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This is a version of one my coursework essays for Part II Political Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, March 2025.
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In the Critique of the Gotha Programme (CGP), Karl Marx suggests that a communist society would be characterised by the principle: ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!’ (Marx, 1875: 19) This ‘socialist principle of distribution’ (Carens, 2003), ‘abilities/needs principle’ (Gilabert, 2015), or ‘needs principle’ (Kandiyali, 2024) has received surprisingly little attention from political philosophers given its arguable centrality to Marx’s theory of communism and implications for socialism today. I will be referring to the principle ‘from each according to abilities, to each according to needs’ as ‘Marx’s Needs Principle’ (MNP), and considering whether it is a good political principle.
There are at least three features a political principle can be evaluated on the basis of: desirability, viability, and achievability. A principle’s desirability is determined by the quality of its normative grounding – whether the moral principles which underpin it are ones which we will want to accept; its viability is determined by the predictable successfulness of the policies/institutions it prescribes (or can prescribe) at securing the normative ideal; and its achievability is determined by the predictable successfulness of the (best possible) political strategies at bringing about the necessary policies/institutions (Wright, 2006: 96; Gilabert, 2015: 197). In consideration of spatial constraints, I engage only with the question of whether MNP is desirable – answering in the affirmative. Showing that it is such is at least one step in the direction of establishing that MNP is an (all-things-considered) good political principle, and this question is arguably the most philosophical (with its viability and achievability being more empirical questions). Indeed, those philosophers who have discussed MNP, such Joseph Carens and Pablo Gilabert (the former of whom I will be relying on more heavily), have in large part focused on the question of its desirability (Carens, 2003; Gilabert, 2015).
In section 1, I outline what I take to be the most plausible interpretation of MNP, given what Marx writes in CGP. Then, in section 2, I outline and respond to three of the most pressing points against the desirability of MNP and, in the process, present my defence of it as a desirable political principle.
Putting forward MNP as a potential political principle, there are some open questions. Most pressingly: is MNP merely descriptive of what a communist society would look like, or is it (also) prescriptive?; if MNP is prescriptive, what exactly does it prescribe? We will have to answer these questions before we can engage with that of MNP’s desirability. Luckily, there are some clues as to their answers found in the text in which it is presented: CGP (Marx, 1875).
Leading up to the presentation of MNP in CGP, Marx criticises the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Germany (SDAP) for failing to take adequate care in drafting their proposed political programme – the ‘Gotha Programme.’ In the process of detailing why SDAP’s suggestions are poor, Marx outlines what reforms should be made instead. For this reason, I take MNP to be a prescription, rather than a mere description of the ideal communist society. (At the very least, MNP is a goal on the basis of which prescriptions for reform are derived.) I will move on to the question of what exactly MNP prescribes, with the following preliminary.
In CGP, Marx outlines the ‘two-stage’ transition which he takes to be necessary for the realisation of communism – that is, of MNP – from the starting-point of capitalism. This two-stage process is the move first from the capitalist society to that characterised by the ‘Contribution Principle’ (CP) – ‘to each according to work’ – and then from this to the society characterised by MNP (Kandiyali, 2024: 275-6). In light of this, the reasons Marx gives for the superiority of MNP over CP will also be his reasons why the society characterised by MNP is superior to the capitalist one. I am interested only in discussing this broader position, and leave open whether CP is a necessary means to realising MNP (the latter being a question of achievability).[1]
On the way to presenting MNP in CGP, Marx criticises SDAP for failing to take into account the nuances involved in developing an egalitarian principle of distribution that is morally desirable. In response to the latter’s suggestion that ‘the proceeds of labour’ be distributed ‘undiminished [equally] to all members of societ,’ Marx asks: ‘To those who do not work as well?’ (Marx, 1875: 13, 16) Due to the rhetorical nature of this question, it would seem that Marx endorses putting an expectation on people to contribute (at least so long as they can) to the production of society if they are going to receive equally from it. In light of this, we can see MNP’s prescription for society to take ‘from each according to abilities’ as involving not just a limit on what we should expect people to contribute, but also the expectation to contribute itself. That is, rather than merely stating that we should always reduce our expectation of someone to contribute to the production of society when they have reduced abilities, MNP also states that we should only reduce our expectation when there is this reduced ability.
Later in the piece, Marx presents and begins to discuss CP. The first defect of CP Marx mentions is that it fails to consider that
one man is superior to another physically or mentally, and so supplies more labour in the same time, or can labour for a longer time; and labour, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right [to the proceeds of labour under CP] is an unequal right for unequal labour. It recognises no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognises unequal individual endowment and thus productive capacity as natural privileges. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right by its very nature can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard in so far as they are brought under an equal point of view[.] (Marx, 1875: 18; original italics)
In this passage, Marx is expounding why we should not (ideally) reward people on the basis of their contribution to the production of society: some cannot labour as extensively and/or as efficiently as others through no fault of their own. Instead, we should put an expectation on each that is constrained by their endowments (that is, their abilities). We should expect each to contribute (so long as they can), but we should not expect each to contribute an equal amount and/or in the same way. True equality, for Marx – and it seems quite clear that this true equality he has in mind is something like an ‘equality of welfare’ – requires some (superficial/surface-level) inequality. So much can be said for the distribution of labour under MNP.
What of the distribution of the ‘proceeds of labour’ – that is, distribution of society’s resources? Marx goes on:
[O]ne worker is married, another not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labour, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another [under CP], one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right instead of being equal would have to be unequal. (Marx, 1875: 19)
Just as some cannot contribute as much as others through no fault of their own, some require more of the proceeds of labour than others through no fault of their own. (At least, if it is their ‘fault,’ it is in a way which society should still pick up the burden of – as Marx is presumably saying here is the case with marriage and/or [at least] having children.) Marx re-affirms that true equality requires some inequality, and so ‘to each according to abilities’ prescribes that, rather than distributing resources equally, we give more to those with greater needs, and less to those with fewer. Again, this is most plausibly prescribed with a view to bringing about equality of welfare.
Once these points have been made against GP and in elaboration of what a better society (the communist one) would look like, Marx presents MNP. According to Marx:
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! (Marx, 1875: 19)
In the society characterised by MNP (that is, for Marx, the communist society), there is no longer an ‘antithesis between mental and physical labour.’ No longer being motivated by money, each works happily to contribute according to their talents from an intrinsic motivation to utilise them and benefit the society which provides for them. In this way, labour is no longer ‘only a means of life, but life’s prime want,’ as people are no longer constrained by material circumstances, taking (truly) equally from the proceeds of labour. As a result, ‘the productive forces… [increase] with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly.’ This picture looks very desirable indeed.