WEALTH AND THE STATE, AN EXTRACT FROM "THE NATURE OF THE STATE" by Derrick A Pike Freely distributable, but please quote source 1 WEALTH (GOODS AND SERVICES) As a way of organising society, the state fails in every aspect of life. It is true the privileged have more than enough material wealth, but even they have no satisfactory purpose in life and little opportunity to develop as human beings. The power structure inhibits originality, restricts change, and forces the many to serve the few. As a result, the physical needs of most people are unsatisfied and many suffer and die. To understand why humankind is in this pitiful condition, we must understand how governments fulfil their purpose. And since their purpose is intimately connected with wealth, we must know exactly what that is. We are born with a desire to live and to do this we have to eat, sleep, and protect ourselves from the elements. This means that we cannot exist unless we help one another. Even in the most friendly environment where food can be gathered without any effort, people need help, if only during the years when they are young. We certainly need help if we are to live in reasonable comfort because then we have to cooperate to produce our food, clothes, and shelter. All of us must produce more than these items if we are to live well and with happiness. We need the means to travel and carry goods over the land and sea and through the air. We need musical instruments, computers, radio and television equipment, and a myriad of other articles. And we need more than t he material objects that we manufacture and grow. Because our bodies sometimes get sick and in danger, we need assistance from others. We need a service. To have all things in life, we need the help of other people. The way we organise to help one another decides the nature of our society. How we organise our work to produce goods and give a service, and how we distribute both, is our economy. Since there are billions of people who lack the essentials of life, we know that we are organising our society very badly. The state is an economic failure. To prove the disadvantages of the state and its economy, it is unnecessary to define the many technical terms used by the apologists for our society. Some of my definitions, however, must be given. The goods we produce and the services we give, I call we wealth. In common parlance, the word 'wealth' also means money, but here it does not. There are two kinds of wealth, the useful and the useless. The products of our labour that we need to live and enjoy are useful. Houses, food, clothes, and cars are useful. The products of our labour that are harmful and of no use are useless. Atom bombs , cigarettes, gambling tables, and guns are useless. What we do to help others is useful. It is useful to create and distribute the wealth we all need, to teach others, and to cure the sick. What we do to harm others, or to produce no useful result, is us useless. It is useless to work as bureaucrats, to take part in government, or to fight in wars. Useful labour produces useful wealth and service, and useless labour produces useless wealth and service. Wealth can be a necessity or a luxury. Necessities are adequate water, beverages, food, clothes, and housing. Luxuries are the extra items, such as televisions, fine clothes, comfortable transport, and objects of art. Both necessities and luxuries are us useful wealth, although no one should have the latter until everyone has the former. 2 HOW OUR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT WEALTH PRODUCTION HAS INCREASED Most people imagine that it would take an impossible utopia to give everyone the necessities of life. Recently, however, a factor has been added to society that makes it possible. The very factor that has got humans into trouble can now get them out of it . That factor is our great knowledge that enables us to control our material environment. Humankind has made three giant steps in the acquisition of knowledge concerning the production of wealth, and this knowledge has released us from the burden of labou r. The last step was made only a few decades ago, and it ensures that the utopian society is within our grasp. Early in our history, when our numbers were few, we could obtain all our food by gathering it from natural vegetation while living a nomadic life. We needed to work only about three hours a day to have all the necessities of life and even some luxuries. Some people believe that during this period we also hunted for food. As our numbers increased, more food was required, and it became necessary for us to be farmers, cultivating plants and raising domestic animals. During this time, our workload for each p erson increased. Then, by about 8000 BC, our workload was greatly reduced by two genetic accidents that transformed the wheat that was not much more than wild grass into wheat with ears full of grain. This modern wheat could be propagated only by ourselves, but we knew how to do it. We made the first step towards the easy production of wealth. The second step was the discovery of machinery. Early in the eighteenth century the seed drill and other farming machinery were invented, so fewer people were required to produce food. Then when steam and electricity were harnessed much of the need to work with our muscles was gone for ever. The third and final step was made when we invented devices that would do the work of our brains. We now have computers that will do calculations, display information and designs in graphical form, store and sort information, transmit information to any p art of the world, teach, listen and speak on different subjects, and do much else. More than this, and perhaps even more vital, we have servomechanisms that enable the computers to control our mechanical power. We now have robots that manufacture, or help manufacture, any article from a pin to an aeroplane, and robots that control the speed and direction of any object or vehicle. Seeing, feeling, and touching robots operated by computers, can take over some work completely. Fifth-generation computers will have an artificial intelligence so that they can do the work of doctors, lawyers, teachers, journalists, designers, and other professionals. Obviously, if we have machines that will create and handle power and devices that will think and control them, then the two together will do nearly all our work for us. Because we have machines that will do the work of our brains and our muscles there is little left for us to do - except to organise our society. That's the hard part! 3 WE CAN NOW PRODUCE WEALTH EASILY Even now, without a properly organised society, the ease with which we produce wealth is remarkable. Because we possess a vast technical and scientific knowledge, all forms of wealth can be manufactured in great quantities. To give a few examples: In Britain, one blast furnace produces enough iron for the whole country, and a single manufacturer produces enough shoes to give everyone a new pair four times a year. In Japan, one factory makes nearly 30,000 radios a day, and in America another makes nearly three million ball pens in the same time. In 1986 a factory was built where only 95 people, working in three shifts, can produce 300,000 vehicles a year. During the twenties, it took eight men and seven horses to farm 250 acres of land. Now one man can do it. Less than four per cent of the American population work on the land and yet they produce three-quarters of the world's grain. And as with the necessities of life, so it is with the luxuries. Of all the work done in the world, only half is done to produce and prepare food. In the industrial countries, only about one person in ten is so engaged. It has been estimated that even now, when our technical knowledge is not put to proper use, only about 5 per cent of the population can provide the rest of us with all the food, clothing, shelter, and fuel we need. The curse of laborious work has been lifted from us but, as with all things, this is a blessing that may be used for good or evil. In a rational society, it will be used for good, but in our present society, it is used for evil. 4 WHY WE MUST UNDERSTAND THE STATE SOCIETY Since it is now possible to produce wealth with hardly any effort, we have to ask why we do not have plenty of it. Why do we not all live like kings? There can be only one answer. We do not because we organise our society ineffectively. Our labour is not used to produce useful wealth efficiently, and it is wasted producing useless wealth. Even worse, what is produced is distributed unfairly and is often wasted or destroyed. Today our economy is capitalism and our social organisation is the state. Both are ineffectual, dangerous, and irreformable, and we must understand why. Obviously, we must understand capitalism if we are to understand our present way of producing and distributing wealth. Not so obvious is the fact that we must understand the state in order to understand our economy. Most standard textbooks explain - or try to explain - our economy without any reference to the state society. This is like trying to explain why a car moves along the road without first explaining the petrol engine. We have to understand the states because within them there are governments, and it is governments who decide how society shall be organised. The society we have is the result of following their instructions. If your government says that your economic system must be capitalism, then capitalism it is. If it says that it must be Fascism or Communism, then Fascism or Communism it is. The kind of society and economy we have is always the result of government rule. Governments force us to use their economic system, but whatever the system they choose, it always involves the way wealth is created and distributed. Governments interfere with and control the economy in many ways, and they are also a part of it. In 1993, 40 per cent of all spending in Britain was by the Government. Therefore, we must understand how governments control the economy and why they do it. We want to eliminate not only our economic evils but also all social evils; not only inflation, slumps and poverty but also crime, terrorism, and war. Therefore, if we are to eliminate these social evils we must understand our present society that produces them. If we are to dismantle our present society and replace it with a better one, we must first understand its nature and the reason it produces so much poverty and violence. There is no other social pattern for us to study because the states cover the world.