It was unspeakable to need someone in this way. I closed my eyes and listened to the night. Ravenous, repulsive creatures singing magnificently. If the workers and employees of an enterprise were exclusively concerned with their enterprise, the alienation between mortals and their social forces would remain unchanged. The narcissistic, alienated attitude would only have been extended from one individual to the team. It is therefore not an incidental but an essential part of workers’ participation that they looked beyond their own enterprise, that they be interested in and connected with consumers as well as with other workers in the same industry, and with the working population as a whole. The development of a kind of local patriotism for the firm, of an esprit de corps similar to that of college and university students, as recommended by British social psychologists, would only reinforce the asocial and egotistical attitude which is the essence of alienation. All such suggestions in favor of team enthusiasm ignore the fact that there is only one truly social orientation, namely the one of solidarity with humankind. Social cohesion within the group, combined with antagonism to the outsider, is not social feeling but extended egotism. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

All suggestions in the direction of the humanization of work do not have the aim of increasing economic output nor is their goal a greater satisfaction with work per se. They make sense only in a totally different social structure, in which economic activity is a part—and a subordinate part—of social life. One cannot separate work activity from political activity, from the use of leisure time and from personal life. If work were to become human, no real change would occur. In fact, it could not become interesting. It is the very evil of present-day culture that it separates and compartmentalizes the various spheres of living. The way to sanity is possessed in overcoming this split and in arriving at anew unification and integration within society and within the individual human being. The hostility in industry should give way to a feeling of participation in a joint endeavour. How is this to be achieved? The most direct and easily exploitable line of advance is in the direction of joint consultation. Much fruitful work has been done in this sphere, and it is now clear that something more is needed than joint production committees on the present model—some more radical effort to give the worker a sense of participation in the making of decisions. A few progressive firms have already made bold advances, and the results are encouraging. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

It could be advantageous to alter the legal structure of company ownership as to substitute for shareholders’ sole control a constitution which explicitly defines the responsibilities of the firm to worker, consumer and community; workers would become members of the company, and have their representatives on the board of directors. Ownership enterprises, when it passes from wealthy individuals, should go, not to the state, but to less remote public bodies, and should permit greater diffusion of power and encourage people of all sorts to play a more active part in the work and control of pubic and voluntary organizations. Consultation is less successful the further it recedes from face-to-face discussion on the job; and the size and structure of industrial units and the degree to which they can exercise independent initiative and therefore seen as matters of supreme importance. What is finally required for policy decisions and for an executive authority willingly accepted by all the members of an industry. There must be some exit process by which all those employed in an industry are enabled to participate in policy decisions; either through directly elected representative on the board or through a hierarchical system of joint consultation wit considerable powers. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

 In either case there must also be an increasing participation in the process of interpreting policy and of making decisions at subordinate levels. The creation of a feeling of common purpose in the activities of industry still remains, therefore, one of the outstanding objectives of Capitalism. After all, what is the matter with joint stock company is the irresponsible dictatorship exercised over it, nominally by its shareholders, actually in many cases by one or two self-appointing and self-perpetuating directors. Make public companies directly responsible both to the community and to the whole body of those engaged in their activities, and they would become institutions of a very different kind. Also, it has been noted throughout history, in France and Germany, after the war that transferring of property rights from the private capitalist to society of the state has, in itself, only a negligible effect on the situation of the worker, and the central problem of why people cannot afford to rent and buy in the cities they live lies in the change of the work situation. Our whole industry is built upon the existence of an ever-widening inner market. Each enterprise wants to sell more and more in order to conquer an ever-widening share of the market.  #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

The result of this economic situation is that industry uses all means within its power to whet the buying appetite of the population, to create and reinforce the receptive orientation which is so detrimental too mental sanity. As we have seen, this means that there is a craving for new but unnecessary things, a constant wish to buy more, even though the standpoint of human, unalienated use, there is no need for the new product. (The automobile industry, for instance, spent some billion dollars on the changes for the new 2019 models, BMW alone some hundred million dollars to compete with Mercedes-Benz. Without doubt, the older BMW was an excellent car, and the fight between BMW and Mercedes-Bens has not primarily the effect of giving the public a better car, but of making them buy a new car when the old one would have done for another generation or so). Another aspect of the same phenomenon is the tendency to waste, which is furthered by the economic need for increasing mass production. Aside from the economic loss implied in this waste, it has also an important psychological effect: it makes the consumer lose respect for work and human effort; it makes the makes one forget the needs of the people within one’s own and in less affluent lands, for whom the product one wastes could be a most valuable possession; in short, our habits of waste show an immature disregard for the realities of human life, for the economic struggle for existence which nobody can evade. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

It is quite obvious that in the long run no amount of spiritual influence can be successful if our economic system is organized in such a way that a crisis threatens when people do not want to buy more and more newer and better things. Hence if our aim is to change alienated into human consumption, changes are necessary in those economic processes which produce alienated consumption. It is the task of economists to devise such measures. Generally speaking, it means to direct production into fields where existing real needs have not yet been satisfied, rather than where needs must be created artificially. This can be done by means of credits through state-owned banks, by the socialization of certain enterprises, and by drastic laws which accomplish a transformation of advertising. Closely related to this problem is that of economic help from the industrialized societies to the economically less developed part of the World. It is quite clear that the time of colonial exploitation is over, that the various parts of the World have been brought together as closely as one continent was a hundred years ago, and that peace for the wealthier part of the World is dependent on the economic advancement of the less affluent part. Peace and liberty in the Western World cannot, in the long run, coexist with hunger and sickness in African and China. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

Reduction of unnecessary consumption in the industrialized counties is a must if they want to help the nonindustrailized countries, and they must want to help them, if they want peace. A World development program covering fifty years would increase agricultural production to the point where all persons would receive adequate nutrition and would lead to an industrialization of the now undeveloped areas similar to the prewar level of Japan. The yearly outlay for the Untied States for such a program would be between four and five billion dollars each for the first thirty years, and afterward les. When we compare this to our national income, to our present federal budget, to the funds required for armament, and to the cost of waging war, the amount required does not appear to be excessive. When we compare it to the potential gains that can result from a successful program, it appears even smaller. And when we compare the cost with that of inaction and to the consequences of maintaining the status quo, it is indeed insignificant. The foregoing problems is only part of the more general problem as to what extent the interest of profitable capital investment may be permitted to manipulate the public needs in a detrimental and unhealthy way. The most obvious examples are our movie industry, the comic-book industry and the crime pages of our newspaper. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

In order to make the highest profit, the lowest instincts are artificially stimulated and the mind of the public is poisoned. The Food and Drug Act has regulated the unrestricted production and advertising of harmful food and drugs; the same can be done with regard to all other vital necessities. If such laws should prove to be ineffective, certain industries, such as the film industry, must be socialized, or at least competing industries must be created, financed with public funds. In a society in which the only aim is the development of mortals, and in which material needs are subordinated to spiritual needs, it will not be difficult to find legal and economic means to insure the necessary changes. As far as the economic situation of the individual citizen is concerned, the idea of equality of income has been the aim that the capitalistic society has tried to reach. What Americans need is an income which will be the basis for a dignified human existence. As far as inequalities of income are concerned, it seems that they must not transcend the point where differences in income lead to differences in the experience of life. The mortal without an income of millions, who can satisfy any whim without even thinking about it, experiences life in a different way from the mortal who to satisfy one costly wish has to sacrifice another. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

The mortal who can never travel beyond his town, who can never afford any luxury (that is to say, something that is not necessary), again has a different life experience from one’s neighbor who can do so. However, even within certain differences of income the basic experience of life can remain the same, provided the income differences does not exceed a certain margin. What matters is not so much the greater or lesser incomes as such, but the point where quantitative differences of income are transformed into a qualitative difference of life experience. Needless to say, the system of social security, as it exists now in Great Britain and the United States of America for instance, must be retained. However, this is not enough. The existing social-security system must be extended to a universal subsistence guarantee. Each individual can act as a free and responsible agent only if one of the main reasons for present-day un-freedom is abolished: the economic threat of starvation which forces people to accept working conditions which they would otherwise not accept. We are no longer at the point where we can live off the land. Therefore, the owners of capital can enforce their will on the mortal who owns only one’s life, because without capital, we have no work except what the capitalist offers us. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

One hundred and fifty years ago, it was a widely accepted belief that no one had the responsibility for one’s neighbor. It was assumed—and scientifically proved by economists—that the laws of society made it necessary to have a vast army of less affluent and jobless people in order to keep the economy going. Today, hardly anybody would dare to voice this principle any longer. It is generally accepted that nobody should be excluded from the wealth of the nation, either by laws of nature, or by those of society. The rationalizations which were current a hundred years ago, that the less affluent owed their condition to their ignorance, lack of responsibility—briefly, to their sins—are outdated. In all Western industrialized countries a system of insurance has been introduced which guarantees everyone a minimum for subsistence in case of unemployment, sickness and old age. It is only one step further to postulate that, even if these conditions are not present, everyone has a right to receive the means to subsist. Practically speaking, that would mean that every citizen can claim a sum, enough for the minimum of subsistence even though one is not unemployed, sick or aged. One can demand this sum if one has quit one’s job voluntarily, if one wants to prepare oneself for another type of work, or for any personal reason which prevents one from earning money, without falling under one of the categories of the existing insurance benefits; shortly, one can claim this subsistence minimum without having to have any reason. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

Some say it should be limited to two years, so as to avoid the fostering of a neurotic attitude which refuses any kind of social obligation. This may sound like a fantastic proposal, but so would our insurance system have sounded to people one hundred and fifty years ago. The main objection to such a scheme would be that if each person were entitled to receive minimum support, people would not work. This assumption rests upon the fallacy of the inherent laziness in human nature; actually, aside from neurotically lazy people, there would be very few who would not want to earn more than the minimum, and who would prefer to do nothing rather than work. However, the suspicious against a system of guaranteed subsistence minimum are not unfounded from the standpoint of those who want to use ownership of capital for the purpose of forcing others to accept the work conditions they offer. If nobody were forced any more to accept work in order not to starve, work would have to be sufficiently interesting and attractive to induce one to accept it. Freedom of contract is possibly only if both parties are free to accept and reject it; in the present capitalist system this is not the case. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

However, such a system would be not only the beginning of real freedom of contract between employers and employees; it would also enhance tremendously the sphere of freedom in interpersonal relationships between person and person in daily life. Let us look at some examples. A person who is employed today, and dislikes one’s job, is often forced to continue in it because one does not have the means to risk unemployment even for one or two months, and naturally if one quits the job, one has no right to unemployment benefits. However, actually the psychological effects of this situation go much deeper; the very fact that one cannot risk being fired, tends to make one afraid of one’s boss or whomever one is dependent on. One will be inhibited in answering back; one will try to please and to submit, because of the constantly present fear that the boss could fire one if one asserted oneself. Or let us take the mortal who at the age of forty decides the he or she wants an entirely different kind of job, for which it will take one or two years to prepare oneself. Since under the conditions of a guaranteed existence minimum this decision would imply having to live with a minimum of comfort, it would require great enthusiasm for and interest in one’s newly chosen field, and thus only those who were gifted and really interested would make the choice. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

Or let us take a woman living in an unhappy marriage, whose only reason for not leaving her husband is the inability to support herself for the time necessary to be trained for a job. Or let us think of an adolescent living in severe conflicts with a neurotic or destructive father, whose mental healthy would be saved if he were free to leave his family. Briefly, the most fundamental coercion on economic grounds in business and private relations would be removed and the freedom to act would be restored to everybody. What about costs? Since we already have adopted the principle for the unemployed, the sick and aged, there would only be a marginal group of additional people who would make use of this privilege, the ones who are particularly gifted, those who find themselves in a temporary conflict, and the neurotic ones who have no sense of responsibility, or interest in work. Considering all factors involved, it would seem that the number of people using this privilege would not be extraordinarily high, and by careful research an approximate estimate could even be made today. However, it must be emphasized that this proposal is to be taken together with the other social changes suggested here, and that in a society in which the individual citizen actively participates in one’s work, the number of people not interested in work would only be a fraction of what it is under present-day conditions. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

Whatever their number, it seems that the cost for such a scheme would hardly be more tan what big states have spent for the maintenance of armies in the last decades, not taking into consideration the cost of armaments. It should also not be forgotten that in a system which restores interest in life and in work to everybody, the productivity of the individual worker would be far above that reported today as a result of even a few favorable changes in the work situation; in addition, our expenses due to criminality, neurotic or psychosomatic illness would be considerably less. Less dramatic illustrations of the loss of the sense of power of the self are present all around us in contemporary society, and, indeed, are so common that we generally take them for granted. For example, there is the curious remark made regularly nowadays at the end of radio programs, “Thanks for listening.” When you come to think of it, this remark is quite amazing. Why should the person who is doing the entertaining, who is giving something ostensibly of value, thank the recipient for taking it? To acknowledge applause is one thing, but thanking the recipient for deigning to listen and be amused is a quite different thing. It betokens that the action is given its value, or lack of value, by the whim of the consumer, the receiver—in the case of our illustration the consumer being their majesties, the public. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

Imagine Kreisler, after playing a concerto, thanking the audience for listening! The parallel suggested by the radio announcer’s remark is the court jester, who not only had to perform but at the same time to beg the majesties who watched to deign to be amused—and proverbially the court jester was in as humiliating a position as a human being could occupy. Obviously we are not criticizing radio announcers as such. This remark merely illustrates an attitude which runs through our society: so many people judge the value of their actions not on the basis of the action itself, but on the basis of how the action is accepted. It is as though one has always to postpone one’s judgment until one looked at one’s audience. The person who is passive, to whom or for whom the act is done, as the power to make the act effective or ineffective, rather than the one who is doing it. Thus we tend to be performers in life rather than persons who live and act as selves. The alternative of having versus being does not appeal to common sense. To have, so it would seem, is a normal function of our life: in order to live we must have things. Moreover, we must have things in order to enjoy them. In a culture in which the supreme goal is to have—and to have more and more—and in which one can speak of someone as being worth a million dollars, how can there be any alternative between having and being? #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

One the contrary, it would seem that the very essence of being is having; that if one has nothing, one is nothing. Yet the great Masters of Living have made the alternative between having and being a central issues of their respective systems. In order to arrive at the highest state of human development, we must not crave possession. “For whosoever will save one’s life shall lose it; but whosoever will lose one’s life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a mortal advantaged, if one gains the whole World, and loses oneself, or be cast away?” reports Luke 9.24-25. To have nothing and make oneself open and empty, not letting one’s selfishness get in one’s way, is the condition for achieving spiritual wealth and strength. Luxury can be as much as a nice as poverty, depending on what one does to obtain it. Having and being are two fundamental modes of experience, the respective strengths of which determine the differences between the character of individuals and various types of social character. The force of life is stronger than the force of mere intellectual curiosity. The difference between being and having is not essentially that between East and West. The difference is rather between a society centered around persons and one centered around things. The having orientation is characteristic of Western industrial society, in which greed for money, fame, and power has become the dominant theme of life. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

Many modern people cannot understand the spirit of a society that is not centered in property and prosperity. Love becomes a goddess, an idol into which the mortal projects one’s loving; in this process of alienation one ceases to experience love, but is in touch only with one’s capacity to love by one’s submission to the goddess of Love. One has ceased to be an active person who feels; instead one has become an alienated worshiper of an idol, and one is lost wen out of touch with one’s idol. I have transformed my feeling into something I possess: the problem. However, problem is an abstract expression for all kinds of difficulties. I cannot have a problem, because it is not a thing that can be owned; it, however, can have me. That is to say, I have transformed myself into a problem and am now owned by my creation. This way of speaking betrays a hidden, unconscious alienation. To say I have a great love for you is meaningless. Love is not a thing that one can have, but a process, an inner activity that one is the subject of. I can love, I can be in love, but in loving, I have nothing. In fact, the less I have, the more I can love. To have is a deceptively simple expression. Every human being has something: a body, clothes, shelter—on up to the modern man or woman who has a car, a television set, a washing machine, and so forth. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

Living without having something is virtually impossible. Why, then, should having be a problem? Yet the linguistic history of having indicates that the word is indeed a problem. To those who believe that to have is a most natural category of human existence it may come as a surprise to learn that many languages have no word for to have. It is clear that some people do not understand the word for to have as it developed in connection with the development of private property, while it is absent in societies with predominately functional property, that is, possession for the use. And that is why Eastern philosophies are hard to understand or may lead people in Western society astray. Traditionally, the way mortals have overcomes the daimonic is by naming it. In this way, the human being forms personal meaning out of what was previously a merely threatening impersonal chaos. We need only recall the crucial importance historically knowing the particular name of the demon in order to expell him. In the New Testament, Jesus calls out “Beelzebub!” or “Legion!” or some other presumably accurate name, and the devils or devils leave the possessed unfortunate immediately. The priests who were successful at casting out devils in the Middle Ages were those who could divine the name of the demon, the pronouncing of which was sufficient to conjure the evil spirit out and away. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18