"SOCIALISM? COMMUNISM? WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?" ENDNOTES
[1]. Peter Hudis, Marx's Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism (Boston: Brill, 2012), 190.
[2]. Paul Burkett, "Marx's Vision of Sustainable Development," Monthly Review 57, no. 5 (October 2005): 34.
[3]. David Adam, "Marx's Critique of Socialist Labor-Money Schemes and the Myth of Council Communism's Proudhonism," Marxist Humanist Initiative, January 21, 2013, https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/marxs-critique-of-socialist-labor-money-schemes-and-the-myth-of-council-communisms-proudhonism.html.
[4]. Binay Sakar and Adam Buick, Marxism, Leninism—Worlds Apart (West Bengal: Kolkata Avenel Press, 2012), ch. 11, http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart.
[5]. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr and Company, 1910).
[6]. Friedrich Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, trans. Edward Averling (London: George Allen and Unwit, Ltd., 1892)
[7]. For example, Harrington dedicates his book The Twilight of Capitalism to "democratic socialist, Karl Marx." Michael Harrington, The Twilight of Capitalism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976), v. For additional examples, please see the Red Flags Press paper, "Karl Marx, 'Democratic Socialist'."
[8]. "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.
[9]. Paula Allman, Revolutionary Social Transformation: Democratic Hopes, Political Possibilities and Critical Education (Westport: Bergin & Garvey, 1999), 2; Sakar and Buick, Marxism, Leninism, ch. 10.
[10]. Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, in Marx and Engels Selected Works, vol. 2 (London: Wishart, 1950), 22.
[11]. In his discussion of the two phases in Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx explicitly uses the term "communism" for both the lower and higher phases. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 22–23.
[12]. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 23.
[13]. In the 1840s, Louis Blanc coined this phrase that Marx would make famous twenty-five years later: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Blanc explained the first half of this axiom, saying: "The more one can, the more one must. … Thus the axiom: From each according to his ability. That is the DUTY" ("Plus un homme peut, plus il doit. … D'où l'axiome : De chacun, selon ses facultés. Là est le DEVOIR." Louis Blanc, La Historie de la Révolution de 1848, vol. 1(Paris: C. Marpon,1880), 148.
[14]. Why is socialism likely to be forever stuck in the first, lower phase of socialism—the phase in which we are under mandatory duty to socialist society but explicitly do not receive based on need? It's because a giant hurdle must be crossed to create a society based on "to each according to their needs" and thus Marx's "higher stage" of socialism/communism.
As detailed in the Red Flags Press paper "The Secret Sauce of Socialism," socialists say that "to each according to their needs" means a world in which every good and service humans need is free for all worldwide forever. And they say that creating a world in which every good and service humans need is free for all worldwide forever requires the "constant over-production" (Marx's term) of these goods.
Constant overproduction of everything the world's 7,500,000,000 humans need is a goal that's both utopian (that is, impossible) and dystopian (that is, unsustainable). The odds such a world could ever exist are slim. The odds such a world could exist in your lifetime are none.
[15]. Vladimir Lenin, "Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution (Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party)," in Lenin Collected Works, trans. Isaac Bernard, vol. 24 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964; orig. 1917), 84, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/tasks/ch12.htm#v24zz99h-084-guess.
[16]. Leo Huberman and Sybil H. May, The ABCs of Socialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1953), 51.
[17]. Fidel Castro, "Fidel Castro Addresses Cuban Workers Congress [November 16, 1973]," Latin America Network Information Center Castro Speech Database, accessed June 15, 2020, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1973/19731116.html.
[18]. As one example of the current norm, in "The Ethics of Eco-Socialism," Michael Löwy discusses "eco-socialism" and defines its goal as to deliver goods on the basis of the "to each according to their needs" standard. Nowhere in his article does the word "communism" appear, even though Löwy without question knows that for the majority of the twentieth century "to each according to their needs" meant communism. Michael Löwy, "The Ethics of Eco-Socialism," New Socialist, Fall 2007, 8.
[19]. The saying "from each according to their need" is a "dog whistle" in that implies the realization of numerous other key socialist objectives.
For example, knowledgeable socialists recognize that a world based on the axiom "to each according to their ability" would be a world in which all businesses large and small had been eliminated. Thus, this expression implies the achievement of this longstanding socialist goal (a goal few of today's socialists would voice out loud for fear of hurting their sales efforts).
How does "to each according to their needs" communicate the achievement of socialism's goal of eliminating all businesses? As knowledgeable socialists are aware, socialist theory says that a world based on "to each according to their needs" is to be a world in which every product and service humans need is available for free. It is also, again according to socialist theory, to be a world without money.
By definition, a business is an entity that produces goods for sale and in the hopes of earning a profit by doing so. A world in which all goods are free and in which there isn't even money is a world in which businesses are an impossibility.
Knowledgeable socialists are aware of these deeper implications of socialist theory. When they hear another socialist using the expression "to each according to their need," they hear that socialist affirming the socialist goal of eliminating all businesses.
There are other aspects of socialist theory that knowledgeable socialists recognize are implied by the expression "to each according to their need." A future Red Flags Press paper on the dog-whistle nature of this saying will explore them in detail.
[20]. Danny Katch, Socialism … Seriously: A Brief Guide to Human Liberation (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015), 130.
[21]. Katch, Socialism … Seriously, 130.
[22]. Katch, Socialism … Seriously, 105.
[23]. In one example of the fact what had been called communism is now simply referred to as socialism, co-authors Binay Sakar and Adam Buick describe "a later stage of socialism with free access according to needs." Sakar and Buick, Marxism, Leninism, ch. 10.
[24]. Harrington, "What Socialists Would Do in America," 445.
[25]. Huberman and May, ABCs of Socialism, 51.
[26]. Fidel Castro, "Castro Addresses Close of Youth Conference [April 4, 1982]," Latin America Network Information Center Castro Speech Database, accessed December 11, 2020, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1982/19820404.html.
[27]. Sakar and Buick, Marxism, Leninism, ch. 11.
[28]. Paul Burkett, "Marx's Vision of Sustainable Development," 34.
[29]. Peter Hudis, Marx's Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism, 190.
[30]. Danny Katch, Socialism … Seriously, 130.
[31]. Michael Harrington, "What Socialists Would Do in America," 445.