Answers to Correspondents: Socialists and Equality (1937)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists and Equality 

A correspondent (“Alter Ego,” Colchester) writes objecting to the review of G. B. Shaw’s “Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism” (see August the Socialist Standard), on the ground that it “apparently endorses Shaw’s opinion that ‘ Socialism means equality of income, or nothing.’ ” Our correspondent goes on to say that this would mean that each individual would receive equal rations of everything, “say, 7 loaves of bread, 1 lb. of butter, 4 lbs. of potatoes, etc.,” whereas Socialists stand by the proposition, “From each according to his or her abilities, to each according to his or her needs.”

Our correspondent has misunderstood a necessarily very brief reference to this question, which was more fully dealt with in the Socialist Standard for August, 1936. He also confuses “equality” with “uniformity.” The matter can perhaps best be explained by briefly defining the various different attitudes.

Shaw says, give each individual an equal money income and let him or her spend it on whatever he or she wishes. As a protest against the capitalists arguments for inequality, Shaw’s insistence on equality is a useful piece of work, but, as was pointed out in the review, there will be no money incomes under Socialism, and Shaw’s plan is therefore Utopian. It should be noticed that Shaw is not aiming at "uniformity,” i.e., standardised rations for each individual, but that they should be able to lay out their incomes how they like.

Socialists, say, to each according to his or her needs. Society by its co-operative effort shall produce goods in the quantity and variety corresponding to the productivity of industry and the number of hours the population is prepared to devote to work, and the individual members of society shall be able to take freely from the common stock according to his or her needs. Here again it is not a question of “uniformity,” i.e., of standardised rations; nor is it Shaw’s plan of equal money incomes; nor is it the capitalist plan of to each capitalist according to the amount of capital he owns, to each worker who is able to get work according to his cost of subsistence; nor is it the Bolshevik plan of, to each grade according to whether it is high or low in the ladder of social privilege, to each individual according to his output, and according to his ownership of Government bonds.

Actually we know of no school of thought which advocates uniformity or standardised rations, but it suits the capitalist hacks and the Communist Party to erect their Aunt Sally in order triumphantly to knock it down again. Having done so, the capitalist hacks say the only alternative is the capitalist plan, and the Communists say that the only alternative is the Bolshevik plan. Socialists, in line with Marx and Lenin, advocate equality but not standardisation, on the plan "to each according to his needs.”

Ed. Comm.