We began with the primary cell, the worker, the peasant, the miner, the fisherman. We passed on to the first structure of cells united by similar functions in the same working establishment, the factory council, the mine council, the collective farm. We then developed associations of these first working colonies into syndicates and subsequently in branch councils where the productive efforts are concentrated as a complete economic function. We have seen how these branch councils are federated in local councils of economy on one hand, and on the other, are leagued into a national federation of branch councils. Through the medium of the local councils of economy, work attains unity and organization first on a local basis; second, through the regional council of economy, on a regional basis; and finally, through the federal council of economy integrated by delegations from the regional councils, on a national basis.
In all this mechanism of noncapitalist workers' organization no element, as such, of the principle of force is inherent. The structure is adaptable to the modern conception of the world and responds to the intense desire of combining the liberty of the individual with his obligation to work in behalf of the whole of society. Our conception of economy as a unit is inevitable. Whether it is through revolutionary or reactionary resources, the economic structure of the world must develop into a definite unity. Economic individualism and localism are definitely out of perspective in the actual order of things. Economy must be planned in order to avoid individual waste or abuse. The eternal aspiration for individual differentiation will however find expression in a thousand ways and will not be submerged by any levelling process. We do not believe that the contribution of the individual to the social common effort would in any way be levelling. Even outside of standardised methods of economy there will be plenty of opportunity in the worker's hours of leisure to develop individual avocations.
Once for all we must realise that we are not any longer rocking in the cradle of a little utopian world. We must take cognisance of the vast revolution realised in the productive processes. For an economy socialised, directed or planned, no matter what you call it, it is imperative to follow the evolution of the modern economic world.
The federal council of economy made up of all the nuclei of labor from the simple to the complex, from the bottom up, binds the whole economy of the country and is the resultant organism of an infinitely complex system of forces all converging towards the same end: increased production and better distribution.
If socialism and its variations would have conceded from the very beginning the necessity of substituting the outworn political and economic capitalism, by adequate organisms of practical economy, our conditions in the world today would be quite other than they are. In reality the substitution proposed contained the nefast thought of a state apparatus with its attributes of power and command to decree the new tablets of the law.
On the other hand, the revolutionary part in fierce struggle against the common adversary had little time to think of the constructive part of a new society. The whole history of revolutionary tendency has been one of heroism and unlimited sacrifice. Therefore, in facing the problem of social transformation, the Revolution cannot consider the state as a medium, but must depend on the organization of producers.
We have followed this norm and we find no need for the hypothesis of a superior power to organised labor, in order to establish a new order of things. We would thank anyone to point out to us what function, if any, the State can have in an economic organization, where private property has been abolished and in which parasitism and special privilege have no place. The suppression of the State cannot be a languid affair; it must be the task of the Revolution to finish with the State. Either the Revolution gives social wealth to the producers in which case the producers organise themselves for due collective distribution and the State has nothing to do; or the Revolution does not give social wealth to the producers, in which case the Revolution has been a lie and the State would continue.
Our federal council of economy is not a political power but an economic and administrative regulating power. It receives its orientation from below and operates in accordance with the resolutions of the regional and national assemblies. It is a liaison corps and nothing else.
The federal council of economy will have an important part to play in propagandising the new norms, in furthering the interrelations of the regions, in the formenting of a national solidarity. On the basis of the total statistics which it will receive from all sources of economic and social activities, it will know in a given moment the specific economic situation. It will know; where the deficiencies and where the excesses of production are, it will know the requirements of transport and communications, and the needs for new roads, new cultivations, new factories. And where the regions do not have sufficient resources, it will provide national assistance for public works of recognised need.
It will have no need of gendarmerie to enforce its suggestions and proposals. In bourgeois parliaments, laws are decreed which no one but those interested understand, and for their execution, they require a police force. In the federal council of economy, where the supreme authority resides in numbers and statistical data, coercion, besides being impossible in itself, would produce contrary and sterile results.
For the kingdom of parliamentary orators will be substituted statistical facts, which are infinitely more eloquent and in consonance with the living reality.
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