleeing, and shoot the ones who still tried to escape.
One of the biggest problems Western societies face is the number of people who vote with their feet and want to come here.
 
newtothis said:
Some of the highest rates of pay are found in sectors associated with powerful professional groups that control access to entry.
Click to expand...
Those sectors are now becoming dominated by women as they account for the majority of law and medical graduates.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
Purple that was a quote from Marx, no not Groucho, Karl
Click to expand...
Yes, I'm aware of the origin of the phrase, and it pre-dates Marx (Carl).
Marx never foresaw the property owning middle class. Basically he got it wrong and hundreds of millions of people suffered as a result.
 
Purple I think he never foresaw the consumer society. Centralised economic management works well for things like education, healthcare, security, infrastructure etc. A modern Western society actually has a high proportion of its economy centrally controlled. Soviet communism went further and centrally provided nearly all other human "needs". It was working well enough within its own terms but what done for it was that it was never capable of harnessing the technological revolution to provide the cornucopia of consumer goods and services Western capitalism delivered. That needed a free market and incentivised enterprise. People had their basic needs met in Soviet society and to a much greater extent than the West they were treated equally. But they drove Ladas made under Fiat licence. They lived in drab tower blocks etc. This fully centralised economic model was never going to deliver the high quality and diversity of goods and services that capitalism has delivered, from high spec reliable cars to white goods for every imaginable household chore to iPhones etc. etc. The hapless Soviets had more or less achieved their goals of an equal society where people's basic needs were satisfied only to find that the other model had transformed from the Satanic mills of the industrial revolution to an unimaginable vista of material well being.

BTW Wiki credits Karl with the phrase, possibly you should advise them of their error
 
odyssey06 said:
Least of all? Ok, please list the non Western societies who have achieved this to a greater extent?.
Click to expand...

Maybe you should read what I said: "you'd be hard pressed to find any society...."

My point is that you can hardly point to our own society as one which rewards according to the value to society, as had been claimed here.

Personally, I think it's a nonsensical debate to try and equate value to society as a yardstick to rewarding people.
 
Wiki said:
This work is also notable for another famous Marx's quote: "http://localhost:49746/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_need (From each according to his ability, to each according to his need)."
Click to expand...
Purple this is what you get if you Wiki KM directly, but I see that it could be interpreted as not implying he was the first. I knew when I said it I was on shaky ground
 
newtothis said:
Maybe you should read what I said: "you'd be hard pressed to find any society...."
Click to expand...

Eh, I re-read it three times and that's not the sentence that you wrote, which carried with it an implicit criticism of western democracy.

I refer you to post #24:
"I think you'd be hard pressed to find any society, least of all our own (or indeed any western democracy), that has achieved this to any great extent."

I don't think anyone has claimed here that western societies reward according to value to society? But that marked-based rewards "what they earn" lead to better societies overall than those who rely on centralised re-distribution "what they need".
I think a market-based rewarded society will also be superior in the long run to a "rewarding value" based one. Because that implies that some central organisation will decide that value - for everyone else. Unless human nature changes, the track record of any central organisation thus empowered with that level of control over the rest of society is that it will turn into a tyranny of gulags and walls and stasi. Although, it would probably achieve a higher material standard that a "need" based society.
 
Last edited:
The reality is Western capitalism wins hands down in creating new human needs and satisfying them. The human condition is that this comes at a cost in lack of equality. But off the top of my head I would say the LQ of a typical Western society had a higher (material) standard of living than the UQ in Soviet Union.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
Ok, Dan, not quite. I'm not getting away with much today
Click to expand...

No worries - it's usually quite efficient to make stuff up.....just not always effective! Or, as I've told you a million times before, you must resist the urge to make exaggerated claims!!!!

On a serious note, it's amazing how things get picked up on this and other sites. A week or so ago, a regular contributor here made a post that was 100% lifted from an article written in the US. When this was pointed out to said poster, the non-referencing was attributed to an oversight. Personally, I wasn't convinced. Still what did I expect? - as Myles, when he was away from Dublin, told us: how are allegations dealt with? They are denied....
 
Last edited by a moderator:
odyssey06 said:
Eh, I re-read it three times and that's not the sentence that you wrote, which carried with it an implicit criticism of western democracy.
Click to expand...

Er, the quote was taken directly from what I'd written. The criticism of Western democracies was only to the extent that they shouldn't be singled out as being in some way superior to rewarding value to a society; it’s no better.

As I also said, I think the whole idea is a nonsense, if for no other reason than determining the relative values of different types of work is next to impossible. I suspect we agree more than disagree on that point.

odyssey06 said:
I don't think anyone has claimed here that western societies reward according to value to society?
Click to expand...

Not quite in those terms, but my point was in response to the comment which implied it: “....how on earth do you incentivise people to put in the (extra) effort if at the end of the day what society gives back to me is totally independent of what I give to society”. There’s an implicit claim in this that western societies are somehow delivering reward to those who give most to society: my point is that they aren’t, so don’t claim it.

I said nothing about the relative benefits of western democracies vs. Soviet style communism: I suspect defenders of the latter are somewhat thin on the ground at this stage.
 
newtothis I could see how you would make that inference but it certainly wasn't intended and I like you would reject it. If we changed "society" to "the world" I would be more comfortable about it but I was not intending any commentary on how we arrange things. I was merely observing that anyone who proposes that what humans "get out" should bear no relationship to what they "put in" does not understand human nature. And to think he was one of the most influential figures in HH. Well I suppose an even more influential guy recommended that if someone hits you you should turn the other cheek.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register