Today the bourgeois state is a bulwark of conservatism; devoting its energies to the preservation of bourgeois forms and practices and doing its utmost to fulfill its counter-revolutionary role of resisting and, if possible, destroying the institutions and practices needed to replace the political institutions and practices of civilization by the new institutions required to move mankind from the outmoded lifestyle of civilization to a lifestyle beyond and above that to which humanity has become adapted during the now obsolete epoch of civilization.
At the same time, the socialist-communist variant of the bourgeois state pattern is providing the framework within which the institutions and practices needed for the transition from civilization to a newer and more universal social order are being matured. At the next stage in the birth process, the institutions and practices necessary for upbuilding the social order that will replace civilization are being worked out in theory and embodied in experimental practice.
In practice, an accurate distinction must be made between the conservative bourgeois state, the temporary transitional state and the universal socialist-communist state that will shepherd humanity along the difficult and dangerous path of the political life pattern beyond civilization. In theory such distinctions are needed as part of the scaffolding within which the social pattern of beyond-civilization will be constructed.
Like most decisive epochs of human history, the revolution through which we are passing has had both a negative and a positive aspect. In Chapter 11 I wrote about one of its destructive aspects—the extreme destructivity of two periods of general war. At this point, I would like to list ten positive contributions made by the same revolution toward the development of a social life style that is offering itself as an alternative to civilization.
1. NEW SOURCES OF ENERGY. Up to 1750 human beings had the energy of the human body plus the energy of domestic animals. They used wind to turn mills and sail ships and water to turn crude wheels. They also burned various things, particularly vegetable fibres, to produce heat. During the revolution they have learned to use steam, electricity and chemical explosives. Recently they have learned to use the energy in the atom, to use water power extensively and, to a slight extent, the energy of the sun and the tides.
2. The revolution has taught people who previously feared CHANGE, to welcome change and take full advantage of discoveries and inventions that modified nature and profoundly altered human society.
3. Among the INVENTIONS were the extensive use of the wheel for movement on land, the use of steam engines and electric motors for moving, manufacturing and transportation and the use of electricity for communication.
4. INCREASED HUMAN MOBILITY on land and water, and, more recently, in the air and, still more recently, in outer space. Easy and rapid movement, and almost instantaneous communication brought people together in towns and cities, built up trade in goods and services, increased speed of communications and enabled people living at a distance from one another to keep in close touch, bringing human enterprises and human beings into continuing contact. Human life, thought and action were coordinated. Increased mobility UNIFIED HUMAN SOCIETY.
5. RESEARCH is now an accepted aspect of all phases of human life and activity. Research is a recognized occupation. Research teams solve problems, map the paths of enterprise. We are learning first to think, then, only after careful study, decide on courses of action and follow them through.
6. The field of inquiry and research covered the entire range of human experience. Information, resulting from research, provided the subject matter of new sciences. In the new fields new skills were developed and new professions built up. The members of this new TECHNOLOGICAL INTELLIGENTSIA, added to the learned professions, created a large group who expected and enjoyed affluent living conditions.