Celebrationism is Not Communism
It is a way to peacefully evolve from capitalism to a post-scarcity society, in which capitalism is voluntarily abandoned when the residents no longer find it useful.
We are proposing a condominium structure of government, derived from the highly successful system of the Venetian Republic. It will be created using capitalist principles and within capitalism, evolving towards a post-capitalist system ONLY when the people living there see no further need for capitalism. All will occur without any need for revolution, coercive redistribution, or any sort of “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Marx envisioned the workers of the world rising up in advanced industrial nations such as Britain. He never envisioned his “revolution of the proletariat” happening in backwards Russia. While his ideas were perverted by the “Bolsheviks” (perhaps the first recorded instance of Doublespeak), he misunderstood fundamental things about how an economy works.
I contrast Marx to Adam Smith, whose ideas (admittedly, with some of them neglected or misunderstood) became the basis for capitalism. Smith foresaw a world of “universal opulence” arising from implementation of his ideas, and we stand at the threshold of that world today.
Marx’s most oft-quoted maxim is “From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs.” The power to force people to work is the power to enslave. The power to define needs for other people is a different kind of enslavement.
Marxists might counter that everyone on Earth excepting the wealthy capitalist is enslaved by the need to work, but at least in Capitalism (and Celebrationism) one has some degree of choice as to the work one does. Market mechanisms assure this, admittedly imperfectly, in capitalism. Automated provision of all necessities will assure this in Celebrationism, supplemented by market mechanisms to whatever extent people still find those useful.
Our proposed system gives no group any dictatorial powers, and indeed has multiple checks and balances to assure that none can seize them. The Venetian Republic had a system that thrived for centuries, until it underestimated Napoleon. It STRUCTURALLY prevented dictators, moneyed control of politics, and the formation of political parties and resultant gridlock.
Today’s “luxury communists” envision a post-capitalist society in which production is automated and capital is ubiquitous. So do we. To my knowledge, they lack a MECHANISM to take us from here to there. We have provided one, in detail, and it has been endorsed by substantial persons.
