The future society

Socialists recognise that in a society divided into antagonistic classes, founded on exploitation and ruled by capital. Socialism is the struggle of the working class for freedom. Freedom from hunger and poverty, freedom from war, from endless drudgery and toil, from exploitation, from racial and sexual oppressions. These are the freedoms workers seek. These can be made a reality only by the working class having the freedom to run society. Socialist production is to have the aim of securing for everyone a dignified life, plentiful food and providing other cultural means of existence.

Socialists are accused of believing in the workers’ state, of everything being owned by the government. The opposite is the case. We are opponents of any state. The state by its very nature is an instrument of class domination – a means by which one class to hold down another. States cannot be other than institutions of force. The state is an instrument for maintaining the exploitation of the many by the few. The socialist proposition is that of the withering away of the state. Ours is not the anarchist view that the state can be dispensed with immediately but will be used as a necessary adapted weapon for the total defeat of the capitalist class and a tool for the achievement of material abundance in which goods are distributed according to need.  In these circumstances, the state will have lost its essential functions. The working class must above all else strive to get the entire political power of the state into its own hands. Political power, however, is for us socialists only a means. For the end which we must use this power is the fundamental transformation of the entire economic relations. There will be no oppressor class to defend and no oppressed class to hold down. Nor with world socialism will there be national interests to assert or foreign interests to combat. What about crime some will ask. In a socialist society crime will, to all intents and purposes, disappear, not because under socialism everyone will become ‘good’ or morally perfect, but because the motives and opportunity for crime will be removed. There can be no pecuniary gain to be had. What about crimes of anger and passion? The frustration, the rage, will exist in much lower intensity and a non-competitive socialist society which cares equally for all its members will undoubtedly reduce them greatly. The alienation that causes much of anti-social behaviour will also grow less common.  In the socialist society, the state having withered away will be the final completion of humanity’s leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom – which is the essence of socialism.

In socialist society workers are free and equal human beings who work for their own well-being and benefit. That means by themselves, working on their own initiative. One cannot realise socialism with lazy, frivolous, egoistic, thoughtless and indifferent human beings.  A socialist society needs people full of passion and enthusiasm full of empathy and sympathy for their fellow human beings. Since all work for each other's benefit, all are interested in producing articles of the best possible quality with the least effort and in the shortest possible time in order to save labour time and gain time for the production of new articles to satisfy higher needs. This common interest induces all to bend their thoughts to improving, simplifying and accelerating the labour process. The ambition to explore new technologies, to invent and to discover is stimulated. Everyone who is concerned with practical affairs knows how suspicious the worker is today of these technological improvements, of every new machine or process that is to be introduced. As a rule, he or she is right for it is not the employee who enjoys the advantage they offer, but his employer; we cannot help but fear that the new machines, the improvements being introduced, will throw us out into the street as superfluous. Instead of welcoming inventions we can only curse them. And how many production improvements on the assembly line or shop-floor are discovered by workers who keep silent about them for they fear lest they should derive harm, not benefit. Such are the natural consequences of the conflict of interests. In socialist society the antagonism is eliminated. Productivity will grow enormously. How much time will be saved by having production on a rational basis. The principle "cheap and shoddy", which is and must be the principle underlying a large part of the production for profit, cutting quality for quantity,  because most consumers can afford only inexpensive goods that soon wear out, is abolished. The vagaries of fashion, which only promote waste, will stop because men and women will seek their self-esteem in other ways to conspicuous consumption.  Socialism will introduce a greater stability in society's habits, ending the scramble from one fashion to the other, and the chase from one style to the other. Capital does not involve itself in the affairs of mankind unless there is a profit to be made. Humanity is not quoted on the stock exchange. A socialist society will know no other consideration but the welfare of its members. What is useful to them and protects them will be made and what harms them will no longer be produced.

People will be free to choose an ‘occupation’ or ‘career’ and to change it at will. Just as constant repetition makes the choicest dish bland, so does the treadmill of a repetitive occupation day in day out render the mind dull and slack. Within every person, there are latent abilities and inclinations which only need to be awakened to develop. Socialist society will offer full opportunities for the satisfaction of the need for variety and diversity. At present, there are extraordinarily few people who have the opportunity to vary their occupation. Only occasionally do we find some favoured by circumstances who were able to escape the monotony of everyday drudgery, whether physical or mental.

 In the future socialist society "commodities" will not be "bought" and "sold", but products, the necessaries of life, will be to consume, and have no other purpose, such as exchange. In socialism, the capacity to consume is not limited by the individual's ability to buy, as it is in capitalism, but by the collective capacity to produce. If the instruments of production and the work force are available every need can be satisfied. The social capacity to consume is limited only by the consumers' saturation point. There being no "commodities" in the future society, neither will there be any money. Socialism produces only articles for the satisfaction of needs, use value, not exchange value. Money disappears, no longer the universal equivalent and the measure of value for all other commodities.