Chapter 16. The liberal society.

This chapter is concerned with the minimum laws which must rule the liberal society, in order to avoid the present confusion, which is so detrimental, between utilitarian society and liberal society.

1. Definition.

In chapter 10 of Part Three we have defined the liberal society as «a whole made by:

Individual liberal persons are well-known by everybody: the doctor, the teacher, the solicitor, the mayor, the artist..., are very popular characters.

We shall now give a list, if not thorough at least quite complete, of what we shall consider as liberal collectivities, either because they are so traditionally, or because we shall apply to them the corresponding liberal statute.

2. Utilitarian society and liberal society.

The utilitarian society (producing and consuming) and the liberal society are, since always, radically different as far as their motives and their social goals are concerned.

The utilitarian society is dedicated to the production and consumption of utilitarian goods, objects and outer services to individuals, which are useful because they satisfy their most material needs. On the contrary, the liberal society is dedicated to give liberal services, which are not external, but are practised on the persons themselves, attaining their totality, privacy and depth as persons: education, the care of body and mind, ruling, defence... are actions carried out in a personal dialogue with each one.

While the utilitarian society is selfish and interested, acts on a personal profit basis, sells and buys the utilitarian goods -called on the market «merchandise»- the liberal society has always proclaimed itself as altruistic and unselfish: for this reason it must offer its services gratuitously.

In spite of this radical difference it is necessary to understand that the utilitarian vocations, professions, activities and institutions are as noble, legitimate and necessary as the liberal ones.

But the social devices which allow to put into practice the application of this difference must be urgently established. It must be avoided as far as possible the commercialization of liberal vocations, activities, professions and institutions, a commercialization which always degenerates into corruption, indifference, and escape from responsibilities.

The liberal professional with a true vocation will have to make do with a social-financial solidarity salary, which will vary according to the wealth of the geopolitical community; also the liberal collectivities will have to accept the social-financial solidarity budgets, ordinary and extraordinary.

There will then be established specific laws which, while protecting the freedom of action inherent to every person of liberal vocation and profession, will be an effective guarantee of the necessary distinction and separation between the utilitarian society and the liberal society.

3. Inner organization of the liberal professions.

The liberal vocation implies, in its practice, a great freedom. In the same way as the utilitarian professional is submitted to a strong company discipline, aimed at the greatest and best production with the least risk and effort, the liberal professional follows a discipline freely agreed upon and accepted by him and all his equals, and in agreement with all the professional body, organized as a liberal Association.

This free, liberal Association, discipline is called «deontology»²⁴. Every liberal-local Association, autonomously confederated at an imperial level, will freely etablish its own deontology and inner rules.

Liberal Associations will only need very stable basic laws, which will only change when the social-cultural-technical progress so advises, concerning basically:

The reason for these restrictions is that the liberal vocational individuals must be at the disposal of all the geopolitical community, and not dedicated to the defence of any given party interests.

4. Responsibilization of all free liberal acts.

As in the case of the productive-utilitarian society, in the liberal society every free act demands the automatic personal responsibilization of its author.

To solve the conflicts created around the previous basic laws and of those we shall explain in the following section, a Justice specialized in professions, Associations and liberal institutions will be created. If it is necessary, because of the peculiarity of a profession, Association or given institution, a Justice specialized in them will also be created. This will be, for example, the case of a Justice specialized in posts of archic rule (political, judicial or civic).

In fact, these posts of supreme responsibility are of great social importance: for this reason, every person having held such post, will have to pass, at the end of his term of office -whether it be foreseen constitutionally or legally, or of dismissal, or even in case of death- through the specialized Justice which will judge his archic action. After the normal examination of the case, the judge will give out the sentence, both according to form or to personal conscience; the sentence may be either very favourable, or favourable, or doubtful..., or condemnatory, with a higher or lower degree of importance; in this case, penalties will have to be typified according to the established degree of importance.

Of course, the aim of this judgement (and of any other) is not the imposing of the penalty in itself, but the exemplarity of the case examination, publicly made in front of all the geopolitical community.

As we already know, in the examination of the cases Justice will have an unsurpassable instrument for the documentation of the monetary responsibilities: the pro-telematic cheque-invoice.

This is valid both for the utilitarian society and for the liberal society. This one also has a monetary dimension, made up by the social-financial solidarity salaries and budgets of every liberal professional, and by the social-financial solidarity budgets of every liberal collectivity²⁵.

To which use each professional and each liberal collectivity will put this purchasing power of communal origin will always be documented by the given out cheque-invoices.

In the case of liberal collectivities however, the law will demand that in each of them there be one single manager, personally responsible of the budget management.

5. Mechanisms of effective separation between the productive-utilitarian society and the liberal society.

As we have already said, it is necessary to establish the mechanisms which will make effective the radical separation and distinction between utilitarian society and liberal society and, above all, between the productive-utilitarian society and the liberal society; because, in fact, the liberal society has also a utilitarian-consumer dimension.

In fact, the liberal society as such, in itself has nothing to do neither with the production nor with the consumption of utilitarian goods. Now, the members of the liberal society -the liberal professionals and collectivities- because they are living persons need, as any other, to consume in order to survive in the first place, and to live well afterwards. In this sense, then, they participate of the utilitarian-consumer society, -not as liberals but as persons-.

On the other hand, it is necessary to consider the liberal service and action as a highly effective active factor of production. The liberal action produces the development of a cultural and social environment, pacific and harmonious, which becomes highly propitious to a growing production and productivity.

The liberal society then has a double right to the consumption of utilitarian goods: the right which has every born person, and the acquired right for its indirect contribution to the utilitarian production.

But it is not the market which must take care of retributing the individual and collective members of the liberal society, as then we would fall necessarily in the negation of the liberal essence, in the shameful commercialization.

It is then the whole imperial community which must acknowledge and make effective the right to consume of the liberal society. From this viewpoint, we have suggested the communal financing of the liberal society, through a liberal financial Statute, which drives to a radical monetary separation between the productive-utilitarian society and the liberal society: while the purchasing power of the productive-utilitarian society is of private origin, generated by the the market itself through its salary remunerations, the liberal society has only a purchasing power of communal origin, generated by the single omni-solidarity duty, and only to be used to satisfy consumption needs.

The liberal professionals then will have only a current account of consumption savings, opened in the Savings Bank of the district where they are residents. This current account will be fed by the Treasury with a social-financial solidarity salary of liberal professional, which must ensure the satisfaction of the consumer needs of these professionals and their families to the highest possible level (but always in accordance with the effectively available communal resources); an ordinary budget for the practice of the liberal profession will also be paid and, when necessary and if the community can, an extraordinary one: this budget will allow each professional to practise his profession with the help of all the most advanced technical and material means in the field.

On the other hand, the liberal collectivities (liberal bodies and free associations of citizens without profit) will also have current accounts of consumption savings opened in the Savings Bank they prefer or, if they are not very important, directly opened at the Treasury. These current accounts will be fed by the ordinary budgets foreseen (in direct accordance with the number of members registered in each collectivity) and by the extraordinary budgets which will be granted to them, according to an order of preferences and in accordance with the financial possibilities of the imperial community.

This full financing of the liberal society by the imperial community ensures the full monetary independence of the vocational individuals and of the liberal collectivities with respect to the productive-utilitarian society and, in this way, suppresses from the root the bases of all commercialization of the liberal service: the monetary evaluation for the elementary liberal act when, in essence, the liberal service is free, unmeasurable and invaluable.

The other immediate consequence of the communal financing of the liberal society is the complete gratuitousness of the liberal services for all the members of the empire, which have a full right to them.

Finally, so that the separation between productive-utilitarian society and liberal society be complete, it is necessary to legislate the necessary professional incompatibilities between both social sectors.

Nobody practising a liberal profession will be able to practise at the same time a utilitarian profession, and viceversa.

Now, everybody will be free to go from one profession to another, when he so likes. For a liberal professional the step is easy: he will just have to give up his liberal financial statute, and start as a utilitarian professional: On the contrary, a utilitarian professional wishing to set up as a liberal professional, will have to give up all his properties and interests of a utilitarian type, and to entrust them to a Bank of Deposits, Confiscations and Consignations, which will be in charge of their administration; while the ex-utilitarian professional has the liberal statute, he will loose the usufruct of these goods, but not their property, and the above-mentioned Bank will accumulate the usufructs, which he will recover if he decides to give up the liberal statute and to go back to the productive-utilitarian society.

On the other hand, while in the utilitarian society there will be no incompatibility set out, and every utilitarian professional will be able to accumulate as many occupations and remunarations as he wants, in the liberal society it will not be allowed for each liberal professional and collectivity more than one only and well defined function and, therefore, one single social solidarity salary and one single liberal budget.

Notes:

²³Even if at the beginning only the telematic monetary network will be imperialized, in the long run it will be necessary to attain a total imperialization of the telematic services.
²⁴«Deontology» comes grom the Greek participle «deon, deontos» which means «what is suitable (in this case, what is suitable to one's own dignity, and that of the group»).
²⁵See in chapter 14 the section dedicated to the financial Statutes and, more specifically, see the Liberal Statute.