Chapter 23
Transition, Implementation

Putting the system described in this book into practice first involves overcoming two cultural hesitations. The first is the continued belief that only two opposing systems are possible, namely capitalism and communism, and therefore that the current capitalist system is the only possible option. The second is to be content merely denouncing the current system while trying to exist at its margins.

Putting the system described in this book into practice also requires avoiding two pitfalls. The first would be to attempt to implement it abruptly, through a revolution. Indeed, the most likely outcome of any revolution is the emergence of a strong man, thus leading to a concentration of power that is not in line with what we are trying to promote. The second is to attempt to adapt this system to the constraints of politics, that is to apply only the parts of it for which public opinion is considered ready, resulting in an unstable system that does not work and the return to the starting point.

The very first step consists of spreading throughout society the vision of the future of collective living contained in this book. There are four obstacles to overcome: First, the ideas in this book are numerous and often highly innovative, making them difficult to assimilate, which could lead many readers, although convinced, to refrain from discussing them. This book should be read several times and discussed among interested individuals. Second, in contrast to Marx's time, the current media landscape is saturated with products designed to appeal, which occupy the space and leave little room for a substantive book based on a completely different foundation. Third, 65 million French people are 65 million individuals who think they know what needs to be done better than the president or any other person, including intellectuals, and will do nothing in the end, due to ingrained cultural habits. Fourth, a significant percentage of people will be fiercely - but not necessarily openly - opposed to this book, because they currently occupy the prestigious non-productive social positions described in Chapter 2, and have no intention of changing that at all.
Hence the importance of every reader who wants a future in line with the project described here actively and persistently promoting the book among their circle of acquaintances.

The first stage of implementation will be the creation of a bank operating according to the description of Chapter 17, along with the operational control mechanism described in Chapter 11. Initially, one can create a few organizations functioning according to the model and formalism described in this book, and convert a few administrative departments. Once the system is running smoothly, it is sufficient to increase the budgets of banks operating according to this model, convert more public services, and gradually nationalize the most structuring private entities, i.e., those at the source of a cascade of subcontracting.
During the initial phase, what is most important is to practically verify that we are capable of setting up organizations that function in line with the description in this book. It is also important to ensure that all aspects of such a social organization are progressively integrated into our culture.

In France for several decades, and in the United States for a few years, the left has been divided between, on one hand, a moderate left known as social democratic, which has accepted the principle of the market economy, but wants to temper it through law, in line with Marx's recommendations in Capital, and on the other hand, a more radical socialist left, committed to the idea of public services and redistribution, and more hostile to the market economy. The rift between these two lefts seems to have grown in recent years, making the adoption of a common government program difficult. We believe, and we hope this book will trigger the emergence of a new radical socialist movement. Indeed, even if such a movement is a minority, it could easily find common ground with the moderate left in the form: you continue to govern in line with the social democracy you believe in, but in exchange for our support, you launch a small-scale experiment of the new system we are proposing here. This would allow uniting those who desire a deep transformation of the system no longer in the form of an illusory promise of a return to a mythical past, but in the form of an innovative proposal to be experimented with, then deepened and gradually spread.

Let us now clarify the link between this book and political parties. For that, let us recall what we stated in the first chapter regarding the methodology. Solving a problem, here the qualitative insufficiency of the capitalist social organization, generally involves four steps: recognizing the problem, conducting a correct analysis, developing a relevant solution, and finally implementing it. Specifically, this book takes care of the part of conducting a correct analysis and the general lines of solution development. On the other side, it is up to the political class, on one hand, to disseminate this analysis in the general culture, and on a more essential level, to conduct discussions in order to specify the details as implementation progresses, taking into account experience feedback.
Politics alone cannot perform the analysis and lay down the general foundations of the solution. Even if there are today paths to assert that to build a political strategy it suffices to interpret what comes up from the field, or to organize a large citizen consultation, this is a dangerous illusion. Indeed, the quality of the analysis and the proposed solution is above all to the overall coherence. At this level, the more people involved, the more it is lost. Put differently, the current impression of political elites' inability to correctly lead the country is due more to the absence of thinkers to provide the general lines of a long-term and medium-term project, than to a specific failure of the political class.
We must also recognize that after the golden age of the thinkers of the Enlightenment era, then Marx and the anarcho-syndicalists in the 19th century, political thinkers have been notably absent in the 20th century. We can offer three explanations for this observation. On one hand, the actual implementation of revolutionary Marxism in the USSR and China in the 20th century gradually focused the debate, I should even say sterilized the debate, in the form of for or against, or more precisely for revolutionary Marxism in the Communist Manifesto, for the Marxism of Capital embodied in social democracy, or for no Marxism at all with ultra-liberalism. On the other hand, during the 20th century, the major interest shifted from the collective to the individual. Finally, at the time when sociology was born in the middle of the 20th century, that is to say the tools which allowed us to rethink collective organization on scientific bases, and no longer empirical or dogmatic, the so-called period took place. of the thirty glorious years, which may have suggested for a time that social democracy would be the ultimate form of organization. This is evidenced by the events of May 68 which had great effects on individual freedoms but very little on collective organization. It was only with the return of the control of finance and its corollary of disruptions characteristic of the Belle Époque and the interwar period, and with the emergence of ecology and the incapacity to reconcile it with the imperative of growth of the capitalist system, that the need to rethink social organization has reappeared. The 21st century therefore needed a credible proposal for social organization, here it is. Its implementation is now everyone's business, politicians to lead it, citizens to support it.