Be Human

There are many critics of capitalism yet these thinkers give us no credible vision of how it might really be different except that we need to "resist" the government and the corporations They offer little hope of any real transformative change.

Socialist society will undergo extraordinary transformations and there will be new levels of social cooperation beyond the struggle to survive, and people will be able to live as freely associating human beings, sharing the common abundance of their labour, and taking responsibility and caring for each other in ways that are only possible in a world that has gotten rid of all oppressive economic, social, and political relations—and all the oppressive ideas that go along with such relations. It is impossible now to say how humanity in a socialist world will live and we can only imagine and speculate about what such a world would actually look like. But we can be sure that human relationships will be completely and radically different. This transformation to a decent world system based on equality, justice, freedom, peace, and sustainability is to be achieved non-violently and democratically, through ratification procedures.

 Many ask us: is socialism possible? Is there enough to let everyone have the right to take as they wished? We answer: yes and we can, indeed, apply the principle: “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”, because, in future societies, production will be so abundant that there will be no need to limit consumption, or to demand from people more work than they are willing or able to give. Right now, we can begin to imagine this immense growth in production when we look at the capabilities and potential of automation and robotics. The appearance of these helpers of work, as large as it seems to us today, is quite minimal in comparison to what it will be in societies to come. Today, the machine often has the ignorance of the capitalist against it, but more often still his interest. How many new inventions and innovations are going unapplied only because they do not bring an immediate benefit to the capitalist? Will a company, for example, go to great expense to safeguard the interests of the workers and construct costly equipment to protect their workers' health and safety? So many discoveries, go unheeded, only because they do not bring sufficient profit to the capitalist.

The workers today is also the enemy of new technology and rightfully so because they are the monster that comes to displace them from jobs, to starve and dehumanise. But, yet, what an immense gain we would have when we will no longer be the servant of the machines but, on the contrary, they would be at our service, helping and working for his well-being.

Competition is one of the fundamental principles of capitalist production, where the ruination of one makes the fortune of another. this relentless rivalry happens from nation to nation, from region to region, from individual to individual, between workers as well as between capitalists. One industry prospers where other industries decline. A worker finds work where another has lost it. In the socialist society of the future, this individualistic principle of capitalist production of each for themselves against all others, and everyone against everyone will be replaced by the true principle of human society: all for one and one for all.  Imagine how great will be the growth of production, when each of us, far from needing to fight against all the others, will be helped by them when we will have them not as enemies but as co-operators. If the collective work often attains results absolutely impossible for one alone, how grand will be the results obtained by the large-scale cooperation of all who, today, work hostilely against each other?

Also, consider the huge savings and the end of wasted energy and resources that will be made because they will not be expended on the production of absolutely useless things when they are not harmful to humanity. How many workers, how much material, and how many tools are used today by the military to build their arsenals of offensive and “defensive” weaponry! How much raw materials are wasted to produce luxury objects that serve nothing but the needs of vanity and hedonism od the rich and powerful? Think of how all this industry begins to be used for the production of objects that themselves will serve to produce, what a prodigious growth in production we will see appearing.

Of course, we let everyone take according to their will since there will be enough for everyone. We will no longer need to demand more work than anyone wants to give because there will always be enough products for tomorrow. It’s thanks to this abundance that work will lose the dreadful character of enslavement. Not only is socialism possible it is necessary. Perhaps there may be at the at the beginning of socialism, there could be some products which will not be abundant enough; it will be necessary to establish som sort of rationing so be it. How that is accomplished could be based labour-time or by a lottery, or even “first come, first served” but we must remain socialists so it must be done according to needs. The family, that small model of socialism is our example. In the family, at dinner, everyone serves themselves as they please according to their appetites; there is no rationing. But if bad days arrive, and being destitute forces mother to no longer rely on the appetite and taste of each person for distribution at dinner and it is necessary to ration, the portions are reduced. But see, this sharing is not always equal, because it’s the youngest children who receive the most generous helpings, and the best piece of the meat is reserved for the grand-mother. Even during a food shortage, the family operates on the principle of rationing according to needs. Could it be otherwise in the human family of the future?

Be realistic, demand the impossible