To Each According to Needs

The full term “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is the rule of distribution that, at a higher stage of the development of human society, the people work freely and can develop comprehensively in all respects, thus pushing forward the abundant flow of social wealth and the society rationally distributes the products of labor according to the material and cultural needs of the members of the community.

The rule of distribution according to needs was first put forth by Thomas More, the earliest utopian socialist. However, the distribution according to needs envisioned by him was tinged with asceticism and egalitarianism (levelling). This idea has always influenced the future utopian socialists. In The German Ideology (1845), Marx and Engels first put forth that the communist rule of distribution is distribution according to needs, but at that time the objective inevitability of distribution according to needs was not scientifically proven from the laws of economic development. When criticizing the proponents “true socialism”, Marx and Engels pointed out that “differences of brain and of intellectual ability do not imply any differences whatsoever in the nature of the stomach and of physical needs; therefore, the false tenet, based upon existing circumstances, ‘to each according to his abilities’, must be changed, insofar as it relates to enjoyment in its narrower sense, into the tenet, ‘to each according to his needs’.” In 1875, Marx scientifically demonstrated the objective inevitability of distribution according to needs from the law of economic development. In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, he put the rule of distribution according to needs on a scientific basis for the first time, pointing out: “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!”

In a higher phase of communist society, the productive forces of society will be greatly developed and material products will be enormously abundant, the distinction between workers and peasants and between town and country, the essential differences between mental and physical labor will disappear, social science and culture will be greatly improved and popularized, people’s communist thought and consciousness generally raised, labor will become the first want of life for everyone, people will be able consciously, without regard to pay, and to the best of their ability, work for the society, people will no longer be subservient to the old division of labor and have already acquired the conditions for their full and free development. However, due to the differences in physiology, penchants and abilities (i.e., some people are good at mathematics, others are good at literature, etc.) as well as the differences in conditions for production and social activity, there will still be some differences in people’s need for consumer goods. Such differences do not reflect class distinctions or physical, mental differences. Society will scientifically provide each individual with a healthy and full development with a certain reasonable form and quantity of needs appropriate to the level of development of the productive forces of society at that time. Engels said: “There will be the means of life, of the enjoyment of life, and of the development and activity of all bodily and mental faculties, through the systematic use and further development of the enormous productive powers of society, which exists with us even now, with equal obligation upon all to work.” Implementing distribution according to needs enables that the needs for a full development of each can be met, which opens up a broad path for the harmonious development of the full potential of the chief productive forces of the society for man. Distribution according to needs will become a powerful driving force for the further development of productive forces.

At the present stage of economic development, or at the primary stage of distribution according to needs, material distribution cannot yet be provided to everyone without discrimination, and only the rule of distribution “From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution” can be implemented. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is still merely a long-term and hard-fought ideal goal of socialist countries.