Evgeniy Belilovsky - Happiness instead of capital and spirituality. Model of an Optimal State

© Evgeniy Belilovsky, 2021

ISBN 978-5-0053-8005-0

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”

The above-mentioned requirement of the United States Declaration of Independence is the basis for the development of modern civilization. Indeed, the happiness of people, the main components of which are life, freedom and safety, is the purpose of the existence of this civilization. As a result, the United States, both at the beginning of its history and now, embodies, in an overall balance of advantages and disadvantages, the best way of life on this Earth. Essentially the same goals, although in different wording (only without a reference to the Creator), were taken as the basis of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. However, unfortunately, the “principles and forms of organization of power” both in the United States and even more so in the countries that have tried to put Marxism-Leninism into practice, provide the required life, freedom and safety, and ultimately happiness quite incompletely. It is hindered by bringing to the fore not the very goals of the State’s existence, but certain specific mechanisms for achieving these goals. Instead of happiness, many leading politicians proclaim capital and spirituality as the foundation of the State. Capital and spiritually are used in that capacity in all countries; however, in the democratic states, capital is given the priority, whereas in the authoritarian countries, it’s spirituality that reigns supreme.

The concept of capital is not identical to property. The property can be used to meet personal needs or to carry out business activities. Capital is associated only with entrepreneurship, and it is actually the foundation of the modern economy. However, in the public consciousness, these two concepts are usually confused, which is used to present capital to the people under the guise of property. Therefore, to give priority to the concept of ownership is unacceptable. In addition, Marx criticized the use of capital under the nineteenth century conditions. Much in his reasoning on this issue has failed by the twenty-first century. But the main thing remains true – capital meets the needs of its owners, but it is not aimed at satisfying the interests of the rest of society. Although, without being aimed at this, it indirectly ensures these interests, and that is why the capitalist system functions. But it does not always meet those interests and by far not all of them, which is why a need to replace capitalism with another, better system has emerged.

Spirituality in the early stages of human development was the only mechanism of inducing people to behave properly. In order for it to be embraced, people were told that it had been given by the Creator or some other higher power. Some components of spirituality, including those mentioned above in the Declaration of Independence, are now perceived by people as self-evident truths . Regarding some other components of spirituality, certain people have doubts whether they really come from the Creator or from people who have taken the right to speak on behalf of the Creator. Later, as human consciousness evolved, people gained the ability to separate one from the other and to determine the acceptability of a particular way of life in society based not on references to the Creator, but on reasonable arguments. Nevertheless, spirituality continues to be introduced into people’s consciousness by irrational methods. In different societies it has different content, in some ways really necessary and in some ways harmful, but irrationality does not allow us to separate in its content the necessary parts from unnecessary or even harmful ones.

On the basis of the above-mentioned, the institutions of capital and spirituality should be subjected to critical analysis and, if possible, replaced by other mechanisms that allow to make people happy directly and therefore more fully, at any rate, without causing harm. This is what this book is about.

The considerations presented in the book are largely based on my, mostly published, proposals for “ perestroika ” of the former USSR – “perestroika ” in a direction diametrically opposite to what M. S. Gorbachev and his comrades did, which led to the replacement, in the successor states to the USSR, of the Party bureaucracy power by the domination of outright criminal world. I have assumed and still assume that the October Revolution in Russia, along with the well-known negative consequences, has contributed many useful aspects to the world development, which should be restored. Including the use of certain socialist model elements in the U.S., which now finds itself in a situation of deep internal rift. To bridge it, abandoning the bugaboo terms is necessary, whether it is “socialism” or, conversely, “racism”. It is necessary to approach all the issues in a purely pragmatic way. That is what I am trying to suggest.

In this book I also drew from my experience in the last period of my life in the State of Israel. I am a Jew, and I am proud of it. Being a Jew by nationality, I am certainly not a Judaist by faith. I do not know what Higher Power rules this world. However, I do know that this world deserves a better fate, and I try to the best of my power to contribute towards it, but my power is running out. That is why this book does not include everything that I would have written in my prime. Please forgive me for that. But I hope that this compact presentation of my conceptual idea will be useful for politicians and ordinary citizens who vest power in politicians.

I have written this book in Russian, the only language I know. The Russian-language edition was published in Russia. This English-language edition includes some changes and additions that take into account the situation in the United States, a nation that continues to be a beacon for the whole world. First of all, I try to show that individualism, which includes individual freedom and individual initiative and which has been the main difference between the United States and the rest of the world since its founding, can be implemented not only on a purely capitalist basis. It can be implemented even more effectively, on a socialist basis. Certainly not the socialism, with implementation of which all of us are familiar, but a different model that takes into account the past mistakes.

The need for profound changes becomes even clearer when assessing the dramatic elections in the United States in 2020. The main conclusion is that the country is split into two radically different political camps, neither of which has a clear majority. This significantly worsens the country’s overall situation and the effectiveness of the state. In order to unite the U.S., both parties need to be consistent in their policies and, while emphasizing the differences, recognize some of what their opponents stand for as useful.

The Democrats have completely failed to take into account the changes in the World situation and in the minds of the masses, which I called the