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printer-friendly version www.NewDemocracyWorld.org Free Access? [I wrote this for my fellow attendees of a meetup.com meeting last week to discuss egalitarianism, and posted it to the meetup.com message board for that group. I felt obliged to post this message because two of the people at that meetup advocated "Free access" in opposition to "From each according to ability, to each according to need." I think "Free access" is a terrible principle, as I discuss here.] At the last meetup the question came up whether the principle for a good society is a) "From each according to reasonable ability, to each according to reasonable need and desire, with scarce things equitably rationed according to need" or b) "Free access" (regardless of whether one contributes reasonably according to ability or not.) I have written (in defense of the "a" choice) about this at http://www.pdrboston.org/#!what-about-freeloading-slackers/c1qwr . I believe that the "b" choice is an immoral ideology of freeloaders, that it is the basis of a terrible (freeloader friendly) society, and that 99% of ordinary people (myself included) want absolutely nothing to do with such a society. (I have asked my mailman and the person who lives above me in my condo building and two people in PDRBoston about this and they all agree with me on this. I doubt if anybody here can find anybody other than, possibly, a self-admitted freeloader, who supports "Free access" other than the two people in our last meetup who did so.) I would like to say what I think is the reasoning behind the advocacy of "Free access." It comes from Marxism (which is a fundamentally elitist and wrong ideology, with a fundamentally false view of ordinary people) as discussed at http://newdemocracyworld.org/revolution/socialism.html). In the Marxist framework, a classless (egalitarian, or "communist") society will come into being not because ordinary people subjectively want it to but in spite of the fact that they don't; it will come into being because of impersonal economic laws, which, the supposed "science" of Marxism says, operate because all people act in their self-interest (think with their belly). These laws lead to a crisis of capitalism and then to socialism (the working class seizing the means of production) and then to communism, when--only in a "higher phase of it"!--society will "inscribe on its banners the watchword, from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." (Read Marx's own words at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm.) Why only in the "higher phase of communism" and not before? Because, according to Marx, economic production must first be increased so greatly that scarcity is abolished. And why must scarcity be abolished before people will share according to "From each according..."? Because people just think with their belly now; they don't want an egalitarian society and will not share equitably when there is scarcity. But eventually, according to Marxists, people will be fundamentally changed. Che Guevara says there will be a new "Socialist Man" who will make the better kind of society possible (see his argument at https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1965/03/man-socialism.htm ). Che writes: "To build communism it is necessary, simultaneous with the new material foundations, to build the new man and woman." OK, what does this mean? What this means is that if the new society (egalitarianism or "communism") is in existence, it is only because people have been changed from the bad kind of people they presumably are today (who think with their belly) into the new good kind of person (Che's "new man" and "new woman") that is necessary for the good society to even exist. Since these new good kind of people will not be freeloaders, there is no need to require people to contribute "according to ability" in order to enjoy "to each according to need" because the "new persons" will all want to contribute according to ability. This whole Marxist approach is just plain flat out wrong. It is based on a wrong and elitist view of people. The fact is that today--as I type this--the vast majority of ordinary Americans would LOVE an egalitarian revolution to make a society based on "From each according to ability, to each according to need" with no rich and no poor. (See this video if you doubt this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95b3SmBYwfU.) And most (not all!) people--as they are today--would, if given the opportunity, share things according to that principle, as most people in half of Spain did in 1936-9 (when they even increased economic production on this basis, as discussed at http://newdemocracyworld.org/revolution/which.html ). Marx is flat out wrong in saying that scarcity has to be abolished before people will share things equitably this way. Contrary to Marx, egalitarianism will come into existence when the vast majority of people who want it, TODAY, gain the confidence and organization and determination to remove the rich from power (as discussed at http://www.pdrboston.org/#!how-we-can-remove-the-rich-from-power/c1q0u) and shape society by egalitarian values, which includes preventing those opposed to these values from having any influence! This happens in a society that includes a minority consisting of all sorts of anti-egalitarian people: the former ruling rich and would be oppressors and exploiters and also freeloaders who are opposed to the principle of "From each according..." (but who love the principle of "Free access"). It is not true at all that "there will be no freeloaders." Yes, there will be freeloaders (or at least people who will try to get away with being a freeloader), just as there are today (some are rich and some aren't.) The people who contribute reasonably to the economy are, however, under absolutely no moral obligation to share the fruits of their labor with outright unabashed freeloaders. People who work can, if they wish, decide to share the fruits of their labor with freeloaders, but that is not the same thing as being morally obliged to do so! The principle of "Free access," in contrast, wrongly says that the people who work reasonably are morally obliged to share the fruits of their labor with freeloaders, who refuse to work reasonably. If we are going to build an egalitarian revolutionary movement we absolutely must champion the good and decent moral values of the great majority of people, and this mean 0PPOSING FREELOADING, and explicitly rejecting the "Free access" principle. If the public thinks that egalitarians subscribe to the "Free access" principle, then say goodbye to any chance of building an egalitarian revolutionary movement, and accept the permanence of the rule of the plutocracy.
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