Marx upheld an admirable level of faith in humanity, faith that pure communism could initiate and ultimately perpetuate selfless altruism as a dominant human constituent, as it is with ants or bees. Regardless of Marx's faith, no pure state of Marxist social harmony has ever been achieved, despite lengthy efforts in numerous historic pursuits. Any plurality of equivalent biological entities would naturally benefit by organizing their efforts for their common good, whether they are the cells of an n-celled animal (n>1) or the citizens of a culture. Yet the numerous failures of historic attempts to achieve such a utopian communism suggest that altruism is NOT a self-supporting human attribute; that is, human altruism cannot be sustained by human altruism alone.

Familiar behavioral phenomena suggest that what is politically "good", in the human interpretation, includes not only the human proclivity for teamwork and communication, but also the yearning for individual (and minority) rights and freedoms, interests OTHER THAN citizen duties to the public culture. In the scientific interpretation, therefore, Marx's hypothesis is reliable only in special, limited applications.

But, despite humans' social distinctions from ants, the human is neither blind of others' needs and interests nor ignorant of the benefits of teamwork. Likewise, despite human similarities to ants, no human is fully contented with selfless conformity. Humans' combined intellect and independence nurture both social, team conformity and independent interests, BOTH of which offer their respective benefits to the human culture, but either of which will rise up in effective defiance if it is sufficiently denied or abused. Although the human urge for individual rights and liberties appears to be inextinguishable, Marx's communism offers a considerable contemporary solution to human economic organization WITHIN CERTAIN RESTRICTED APPLICATIONS. But outside that special range of applications, capitalism becomes more favorable than communism for inducing public satisfaction and moral and social quiescence.

The parents and children in a conventional, successful human family, acquire resources from each according to his abilities, and distribute their assets to each according to his needs. In light of this it becomes clear that Communism, as defined in this way, is a natural mode of human affiliation/economics found in the basic human family.

SOME people that are fully isolated from threats of competition sanction more honest and even-handed perspectives in human rights, perspectives more fairly viewed than those of most gladiators left fighting in the arena. The modern psychologist Maslow referred to such transcended people as "self-actualized."

Following is an excerpt from the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia's article under Maslow's name:
"Abraham Harold Maslow, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., Apr. 1, 1908, d. June 8, 1970, was a founder of HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY in the 1960s, along with Carl ROGERS, Rollo May, and others. They advanced their movement as a 'third force' that provided an alternative to the schools of behaviorism and psychoanalysis.
Educated at the City College of New York, Cornell University, and the University of Wisconsin, Maslow taught at Brandeis University from 1948. Maslow first became known for his description of the 'hierarchy of prepotency' in human motivations. Observing that 'man is a wanting animal' and that one desire is no sooner satisfied than another takes its place, he noted sense and order in the succession of motives. In the relatively rare individuals in whom all lower needs are satisfied a new motive can be observed, the drive for self-actualization--becoming everything that one is capable of becoming. Interest in higher levels of motivation led Maslow to the study of self-actualized people, who differ from most people in being unusually healthy psychologically; having marked ability to free themselves from stereotypes; and perceiving everyday life realistically and accepting it without defensiveness. Self-actualizing people appear to have, or to have had, 'peak experiences' of insight, joy, or intense awareness. In Toward a Psychology of Being (1962), Maslow described the characteristics of such experiences and the effects they have."

The "self-actualized" people that Maslow studied were stable and realistic in their political views, due in some part to their freedom from competition. But even these secure and self actualized people experience 'discontent' probably as frequently as anyone else ("... one desire is no sooner satisfied than another takes its place..."). This inescapable "discontent" is among the "hardships" of EVERY life, hardships that many mentalities cannot cope with in a mature and analytical fashion. Such problems are hardly of political origin, even though they can give rise to political problems if their sufferer cannot resolve them wisely.

Any beloved-pet dog generally accustomed to caviar will become unhappy when fed mere salmon, but the dog may EVEN be unworthy of salmon. One might guess that its public proclamations of discontent represent misinformation, ... perhaps ... even ARROGANCE. Political judgements that we declare should utilize RELIABLE means to distinguish worthiness from its more common and petty surrogate, arrogance, for only our admissions of uncertainty in such judgements could reflect a more valid stance.

Competition in certain circumstances is counter-productive. It can discourage otherwise productive efforts and nourish bitterness in the oppressed. But immunity from competition fosters arrogance and undue self-entitlement. Both competition and security are desirable if taken in appropriate doses, but either taken in excess fosters its own undesirable byproducts. This work pursues means of achieving an optimum balance between competition and security, it examines what an excess of each might comprise, it investigates the distinctions between legitimate worthiness and its more common arrogance surrogate, and addresses the respective influences of such traits on public trade, equity and social equilibrium.

The absence of competition (the state of "tenure" or "security") allows the arrogant to sit back and enjoy unjustifiable advantages over others who they conveniently deem inferior to themselves. This explains many very familiar behavioral phenomena, including why tenured or arrogant workers commonly overlook substandard performance in their own works. While fair competition encourages ones attention to his/her own imperfections, unfair or excessive competition ALSO fosters hardship. EITHER competition or security, if TAKEN IN EXCESS, cultivates its own undesirable side effects. Yet either is known to be a natural and necessary antibiotic for controlling the harmful effects of the other.

Scholars of utopian theory should even-handedly acknowledge and fluently address both sides of such critical issues in utopian psychology. EITHER capitalism or communism alone is an incomplete solution, and this fact has been acknowledged since the advent of the Social Security tax, but implementing the two in the best possible way has been a challenge that is still unmet. People tend to be inertially guided, often relying too comfortably on political ideas that are more idealistic than practical. Among the highest goals underlying government economic improvement are, secondly, reach without unreasonable restraint toward a better government solution, but first and foremost to sustain a valid fundamental insight into the pertinent content of reality. It is mere libel to indict competition as a universal evil based solely on familiar examples of its possible hazards. (We could just as easily indict fire as a universal evil simply by naming examples of its possible hazards.)

Our economy today hardly compares with the fully employed farming families of only 100 years ago (hardly ancient history). In less than a century modern technology has enabled our money (coupons) to become a virtual solution to many very difficult problems that could not be solved at all just a century ago, by any means. Improvements in technology have made life easier in many ways, but concurrently certain undesirable social psychological traits were unshackled by our new powers, and these once-dormant traits grew like hungry tumors feeding on the new technologies and markets. Our tremendous new powers have for some softened the blows of these new social-psychological impairments, but these problems are hardly resolved as easily as those we now correct with our money. Heretofore nature had always prescribed that our achievement of a goal (and our worthiness thereof) is earned by fulfilling minimum disciplinary prerequisites. In contrast, today our adoption of petty arrogance as a satisfying substitute for worthiness now presumes to render obsolete the pursuit of essential discipline as a path to worthiness and achievement. This new self-assessment method, roughly as formidable as our new options to buy solutions to all substantial problems, leads us instead, in some ways at least, toward a state of profound functional disability.

But I am neither an anti-capitalist nor an anti-communist. Unlike normal extremists, I consider instead that per chance NEITHER economic theory bears the certification stamp of Divinity, and that an alternative approach to the integration of these two natural systems will bring the needed improvement. Below I propose a relatively eclectic economic organization intended to improve the American economy and its social and cultural bonds, to better promote the general welfare, to introduce a relatively utopian state of human existence:

Welfare and Camaraderie in a Thriving Capitalism

STATEMENT OF THE "PROBLEM":
At the close of World War II the United States (USA) was so technologically advanced relative to the rest of the world that virtually every world market looked to it for the best new innovations and highest quality of products. In the USA at that time of the 50s and 60s, jobs were plentiful and labor came to be relatively expensive. But since then educational and technological advancement outside the USA have made other nations competitive in such major international roles as the manufacture of high-grade steel, electronic components and systems, and transportation devices. The quality of life for American labor concurrently peaked and descended. Viewing all that from a broader perspective, the human intellect has by now fostered technological advancements that largely alleviate the work required to produce the goods and services enjoyed by humanity. In recent decades the availability of third-world labor forces competing in the already declining job markets has bolstered this benefit (or aggravated this problem), but clearly the amount of work performed by machinery today, in farming, transportation, communication, entertainment, ..., is far greater than could possibly be achieved by any human labor force alone. With the ongoing development of machinery for manufacturing, the total number of worker-hours per week required to sustain full production has continuously declined even while the population of consumers has increased. In economic terms this conforms with the declining real-dollar value of labor, and this decline has become familiar bad news for those needing jobs to sustain themselves. The consequent financial difficulty for qualified but non-employed workers can only grow in its intensity (as a general long-term trend) while more and more graduates needing incomes are not needed anywhere.

Conventional capitalist welfare systems, including those of the USA, have required their ever decreasing percentile of workers/population to pay the ever-growing tax requirements for servicing their ever increasing welfare bills. This translates into a growing problem, imposing on the shrinking working class a demand for more work at less real income.

Of communism and capitalism, each liberates a natural human trait that the other system is designed to regulate. Throughout their common histories, communists were trying to regulate greed but the "evil capitalists" were liberating it. Meanwhile, capitalists were trying to end laziness but the "evil communists" were liberating it! To clarify that:

COMMUNISM (the practice of communal working and sharing)
REGULATES GREED by enforcing the camaraderie of teamwork;
but communism tends to LIBERATE LAZINESS, because it offers no rewards for superior individual effort.

CAPITALISM (the practice of private agreements and trade)
REGULATES LAZINESS via incentives for individual effort;
but capitalism tends to LIBERATE GREED in its wealthy, a dangerous byproduct that can demote the general welfare of the society.

The foregoing generic summary illuminates why those economies' respective advocates have been so unfriendly for so long, because each was liberating a trait that the other was trying to regulate.

This paper is hardly intended to present a complete and perfected economic design solving every prospective political and legal squabble with some special rule. Instead, it presents a basic skeleton illustrating a concept for the integration of a welfare provision service into a capitalism such that (1) welfare is more effectively and efficiently implemented and more equitably distributed, and (2) the capitalistic entities, from consumers to small business entities to major corporations, to investors to managers to laborers to ..., are all minimally belabored by this improved welfare service and hence, the probably of successful investment in job creation in the capitalist environment is greatly enhanced.

In the areas outside of heaven roads need paving and patching, ..., commodes need cleaning, .... Most importantly, the human physiology NECESSITATES some types of physical labor just to sustain human survival. Those life-sustaining types of labor are given special attention in this paper, because human survival is deemed a priority (vital) matter connected with the society's welfare.

Having acknowledged the requisition for work that is VITAL in the human society, any attempt to segregate society into groups that are "more and less worthy" or "more and less obligated" is a matter that should be dealt with considerately when preparing for the welfare and political quiescence of the society. To insure the political quiescence the system should promote the general welfare WITHOUT condemning any one peer group to inappropriate or unreciprocating obligations to other sectors of society, except where good reason should warrant it. That being said, debate is welcome.

TO PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE:
The strategy proposed here is a continuation of natural capitalistic economy (trade via private agreements and exchanges), a form of economics that has always existed everywhere human nature resided. Some Marxists have objected to that generic definition of capitalism. To clarify its perhaps objectionable insinuation it should be observed that a "corporation" is basically just a system of private persons interacting in a system of private agreements as illustrated below:

1. For operating the corporation's business, INVESTORS provide capital (the essential funds to build the restaurant, buy the cash register and first few months of raw food products, business forms and employee pay checks needed until profits are realized, ....

   AND IN RETURN for accommodating the the capital and accepting the risks, the investors receive a portion of the profits so long as they remain invested.

2. EMPLOYEES do the essential work of perfecting the goods and services produced by the business.

   AND IN RETURN, the employees receive pay.

3. The CONSUMERS, who interact with the business, supply the essential funds that perpetuate the business and its profits.

   AND IN RETURN each consumer receives goods and services provided by the business.

The present work offers an alternative to conventional capitalistic (socialist) welfare systems, which have relied on a common medium of exchange in both the capitalistic and communistic systems. The dollar can buy necessities of welfare and items of luxury alike in such systems. In America's standard (communal) family, the "bread-winner" as first owner of the family's dollars, could completely avoid any real role in contributing to his own welfare as provided by the family. This parent can avoid his basic family obligations, that of making his bed, washing the dishes or whatever his particular contribution/s may be, just because he supplies the financial income for the whole family. S/He could, theoretically, literally force his dependents to brush his/her teeth for him/her, because s/he controls all the family's money. Fortunately, this doesn't often happen because families tend to be relatively close-knit compared to entire states or countries.

To promote the general welfare of an entire state without condemning the middle class (or any other peer group) to inappropriate or unreciprocating obligations to other sectors of society, the recommended solution requires WORK CONTRIBUTION from every "able" citizen (rich, middle and poor alike), in order to sustain the VITAL work needed to sustain survival of the society. The current number of personnel in such vital functions comprises ONLY A SMALL PERCENTAGE of the overall work force of the present working economy. That small sector comprises yet a much smaller portion of the total working-age population ABLE to serve in such roles. (Unlike the food production and distribution in previous centuries, modern farming and food distribution no longer employ a major portion the working-age population.)

A large and unused work force of non-employed and yet "able" adults [Footnote 1] has been developing in capitalist societies for reasons briefly described in the opening paragraph of this section "Welfare and Camaraderie in a Thriving Capitalism." One fundamental goal of the U. S. Constitution is to promote the general welfare, but its current welfare system, due both to its cost and its ineffectiveness, imposes a threatening burden on its capitalist system and those who work within it [Footnote 2]. In those respects in which we as individual citizens share common needs vital to our survival (such as our common needs for healthy food, water, air chemistry) in those respects we are all equal, and likewise we are all equally obligated to assist in an efficient team effort that achieves and insures the provision of such needs for the basic survival of all. Here the M_A_J_O_R____P_R_O_B_L_E_M is how to best utilize this terribly oversized work force to best accomplish the vital work for expedient and equitable maintenance of the basic general welfare, but with a minimal burden being imposed on the society's political quiescence and its capitalist system, whose members must compete internationally and locally to supply non-vital commodities. One fair, reasonably unburdensome and practical means of doing these things will be outlined in the following section.

Under the proposed welfare provision:

1. By incorporating our abundant population as a substantial welfare labor resource, we can eliminate the huge taxes that now service societal welfare, taxes that are presently imposed almost entirely on the shrinking working class,
2. Not only the middle class but both the rich and poor alike must now start contributing THEIR respective fair shares in the provision of their population's basic necessities [Footnote 3], and
3. Because of the consequent reduction in taxes, the average risk now characterizing investment in job creation in the capitalism will be greatly reduced, thereby increasing the demand for labor.

After each of his 10 to 20 workdays of annual duty, the "able" citizen completes his workday by registering his fingerprint (or other body identification record) for registering his annual work credit. Once his total annual work duty (< or = 20 workdays) has been accredited, then throughout his workyear he may use his fingerprint to procure food and any other necessities provided from the communal system, and during his other 48 or 50 workweeks in the year he can resume his OTHER job (presuming he has one) in the relatively untaxed capitalist system. In his capitalist job he can pursue money to purchase whatever luxuries he prefers. (What? Two jobs? And not both on the same workdays? UnAmerican?)

Throughout the 48 or 50 weeks of the year while the able citizen is not fulfilling his/her work taxation duty to the Society, s/he will probably wish to hold a job in the relatively unburdened capitalistic environment, a more viable and more productive capitalistic system better equipped to survive in the modern world economy. Alternatively, perhaps s/he'd rather start his/her OWN business. After all, s/he's got lots of time to innovate and relatively few imposing worries. This system presents far fewer challenges to self-employment initialization. With it there is no prospective loss of welfare income now faced by any POOR entrepreneur should s/he find investors and/or develop markets for his/her ideas. There is both a ground floor (with no basement or dungeon) and a functionable stairway. Acquiescence to the powers of wealth just to insure ones very survival is fully eliminated from the process. The natural urge to survive can no longer be exploited by arrogant powers as a means of satisfying unjust demands. While precluding such inequitable pursuits of greed, this system ALSO meets laziness with natural discomforts appropriate for laziness, but without threatening their very life sustenance or normal health. Due to the consequent elimination of survival-related insecurity, crimes of desparation will be largely eliminated.

Each citizen is entitled by virtue of his/her annual work donation to all the necessities provided by that system throughout the entire year. Therewith guaranteed access to a minimal job and "the right to life," s/he should be able to at least survive at the basic level EVEN if without any additional welfare or other means of support. S/He is no longer vulnerable to capitalistic exploitation EXCEPT inasmuch as s/he wants luxuries. Her/His access to the "right to life" is provided, and this provision doesn't tax our capitalistic sector in the same units of arms or legs. (Do those of you who are employed in the USA know how many work days you now work each year JUST to pay your income taxes? (Let alone property taxes, sales taxes, ....) In contrast, funding of the system presented here is derived from a "flat tax" expressed in units of WORK rather than dollars, units which are far more easily fingerprinted and traced than dollars. Did he say WORK? HUMANS? for FOOD? how UNNATURAL?)

R. L. Collier

FOOTNOTES:
[1] The definition of "able" citizen (one able to contribute to the necessities-provision system) is a matter of some controversy. For example, is every 18-year old not in college to be considered "able"? How should specific inabilities affect their respective placements? Under what conditions is retirement, immunity or deferment from the "ability" status permissible?

[2] The workers in the capitalism and those who risk investment in the creation of their jobs must all compete in the world market to survive financially, competing in some cases against child labor and slave labor. Concurrently, many of these Americans also serve as the only sources of America's large and growing welfare revenues.

[3] Unlike the U. S. capitalism of the 1950s and 60s, no longer are major corporations with large exports of steel, cars, ... to Japan, Europe, ..., the predominant sources of Americans' jobs and incomes. Instead, today relatively small, middle class business owners and employees, many of whom are much less capable of withstanding the growing tax burdens, find growth (increased employment) and even survival very difficult, primarily BECAUSE of those large tax burdens and resulting cut-throat competition. Accordingly, investment in job creation in the USA has come to be viewed as an ever growing risk as compared to foreign investments.

[4] This 10 to 20 workdays per year number naturally depends upon the essential definition of "need" or "necessity." For example, are we to name coronary bypass surgery, or housing with food refrigerators, cook stoves, and electricity as "necessities" to be provided by our grand citizen team, or are those items to sustain their basic capitalist status as luxuries to be produced by the surrounding capitalism, ...? Utopia's voters, who are responsible for the necessities-provision workload, and who must fill the required work force for supplying such needs, are perhaps the best deciders of what a "necessity" comprises. However, no less than the basic life-sustenance necessities of food and water and survivable environment should be established as minimum provisions needed to guarantee each citizen access to the right to life.

[5] It might be considered improbable that wealthy citizens would do their 10 to 20 days of work per year when they could simply buy their food with their luxury coupons, without ever needing to work in the society's welfare sustenance system. However, 20 workdays per year (at most) is hardly a significant cost for anyone wanting to avoid such legal hassles as incarceration, or wanting to avoid ruining his/her reputation and influences, just for having neglected a 20-day obligation to the society.