This wonderful egalitarian man, like billions of egalitarians, wants no rich and no poor, which is accomplished by making the economy be based not on buying and selling things but on the principle of “From each according to reasonable ability, to each according to need or reasonable desire with scarce things equitably rationed according to need.” Go here to see 500+ photos of more wonderful egalitarians in my postal zip code.
The BIG EGALITARIAN IDEA that unifies almost all of the have-nots is this1:
From each according to reasonable ability, to each according to need or reasonable desire with scarce things equitably rationed according to need.
Most people—virtually all of the have-nots—respond positively to this idea when they hear it expressed (which is seldom.) The only thing that makes people hesitate to endorse this idea is their fear that, as good as this idea sounds, there must be something very bad about it because it was (they wrongly believe) first popularized by Karl Marx, and so implementing this idea means having a totalitarian Communist dictatorship.
FACT: Karl Marx OPPOSED implementing this great idea.
Karl Marx said that the “From each according…” principle should NOT be advocated for implementation today. It could only be implemented, he said, in the FAR future. Here are Marx’s exact words on the question:
"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" [my emphasis]
FACT: Karl Marx did NOT invent this great idea.
As early as 1775 in his Code de la Nature ou le Veritable esprit de Ses Lois a Frenchman named Morelly wrote that his aim was "To distribute work according to capacity; products according to needs." The same idea appears even earlier, in the Bible (Acts, 4:34-35): "Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostle's feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need."
FACT: A poll found out that Americans agree with this great idea
According to the authors of this Monthly Review article, "Back in 1987, a poll of the U.S. population indicated that 45 percent of the population believed that Marx’s famous words from the Critique of the Gotha Programme delimiting communism—'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'—were enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. This, of course, said more about the absolute ideals of most Americans, and what they thought they should expect, than about the U.S. Constitution itself.19" [The source is Poll on Constitution, Boston Globe Magazine, September 13, 1987; Jules Lobel, “Introduction,” in Jules Lobel, ed., A Less than Perfect Union (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1988), 3. ]
Pro-capitalists AND Marxists censor this great idea that unifies the have-nots.
In today’s public discourse, the have-nots virtually never hear the “From each according…” principle expressed. The pro-capitalists don’t express it for obvious reasons (its implementation would be the end of capitalism and class inequality). And the anti-capitalists (such as the DSA and all of the Marxist parties and all of the anti-establishment organizations whose leaders are influenced by, if not actually are, Marxists do not express it either. Search far and wide and you will be hard-pressed to find a single organization that advocates the “From each according…” principle. This is despite the fact that this principle was indeed advocated by Spanish revolutionaries who gained power in a quarter of Spain in 1936-9 as I wrote about here and in articles linked from there.
Censorship of the “From each according…” principle makes it easy for the ruling class to divide-and-rule the have-nots.
Whenever an organization advocates some economic reform other than implementing the “From each according…” principle, the result is the strengthening of the ruling class’s divide-and-rule strategy for controlling the have-nots and remaining in power over us. I have written about this in many contexts. I invite you to read my articles (linked to below) that illustrate exactly how the censorship of the “From each according…” principle has this function in various contexts, such as Reparations, Universal Basic Income and labor strikes.
“Reparations the GOOD Way for Slavery and Jim Crow and Genocide against American Indians”
“Beware of the Universal Basic Income (UBI)”
“Here’s exactly how much the striking auto workers should be paid”
“My Egalitarian Take on the Public Response to the Wage Demands of Striking Boston Nurses”
When the ruling classes of the world divide and rule the have-nots on an international scale, with nation versus nation rhetoric, the premise that makes this divisiveness work is the premise that the economy in the world is NOT based on the “From each according…” principle. Everything from tariffs to nuclear weapons, supremely divisive things, stops being persuasively divisive of the have-nots when the goal is expressed of implementing on a global scale the “From each according…” principle. I illustrate this is these articles:
“An Egalitarian Nation Will Not Use and Has No Need to Use Nuclear Weapons for Defense”
“An Egalitarian Take on Tariffs and Free Trade”
My version of this principle incorporates the word “reasonable” and my writings on this topic say that the determination of what is reasonable ought to be the genuine democracy (described here) and in particular the sovereign Local Assembly of Egalitarians. As for how an economy can work based on this principle, please read a general description here and a more detailed one here.
Across the pond in the InBred UnUnited QueenDumb:
Ever since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in late February 2022 the British ruling class has permitted no opposition to its proxy war on Russia. All dissent, even of the feeble pacifist kind, was suppressed in the political system. The entire ideological structure of bourgeois society was deployed to whip anti-Russian sentiment to hysterical levels. No dissent was allowed; the Ukraine war is that important to the British ruling class.
So when in April 2025, the GMB — one of Britain's largest trade unions, with well over half a million members — formally affiliated to the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, this should be seen in the context of a massive ideological offensive from the ruling class. In fact, the affiliation merely set a seal on an established position. The union's Central Executive Council had already declared in 2022 that it "unequivocally condemns Russia's invasion of Ukraine" and called for "the provision of moral and material aid from the UK to Ukraine, including the means of self-defence". Congress went further the following year: the GMB now "support[s] Ukraine's right to appeal for, and be provided with, the military equipment and weaponry required to defeat the invasion", and condemns Western governments "for their failure to provide sufficient aid"
Read that again. A mass organisation of the British working class does not merely pass pious resolutions about solidarity: it lobbies the imperialist states to arm a war more generously, and attacks the British government from the standpoint of the arms lobby — for insufficient bellicosity. The GMB, which organises care workers, school staff, refuse collectors and warehouse workers, has taken up a position indistinguishable from that of the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Atlanticist think-tanks.
+--+
He'll be interviewed for my radio show, Oregon, as John Rachel lives in Japan.
- Minimum wage $20/hour -
- High-quality, inexpensive health care for all -
- Expand Social Security and Medicare -
- End the wars and reduce military spending -
- Money out of politics -
Here's a detailed electoral strategy based around a broad range of issues ...
https://johnrachel.substack.com/p/the-contract-for-american-renewal
https://johnrachel.substack.com/p/the-cfar-is-a-game-changer
Here's an electoral strategy specifically based on peace . . .
https://warismakinguspoor.com/a-nation-at-peace/
How about some 'walk'? We've had enough 'talk'.
+--+More?
• Getting Big Money Out of Politics: Overturning Citizens
United and related judicial decisions and immediately
initiating comprehensive campaign finance reform banning big
money in politics, especially targeting “dark money” and
corporate contributions.
• Campaign Financing: Only accepting contributions from
individual donors. Campaign contributions and “dark money”
from major corporations, special interest groups or other
organizations, e.g. AIPAC, will not be allowed.
• Expanding Social Security: Making no reductions of current
benefits or raising the eligibility age; expanding Social Security
by increasing or eliminating the cap on taxable income;
increasing benefits by at least 10% for all eligible recipients.
• Reducing Military Budget: Ending the undeclared wars and
unnecessary military exploits across the globe, except where
absolutely required to protect the safety of American citizens
and to defend the nation from overt, verifiable aggression.
Limiting presidential deployment of military assets, except in
cases of absolute emergency, by requiring informed
congressional approval.
• Crime and Criminal Justice Reform: Reforming our
criminal justice system, focusing on our racially biased, for-
profit incarceration system. At the same time, investing in
effective crime prevention programs and community policing.
• Tuition Free College: Making tuition free at public colleges
and universities throughout America.
• Environment: Implementing bold measures to mitigate the
negative impact of climate challenges and to protect the
environment from human-caused degradation, pollution,
depletion of the oceans, deforestation, desertification.
• Fair Individual Tax Policies: Instituting fair tax policies to
relieve the onerous tax burden now borne by the middle and
lower classes; closing tax loopholes, especially targeting tax
avoidance using offshore tax havens; introducing appropriate
parallel increases to capital gains tax rates.
• Fair Corporate Tax Policies: Eliminating tax loopholes,
unnecessary tax credits and corporate subsidies, and barring
use of corporate funds to lobby Congress; requiring
corporations to contribute their fair share to federal revenue
needs.
• Electoral System Reform: Reforming our entire electoral
system, making voting easier and more accessible, establishing
secure and effective mechanisms for reflecting and realizing
the priorities and choices of U.S. citizens, including but not
limited to: requiring valid voter ID; making election day an
official holiday; amending the Constitution such that the
President is elected by popular vote; permitting same day voter
registration; standardizing procedures on a national level for
determining electoral outcomes, instituting fully transparent
protocols for a timely recording, collecting, storing, counting
and recounting of votes.
https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/and-so-the-continuing-criminal-religious
End of Sept. Wed and Thursday:
https://kyaq.org/an-interview-with-author-and-documentarian-abby-martin/
None of this should surprise us. What the GMB's position expresses is not an aberration, not a moment of confusion, and not the personal failing of this or that general secretary. It is the predictable politics of a distinct social layer — the trade union bureaucracy — whose material position, and whose consciousness, Marxists have been dissecting for well over a century.