I haven't seen an "Appreciation Thread" for socialists, communists and ......

[JackRiddler]

108. From each according to his ability...

To each according to his need.

No human society has ever been based on any other principle. Capitalism imposes a set of property relations and economic dynamics, but the underlying necessity of our everyday life is communist.

Or as Graeber puts it:

I define communism as any human relationship that operates on the principle of “from each
according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” I could have used a more neutral term like
“solidarity,” “mutual aid,” “conviviality”, or even, “help” instead (Graeber 2010).

Prompted by Mauss, I suggest that we jettison the old-fashioned assumption that “communism”
is basically about property relations, reflecting a time long ago when all things were held in common
and the messianic possibility of restoring the community of property—what might be called “mythic
communism”—but instead see it simply as a principle immanent in everyday life. Whenever action
proceeds “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”—even if it is
between two people—we are in the presence of “everyday communism”. Almost everyone behaves this
way when collaborating on a common project. If someone fixing a broken water pipe says “hand me
the wrench”, their co-worker will not usually say “and what do I get for it?”, even if they are working
for Exxon-Mobil, Burger King or Royal Bank of Scotland. The reason is efficiency (ironic, given the
conventional wisdom that “communism just doesn’t work”): if you want to get something done,
allocating tasks by ability, and giving people what they need to do the job, is the most effective way to
go about it. It’s one of the scandals of capitalism that most firms, internally, operate in a communistic
way. True, they don’t operate democratically. Most often they are organized by military-style chains of
command. But top-down chains of command are not very efficient (they tend to promote stupidity
among those on top, resentment among those on the bottom.) When cooperation depends on
improvisation, the more democratic it tends to become. Inventors have always known this, start-up
capitalists also, and computer engineers have recently rediscovered the principle: not only with
freeware, but even in the organization of their businesses.

This is why in the immediate wake of great disasters—a flood, a blackout, a revolution or
economic collapse—people tend to behave the same way, reverting to a kind of rough-and-ready
communism. Hierarchies, markets and the like become luxuries that no one can really afford them.
Anyone who has lived through such a moment can speak to the way strangers become sisters and
brothers, and human society itself seems to be reborn. We are not just talking about cooperation.
Communism is the foundation of all human sociability
. It makes society possible. Anyone who is not an
enemy can be expected to respect the principle of “from each according to their abilities...” at least to
some extent: for example, if you need to figure out how to get somewhere, and they can give you
directions, they will. We take this so much for granted that the exceptions are themselves revealing.
Evans-Pritchard reports his discomfiture when someone gave him intentionally wrong directions:

READ IT HERE
"On the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations"
http://openanthcoop.net/press/http:/openanthcoop.net/press/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Graeber-On-the-Moral-Grounds-of-Economic-Relations4.pdf