Harry Targ
We live
in a world dominated by global capital, a world in which capital divides us,
setting the people of each country against each other to see who can produce
more cheaply by driving wages, working conditions, and environmental standards
to the lowest level in order to survive in the war of all against all….The most
immediate obstacle, though is the belief in TINA (There is No Alternative, HT).
Without the vision of a better world, every crisis of capitalism (such as the
one upon us) can bring in the end only a painful restructuring--with the pain
felt by those already exploited and excluded.
(Michael A. Lebowitz, Build It Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century, Monthly
Review, 2006, 50).
The material below is a revision of an essay I
published some time ago inspired by youthful debates many were having about
what kind of society we need to create to facilitate the full flowering of
humankind (“Social Science and a New Social Order,” Journal of Peace Research,
1971). As Lebowitz implies we need to return to conversations about what a
better future would look like. If we fail to talk about our preferred future we
will become overwhelmed with cynicism and lose the capacity to do more than
react to those who want to reverse legislative gains.
Specific
features of a new society
Progressive visions of a new society draw upon real
and imagined communities that provide for the socio-economic and psychic needs
of their members. Many of these visions include the following principles:
a)
A new society requires equal or equitable
distribution of economic resources. This principle presupposes also a
commitment to racial justice, gender equality, the right to love and bond with
whomever one chooses, and a vision of the oneness of humankind with nature.
b)
A new society should consist of basic socio-political
units that do not exceed a size whereby all people in the unit can and do
interact with each other. Voluntary face-to-face contact and knowledge of the
values, beliefs, and desires of other community members will increase modes of
cooperation which are central to the viability of the new society.
c)
Political, social, and economic decisions should be
made on the basis of voluntary participation. Those decisions that affect
people’s lives will be made on the basis of their involvement.
d)
Political
decision-making may entail one of or a combination of three possible modes. Some communities might decide to make
decisions on the basis of complete consensus and others might decide on the use
of majority rule. Some communities might create representative bodies to make
decisions for the larger community with regular rotation of leaders.
e)
Political, social, and economic units might be
defined as temporary so that the
dissolution
and adjustment of these units can be carried out at any time. Communities ought
to continue only so long as they fulfill the needs of their members. However, while
embracing change, communities might find virtue in providing some institutional
continuity over time, particularly in terms of economic wellbeing.
Assumptions
of the new society
Any new society that we envision, of course, will be
based upon underlying assumptions. Evaluation of each plan necessitates a
critical analysis of both its central features and the explicit and implicit
assumptions embedded in it. For example the proposals made above make several
assumptions:
a)
A new society based upon local control and
participatory democracy assumes that this control in conjunction with equal
distribution of resources will decrease the level of alienation among the
population and hence the incidence of social bigotry. The more humans control their
own social and physical environment, the less likely they will be to project hostilities
onto others. Similarly, if they have equal access to economic resources, no
material justification for hostility will exist.
b)
Although it is assumed that an equitable
distribution of resources, community control, and the possibility of mobility
will dramatically reduce conflict between socio-political units, conflicts from
a variety of causes will probably persist. However, internal and cross-
community conflict will be in what may be called 'human scale' because the
scope and intensity of conflict among small communities will be greatly
reduced.
The 'enemy'
will not be an abstraction in the new society but the real person living across
one's communal borders. As political scientist Quincy Wright put it a long time
ago, “the larger the group and the less accessible all its members to direct
sensory contact with all the others and their activities, the less available
are instinct, custom, or universal acceptance as bases of group behavior, and
the more symbols and opinions about them are the stimuli and guides for
behavior. In the large groups which make war in modern civilization, symbols
have been responsible for initiating and guiding that parti- cular behavior.”
'Direct sensory contact' will replace symbol manipulation by economic and
political elites in the nation state.
c)
The emphasis on primary political and social control
at the community level and the creation of small-scale societies necessitate
the existence of some significant cross-community or cross-national units,
significant for certain functions such as dispersal of funds throughout a
nation or region.
Three possible
superordinate units could emerge. The most likely in the near future would be
the mixed centralized-decentralized system proposed by Paul Goodman whereby
'non-human' actions are carried out at the national level such as the dispersal
of resources to communities, accounting operations, and other computerized
actions. Intermediate units such as state governments could be eliminated, and
the significant decisions affecting individuals made in their communities.
Another alternative involves the creation of domestic or international regions
providing the superordinate functions in conjunction with the communities. Superordinate
limited political units could emerge out of transformations of regional
international organizations such as the European Union or the North American
Free Trade Agreement. Finally, the breakdown of the nation-state might yield a
new macro-micro community interaction system. Any of these possibilities
requires that superordinate functions must be clearly defined, made as
automatic as possible (not subject to technocratic manipulation), and
structures must be continuously evaluated.
d) Central to
the new society is the assumption that society can develop a new non-work
ethos, that the system of economic abundance and automation, when stripped of
its false productivity, consumption, featherbedding, and the imposition of
scarcities, can reduce some of what we know as laborious work. Traditional
labor could be reduced although other work such as care giving is likely to increase.
And given the reduction of work, human beings can find ways to use life time
for sociability and pleasure as well as necessary labor. This suggests several
alternative life styles, including extensive continuous education and community
participation in the arts.
e)It is
further assumed that the wealth and income of the world would be redistributed
transforming the economic system whereby basic needs and functional comforts
are made available to all. National armies, hand-picked neo-colonial elites,
and foreign corporations no longer will control the direction of change in the
Global South allowing members of the latter to choose their destinies
independently. Further as the new societies spread from territory to territory
one might hope for the emergence of economic redistribution that provides
comforts for the world’s citizens. The stimulus for change could begin locally
and nationally and spread throughout the world.
f) Finally,
the vision of the new society assumes the possibility and, indeed, the
necessity of humans regaining control of the technological world. Developed
societies have experienced the growth and dominance of organizational/technological
rationality, a rationality committed to organizational maintenance and
expansion irrespective of the human needs of its members. The goal of a new
society is ultimately to achieve individual and community rationality based
upon means and ends in human scale. Specifically, a new social order presupposes
that technology can be decentralized, that efficiency necessary for modern
existence does not require centralized political and social control. Social
organization can determine technological organization.
Strategies for change
Political
activists spend much time discussing strategies for change. Scrutiny of relevant
history and assessments of contemporary practice are most beneficially used by
progressives to guide their efforts to bring about change within communities,
nations, and the international system. It is presumed that to bring about a new
society such as that discussed above, a multiplicity of strategies need to be
utilized, giving credence to personality, environmental, and systemic
variations--and class, race, and gender--with particular emphasis upon
spontaneity, creativity, self-doubt, and constant reappraisal.
Of continued
importance to change and of utility for achieving a new society is continued
education—education for change which would be truly revolutionary. Education involves, where relevant, academic
argumentation, political organization around specific issues, and personal
commitments in visible ways to new value systems and life styles. Substantial
change requires mass support: hence large numbers of people must be exposed to
the spirit of a new society so that they see alternatives and, hopefully,
choose to work for their achievement.
Along with
educational value, the building of new institutions may provide the skeletal
structures of a new society within the parameters of the old. With increasing
tension and disarray in 21st century societies, the existence of
new, more appealing alternative embryonic structures will provide the
substance for new loyalties and commitments when the threshold of tensions
make new institutions crucial. As Staughton Lynd has argued, radical social change
in the United States occurred when people, of necessity, built new institutions
at the community level and crises stimulated the development of new loyalties
to these institutions. Eventually the substance of these institutions spilled
over from community to community across the nation. The growth of worker cooperatives might
be an example.
Finally, those
seeking the achievement of a new social order should involve themselves in the
ongoing political process, openly and honestly articulating the substance of
principles explicit in the quest for a new society. This means the utilization
of electoral politics, street heat, and left organizing to communicate with the
public, to build people power, and to achieve policies that move towards a new
society.
Let us fight cynicism
and resume the debate about building a better future!
