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Social conditions throughout the world have recently fallen into a state of flux. The capitulation of the fuhrer of Italian political irrationalism set this process in motion. Sooner or later it will be followed by the capitulation of German political irrationalism. The process of social reconstruction in Europe will begin with a vacuum in social life, which will be chiefly characterized by political chaos. To cope with this social chaos, the working men and women of all vitally necessary occupations and organizations must be made conscious of the importance of fulfilling their social obligation of work. It cannot be assumed that anyone of the old or any newly founded political party will be capable of engineering a factual and rational reorganization of social conditions. Hence, as soon as circumstances permit, it is necessary that the most outstanding, most perceptive and politically unattached representatives of all vitally necessary spheres of work get together at national and international conferences to discuss and solve in work-democratic cooperation the practical tasks of individual and social life for which they are responsible. Once such non-political and strictly practical work conferences have begun to function, their activity will develop with the logic and consistency that are characteristic of objective and rational work. It has been clear for some time that the responsibility for all future developments rests upon the vitally necessary work of all occupations. In short, it rests upon the shoulders of the representatives of these occupations, and not upon any one body having a purely ideologic orientation. This is a conclusion that has been arrived at independently in various countries of Europe and in America.
Work-democracy is the natural process of love, work and knowledge that governed, governs and will continue to govern economy and man’s social and cultural life as long as there has been, is and will be a society. Work-democracy is the sum total of all functions of life governed by the rational interpersonal relations that have come into being, grown and developed in a natural and organic way.
Work-democracy is not an ideological system. Nor is it a ‘political’ system which could be imposed upon human society by the propaganda of a party, individual politicians or any group sharing a common ideology. There is no single, formal political measure by means of which work-democracy could be ‘introduced’. Work-democracy cannot be introduced in the same way as a republic or a totalitarian dictator is introduced. There is a very simple reason for this: Natural work-democracy is always present and is always functioning, whether this or that political party or ideological group knows of its existence or not. The process of natural work-democracy can be in diametrical opposition to social institutions or it can be more or less in accord with them. Wherever it functions, however, this work-democratic process demands that the social ideologies and institutions be brought into line with natural needs and interpersonal relations, in the same way as it is clearly expressed in natural love, vitally necessary work, and natural science. These vital social functions can be thwarted or they can be encouraged; working men and women can be conscious or unconscious of them. But they can never be destroyed. Hence, they form the solid basis of every rational social process.
Ideological political systems are based on views of the natural process of life. They can further or thwart the natural process of life. However, these systems are not part of the foundation of human society. They can be democratic, in which case they advance the natural process of life; or they can be authoritarian and dictatorial, in which case they become involved in a deadly conflict with this process.
Work-democracy cannot be imposed upon people as a political system. Those who perform vitally necessary work’ either are conscious of their responsibility for social processes or this consciousness evolves organically, as a tree or the body of an animal. This growth of the consciousness of radical responsibility is the most important precondition to prevent political systems from proliferating like tumours on the social organism, political systems that sooner or later have to lead to social chaos. Moreover, the consciousness of social responsibility on the part of the working men and women of all occupations is the most important precondition for the gradual harmonizing of the institutions of human society with the natural functions of work-democracy. Political systems come and go, without any essential change taking place in the foundation of social life. Nor does social life cease to function. But the pulse of human society would stop once and for all if the natural functions of love, work and knowledge would cease even for just a day.
Natural love, vitally necessary work, and natural science are rational functions of life. By their very nature, they cannot be anything but rational. Hence, they are arch enemies of any form of irrationalism. Political irrationalism, which plagues, disfigures and destroys our life, is, in the true psychiatric sense of the word, a perversion of social life, a perversion brought about by the failure to recognize the natural functions of life and by the exclusion of these functions from the regulation and determination of social life.
Every form of totalitarian-authoritarian rulership is based on the irrationalism inculcated in masses of people. Every dictatorial political view, regardless, who is its exponent, hates and fears its arch enemy, the functions of love, work and knowledge. They cannot co-exist. Dictatorship is capable only of suppressing the natural functions of life or of exploiting them for its narrow purposes; it can never promote and protect these functions or perform them itself. In doing so, it would destroy itself.
From this it follows that:
It is not necessary and would only be catastrophic to introduce newly conceived political systems. What is needed is the coordination of the natural functions of life with the regulation of future social processes. It is not necessary to create anything new; we must merely remove the obstacles that thwart the natural social functions, no matter in what form these obstacles turn up.
The representatives of these natural functions of life are those who perform the best work in all vitally necessary occupations. It is not their political inclinations that enable them to function in a work-democratic way, but solely their activity as industrial workers, farmers, teachers, physicians, child educators, writers, administrators, technicians, scientists, researchers, etc. If the representatives of vitally necessary work would form an international organization having concrete social and legal authority, such an organization would be invincible. It would foredoom international political irrational-ism.
Social production and consumption are naturally and organically interlaced with one another. The establishment of organizations giving practical and formal expression to this natural nexus would be a strong social guarantee against further catastrophes brought about by irrationalism. The responsibility for the course of the gratification of human needs would rest exclusively on the producers and consumers; it would not have to be imposed upon them, against their will and protest, by an authoritarian state administration. This assuming of responsibility for one’s own fate, represented in the already existing (i.e., not to be newly created) organizations of producers and consumers in all fields, would be a decisive step towards the establishment of the work-democratic self-administration of society. Since all work processes are dependent upon one another; since, moreover, consumption determines production; a naturally evolved and organically functioning organization is given in the social basis, which is alone in a position to assume the responsibility for Europe’s further social development.
Politically, work-democracy is oriented neither towards the ‘Left’ nor towards the ‘Right’. It includes everyone who performs vitally necessary work; hence, it is oriented solely towards the future. It is not part of its inherent intention to be against ideologies, nor against political ideologies. But, if it is to function at all, it must of necessity and in terms of its nature be sharply opposed to every ideological orientation and certainly to every political party that obstructs it in an irrational way. At bottom, however, work-
democracy is not ‘against’, as is usually the case in politics. It is for the concrete formulation and solution of problems.
Neither the idea that democracy is the best possible form of social cohabitation nor the idea that work and consumption are the natural foundation of social existence is new; neither its anti-dictatorial attitude nor its determination to fight for the natural rights of all working men and women of all the nations of this planet is new. All of these demands, ideals, programmes, etc., have been advocated in the liberal, socialist, early communist, Christian Socialist and other political organizations for centuries.
But this much is new: The representatives of work-democracy neither established political parties as a means of pushing through a work-democratic organization nor did they merely reiterate the old demands, ideals and programmes and let it go at that. In a genuinely scientific way, work-democrats asked themselves why it has been that until now all democratic demands, programmes and ideals have met with so many failures and, in Europe and in Asia, have had to give way to reactionary dictators.
For the first time in the history of sociology, a. possible future regulation of human society is derived not from ideologies or conditions that must be created, but from natural processes that have been present and have been developing from the very beginning. Work-democratic ‘polities’ is distinguished by the fact that it rejects all politics and demagogism. Masses of working men and women will not be relieved of their social responsibility. They will be burdened with it. Work-democrats have no ambition to be political fuhrers, nor will they ever be permitted to develop such an ambition. Work-democracy consciously develops formal democracy, which is expressed in the mere election of political representatives and does not entail any further responsibility on the part of the electorate, into a genuine, factual and practical democracy on an international scale. This democracy is borne by the functions of love, work and knowledge and is developed organically. It fights mysticism and the idea of the totalitarian state, not through political attitudes, but through practical functions of life, which obey their own laws. All this is new in work-democracy.
Work-democracy adds a decisive piece of knowledge to the scope of ideas related to freedom. The masses of people who work and bear the burden of social existence on their shoulders neither are conscious of their social responsibility nor are they capable of assuming the responsibility for their own freedom. This is the result of the century-long suppression of rational thinking, the natural functions of love and the scientific comprehension of the living. Everything related to the emotional plague in social life can be traced back to this incapacity and lack of consciousness. It is work-democracy’s contention that, by its very nature, politics is and has to be unscientific, i.e., that it is an expression of human helplessness, poverty and suppression.
In short, work-democracy is a newly discovered bio-sociologic, natural and basic function of society. It is not a political programme.
I alone bear the responsibility for this brief summary and statement.
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