in Esperanto
Chapter 3: SKETCH OF COMMUNIST SOCIETY -- LABOR
4. Marriage gives way to notarized partnership.
4.1. Fluctuations in the model of marriage and family
Here, I would like to take up family issues related to labor. This is because the state of the family of the common people is closely related to the state of labor.
For example, in the days of feudal serfdom, serf families were agricultural groups, so it would have been convenient for them to be large families with many children. However, under the capitalist wage-serfdom system, the family is at the same time a "workshop" that produces the next generation's labor force, and is also a unit of everyday consumption. Therefore, the family no longer needs to be a large family, a small nuclear family is sufficient, and it can be argued that the nuclear family is more convenient for capital as a target for consumption exploitation.
However, the shift to the nuclear family model inevitably leads to a declining birthrate, and it also harbors a contradiction that could lead to the loss of the Going Concern for total capital, which is to secure the next-generation labor force.
On the side of capital companies, although it is no longer necessary to mobilize a large amount of labor due to improvements in productivity after the electric motor revolution and the computer revolution, serious labor shortages have led to soaring wage levels. It pushes down the profit rate of capital enterprises, and eventually causes a long-term recession. Therefore, the business world is requesting the political world to take measures against the declining birthrate.
By the way, the proletariat originally meant "those who produce offspring and serve the state," but the proletariat in capitalist society means more than that, "those who produce offspring and serve capital."
However, the "countermeasure against the declining birth rate" will never be successful in the long term. The reason is that capitalism is essentially incapable of overcoming the old marriage-family-centredism, despite the rising rate of non-marriage, which has been brought about by the increase in the number of men and women who do not marry because the trend toward the nuclear family has been accompanied by the spread of free marriages and has almost eradicated customs such as arranged marriages set by parents.
Capitalism's fixation on marriage family system is not a vestige of pre-modern feudalism, even if some of these elements are recognized in societies with a conservative climate. Rather, it stems from the fact that the significance of the marriage family as the most secure reproduction factory of the next-generation labor force in capitalist society remains unchanged.
4.2. Notarized partnership system
In contrast, in a communist society, the wage serfdom system will be abolished, so the marriage family will no longer be expected to reproduce the labor force. Instead, new communal livelihood models such as the notarized partnership system, which does not have the reproduction of labor as an important purpose, will emerge in place of the marriage family system.
This is not a "heavy" relationship like traditional marriage. It is a union system that is established only by a notarized agreement between the couple who want to live together for the time being, and is a highly versatile model that can be used by elderly couple who have been bereaved, and by couple of the same sex.
This shift from married families to partnerships has advanced considerably in recent years within the framework of capitalism in Western societies, but communism will push that direction even further.
4.3. Solution to the population problem
The direction of moving away from marriage family system has the potential to put a brake on the declining birthrate. For example, children born to notarized partners are legally given legal status, making it easier for them to have children without getting married, which in turn increases the possibility of having children.
In addition, in a communist society where commodity-money exchange is abolished, medical care and education will be completely free, so the phenomenon of restraining child-bearing in consideration of the burden on households will also disappear.
In contrast, communism has the potential to put a brake on population growth in the Global South where the population explosion is occurring, which is also a factor in serious food shortages. This is because by abolishing the commodity-money exchange, the fertility due to structural poverty that increases the number of workers in the family will disappear.
However, it is said that the population explosion is also mediated by customary factors such as contraception for religious reasons and the custom of polygamy. In traditional areas where such factors are strong, new joint livelihood systems such as a notarized partnership may not easily spread. Even so, it would be a great step forward if at least the trend toward high births due to economic factors could be curbed.
Although excessive optimism cannot be tolerated, it can be said that communism has the potential to be a solution to the world's immediate population problems - declining population in the North and increasing population in the South.
