LET US BE SOCIALIST 

LET US BE SOCIALIST 

Leaving aside the collective ideas of The Republic by Plato or those of other Renaissance authors, the evolution of modern Socialism whose beginnings can be located at the end of the 18th century is very curious. The naïve utopian pre-Marxists like Saint Simón, Fourier, Owen and others proposed that the State, also naïve, directed economic life; the abolition of ground rent and inheritance right; the same for all homogeneous state education; the freedom of loving relationships among adults; the creation of a social distribution fund with lands and capitals; the organization of work in paradisiacal communities where nobody would live idly off the work of others;… etc. Fourier for example expected spectacular results from his projects: the sea water would acquire a pleasant flavour, the average human life span would reach 144 years and perhaps with Socialist progress new organs would be added to the human body.

With an alleged rational analysis of society, “scientific” Socialism quickly got rid of the prudishness of the utopians. For the Marxists Socialism would not come peacefully but by means of fighting and intra-social confrontation. Its arrival would be fatal and determinist. It would not be shouldered by all but only by the proletarians harmed by capitalism. Men act exclusively for material economic reasons and in an absolutely Socialist regime all production goods belong to the State that in turn becomes the great distributor of consumption goods according to some criterion of egalitarian inspiration.

With the fall of the Berlin wall, the parenthesis of two centuries is closing. Not even Felipe González dares to pronounce the word Socialism in public, although its irreversible works betray him. The push of common sense, the economic force of private property and the advance of responsible freedom guided by Ethics, are leaving Socialism neglected and clutching the burning nail of a vaporous and adulterated sense of solidarity and interested redistribution. The whole intellectual, utopian and scientific paraphernalia previously outlined have been reduced to a certain re-distributional criterion with coercion through the formidable means of the state apparatuses. A large part of the State General Budgets is devoted to re-distributional tasks with decanting of funds from active citizens towards the passive ones. Psychological taxing, fiscal, bureaucratic and statistical pressures are accentuating the interior migratory currents from the productive waters of activity towards the comfortable muddy areas of passivity. As we are left without water the coefficient of the widespread economic deserting of Spain will increase.

I believe that it is a serious mistake to redistribute exclusively through the intermediation of the State entity of reason with its annoying administrative structure. In the general subconscious it appears as the great solver of all types of growing necessities and whims.

If today’s socialism is reduced to attention to the neediest and the principle of solidarity, then I also want to be Socialist. We all want to be Socialist. But it is also necessary to practice solidarity with effectiveness. Even for this the State is not needed and gets in the way. Why does the State have to decide to who, or to what institution, I have to help and who the one that needs it is? Is it not better to lend or give directly to he who indeed I know needs it or to institutions specialized in those tasks? It is more difficult to defraud he who gives directly than to try and look for ways in the general legal and administrative regulations.

If the social and distributing function of the State prevails, individuals automatically wash their hands of advantageous solidarity. When somebody insinuates any necessity its urgency is rapidly referred to the State. I hope they leave me alone and that they do not make my life difficult. The State has to solve absolutely everything because that is why we pay taxes. Do not tell me the story of your life. Nobody is responsible for other people’s problems. State pressure does not allow us to be newly coined Socialists. When there is more fiscal and bureaucratic pressure there is less personal solidarity. Please: let us be Socialist. Many non-profit making entities and associations, non-governmental, experts in solidarity, are waiting for us to become Socialist and that they let us be normal citizens. We all want to freely be Socialists. Before such a fearful crisis it is necessary to forget our self-absorbed rulers definitively and begin to practice personal solidarity to mitigate the negative effects. Let us!

    JJ Franch Meneu