this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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it’s not a theoretical problem at all - it’s been discussed and resolved. cf: kropotkin and marx.
Do you have something specific I can read by them that addresses this?
Peter Kropotkin — The Conquest of Bread (chapters on mutual aid and social organization)
Karl Marx — Critique of the Gotha Program (especially the section on “from each according to his ability…”)
I'm not sure I agree with this analysis. It's certainly true that mutual aid is a natural instinct that causes people to support their direct social network. But it does not always lead them to help more distantly connected people as substantially. At the scale of a whole society or world this could be a problem. The key of a successful socialism would be designing an economy where people are sufficiently motived to produce and share enough to support a prosperous society. I don't think this is impossible but I also don't think it will be automatic either. It may require careful thought and experimentation about how those incentives will arise and be cultivated in the new economic system. Ideally they should be cultivated with minimal coercion, lest the new economy be hardly better than the old one.
If people would come around on degrowth it would probably be a lot easier. A lot of our labor currently goes into trash that doesn't meaningfully improve people's lives, so doing less of that will require a lot less labor and therefore motivation.
i mean also to be fair it’s never been really implemented- there is a long way to go and the convos now are a lot of, imho, “world building.”
Absolutely. That's why I think experiments with building new economic relationships within our current societies are the best way to test our ideas about these issues.
Yeah, I will also ask for a source on the "resolution" for that, if you have it.
Peter Kropotkin — The Conquest of Bread (chapters on mutual aid and social organization)
Karl Marx — Critique of the Gotha Program (especially the section on “from each according to his ability…”)
Marx doesn't resolve it at all, he doesn't even bring it up and there are no chapters on mutual aid in the conquest of bread.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/23428/pg23428.txt
see?
have you read it? cause i got an understanding of those concepts from those writings
I did read the critique of the gothaer program, I'm not going to read an entire book to maybe find an argument that supports you.
My position is that both Kropotkin and Marx didn't talk or solve the issue I'm talking about, and if you want to prove that wrong, I want you to find a specific quote, page or chapter that does contain that argument. I'm not going to prove your point against me for you.
i am not going to reread it again because the entire or bulk of the book is quite literally his opinions and world building with these subjects in mind. it’s not a source-able concept like in a science journal, because it’s an opinion piece with argumentation. however here are some chapters to consider:
Chapter 3: Anarchist Communism
Chapter 8: Ways and Means
Chapter 10: Agreeable Work
Chapter 12: Objections
The objection is known. “If the existence of each is guaranteed, and if the necessity of earning wages does not compel men to work, nobody will work. Every man will lay the burden of his work on another if he is not forced to do it himself.”
later
“Well-being, that is to say, the satisfaction of physical, artistic, and moral needs, has always been the most powerful stimulant to work. “