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11 Could it be that the middle-class life of
prosperity, while satisfying
our material needs leaves us with a feeling of
intense boredom,
and that suicide and alcoholism are pathological
ways of
escape from this boredom? Could it be that these
figures are a
drastic illustration for the truth of the
statement that "man lives
not by bread alone," and that they show that
modern civilization
fails to satisfy profound needs in man? If so,
what are these
needs?
Could it be that the middle-class life of
prosperity, while satisfying
our material needs leaves us with a feeling of
intense boredom,
and that suicide and alcoholism are pathological
ways of
escape from this boredom? Could it be that these
figures are a
drastic illustration for the truth of the
statement that "man lives
not by bread alone," and that they show that
modern civilization
fails to satisfy profound needs in man? If so,
what are these
needs?

Man can
protect himself
from the consequences of his own madness only by
creating
a sane society which conforms with the needs of
man, needs
which are rooted in the very conditions of his
existence.

our craving for consumption has lost all
connection with
the real needs of man.

society in which the only aim is the
development of
man, and in which material needs are subordinated
to spiritual needs,

They both succeed in capturing the imagination and the fanatical allegiance of hundreds of
millions of people. There is today a decisive difference between the two systems.
In the Western world there is freedom to express ideas critical of
the existing system. In the Soviet world criticism and expression
of different ideas is suppressed by brutal force. Hence, the Western
world carries within itself the possibility for peaceful progressive
transformation, while in the Soviet world such possibilities
are almost non-existent; in the Western world the life of
the individual is free from the terror of imprisonment, torture or
death, which confront any member of the Soviet society who
has not become a well-functioning automaton. Indeed, life in
the Western world has been, and is even now sometimes as rich
and joyous as it has ever been anywhere in human history; life in
the Soviet system can never be joyous, as indeed it can never be
where the executioner watches behind the door.

But without ignoring the tremendous differences between
free Capitalism and authoritarian Communism today, it is shortsighted
not to see the similarities, especially as they will develop
in the future. Both systems are based on industrialization, their
goal is ever-increasing economic efficiency and wealth. They are
societies run by a managerial class, and by professional politicians.
They both are thoroughly materialistic in their outlook,
regardless of Christian ideology in the West and secular messianism
in the East. They organize man in a centralized system, in

SUMMARY-CONCLUSION 351

large factories, political mass parties. Everybody is a cog in the
machine, and has to function smoothly. In the West, this is
achieved by a method of psychological conditioning, mass suggestion,
monetary rewards. In the East by all this, plus the use of
terror. It is to be assumed that the more the Soviet system
develops economically, the less severely will it have to exploit
the majority of the population, hence the more can terror be
replaced by methods of psychological manipulation. The West
develops rapidly in the direction of Huxley's Brave New World, the
East is today Orwell's "1984." But both systems tend to
converge.

What, then, are the prospects for the future? The first, and
perhaps most likely possibility, is that of atomic war. The most
likely outcome of such a war is the destruction of industrial
civilization, and the regression of the world to a primitive agrarian
level. Or, if the destruction should not prove to be as thorough
as many specialists in the field believe, the result will be the
necessity for the victor to organize and dominate the whole
world. This could only happen in a centralized state based on
force—and it would make little difference whether Moscow or
Washington were the seat of government. But, unfortunately,
even the avoidance of war alone does not promise a bright
future. In the development of both Capitalism and of Communism
as we can visualize them in the next fifty or a hundred years,
the process of automatization and alienation will proceed. Both
systems are developing into managerial societies, their inhabitants
well fed, well clad, having their wishes satisfied, and not
having wishes which cannot be satisfied; automatons, who follow
without force, who are guided without leaders, who make
machines which act like men and produce men who act like
machines; men, whose reason deteriorates while their intelligence
rises, thus creating the dangerous situation of equipping
man with the greatest material power without the wisdom to
use it.

352 THE SANE SOCIETY

This alienation and automatization leads to an ever-increasing
insanity. Life has no meaning, there is no joy, no faith, no reality.
Everybody is "happy"—except that he does not feel, does not
reason, does not love.

In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead; in
the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead. In the
nineteenth century inhumanity meant cruelty; in the twentieth century
it means schizoid self-alienation. The danger of the past was
that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men
may become robots. True enough, robots do not rebel. But given
man's nature, robots cannot live and remain sane, they become
"Golems," they will destroy their world and themselves because
they cannot stand any longer the boredom of a meaningless life.
Our dangers are war and robotism. What is the alternative? To
get out of the rut in which we are moving, and to take the next
step in the birth and self-realization of humanity.

The first condition is the abolishment of the war threat hanging over
all of us now and paralyzing faith and initiative. We must take the
responsibility for the life of all men, and develop on an
international scale what all great countries have developed
internally, a relative sharing of wealth and a new and more just
division of economic resources. This must lead eventually to forms of
international economic co-operation and planning, to forms of
world government and to complete disarmament. We must
retain the industrial method. But we must decentralize work and
state so as to give it human proportions, and permit centralization
only to an optimal point which is necessary because of the
requirements of industry. In the economic sphere we need comanagement
of all who work in an enterprise, to permit their
active and responsible participation. The new forms for such
participation can be found. In the political sphere, return to the
town meetings, by creating thousands of small face-to-face
groups, which are well informed, which discuss, and whose
decisions are integrated in a new "lower house." A cultural

SUMMARY-CONCLUSION 353

renaissance must combine work education for the young, adult
education and a new system of popular art and secular ritual
throughout the whole nation.

Our only alternative to the danger of robotism is humanistic
communitarianism. The problem is not primarily the legal problem
of property ownership, nor that of sharing profits; it is that of
sharing work, sharing experience. Changes in ownership must be
made to the extent to which they are necessary to create a community
of work, and to prevent the profit motive from directing
production into socially harmful directions. Income must be
equalized to the extent of giving everybody the material basis for
a dignified life, and thus preventing the economic differences
from creating a fundamentally different experience of life for
various social classes. Man must be restituted to his supreme
place in society, never being a means, never a thing to be used by
others or by himself. Man's use by man must end, and economy
must become the servant for the development of man. Capital
must serve labor, things must serve life. Instead of the exploitative
and hoarding orientation, dominant in the nineteenth century,
and the receptive and marketing orientation dominant
today, the productive orientation must be the end which all social
arrangements serve.

No change must be brought about by force, it must be a
simultaneous one in the economic, political and cultural
spheres. Changes restricted to one sphere are destructive of every
change. Just as primitive man was helpless before natural forces,
modern man is helpless before the social and economic forces
created by himself. He worships the works of his own hands,
bowing to the new idols, yet swearing by the name of the God
who commanded him to destroy all idols. Man can protect himself
from the consequences of his own madness only by creating
a sane society which conforms with the needs of man, needs
which are rooted in the very conditions of his existence. A society in
which man relates to man lovingly, in which he is rooted

354 THE SANE SOCIETY

in bonds of brotherliness and solidarity, rather than in the ties of
blood and soil; a society which gives him the possibility of
transcending nature by creating rather than by destroying, in which
everyone gains a sense of self by experiencing himself as the subject
of his powers rather than by conformity, in which a system of
orientation and devotion exists without man's needing to distort
reality and to worship idols.

Building such a society means taking the next step; it means
the end of "humanoid" history, the phase in which man had not become
fully human. It does not mean the "end of days," the "completion," the
state of perfect harmony in which no conflicts or problems confront
men. On the contrary, it is man's fate that his existence is beset by
contradictions, which he has to solve without ever solving them. When
he has overcome the primitive state of human sacrifice, be it in the
ritualistic form of the Aztecs or in the secular form of war, when he
has been able to regulate his relationship with nature reasonably
instead of blindly, when things have truly become his servants rather
than his idols, he will be confronted with the truly human conflicts
and problems; he will have to be adventuresome, courageous,
imaginative, capable of suffering and of joy, but his powers will
be in the service of life, and not in the service of death. The
new phase of human history, if it comes to pass, will be a new
beginning, not an end.

Man today is confronted with the most fundamental choice; not that
between Capitalism or Communism, but that between robotism (of both
the capitalist and the communist variety), or Humanistic Communitarian
Socialism. Most facts seem to indicate that he is choosing robotism,
and that means, in the long run, insanity and destruction. But all
these facts are not strong enough to destroy faith in man's reason,
good will and sanity.

As long as we can think of other alternatives, we are not lost; as
long as we can consult together and plan together, we can hope. But,
indeed, the shadows are lengthening; the voices of insanity are

SUMMARY-CONCLUSION 355

becoming louder. We are in reach of achieving a state of humanity
which corresponds to the vision of our great teachers; yet we
are in danger of the destruction of all civilization, or of
robotization.

A small tribe was told thousands of years ago: "I put before you life
and death, blessing and curse—and you chose life." This is our choice
too.