3.3 Expectations of the New System
Communism should be considered the best social system
Karl Marx created the term communism. It presents a political and economic system in which society owns the means of production and produces for the benefit of the people. Marx defined communism as “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”[1] According to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, communism is the final stage of socialism. Communism should provide all goods and services free of charge to all people, which socialism could not. This is the only difference. Karl Marx and his most prominent students: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, Mao Zedong, Josip Broz Tito, Fidel Castro, and now Kim Jong-un, have failed to build communism even in theory. Even though their work was based on a noble ideology, they could not find a successful method to improve society, and the final result was a failure.
The prime condition for building socialism and communism must be the equal rights of people. Karl Marx thought the same but failed to define them. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin initially intended to build socialism and communism based on equal human rights, but he failed because the people could hardly agree on anything. Democratic anarchy is the solution, but the technology required was unavailable in Marx’s and Lenin’s time. Lenin’s attempt to establish equal human rights experienced such difficulties that he gave up on them and took control over people. The rest of the socialist leaders followed suit. It was precisely where everything went wrong with socialism and communism.
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Hopefully, this study has convincingly presented the third natural law of society: Establishing equal human rights creates constructive and harmonious social relations, making people satisfied with their lives. If so, people would be willing to build socialism. To reach communism, people will need to allocate all their incomes for taxes by their free will. Then all of the goods and services will be available free of charge to all people. Technically speaking, if some people refuse to allocate all their gross salaries for taxes, all the people will still receive some income, and some of the goods and services will be charged. This would still be socialism and not communism.
Most people believe that communism is impossible to realize due to the weaknesses of human nature. This is false. Money is a real need in a scarcely supplied society. The wealthy elite have increased the value of money much more than it objectively deserves because by having money while people do not, they achieve power over people.
Socialism will significantly change this. It will increase production and workers’ salaries, bringing abundant production and consumption available to everyone. Socialism will give stability and justice to the process of production and distribution. Each work position will be theoretically open to everyone at any time. The work market will make all jobs equally desirable, contributing to building harmony in society. People will have equal rights to represent their interests everywhere. By implementing equal human rights, people will become genuinely equal. Then they should realize the second natural law of society: equal power among people builds harmonious social relations. The proposed socio-economic system should create a harmonious society.
The history of humankind is a history of imposed knowledge by authorities that has alienated people from their nature. People should not uncritically accept the influences of other people. They are not even supposed to compare themselves with others because it may alienate them from their nature instead of letting them embrace it. Alienation has put people on the wrong path on which they cannot satisfy their needs. Unsatisfied needs bring disappointment and antagonism and create destructive relationships.
Equal human rights will rid people of authoritative pressure and give them the freedom to follow their interests. Such experiences will teach people to consider the influences of others critically. It will demystify alienated values imposed by authorities throughout the history of humankind. It will help people to get closer to their nature. As a result, people will form objective needs that they may satisfy, which creates a joyful life, bringing living pleasure.
The responsibility the system requires from people will teach people to set their needs according to their ability to satisfy them. Therefore, they should realize the first natural law of society: people who permanently meet their needs create constructive social relations. Such people are not destructive. Once people accept the natural laws of society, they will contribute to building a natural, harmonious, and highly prosperous society.
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Socialism can regulate all kinds of values in society by using past labour points that will present people’s incomes and decision-making power in the economy. Among other things, past labour points may regulate the world population. For example, granting a stimulating quantity of past labour points for childbirth may increase a low population. And vice versa, a high population may be decreased by removing a sufficient number of past labour points from the couples who would like to have more children than society finds appropriate. Furthermore, the system will develop the same responsibility for protecting the human environment. It will make the whole planet Earth clean and healthy. Using past labour points will make it possible to influence humankind to become highly responsible for its future.
Socialism will not need many of today’s work posts anymore. The reduction of work posts will start with administration, national defence, police, marketing, trading, insurance companies, etc. The administration will be significantly less needed because accounting will be automatic. The national defence will not be required because no threat to any nation will exist anymore. Police will not be necessary because no danger for individuals will exist anymore. Marketing will not be needed because no competition among companies will exist anymore. Traders will be less demanded because consumers will mostly order their consumption directly from producers. Insurance will not be needed because the system will directly ensure all people.
It is hard to name precisely all the work posts that will not be needed in the future, but one may assume they would probably be work posts in direct production and services to satisfy the natural needs of society. Therefore, one can assume it is approximately half of today’s work posts. Furthermore, suppose one considers that the system ensures the full employment of workers. In that case, such a reduction will automatically reduce needed working hours to 4 hours per worker per day to realize the same productivity as today.
The work, in its duration, directly brings conveniences and inconveniences. The individual aspires for a career that brings more advantages and tries to avoid inconvenient work. Shorter work hours will reduce inconveniences that work may bring. In the proposed system, each worker will have an excellent opportunity to choose the work that will, in its duration, bring them major conveniences under the condition that they offer the greatest productivity. It may be supposed that each worker will invest more effort in the field of their working interest, which will augment their working abilities and will thus exercise the right to work in their interest.
The workers unable to accomplish good productivity at any job convenient to them may be released from the work duty; however, they will realize a smaller income than employed workers. During their length of service and by inheritance, each worker gathers past labour points. If they collect enough past work points, they can be released from any work and simultaneously acquire a fair share in the income distribution based on past labour results.
Work will be a value to workers, so they will lower the price of current work to achieve greater competitive power for the desired job. Some workers employed at work posts bringing them a great convenience will over time accept income equal to if they are not working, or an even lower one. This means that labour will be of greater value than inactivity for such workers and a greater value than the consumption of manufactured goods and services. They will achieve the right to the work in their interest on account of a smaller share in income distribution. Many people would be willing to work on a gratis basis in today’s attractive work posts, such as the post of state president or a leading movie actor. The new system will demystify the value of work posts. When all work posts become equally accessible to the people, work practice will remove their alienated mystic value. Also, the system will make all work posts similarly attractive, which will equalize demand for all work posts.
The inconvenient jobs will be identified by a considerably higher current work price. These jobs may be assumed to be manual, physical, and non-creative work forms, such as line production, mining, building, or agriculture. Such work forms will be assisted or entirely replaced by automation.
Today’s technological progress in production has already managed to rid the individual of markedly inconvenient forms of work, and this process will further develop. Further on, management in the economy can redistribute the unsuitable work conditions onto several work posts over a short work time, contributing to the balanced distribution of the working burden. Furthermore, the development of technology and new work division with work competition will benefit the workers. That means that the workers may start to achieve higher conveniences at work than they can achieve out of work. In socialism, the work will be becoming a direct value.
The immediate value of the work represents the being benefits derived from the work itself. The benefits of being have long and intense periods until the state of saturation. Socialism can contribute to the cognition that a lasting and balanced form of convenience arises from being. Being implies all activities in the formation and satisfaction of needs. It primarily affects free decision-making and creative action in production and politics, science, culture, sports, and other forms of activity. The proposed system allows a great possibility of being in all fields and therefore gives every person the opportunity to provide significant benefits of living.
The indirect value of the work advocates the conveniences arising from the consumption of goods produced by labour. The socialist system of production will bring an abundance of produced goods. The socialist system of distribution of the means of consumption will enable every individual to consume it. When a lot of the means of consumption are accessible to each individual, it will help the individual eliminate the alienated idea of power created by the possession of goods. If the supply of commodities exceeds the consumption needs, commodities will lose their alienated trade value. In such a way, socialism promotes demystification of the produced goods, which contributes to the satisfaction of people’s natural needs. The characteristic of the natural use of commodities is an easy and quick saturation, after which further spending on goods can no longer bring conveniences to the individual.
It should be said that by accepting work competition, productivity would be much higher than it is today. The increase in production in the developed world will create general consumer saturation. The consumer mentality will become less pronounced, and society’s interest in commodity consumption will stagnate or fall. Besides that, one should consider the process of disalienation of community that will decrease society’s needs for consumption by finding values of being so that the large production of today will not be needed anymore.
The stagnation of the development of economic productivity in capitalism brings a financial crisis. Socialism will overcome such a crisis by reorganizing labour and further shortening the necessary working hours. Most likely, the future will not require more than two to three hours of work per worker daily to realize such economic productivity that will satisfy the needs of society. By shortening work time, the inconvenient form of work is reduced even more, while on the other hand, the work freedom can provide workers great working benefits. Then the direct value of work will grow further.
The reduction of working hours does not mean that socialism will prevent some from working as much as they want. Here is presented an average amount of work that will produce a reasonably high standard of living for all people. The workers will probably work two days per week and have a five-day-long weekend.
Is it possible? Not only is it possible but also a necessity for future production. Today, many companies spend more hours searching for products that the market demands than producing them. They also invest more work hours in marketing to find customers than in the production of commodities. The producers often make goods without utility value with the hope that they will sell their products with the help of marketing and low prices. In the capitalist economy, they do not have another choice because they have to produce something to earn money for a living. What a senseless waste of work and natural resources! What a meaningless life!
The future will require the new system to implement a considerable rationalization of natural resource spending. It is possible through new inventions, better organization of work, and the change in human needs through disalienation.
It may be expected that in a more technologically developed production, most workers will experience more and more conveniences at work. To increase their work competitiveness, they will reduce their current work price and income. When the overall working interest becomes greater than production needs, the entire population will vote to increase workers’ minimal income to diminish the income-based interest in employment. A more sizable competition-related reduction in the current work price will no longer be able to lower the revenue. Therefore, the worker’s coefficient of responsibility will form a more substantial work competition power coupled with productivity.
The increase of minimal income will proportionally lower other payments because the total amount of money for all people’s salaries is limited. However, a decrease in the difference among the workers’ incomes will not impact the private holding of past labour points. The individual’s quantity of past labour points will remain untouched in the ownership of each inhabitant as a demonstration of personal productive power. Also, by allocating a more significant amount of money from income for tax purposes, net income will decrease, but workers’ number of points of past work remains unchanged.
The higher coefficient of responsibility will further increase the number of past labour points of workers in the case of either individual or collective rise in productivity. Conversely, in the case of a fall in workers’ individual or collective productivity, workers who express a higher coefficient of responsibility will be sanctioned to a larger extent by reducing the number of past labour points. It is already presented that the system will direct each individual to form their natural needs within the limits of their possibility of realization, which ensures the completion of envisaged productivity. That is also the basis of constructive social orientation.
The market economy that socialism takes from capitalism and improves will not be able to envisage the social needs successfully enough. The economic production that does not find demand for its products incurs losses. In socialism, the issue of producers’ responsibility will tighten because the losses in the economy will sanction past labour points of workers. For this reason, the economy will have to search for a more secure form of business activity and find it in production for the known consumers. Even today, special and expensive forms of production are performed following consumer orders.
Socialism envisages collective spending as a consumption based on mutual orders. The associated economy can gradually request the population to plan and order its special material needs to accomplish an even more stable business activity. Production according to consumer orders would progressively create a democratically planned economy, which would no longer be able to develop disinvestments and thus incur losses. Such an economy would bring stability and prosperity to society.
Assets intended for economic development will be determined at the commune, state and international levels according to the following principles of direct democracy. In this way, all communes of the world will be allowed to influence the formation of the funds intended for economic development and exercise the right to their use by their competitive ability in performing the business activity.
Economically developed parts of the world will sooner or later register a drop in consumer needs due to a general saturation, which will decrease the demand for cash assets intended for economic development. The reduced interest in economic growth in developed countries will simplify the access for developing countries to the world’s collective cash assets designed for economic development. As time passes, underdeveloped countries will evolve to a state of consumer saturation. The world market, saturated with work products, will diminish the need for economic development and, accordingly, the demand for money intended to develop the economy. The world population will then vote for smaller appropriations of money for this purpose. It may be expected that at a higher degree of economic development of all humankind, assets intended for developing the market economy, as a form of large-size spending, will decrease to zero.
However, humankind will always need to develop its production, which will require work and money. Money required for economic development can be later earmarked from the fund of collective spending. Economic growth in a developed society will no longer depend on the market but on the production plan.
Once the assets intended for the development of the market economy decrease to zero, society will earmark all assets for spending. It may be expected that the population saturated with individual expenditures and aware of the collective spending rationality will dedicate a large portion of assets used for economic development to the collaborative spending.
A larger amount of money for collective spending will enable a larger, higher quality, and generally better collaborative consumption. The purpose of money assets for communal expenditure will be determined directly by the people by transferring the assets into funds of their interest. Certain funds that receive a more significant amount of money will develop more specific forms of collective consumption.
It may be expected that at some point in the society’s development, some amount of money for collective consumption will, due to general saturation, remain unused after meeting the mutual consumption needs. Such money can be used to pay for certain expenses of individual consumption that will be given free of charge to the population in the commune.
As free-of-charge or subsidized healthcare and education already exist in the world today, it will also be possible to introduce free consumption of goods and new services. However, in the first place, free distribution should include goods and services inevitable for each inhabitant, such as food and transport, and then other forms of consumption with which the market is saturated and can always satisfy the demand.
The producers of free-of-charge goods will automatically become non-profit organizations. But, until then, the system will already have equalized work and all values arising from work in non-profit organizations and profit companies. The introduction of free-of-charge commodities does not mean a determined distribution of the means of consumption where each inhabitant would get a certain quantity of goods. This is the most primitive form of consumption and represents a violation of inhabitants’ needs. Instead, it understands a free distribution of commodities where each inhabitant will freely use them according to their own needs.
It may be assumed that the introduction of free-of-charge commodities will begin in the territory of the most developed communes from the surpluses of the collective consumption fund in the commune. Members of families do not charge each other for goods and services. It is about the whole world becoming one big family, which is the intention of this book.
Collective consumption and work competition will enable an expanded building of all facilities necessary for society and their maintenance. Socialism can ensure that each inhabitant utilizes any housing premise if they are ready to pay the competitive rent. It may be assumed that over time some individuals with lower incomes will be able to lease more valuable housing premises if they deprive themselves of some other form of expenses. Such a possibility will contribute to the demystification of real estate values respectively. It will enable each individual to establish the limits of natural needs in using real estate based on their practice. The use of large housing requires a lot of maintenance time against the opportunity of finding the power of being in the prosperous social relations socialism offers. Moreover, with the decreasing difference among income levels, the difference among possibilities of paying rent will also decrease. Uniformity in the payable rent for housing will require the construction and adaptation of real estate of uniformed optimal values to have a consistent demand established.
A surplus of housing space may appear in socialism. The surplus of housing space does not have a trade value because nobody needs it. As uniform, high-quality standards will characterize all housing spaces, it may be expected that living spaces will lose their trade value. It may be anticipated that rent for using real estate in the developed world might tend to zero. In an exceptionally developed society where a surplus of housing space will exist, distribution of the real estate can be performed by mutual agreement among inhabitants. Past labour points will ensure the responsible behaviour of users toward real estate.
Once the society overcomes the need to present the alienated form of power by possessing commodities and properties, it can expect to earmark increasingly large amounts of money for collective consumption and decrease the amount of money intended for individual consumption. An understanding will be formed in the society that collective spending is more rational in terms of the degree of utilization of goods and consumption of natural resources.
It should be repeated; the drop in inhabitants’ income does not question the number of past labour points held by citizens. The quantity of past labour points of all workers in the commune is equal to the commune’s gross income level. The gross income of the commune consists of assets for individual and collective consumption. With the decrease in personal income, collective revenue will grow. The gross income will remain the same so that the number of past labour points presenting the individual’s power in society will also remain unchanged.
Larger appropriations of funds intended for collective consumption would enable the introduction of new free-of-charge commodities to the point when all collective needs of the society will become satisfied. Funds intended for collaborative spending can then cover the costs of specific material inhabitants’ needs.
Socialism will develop the awareness that more significant than natural consumption would not be necessary for the individual and would thus not represent value. However, the system needs to be strong enough to satisfy the inhabitants that would still have alienated material needs, irrespective of the fact that possession as such would not be a value in the society. The system will perhaps develop social awareness that will portray possession as a negative trait of the individual’s character. Such orientation might be shameful and sanctioned by negative assessments of the remaining population. However, if the system fails to meet the alienated needs of individuals, it will have to halt the distribution of free-of-charge commodities.
However, the contribution of such a system lies in the elastic possibility of shifting away from the rigid capitalist form of production and distribution, where each work and commodity is directly charged for, to a completely free form of production where work and commodities distribution is carried out according to the needs of the people. The system can stand any oscillation in the social conditions, including the return to charging for all commodities and services without any crisis, by immediately following the needs of the society.
If society would form natural material needs, then even the present-day economy in the developed countries could meet them. In such a society, the distribution of material goods could no longer be the basis for conflict in the community, as everyone would achieve a share according to their own needs. The individual would then lose the need to possess goods favouring the values of being arising from work and the prosperous relationship with society and nature.
When collective spending satisfies the individual needs of inhabitants, then the income as the purchasing power of inhabitants would lose its significance. Naturally, work will be further necessary to maintain or increase the social standard. Work will survive because it will become a value in itself. The work organization will be strictly determined and performed by management. Workers will always conduct work duties through work competition in productivity and responsibility by past labour points. That will force the most productive producers to agree on the joint production processes strategies. The work competition may develop to the point where associated producers will assume responsibility for the general satisfaction of all social needs.
When income starts losing importance, the responsibility of workers will be paid only by past labour points. Accountability of workers will be established by mutual assessment of workers and the evaluations of customers. The system enables a ramified system of assessing the production quality of goods and services. Each positive assessment of a worker, workers in enterprises or inhabitants of a commune received from any inhabitant, consumer association, or arbitration courts will increase somewhat the total number of past labour points of a worker, workers in enterprises or inhabitants of a commune, thereby increasing the expression of their productive power. And vice versa, a negative assessment would burden the inhabitants, enterprises, and communes according to the degree of responsibility established directly by the population, consumer association, and arbitration courts. Sanctions will be carried out by subtraction of past labour points in the function of the received assessments and coefficient of worker’s responsibility.
Such a system of valuation of conveniences and inconveniences may form natural norms for the relations in the society, which will to a great extent, replace the alienated normative decisions that govern the relationships of society by laws and regulations. Mutual assessment will form new unwritten rules of social relations, covering each pore of social behaviour, giving the community more significant benefits and prosperity.
When the demand for work as a form of manifestation of the power of being, becomes more significant than the supply of jobs, the individual income would lose sense. When the population’s income starts abolishing, past labour points will remain as a form of the individual’s guarantee to meet obligations, as a factor of work competition, and measure of the individual’s existential power.
Over time, work competition could provide an opportunity for general work freedom of workers. Or differently said, workers could, at a certain degree of production development, choose work posts and working hours according to their wishes and possibilities in agreement with other workers. This is possible by automation of production through computer technology that would replace forced and inconvenient work and form suitable jobs based on individual, creative and constructive approaches and relaxing work.
If coordination of activities without force is established and the needs become satisfied, income would entirely lose its importance. In contrast, the usable value of work as a manifestation of workers’ existential needs would remain. Once the work stops conditioning the material remuneration and starts basing its existence on the satisfaction based on free expression of being needs, it becomes a free work and a direct value for itself.
Monetary assets would then no longer have the function of establishing payment transactions. Still, they would serve as a means of society for expressing individual and common needs. The money would not symbolize alienation separating the community of people anymore but will be a coordinator of homogeneous action in society. Then the relation of the individual toward another individual would no longer be the relation of commodities but the beings relation that suits the individual natural needs.
By accepting society’s natural laws, people should understand that work itself is a great value; individual to individual relations are an exceptional value, while goods will lose their alienated value. Values of work and production abundance will reduce the importance of money. One day, getting good evaluations from other people may become more important than earning money. Having desired jobs should also become more important than earning money. Today, some job positions are more attractive to people than money, but this is an exception. A developed work market will make all jobs equally desirable, and the process of disalienation might make jobs more desirable than earning money.
People should also understand that collective consumption is the most rational spending. As a result, one day, people will most likely allocate all their incomes directly towards taxes, making all goods and services available free of charge while establishing an efficient, stable, and rational democratically planned economy.
In such a system, the income of all people as a form of individual purchasing power would be equal to zero by direct voting of the population. The system would then achieve a free-of-charge production and consumption of commodities. This is communism, most likely the best social system possible. This is what Karl Marx desired but could not define—a flourishing society. In such a system, the individual will find new interests in the outer world and spiritual development. In communism, people will have the freedom to do what they love and indulge in work, science, philosophy, culture, arts, sports, entertainment, and relaxation through fun.
In such a system, all assets would be intended for collective spending. The collective spending will be established at the commune, state, and international levels by a direct vote of inhabitants. According to what has been said so far, it may be assumed that at a certain degree of development in the society, each consumer will be able to plan and order themselves the specific means of consumption. However, it is not realistic to expect that each inhabitant will need to determine all the necessary forms of consumption because such a list may be too extensive in detail. Instead, each inhabitant can influence the partial and global supply of the work products by the amount of money intended for certain forms of collective consumption and based on their own experience with the supply.
The funds of collective spending can direct the overall consumption in society. The amount of money would further correspond to the overall value of goods, and all products would preserve the price set by agreement. The total amount of money and the costs of commodities will serve as an instrument for the democratic determination of production. The framework for the distribution of funds will be determined by consumer practice. The population will make corrections by pouring more money into the common consumption groups they need more. Then the production management will assign more work to the fields of increased interest, making people’s needs more satisfied. Further, each inhabitant can participate in the partial distribution of any fund to the level where they will find its interest. Such money will be necessary until society discovers a better method of coordination of its collective actions.
Socialism enables the permanent coordination of a free system of production and distribution. The system has an infinite number of variants that may influence the social life and consciousness of the individual so that each individual in the society can achieve broad prosperity. It is also worth mentioning that the formation of a free-of-charge production and consumption is not the purpose of the proposed system but the finding genuine relationships in the society that such a system enables. The system will overcome antagonism among the people due to alienated needs, values, and actions. The highest value of the proposed socio-economic system lies in the possibility of creating natural and harmonious social relations that will form genuine needs and values.
A new kind of ethics will be formed, where the individual will not need to assess another individual nor be assessed by any individual. Once individuals stop creating needs by comparing themselves with other individuals, they will become closer to their nature. They will form the kind of relations with nature and society that suits their nature. Past labour points may be the last alienated form of manifesting the individual’s power, which the individual will overcome by finding the values in themselves and their environment.
Once people recognize the natural laws of humanity, they will not have to go anywhere in search for what they need because all they need will be in their immediate environment or even closer—in themselves. The most important achievement of individuals is themselves. The more people get to know themselves, the more freedom, peace, joy, wisdom, and love they can achieve. In communism, people will have the best chances to realize a long and good quality of life.
The conclusion of the book
History has shown that authoritarian social systems produce social problems, while social systems where people have more rights create better societies. This should be enough to conclude that the full implementation of equal human rights will make the best social system possible. Nevertheless, authorities prevent the knowledge of equal human rights to keep their privileges in society. As a result, social life was always based on generating personal power over people instead of equal human rights. As a result, people cannot reach social prosperity.
Equal human rights may solve social problems and provide the best life possible for all. Teachers will not need to teach people how to create a good society; equal human rights will spontaneously do it, and people will love the result of it. This paper tries to convince people that they cannot create more significant societal progress than implementing equal human rights. Nothing more is needed for building a bright future for humankind, and nothing less can make it. Equal human rights are the greatest invention of all time. Therefore, opening a public discussion about equal human rights is essential for building a bright future for humankind.
[1] Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970)
