Humanism is the Joy of Living
In this essay, I will discuss how to build a good society, with particular emphasis on the happiness and joy of living. Erich Fromm presented this field. He analyzed the work of the highest authorities in the field of productive living and provided his recommendations on achieving a healthy and joyful life. Fromm examined the problem from a psychological perspective and left it to the individuals to accept his proposals. Although Fromm sold many books, it is unclear how successful he was in improving society. I wanted to accomplish a lot more, so I created a political-economic system that will unconditionally and inevitably give all people a good, healthy and joyful life.
People want happiness but struggle to find it. I’ll try to explain why in this essay! In short, happiness results from satisfying needs, while the inability to meet them creates misfortune. People form needs through their thoughts. Thoughts objectively define basic human needs, such as freedom and the acquiring of resources for survival. Inability to achieve freedom and find food creates an objective misfortune. This type of misfortune today should not exist because society is sufficiently developed to overcome it, yet it persists. Why?
Thoughts are free, and as such, they can set their own needs. People are aware of their powerlessness in nature and feel compelled to overcome it. At such moments, a person can easily use the freedom of his thoughts to create a subjective vision of the nature that surrounds him. Generally, such a view glorifies the person and diminishes nature's power. If such an opinion does not directly confront the forces of nature, a person adopts it as real. In this way, a person builds the illusion of overcoming nature's powerlessness. That is how the person alienates himself from their nature.
The individual most often tries to compensate for their powerlessness in nature by creating power over other people. This is achieved by using physical force, ideology, power, wealth, fame, and values that give power over the people. Every success in controlling people within a man’s subjective consciousness easily manifests the characteristics of overcoming his objective powerlessness in nature. This illusion brings great happiness. It looks real to the alienated person, and he accepts it as such. A person who achieves power over people or becomes rich or famous experiences an eruption of captivating happiness.
But it raises a big problem; the person who becomes convinced that he has overcome his powerlessness before nature sooner or later comes into contradiction with the objective laws of nature. He reveals that his life is passing, that stronger, richer, more famous people emerge than he is. The result is disappointing, the illusion of happiness vanishes, and pain appears. Once a person becomes convinced that they have overcome their own powerlessness in nature, any violation of its illusions in their subjective consciousness threatens their survival. Then he desperately acts in the field of alienated interests, trying to develop more power, more wealth, or more fame.
But no activity can affect the origin of such needs. Control over the people cannot overcome the objective human weakness in nature. So the individual in the field of alienated interest cannot find their satisfaction. That is why such a person lives a permanently dissatisfied life. When a person satisfies their hunger, they stop eating because it could cause stomach problems, and they know this. But the person does not recognize the causes of trouble arising from the formation of alienated needs. Otherwise, they would have dismissed alienated needs. The result of creating alienated needs is much worse than when a person with a full stomach continues to eat.
In an alienated society, successful people are more alienated from their nature, and therefore lead to stress and divorce, for example, and if they do not live reasonably, productively, and disciplined enough, which is difficult to achieve with the privileges they have, then their way of life leads them to depression, drug addiction, alcoholism, etc. If you pay attention, you can see that powerful, rich, and famous people who are not responsible for their lives are not happy. They just try hard to demonstrate success and well-being. As a rule, they are deeply concerned with wealth, fame, and power, and do not enjoy life because they are alienated from their natural needs.
Furthermore, power over people develops a human narcissistic character that glorifies one's own personality and underestimates other people. A narcissistic person loses respect for other people. They miss the ability to gain natural advantages from other people. Greed makes him heartless, perverts his soul and takes away the joy of living. Such a person often causes real suffering for others, preventing them from meeting their needs. Benefits arising from the equal rights among people by their nature are the most significant benefits possible that human nature can accomplish. The person who, because of their ignorance, rejects such benefits is their own worst enemy.
Inability to meet the alienated needs creates alienated misery, but it looks real to man. For example, a person would never commit suicide because they cannot satisfy their natural needs, for example, hunger, but they would do it if they cannot meet their alienated needs. If a person, through their subjective conscience, finds the origin of their problems outside themselves, then the extreme tension of being unable to meet their needs leads them to destroy the world around them. Alienation develops irrationality and a permanently miserable life from which it is difficult to find a way out. An alienated person lives a spiritually impoverished life, no matter what they achieve. They cannot understand the nature of their needs, act against their nature and live an unhappy life.
Therefore, society must develop an orientation that stimulates objectivity and does not alienate it. This is precisely what the system I have proposed promises. This system will bring society to a natural, pleasant and joyful life.
It may sound unbelievable, but establishing equal rights among the people will solve all the problems of happiness and unhappiness. Today, human rights laws proclaim formal equality. In practice, equality is absent because many people’s privileges harm society. I have proposed a new system to begin solving the problem of unequal rights by implementing an equal-rights evaluation among people. I’ve called it democratic anarchy. Each person will have an equal right to evaluate a few people of their choice. A positive assessment will slightly increase the evaluated person's income, and a negative evaluation will somewhat diminish it. Such an assessment will force every person to respect others; to do everything they can to beautify their lives, and not to do anything that can hurt them. This will be the basis for the establishment of a healthy, constructive and productive orientation of society.
Equal rights among the people must be extended to include equal rights to work. The new system proposes open competition among workers based on labour productivity, offering the right to work in any public post at any time. Productivity will be measured by earned money, the quantity and quality of goods produced, or the productivity rating given by consumers. The worker who offers more profit, more manufactured goods, better, cleaner and cheaper production will get the job. This is only a technical problem that can be solved. I wrote more about it in the article The Future of Economics.
No division of labour is better than competition for work in the labour market. The new division of labour will balance workers' interests across workplaces through a newly defined system of worker responsibility. More responsible positions will be more rewarded when productivity increases and more sanctioned when productivity falls. Thus, a new division of labour will abolish privileges, one of the most significant sources of problems in our society. Therefore, a new division of work will make all jobs equally desirable. Thus, all members of society will accept a new division of labour as just. Also, work competition will achieve significantly higher productivity than private enterprise can accomplish, and that will send capitalism, with all its disadvantages, down in history.
The work competition will allow each worker to get a job that they prefer. Thus, work will become valuable in itself. A worker who loves their work will work harder to achieve the highest productivity in the desired workplace and thus earn the right to work. When a person invests energy in a field they like, they are building their productive orientation and life satisfaction. Thus, the man’s creative power of being will bring significant, stable benefits in the form of the joy of living.
Happiness and joy are similar phenomena, but they differ. Happiness is a convenience that cannot exist without unhappiness and generally does not last long. Happiness matters more if previous unhappiness was greater, and vice versa. Happiness does not necessarily depend on man’s activities; it may or may not come. The joy of life is a permanent and stable natural advantage because it occurs as a man’s entire productive orientation. It is hardly accessible when one lacks freedom of decision and action, as is the case today. For that reason, it is challenging to find a joyful person today.
Real equality among people reduces the possibility of establishing supremacy, and this decreases the likelihood of false and alienated fortune and misfortune. A joyful person much more readily accepts the limitations of his nature, and therefore subjective happiness and unhappiness could harder affect him. A joyful person will not necessarily be able to meet all their needs. Whoever invests great effort in satisfying his needs and cannot find satisfaction will be sad, but not angry. The system will establish objective justice and respect among the people, preventing the emergence of anger. Sadness is a much healthier emotion than anger. It is also a better emotion because it allows a more rational response. Sociologically, unlike anger, sadness does not create conflict. Psychologically, sadness, unlike anger, helps a person understand objective reality and solve problems productively and constructively. Anger destroys the soul, and sorrow develops it. Sadness can direct a person to a better life, and anger cannot.
Happiness is short-lived. The alienated person wants to hold on to it as much as possible, no matter what, and therefore easily becomes self-centred and greedy, developing many negative character traits that harm them and society as a whole. A natural and joyful person lives a productive life and knows that their benefits mainly depend on them alone. Because of it, they is eager to share and ready to cooperate on all levels of human relationships, helping to produce benefits for society.
The proposed system will enable a person to be productive, satisfied with themselves, and to believe in their future. Such a person can love.. Today, we distort the meaning of the word love because capitalism, by its cruelty, has virtually destroyed our ability to love. The ability to love cannot be received; it must be earned through productive living. It is, in fact, the highest accomplishment of a productive life and brings the greatest joy in living. Besides that, the proposed form of living will enable a person to gain significant knowledge and wisdom. A wise person has everything they need, regardless of how much or how good it is, and therefore they master their emotional states and live a whole, peaceful, and joyful life. This person is free.
Equal rights among people will rid the people of authoritative pressure and give them the freedom to follow their own interests, while at the same time forcing people to mutual respect. Such experiences will demystify the values imposed by authorities and teach people to live according to their proper nature, which will, in turn, free them from all types of alienation characteristic of present-day society. Furthermore, the system will teach people to set their needs according to what can satisfy them. This is the chief prerequisite for overcoming destructiveness in society because people who permanently satisfy their needs are not destructive.
The system I have proposed will enable people to develop themselves correctly and to be mentally and physically healthy. Healthy individuals will promote a healthy society, and a healthy society will form even more healthy individuals. The process will develop, and as a final result, a harmonious and good society will appear with individuals full of the joy of living. The proposed system promises a natural and highly prosperous development of society, beyond today's wildest dreams. The system is defined, in detail, in my book, “The Humanism,” available free of charge here.
April 8, 2004
Updated November 13, 2013