People Don't Need Great Financial Reward To Strive
Communism has the principle of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’, which is to say there isn’t rewards for striving and becoming a prestigious member of society. People criticize communism for this as they say people won’t be motivated without financial reward. This is debatable but in the case of OS rising up in society or providing value does reward the individual with more financial benefit.
However, it isn’t possible like with capitalism to achieve massive financial gain for oneself as no matter the achievement it doesn’t benefit society for one person to have the same amount of wealth as millions.
The question is, does removing this ability stop people from striving with their work?
To answer this we must look at what motivates people?.
In short, people are motivated to:
- attract a desirable mate and reproduce
- belong to a strong community
These are strong evolved biological urges that will exist regardless of the system of government. If there is some method of gaining prestige, attracting a mate and being an important member of a community humans will strive for it much as they strived for these in a hunter gatherer society.
It is ridiculous to think that massive reward is required for motivation when humans have been striving and doing amazing work throughout history and only recently (since capitalism) has it been possible to accumulate staggering amounts of wealth. Humans will happily strive for prestige and moderate monetary reward to satisfy their primal urges.