A Preliminary Sketch

I've lately been thinking alot about modern society and the nature of its institutions. It's clear that most jobs out there are unfulfilling and most schools severely bore and frustrate students. Clearly we need to transform our society.

I've been reading about worker's self directed enterprises (Richard Wolff), self-production, community workshops (where community members can build their own products), and guaranteed basic income (Andre Gorz). I've also been reading about the office or personhood and the inherent moral and rational nature of human beings (E.M. Adams).

My ultimate concern is with the fulfillment of human beings, not with ownership or the distribution of wealth. However, the latter are huge factors in the prior, so they cannot be ignored.

What I'm especially focused on is the organizational structure of our society's institutions. Who makes what decisions? How do people interact? Who commands whom? How is authority distributed? Who is responsible for what tasks? What are the dominant values practiced?

We live in a very complex society, so I don't envision a particular organizational model being the best choice in every instance. However, I do see certain values being universally important, such as treating others with the same respect you would want for yourself.

I'd like to see all kinds of experiments in humanistic institutions sprouting up. I want to see democratic worker-owned cooperatives, I want to see humanistically managed corporations, I want to see different models of workplace democracy.

On the municipal level, I'd like to see projects to strengthen community and more effectively share the wealth of community resources. Community potlucks, urban produce swaps, skills-sharing, community seminars . . . . Nowadays, most homes are just islands where you come to rest and sleep after work. This arrangement leaves many people lonely, bored, and dependent on popular culture and market transactions to be entertained.

Ultimately we need to work less, on tasks that are more meaningful to us; we need to be less obsessed with buying things and more focused on developing our communities, friendships, and ourselves; we need to truly apply the Golden Rule in our personal interactions as well as on a global context. It is possible to move beyond the current social paradigm. If we want to live in a world of happy, fulfilled human beings, we have no other choice.