I wrote recently in this column about the seemingly strange fact that many of the wealthiest Australians report being dissatisfied with their lives in general and even with the state of their finances in particular.
For example, a greater proportion of people on incomes under $25,000 than of people getting more than $100,000 said they were "totally satisfied" with their lives.
Part of this, I argued, is due to the fact that capitalism drives the owners of wealth to accumulate more wealth, so that greed is multiplied by economic success, not satisfied. There is another factor as well.
In capitalist society, money is the means of doing anything and everything. If you're hungry, you can't eat unless you can buy food. If you want to create something using more than your bare hands, you have to agree to make money for someone else. If you want to attend a sporting event or an artistic performance, you have to pay an admission price. If you meet a new person, whether or not you can become friends is, in part, determined by whether you're in the same income bracket.
In short, the vast majority of our social interactions — our relations with other human beings — are not conducted directly with people. Money is the intermediary between us and the rest of society.
This contrasts with the way social relations operated for most of human history. In earlier societies in which money did not dominate, people related to each other directly as members of the same family, tribe, clan or community, or because of shared activities such as hunting or gathering food. Think of the way in which people in isolated rural societies help each other construct a new house or barn, without thinking of payment for doing so.
The intervention of money turns our relations with other people into a relationship between us and a thing, money. It thus denies us a deeply felt human need: direct contact, interaction and mutual support with the people around us. (This is the reason that solitary confinement is such a cruel punishment.)
On one level, money gives wealthy people more opportunities for social interaction. But that interaction is the indirect, distorted relationship with a thing, so it can't really satisfy the desire for human relationship. More money can increase this alienation from other human beings: hence the cliche of the millionaire who fears that anyone who is nice to him is simply after his money.
This need for human solidarity is so strong that it continually tries to express itself, but while capitalism exists it is constantly hemmed in, blocked or distorted, because in capitalism money is superior to everything, including people.
Socialists are attempting to bring about a new social order in which human solidarity progressively restricts and does away with the dominance of money.
A socialist party that is serious about changing the world — not trying to get well-paying parliamentary or union positions — is itself proof that human affairs can be organised on the basis of solidarity rather than money.
Of course, a revolutionary party has to raise money because it has to carry out its activities within capitalist society. But humanity's centuries of selfless struggle to create a better world are convincing evidence that such a world is possible.
Allen Myers
From Green Left Weekly, July 27, 2005.
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