Chapter 13
The property

In the second part of this book, we presented the organization of production which constitutes the heart of social organization. In this third part, we will specify other aspects of social organization with the aim of ultimately presenting a globally coherent system. Some very innovative political proposals, which could have been the subject of an entire thesis work, are presented here in a few, or even a simple sentence. It’s up to you not to miss them!

The idea that we have often followed here is to present the key change(s), which make it possible to unblock the situation, as for example in the chapters dealing with ecology, justice or even the media. Indeed, in the absence of a clear proposal which sets the broad outlines of the new framework from the start, it is quite unlikely that the legacy of the past, the weight of habits and established interests, will make it possible to obtain a change of this magnitude by simple continuous improvement resulting from the experience of the profession. Or else, this change would take a time that would probably be counted in centuries.
On the other hand, we have not sought to draw up an exhaustive list of practical consequences or to detail the methods of implementing these few structuring measures. Indeed, in part two, we have just defined what an effective and constructive decision loop is which allows us to take into account the problems encountered in the field. The best implementation is therefore to always set up this loop, via the creation of organizations, to ensure that it works well, but not to presuppose what it will produce in terms of decisions. strategies which will establish the practical modalities of operation.
However, we needed these structuring measures to quickly establish a coherent general environment. Indeed, if the effective and constructive decision loop is the key, we have seen (Chapter 10) that when archaic external structural constraints that are too strong make the best solutions impossible, then, in the absence of results that produce a social consensus, the game alliances, and as a result the irrational mode of reasoning described in Chapter 4, risk taking over.
In the end, it is therefore appropriate to see these very innovative political proposals as catalysts for a coherent social project, the heart of which we have just exposed in the second part of this book, more than as improvements to be made to the current system. , which, failing to properly take into account, at the level of its foundations, the implications of generalized nepotism, and cognitive dissonance, will not emerge from its archaic status, whatever the improvements that will be made to it at the level of the upper floors .

This chapter addresses the notion of property from three angles: ownership of the production tool, inherited property, and finally income from work.

Why limit the concentration of wealth?

We saw in Chapter 5 that the Enlightenment ideal included limiting the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. This limit was jeopardized by the industrial revolution of the 19th century, which the Antitrust law in the United States aimed to partially counter by cutting up the industrial empires that had become hegemonic, to prevent the power of private power from becoming greater than that of private power. of the community. However, as Alain Supiot has shown, the path followed in the 20th century was ultimately the acceptance of the unlimited concentration of economic power (1), and to cope with it, the increase in the size and power of federal states in the United States and Europe, that is to say a race towards gigantism.
However, we also saw, still in chapter 5, that in a democracy, the excessive concentration of economic power leads at a certain moment the people to vote for a populist seen as an - illusory - bulwark against the possessing minority not concerned by the difficulties daily lives of the people. We are there almost everywhere in the world.
Going back up the chain of consequences, what opposes a return to a more reasonable size is the current dogma of deregulated free trade on a global scale, which favors the most powerful organizations. Let's continue. We need deregulated free trade, because we absolutely need growth, and therefore new markets to conquer. And finally, we need permanent growth to compensate for the permanent increase in our non-production workforce, seen in Chapter 2 as Parkinson's Law.
For educational purposes, let's go back down the chain of consequences: proliferation of non-production personnel → need for growth → need for new outlets → deregulated globalization → gigantism of companies → concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number → populist vote → inevitable dictatorial drift .
At what level do we decide to break this infernal chain? Environmentalists and anti-globalization activists want to get away from the logic of growth. Alain Supiot wishes to limit the gigantism of companies in accordance with the vision of enlightenment. Thomas Piketty wants to limit the concentration of wealth. Populists generally want to restore protectionism. We affirm that all this is illusory, and that the link on which we must necessarily act is the first. This is the whole meaning of the creation of the organizations described in the second part of this book.
If we now approach the problem from the other direction; once we have decided to seriously combat the proliferation of non-production personnel, do we need to do more? In particular, do we also need to limit the concentration of economic power by restricting access to property, and therefore freedom? In fact, once we break the chain of consequences that we have just described, then gigantism loses its reason for existence. However, the risk it poses to democracy does not disappear, nor does the exacerbation of the internal struggle for power that it generates, therefore generalized nepotism, and the stress on individuals that results from it. In fact, there is no longer any reason to tolerate it.
This is also true of all the other links: once we have broken the infernal chain of consequences, both the end of the logic of growth, the limit set on the size of companies, and protectionism, once again become evidence to ensure that progress benefits everyone. We will return to this in chapter 14 concerning ecology, and in chapter 19 concerning world trade.

Ownership of the production tool

Ownership of the tool of production is the aspect of ownership that is central to Marx's work. Indeed, he is indignant that the industrial revolution caused the concentration of this property in a few hands, and thus created a new poor class: that of workers.

In terms of ownership of the production tool, we are seeking here to move away from two extremes. The capitalist extreme with large commercial enterprises on the one hand; the extreme collectivist on the other hand. We will first explain why these two positions are extreme, while in the West we often tend to think that only the second is.

Concerning the notion of commercial enterprise first of all, the limits of power fixed to capital are reduced to, on the one hand the obligation to respect the letter of the regulations, and on the other hand the constraint of earning money. money. However, this represents an excess of power on at least three points. First of all, a company can make decisions contrary to the collective interest. Then, in a more subtle way, she can make decisions that will predictably lead to her downfall, or to her ill health. An example is the excessive 'cost killing' of certain buyers. Finally, in our very complex society, a company can use this complexity to knowingly circumvent the spirit of the law while respecting its letter. The Lehman Brothers case in the 2000s is a perfect illustration of this.

In a collectivized economy then, the limits imposed are limited to partially respecting the law, and having political support. Indeed, as power de facto shifts from capital to politics, companies tend to ensure their survival by means of political support, which encourages corruption, that is to say a law which is not equally applied. to everyone.

Let us then note that the fact of privatization or nationalization, which we tend to regard as the most revealing element of a political system, is not in fact significant in itself. What ultimately determines the functioning of social organization, and which we forget to highlight, is the governance of the production organizations put in place. However, the fact of privatizing or nationalizing does not mechanically induce a mode of governance that would be canonically associated with each of the two. For example, when we nationalize, we can either establish a political mode of governance, as is the case in communist systems, or a rational mode of governance, as we recommend.

It emerges that in a modern, and therefore complex, society, the ownership of the production tool must above all be subject to good management, hence the operational control introduced in Chapter 11.
Once this quality is ensured, it becomes obvious that the structuring companies, that is to say those which are primarily givers of orders to subcontractors, must be nationalized in order to become organizations such as described in this book, because the social effect of their decisions is amplified.

We will see in Chapter 17 on business financing how organizations can operate without capital.

Inherited property

The system for regulating inequalities that we will propose in Chapter 16 is based on a wealth tax. Indeed, once we have put in place a system which no longer requires private capital to finance the economy, then the notion of great fortunes becomes useless and morally questionable. So it becomes more logical to tax assets than income.

Furthermore, we will see, still in chapter 16, that we propose to use the inheritance tax to ensure the balance of public accounts, that is to say, to eliminate what is called ' debt' at the start of the 21st century, and which in fact only results in an absurd way of counting things. Indeed, if a generation incurred public debts because the state budget was not balanced year after year, then it cannot have its direct descendants inherit on one side the heritage acquired in part thanks to this credit, and on the other to the community as a whole the corresponding debt. It is appropriate at the time of inheritance to make the reconciliation to transmit only the net result.

Income from work

It seems clear to us that if we combine robotics and decline, employment can no longer be the only source of income for the working classes. In fact, in Chapter 16 on taxes and redistribution, we include a universal income system.

Conversely, the tax system that we will propose does not contain taxes specific to income from work, which are usually called social contributions and income tax. Indeed, as we have just seen, it is more logical to carry out long-term regulation through a wealth tax than to want to immediately collect the fruits of labor.
Furthermore, we are not seeking to limit wage inequalities through tax or law, because we believe that universal income is a mechanism that makes it possible to advantageously replace the notion of minimum wage, and that on the other hand , limiting the size of organizations, as discussed in Chapter 8, will effectively limit top salaries.

Finally, let us recall what we said in Chapter 5 in the paragraph 'A Very Brief History of Humanity': the end of mass labor is not a calamity, but a potential fruit of the acquisition of technological knowledge, which simply requires the adoption of a new social organization adapted to new circumstances.
More precisely, a mental obstacle to overcome is to see work as THE source of social integration, therefore by mirror effect the end of universal work as a disintegration of society following the adage "idleness is the mother of all vices.” This fear is an undesirable effect of the philosophy of enlightenment which saw work as the means of emancipation, as we mentioned again in chapter 5.
But what is at stake is simply to gradually put an end to alienation through work, that is to say, to gradually put an end to accepting social oppression in the context of work, just because you have to earn a good living. Indeed, it is clear that even after more than a century of democracy, the objective of emancipation through work from the ideal of enlightenment has never been achieved for the majority of the population, and will never be. never in a democratic capitalist system, because the stress on individuals, a consequence of generalized nepotism, prevents this.
The organizations that we presented in the second part present two characteristics that promote fulfillment at work. First of all, even when their reason for being is not rewarding, the methods of distribution of power limit the stress linked to generalized nepotism seen in Chapter 2. On the other hand, the organizations that we propose unify the notion of commercial, administrative and associational enterprise, so that they will allow the evolution towards more gratifying reasons for being as progress progresses.

(1)
The threshold of reasonableness has been exceeded with the introduction of the notion 'Too big to fail' which is changing the nature of businesses: profits are always private, but any losses will be collectivized.