§ V. The Wants of Individuals as a Standard

It would be still more unjust and impracticable to distribute the produce of labor according to “the wants of individuals,” as Marx has it (as if in future there would be no unreasonable desires), or, as the Gotha programme more prudently puts it, “to each one according to his reasonable demands.” What are the reasonable demands? Not all have the same wants. Evidently it would not be wise to leave to individuals themselves the decision concerning their wants. No one is an impartial judge in his own case; and, besides, experience teaches that demands do not exactly coincide with real wants.

The only expedient that would be left, therefore, would be to appoint for each district a ‘committee on wants,” whose task it would be to determine the real needs of individuals—for instance, how many glasses of beer the workman of the future would actually need, how many new gowns and hats the socialist lady would require every year. And as such a commission would necessarily consist of Solons and Aristideses, who would decide, not according to personal regards, but only according to right and justice, and would always hit upon the right thing; and as, moreover, the socialist comrades, as Bebel loves to characterize them, would be animated by a “brotherly spirit,” and would be content with little, this most delicate problem would be solved to the greatest satisfaction of all, and the social machinery would move in the greatest peace and harmony!