According to Marx, people in a justice society should give
and receive “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his
needs”. Marx believed that humans are
cooperative beings who are not solely self-interested. This contrasts popular belief that human
nature is instinctively competitive.
However, seeing humans as competitive could be thought of as offensive
or defensive. If humans act in offense
to profit, they are selfish. If humans
are seen as naturally defensive, they are self-interested but not necessarily
selfish. Marx equates self-interest and
selfishness with capitalism because this type of government is geared towards
profit and private property.
Marx thought that private property was the root of a
class-based society. He thought that
this alienated the workers from the products they produce, from the process of
production, from humanity, and from other workers. If private property was eliminated, the
estrangement of labor would cease and cooperation would replace competition. However, even if society became economically
class-less, I think people would somehow find a way to distinguish a type of
hierarchy. Marx would disagree though
because if everyone had his or her needs, he thought competition would be
obsolete.
In many situations cooperation provides more benefits for
the individual as well the whole society.
Would Marx say that cooperation is always more beneficial? Psychological
studies have shown that cooperation and generosity are beneficial to the giver
as well as the receiver. When people
give and help others, the brain releases oxytocin, which makes us happy and
helps us connect with others. In a “state
of nature” cooperating would likely produce benefits for both parties. It may be a stretch, but one could argue that
cooperating here would give better results than competition so the self-interested
individual would not want to compete.
It is difficult for us to think of humans as instinctively
cooperative beings because our belief that humans are naturally competitive is
constantly reinforced in American society.
We are raised to believe this and pop culture propagates these
values. When we bring up the “state of
nature” in class, I am always reminded of examples of popular stories like Lord of the Flies and The Hunger Games. Even as kids, humans in
these stories instinctively lead towards a state of war. Do stories in less competitive cultures
reflect human nature as more cooperative?
Can anyone think of popular American stories, history, or literature where people
instinctively cooperate when placed in a “state of nature”?
You mentioned that you think people would find a way to distinguish classes even if they were eliminated, and I tend to agree. The problem, as it seems to me, is that someone would be needed to enforce society's rules in order to maintain such a society and prevent anyone from taking advantage of it, which would require some sort of governing body. Already here it looks to me like 2 classes are necessary, a governing body and the governed. From this point class differences and inequalities could develop. Perhaps the ideal system is a communist democracy, in which everyone works and everyone governs on an equal level. However, this sounds like an inefficient system to me, because it lacks specialization since each individual would be in charge of both labor and governing. Perhaps with more specialization we would see more differences between individuals and more class inequality but more efficiency in management and production, so there would be trade-offs.
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