in Esperanto
Chapter 7: SKETCH OF COMMUNIST SOCIETY -- CULTURE
4. The culture of competition will decline.
4.1. Capitalist struggle for existence
Competition is as important as commercial value as a capitalist cultural value. This is closely related to the fact that commodities, which are the main characters of capitalist society, are competitive bets sold through the market, which is, so to speak, a playing field among producers.
This kind of competition is the principle of the market economy that is the cornerstone of capitalist society, and at the same time, it is also a cultural value that defines our lives.
In fact, in a capitalist society, in addition to economic competition between capitals, everything from exams, contests, competitions, competitions to elections is organized competitively. People born into capitalist society are exposed to the struggle for existence from the day they are born, and are screened out at each stage of the life cycle, and their lives are divided into winners and losers.
In such a competitive culture, it is a virtue not to feel guilty about knocking others down in competition. It is a triumph of my talent and hard work, and I am innocent of it.
If such a sense of values prevails, the trend of socially cooperating to accomplish a single project will disappear, and humans will become separate atoms in competitive relationships with each other. The local community is also dismantled, and the neighbors look like unknown foreigners.
People in a society with highly developed capitalism are lonely. They are further reduced to an indivisible individual-person, and in exchange for a rich consumer life, they are buried in a "huge collection of commodities." On the other hand, once they are defeated in the struggle for survival, it is difficult for them to start over, lose their place to belong, and become socially excluded and marginalized.
However, even those who survived the competition never seem to be truly satisfied, and it seems that there is a gaping empty hole in their hearts.
There are strong voices complaining about the "hardness of life", but this is a sociopathological symptom that the culture of competition produces on the side of the "losers" of the competition. On the other hand, the culture of competition causes pathological symptoms such as emptiness on the side of the "winners'' of the competition.
4.2. Possibility of coexistence instinct
Contrary to the beliefs of competition supremacists, there is also evidence to speculate that humans are not necessarily competitive animals by nature. For example, the etymology of the word competition is "com: together" and "petit: pursue".
This original meaning does not have the nuance of kicking down other rivals, but rather it has the implication of encouraging and improving each other. When this competition falls into the hands of capitalism, it becomes a meaningless struggle for survival.
Another example is the cartel. Cartels are cracked down as illegal conspiracies between capitalists that impede capitalist competition, but they are cracked down with penalties because they will continue to exist if left unchecked.
Why does capital, which glorifies competition on the surface, tries to avoid it behind the scenes? The end result of purely pursuing capitalist competition, in which rivals are kicked and crushed, is that the winner of the competition takes everything, in other words, a monopoly without competition.
Competition results in non-competition. Here lies the self-contradiction of capitalist competition. The only way to avoid this contradiction is to form a cartel and coexist with competing capitals. This is also one of the coexistence instincts inherent in capital.
Such examples seem to suggest that humans, who appear to be competitive animals, have a nature that can be called an instinct for coexistence. In fact, recent behavioral economics has revealed that humans are endowed with not only selfishness but also altruism.
4.3. Competition as friendly rivalry
Some people criticize the communist society as a lukewarm society with no competition, but even in a communist society, competition = friendly rivalry in the sense just mentioned is not denied. Social cooperation, which is emphasized in communist society, is by no means lukewarm, but rather teaches people the value of friendly rivalry.
If that happens, the meaning of exams and competitions will surely change. Exams will not be a means of sifting out, but a measure for discovering each person's aptitude, and a means for teachers themselves to verify the results of their own teaching methods. It will change from a place of envy where rivals secretly anticipate each other's missteps, to a place like a festival where they show off and evaluate each other's skills.
The meaning of competitions such as the Olympics may also change. It will no longer be a competition for medals between countries sending athletes, or a competition for profit and advertising between sponsor companies, but a sport where the athletes and teams participating in the competition will be purely immersed in the competition and the spectators will genuinely enjoy watching the competition. I wonder if it will go back to the origin as a festival.
In the realm of production, as we saw in Chapter 2, the free production system will be adopted in fields where the planned economy is not applied, and in the communist economy, the concept of exchange value will disappear, and a world centered on use value will arrive. As a result, there remains a kind of competitive relationship over the true value of products, namely how to produce high-quality, easy-to-use, and long-lasting products.
In a communist society, competition will generally change into a "co-running."
4.4. Ultimate suicide prevention measures
With the decline of the culture of competition, it is predicted that there will be some important changes in terms of spiritual culture.
First of all, the number of people who lose the competition and choose death because they are unable to start over in life will decrease significantly. Of course, even in a communist society, the number of suicides will not be zero, but many of the causes of suicide will be limited to purely existential causes (such as illness and bereavement). In this respect, communism should be more effective in preventing suicide than any psychiatrist.
The other is that the number of people seeking salvation in religion may decrease. Since "relying on God when in trouble" is a common phenomenon throughout the world, people pray to God in societies with more problems.
Exhausted by capitalist competition, even if they do not commit suicide, there are many people who are attracted to spiritual things in search of "healing". So long as it actually heals the capitalist trauma--although here too there is always the danger of being caught by a counterfeit--religion is more than opium, despite Marx's famous proverb. The religious fervor of the Muslim world is the most bitter yet powerful illustration of this.
However, the culture of friendly rivalry and communist "co-running" will reduce social problems and limit the role of religion to that played by philosophy. It is in this sense that communism is said to be atheistic, and it cannot imply religious oppression that deprives people of freedom of religion.
