A social system in which the leading distributive principle is: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". So, the ambition of such a regime is to secure that everyone works as much and as hard as his talents and other abilities allow him, and that everyone gets as much goods as it is required for the satisfaction of his true needs. To be realized communism asks either for material abundance - in which all the needed resources would be plentiful - or for very high degree of social solidarity - because the talented members of society would have to work hard but would not enjoy all the fruits of their labor since these would have to be shared with their less able associates. Since it is not very easy to expect that people are so ready to sacrifice themselves for each other, the most important representatives of this doctrine chose the first option: that communism will be established only after technology advances to the point where all the work will be done my machines which will produce (in huge amounts) everything that humans need. However, in the recent times many such thinkers have abandoned such a hope.

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