You’ve got to have incentive, they tell us again and again. Without incentive to better oneself life would not be worth living. Capitalism, they argue, offers real incentive and opportunities for initiative whereas socialism would kill any ambition to get ahead. If we knew we had our needs taken care of who would want to work? We’d all become lazy and goof off from the job. General living conditions would deteriorate fast. Why, they go on, even in Communist countries they have discovered this truth and offer the workers all sorts of incentive plans.
Now the most surprising thing about this sort of philosophy is that it has stood up so well through the decades, despite its obvious, even glaring limitations. One could ask some embarrassing questions, such as: You say that once you knew that your needs and wants were taken care of. you would lose all incentive to work? Then why try to become wealthy? Surely if that were true then it would have to follow that your statistical chances of becoming a bum would rise in direct proportion to your acquisition of wealth. Think of the harm one would do to his own future character by becoming wealthy! And what of your children? By making it possible for them to live a life free from financial pressures and burdens you would be robbing them of their initiative, their incentive, their very birthright. They would most probably wind up as bums, even if wealthy bums.
Nonsense? Poppycock? Of course it is. It is that old argument, so beloved by the theologians, about the camel and the eye of the needle, dressed up in secular clothing. We would suggest that those who believe that yarn tell it to the capitalist class, as well as to Sweeney and to the Marines!
Actually, it is the other way around. It is capitalism that robs most of incentive and initiative. Have you ever wondered why there are so few outstanding performers in any field one can think of? Certainly there must be a large number who live in obscurity and even poverty because there can be room for but a few at the top in capitalist society. But far beyond those in numbers are the potential artists, writers, musicians, scientists who never got off the ground because they are compelled, first of all, to earn a living for self and family. Nor let us forget the potential greats whose lives have been snuffed out in capitalism’s wars.
But now let us look for a moment at that hook that is so frequently thrown at us about the so-called Communist countries discovering the value of incentive and initiative. The trouble with that argument is that it is nothing new with them. As far back as Lenin's times the Soviet Union had an incentive system known as the New Economic Policy In which private enterprise was encouraged. Later, In Stalin's times. In the build-up of heavy Industry, an incentive plan known as Stakhanovism was introduced. Workers received financial rewards and national recognition by improving their performances and output on the job. In this way the expected output could be raised and the degree of exploitation of all the workers increased. Today, in Russia and throughout the world of state-capitalist, so-called Communism, all sorts of incentive, or carrot-on-the-end-of-a-stick plans are offered the workers. Just as in the avowedly capitalist West. Under capitalism—whatever the variety—a few stand to get ahead and it is the few who are touted and whose praises are sung. The millions, however, remain in poverty never quite being able to reach that dangling carrot.
Yes, it will be different under socialism. Mass production techniques will be used to take care of the needs of the population rather than to enrich a few. When the pressures of providing the necessities of life itself are removed all restrictions on the fulfillment of one’s potentials will be gone. The world will belong to all mankind. There will be nowhere for anybody who wants to become great to go but up.
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