The Party
(a proposal for a party platform)

by

Leif Elggren and Thomas Liljenberg


We are all born equal
And yet most people are neither free and nor able to make choices. Welive in a society built on inequality, dividing populations into therich and the poor, developed and undeveloped countries, male and female,young and old, children and adults, humans and animals, chosen andunchosen, healthy and sick, smart and stupid, good and evil, us andthem, friends and enemies.

   We live in a society where the structures for distribution have placedthe State and the economic system connected to it at the top of thedistribution pyramid and human beings at the bottom.

   We oppose this system that has made economics the main actor, we opposeits hierarchical structure which we see as a heritage from the valuesbehind religious dogmas transferred by the production system onto theworkings of society, the course of advancement and the production ofcommodities. Instead we advocate a circular, rotating societal structurewith a flexible parliament without hierarchical division, where thelowest level of authority is also the highest. Compare Ouroboros. Wepropose a radical division between economy, politics and culture inwhich culture, politics and purely interpersonal activities areguaranteed an asylum by the economy and in relation to "market values".A completely new parliamentary system where various minority groups arerepresented in different periods in the parliament; for examplechildren, animals, invalids, plants, the cerebrally dead, enemies, thementally retarded, priests, criminals, social outcasts, addicts, thesenile, etc.

The same wages for all
A person has a high salary because he or she is considered more valuableon the job market. The same wages for everyone brings with it a new viewof subjectivity, consumption, work and objects. This proposal can bemotivated not only in terms of labour politics, but also in terms ofbiology and ecology since we evidently cannot afford to produce volumesof worthless rubbish that pollute the earth or to regard human beings asmore or less valuable commodities. For a society built on theexploitation of nature and human effort the same wages for all would bethe gateway to true freedom.

Citizens´ salary according to social needs
A proposal for basic economic security for all citizens together withthe same wages for all create fertile ground for dissolving the obviousinequalities that exist today between the sexes, between classes andbetween different age groups. At the same time we propose:
   Societal service performed by each citizen at various intervals in life.
   The same social prerequisites for all.
A cancellation of social inheritance. A definitive solution to theproblem of classes and the differences in human conditions found todayin terms of wages, resources, possessions, living space, time, friends,travels, communications, culture, comprehension, illness, desire,appearance, trust, social competence, etc, etc.
   Education and social welfare for all.
   The right to free living space for all.
   The right to food for all.
   The right to clothes for all.
   The right to free health care for all.
   The right to free culture for all.
   The right to a dignified old age for all.

Human rights for humans, animals and plants
(From human beings to grains of rice.)
Our point of departure in terms of cognitive science, culture andpolitics, is that only human activity both structures and limitsunderstanding: With our bodies and minds, which form a basis forscience, politics and culture, we all belong to a global biological andecological community which no one can place him/herself (or be placed)outside of. Significant for our times are not only the possibilitiesunveiled by human discoveries but also the terrible responsibility thesebring with them, socially and ecologically. Human beings alone havebrought about this situation and the means with which to change our ownand the earth´s future. Before this fact all of humanity stands as one,with a single responsibility: What each and every person does matters agreat deal. There is no meaning to be sought externally for ourguidance; no almighty destiny, other than the fact that humanity mustcreate the meaning and the responsibility that are necessary. And so weare on the threshold of a much-needed liberation of the individual neverbefore seen in history, as it requires both increased individualresponsibility/influence and a completely new sense of the collectivesociety. Where "I" can exist as "an effect of the whole structure".
   The term individual is meant here to include humans, animals and plants.We all share common conditions on this planet and are in every wayinterdependent. Just as we human beings demand respect of one another,we must go the whole way and secure the same mutuality for animals andplants. The needs and the capabilities of all must be deemed important.We can no longer tolerate Auschwitz for chickens and pigs or Sarajevofor carrots and rice.
   Certainly far too many of us have stood at the end of the line, waitingfor our turn, ready to bow and scrape.

Ownership
We are all born equal, we all have the same right to our existence andthe possibilities human life can bring. How then can it be right thatsome people own more than others and in that way usurp the power todecide over the lives and futures of other people?
   It is wrong that any individual can own blocks of flats so that otherpeople are exploited by having to pay rent.
   It is also wrong to exploit people's other needs: for instance food,sleep, recreation, sexuality and culture.
   All exploitation of nature, the body or the soul must from a purelyhuman point of view be considered wrong. In observing this, a newrelationship to work arises.

Work and leisure
In our present society work is connected with the production of valuewithin a production system built upon the exploitation of nature andhuman labour. If work is no longer a part of the economic system´sproduction of value then it approaches dreams, play and desire. Thedivision between work and leisure would cease to exist and instead ofproducing economic value work would be seen as a mutual concern and anopportunity to develop one´s life. Unemployment is to be abolished byintroducing citizens´ wages (economic compensation will even be givenfor sleep). Work will not be the basis for a person´s identity asbefore, and we will be spared the traditional division ofsuccessful?unsuccessful.
   All forms of vacation will cease to exist.

Punishment, rewards and education
Abolish the punal system and the keeping of prisoners! The right topunish another person arises from the view that people are objects, likecommodities, more or less valuable and/or a threat to a hierarchicalsocietal structure and to the right to ownership. In a society that hasneglected the impulses behind human cultural and creative longing,criminality must instead be seen as a form of misguided creativity; acorrupted longing for freedom. A society that cares for and trusts itscitizens needs no punal system.
   The grading system in schools is to be abolished. Camouflaged behindwords like competition and motivation, grades not only encouragedividedness and aggressiveness. They also lock the acquisition ofknowledge into a one-dimensional and quantifying mold, making itmeasureable on a scale for the single purpose of evaluating a person´svalue on the labour market. We want to see schools without grades foreveryone, with deeper and more personal relationships between teachers,students and parents, based on cultural and interpersonal values.

Geography
The death of the nation-state and the birth of the global society.
   National sentiment and patriotism stand in sharp contrast to the innatehuman need for freedom. They represent a merging with the collectivewhere we disengage our individuality and our responsibility.
   But the nation-state is also connected with blood and family relations.In the end this structure has its origin in early human societalrelationships characterized by fear of the Father and tribe leader, whomaintained his right to offspring, women and land with threats ofcastration, banishment or death. Regardless of the fundamentalconsequences these prehistorical conditions have had for human beingsand social organization, through art we can find ways to relate to themand finally change their meanings: hierarchy, the ranking of good andbad, divisiveness, animosity, fear, rivalry, aggressiveness,suspiciousness, monoism, egoism, limitations, nationalism, war...
   All geographical boundaries are to be abolished and freedom of movementis to be made possible for all.
   Total disarmament of military defenses.
   The self as an indisputable part of the great organism that is all lifeand all conditions on the earth.
   A gradual dissolution of differences in language that originate innational affinity as well as variations in the form of dialects withinnations.
   A gradual dissolution of ethnic and cultural peculiarities.
   A gradual dissolution of bodily differences between the sexes.
   (? Perhaps even a gradual dissolution of personal appearance.)

In the final analysis exclusion and delimitation express apsychologically constructed fear of death. But, and this is of theutmost importance, it is a death that religion has moved to the greatdarkness of our bodies´ interiors; where "evil dwells within".
   This can explain how all that is rejected and suppressed becomessomething unknown, something external that we condemn. Has not the ideaof the purity of the soul, separated as it is from the body, saturatedmodern culture? It has been said that people of today no longerrecognize the cause of their own existence in the disorder they condemnin the world. In all that must be corrected, changed, recreated,chastised, reduced, purified, liberated, convinced. Here the act ofexclusion has the same function as a religious rite, which is toovercome the fear of losing one´s identity to the unknown. Theetymological meaning of sacrifice in cults is to make holy objects withsupernatural powers, and in a collective existence the exclusion of onegroup creates one´s "own" social group. (We should not forget that thefirst product a human being produces comes from within the body. Thedischarging of excrement, as well as the repetition and mastering of theact, create a feeling of something of one´s "own" in the small child.The anal phase and repetition have a clear connection with the economyand the production of commodities; for wealth and power.) In this senseexclusion always has a productive value and even if the product is animaginary individuality it forms a boundary against death. Even in thelong run against the final dissolution of all boundaries where historyitself closes its eyes towards its own inner darkness, where we are allthe same "self". A lack of levels and hierarchies where the outerboundaries of the body, this thin membrane that is our skin and bodyprofile, our own history and our appearance, are joined with aterrifying inner.

Religion
Total freedom of religion (and consequently we propose a dissolution ofall the various religions and sects).
   A separation of church and state.
   It cannot be ignored that religion has always been misused and, throughsectarianism and visions of being chosen, been adapted to specificpolitical, economic or ideological interests. Connections that havealmost always expressed a deep conservatism, nationalism or militancy.Within the organization of religious life the weak and the poor ofhealth have often been abused in their vulnerability. (Many religiousassociations are nothing more than non-legalized insane asylums andcriminal shows.)
   In the paradoxical situation where the modern individualization processin the rich world is simply a stimulus and a reward in the course ofadvancement within a seemingly democratic system, instead we must changethe conditions to ensure every indiviual´s self-evident right to hislife: We are all born like Jesus Christ.
   Each individual is his own king, his own god with clear authority torule over his own life. Where knowledge that the sublime relationshipsto neighbouring kingdoms are part of a boundless system ofinterdependent worlds. This system, which completely lacks traditionalpower structures, naturally contains no limitations of an ethnic,political, religious or national nature.

Children
A self-evident right to a father and a mother.
   A self-evident right to respect for their entry onto the human scene,here begins all that will be manifest and will affect everyone´s future.It is through the responsibility for and care of our children that webuild our future. The same social and economic conditions must exist forall children. We are all born free and equal, but often the first socialdifference is that some never have a father and a mother, a place tolive, food, clothing or education. Consequently:
   Commonly shared responsibility for all children.
   The right to vote from 0-21 years of age. That children are now deniedthe right to vote can be compared with how, not too long ago, the poorand women were denied the same right.
   A self-evident right to security, love, play, anger, self-respect,having their way, education, knowledge, information, culture, rest, etc.
   A self-evident responsibility shared by both parents for the care anddevelopment of the child.
   An upbringing based on equality between boys and girls (which naturallyrequires a relationship based on equality between man and woman in whichthe child can mirror itself).

It may be that we cannot change the primary conditions that govern therelationship between the sexes, but it is possible to find ways torelate to them and finally change their meanings in the future. Webelieve that several of The Party´s proposals can bring about just sucha change concerning inequality between man and woman, economically andsocially.
   Regarding the family (whose internal relationships are reflected in thesociety), relationships between man and woman, it is important todifferentiate between phallocentrism (in which the father symbol iscentral), which is the order by which our subjective selves areconstructed, and patriarchy, which is the ideological construction basedupon this order. Whereas the phallic order, by constituting thefoundation upon which culture, language and civilization rest, can neverbe subject to attack, patriarchy (as with all ideologicalsuperstructures) can very well be criticized and condemned on moral orideological bases.

Food
We consider the following to be food: vegetable products, animalproducts, water, air, fire, earth, love, touching, art, newspapers,radio, TV, sound, light, smell, taste, the spoken word, beauty, clothes,sleep, dreams... The ingesting of food is not only limited to oralintake; also what we take in through our eyes, skin and ears must becounted as food. Food is therefore, as the ecological disasters of ourtimes can prove, as much a spiritual as a cultural and politicalconcern.
   The unjust distribution of food must come to an end and thereby also theoverproduction of food in the rich countries of the world.
   Humane and responsible handling of all food (including the care andslaughter of animals, processing, cultivation methods, harvestingmethods, fertilization, discharges into the air, the water and theearth).

Culture
The lack of clarity seen today in the economic situation for culture isa mirror image of the lack of clarity in the political situation forculture. Culture is a medium for transsubstantiation which everyone musthave access to regardless of sex, wage level, race, or age. Culture musttherefore be made independent in relation to market values by payingwages to artists, just as society pays fire fighters.

The right to vote
The right to vote for all, except those between the ages of 21 and 61whom we want to prohibit from voting.
   The human tendency to seek prestige and the human hormonal system,combined with a market economy, together lead to serious problems. Ourproposal to introduce a voting prohibition has to do with a desire toovercome the disadvantages of the old society. It must be rememberedthat the age group the prohibition concerns is that found within theperiod of an active career, with all that this brings with it. Thoseremaining age groups that have the right to vote are closer either tobirth or death and therefore have a better sense of the great cyclesthat determine over human lives. This prohibition can, however, be seenas a transitional state while the new society is taking form.
   Our role in parliament: to sleep for pay; to finally receivecompensation for our work!

DreamsDreams (the subconscience) are the last area of unexploited Nature inthe world of human beings. An area where the self forms the point aroundwhich everything revolves, where we meet ourselves, where everything ispossible and where chronological time ceases to be valid. An area thatconstitutes for the individual a power reserve, stimuli, knowledge andgrowth. Where the "outer" world twists itself in through the filter ofpersonal integrity to the "other" world that each of us represents withour inner self. Therefore we are against all attempts at directadvertisement in dreams. We are against all kinds of direct informationor direct influence on people´s dream lives. We see dreams as aprotected area for each individual, integrity´s innermost chamber, wherethe subtle functions of dreams put us in contact with all times, allworlds; living and dead. In dreams we each create our own new world.Thus during our lives as human beings we each build up in our innerselves our individual (different) worlds that in turn lay the groundworkfor a branching out into an infinite number of new worlds. A wise andadvanced society should take care of its citizens, provide for theirlives, growth and well-being so that the dreams can be kept alive.



Sweden/The World
Sweden changes its name to I
(The world changes its name to I).


ŠL. Elggren, T. Liljenberg, Stockholm 1994, 1999
Firework Edition No. 93