It’s doubtless true that the original intention of putting forward and setting up the greatly unified society is for overall survival of human being, but setting up the greatly unified society, thus guarantee that development of science and technology is strictly restrained worldwide, and ensure that human race will not be extincted is just the first objective that we intend to achieve. People’s pursuits are far more than simple survival. As a kind of intelligent and civilized life-form, human being has many value needs, such as happiness need, enjoyment need and entertainment need. The social system we build should serve our value needs, and maximize our value.
As a kind of completely new social system, the greatly unified society is unprecedented in human history, and there will be no former example to refer to, which not only predicts that we will certainly face many difficulties in setting up the completely new social system, but also indicates that we can draw the most beautiful picture in a blank paper. Now that we have no heavy historical burdens, we could travel freely, and design and build the greatly unified society as the society that suits people’s ideals best.
Section I General Assumptions about Greatly Unified Society
So far as present, the greatly unified society should be the final social morphology of human society, because only in the greatly unified society could people really act uniformly, and restrain development of science and technology jointly, thus avoid extinction of human being. We get this conclusion because with our present ability of intelligence, we can’t solve the problem that development of science and technology will bring the disastrous result of extincting human being. So far as present, human being’s evolution hasn’t reach the degree that it could develop and use science and technology fully rationally, with further evolution, mankind’s intelligence and mind may reach the degree that it could develop and use science and technology completely rationally; if there is really such a time, then all conclusions of this book will become outdated. Although we truly hope that there is such a time, it is a matter that concerns biological evolution, while in view of time regularity of biological evolution, if there is not dozens of thousand years, the lowest requirement of time can’t be met, not even to say such result of evolution.
Our thought and design of the greatly unified society are all based on the major aim, that is, the greatly unified society will be built as a society that will save mankind from extinction, and also a society that accords with ideals of human being.
The greatly unified society will last millions of years, it will not only be longer than the time since people have written records, but also longer than the time since people have textual research. It will be such a long period, that we cannot even make sure whether future human being is same as present, as human race is evolving also. Nobody could be wise enough to judge and predict all future problems accurately; for most problems, estimating for a relatively long period will be very difficult.
So all researches of the greatly unified society in this book, including method, process and conclusion, are based on present’s horizon, and are carried out by method system and value system that are generally recognized today, what’s more, the conclusion is only framework assumption. With development of various conditions of human race and human society, everything will be outdated someday.
I. Completely New Non-Competitive Society
I. Non-competitive and Friendly Society
(I) Completely New Non-competitive Society
As we should build the greatly unified society as a society that will save mankind from extinction, and also a society that accords with people’s ideals, we should make clear what kind of society is the society that accords with people’s ideals.
In this book, we think the social system that conforms to “maximum value principle” is a social system that accords with people’s ideals, or could be called ideal society for short. It tells us that on basis of the whole mankind, a society that could make sure as many people as possible to have value realization as large as possible could be deemed as an ideal society.
As among all values, value of survival is ranked No.1, and value of happiness No.2, followed by other values, overall survival and happiness of human being is very important, what’s more, overall survival of mankind is the precondition detrimental to other values, to design an ideal society, we need to carry out in-depth research with overall survival of human being as the start, and with overall happiness of mankind as an important aspect.
The reason for why human society should develop from national society to the greatly unified society is the conclusion after serious consideration of overall survival of mankind, if such transition is not realized, people will soon extinct. The main reason here is that in national society, many countries co-exist with each other, which will inevitablely lead to competition among countries, such competition will cause rapid and unrestrictable development of science and technology, threaten to overall survival of human being just comes from the power of science and technology that human being mobilized itself.
A country will try its best to make the whole country in an atmosphere of competition so that to make it invincible in international competition, for example, the country will mobilize enterprises’ competition passion, to make enterprises raise labor productivity and develop new products now and then; the country will mobilize schools’ competition passion, to make schools cultivate talents required in competition and deliver more research fruits; the country will mobilize everyone’s competition passion, to make every citizen charge forward for national benefits…as every country is such a country, the whole human society becomes competitive, therefore, present human society is a competitive society.
Competitive society will not only cause threaten to overall survival of human being, but will also result in threaten to survival of groups and individuals and happiness of mankind. For example, the major cause of war, the factor that poses most serious threaten to survival of groups of mankind, is competition among countries, nationalities and religions, such competition will inevitably cause confrontation, so war breaks out; take malignant violence that poses most serious threaten to survival of individuals as another example, malignant violence is also result of competition and confrontation among countries, nationalities and religions, and it is also caused by competition and confront among individuals in general competitive environment of the whole society.
I will primarily address competitive society’s influence to people’s happiness value. Most nowadays historians think that the ancients are happier than us at present, even people that had just walked out of cave in Paleolithic time are happier than us today, because people’s desire could be satisfied much easily, and they had enough time for entertainment.
Competition is fiercer and fiercer now, knowledge shows explosive growth, people still need to upgrade their knowledge after years of hard study, or otherwise, they will be eliminated; the whole society tries to keep up with the Joneses, they compare educational background, wealth and social position, such forever lasting comparison urges everyone to strive and work hard for a life’s time, and still unsatisfactory, and leave many regrets when completes the tiresome life; meanwhile, as war and malignant crimes often occur in competitive society, people have to suffer the pains of losing their families, and various losses and inconveniences caused by wars and crimes, so they lack sense of safety very much. Therefore, it is very difficult for competitive society to bring happiness to human being.
In terms of the whole human being, harms of competition to value realization of human being is various, the most typical one is that competition directly causes threaten and challenge to survival and happiness of groups and individuals of mankind, and when groups and individuals are required to handle affairs that concern integral benefits, basic benefits and long-term benefits of mankind, it becomes very difficult for them to deal with such affairs rationally and calmly.
For example, nation is the highest authoritative body in human society, not any power could constrain competition among nations, so war often becomes the final solving method for such competition, which means cost to loser in such competition will be the country be conquered and nationality be perished, faced by such disaster, nobody could give up development of science and technology for consideration of integral benefits of mankind, because science and technology is focus of competition among nations, even if the cost will be extinction of mankind, because overall survival of mankind is an issue for everyone, and it will happen in future, while existence of a nation is the country’s own thing, and it is immediate. So science and technology shows explosive development now, and it is unrestrainable.
Also because of above reasons, it is very difficult to handle a series of problems, such as resource problem, environment problem, pollution problem and poverty problem, that concern integral benefits, long-term benefits and basic benefits of mankind. The reason is simple, faced by fierce international competition, when survival and happiness of one’s own may be threatened at any moment, it will become impossible for anyone to control exploitation of non-renewable resources for benefits of our descendants, nobody could neglect present development and invest huge amount in environment protection and control, or control increase of population with practical method, or sacrifice his own benefits to help poor countries and vulnerable groups.
To sum up, as mankind is the only intelligent and civilized life-form in life history on earth, fate of mankind and development of human society shouldn’t be simply compared with another species, mankind is extremely strong which makes it impossible to have any opponent, and it is impossible for general natural forces to endanger survival and happiness of mankind, which makes the major enemy of mankind be itself. To a species, this means that competition within the species will be the major threaten that endangers mankind, it not only threatens survival of human being, but also endangers realization of happiness and other values of mankind. Therefore, to realize the maximum value of mankind, such competition must be weakened.
While present society isn’t a society that will weaken competition, but to the contrary, it is a society that intensifies competition, what is very terrible is that, the highest authoritative body—nation is wild about such competition, just because the nations lead and intensify such competition with their unique strong powers and advantages about mobilizing resources, and drive such competition within species to the utmost, and make the most obvious characteristic of mankind as competition.
To ensure realization of various values of mankind, so that people could enjoy maximum safety and happiness, we must get rid of such competitive state, and transfer human society from a competitive society to a non-competitive society that is completely new, let all human beings fully enjoy safe living and spiritual happiness in a peaceful and serene environment.
But what needs to clarify is that everlasting competition is a nature of mankind, competition is inevitable where there are human beings, non-competitive society in this book doesn’t mean a society absolutely without competition, such society is impossible, it only means to weaken competition to the utmost.
In fact, there used to be non-competitive social morphology in human history, in ancient gathering and migration society, land was boundless, and people rare, land was not wealth, and didn’t worth people’s fight, different groups were separated from each other. Competition between groups was rare, and it was very peaceful inside many groups, with competition rarely occurred.
Of course, precondition for us to build a greatly unified society as a non-competitive society has changed fundamentally long time ago, and we are not willing to return to that primitive, unenlightened and uncivilized society, though it was non-competitive.
Scale of mankind is quite large now, various traffic and communication measures gather all human beings in a small global village, mankind’s civilization has reached a quite high level, and people’s cognitive ability is far stronger than the ancients…global non-competitive society set up on above bases will be quite different from the non-competitive society in primitive and gathering period, for example, ancient non-competitive society formed naturally, while future non-competitive society will be result of rational and scientific design; living standard of ancient non-competitive society was low, productivity and civilization were low, and scale small, while living standard of future non-competitive society will be high, productivity and civilization will be high also, and scale large…, therefore, future non-competitive society will be completely new society, such non-competitive society could bring people with common happiness and enjoyment, and is a society people longing for.
(II) Possibility of Non-competitive Society
In 1970s, some isolated tribes were discovered in Philippines, New Guinea, America, etc. Combat characteristics of these tribes are very different. For example, Tasaday tribe that consisted of 27 persons was discovered in Philippines in 1971, they lived on gathering, and were isolated from the world. When the tribe was discovered, it showed its characteristic as almost absolutely without combat, they hadn’t such words as weapon, war, rage or hostility, even after they had contact with outer world, and they got to know various tools and weapons like broadsword, lance and bow and arrow, they were interested in such tools like broadsword that could be used in daily life and production, and they thoroughly refused such weapons as lance and bow and arrow. They fairly divided foods gathered to everyone in the tribe, and there was rarely any dispute or combat.
Indian Hobi tribe and Zuni tribe discovered in America were such tribes also, they didn’t combat, and enjoyed peaceful mind, such life continued for several centuries.
To the contrary, competition awareness and aggressiveness of some other tribes are very strong, such as Fentou tribe consisted of 30 persons and discovered in New Guinea, everyone in the tribe was ferocious and bellicose. Indian Comanche tribe and Apache tribe in America are such tribes also, these tribes are all wild about fostering their children as fighters.
All these demonstrate that plasticity of such competition characteristic of human being is very strong, and not only highly competitive society as current could be possibly formed. In isolated groups, because of many contingencies, historic continuity and value orientation of group leaders, some groups are non-competitive, while some others are competitive. This demonstrates that whether a society is competitive society is not congenital, but determined by its social system. Social system here refers to generalized system, such as people’s joint agreement, historic rules and value orientation of tribe leaders all could be deemed as social system for a small tribe, while for a large society, such as nation at present, contents of social systems are wider, including policies, systems, requirements and measures in aspects of politics, economy, culture, military and various social fronts.
Because of continuity of history and various inevitable and contingent reasons, the isolated tribes could possibly become competitive groups, but could also possibly become non-competitive groups. No matter they are competitive groups or not, or even there is only one competitive group among many, and all the other are non-competitive, if these groups have contact, they will soon evolve to be competitive. Because competitive groups are all characterized by competition, they will attack other groups now and them, if non-competitive groups keep non-competitive when attacked, they will certainly be robbed and slaughtered, human nature has decided that they will resist, and while thinking about defending, they will think about how to attack the opponent and other groups, therefore, the group evolves to be competitive naturally.
Just because of above reasons, human society evolved from non-competitive to competitive society. When human social morphology entered village and tribe stage after gathering and migration stage, groups of human beings settled down, and surplus wealth of villages and tribes were more, contact and intercourse between villages and tribes were more frequent, these villages and tribes evolved from primitive gathering groups, some of which were competitive, while others were non-competitive, just because competitive villages and tribes often attacked non-competitive villages and tribes, and influenced the non-competitive ones, competitive atmosphere formed all over the society, and large-scale competitive society appeared.
When human society entered national society stage, above circumstances were continued, so it is inevitable that national society is competitive society, or in other words, because many countries co-exist in the world, some countries are competitive, these competitive ones often attack other non-competitive countries, and influence other non-competitive ones, therefore, it is inevitable that national society is competitive society.
But it’s certain that in different countries that are all in national society, even in different areas and different groups in the same country, competition awareness and competition atmosphere are quite different. Social systems promoted in some countries encourage competition, innovation and adventure, so overall competition atmosphere in these countries are tenser; while social system of some other countries also emphasize harmony and amity of society besides encouraging competition, innovation and adventure, so competition atmosphere of these countries is weaker.
Take Laos in southeast Asia and Bhutan at the Himalayas as examples, both of them are small inland countries, external disturbance to them is weak, and both of them recommend Buddhism, so people there are simple and honest, people’s mind is fairly peaceful, and competition atmosphere is relatively weak also.
While analyzing countries, we could find out that competition atmosphere in cities is generally tenser than rural areas, because cities of all countries are at center of competition, such competition atmosphere results in comparatively high psychological pressures of people, cold relationship between people, and generally weak sense of happiness; to the contrary, as rural areas are far from competition center, habits and customs get down from history are kept quite good, competition atmosphere there is comparatively weak, and people’s psychological pressures are relatively small in such atmosphere, relationship between people is generally close, and sense of happiness is strong in general.
Anyway, highly intensified competition is doubtlessly prevailing in national society, major causes of such competition are competition and confrontation between countries that are the highest authorities. Things of greatly unified society will change fundamentally, there will be only one highest authority in human society then, though the greatly unified society will inherit characteristics of competitive societies in national stage, as world regime has unmatched authority and power, uniqueness of the regime will make it has no matched competitor, and vanishment of competitors to such highest authority is the most important condition for building human society as a non-competitive society.
As we know, whether a society is non-competitive society is determined by social system of the society, then who is designer, promoter and controller of the greatly unified society? It will definitely be unified world regime. While uniqueness of world regime will bring mankind a unified and uniform social system, once the stage in which many highest authorities co-exist ends, it is very possible that the greatly unified society could design and build human society as a non-competitive society. What’s more, this non-competitive society is the only society, there is not any other competitive society to disturb or influence it, and therefore non-competitiveness of greatly unified society could be continued permanently, rather than dying when it is young.
To build a non-competitive society, world regime could mobilize all state apparatuses to serve this purpose, and design and popularize a series of system measures, like erecting a kind of non-competitive moral and value concept, particularly a happiness view suits with it; adopting unified ethic and region fusion policy; recommending non-competitive living; creating peaceful and friendly social atmosphere; and building a common prosperous society that could provide good welfare and fully protect human rights. After these systems and measures were carried out one after another, a non-competitive society will be set up certainly.
II. Common Prosperous Society
To ensure common happiness of mankind, the greatly unified society should be a common prosperous society, because happiness occurs in comparison, in a society with wide gap between the rich and the poor, few rich people will coexist with many poor ones, which means that in a society with wide gap between the rich and the poor, most people can’t have the sense of happiness. Separate governance of the nations and application of science and technology have determined that national society must be a society with wide gap between the rich and the poor, in which most people can’t have the sense of happiness.
The greatly unified society will adopt global uniform governance, the world regime will consider the globe as a whole, and create the precondition for balanced development of mankind. Besides, the greatly unified society will restrict development of science and technology, the world will enter a stage of stable development. As the ancestors have completed creation and invention of science and technology, future mankind will be beneficiaries of science and technology. What’s more, the greatly unified society will popularize scientific and technological fruits that are safe and mature at present to the whole world. The process of application is also a process of balancing wealth. The greatly unified society should be, and could be built as a common prosperous society. So the greatly unified society will be built as a society in which the whole mankind will have common happiness.
What needs to be clarified is that the so-called common prosperity doesn’t mean absolutely even, but generally even and reasonable wealth distribution and allocation. In fact, an absolutely even society shouldn’t be advocated, because absolute even will result in people that will not work to reap, and people that work hard not have what they deserve, so that to cause unfair social wealth distribution.
There is further elaboration about issue of common prosperity later.
