Could you point out to me where Marx actually advocated a complete socialization of labor? I don't believe this is what he argued, and is a topic of criticism from his philosophical critics.
What is communism, if it isn't the socialisation of production?
Perhaps I'm using inelegant terminology here- what do you interpret "socialisation of production" as meaning, and what do you understand Marx as having advocated/predicted?
So isn't the entire theory of a collectivized society determining, "what people need," or gauging what, "their abilities are." Again, don't you think this maxim in and of itself will cause an extreme amount of discontent because of these very reasons? How do you know what my abilities are? If I personally feel my needs are not met, why will I not be discontent?
Hence the necessity of a radically democratic workers' self-management or "autogestion", to use the five-dollar abbreviation. Leaving it to some committee or bureaucrat to decide what people need is for the most part as unsatisfactory as much as leaving it up to the market; people must decide for themselves what they need, and how to meet those needs.
Besides, this isn't exactly a criticism unique to communism, given capitalisms historically rather poor record in meeting the needs of the majority. If there's a differences, it's that communists suggest that people deserve to have their needs met, and so take on a certain burden in that regard, while capitalists merrily declare "Nah, screw 'em", and are so relieved of responsibility.
I am not saying that talent endows a right domination. That is a discussion for another day. We are discussing discontent and detriment to society. In this regard we are talking about the most talented people not working to their full abilities due to equal say and equal share, and thus resulting in a detriment to society. I believe that a great deal of individuals who are the most talented and skilled (typically type A personalities), are exceptionally prone to jealousy and envy. When you break them down to an equal plane, they will be the most likely to become jaded and obstinate.
In regards to material compensation, I will admit that, as Cheezy said, I am getting ahead of myself in talking about the constitution of a communist society, and he is correct in noting that a period of transition, of social reconstitution, is necessary, and in that period certain "inequalities", for want of a better word, may be sustained, in this period of transition. For Marxists, the immediate equalisation of all salaries would be a rather pointless act, because the goal isn't to equalise material wealth, but to dissolve the entire social formation that allows for material wealth to exist in this fashion. As such, there is nothing to say that a doctor or engineer may not be compensated to some greater degree than - and, if the historical and contemporary examples of various workers cooperatives is any guide, then most workers accept this as entirely reasonable. Marx, in his
Critique of the Gotha Programme, suggested that the earlier phase of communism, preceding the development of a purely communistic mode of distribution ("from each according to his ability, to each according to his need") would most likely take the form of individual compensation determined democratically in proportion to contribution, later posed by Lenin as "To each according to his contribution", as a parallel to the more famous slogan.
In regards to decision-making, I will note that simply according everyone a formally equal share of power does not mean accepting everyone's input as mechanically equal. Workers will still, quite inevitably, defer on certain subjects to those who are more knowledgeable or able than others, and permit certain "tactical", rather than "strategic" direction on their part. It is simply that the contemporarily understood link between coordination and imposed control will be broken; workers without managers, but not without planners, as it were.
I do not believe that jealousy and envy result in any sort of ideological context. I believe that it always exists. You can see in the smallest and most ignorant of children. You see jealousy and envy in toddlers. Take their toys away, watch them pout. Give some candy to his sibling, watch him thrash. He will not sit there and tell himself that his sister needs it, and therefore it is fine. Jealousy and envy are as natural as rain. And it is a habitual human emotion that cannot be unlearned. Just as the child will pout when he doesn't feel he is being treated fairly, so won't the highly talented business man when you tell him he must make only $50,000 a year while doing the same part because he's just as important in the process as the machinist or the engineer.
I was not suggesting that envy itself is a product of ideology, but that any given feeling of envy exists within an ideological context; in this case, that one individual may resent the higher wage of another, but will do so on the basis of a set of convictions as to the more proper distribution of wealth. If society reconstitutes its world-view in such a manner as to render that sort of conviction absurd, then why would people be envious in such a manner? By way of analogy, the Duke of Argyll can claim to be my clan chieftain, but he is unlikely to resent the fact that he is unable to collect the feudal dues once owed to such a chieftain, because that is simply not entertained by people in this society as a legitimate basis for entitlement. (...Setting aside the British monarchy, which is something of an aberration in this regard.)
Also, I tend to be fearful and leery about people who believe they (or others) can eliminate this human trait simply by reformulating society, as it invariably leads to authoritarianism and social engineering in practice. What's more, is that it almost begets a de facto dictatorship (I guess we come full circle in this discussion!). After all, who is it that exactly decides the path towards eliminating and discrediting the aristocracy of merit? Who is it that shapes our collective world-view? Better yet, what makes you believe that you can even shape an entire worldview. What makes you think that you can ever change the mentality of the current aristocracy in the first place? Under any circumstance, if you were to ask 100 people from any given society what their idea of utopia would be, there would be 100 different unique answers. So when you finally stumble a singular plan towards reconstituting society in a communist paradigm where nobody is jealous, don't you think 99 others will view it as detrimental to their idea of utopia, feel jaded, and envious of those who's ideas have been implemented? I don't understand you arrive at a single point collectively. People are not the same. You can't just pull out the cookie cutter and expect people to arrive at the same universal truth. There will always be people who will not conform to your ideological egalitarian maxim.
Then, again, I will direct you back to the point where I explain that communism is not constructed in a mechanical fashion by some enlightened clique, but is generated in an organic fashion by the working class self-organising as a class. The changes to which I refer- and I would it clear that, like Marx, I do not presume to be capable of making any predictions about such changes beyond a few basic points- are simply the product of the reconstitution of social relations in an associative rather than capitalistic manner, and not some product of social engineering.
(Edit: And I'm sorry if I'm unnecessarily repeating at any point Cheezy, here; I did not see his reply before posting my own.)
