We're All Socialists Now

People today are cyborgs—half human, half communist. Notwithstanding the collapse of formal communism, socialism has changed people beyond recognition. We’re all socialists now.

We’re all utilitarians; We all believe in the greatest good for the greatest number of people, whenever possible. We all support progress. We all like the future. We’re all cosmopolitans. We all believe in brotherhood or sisterhood. We’re all feminists.

We want women to be doctors and lawyers. We’re all opposed to bigotry and anti-Semitism. We all support universal education, universal literacy, and free housing for everyone. We want everybody to have a job and a house. We support abortion rights; we support equality and social justice and anti-colonialism. We like hard work. We like workers. We want workers to get ahead in life.

We want the children of workers to have every opportunity, to become whatever they want to become. We love social mobility. We love the idea of a pig farmer becoming our political leader. We believe in the productive capacity of the industrial revolution. We love machines and technology and electricity and industrial power. We’re into engineers.

We want modernization at all costs. We like to plan, to map, to design, to create, and to build. We want to make things. We want to invent things. We want government to wither away once and for all. We’re against exploitation and lazy fat cats. We want solidarity, fraternity, and happiness. We want better, more meaningful art and literature and culture.

We hate fascism. We like fairness. We think people can get better and will get better. We think that men and women today are better than men and women of the past. They are stronger, smarter, and bigger. We like heroes. We believe that men and women who are born fifty years from now will be better than we are. They’ll be more rational, less emotional. We’ll look like troglodytes to our descendants.

We want our children to believe in something bigger and better than village or clan or tribe or race. We like community. We want utopia now.