The Society of Equals

 

1. Possession

 

Without need there would be no possession, without cold no clothes no wear, without hunger no food to eat, only animals and plants for them to feed.  But man is a complex being, and his desires give rise to possession too, some reasonable, some not.  If he desires some source of entertainment to make things less severe or to travel further than his life would otherwise require to fulfil some inner need, then this is positive desire and remains a valid reason to possess.

 

There is another type of desire which forms a source of possession, the desire to deprive others of what they need.  This is the negative desire, and it becomes in turn the source of all poverty, corruption, and individual wealth on the planet.  It is also the source of the private ownership system of economics known as capitalism.  If a man has no positive need for 20 houses, still less has he the need for fields of barley or ones that bury mines of gold or tin.

 

Society is what man forms for this, an holistic enterprise with each contributing what he can in the hope of gaining something more.  If society is holistic then it becomes an entity in itself, quite separate from the individuals who make it up; and it has needs of it’s own.  If man has needs and positive desires then so too does society, but not for food or clothes or entertainment.  Society needs the fields of barley or those that cover gold or tin, without which it would cease to have it’s purpose and would cease to exist.  Man is the true owner of what he needs, society of what it needs to make them from.

 

 

2. Equality

 

Without the other there would be no society, nor would there be any equality, nor any inequality.  Yet the other is never equal in the view of the one, only in the view of society, since society can see the whole, but the one only part of the other. 

 

Without inequality there would be no equality, as without night there would be no day.  If two entities possess the attributes of a door, and one is made of gold and the other of timber, or one leads to a room full of gold and the other a room full of sawdust, they possess equality inasmuch as they both fulfil the definition of a door, in regard to windows or other entities which aren’t doors.  In the same way if two beings possess the attributes of a man then they possess equality as such, in regard to women or children or others who don’t possess the attributes of a man, and this pays no heed to how differently the two men fulfil any perceived functions as a man.

 

Two entities may possess equality as members of one class but not as members of another.  If two beings are both car-drivers and one is a man and the other a woman, they possess equality inasmuch as they both fulfil the definition of a car-driver, in regard to others who aren’t car-drivers, despite not possessing equality as members of the classes of man and woman.

 

In this way members of a community form a class of beings who possess equality inasmuch as they fulfil the definition of a member in regard to others who aren’t members, and this pays no heed to how differently they fulfil any functions as a member of that community or what classes they belong to in regard to attributes which aren’t relevant to their membership of the community.  Where the contribution of labour to society forms part of the definition of membership of the community which forms the holistic enterprise of that society, that labour should be paid with equality, and not with heed to different types of labour undertaken or how differently the functions of that labour are fulfilled.

 

The many types of labour conducted by the society of man have many distinct attributes and hence many classes.  A builder performs labour distinct from a plumber, a soldier from a farmer.  Some classes of labour may seem more important to the society than others, as when the soldier becomes more important at times of war and the farmer at times of peace.  Yet none are precluded from the community who labour for it, whose membership is based on this, since the sub-classes are innumerable, variable and subjective, but the great class of labour is the same, as a member of which labour retains equality and deserves to be rewarded as such.

 

The determination of equality must be based on an abstraction of the entity characteristic of the class, since all members of the class will differ with regard to particulars.  If one door is made of gold and another of timber, neither composition of gold nor timber can be regarded as necessary for a door, but only possession of the abstract qualities of a solid means of egress to a space etc.  This holds even if an entity fails to fulfil the function determinative of it’s class.  A broken car which can’t be driven anywhere is still a car since it possesses the abstract attributes of a car and was made for the purpose of being driven, whether it was made incorrectly or broken later.  So is a woman still a woman even if incapable of bearing children, and a man still a man even if incapable of siring them, even though these functions may be regarded as abstract attributes of woman and man.  Since the abstraction of woman is to be made for the function of bearing and caring for children, she cannot be expected to labour for the community and is not a member of the community which formed for this purpose, any more than children can be whose function is to play and to prepare for their future roles.  Only man, whose function is to labour, is a member of this community.  This holds even where individuals of the former class may be willing and able to do so, and individuals of the latter unwilling or unable, unless they cease to possess the abstract qualities of their class.

 

The community of labour is formed for the betterment of man and pays no heed to kindred lines, that endless vector of the false promises of greed and inequality.  Man should not concern himself with the children he sires or the women he sires them with, since he has no need to possess them and it is not his function to care for them.  It is for the community he forms to concern itself with the children he sires and the women who bear and care for them, since it is the community which demands it’s own survival, the individual only the survival of himself.

 

The women form two sub-classes, those who bear the children and those who care for them, which do not need to be the same, since both form part of the function of woman, and both retain equality as such.

 

 

3. Supply and Demand

 

Only society can supply most of the products that people want, and only individuals can demand them.  Since the individual determines society the question of what to supply lies mostly with the former, but this can be determined by no single individual who can only demand his own needs, not those of others.  Nor, therefore, can the process of transforming resources into the products people demand.  As no-one’s view is perfect, so no-one’s understanding of aggregate demand is perfect either, and a process of perfect competition between suppliers within society is therefore the only way to perfectly satisfy demand, with those failing to do so forced out of the market.

 

Such a market can only occur in the possession of society not the individual, since the former will always incline to destroy monopolies whereas the latter will always incline to create them, as when the landowners dominate the towns they own, demanding rents that rise until only monopolistic suppliers can afford to pay them.  That is not to say that a supplier may not be so successful as to destroy all competition, but only that decadence and complacency can never destroy him before other suppliers can once again create a market where they are paying rents they can afford, fuelled by investment from a society that rewards competition not individuals whose only interest is to reward monopoly. 

 

Since man is not a perfect being, he will not demand everything he needs.  Few children will demand to sit and learn geometry, and few adults to pay for medical services supplied to others.  That which is to benefit the society in which he lives is demanded by society rather than the individual, and is better supplied by the former which knows the whole of it’s demand, rather than the latter which knows only his own part and whose supply will never meet the demand of the whole, but whose part in the demand of society ensures that It’s monopoly will never descend for long into the decadence of that of the individual.

 

 

4. The Unequal Societies

 

There are those men who form bad societies based on avarice and inequality, and seek to hold the earth to themselves and the rest of mankind in bondage to their wealth.  Such men and such societies should be shunned and their claims to their wealth and property rejected since they keep from the community of labour what it needs.  Where possible the community should seize the land and the properties of these men and their societies, leaving them only what a member of the community of labour needs for his happiness, the rest to be divided among the rest or destroyed as useless baubles of man’s ignorance and greed.  Only where it is not possible to do so should the community trade with these men and their societies, doing so only in their own debased currencies and selling what is surplus to the community’s needs or other products which are unlikely to be of benefit to their societies.  They have made themselves an enemy of the community of labour and should be destroyed so that it can take up it’s proper tenure of the land.

 

When men wish to join the community of labour and it has enough land they should be permitted to do so but they must bring only what they need for their happiness the rest to be divided among the rest, and they can think and say what pleases them, but must not attempt to form their bad communities within the community of labour or their societies of false religions, the secondary lies which form only to reinforce the first.  Those who do so make enemies of the community and should be shunned, and if necessary, destroyed.

 

Those who have been brought to knowledge of the community and still reject their responsibilities to it reject their rights as well, since their survival beyond the community is only by theft from it and not as a man.  They can be held captive as the bad communities hold those captive who offend their iniquitous laws, and made to work until they are ready to accept their responsibilities to the community, or otherwise can be shunned.