[MD] From each... to each

[Arlo Bensinger]

Hi Marsha,

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

I've renamed the thread, just so that it updates the direction the dialogue 
has gone.

The underlying problem with this statement is its presumption that one's 
"needs" are determined by "the state". It is against this that the 
capitalists argue (rightly so). But, they neglect what is discussed in ZMM 
(about the vendors of style), namely that the individual is not some 
"objective", acultural, isolated being that determines his "needs" based on 
acultural rationalization.

The Indian, of course, never felt his "needs" were not met because he 
couldn't "own land". This "need" is a cultural imposition, one that stems 
from the underlying metaphysical foundation of social patterning. To say 
that the individual should be "left alone to determine his/her own needs" 
only goes half as far as it should. In the SOMist world, "needs" are 
dictated by "vendors of style" but also more greatly by the mercantilist 
language that places "wealth" (ownership) above anything else.

When an individual confronts a value choice, determining a "need", s/he 
answers within the context of her/his language. For example, "do I *need* a 
pool, or do I *need* to help my neighbor's child get medicine" is answered 
(in our culture) by a mercantilisitc-Randian language that places concern 
with oneself as all their is. To the Indian, or to many other 
"non-capitalist" cultures, the frame is different, and so the language is 
different, and so the "need" is different.

This is why those arguing against this statement also rage against anything 
that challenges "social superiority". This is why the "poor" are always 
described as lazy, slothful, inept, stupid, evil little subhumans. Wealth 
is a measure of social status. Consumption is an expression of that status. 
And any challenge to those who've built the New Aristocracy upon these 
foundations are threatened by ANY mention whatsoever of "social equality". 
This is why "ownership" is dialectically paired with "freedom", even though 
to the Indian, such a pairing was antonymous not synonymous.

In short, we each determine our own needs, but we do so within the context 
of a cultural frame, and at present that frame is completely SOMist and 
based on the Victorian value of "social superiority" and mercantilistic 
elevation of "wealth". This is why in ZMM, Pirsig wrote, "buried within it 
are grotesque, twisted souls forever trying the manners that will convince 
themselves they possess Quality, learning strange poses of style and 
glamour vended by dream magazines and other mass media, and paid for by the 
vendors of substance. He thinks of them at night alone with their 
advertised glamorous shoes and stockings and underclothes off, staring 
through the sooty windows at the grotesque shells revealed beyond them, 
when the poses weaken and the truth creeps in, the only truth that exists 
here, crying to heaven, God, there is nothing here but dead neon and cement 
and brick."

And, "Now it's not just depressingly dull, it's also phony. Put the two 
together and you get a pretty accurate basic description of modern American 
technology: stylized cars and stylized outboard motors and stylized 
typewriters and stylized clothes. Stylized refrigerators filled with 
stylized food in stylized kitchens in stylized houses. Plastic stylized 
toys for stylized children, who at Christmas and birthdays are in style 
with their stylish parents. You have to be awfully stylish yourself not to 
get sick of it once in a while. It's the style that gets you; technological 
ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce 
beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don't know where to start 
because no one has ever told them there's such a thing as Quality in this 
world and it's real, not style. Quality isn't something you lay on top of 
subjects and objects like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Real Quality must be 
the source of the subjects and objects, the cone from which the tree must 
start."

Anyways, these are just some thoughts to get the dialogue moving.

Arlo


At 10:10 AM 5/2/2006, you wrote:
>At 06:22 PM 4/28/2006, Platt wrote:
>
> >Let me repeat the central doctrine of Marxism:
> >
> >"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
>
>Daring to be politically incorrect, I like this idea.  How it might
>be put into practice, recognizing that abilities and needs are
>subject to change and that there should be encouragement towards
>freedom, might be worth exploring.  Change in abilities and needs,
>might come from high or low value conditions.  How might their be
>encouragement to act from the intellectual level?
>
>Marsha
>
>
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