On 11 June 2010 12:01, wpc <wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk> wrote:
> I agree with Howard that Marx almost certainly did not expect
> unlimited free consumption of goods that require substantial
> natural and labour inputs. But Nove was not tilting at windmills.
> This is a common misinterpretation of Marx, that you encounter
> both among western leftists, and which, as Spufford's new book
> brings out, was official doctrine in the USSR at the start of the
> 1960s.
>
>
I'm not sure what Marx himself thought of the 'higher phase' in practice
because he never gave a detailed description, but I know that some
socialists have interpreted the distribution principle in a very utopian
way, that has become increasingly infeasible given the environmental
constrains that we face.
However, the welfare state and digitized media are practical examples that
embody that distribution principle. And hence I would not distinguish
between a socialist society with a distribution according to a 'lower phase'
and 'higher phase' as Marx does, since for all practical purposes there
would be a combination of both.
//Dave Z
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Received on Fri Jun 11 06:39:00 2010
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