Editing Marxism–Leninism (section)

=== Economy ===
[[File:“Strengthen working discipline in collective farms” – Uzbek, Tashkent, 1933 (Mardjani).jpg|thumb|left|1933 [[Soviet propaganda]] encouraging peasants and farmers to strengthen working discipline in [[Collectivization in the Soviet Union|collective farms]] in the [[Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic]]]]
The goal of Marxist–Leninist [[political economy]] is the emancipation of people from the [[dehumanisation]] caused by mechanistic work that is [[Theory of alienation|psychologically alienating]], without work–life balance, which is performed in exchange for [[wage]]s that give limited financial-access to the material necessities of life, such as food and shelter. That personal and societal emancipation from [[poverty]] (material necessity) would maximise individual liberty by enabling men and women to pursue their interests and innate talents (artistic, industrial and intellectual) whilst working by choice, without the economic coercion of poverty. In the [[communist society]] of upper-stage economic development, the elimination of alienating labour (mechanistic work) depends upon the developments of [[high technology]] that improve the means of production and the means of distribution. To meet the material needs of a socialist society, the state uses a [[planned economy]] to co-ordinate the [[means of production]] and of distribution to supply and deliver the goods and services required throughout society and the national economy. The state serves as a safeguard for the ownership and as the coordinator of production through a universal economic plan.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=138}}

For the purpose of reducing waste and increasing efficiency, scientific planning replaces [[market mechanism]]s and [[price mechanism]]s as the guiding principle of the economy.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=138}} The state's huge purchasing power replaces the role of market forces, with [[macroeconomic]] [[Economic equilibrium|equilibrium]] not being achieved through market forces but by economic planning based on scientific [[Program evaluation|assessment]].{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=139}} The [[wages]] of the worker are determined according to the type of skills and the type of work he or she can perform within the national economy.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=140}} Moreover, the economic value of the goods and services produced is based upon their [[use value]] (as material objects) and not upon the [[Labor theory of value|cost of production]] (value) or the [[exchange value]] ([[marginal utility]]). The [[profit motive]] as a driving force for production is replaced by social obligation to fulfil the economic plan.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=139}} [[Wage]]s are set and differentiated according to skill and intensity of work. While socially utilised means of production are under public control, personal belongings or property of a personal nature that does not involve mass production of goods remains unaffected by the state.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=140}}

Because Marxism–Leninism has historically been the state ideology of countries who were economically undeveloped prior to [[socialist revolution]], or whose economies were nearly obliterated by war such as the [[German Democratic Republic]] and the [[Socialist Republic of Vietnam]], the primary goal before achieving communism was the development of socialism in itself. Such was the case in the Soviet Union, where the economy was largely agrarian and urban industry was in a primitive stage. To develop socialism, the Soviet Union underwent [[Industrialization in the Soviet Union#Industrialization in practice|rapid industrialisation]] with pragmatic programs of [[Social engineering (political science)|social engineering]] that transplanted peasant populations to the cities, where they were educated and trained as [[industrial workers]] and then became the workforce of the new factories and industries. Similarly, the farmer populations worked the [[Collectivisation in the Soviet Union|system of collective farms]] to grow food to feed the industrial workers in the industrialised cities. Since the mid-1930s, Marxism–Leninism has advocated an austere social-equality based upon [[asceticism]], [[egalitarianism]], and [[self-sacrifice]].{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=731}} In the 1920s, the [[Bolshevik party]] semi-officially allowed some limited, small-scale wage inequality to boost labour productivity in the [[economy of the Soviet Union]]. These reforms were promoted to encourage materialism and acquisitiveness in order to stimulate economic growth.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=731}} This pro-consumerist policy has been advanced on the lines of industrial pragmatism as it advances economic progress through bolstering industrialisation.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=732}}

In the economic praxis of Bolshevik Russia, there was a defining difference of political economy between socialism and communism. Lenin explained their conceptual similarity to Marx's descriptions of the lower-stage and the upper-stage of economic development, namely that immediately after a proletarian revolution in the socialist lower-stage society the practical economy must be based upon the individual labour contributed by men and women,<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Chris |date=1998 |title=Dictionary of Historical Terms |edition=2nd |pages=221–222 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-0-333-67347-8}}</ref> and paid labour would be the basis of the communist upper-stage society that has realised the social precept of the slogan "[[From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs]]."<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Krieger |editor1-first=Joel |editor2-last=Murphy |editor2-first=Craig N. |date=2012 |title=The Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=218 |isbn=978-0-19-973859-5}}</ref>