in Esperanto
Chapter 5: SKETCH OF COMMUNIST SOCIETY -- WELFARE
4. Universal design advances in both name and reality.
4.1. Deinstitutionalization
In recent years, even in capitalist society, barrier-free society has become popular as a philosophy, but the financial resources are still a bottleneck in achieving complete barrier-free society, and progress has been slow. Communism, which is not financially constrained and is not tied to financial resources, would solve this problem without much difficulty.
In the first place, communist urban planning internalizes universal access, obliges all public places and buildings to be universal design, and promotes the construction of universal design housing. However, no matter how much physical universal design progress is made, it is meaningless if people with disabilities are housed in facilities and chained with invisible chains that prevent them from going out into the city.
In that respect, in capitalist society, where there is a strong idea that people with disabilities who are considered inefficient as a labor force should be "protected" in facilities, in addition to various facilities for the disabled, psychiatric hospitals, which are closer to facilities than hospitals have been developed. However, communist societies are highly capable of abolishing such facilities.
In order to promote advanced deinstitutionalization (demolition of facilities), it is necessary to develop home community care as a prerequisite for it, as is the case with the elderly. In this respect, care for the disabled has much in common with care for the elderly. Therefore, those who can be accommodated at public care station mentioned last time, can be accommodated there, and those who cannot be accommodated at those stations (e.g.mentally handicapped people) can be accommodated by specialized services for the disabled.
In the case of persons with disabilities, it is necessary not only to care for them, but also to guarantee their social participation, especially to secure a place to work. Currently, people with disabilities need to engage in wage labor if they want to make a living independently, but the barriers are thick. It is difficult for people with disabilities to be exploited as wage serfs in the same way as ordinary workers, for whom various considerations are essential according to their characteristics.
In contrast, communist labor, as we saw in detail in Chapter 3, is unpaid labor. Since it is labor as social cooperation, it becomes much easier for people with disabilities to find a place to work at their own capacity and pace.
In addition, business entities such as vocational training facilities for people with disabilities who cannot survive the profit-seeking competition will be able to go beyond mere "vocational training" and become independent production entities led by people with disabilities.
In this respect as well, a communist society that is centered not on exchange value but on use value can essentially be a "disabled-friendly" economic system. Production cooperatives, which are small and medium-sized mainstream production organizations in a communist society, are more suitable than joint-stock companies for developing production projects by persons with disabilities themselves because they are not profitable.
4.3. Anti-discrimination and barrier-free minds
Physical barrier-freeness is also important as a foundation for universal design policies, but what is more fundamentally important is the elimination of mental barriers that are latent in general society and exclude people with disabilities. Without it, deinstitutionalization would end up as an illusion.
This barrier-free mind may seem to be a universal issue for human society that is no longer directly related to communism. However, this is not necessarily the case.
The pillar of communist social morality is "anti-discrimination". As we have already seen, communist society is based on social cooperation and mutual aid, so it goes against the fundamental laws of society to exclude and isolate people of different backgrounds.
Therefore, as will be described in the next chapter, from the early stage of basic education (compulsory education), active promotion of interaction and integrated education between children with disabilities and non-disabled children will be promoted, and the awareness of welcoming persons with disabilities as equal members of society will be promoted at an early stage.
