"THE SECRET SAUCE OF SOCIALISM" ENDNOTES
[1]. French socialist Louis Blanc is generally credited with creating (in the 1840s) the specific wording for socialism's most famous saying, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," though another French socialist, Étienne Cabet, also began using this expression at roughly the same time. Blanc wrote, "Chacun produise selon son aptitude et ses forces, que chacun consomme selon ses besoins." Louis Blanc, Nouveau discours de M. Louis Blanc sur l'organisation du travail devant l'assemblée générale des délègues des travailleurs (Paris: Commission du Gouvernement Pour Travailleurs, 1848), 10.
What cemented this saying's place as socialist saying number one, however, was Karl Marx adopting it as his own. Marx wrote that socialist society would eventually "inscribe on its banners, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.'" Karl Marx "Critique of the Gotha Program," in Robert Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1972), 383.
[2]. "With the discovery of atomic power and its ownership and planned development by a socialist society, the ultimate goal of satisfying the wants of all with a minimum of monotonous and burdensome labor need no longer be relegated to the distant future. Where formerly it was wise to estimate our ability to create a super-abundance in terms of centuries, now it is perhaps not over-optimistic to think in terms of years." (Leo Huberman, The Truth About Socialism [New York: Lear Publishing, 1950], 198n., emphasis added.) Huberman is but one of oodles of socialists to speak in terms of "superabundance."
[3]. "This morning, we read in a newspaper report that it was calculated that each operator with her equipment could do the work of 30 to 60 persons doing the same job with a hoe. This means that the productivity of work is multiplied by 40 with the use of these machines. Anyone can understand that this is the only way to develop the wealth of our country, its natural resources, to a maximum and that it is the only way to enable our people to benefit from a limitless abundance of the necessities of life." Fidel Castro, "Fidel Castro Speaks to Graduation Tractor Operators [October 2, 1968]," Castro Speech Database, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1968/19681002.html, emphasis added.
While Castro may seem to qualify "limitless" by referring to "the necessities of life," in another speech he recognizes the obvious that "needs are limitless." http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1971/19710502.html.
Search these Castro speeches online in this database and you will find Castro referring not only to limitless abundance, but also "superabundance," "complete abundance," and "absolute abundance."
[4]. Eugene Debs, "Revolutionary Unionism [November 25, 1905]," in Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches (Chicago: George G. Renneker, 1908), 441.
[5]. Karl Marx, Capital, trans. Ben Fowkes and David Fernbach, 3 vols. (London: Penguin Classics, 1978–1981), 2:256–57.
[6]. Michael Harrington, Socialism (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1970), 347.
[7]. Paul D'Amato, The Meaning of Marxism (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), 46.
[8]. When Castro gave the speech in which this quote appears, it was standard socialist practice to use the term "communism" as shorthand for a socialist society based on the "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" standard. With the fall of the USSR in the 1990s, most socialists ceased using "communism" in this way because of its tainted nature and began simply calling a society based on the "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" standard "socialism."
One example of a socialist doing just this is found in Michael Harrington, the founder of the Democratic Socialists of America. Harrington writes "The goal of socialism, clearly, is to overcome greed and act on the basis of 'to each according to his/her need, from each according to his/her ability'" (Michael Harrington, "What Socialists Would Do in America—If They Could," Dissent, Fall 1978, 445). This is the very same goal that, for the majority of the twentieth century, socialists called "communism." To use terminology as socialists did, Harrington is telling us that the goal of today's socialism is "clearly" to create communism.
For more, see the Red Flags Press paper "Socialism? Communism? What's the Difference?"
[9]. Fidel Castro, "Castro Speaks at Award Ceremony for Canecutters [July 24, 1965]," Castro Speech Database, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1965/19650724.html.1
[10]. Hillel Ticktin, "Response," in Market Socialism: The Debate Among Socialists (New York: Routledge, 1998), 130, 162.
[11]. The opening two sentences of GA Cohen's obituary in the left-wing British paper The Guardian call Cohen "arguably the leading political philosopher of the left" and the "most important interpreter of Marx in the analytical tradition." Jane O'Grady, "GA Cohen, political philosopher who introduced a revolutionary interpretation of Marxist theory," The Guardian, August 10, 2009. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/10/ga-cohen-obituary, accessed September 23, 2020.
[12]. G. A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 131. When Cohen explains that Marx expected socialism to result in a world of "limitless conflicts-dissolving abundance," he also reports his hope that there could be something short of this requirement that might yield a world where socialism's requirement of compulsory duty would not lead to authoritarianism. But he also states that he believes Marx would disagree with this assessment and that this is what led Marx to base his thinking on the premise of a "limitless" abundance in the first place.
In this passage, Cohen also explicitly states that Marx's vision of a world of seeming socialist libertarianism, of "self-ownership," must perish along with the assumption of a limitless abundance. Cohen is clear that it's the assumption of a world of limitless abundance that's behind Marx's projections of a socialist society of freedom and self-ownership.
[13]. Paul M. Sweezy, "Marxian Socialism," in Leo Huberman and Paul M. Sweezy, Introduction to Socialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968), 87.
[14]. "C'est pourquoi le supériorité́ du socialisme est éclatante; il arrivera dans un espace de temps très restreint à créer la surabondance de tous les produits nécessaires à l'homme ; on devra allons limiter la production, ce qui permettra d'affecter le surplus de la main-d'œuvre à des travaux d'embellissement et de réduire la durée du travail." Lucien Deslinières, Comment se réalisera le Socialisme (Paris: Libraire du Parti Socialiste, 1919), 20.
[15]. Fidel Castro "Castro Speaks at Uvero Battle Commemoration [May 28, 1965]," Castro Speech Database, http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro.html.
Castro speaks of "superabundance," "complete Abundance," and "absolute abundance in this 1966 May Day address: Fidel Castro, "Fidel Castro May Day Celebration Speech [May 1, 1966]," Castro Speech Database, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1966/19660502.html. And he references "limitless abundance" in a speech in October 1968: Fidel Castro, "Fidel Castro Speaks to Graduation Tractor Operators [October 2, 1968]," Castro Speech Database, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1968/19681002.html.
[16]. Karl Kautsky, The Class Struggle, trans. William E Bohn (Chicago: Charles H Kerr, 1910), 139.
[17]. Max Shachtman, Socialism: The Hope of Humanity (New York: New International Publishing, 1944), 15.
[18]. Daniel De Leon, Fifteen Questions about Socialism (New York: Socialist Labor Party, 1914), 34.
[19]. James P. Cannon, America's Road to Socialism (New York: Pathfinder, 1975), 67–68.
[20]. Huberman, Truth About Socialism, 198n.
[21]. Hundreds of socialist thinkers have used the terms "anarchy" and "anarchial" to describe the nature of our liberal and capitalist society. These terms have been at the heart of the socialist analysis of what is, to socialist thinking, wrong with capitalist society for centuries, and they remain there today. Rather than production in capitalist society being centrally planned as socialism desires, it is the result of fragmented and thus anarchical decision-making, distributed across millions of independent producers.
Socialists themselves note socialism's long running focus on anarchy. Harry Cleaver writes: "From Saint-Simon and Owen onward, socialists condemned the destructive antagonisms and anarchy of free-market competitive capitalism" (Harry Cleaver, "Work Refusal and Self-Organization," in Life Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies, ed. Anitra Nelson and Frans Timmerman [London: Pluto Press, 2011], 49). Marx and Engels were focused on this theme. As Marx wrote in Capital: "The capitalist mode of production … begets, by its anarchical system of competition, the most outrageous squandering of labour-power and of the social means of production" (Marx, Capital, 1:667). Complaints of capitalist anarchy remain at the heart of today's socialism as well: "The market system of production … is a sprawling, anarchic, and out-of-control monster" (Chris Williams, Ecology and Socialism [Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2010], 145–46).
[22]. In the seminal early work of socialism, The Doctrine of Saint-Simon, Prosper Enfantin and his coauthors attack what they see as the anarchy and disorder of capitalism and conclude that it's the cause of evil: "If so many disturbances and disorders are observed in this important branch of social activity [production], it is because the distribution of the instruments of work is made by isolated individuals ignorant of the needs of industry and of men …. The cause of evil lies nowhere else." The Doctrine of Saint-Simon: An Exposition, trans. Georg G. Iggers (New York: Schocken Books, 1972), 95–96.
[23]. One of socialists' favorite ways to describe their philosophy is as "rational." Socialists have long seen socialism as the epitome of organization and order, a "rational" system in contrast to the anarchy and disorder of capitalism. Early socialist great Robert Owen even called his version of socialism "the Rational System of Society." Robert Owen, Outline of the Rational System of Society (London: Home Colonization Society, 1841).
[24]. Mao Tse-tung, "Speech at the Supreme State Conference (January 25, 1956)," Quotations from Chairman Mao (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1966), 26. Because of a change in how Chinese names are represented in the Latin alphabet, Mao's full name today commonly appears as "Mao Zedong," though "Mao Tse-tung" will still be found in many printed works.
The ideas Mao expresses were not of his creation. Rather, he is merely parroting the thinking of Marx and Engels, who called for exactly the consolidation and centralization of industry and agriculture that Mao undertook and with the same expectation of dramatically boosted production. They did so in numerous writings, including Friedrich Engels, The Principles of Communism, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Selected Works, vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973), 92.
[25]. Despite being aware of the catastrophic results of forced collectivization of farming in the USSR, the leaders of the People's Republic of China also attempted to follow Marx and Engels's thinking by collectivizing farming as part of the so-called Great Leap Forward. The results of these socialist policies were again disastrous, costing tens of millions of lives.
Frank Dikötter writes in the preface to his recent Mao's Great Famine that, based on the results of new research using Chinese government documents not previously available, "at least 45 million people died unnecessarily between 1958 and 1962" (Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962 [New York: Walker Publishing Company, 2010], preface, Kindle). Other estimates of deaths, all in the tens of millions, can be found in Xizhe Peng, "Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China's Provinces," Population and Development Review 13, no. 4 (December 1987): 639–70; Wei Li and Dennis Tao Yang, "The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster," Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 4 (August 2005): 840–77.
[26]. Harrington, Socialism, 347.
[27]. "Take a product that is more than scarce, unique of its kind if you will: this unique product will be more than abundant, it will be superfluous, if there is no demand for it. On the other hand, take a product multiplied into millions, it will always be scarce if it does not satisfy the demand, that is, if there is too great a demand." By Marx's definition, the only way for a product to be "abundant" is for the quantity available to be greater than demand—that is, for there to be an excess, an oversupply. Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1956), 37.
[28]. Marx, Capital, 256–57.
[29]. Peter Hudis, Marx's Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism (Boston: Brill, 2012), 110.
[30]. Max Shachtman, The Fight for Socialism (New York: New International Publishing, 1946), 154–55.
[31]. Eugene V. Debs, "The Issue: Speech at Girard, Kas., May 23, 1908," in Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1908), 489.
[32]. Robert Owen, The Manifesto of Robert Owen: The Discoverer, Founder and Promulgator of the Rational System of Society,8th ed.(London: Home Colonization Society, 1841), 9.
[33]. Leo Huberman, Truth About Socialism, 198.
[34]. Fidel Castro, "Castro Speech on 5th Anniversary of Cuban "Democratic" Republic [September 29, 1965]," Castro Speech Database, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1965/19650929.html
[35]. E. Sylvia Pankhurst, "Socialism," Workers' Dreadnought, July 28, 1923, https://www.marxists.org/archive/pankhurst-sylvia/1923/socialism.htm, emphasis added. American socialist James Cannon also makes the link between abundance and overproduction clear: "Super-abundance or overproduction as it is called." Cannon, America's Road to Socialism, 58.
[36]. Here's an extended version of this quote from Friedrich Engels, "The Principles of Communism," in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Selected Works, 92. Engels ties constant overproduction directly to the end of the class struggle and much more:
"Crises will cease to be; the extended production, which in the present system of society [capitalism] spells overproduction and is such a mighty cause of misery, will then not even suffice and have to be further expanded. Instead of bringing misery in its wake, overproduction exceeding the immediate needs of society, will satisfy the needs of all, will create new needs and simultaneously the means for their gratification. It will become the condition and stimulus of further progress, it will achieve progress, without, as heretofore, always involving the social order in confusion.
"Once liberated from the yoke of private ownership, large-scale industry will develop on a scale that will make its present level of development seem as paltry as seems the manufacturing system compared with large-scale industry of our time. This development of industry will provide society with a quantity of products sufficient to satisfy the needs of all. Agriculture, too, hindered by the pressure of private ownership and the parcellation of land from introducing available improvements and scientific achievements, will mark a new advance and place at the disposal of society an ample mass of products.
"Thus society will produce sufficient products to arrange a distribution that will satisfy the requirements of all its members. The division of society into various antagonistic classes will thereby become superfluous."
Engel's explains a key aspect of socialist theory, another dimension of how socialists deluded themselves into believing their philosophy would create a world of constant overproduction resulting in superabundance. The key socialist critique of capitalism is that a capitalist economy is, as hundreds of socialists have described it, "anarchical"—that is, based on millions of separate producers making independent decisions. Socialist theory sees the "anarchy of production" as the root cause of economic crises. Independent producers can accidentally overproduce and this capitalist overproduction, resulting in goods that can't be sold, sets off a chain reaction that produces an economic crisis and a dramatic drop in production as businesses fail. Socialists deluded themselves into thinking that replacing anarchical capitalism with the centralized planning and production of socialism would lead to a dramatic increase in production. They similarly deluded themselves into believing that this central planning in place of independent decision-making would result in a world where constant overproduction was possible. Capitalism couldn't deal with overproduction because economic crises were the result. Socialism would make constant overproduction a piece of cake.
[37]. Marx, Capital, 2:256–57.
[38]. Paul Mattick, Economic Crisis and Crisis Theory (London: Merlin Press, 1981), 108.
[39]. David McNally, Against the Market: Political Economy, Market Socialism and the Marxist Critique (London: Verso, 1993), 192–93.
[40.] Paul D'Amato, "To each according to their need (August 23, 2013)," SocialistWorker.org, https://socialistworker.org/2013/08/23/to-each-according-to-their-need?quicktabs_sw-recent-articles=1-4.
[41]. While Louis Blanc is generally credited with developing the saying "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," the reason this is the most important saying of socialism is because Marx adopted it as his own. Marx (famously in socialist circles) wrote that socialist society would eventually "inscribe on its banners, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.'" Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program, 383.
[42]. "The goal of socialism, clearly, is to overcome greed and act on the basis of "to each according to his/her need, from each according to his/her ability." Michael Harrington, "What Socialists Would Do in America—If They Could" Dissent, Fall 1978, 445.
[43]. John Strachey, How Socialism Works (New York: Modern Age Books,1939), 157.
[44]. Hyman Frankel, Socialism: Vision and Reality (Bury St. Edmonds: Arena Books, 2010), 45, Kindle.
[45]. Robin Hahnel, Marta Harnecker, David Laibman, Paul Cockshott, Allin Cottrell, Pat Devine, Xiaoqin Ding, Peihua Mao and Xing Yin, "Question 4: Stages and Productive Forces," Science & Society 76, no. 2 (April 2012).
[46]. John Crump, "The Thin Red Line: Non-Market Socialism in the Twentieth Century," in Non-Market Socialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed. Maximilien Rubel and John Crump (London: Macmillan Press, 1987), 43.
[47]. Tatah Mentan, Socialism: The Only Practical Alternative to Contemporary Capitalism (Mankon: Langaa Research & Publishing, 2012), 36.
[48]. Binay Sakar and Adam Buick, Marxism, Leninism: Worlds Apart (West Bengal: Kolkata Avenel Press, 2012), chapter 10; see http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart.
[49]. That Marx's vision of perfected socialism was of a society in which there is no buying or selling, no wage labor, and no money is an uncontested element of socialist theory. This fact is confirmed by a number of socialist scholars past and present.
These are goals that remain at the heart of the socialist faith. And they're expectations that could only be delivered by a world of superabundance resulting from constant overproduction. In a world in which every human need was overproduced and available for free, there would be no need for buying or selling or money. And as everyone could take everything needed for free, there would be no need to be paid for one's work. Rather than the carrot of pay, society would instead use the stick of the duty of "from each according to their ability" to guaranteed that each person gave their time and talents to society.
Two examples of the unlimited number of sources where socialists themselves speak of Marx's expectation of socialism being a world without money, buying or selling, and so on, are Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1978), 337; and Maximilien Rubel and John Crump, eds., Non-Market Socialism. The latter resource is an entire book devoted to the topic of socialism being a society without buying, selling, and so on. As Rubel and Crump state in the introduction: "Socialism is, by definition, a marketless society, … a moneyless society, a wageless society" (1–2).
[50]. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is one example of an earlier socialist state that was sold as democratic socialism in action yet turned out to be a totalitarian nightmare. For details and examples of socialists—not just within the USSR but also around the world—claiming the USSR was a democratic socialist society, see the Red Flags Press paper "The Keto-Friendly Political Philosophy."
[51]. Socialism's foundation on the duty of "from each according to their ability" has played a key role in one socialist state after another becoming an authoritarian nightmare. This standard of duty makes every citizen subservient to the state, which here on planet Earth means to those running the state. The very intent of this duty is to cancel our liberal right to use our lives as we choose and to give those running society the power to define what we do with our lives. Socialist duty without question turns our time into what socialism treats as society's time.
Consider how socialist duty leads socialist leaders to think of us as "cogs." Che Guevara explains that in socialist society, "[man] becomes happy to feel himself a cog in the wheel, a cog which has its own characteristics and is necessary although not indispensable, to the production process, a conscious cog" (Ernesto "Che" Guevara, "On Creating a New Attitude," in Venceremos! The Speeches and Writings of Che Guevara, ed. John Gerassi [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968], 337). Is it any surprise that authoritarian systems would arise out of the logic Guevara employs? This logic sees us not as individuals but as cogs to be used optimally for society's purposes rather than our own.
Another example of the danger of socialist duty is found in how it has turned socialism into a philosophy in love with passing judgment on all and labeling those who are seen as failing their socialist duty as "parasites." This isn't just a matter of name calling. Socialist theory sees alleged parasites as a pool of labor that socialist society can force to work on approved tasks instead of doing what they currently do, which from the societal perspective is waste what socialist considers society's time. In fact, socialist theory is clear that the critical path to creating a socialist society is "destroying parasites." As noted British socialist J. Ramsay MacDonald put it, "All that Socialism and a Socialist system of distribution can claim to do is to destroy social parasites" (J. Ramsay MacDonald, Socialism and Society, 6th ed. [London: Independent Labor Party, 1908], 204.) Again, it can be no surprise that authoritarian nightmares are the outcome of such a system. Socialism's parasite obsession is one of the ripple effects of socialism's foundation on the duty of "from each according to their ability." Learn more about it in the Red Flags Press paper "'Parasites': The Sinners of the Socialist Religion."
[52]. Friedrich Engels coined this expression that has become a common socialist theme. It appeared in his work Anti-Dühring: "The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the process of production. The state is not 'abolished,' it withers away." Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring: Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science, trans. Emile Burns, Marxist Library 18 (New York: International Publishers, 1947), 315, emphasis added.
[53]. Cohen, Marx's Theory of History, 125.
[54]. Cannon, America's Road to Socialism, 61.
[55]. Shachtman, Fight for Socialism, 128–29.
[56]. Shachtman, Fight for Socialism, 128–29.
[57]. Why describe socialism's foundation on the compulsory duty of "from each according to their ability" as an "irreparable" design defect, a flaw that can't be fixed?
First, because socialism starts from the belief that this requirement of duty to society is morally correct. Socialism doesn't reject compulsory duty; it embraces this duty and considers the lack of such a duty, which characterizes liberal society, to be immoral.
Moreover, given socialism's belief in the morality of duty, socialism has been designed so that creating and operating a socialist society requires the use of this power over our lives. As one example, the explicit plan of socialism is to eliminate all work deemed "socially useless" and make everyone work at jobs approved as "socially useful." It's socialism's foundation on the duty of "from each according to their ability" that gives those running socialist society the power to limit our job choices to those they approve of, whereas in our liberal society we're free to pursue essentially any type of work we wish.
Making everyone work on approved tasks rather than any task of their choosing is at the very heart of socialist theory. Consider Fidel Castro's explanation of what socialism requires: "You cannot talk of socialism if you do not accept the premise of the rational, optimum use of human resources" (Fidel Castro, "Castro Speaks at Education Workers Congress [December 24, 1991]," Castro Speech Database, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1991/19911224.html.)
[58]. Deslinières, Comment se réalisera le Socialisme, 20.
[59]. Marx, Capital, Vol. 2, 256-257.
[60]. Engels, "The Principles of Communism," 92.
[61]. Harrington, Socialism, 41.
[62]. Debs, Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches, 489.
[63]. Cohen, Self-Ownership, 131.
[64]. Michael Harrington, Socialism, Past and Future (New York: Mentor, 1992), 266.
[65]. Socialists claim that their philosophy will yield a perfected world—what amounts to heaven on earth. As will be detailed in the next few footnotes, it's to be a world without crime or war and that even has no need for government. These claims all result from the expectation that socialist society would be a society free of human conflict—an expectation that is itself a byproduct of the assumption that socialist society would be one of overflowing abundance. Below are two examples of socialists discussing this world free of all human conflict.
Nikolai Bukharin explains that in socialist society, "there is no anarchy in production; there are no classes, no class struggles, no oppositions of class interests, etc. There are not even contradictions between personal and social interests." Nikolai Bukharin, Historical Materialism (New York: International Publishers, 1925), 40–41, emphasis added.
Socialist thinker Agnes Heller describes how Marx expected that "in the society of the future … there will therefore be no group interests, nor conflict of interests." Agnes Heller, The Theory of Needs in Marx (London: Allison & Busby, 1974), 124–25.
[66]. Any number of socialist thinkers have argued that socialism would mean the end of all crime. This expectation flows in part from the premise that socialism would eliminate all private property, but all the more so from the belief that socialist society would be one in which there would be a superabundance of goods allowing all to take everything they need for free. One example comes from celebrated socialist Étienne Cabet's novel about a perfected socialist society, Travels in Icarie: "Can we have stealing of any kind when we have no money, and when everyone has everything he or she could desire? Wouldn't you have to be mad to steal? … How could there even be suicides when everyone is happy?" Étienne Cabet, Travels in Icarie, trans. Leslie J. Roberts (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003), 78–79.
[67]. Socialists by the score also promise their philosophy would mean the end of war. War is extinguished by socialism's worldwide society of free goods for all. What would there be to fight over? Hillel Ticktin reports that socialism would mean the "the abolition of wars" (Hillel Ticktin, "What Will a Socialist Society Be Like?" Critique 25, no. 1 [1997]: 120). And James Canon similarly argues: "The world victory of socialism will put an end to all national rivalries and antagonisms and, therewith, all national wars" (Cannon, America's Road to Socialism, 63.)
[68]. Countless socialist thinkers have promised socialism would mean the disappearance of government. Why would it disappear? Because abundance would be so extreme, producing the end of not only class conflict but all human conflict, and thus the end of crime and wars. These key purposes for government would be gone and, as a result—as Friedrich Engels famously put it—government would "wither away," leaving only administrative tasks. Below are two examples.
"Socialist society … knows nothing of the political State: in Socialist society the political State is a thing of the past, either withered out of existence by disuse, or amputated—according as circumstances may dictate." Daniel De Leon, Socialist Reconstruction of Society (New York: Socialist Labor Party, 1998), 26.
"The State, in the oppressive sense of the word, will cease to exist…. The government of men gives place to the administration of things. It is the reign of social peace, daughter of universal harmony." Jules Guesde, "The Social Problem and Its Solution," January–February 1905, www.marxists.org/archive/guesde/1905/jan/x01.htm.
[69]. Today's socialists continue to make the same promises of a perfected society that operates without buy or selling, without money, without need of government, and even without law. For examples, see Michael Steven Smith and Frances Goldin, Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (Toronto: Harper Perennial, 2014); and Anitra Nelson and Frans Timmerman, Life Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies (London: Pluto Press, 2011).
[70]. Ticktin, "What Will a Socialist Society Be Like?," 151.
[71]. Ticktin, "What Will a Socialist Society Be Like?," 151.
[72]. Max Rosner, "As the World's Poorest Economies Are Stagnating Half a Billion Are Expected to Be in Extreme Poverty in 2030," Our World in Data, May 6, 2019, https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-projections. See the 2015 data in associated chart.
[73]. Huberman, The Truth about Socialism, 198.
[74]. Robert Sewell, "Why You Should Be a Socialist," Socialist Appeal, September 4, 2015, https://www.socialist.net/why-you-should-be-a-socialist.htm.
[75]. Michael Steven Smith, "Law in a Socialist USA," in Smith and Goldin, Imagine, 58.
[76]. Smith, "Law in a Socialist USA," 58.
[77]. One example is a book with this very title: Martin Empson, ed., System Change not Climate Change: A Revolutionary Response to Environmental Crisis (London: Bookmark Publications, 2019).
[78]. Here are three examples of recent works in which socialism is sold as the answer to the ecological crisis without addressing what socialist's themselves say is their philosophy's requirement for "constant over-production" creating an "opulent abundance" that would permit socialism to deliver on the promise of "to each according to their need" and would also reduce the risk of socialist authoritarianism.
Kohei Saito is the author of Karl Marx's Ecosocialism, Capitalism, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2017). Mr. Saito's book won the 2018 Deutscher Memorial Prize "awarded for a book which exemplifies the best and most innovative new writing in or about the Marxist tradition" (http://www.deutscherprize.org.uk/wp/). Karl Marx's Ecosocialism is hundreds of pages on Marx's thinking and ecology, but it makes no effort to address over a century of socialist thinking that says a world of overproduction and thus oversupply is required to create socialism. This work makes no effort to address Marx's concept of "constant over-production," nor does it make any effort to explain how socialism would deliver the worldwide production volumes needed to fulfill the socialist promise of "to each according to their need." It sells the idea of Marx being an ecosocialist by avoiding the issues that show the idea to be a farce.
Chris Williams takes a similar approach in his recent book Ecology and Socialism (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2010). Again, there's plenty of lambasting of capitalism and plenty of work attempting to excuse the ecological disasters of the socialist past. But the topic of overproduction and the implications of socialism's requirements for an oversupply of all goods goes unmentioned.
In the introduction to the 2019 work System Change not Climate Change (London: Bookmark Publications, 2019), Martin Empson says that while Karl Marx was unaware of global climate change, Marx believed that if it did not replace capitalism, "humanity was doomed to an ongoing environmental crisis." What does Empson say about socialism's requirement for abundance and Marx's call for "constant over-production"? Nothing. In the eleven chapters that follow, authored by eleven different socialists, the concept of abundance only appears in one quote (p. 132), and the implications of socialism's requirement for abundance are not discussed once. Nor is the fact that, as socialists use the term, "abundance" means a state of constant oversupply of all needed products and thus constant overproduction. Eleven contributors proclaim that socialism is the answer to ecological problems, but none of them attempts to explain how socialism would create a world in which every needed good would be free to all worldwide, which by definition requires oversupply and thus overproduction in a sustainable way.