Free the wage slaves

Future society will be socialist society. This means primarily, that there will be no classes in that society; there will be neither capitalists nor proletarians and, consequently, there will be no exploitation. In that society there will be only workers engaged in collective labour. Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed -- there will be only free workers. Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power. Socialism entails the total abolition of money and the wages system. Any system by which the buying and selling system is retained means the employment of vast sections of the population in unproductive work. It leaves the productive work to be done by one portion of the people whilst the other portion is spending its energies in keeping shop, banking, making advertisements and all the various developments of commerce which, in fact, employ more than two-thirds of the people today. So long as the money system remains, each productive enterprise must be run on a paying basis. Therefore it will tend to aim at employing as few workers as possible, in order to spend less on wages. The payment of wages entails the power to dismiss the worker by officials. The existence of a wage system almost inevitably leads to unequal wages; overtime, bonuses, higher pay for work requiring special qualifications. The future society will not produce "commodities" to be "bought" and "sold", but produces the necessaries of life that are used up, consumed, and have no other purpose. In the new society the capacity to consume is not limited by the individual's ability to buy, as it is in bourgeois society, but by the collective capacity to produce. If the instruments of labour and the labour 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 call there be any money. There will not even be any bookkeeping transactions or coupons to regulate how much one works and how much one gets. When labour has ceased to be a mere means of life and becomes life’s prime necessity, people will work without any compulsion and take what they need.  For in the socialist society, when there is plenty and abundance for all, what will be the point in keeping account of each one’s share. “Wages” will become an obsolete word. There would be no need for compulsion or forcible allotment of material means by the means of rationing via wages.

Society cannot exist without labour, though. But, work should be useful productive activity. No enjoyment without work, no work without enjoyment. Each individual decides on the type of work he wishes to engage in. The great number of diverse fields of activity makes it possible to take account of the most varied wishes. If it appears that there is a surplus of labour in one field and a shortage in another, then arrangements must be made to establish an equilibrium. To organise production and to give the various workers the chance to be used in the right place, this will be the main task of the elected administrators. The various sectors of production and departments choose organisers, who are to take over adminstration. They are not task-masters like the managers and overseers of today but fellow-workers who exercise an administrative function specially entrusted to them instead of a productive function. 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. Labour is organised on the basis of complete freedom and democratic equality, where it is each for all and all for each, hence, where full solidarity reigns, will generate a desire to create and a spirit of emulation not to be found anywhere in the economic system of today. This creative impulse affects the productivity of labour as well. In socialist society the antagonism of interests is removed. The application of new technology, which under capitalism is determined by considerations of profit, in the future system will depend entirely upon productivity. Technology which may be very useful for saving labour is very frequently useless from the standpoint of capitalist profits. In socialist society such a point of view will not prevail and there will therefore be no obstacles to the application of labour-saving machinery.

Socialist society does not come into being so that men and women shall live in proletarian conditions but to abolish the proletarian way of life. Socialism should not be thought of as an arbitrary scheme of society to be constructed from a preconceived plan, but understood as the next stage of social evolution. Future society will grow out of the new conditions when the class struggle will have been carried to its conclusion—that is, to the abolition of classes and consequently of all class struggles. Our vision of the future socialist society is a forecast of the lines of future development already indicated in the present. Instead of capitalism’s: “From each whatever you can get—to each whatever you can grab.” The socialist society of universal abundance will be “From each according to ability—to each according to needs.” In the socialist future society of shared abundance, a nightmare will be lifted from the minds of the people. They will be secure and free from fear; and there will come about a revolution in their attitude toward life and their enjoyment of it. Humanity will get a chance to show what it is really made of.