Can communism/socialism work?

[RowanE]

I like some of the ideas of communism/socialism, because it would make the world much fairer, but i can't see any way it could work efficiently. Can a planned economy succeed?
Is there any alternative, in a communist/socialist system, to a planned economy?
What could there be to motivate people to hard work and academic success?
How would luxuries be divided?

Any help?

[MKSheppard]

It has no fucking chance of working. Now fuck off and die.

[Srelex]

This is a...complicated subject, and frankly you'd be better off looking up various essays or books on Google or your local library.

[Gil Hamilton]

It has no fucking chance of working. Now fuck off and die.

Most monastic or even Amish/Mennonite communities would strongly disagree with you of whether a communist system can work. On a small scale, they work extremely well. The question is of large scale.

[Serafina]

Just ignore Shep...

Anyway, it did work for quite some time in the soviet union. Wether it worked better as an economic model than capitalism is another point.

The major problem with communism as it has been done so far is that all that concentration of power in the hands of the state creates dictatorships with apparent inevitability. Which causes a whole bunch of other problems.

Socialism, on the other hand, works quite well. In fact, practically all european countries have socialist policies (such as universal health care, a social safety net for the unemployed, aid for the poor etc.).
The USA (i am assuming you are an US-citizen) has a pretty distorted view of socialism as being virtually equal to communism - which is really not true at all.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I like some of the ideas of communism/socialism, because it would make the world much fairer, but i can't see any way it could work efficiently.

I think that's a very human point of view. Surely it seems intuitive (though heretical, in our society) that with all the overproduction in consumer and luxury goods to fit any possible need or preference of the economically secure, while others starve or freeze in the streets, that our system is not particularly efficient from a humanistic point of view. However, that is contrasting with some "ideal" in distribution: can human-operated and designed complex social systems actually achieve that goal with better outcomes than our state capitalist market model? I don't think there is a strict, hard-scientific, empirical answer to that question (regardless of what business propagandists will tell you).

Certainly though, I think we can say with reasonable confidence that the Soviet system and most of its lesser cousins, with planning carried out by a tiny alienated elite of politically-selected and instructed managers, probably does a poor job of meeting the ideal. However, one must remember that the Communist economic planners did reverse the absolute trend of economic decline associated with the Russian Civil War and the relative trend of decline compared to Western Europe that was suffered during the Tsarist regime. The USSR caught up with the West following World War II to become the second superpower, and the Second World (Communist Bloc) certainly outpaced the Third in quality of life, and even personal and consumer luxuries and personal economic security. One should remember that most comparisons between the Second World and First (U.S. and Allies) is that they deliberately downplay how the U.S. and Western Europe had a HUGE head-start in development, and yes, slave labor, general appalling labor exploitation, and brutal conquest and imperialist robbery on Russia before the October Revolution. No one in the U.S. political mainstream will make the comparison between Brazil and Russia, or Bulgaria and Guatemala, even though that would be much fair and less absurd than U.S. versus the Soviet Union. The reason is obvious: it goes to show that capitalism has failed most of our clients and arguably, requires a submissive, exploited periphery of cheap labor and raw materials and open markets.

Can a planned economy succeed?

A highly-complicated question, and one without an easy answer. It depends: what are your criteria for "succeed"? In what conditions? For how long? By what metric or outcomes should "succeed" be established? This is a very complicated question whole academic debates revolve around. I could discuss it further by PM or email if you'd like, as I lack the time and space here. You could also talk to Stas Bush, who could probably give you a fair and broad overview of the issue.

Is there any alternative, in a communist/socialist system, to a planned economy?

In short: yes. In practice: there is the socialist market economies of the Soviet state under the Leninist New Economic Policy, under the late-era Gobachev liberalization, under post Deng China, and in Tito's Yugoslavia. In theory: other options and variants are offered, including participatory or democratic collective planning of broadly anarchist or libertarian socialist character. You could look up "Participatory Economics" for a greater treatment. Again I could discuss it further by PM or email if you'd like, and I recommend you discuss with Stas Bush.

What could there be to motivate people to hard work and academic success?

Various, debatably useful, incentive systems were attempted, and many more theoretically offered. Are you looking for how this was historically attempted, or how socialist theorists have attempted to solve the problem theoretically?

How would luxuries be divided?

Same as above.

Any help?

I hope this was helpful, brief as it was.

It has no fucking chance of working. Now fuck off and die.

You have to forgive Shep, his political maturation and education ceased when he was twelve, and now persists in the form of FAP and gun porn of increasingly abstract complexity. Seriously though, Shep, do you have to be so churlish and try to contribute to N&P being a shit hole?

And to challenge you empirically, I think since approximately half of your Mil-Sci fap material comes out of the Soviet bloc or is based directly on its progress, you have a huge challenge to explain how a system so shitty you can casually declare it so out of hand could even attempt to compete with the U.S. and its Allies (which outmatched and outspent them from day one) for as long as it did.

[RowanE]

Just ignore Shep...

Anyway, it did work for quite some time in the soviet union. Wether it worked better as an economic model than capitalism is another point.

The major problem with communism as it has been done so far is that all that concentration of power in the hands of the state creates dictatorships with apparent inevitability. Which causes a whole bunch of other problems.

Socialism, on the other hand, works quite well. In fact, practically all european countries have socialist policies (such as universal health care, a social safety net for the unemployed, aid for the poor etc.).
The USA (i am assuming you are an US-citizen) has a pretty distorted view of socialism as being virtually equal to communism - which is really not true at all.

Actually UK. I thought socialism meant what we have in europe, but according to wikipedia socialism "encompasses various theories of economic organization based on either public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources", and so i'm considering it to be in the same category as communism, and as opposed to a capitalist system with taxes and benefits and stuff to keep things fairer. Although that might come into that category of socialism too, i'm not sure. Guessing i'm out of my depth, and have probably jumped in the deep end with such questions.

[Serafina]

Yeah, don't trust wikipedia.
Socialism has somewhat of a double meaning, but just because part of a wide definition is assosciated with communism doesn't mean that the whole concept is communistic or indistinguishable from communism.

[RowanE]

I like some of the ideas of communism/socialism, because it would make the world much fairer, but i can't see any way it could work efficiently.

I think that's a very human point of view. Surely it seems intuitive (though heretical, in our society) that with all the overproduction in consumer and luxury goods to fit any possible need or preference of the economically secure, while others starve or freeze in the streets, that our system is not particularly efficient from a humanistic point of view. However, that is contrasting with some "ideal" in distribution: can human-operated and designed complex social systems actually achieve that goal with better outcomes than our state capitalist market model? I don't think there is a strict, hard-scientific, empirical answer to that question (regardless of what business propagandists will tell you).

Certainly though, I think we can say with reasonable confidence that the Soviet system and most of its lesser cousins, with planning carried out by a tiny alienated elite of politically-selected and instructed managers, probably does a poor job of meeting the ideal. However, one must remember that the Communist economic planners did reverse the absolute trend of economic decline associated with the Russian Civil War and the relative trend of decline compared to Western Europe that was suffered during the Tsarist regime. The USSR caught up with the West following World War II to become the second superpower, and the Second World (Communist Bloc) certainly outpaced the Third in quality of life, and even personal and consumer luxuries and personal economic security. One should remember that most comparisons between the Second World and First (U.S. and Allies) is that they deliberately downplay how the U.S. and Western Europe had a HUGE head-start in development, and yes, slave labor, general appalling labor exploitation, and brutal conquest and imperialist robbery on Russia before the October Revolution. No one in the U.S. political mainstream will make the comparison between Brazil and Russia, or Bulgaria and Guatemala, even though that would be much fair and less absurd than U.S. versus the Soviet Union. The reason is obvious: it goes to show that capitalism has failed most of our clients and arguably, requires a submissive, exploited periphery of cheap labor and raw materials and open markets.

Can a planned economy succeed?

A highly-complicated question, and one without an easy answer. It depends: what are your criteria for "succeed"? In what conditions? For how long? By what metric or outcomes should "succeed" be established? This is a very complicated question whole academic debates revolve around. I could discuss it further by PM or email if you'd like, as I lack the time and space here. You could also talk to Stas Bush, who could probably give you a fair and broad overview of the issue.

Is there any alternative, in a communist/socialist system, to a planned economy?

In short: yes. In practice: there is the socialist market economies of the Soviet state under the Leninist New Economic Policy, under the late-era Gobachev liberalization, under post Deng China, and in Tito's Yugoslavia. In theory: other options and variants are offered, including participatory or democratic collective planning of broadly anarchist or libertarian socialist character. You could look up "Participatory Economics" for a greater treatment. Again I could discuss it further by PM or email if you'd like, and I recommend you discuss with Stas Bush.

What could there be to motivate people to hard work and academic success?

Various, debatably useful, incentive systems were attempted, and many more theoretically offered. Are you looking for how this was historically attempted, or how socialist theorists have attempted to solve the problem theoretically?

How would luxuries be divided?

Same as above.

Any help?

I hope this was helpful, brief as it was.

Okay, participatory economics. Will look it up. Should probably go into detail on other aspects of that aspect of socialism. Or at least, read some wikipedia articles all the way through.
More interested in theoretical attempts, but maybe historical too. Though i doubt i'd understand it at this point. Must learn more politics.
Given i didn't have much understanding to start with, very helpful indeed. Worried i'll be out of my depth if we go into more detail on the subject though. Shouldn't have asked such big questions to start with.

[Guardsman Bass]

I like some of the ideas of communism/socialism, because it would make the world much fairer, but i can't see any way it could work efficiently. Can a planned economy succeed?

It depends on what you define as a "planned economy". Are you talking about the Soviet model, with no private enterprise or private property ownership encoded in law, and total government control and socialization over the entire economy?

That type of system can be good at rapid industrialization, since in theory you can direct your economic resources into certain sectors to promote industrial development and growth (the Soviets pulled this off, but it didn't work out so well for the African states that tried it, among others). It tends to be great at extensive growth (adding more inputs into the economy in the form of people, resources, etc), but more troubled in creating productivity growth.

On the other hand, full socialism seems to do poorly in certain economic sectors, particularly agriculture (the "collective farms" of the Soviet Union, the "ejidos" of Mexico, and Chinese collective farms before they started a kind of quasi-private-public agriculture).

No one in the U.S. political mainstream will make the comparison between Brazil and Russia, or Bulgaria and Guatemala, even though that would be much fair and less absurd than U.S. versus the Soviet Union.

Why bother when we can compare, say, Taiwan and South Korea, to said Soviet Bloc countries? Both of those US clients started off far poorer than the Soviet Bloc states at the time, and were far better off on a per capita basis by the time the Soviet Union toppled.

As for the South American countries, they're a poor representation of capitalism during most of the Cold War. Most of them (and particularly the larger countries like Brazil) heavily used both socialism and corporatism via the Import Substitution Industrialization model.

The USSR caught up with the West following World War II to become the second superpower, and the Second World (Communist Bloc) certainly outpaced the Third in quality of life, and even personal and consumer luxuries and personal economic security.

Much of the Third World (including China and India) either practiced heavy socialism (China) or had a heavily regulated economic system with generous elements of socialism (India) during this period, so I don't see how this is supposed to reflect well on that model of development.

[Starglider]

Actually UK. I thought socialism meant what we have in europe, but according to wikipedia socialism "encompasses various theories of economic organization based on either public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources", and so i'm considering it to be in the same category as communism

In essence, socialism covers systems where the government has major intervention in the economy, directly controlling significant sectors of it (e.g. health care, state-owned utilities and heavy industries) that are privatised in a capitalist system. In the classic a communist system the entire (legal) economy is government controlled, although China seems to be pushing the definition recently.

Communism is of course fundamentally opposed to individual freedom, as it denies people the right to conduct (significant) business with each other independent of the state. This is why I don't like the term 'communism' being applied to post-scarcity sci-fi socities where the state fairly outcompetes private industry, as opposed to using force of arms to suppress all private industry.

[Einzige]

Ideally, the State has nothing whatsoever to do with communism. Likewise, I imagine the best way to go about building such a society would be to directly compete with established, hierarchical industries using a collectivistic model of production. Unfortunately our present system is structured in such a way that co-operatives and the like are actively discouraged, and hierarchy is rewarded through mass-recognization of the CEO-centric model, so it's as unlikely as any of the others to actually be tried.

[Starglider]

Ideally, the State has nothing whatsoever to do with communism.

Incoherent, irrelevant fantasy. Human psychology is fundamentally incompatible with such notions. Even with unlimited oppressive state power destroying all internal competition, the USSR's communism utterly failed at economic progress vs external competition. Had they used the Chinese strategy of steady, carefully controlled retreat from communism, they might still be around.

Likewise, I imagine the best way to go about building such a society would be to directly compete with established, hierarchical industries using a collectivistic model of production. Unfortunately our present system is structured in such a way that co-operatives and the like are actively discouraged

There is absolutely nothing stopping people from forming co-operatives. The UK even has specific legal structures to help, though they're not essential, you can write appropriate representation and compenstation rules into any corporate charter. Co-ops don't compete because they fundamentally suck. No one with an ounce of talent or ambition wants to be tied down in a system where they are unable to make decisions without filtering through a mass of ignorant no-nothings, and unable to reap benefits in proportion to their personal performance. Thus you get a mass of untalented greedy sods with a few naive idealists mixed in, and the whole thing usually collapses from awful decision making or paralysing power struggles. Collectives work for eco-villages etc because they aren't directly competing; they can effectively pay their residents a pittance because the residents get intangible value out of living in their touchy-feely-eco-harmony.

[K. A. Pital]

Well, this is a thread about communism, but I don't have much to say since folks covered most of the points.

I like some of the ideas of communism/socialism, because it would make the world much fairer, but i can't see any way it could work efficiently. Can a planned economy succeed?

At providing a more decent life level than what, 80% of the world's population? Yes. At having a shortage-less stable existence? I doubt it, although modern technology combined with the traditional strengths of a planned economy does offer some possibilities.

Is there any alternative, in a communist/socialist system, to a planned economy?

Syndicalism is the most commonly proposed one.

What could there be to motivate people to hard work and academic success?

You think people in planned economies didn't work hard or achieve academic success? That's a non-issue.

How would luxuries be divided?

Someone like me would've said it's best that luxury industries wouldn't have even existed in the first place (save perhaps for some aesthetiс purposes). They are needless and harmful because humanity wastes a significant share of resources on them before satisfying the fundamenal needs (housing, food, etc.)

[Einzige]

Incoherent, irrelevant fantasy. Human psychology is fundamentally incompatible with such notions. Even with unlimited oppressive state power destroying all internal competition, the USSR's communism utterly failed at economic progress vs external competition. Had they used the Chinese strategy of steady, carefully controlled retreat from communism, they might still be around.

Because capitalism has always existed, and not only that, is ingrained within the human mind.

Capitalism as it exists was not handed down from On High, and it's conceited to believe it was. It began, we are currently existing in it, and will at some point have an end.

There is absolutely nothing stopping people from forming co-operatives.

Except for zoning laws, the Chambers of Commerce, undermining by local industry and open hostility by local rubes?

[Guardsman Bass]

Incoherent, irrelevant fantasy. Human psychology is fundamentally incompatible with such notions. Even with unlimited oppressive state power destroying all internal competition, the USSR's communism utterly failed at economic progress vs external competition. Had they used the Chinese strategy of steady, carefully controlled retreat from communism, they might still be around.

Because capitalism has always existed, and not only that, is ingrained within the human mind.

Trade has been recorded since ancient times (basically as long as there have been records), although not capitalism as we define it. I think Starglider goes a little too far, since communism can work in very small groups where social pressure is strong and capable enough to punish free-riders, but his greater point is correct.

Capitalism as it exists was not handed down from On High, and it's conceited to believe it was. It began, we are currently existing in it, and will at some point have an end.

No, it's just a very useful way to organize large-scale economic activity of an extremely diverse nature.

There is absolutely nothing stopping people from forming co-operatives.

Except for zoning laws, the Chambers of Commerce, undermining by local industry and open hostility by local rubes?

Do you have any concrete examples, including links?

[Liberty]

Ideally, the State has nothing whatsoever to do with communism.

Incoherent, irrelevant fantasy. Human psychology is fundamentally incompatible with such notions. Even with unlimited oppressive state power destroying all internal competition, the USSR's communism utterly failed at economic progress vs external competition. Had they used the Chinese strategy of steady, carefully controlled retreat from communism, they might still be around.

I was taught in a history class on the Soviet Union that it was never actually communist. Communist means you have no government at all. Instead, I was taught that the Soviet Union was socialist, and had the goal of becoming communist in the future. However, it kind of got stuck at socialist and never proceeded (likely because true communism on that level is impossible). The prof who taught the class was from the Ukraine, and left only shortly after the fall of the USSR.

On socialism: it's really a sliding scale. Hardcore socialism has the government owning all industry, a planned economy, etc. Soft core socialism (often called social democracy) allows for some capitalism, but highly regulates it and has universal health care, education, social security, etc. So Britain = soft core socialism; USSR = hardcore socialism. That's my understanding, anyway.

[Samuel]

I was taught in a history class on the Soviet Union that it was never actually communist. Communist means you have no government at all.

They were refering to Marxism where, after the dictatorship of the proletariat (where the majority form a tyranny... okay) the state would "wither away". Needless to say, no one ever tried that.

However, it kind of got stuck at socialist and never proceeded (likely because true communism on that level is impossible). The prof who taught the class was from the Ukraine, and left only shortly after the fall of the USSR.

I think he was refering to the attempt to completely eliminate the market and the price system under Lenin. It... didn't work. Say what you want about getting communism to work, but you cannot run a modern economy without prices and money.

On socialism: it's really a sliding scale. Soft core socialism (often called social democracy) allows for some capitalism, but highly regulates it and has universal health care, education, social security, etc.

I'd just like to point out that socialism refers to government running the economy- I don't think regulation is required for socialism. Not positive though.

Also, social democracies are countries that have a strong safety net. It doesn't require the government to nationalize any industries.

I could be mistaken though, so I'll let our more experienced commentators point it out. It is definational stuff which seems to change depending on who you talk to so it is annoyingly vague.

[MKSheppard]

Seriously though, Shep, do you have to be so churlish and try to contribute to N&P being a shit hole?

Excuse me? Person with eight posts (when this thread was created) posts a simple "can communism work" fishing post that consists of about two lines.

Well gee, it's so obvious he's doing this for a school project. Thank you everyone who responded for doing his work!

[K. A. Pital]

Even with unlimited oppressive state power destroying all internal competition, the USSR's communism utterly failed at economic progress vs external competition.

Internal competition might be destroyed, but what about external competition? Are you seriously saying that the USSR could have competed with the First World powers and won? The same First World powers which, save for a few counterexamples, spent ages to concentrate capital (including human capital obviously) and industrial power?

I doubt even the most efficient and ruthless system of capital accumulation would've "won" here and not failed. Displace the US or European and Soviet industrial potentials in c.1920, and you'll get a completely different situation. Economy is more complex than just "planned economy fails UH HUR".

I'm not sure what you're arguing against, too.

Say what you want about getting communism to work, but you cannot run a modern economy without prices and money.

Indeed. The state planning commitees can set prices and they can set production targets, and fully control the flow of money. But they don't abolish neither prices nor money. A rationing system can be efficiently installed, but the state will still utilize a price/money mechanism, or some form thereof, internally, to determine just how much resources were spent to build/make good X or Y and compare them. To compare goods, they'll have to use a common unit. It may be "fictional money" which never even sees the mint (if there's complete rationing), but it will still be used to price labour and raw material costs for the state's own accounting.

Only an environment where scarcity for all basic goods is eliminated can abandon small-scale accounting entirely and only use accounting for some really labour/capital intensive projects. Our economies are quite far from that, however, and were even farther away during the times when the USSR was still around.

Why bother when we can compare, say, Taiwan and South Korea, to said Soviet Bloc countries? Both of those US clients started off far poorer than the Soviet Bloc states at the time, and were far better off on a per capita basis by the time the Soviet Union toppled.

"Far" better off? You could say that of Japan, but South Korea and Taiwan only barely exceeded the USSR's per capita GDP when it entered a growth slowdown in the 1980s.

Besides, SK and Taiwan have their own geopolitical value to the First World and the USA, especially during the Cold War - both were places located on the border with the Soviet influence zone, and thus prime targets for support, in both military and civilian industry.

As for the South American countries, they're a poor representation of capitalism during most of the Cold War.

What, with death squads of the Brazilian dictatorship killing striking workers on foreign automobile plants? That sounds like good ole' ruthless capitalism to me - just in it's "early" phase. Known as capital accumulation. I'm not sure you can say that the anti-communist bastions of the Monroe doctrine in South America created and upheld by the USA and it's proxies are "poor representations of capitalism".

Moreover, you can also note a pattern. For example, Puerto Rico which was the target of "Operation Bootstrap", a huge effort to industrialize the place, got a very good GDP/capita result in a very small share of time. That's what you get when you target resources and aid to a certain place.

On the other hand, other places which were neglected, despite being in proximity to the USA and never under Soviet patronage, did much, much worse.

I'd say it's a matter of targeted support by the First World. The disgraced nations of the Third World could've became just as prosperous as South Korea or Japan if the had the same amount of trade and investment from the old nations of the First World. But they didn't, and many of them were sometimes even all too ardently capitalist to placate their masters in the First World government and financial elites.

[jamsy42]

It can'[t work because it relies on everyone being nice to each and not being greedy which ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN

[Patrick Degan]

It can'[t work because it relies on everyone being nice to each and not being greedy which ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN

No, that's why anarchism and libertarianism won't work. Socialism has actually worked to varying degrees of success in the modern world. And communism has worked in small scale societies (mainly religious orders) but failed when attempted on a national scale.

[Guardsman Bass]

"Far" better off? You could say that of Japan, but South Korea and Taiwan only barely exceeded the USSR's per capita GDP when it entered a growth slowdown in the 1980s.

Nice chart (I especially love the irregular intervals, like 1928 to 1940, then 1940 to 1950, and so forth). I'll concede the "far" part, but not the "better off" (nor the fact that they started out lower).

Besides, SK and Taiwan have their own geopolitical value to the First World and the USA, especially during the Cold War - both were places located on the border with the Soviet influence zone, and thus prime targets for support, in both military and civilian industry.

Did they suddenly become much more important after 1970? Because that's when your chart shows their growth really skyrocketing, even though the US had been supporting both of them (and Japan) since the 1950s.

[bobalot]

There is absolutely nothing stopping people from forming co-operatives. The UK even has specific legal structures to help, though they're not essential, you can write appropriate representation and compenstation rules into any corporate charter. Co-ops don't compete because they fundamentally suck. No one with an ounce of talent or ambition wants to be tied down in a system where they are unable to make decisions without filtering through a mass of ignorant no-nothings, and unable to reap benefits in proportion to their personal performance. Thus you get a mass of untalented greedy sods with a few naive idealists mixed in, and the whole thing usually collapses from awful decision making or paralysing power struggles. Collectives work for eco-villages etc because they aren't directly competing; they can effectively pay their residents a pittance because the residents get intangible value out of living in their touchy-feely-eco-harmony.

Is there actual evidence to suggest that generally co-operatives do poorly? A casual google search finds many cooperatives that are relatively successful (that aren't simply eco-villages)

[Serafina]

It can'[t work because it relies on everyone being nice to each and not being greedy which ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN

Hmm....i think it's worth noting what Liberty posted in light of that:

I was taught in a history class on the Soviet Union that it was never actually communist. Communist means you have no government at all. Instead, I was taught that the Soviet Union was socialist, and had the goal of becoming communist in the future. However, it kind of got stuck at socialist and never proceeded (likely because true communism on that level is impossible). The prof who taught the class was from the Ukraine, and left only shortly after the fall of the USSR.

Communism is not, and never was, about the removal of all goverment. Indeed, the communist manifesto continuously talked about "state-controlled this, state-controlled that."
All the notions that "the USSR was never fully communist" presume that because it never had "universal contoll by the people".
Well, that just isn't a criteria - no serious definition includes "removal of goverment".
Indeed, it's just plain ignorant to include "no goverment" in the definion of something that calls for the placement of all power in the hand of the goverment!

Socialism can indeed be described as a sliding scale:
Socialism means that the goverment contolls (wether directly or by restricting laws) some parts of the economy to benefit the society. That includes such things as state-owned power plants, a state-controlled mail/telephone system,, a state-regulated raid&road system and state-run healthcare (even if other healthcare insurance is still allowed).
It's obvious that this is not an all-or-nothing system - the state can own or regulate some things but not others. The more he controlls, the most socialist the state is.

Indeed, it's virtually impossible to find a working goverment that is not socialist to some degree. Wether it's merely building roads, or passing a law that prevents syndicates from forming - some degree of controll is just necessary.