From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The famous Marxist saying seems to ring incredibly hollow in today’s ostensibly equal societies. Its implications are relatively strait forward, through the apparatus of the state and by means of ‘Democracy’ whether in the form of western liberal democracy or in workers soviets. All will contribute and all will receive there share of the product of the society, or more precisely of the state. The state in the end produces one thing and one thing alone. Power, the power to speak for and compel to action the peoples within its borders. So to has it been clear for many decades now that this is nonsense and a supreme failure.
But why? From each according to ones ability. Is this not every ones goal in life other than the most hopeless , to give to one’s community and the larger world that which their abilities are most suited to. To each according to his need, what else can one ask for,just about every moral code in history tends to at the very least look down on excessive desire and wants. No the real problem is that in no way can this be archived even on a limited bases through coercion,but first let us look at the true problem.
Democracy, ‘the people’ but which people? The people of this land of coarse! But what land? To answer this let us look at a smaller but pretty well know feature of ‘our democracy’ the practice of congressional districts being gerrymandered. A simple practice of redrawing districts some times in to contorted and absurd forms, clear to all that it’s only purpose is to ‘segregate’ people to maintain particular majorities with in the democracy. People do not like it but few rate this as a very pressing concern, but is this not the bases of all states.
Let us look at a particularly visible case today, the prospect of a Palestinian state. There are many people within the Israeli government that are completely for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but not for any altruistic reasons. Rather one must see past the inherently contradictory nature of the term ‘Jewish democracy’ let aside those that throw in Zionist.
In essence the establishment of a Palestinian state would be an act of international gerrymandering by which whatever segment of the already impoverished Palestinians could be cut off from the Israeli state and dumped on a Palestinian government that no close observer knows would have any real ‘Independence’ from israel, or from the rampant corruption any government that is primary task as a military/police force fall in to. So what is a democracy that chooses it people? Tyranny!
The basic flaw with the above saying is not its fundamental ideal, but equality within a state is an inherent contradiction. Take the us Mexico border a line created through force of arms the destruction of life and property is there to mark the end of the ‘equal’ peoples of the united states and the ‘illegal aliens’ who’s labor services and even movement are considered an aggression against the people above the border.
The first think that must be established is the complete and total freedom of association. Only in a world free of the coercion and constant brutal aggression against the free association can one even be able to properly assess there ability, how does the illegal persons in society properly determine there abilities when there primary concern is to be noticed as little as possible. how can a ‘society’ determine the needs of people they De facto consider inferior. The underlying idea of freedom of association is, contrary to the anarchist view, human beings desire and naturally form some kind of ‘governance’ but contrary to all of the state-ist the power of compulsion in any form is the automatic shift from any extent of equality and justice in to tyranny.
So who is left to determine what a persons abilities are and where they are best of service? And who is to decide what a persons needs are and how they are best satisfied? But first we must know who teaches the wise and who controls the tempered
