Talk:From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs/Archive 1

Tag fatigue
There are too many "fact tags" in this article. (I mean, just read Gotha - it's short and it's on the web!!!!) I don't think the "original research" tag is warranted either. There does need to be more work - as with most Wikipedia articles!--Jack Upland (talk) 11:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * while you're reading, take a few minutes and read wikipedia's policy on original research, especially the section on synthesis. this is the main problem with the section "origin of the phrase". Also, if a lot of those 's can be satisfied with citations to gotha, then please add a citation. having multiple citations for the same work is fine.   — Chris Capoccia  T&#8260;C 11:32, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Origin in Morelly's Code of Nature (1755)
The idea of From Each According to His Ability, To Each According to His Need (in this sort of phrasing) comes from Morelly, author of Code of Nature (1755), and who was either a real person or a pseudonym used by François-Vincent Toussaint or Denis Diderot Of course the idea dates back much further than 1755. But in this phrasing it originates with Morelly in 18th century France. I am surprised that no contributor to this discussion was aware of this! To be fair, the utopian communist Morelly is mentioned less often than Fourier, Cabet, etc., but still he is not exactly obscure. Here is an extract from Morelly's Code of Nature (1755):


 * Sacred and Fundamental Laws that would tear out the roots of vice and of all the evils of a society[...]


 * I. Nothing in society will belong to anyone, either as a personal possession or as capital goods, except the things for which the person has immediate use, for either his needs, his pleasures, or his daily work.
 * II. Every citizen will be a public man, sustained by, supported by, and occupied at the public expense.
 * III. Every citizen will make his particular contribution to the activities of the community according to his capacity, his talent and his age; it is on this basis that his duties will be determined, in conformity with the distributive laws.


 * Distributive or Economic Laws


 * XI. In accordance with the sacred laws, nothing will be sold or exchanged between citizens. Someone who needs, for example greens, vegetables or fruits, will go to the public square, which is where these items will have been brought by the man who cultivate them, and take what he needs for one day only. If someone needs bread, he will go to baker and get the quantity that he needs for some specified period, and the baker will go to the public store to get the amount of grain that he needs for the quantity of bread that he has to prepare, whether for one day or several.

I hope this helps!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.204.125 (talk) 08:51, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * See No original research. Unless you can find a reliable source that makes this claim, it cannot be included in the article.  — Chris Capoccia  T&#8260;C 11:10, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm going to go ahead and remove this claim from the first paragraph. According to Brewer's Famous Quotations, by Nigel Rees, "[t]here is some doubt whether Marx originated the slogan or whether he was quoting Louis Blanc, Morelly or Mikhail Bakunin." If the original contributor of the Morelly attribution wants to cite an argument that the phrase originated with Morelly, he or she should do so in the Origin of the Phrase section of the article, and not in the introduction, since it's disputed. Tyler harvey (talk) 21:33, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It's there in chapter and verse. Calling it a "claim" and removing it, referring to Brewer's, is just ridiculous. Why don't you go the whole hog and refer to the Reader's Digest? There is no "doubt" as to whether Marx originated it. It is patently obvious that neither Marx nor Blanc nor Bakunin originated it, because the communist writer Morelly wrote long before the three of them, and undoubtedly wrote it in the source I quoted. Why do you want to put an error in an encyclopedia? I know the answer: it's becaus you can't learn anything new, and you're so proud of yourselves for being petty bureaucrats in Wikipedia, and the two traits reinforce each other. Yuck.


 * What I say is not "disputed". No-one suggests that in fact the Code of Nature was written after 1875 and that the 1755 publication date was forged. If I wanted to speak in Wikipedian, I'd say I am finding it hard to assume good faith here. There should not be any grounds for any dispute here, and by quoting a widely available source I am no more engaged in "original research" than I would be if I quoted a widely available translation of Marx's Capital or the Book of Genesis.


 * Still, I won't revert, because I know some idiot would re-revert with some specious 'argument' or other. I'll just leave this on the discussion page.


 * You people make Wikipedia the unreliable source it has become. I quoted my fully reliable source for what Morelly wrote in 1755 above on this page, so there is no point in my wasting my time explaining the obvious. Learn what a 'source' is sometime; learn what 'dispute' and 'reliable' mean too. Maybe you'll get minor jobs under Jimmy Wales when he floats Wikipedia on Wall Street, maybe even middle-ranking jobs if you keep your noses to the grindstone and don't develop any qualms about suppressing the publication of facts. Hell, if I were your boss or 'area manager', I'd be pleased with your progress.


 * I have however given given the Morelly stuff on this page its own heading, because it has zero to do with Ayn Rand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.204.125 (talk) 10:27, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * did you actually read the original research policy? because this is exactly what the policy is designed to cover. you need a reliable source that says the elements of the phrase were first posited by morelly. you can't just pull phrases from morelly yourself and make that conclusion.  — Chris Capoccia  T&#8260;C 20:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Calling it a "claim" and a "conclusion" is misleading. Morelly patently obviously, verifiably, wrote it in 1755. To say I have to find someone else who said he wrote it, is ridiculous. Note that if you look up "only begotten son" on this, Jimmy Wales's website, you will find an article that begins by quoting the bible. If I've done "original research" by going to the effort of finding the widely-available 1755 source, then the author of the reference to John 3:16 must have done too. So delete it until they find someone else who can report what's in John 3:16. Your attitude of "that's the rules, that is" suggests a complete lack of interest in the content, and in any intelligent use of concepts such as "truth", "verifiability", and "relevance". This article as it stands is extremely misleading. If Morelly's 1755 text was mentioned high up in the article, people who already knew something about this matter might learn some more when they used the encyclopedia. But no, this place is being taken over by failed academic rule-quoters who don't know much, but who think they're the bee's knees for using terms such as "original research" and "policy" in public. If you'd ever done research at university, you'd know that quoting a widely-available source does not in any way constitute original research. The truth is that those in control of Wikipedia don't want this encyclopedia to be too good, because that would negatively affect its marketability. I challenge you to defend your position without sounding like a night-club bouncer whinging thuggishly that you don't make the rules, you only uphold them. Morelly said what he said, in a widely-known text. I was the first person involved in this article to bring this to attention. Your stupid attitude tends to hide from people's attention the fact that he said this, which is highly relevant to anyone's investigation of the history of the idea of "to each according to his need, from each according to his ability". What is wrong with you? Choose to change, my friend. Choose to act in other ways than in presenting yourself as Mr Cop with the full force of bureaucracy behind you. Also ask someone who's done research and they might be able to tell you what research means. Do you think someone could get a research degree simply by listing quotes from the bible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.137.193.38 (talk) 09:09, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * What you and your higher-ups want (and will get) is an encyclopedia in which middle-ranking types – so proud of themselves for knowing a few things superficially but whose characters are well-armed against learning anything more deeply – don't learn anything that your types would find surprising, unless it's been rubber-stamped by your types as suitably superficial. Morelly said what he said in 1755. It's easily verifiable. I quote the source. Not good enough for you, Chris? You're a stickler for...well, for what, exactly? Why don't you lose your foolish bureaucratic attitudinising and try to make the world a better place some time? Is the alternative really so frightening for you? Of course, this is asking too much. Someone with the arrogance to try to smack down someone (me) who has obviously found a way to improve this article, by mentioning what Morelly undeniably wrote in a widely-available text in 1755, hasn't got much hope. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.137.193.38 (talk) 09:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

"Small Commune"
Catalonia is not exactly a "small commune" --Schuhpuppe (talk) 02:23, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

dumping henry farlie reference
the inaccuracy of the claim that henry farlie authored the parodic, "capitalist creed" by which it goes, "to each according to his greed" has been discussed at the article about the 2010 austin plane crash ([link]).

even if it were accurate, it would be trivia in the context of this article. so, i'm removing it. 66.212.196.48 (talk) 23:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

1755 communist
...attributed to French communist Morelly,[5] who proposed in his 1755 Code of Nature...

Really? Communist in 1755? Citation, please. Mathglot (talk) 18:43, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

NPOV
This article is not very encyclopedic in tone: the discussion of Objectivist and Christian approaches to socialism is disproportionately weighted. Suppose the Render unto Caesar article was dominated by a Marxian or socialist critique? Billbrock 05:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * But "Render unto Caesar" is universally acknowledged as a Biblically quotation, "To each..." is generally - and probably wrongly - ascribed to Marx...--Jack Upland (talk) 10:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

This entire article is inaccurate and likely intentionally so. It is most likely Marx's phrase came directly from the christian bible. Acts 2:44-45 Acts 4:34-37 Ex. 16:16-18 et al. And either already was a common philosophy at the time or became one subsequently and has been included in philosophical and political works since. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.246.208.2 (talk) 15:04, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Removed POV section
Removed a section that was blatantly POV, especially since it basically states that erverybody who agreed with Marx was dumb.

"In this way, Marx fooled people who aren't smart enough to read at an intellectual level to believe in a new form of slavery. If a person does not feel the need to work for other people, under the ideals of communism, he must, regardless of his own feelings, much like African slaves in young America." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.210.172.157 (talk) 16:46, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Distinction Between Communism and Socialism
Not a bad article as a first pass; and probably understood as such by the main author. But things do need to be changed. And some of those will be more difficult than others to address.

However, there is one important change which AFAIC can be applied consistently across the whole article right away: correcting the misconception that somehow socialism and communism are the same thing and essentially interchangable. This lapse badly needs to be changed, as it is wholly inaccurate and misleading; even though it can be said there are numerous people who call themselves marxists who do not make that distinction, or who even deny it. Still, this is the standard -- and the most logical -- distinction to make. It is in fact the professional, competent distinction to make.

So it is completely wrong -- and actually stinks of bourgeois propaganda -- to designate any of the stalinist states of the recent past as "communist". The fact is, advanced communism has never existed on this planet to this date. Period. And to conflate and identify -- or worse, purposely so -- the named ruling communist (stalinist) parties with the state itself supposedly also being "communist", is to confuse very different things on different logical levels. And so this situation would either be a naïve mistake on the part of the thinker -- or simply plain propaganda.

Therefore this article must be changed to reflect the fact that all these hapless former states, whatever anyone thinks of them, were indeed socialist, legally and actually; and were not anywhere near being or becoming "communist" yet in any sense (nor were they remotely likely to become so anytime soon -- a situation the imperialists took full advantage of).

And of course: encyclopedia articles should strive as much as possible for objectivity, should they not? So start with this. Unfortunately, it won't be myself doing this work anytime soon because, like many, I have become quickly disenchanted with the gatekeepers who have apparently taken over Wikipedia; and so I am not going to be doing much article writing here until I'm ready to give more time to, for instance, taking on these busybodies.

I will, however, easily offer my 2 cents-worth on the discussion pages. These are the fora where all articles should actually be anchored and shored-up from, anyway. Like with icebergs: 9/10ths of the action should be below the surface on all articles, for everything to end up balanced aboveboard.

Pazouzou 23:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The trouble is, to the best of my knowledge, Marx himself never uses the terminology that way. In Critique of the Gotha Programme, he speaks of "the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society" and then a subsequent "higher phase of communist society." For Marx and Engels, there is capitalism and there is communism, and they use socialism as a synonym for the latter (hence their two most popular 'catechisms' are called The Communist Manifesto and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.) 66.223.139.22 (talk) 22:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Correction to a Reference
^ Atlast Shrugged reference should be changed to Atlas Shrugged, so the reference works properly to the appropriate Wikipedia article that is linked in the reference. Unable to do this myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.33.197.54 (talk) 11:26, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

original German?
Shouldn't this entry include the original German (which I can't find, but which shouldn't be too hard to come by)? -- Danny Yee (talk) 08:24, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It mentions Jedem das Seine - do you mean something else? --TraceyR (talk) 15:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

May I add, the quotationg "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" does not comes from Marx but from Louis Blanc (a french historian and journalist) in 1951 and thus should not be written in german but in french "De chacun selon ses moyens, à chacun selon ses besoins". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.57.164.104 (talk) 21:18, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

One act play
The reference to a one act play is insignificant and ought not to be there - it's not appropriate for a short entry on an important idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.150.65.79 (talk) 08:55, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

ayn rand
ayn rand is not significant enough to have a whole section

The argument against the term is still applicable.--Herb-Sewell (talk) 04:59, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Now the section is gone completely. She should at least be mentioned. Atlas Shrugged, whatever your opinion of the book, is a long book that serves almost entirely as a critical response to this idea. The book frequently shows up on top 100 lists, and many influential people cite her works and ideas as a large influence on their lives. You may disagree with her ideas and the people who believe them, but there are enough of them that she is notable enough to warrant mention in this article. A cited response to her opinion would be good too, but it's a serious omission to leave her out of the article 64.132.80.134 (talk) 21:11, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No she should't undue weight to nthe opinions of a third rate novelist that no one other than a Randian would give credence to. Removed section seemingly again.--KTo288 (talk) 20:35, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

title erroneous
The quote by Marx ends with "needs" not "need". So the title is, I think, wrong. If I knew how to edit it, I would! Douglasbell (talk) 20:49, 19 December 2014 (UTC)


 * As you can see from the article itself, the quote predates Marx so his chosen version isn't what the article is titled. Helpsome (talk) 01:34, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I am not happy. It may well be that the original use of this quote did not have the plural. But the version as used by Marx did. I would argue that it is Marx's version of this quote that is overwhelmingly known and used in our culture. And that therefore the plural should prevail. Does this need wider discussion, somehow? Douglasbell (talk) 18:06, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The appropriate procedure is outlined at Requested moves. bd2412  T 01:01, 18 October 2015 (UTC)