Socialism and Excellence: Reply to Smirnoff

The People's Cube got me thinking however.

There is a common myth that socialists want to make everyone 'the same', that socialism would stifle creativity and excellence, making people into mindless clones, all singing from a little red hymnsheet.

Socialists would counter that it is capitalism that encourages mindless conformity, even packaging 'rebellion' into a neatly wrapped commodity for sale at profit.

Here is the reply I posted to 'Comrade Smirnoff':

The 'People's Cube' has nothing in common with socialism. Those who accuse socialists of wishing to create a society where there is no intellectual challenge, no opportunity for excellence are simply projecting the mushy braindead capitalist MTV culture onto socialism.

Karl Marx defined socialism as 'From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs'.

What are the blindingly obivous implications of this statement?

1. That Marx understood that human beings have different abilities and needs.
2. People with high abilities would be encouraged to express these to the full in a socialist society.
3. People with lower abilities should also contribute to society, we xhould find ways to enable them to do this, rather than rejecting, segregating or impoverishing such people.
4. Socialism does not try to make people the same. It recognises and celebrates their differences, emphasising unity and solidarity NOT homogeneity.

Regurgitating anti-socialist propaganda may be mildly funny, but you seem intelligent enough to recognise when such propaganda is groundless. Is it worth maligning the people who are struggling to create a better world, simply for the sake of a chuckle?