A Society of Freely Associated Producers

§7. Full Communism: Division of Labor Overcome

1.What makes it possible for division of labor to be overcome? But first, what is bad about division of labor? Well, many things, some listed in the well-known passage from The German Ideology: “. . . as soon as the distribution of labor comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He . . . must remain so [in that sphere of activity] if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another thing tomorrow

. . . just as I have a mind” (Tucker, p. 160).

2.What, for Marx, are the attractive features of this description of communism? First, we can do “just as we have a mind.” Our activities proceed harmoniously with those of everyone else. We do as we please, they do as they please, and we may do things together. But there is no sense of moral constraint or moral obligation; no sense of being bound by principles of right and justice.

Communist society is one in which the daily awareness of a sense of right and justice and of moral obligation has disappeared. In Marx’s view, it is no longer needed and it no longer has a social role.

3.Another attractive feature for Marx is that each of us may, if we wish, realize all our various powers and engage in the full range of human activities. We may all become—if we want to—all-around individuals exhibiting the full range of human possibilities. This is part of what it means to get around the division of labor.

Consider that if we were musicians we might want to take turns playing all the instruments in the orchestra. (If this seems far-fetched, let the orchestra represent the range of human activities.) On the other hand, there is a contrasting idea, stated by Wilhelm von Humboldt and further illustrated by the analogy of the orchestra in A Theory of Justice, §79, note 4. This idea [of social union] is that by a division of labor we can cooperate in realizing one another’s full range of human powers and moreover enjoy together, in one joint activity, its realization.

This is a different idea: it sees the division of labor as making possible

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what would otherwise be unattainable, and as acceptable provided certain conditions are met—that it is not forced and exclusive—the same things Marx objects to. But this is not Marx’s idea. His idea is that of our becoming all-around individuals and joining with others only as we have a mind to do so. This idea is consistent with the idea of self-ownership as defined earlier, and it is not restricted by an awareness of a sense of right and justice.

4. What makes the overcoming of the division of labor possible? It seems essentially three things:

(a)Limitless abundance, which results from the building up of the means of production.

(b)Labor becomes life’s prime need: people need to work and it is no longer necessary to entice them to do so via incentives.

(c)Labor is also attractive—meaningful work—which is an aspect

of (b).

Two passages in Marx are especially relevant for this. In a passage from Gotha (Tucker, p. 531; McLellan, p. 615), Marx says: Only in the higher phase of communism is “the narrow horizon of bourgeois right” surpassed (the inequality we discussed earlier). “The antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished.” Labor has become “not only a means of life but life’s prime want”; and Society puts on its banner: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”11

The other passage, from Capital, Vol. III (Tucker, p. 441), concerns the realm of freedom beginning “only where labor which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases.”

5. How should we interpret the precept “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”? It is not, I think, a precept of justice, or a principle of right. It is simply a descriptive precept or principle that is accurate to what is done and to how things happen in the higher phase of communism.

§8. Is the Higher Phase of Communism a Society Beyond Justice?

1. Many people have wanted to say that communism is a society beyond justice. But in what sense is it true? It depends on what aspect of com-

11. This precept is from Louis Blanc, added to his Organization of Work, 9th edition (Paris, 1850).

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A Society of Freely Associated Producers

munist society we are considering. Recall that communism equals radical egalitarianism without coercion. This idea still holds and it involves:

(a)The equal claim of all to have equal access to and use of society’s means of production.

(b)Everyone’s equal claim to take part along with others in the public and democratic procedures by which the economic plan is formed.

(c)Equal sharing—I assume—in doing the necessary work that no one wants to perform, if there is such work (presumably there is some).

Hence the distribution of goods is just if we accept equality as just. Moreover, the equal right of all to the use of resources and to participation in democratic public planning is respected, so far as such planning is necessary. So in this sense—with this idea of justice—communist society is certainly just.

2. But in another sense, communist society is, it seems, beyond justice. That is, while it achieves justice in the sense just defined, it does so without any reliance on people’s sense of right and justice. The members of communist society are not people moved by the principles and virtues of jus- tice—that is, by the disposition to act from principles and precepts of justice. People may know what justice is, and they may recall that their ancestors were once moved by it; but a troubled concern about justice, and debates about what justice requires, are not part of their common life. These people are strange to us; it is hard to describe them.

However, this absence of concern with justice was a feature that attracted Marx. We should ask ourselves whether this is indeed an attractive feature. Can we really understand what it would be like? Consider what Mill says in On Liberty, III: 9.12 It is easy to reject Marx’s limitless abundance as utopian. But the question of the desirability of the evanescence of justice raises a much deeper question.

To me it is both undesirable as such, and also as a matter of practice. Just institutions will not, I think, come about of themselves, but depend to some degree—although not of course solely—on citizens having a sense of

12. Mill says that it is “by cultivating [what is individual in themselves] and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation. . . . As much compression as is necessary to prevent the stronger specimens of human nature from encroaching on the rights of others cannot be dispensed with. . . . To be held to rigid rules of justice for the sake of others, develops the feelings and capabilities which have the good of others for their object.”

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justice learned in the contexts of those very institutions themselves. The absence of concern with justice is undesirable as such, because having a sense of justice, and all that it involves, is part of human life and part of understanding other people and of recognizing their claims. To act always as we have a mind to act without worrying about or being aware of others’ claims, would be a life lived without an awareness of the essential conditions of a decent human society.

Concluding Remarks

I have tried to explain the central place in Marx’s view of the idea of a society of freely associated producers conducting their species-life—as he called it—in accordance with a public and democratically arrived at economic plan which all understand and in which all participate.

When society conducts itself in this way, ideological consciousness disappears and there is no alienation or exploitation. There is a unity of theory and practice: we all understand why we do what we do, and what we do realizes our natural powers under conditions of freedom. The idea of a society-wide public and democratic economic plan has very deep roots and fundamental consequences in Marx’s thought. It is important to see this, especially now when the collapse of communism may easily tempt us to overlook these connections and to suppose that the very idea of a democratic economic plan is discredited. Although we may reject it, we must try to understand why this idea had such a central place in the socialist tradition and what significance it has for us now.

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a ppendixes

Four Lectures on Henry Sidgwick

Five Lectures on Joseph Butler

Course Outline

index

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