The Vikiist Manifesto 9798387781810

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Contents Foreword_________________________ 2 The states ________________________ 4 The communes ___________________ 20 The economy ____________________ 32 Conclusion _______________________ 50

This book was made possible by my income from the Viki1999 and Viki2000 YouTube channels as well as my generous Patrons who allowed me to spend so much time making this text. If you wish to support me, you can do so on patreon.com/viki1999. If you wish to listen to the free audio book version of this text visit Viki2000

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Foreword Socialism is the future! That much was made evident by the state of the world in the decades since the collapse of European socialism. But what will this future socialism look like? There are hundreds of variations of socialist thought in the world, from centrist Marxism to Castroism. Some use markets some use planning, some use co-ops some use state socialism, some want to abolish states entirely and others want to strengthen them. This manifesto will take a look at one possible socialist future with libertarian socialist features as imagined by one leftist. I will tell you about my vision of how a socialist economy and society could work. It is merely one vision of hundreds, so I urge you not to dismiss socialist or anarchist ideas because of my interpretation of them, this text describes my thoughts and opinions only, no more no less. In this hopefully brief text, I will tell you about my vision of how the world could be structured on the global scale, how nation states and alliances would be abolished and how the economy of the world would work as well as how individuals would interact with that system. My ideas are not entirely utopian, but they are not easy to achieve either, it will take more than one election to make these changes on a global scale.

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The states States are the core pieces of our modern world, there is scarcely a spot on the planet in which you are not subject to laws and potential state violence if you violate such laws. Nowadays states have a lot of power over their inhabitants as well as international happenings. Most modern states are democracies which in theory allow the people to choose who will lead them. Unfortunately, our modern states are plagued with lobbying and corruption. Most politicians work full time. They spend their entire day being lobbied and writing bills for the parliament. This causes a certain distance between the lived experiences of the average person, aka the voters, and the people who typically get elected. Nowadays politicians are infamous for lying and not going through with their promises. A neoliberal framework would pose that these politicians are bad people and need to be replaced by good people who do a better job. I consider this naïve. I don’t think that all politicians are bad people, rather I believe that the conditions politicians live and work under cause them to act like this. No matter what they promised, once they are in parliament, they must toe the party line to be selected as candidate for the next election. No matter how good hearted they are, when lobbyists invite them to a free dinner they may well accept. And when neoliberal lobbyists use their faulty logic to argue for their reforms, the average politician as well as the average person would believe them. 4

This politician problem ultimately comes down to the fact that central governments in the modern day are based on a “trustee” system. This means a democratic system in which representatives are elected and then “trusted” to do their job well. They keep their position until the next election no matter their actions, short of impeachment which is incredibly rare for single representatives. This makes politicians able to act against the will of the people who elected them. I think this is a core problem of our modern western style democracies. We may elect parliament, but we do not control it. There is another way. A system of “delegates”. A delegate is a representative sent to a parliament who represents a group which can call them back any time. This means if delegates act against the will of their constituents and supporters they could be called back and replaced at any time. Of course, politicians hate this idea because it would make their jobs less secure. But ultimately having national and local parliaments be accountable to the electorate is in the spirit of democracy and a necessary step for taking power away from unaccountable politicians for the benefit of the people. Besides changing to a delegate system, in my ideal world I would make another minor change to democratic elections, I would change the right to vote from being bound to citizenship to being bound to residency. Right now, in many nations, from Austria to the USA only citizens are allowed to take part in elections. This is because of the history of democratic nation states. Nation states were formed as expression of one community, they based themselves on national identities, Germans, French, Russians, all with their 5

own state. And only people of that group could vote. But as nationalism decreased voting rights were instead given to citizens, meaning anyone born into the country and sometimes anyone born to a citizen depending on the country. But the citizenship model has big flaws, most notably that many people who were born in different countries have no say in how the country they inhabit is run. They may have lived there for decades, and they would be affected by all the decisions politicians make, especially on how the state will treat non-citizens, yet they have no say. Meanwhile citizens who live abroad HAVE a say despite having no stakes in the elections at all. In 2018 Recep Tayyip Erdogan was elected the president of Turkey by getting 52% of the cast votes. The deciding factor turned out to be Turkish citizens outside of Turkey, they voted from Germany, France, the UK and Austria. In effect the people in Turkey had their president elected by people who were de-facto foreigners. Erdogan was elected despite most people in the country not wanting him as president. This is the danger of allowing voting based on citizenship. People who left the country decades ago and who are in no way influenced by the result of the election have a say while residents who are not citizens have no say at all. There are millions of people in turkey who were affected by Erdogan’s election who could not say or influence anything he did. Which is especially bad considering the fact that Turkey’s leadership later led a miliary incursion in northern Syria. Meanwhile there are Turkish born people in Austria who lived in the country for decades, but they have no say in the 6

politics that dictate their lives, since in Austria likewise only citizens can vote. I think that this may be one of the largest errors of our current democratic systems, they are too focused on national identities instead of the real-world effect the political system is having. I think elections should be opened to all residents of a country, not just citizens. And the voting ability of those residing in places outside of the country should be taken away. The parliament of a country should be elected by all who live in that country and are ruled by said parliament, not only citizens and not those living abroad. This way there is a larger chance for the parliament to genuinely represent all people in the state. When I suggested this change among my family they immediately argued back. “What if Hungarians would come to Austria to vote for a bad candidate? We could not stop them if we didn’t check for citizenship” Which is an interesting argument on many levels. For one it assumes that Hungarians, or foreigners in general, would take up the trouble of traveling to the country just to mess with its politics. The simple counter argument is: “Why would they bother?” After all, would you travel to a country you don’t know to take a part in politics you don’t need to care about? But of course, this argument does not come from thin air, sometimes foreigners have a reason to want to influence the politics of other places. The following story is not entirely historically provable, rather it is the story I was told by a history teacher many years ago. They told me that after Austria-Hungary collapsed there were 7

elections in many places to select the borders for the new states born from the Austrian empire. One such election was between Hungary and Austria, it was about the Burgenland, a strip of land on the former Hungarian side of the border which was majority Austrian-German. Since all people in the regions were Austro-Hungarians, the vote was open to anyone who would show up on election day, where they came from was not controlled. So, the story goes that when the vote was held, there were trains upon trains of Hungarians traveling to the Burgenland to influence the election and keep the region Hungarian. When the results came in the Burgenland overwhelmingly voted to become Austrian, except for the largest city back then known as Ödenburg, which was where all those Hungarians supposedly dropped off their votes. In the end the allied commission compromised, giving the Burgenland to Austria and the one city of Ödenburg, now Sopron to Hungary. Some Austrians insist that the Hungarians stole the city while Hungarians argue that the city was majority Hungarian at the time. This story, irrespective of its legitimacy, illustrates the fear that stems from allowing all residents to vote. But there is a rather simple way to prevent election tourism. Allow every resident to vote, but only after primarily living in the country for at least one year. This way the ones living in the state control the state, and the state hopefully serves the people. To confirm residency should not be too difficult. For example, in Austria when a resident moves, they need to register that move with the so called Melderegister which is a national 8

database run by the local councils and districts which keeps track of who lives where. The resident then receives an official document which states their personal data along with their current place of residence. These documents are given to all residents, they are universal. It would hardly be a challenge to request this document at the ballots. Right now, all Austrians are required to provide an ID like a driver’s license or national ID card to vote. In my proposed system people would simply bring an ID along with the document showing their place of residence, since the document comes with a date it would not be a challenge for poll workers to manually confirm that one has been a resident for a year before giving people their ballots. So, in practice you would walk to the polling station with an ID and your residency document, you show them to the poll workers and receive your ballot. I believe the Austrian system of a paper ballot system works well and should be emulated. In it the ballots are counted by the different polling stations and are first digitally then physically sent to a central election register. This way the voters receive their results the same day of the election and the physical transport of all ballots allows election officials to double check the numbers sent in by the stations the days following the election which prevents the possibility of cyber warfare changing the results. Of course, this system with the Melderegister and ID works well in Austria, because we have a government organ that keeps track of people, and we have a national ID system. Other countries lack one or both, of these systems. In which case I propose implementing these systems. There may be arguments about national registries and national IDs but 9

ultimately a democratic system like the one I suggest cannot work without these two institutions. Of course, the electoral system I proposed works great for national or regional elections as we may have them today, with one election with a lot of preparations ahead of time every couple of years. But if you recall I want the parliaments, of regions, of national governments as well as local governments to be filled with delegates who can be recalled at any time. For this I propose that polling stations are not a temporary place as they are in modern democracies, rather they would be a permanent fixture with election officials being responsible for elections year-round, this would of course manifest as a weekend job, allowing the officials to pursue a normal life in addition to their service to democracy. These officials would work on a county or district level, which will henceforth be called the commune level. Communes are a big part in the way the new world would work and there is an entire chapter dedicated just to them coming up. But for now, you can use the words county, district, and commune interchangeably. The election of the representatives on all levels should be done with a ranked choice system, which will be explained in a later section. Now it is time to discuss the major changes I would make to the state system. Right now, states are the kings of government, they own territory, they own armies and police, they issue taxes and make laws. Some national governments subdivide themselves into smaller parts or states like the United States does. These are known as federal governments. But there are also centralist governments 10

where the central parliament is the end all be all like in France. I would entirely re-work the way governments of today work. I would abolish the state as we know it. And I would re-define the core piece in government to be the Commune rather than the State. I propose a government made up of 3 layers. The first and bottom layer being the commune, above it, the regional governments, also called state governments, these would be along the size of German or American states and finally the federal government which rules over multiple states. As you know right now most legislation is passed in the federal governments of the world, this is because federal governments outrank all lower lawmaking institutions in our current system, meaning that essentially the local and state leaders we vote for can be overridden by an alienated federal government, which for reasons mentioned before may not even follow the will of the people. I propose a bottom-up system in which the communes have most legislative rights, and the states have very limited areas under their control. The commune should be responsible for most of the laws on the books. It would be responsible for everything from issuing fishing licenses and determining the legality of marijuana to mandating muzzles for dangerous or aggressive dogs. It should be the commune that makes laws which affect people day to day. For this purpose, in addition to the commune leader there should be a commune council elected which’s task is to propose commune level laws, then the election council would set up a vote and the people of the commune vote against or for new laws or changes to existing laws. 11

This way the power of the state is kept in the hands of the people themselves, making sure that tyranny cannot develop. But there are things communes are not capable of running, for example making communes coordinate the construction of a major power- or rail line would be a very high task so instead major infrastructure projects like these would be taken over by one government level above the commune, the states. In my system the states have less need for a constant legislature, for this reason I believe that the state legislature should only be in session for a few days a year, perhaps once a quarter, this would allow the members of the state parliament to have normal jobs in addition to their services as MPs. It would even be possible for one person to both lead a commune and represent said commune in the state legislature, provided they win both elections. The states would be responsible for coordinating the communes, meaning they only do the tasks which communes cannot do on their own, they do not outrank the commune, the commune is the core governing body, the state merely supplements the communes. For example, the state would coordinate with communes and surrounding states when it comes to matters like infrastructure, bridges, rail lines, subways, internet infrastructure, trams, airports, power, hospital, schools and so on. All of these are things needed for a modern society, but they are not financially or logistically possible for every single communes to achieve. Likewise, disaster response, and driver’s license exams as well as car registration and the registry for people’s addresses would need to be standardized and as such would be a matter for 12

the states to control. For these tasks the states would need state level bureaucrats to do regular tasks like motor vehicle licenses. The states would merely coordinate, meaning they have no authority to build things on the land of a commune, they can merely suggest things and the communes themselves can accept or reject these proposals. Now we know that the communes make day to day laws for their people and that the states coordinate and finance large projects that a single commune could not undertake, so what does the federal government even do? Well in my world the federal government only has one purpose. To defend the fundamental rights of the people who live in its member states. Rights like owning personal property, a right to individual defense of property and to own arms, a right to your civilian identity card, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, the right to information, the right to be treated equally under the law and be provided with a lawyer, freedom from hunger and so on. The reason the federal government is responsible for these fundamental rights is because it is entirely possible that a commune elects a bad leadership which then tries to harm the people, in this case the federal government is there to step in and protect the people themselves from a rogue commune or state government by punishing the individuals responsible. Because coordinating human rights is not a very time intensive job, I don’t think that the federal legislature should meet all that often as it does nowadays. I think because of the small area it’s focused on the federal government would only need to meet once or twice a year in the regular, and of course earlier in case of a large-scale emergency the 13

communes and states cannot deal with on their own, like a military invasion. Yes, the socialist federal government has an army for defense, at least technically. We will return to this issue later. This infrequent meeting of the parliaments both on state and federal levels would in fact allow for one person to lead their commune, represent it in the state legislature and represent it in the federal legislature, if that is what the voters want. Of course, above the federal governments there could be even higher organizations, a socialist form of the EU or African union perhaps. What the tasks of these organizations would be or how they would work is not for me to predict. They would need to be formed by the will of the federal governments so it would be those governments that decide on the mechanisms these supernational entities would use. In addition to the states there should be a united world organization that coordinates on global issues like climate change. It would in effect be a UN, but without the exploitation of the poor countries using the IMF. Along with all the changes I propose to governments around the world there is also a radical idea which may shock those readers who are faint of heart. I propose we abolish borders and immigration controls entirely. I demand complete freedom of movement, no matter where someone was born. This goes hand in hand with my proposal to allow all residents to vote. In a world where communes are the core piece of society and the states and federal government have limited powers it makes no sense to establish federal or even state immigration requirements. 14

Socialism is about freedom, and that includes the freedom to move without being harassed by immigration laws that were written by politicians who have no idea about the reality immigrants face day to day. To make this immigration process run smoothly communes should establish their own websites or homepages to inform the people of the world about them by providing information like who the commune leader is, who is the council made up of, who runs the election council along with information about how many living spaces and jobs there are available in the area, of course the same website could be used for communes to advertise their landmarks for tourists. This to me is an important part of allowing immigration, people must be able to inform themselves on the area they consider moving to, to avoid people flooding to areas that have no jobs or housing. This right to inform themselves would also extend to the entire state and federal structure. A well-informed public is essential for a working democracy. Unfortunately, when democracy crystalized the only way for the public to be informed was the print and later radio and TV news which as we all know can be corrupt, biased, threatened or all 3 at once. So, I propose a right to information as one of the rights protected by the federal governments. This should be realized digitally. Right now, in Austria and the EU, along with other countries it is possible to go online and to look at government websites that exactly break down who has what seat, their party alignment and voting history for all 700 members of EU parliament. This is a great thing and should be available, not only for the EU and the federal government but also all state governments and even communes. This way the people can 15

inform themselves on the exact actions their representatives took and are likely to take in the future. As you know nowadays states are monoliths, large and unchanging. The territory one state owns does rarely change over the years. But in my system states are no longer the core of society, they are just a feature with the communes having most power. As such I suggest making states weaker in one specific way. Allow the states to switch which country they are a part of. Right now, all constitutions of the world, short of exceptions like in northern Ireland, forbid states from leaving the federal government. This means no matter what inhabitants of a state want they cannot leave the unaccountable federal government. Not so in my scenario, I think that by popular vote, of at least 66, or 75% a state should be able to leave one Federal government behind, maybe to form their own new federal government or maybe to join another existing one. There are examples all around the world of minorities that live in countries they do not really fit into: south Tyrol, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, most of the African peoples, even American tribal nations may not want to remain a part of the US federal government. We are merely giving them the ability to make that choice for themselves to extend the spirit of democracy. For the exact same reason, I propose that communes should be able to switch which state they are a part of provided the people want it. This way the world would be a lot more dynamic which is what we need for the world to be flexible in the face of the chaotic future. This ultimate selfdetermination of communes and states would hopefully reduce the justifications for war and bloodshed. Allowing 16

Northern Ireland to join the republic of Ireland at any point is what ended the IRA’s fight against the British government and the troubles. I believe that, in a similar way, many other regions of ethnic tensions could gain peace by guaranteeing the freedom to change state and federal governments. As you can tell, in this system the concept of being part of one federal government makes little sense. The term “nation state” or even “State” is close to meaningless in this future. As such I propose the abolition of citizenship as a political reality. Since in my future all residents of a place are allowed to vote and because of the unrestricted global travel the current conception of who is a citizen and who is not no longer makes sense. It has become redundant. There may be federal governments that continue to hand out documents that include nationality, maybe for tradition but practically the concept of citizenship would not be needed so it would likely die out in a future international socialist world like mine. There is one last part of the state we must discuss before we can move on to discussing the communes and how they would work. And that is the mater of the judiciary. The courts judges and lawyers of the new socialist society. I propose a three-layer form of courts. The lowest layer would be commune level. In it, violations against laws made by the commune would be addressed. I propose a very similar judiciary system to the current one. With one judge presiding over the trial and with a lawyer on both defense and persecution with a neutral jury that hopefully delivers a just verdict. The lawyers would work either for the commune in case of persecution or as part of collectivized law firms or 17

possibly for the commune as a pro bono lawyer who serves those who cannot afford defense from the collectivized firms. The commune judges would be elected by the people of the commune. A system like that is tried and tested in the United States of America where county level judges are elected. Now I do not mean to imply that a justice system like the American one is Just in the Grande sense. The reason I propose a system like this is because there is simply no system that would work better. In the Soviet Union there were no lawyers on either side of the trial, rather there was one state prosecutor who would work to find out the truth and then tell the judge what happened. The flaw here is that this one prosecutor alone can declare a suspect innocent or guilty, allowing for corruption, threats, or bribes. At least in an American-style court system there is no single person that can be bribed to make or break a trial. Since the lawyers only seek to use evidence to sway the jury and the judge has no influence on the jury’s verdict, the jury should be free to analyses the facts and unanimously make conclusions about the guilt or innocence of the accused. Naturally the American model in which people without financial means are provided with a lawyer should be kept. Justice can only exist if everyone gets a fair chance. There would be 3 layers of court which would work differently from the ones we have now. First there would be the commune layer which would hold most of the trials both civil and criminal. Even things as drastic as murder should be judged on a county level when possible. State and federal judges would only be involved in rare cases. One of those cases would be cross commune crime. For example, someone 18

committing murder in two different communes. In this case the state would create a task force made up of local commune law enforcement which would arrest and bring the suspect to trial in a state level court. Again, the task of the state is to coordinate cooperation between communes, this includes the case of a man hunt, crime and trials. The state courts should be structured similarly to the commune courts, a judge, two lawyers and a jury selected based on the location of those crimes. This would be the highest court a normal person would find themselves in front of. The judges working for the state court should be selected as politically neutral individuals by the state government. At a state level there would simply be too many qualified candidates to allow the people to directly select candidates so the state would select elected commune judges to preside over the trials. But there is still the federal court. Much like the federal government only protects people’s fundamental rights, the federal court would only take cases in which these rights have been violated. Should a commune pass a law banning guns or preventing immigration then it would be brought in front of the federal court and the people in charge punished accordingly. The commune and state courts defend the laws, the federal court defends the rights. The federal judges would be selected by the federal parliament as politically neutral individuals.

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The communes Let us now come to the core piece of the new society, the communes themselves. The commune itself, in the case of a rural area is made up of multiple cities which collectively should make up a population of 50 to 100 thousand people. In the case of cities communes should be of a similar size but form a voluntary city council to organize city wide action which single communes in the city may not be able to do themselves. The territory of a commune should be decided according to population, border changes, mergers and splits of communes should be controlled by all affected people in a general vote. Should commune populations grow and shrink the borders should be democratically adjusted to keep the communes of similar sizes. The commune itself has 4 parts. The commune leader who sets the commune agenda and represents it when interacting with other communes. The commune council which is the body responsible for suggesting laws for the commune and approving of state level actions that take place on commune territory. The elected commune judges who interpret laws and run court cases. And finally, a group of bureaucrats who do day to day things that need to be done for a governing body to run smoothly, the election council is a part of this body. The commune leader should be elected by all people residing in the commune and all residents should be able to run for office. The election should be done with a ranked choice 20

voting system. There should be no barriers to prevent people from voting who they want to, no fee for being on the ballot, no certain sets of signatures to run. If someone wants to run for office and has ideas, then they deserve to be on the ballot. In many similar democratic processes to this one there is an issue with the expense of running for office, American presidential candidates are famously all very wealthy and that is because they must pay for the election advertisements from their own pocket, in effect meaning that no member of the working class will ever take that office. To prevent this every candidate should make a short and concise summary of their believes and goals, copies of which would be made available at the commune related buildings like libraries and town halls and more importantly, be made available online. The right to an internet connection is one of the fundamental rights protected by the federal governments therefore having election information online in a concise way allows people to be politically informed without candidates paying for advertisement. The Bureaucrats of the commune are a necessary evil that cannot be avoided. We would all love to live in a world where we are not standing in line for the DMV or the TÜV. But in the end things need to be done, cars need to be registered, Identity cards must be issued, and someone needs to check the environment for pollutants. These are the tasks of the commune bureaucracy, the day to day running of the things that are too minor to bother the commune council or even the general population with. Bureaucrats are often hated on in modern society, but in the world, we live in they are irreplaceable members of any organized society. 21

The administration of the bureaucracy should be free from political influence, they must enforce the laws and inform the lawmakers, but bureaucratic positions should not be handed out based on nepotism or party alignment but only on merit. For this it would make sense to think of the bureaucrats as separate part of the government, it would hire it’s own people, select it’s own leaders and be generally accountable to the public via open records. Since under my system every commune would send forth one representative to the state and federal each, the commune also needs the ability to recall them in accordance with the delegate system. For this I propose that at any point people within the commune can send a complaint about their representative to the election council. Verbal written or digital, and once a certain number of complaints have been received, for example 10% of the electorate within the commune, the election council would set up a vote of nonconfidence on the next weekend. To this vote all voters should vote on whether to keep or replace their delegate. If they decide to remove the delegate, they will elect a new one a week hence. Of course, the elections themselves, must not only be run by the election officials, but there need also to be volunteer representatives of different political beliefs in the room when the counting is done to prevent corruption or “accidental” mistakes in counting. Democracy needs accountability and this would not change in my Vikiist system. The votes for local leaders and state to federal offices would not consist of a simple majority vote as was the mistake of so many democracies in the past. Instead, representatives 22

should be elected via a ranked voting system. In that system voters rank politicians by how well they like them. Only selecting one would be support of only one. This system is more complicated for the ones counting the votes, but modern technology should allow the counting to be done in a reasonable time. Of course, the ballots would still be collected by the election councils for later re-counting to make sure no alteration to the votes took place in the electronic system. A preferential, or ranked, voting system is easy to use for voters but a little more complicated in counting, as such allow me to explain the process here. At first the ballots are sorted by the first choice of all voters. Then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated from the election. But the ballots which had them as a first choice are checked again and are distributed according to their second preference. In effect voters of the smallest candidate are supporting another one after the smallest candidate is eliminated from the election. Then repeat, the smallest candidate is eliminated, and the ballots are distributed among the remaining candidates in accordance with the voter preference. If an eliminated candidate already received the second vote of other people, then those ballots are given to the third preference of the voters. This process is repeated until one candidate reaches the 51% required to become a representative or local leader. This electoral process makes sure that votes for smaller candidates are not discouraged, in fact it encourages people to run for election even without party alignment since voters are free to give their first vote to small candidates and give their later ones to larger parties they agree with less. This 23

does not guarantee that all citizens are happy with the result, but it maximises how many people are okay with their representative. The commune council’s responsibilities include making decisions on commune matters and proposing laws, though residents may also suggest laws to be voted on. Crucially despite being the most important government organ of the communes the council cannot pass major legislation without a popular vote on it which would be organized by the election council. Because the council has so many important tasks the way it is elected is crucial. I propose a system similar to ranked choice voting but modified to elect more than one winner. I would suggest communes have their councils be between 10 or 20 people. In this example I will use 10 people. With 10 people needing to be elected each candidate needs to reach 10% of the votes. Voters still rank their candidates as they did for the state level but this time the counting is different. If a candidate reaches above 10% of the vote they are given a seat, say they reached 20%, the first step in counting is to take all of the winner’s surplus votes and give them to the second choice of the voters, this is to make sure that votes for popular candidates are not wasted. Then the votes are counted as before, the least popular candidate is eliminated, and their second choice receives the votes. This is repeated until all candidates reach 10%. But it is mathematically possible to have 9 people reaching 10% but the 10th not doing so, this is due to voters who only mark one vote or who rank only a part of the candidates. In this case the seat should be assigned to the 10th largest candidate regardless. 24

Much like the representatives in the state council, the representatives on the commune council should be delegates and popular vote should be able to remove them from the council if the people see fit. In this case a vote should be held on who to replace the removed council member. The commune Judges who are responsible for making sure the wheels of justice keep on turning should be elected publicly in a similar way to the commune leader, meaning with a ranked choice vote election held publicly. A commune would not typically need more than one or two judges to function so they would be elected individually, this is to make sure that even the justice system is accountable to the will of the people, as such judges like all other elected positions would be able to be voted out by the people any time. Liberals may fear this, since it makes the justice system dependent on the political system which is typically avoided under the separation of powers. But I do believe that a world in which judges must take the opinions and believes of all commune members into consideration before making a ruling would be a better world, better for the people, not for the job security of the judges. I previously explained that the process for criminal justice would be similar to the current system with commune employed defense lawyers who defend those without means, as well as a commune employed prosecution. Likewise, the model of the civil suit would not be changed a lot. The “preponderance of the evidence standard”, which states that the probability of a violation of a contract or agreement having happened, needs to be above 50% to determine blame, should be upheld in civil suits. This contrasts with the 25

“Evidence beyond a reasonable doubt” standard used in criminal cases. This means violating a contract is a civil suit in which the state is not involved, it is just both sides with a lawyer and a judge. And to be determined liable by that court the evidence just needs to show that it is more likely than not that you violated a contract. In criminal trials on the other hand there is a jury and a state prosecution, and the jury must determine your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In the case of state level court cases like in the case of cross commune crime the communes would need to select one of the local judges to take over the tasks of a state level court for the duration of the trial. People who have been found in breach of a contract would be punished via fines or other punishments defined in the contract while people who were deemed guilty of criminal action by the jury would need to be treated differently. Broadly in the modern world there are 2 reasons for people to commit crimes: poverty and mental illness. Since in a Vikiist world people would be provided for there would be no people who would have to steal food to survive. The only other reason for breach of the law is mental health, psychopathy, psychotic breaks, manic episodes, depression and more can make people behave in strange and unpredictable ways which may violate the laws of the society. The current approach towards dealing with people who have such issues is to put them in prisons for decades on end and hoping that this will somehow improve their mental health and not worsen it.

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This approach is obviously faulty. For the treatment of the criminal mentally ill there should be state level closed and supervised psychiatric treatment institutions, their tasks would be to look after the ill, to treat them to the best of their ability and to determine when they are able to re-join society. There should also be adjustment periods much as they exist in Austrian and German prisons where the inmates are allowed to leave for the day to take part in a job and they return to the facility overnight, this way facilities actively support those in their care. Of course, there may be those who will never be reformed, who will never be able to join society anymore the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Kaczynski come to mind. But despite the existence of such people, I do think that society should never give up on reforming people, since we cannot know which people are the reformable ones and which ones will never change. The core of the communes is the commune headquarters which would be located within the commune in a large, central, or important town or city, doing all the tasks we discussed so far. Below the communes there would be one final level of governance, the Town halls. The would be run by mayors which would be elected the same way other representatives are elected, with a ranked choice voting system. The tasks of the mayors would be mostly ceremonial, opening new constructions and doing minor tasks that need doing in their city. For this they would work in town halls which would be important in a major way. As you know most governing functions including things like zoning and fishing licenses area already taken care of by the commune government itself, as 27

such the only major task of the town hall would be supporting the organization of elections. There is a central commune wide election council, but an election cannot just be run in one place, the communes, in case of rural areas, would be rather large and because of that require multiple polling stations. For this purpose, every town hall would have one or two election officials who guide local volunteers in setting up fair and transparent election sites. These volunteers would of course be financially compensated for their time. They would check the ID and residence of the voters and provide them with a ballot which the voters fill out and deposit in a transparent box. After the voting is finished the election volunteers would count the votes and either announce a winner or send the results of the vote to a state or federal counting administration, depending on what kind of election it is. Then the physical ballots are transported to the commune, state, or federal government for re-counting in one place to make sure no mistakes happened in the electronic transfer of the votes. All in all, because elections are a frequent occurrence they should be as easy for the voters as possible. This means no need to register or anything like that and all elections are held on the weekends with voters having time in the morning and evening to drop off their ballots to allow people who work on weekends to make their choice known. From what age people would be allowed to vote should be decided by the commune itself and made to match local conditions. For example, in Austria due to the system of apprenticeship the federal voting age is 16, since 16 year old’s might already be paying taxes and deserve a say in how their taxes are spent. In other 28

countries there are no workers under 18 so the voting age in this place is different for those reasons. The question of law enforcement in a libertarian socialist world like the Vikiist one is a big one. Famously nowadays states and even unions of states use law enforcement to suppress popular movements, examples of this reach from the Rodney king riots to the Prague spring. No matter the ideology of one country or how well intentioned it was formed, centralized government-controlled police and military forces were used against the good of the people many times in history. For this reason, in addition to weakening states and federal governments significantly there will be no law enforcement in the current meaning of the word. But how would communities catch criminals and prevent crime? Via local law enforcement, task forces working for the commune or maybe even town halls, which are controlled by a council made up of representatives from the law enforcement. Of course, making the police local solves a big issue, and that is that the law enforcement is close to the community, this way they cannot be used to harm a community since it would be against their own interest. They would elect their own council to guide them without influence from the rest of the political system. Many stories exist of entirely white police departments tearing black communities apart because they have no stake in the community. It is important to keep the law enforcement independent because if they had a central leader or followed the commune then they may act against the people.

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But of course, the danger coming from corrupt cops would not be solved this way. Long time in a power position inevitably corrupts those who hold the power; therefore we see so many issues with police corruption and discrimination. There are many videos of power tripping cops mistreating the common people. To make this impossible in my Vikiist world law enforcement is not a job people select, instead it is a duty given to community members at random. In regular time periods there would be a new random selection of people from the area to take part in law enforcement. This is why the law enforcement is led by a council the law enforcement selected. Anyone could be law enforcement, and everyone can lose that job again at random, preventing authoritarian types from abusing their power. But doesn’t being a cop require training? Yes, it does, and people who are not at a capacity to hunt for murderers would instead deal with issues like mental health calls. Famously the vast majority of calls to the police do not require an armed response. So only a small part of the law enforcement would require arms at all. And where would they get them? Anywhere, the law enforcement selectees would bring their own guns, if you recall the federal government guarantees the right to gun ownership. This way law enforcement brings their own arms to the job. Though the right to arms for everyone does also fulfil an important other function, and that is that an armed populace is harder to oppress. In my ideal world the globe is covered in cooperating communes without any conventional states left. But should a fascistic or counterrevolutionary army appear how would they be stopped? By the people. Each commune 30

would form volunteer militia that would train during their own time. In society there are plenty of people with interests in weapons and military tactics, in this world they would make up the only army the communes would need. They would provide parts of their equipment themselves. Each soldier would have their own rifles while more specialized weapons like Aircraft and tanks would be stored by the commune or possibly state and be used for training with volunteers on weekends or holidays. Each of these militias would be run democratically, they would not just follow orders but use their best judgement as to what orders are best for most. In the case of a federal emergency like a counterrevolutionary insurgency these local commune level militias would unite and form a union with other militias from the same state, they would elect a council to lead them together, these councils would then appoint councils on a federal level to lead the armed forces of the entire region. This military democracy is vital to make sure that the military is never lead to crimes or actions against the people by generals or leaders. There are no generals, there are only councils filled with representatives, who of course in line with libertarian socialist views would be delegates that could always be called back by the soldiers they command. This way the power of the state entirely rests with the individual judgement of every citizen soldier or neighborhood watch member.

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The economy The extension of democracy in my world would not only apply to the state and political officials, but it would also extend to the entire economic system. As a socialist ideology Vikiism demands that workplaces be controlled by the people. By Google’s definition socialism is: “A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” In the past this was prominently interpreted as a state focused model. The USSR and Maoist China had all businesses in the state being owned and administered by government officials who would centrally plan the coming years. This form of socialism has great advantages, it allowed the USSR to turn from a rural peasant state to a global superpower within just two decades, while winning World War two at the same time. It was the fastest industrialization process in the world at the time. But while centrally planned state socialist nations have their advantages, they suffer from one extremely crucial disadvantage. And that is that it changes nothing for the working people. In capitalism workers work for a capitalist who pockets the surplus money and has all control. In the state socialist nations workers instead worked for a government official who had all control, and the state pocketed the profit. In effect the workers felt no more in control than they would in capitalist nations. Of course, the workers had some options to 32

make their voices heard, for example they could join the party and take part in internal debates to influence who would become general secretary or leader of the state planning committee GOSPLAN, which technically could have influenced the way the company they worked for was run, but realistically this would not make a difference on the individual scale. As you can tell state socialism is not at all compatible with the Vikiist system I laid out in front of you so far. There would be no strong state to plan the economy or own the businesses. So instead, the Vikiist system would rely on worker cooperatives, also called worker co-ops. They are a form of business that is run by the workers themselves in a democratic manner. Instead of a capitalist or state owning the business it officially belongs to everyone it employs, meaning it is controlled by the community. Without capitalists to appoint a CEO or managers the workers would need to find their own way of how to run the business. For small ones a direct democratic system in which there is a vote for every decision may work well. But this model does not scale well. Once a co-op grows large and has hundreds of employees it becomes impractical to vote on everything, so large businesses may elect people to make choices, this means elected managers and CEOs. These positions could be made like the democratic ones, based on delegates that can be removed, or perhaps the position could be granted for a fixed amount of time so the leadership can make unpopular choices in the short term. In accordance with libertarian views these details should all be left up to the individual coop and not be dictated by a government or commune. 33

However what needs to be fixed by the government is the type of businesses people can form. Only collectively owned businesses would be permitted, not private ones owned by individuals since the capitalist model is infamous for exploiting and mistreating workers for the sake of profit. This extends to all sorts of other things like housing which we will return to later. One of the great things about democratic workplaces is the incentives they set. In a capitalist business the incentive for the CEO is to make as much money as possible, even if it means bending safety and overtime regulations. But an elected CEO would have a different goal as well: Being elected again. If they exploit the workers for their own profit, they would not get re-elected. This means CEOs would be incentivized to reduce their own cut and pay everyone more. They could also expand the business. Without a company owner to get all the profits, the workers would see large increases in pay. At the same time, they could hire more people to reduce the need for overtime and possibly even reduce the working hours if the employees wish. Since the company leadership is accountable to the workers, they would not endanger workers and would not cut costs by moving the production to a poor nation, no worker would vote to be outsourced which would help retain local production. This fact would allow us to reduce bureaucracy. Since the workers are the one to run the business there is no need for OSHA regulations and workplace inspections, the workers will always have their own safety in mind, and the leadership could not go against that without losing their jobs.

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Worker co-ops allow the people of the world to experience genuine democracy. Sure, nowadays we say we live in democracies, but all we get to do is vote for politicians, that were pre-selected by parties, every couple of years. Real democracy must be in the day-to-day life which worker coops are. They are the gate to democracy. There are some criticisms towards this, the most common one is that the workers would not know how to run a business or that they would vote for policies that give them short term advantages at the cost of the long-term existence of the business. These incidentally are arguments that were used against the idea of political democracy in the first place. Believing workers cannot run a business they spend most of their days in necessitates assuming that the people are too stupid to be trusted with democracy at all. A view which I do not share. I believe that the people can vote for politicians and that they can vote in businesses. If you do not share this view, I would like to tell you a story. In the Basque country controlled by Spain there is a big corporation called the Mondragon Corporation. What is unique about it is that it is a worker co-op, or rather an alliance of many smaller co-ops that produce all sorts of different things, they make up about 24 billion in their assets and they are one of the largest cooperations in the country. They were founded in 1956 and still stand strong, despite having to compete with capitalist businesses. Via democratic control the corporation has achieved many things. They fixed wage ranges, for example in one co-op the top earners cannot receive more than 5 times of what the lowest earners receive for the same amount of work. Which means that hard 35

working and experienced workers are still better compensated than new employees. Completely flat wages are often criticized for not encouraging hard work. This is solved with income ranges. These ranges also incentivize the leadership to raise the wages of the lowest earners so they can receive a higher pay themselves. Even though it has issues, I believe that the co-ops in the Vikiist future would work in similar ways to the Mondragon Corporation. For once this goal of Vikiism is well understood and has already been tried and proven in our current day economy. This leads me to an important point, the Vikiist economy would retain money as an exchange good. There are socialist models that attempt to abolish money and most popular is to replace money with labor vouchers. A voucher would say how long someone worked, for example a labor voicer may represent 5 minutes of work which could be exchanged for a product and then destroyed to prevent the accumulation of it. The upside of this system is that all labor is considered equally valuable, be it a low skilled farm worker or a CEO of a huge corporation. But that is also the downside, some people work harder and with more experience and education, and I do think that they deserve to be compensated better for their effort. Therefore, I would keep money as we have it today, workers would be paid and spend money as before. Now you may wonder: If there are no capitalists who will start new businesses? Is there even an incentive? The answer is: No, there is no financial incentive to start a co-op under Vikiism. But anyone could start a co-op either by pooling their money with their friends or by requesting a loan from the 36

commune. Why would people bother? Because they have passion for what they make and the things they can do to improve people’s lives. That alone is enough to drive most people to do work. My main piece of evidence is this very booklet you are reading now. It was written over dozens of hours but without a profit drive, I do not expect to make money from this, I made it because I have passion for the future and want to get my ideas out there, so that they may improve the world. This is the same for many startups in the modern economy, they have passion and want to improve things, even if they cannot become the dictator of their business or extract surplus value. Now we know how products would be made, but how would they get to the people? Distribution centres. Communes would create these buildings as needed throughout their land, they would resemble huge warehouses filled to the brim with everything one may need, no longer going to three different stores to get the things you want and need, it is all in those centres. The centres would be part of the bureaucratic arm of the commune and be run in a non-profit way. For every one of these distribution centres there would be employees that stock the shelves, and determine which products need to be ordered. They would then inform a co-op of the need for more products. There would be a market-ish system in place. The distribution centre employees would be tasked with analysing each new product being made by Co-ops and examine the quality, contents, and supply chain, if the product is deemed good it is added to the many products the centre holds. This way coops have incentives to create new and better products to be 37

selected by the centres. Of course, the popularity of products would always be an important data point for the centre workers to decide which products to sell or drop from their inventory. In a way the people still have many choices as they do in contemporary society, with the advantage that all products on the shelf were already exposed to in depth research and scrutiny about the accuracy of their contents and overall quality. The prices set by these centres should be as close to the cost of production as possible, however they may add a few percent to be able to afford to keep the centre open, paying for electricity, water, and wages of employees. Should a centre fail, it would either be financially supported by the commune or abandoned, depending on how many people rely on this single centre. So, we have products being made by co-ops which then try to sell their product to the distribution centres rather than directly to the people, to ensure quality and a clean supply chain. Keep in mind that in the modern economy no commune could produce everything it needs, so there would need to be international coordination between the distribution centre workers and the co-ops, this also means that being dropped off the shelves of one distribution centre would not be the end for a co-op, there are many such centres in the state and federal government and beyond. Let us now come to the topic of Banking. The question whether banking should be private, or commune controlled was a difficult one for me. On the one hand giving the commune bureaucrats even more tasks that are vital for the economy goes against my libertarian socialist values. 38

However ultimately, I considered what would be needed for private banks to function in a modern way. Famously in the past banks would run out of money, causing a run on the banks crashing the entire banking sector and erasing people’s savings. The only way this is prevented is via government insurance guaranteeing the people the money in their bank accounts and by having central banks that loans money to banks which experience a rush. Ultimately, private banks are not able to survive without a centralised government run banking system. For this reason, banking is not a part of the economy as today, but a feature of the communes. Banking would take place entirely online, the need for physical banks has disappeared many years ago already. Instead, it would rely on commune run online banking with servers run and administrated by said bureaucrats, if you recall a right to internet access is among the rights guaranteed by the federal governments of the Vikiist world, ensuring that everyone has access to a bank account, in addition people would have a right to a free bank account with no hidden fees or costs. Since the commune gets its money from taxes (which will be discussed later) there would be no reason to engage in for-profit banking. If someone or a group of people would want to start their own co-op, they would be able to apply to a loan and the commune bureaucrats would manage the money of the bank. Of course, a pure online banking system has issues, should servers be down or no internet connection around people would not be able to access their money. For this reason, physical currency is retained under Vikiism. For that purpose, the commune would place cash machines in the places they 39

are needed, of course without withdrawal fees for the consumers. These would be stocked with physical currency. But who would mint the coins and print the paper money? For this there would be a special co-op that would create physical currency under strong supervision by the relevant commune council. This money would then directly be transported to the cash machines, since there are no private banks there is no need for a middleman. This is not to say that every commune would have their own printing factories making their own currency. Rather it would be the tasks of states, federal governments and supernational currency unions to organise currency production. For example, right now all Euro notes and coins are minted in Frankfurt, and they are distributed all over the Eurozone. Communes could choose which currencies to use but they would have incentives to use popular currencies. There would be people who live and work in different communes and who travel to other communes for holidays, all of which would be facilitated by using the common currency of the region. The world of Vikiism is very interconnected and so should be its currencies. As mentioned, many pages ago, the people inhabiting the communes are entitled to food and water for free among other things. These would be provided by the distribution centres, but rather than the commune paying for everyone’s free food the centres should provide the people with all those foods that passed their best by date. The world throws away billions of tonnes of food while close to a billion are hungry, giving people food “waste” for free truly hits two birds with one stone in this case. Of course, in case of economic trouble 40

or supply issues it may happen that the centres do not have enough free food to provide for all, in this case the commune would need to step in and provide the hungry with food, that food would be purchased/taken from the distribution centres. It should be worth at least two thousand calories per person per day. Along with this people need water, and water does not expire. Therefore, water bottles should be provided for free by the distribution centres. At least 2 litres per person per day. A neoliberal may say that this will lead to people not buying drinks anymore since they have water for free, but I am confident that anyone with a decent income, even if water is provided for free, would still like to drink things like Pepsi or Fanta occasionally. The free water will not make the distribution centres lose revenue. And neither would the free food. In places like Austria there are already systems in which food waste is given to those who cannot afford to eat. This may sound like people would stop buying food since they can get it for free, but this is not what happened. Austrian supermarkets saw no decrease in profit after agreeing to give food waste to those in need. Presumably because people too poor to buy food would not become supermarket customers in the first place. Another of the things freely provided for those in need would be housing, places to live. This would assume a form comparable to soviet block-housing. People with little means would be allowed to live in these flats for free with running water as well as an internet and phone line. These elements are required to live and find jobs in the modern world and as such should be provided to those in need. These flats would 41

be constructed and owned by the commune itself, possibly with funding from state and federal governments if required. Providing flats, even if they are not necessarily comfortable or desirable would conclusively end homelessness in all communes. But of course, Vikiism is not a System in which everyone must live in soviet style apartment blocks. Other housing would be made available by co-ops. Construction co-ops could build houses and then sell them to average commune citizens or perhaps the citizens could build their house on their own from the money they earned in their co-ops. They may even take out some loans from the commune to aid construction. People able to afford constructing or buying a house would undoubtedly have some financial means already, as such the commune would not have to provide them with free internet access or phone lines, but free water should still be provided regardless. However, there are limits on these privately constructed buildings, for one they cannot be used to rent out space to other people, renting out apartments is something only the commune can do, not individuals. This is done to prevent a landowner or landlord class from developing. People would only be able to own one house at a time, if the owner of a house dies it goes to the commune which can then rent or sell it to someone else. There should however be the option for a widow(er) to remain in the house of their deceased partner. Otherwise, old people may be kicked out of the place they lived their whole lives because technically someone else owned the building. And that is an important detail, people own the building but not the land it is built on. All land belongs to everyone in the 42

commune; however, the commune can borrow the land to someone for the length of their lifetime so they may live on it, farm it or open a co-op on it. If the land is no longer used or inhabited it reverts to the commune, along with everything built on it. This means if someone builds a house and lives in it, they can keep it, but if they start living in other places and no longer use it, it will be expropriated. The same is true for farmland that is not tended to or co-ops which move place or stop operating. Inheritance in general is a more complicated topic in Vikiism. We know that inheritance causes massive inequality because some start life off with lots of wealth while others start off with debt. As such inheritance is limited in vikiism. Should a father or grandfather die then the people set to inherit things are entitled to 10.000€ worth of the things their parent/grandparent owned. This way things people have an emotional attachment to are not just seized by the commune but can be taken by the affected. At the same time this limit makes sure that no people get an overly unfair advantage in the economy because of their inheritance. Effectively there would be no inheritance tax below 10.000€ and an inheritance tax of 100% for everything above that. Of course, the 10.000€ example is random, and the true value should be decided by the communes themselves not by this text. There will be divides among communes, some will have more population and some less, some will be confined to a single city district while others may stretch over huge swaths of scarcely populated lands, however the even more important consideration is one of wealth. While the communes as I described them and their operations may be plausible in 43

contemporary Europe and North America, there are many areas that are devoid of infrastructure, where no factories are based and where people still farm by hand with sickles like the European peasants of old. Once ideal Vikiism is achieved all areas will have access to modern agriculture, and fairly dispersed industry and infrastructure, but this world is far from our reality, as such I will outline some steps that could be taken to encourage equality between communes. An international organization like the current day UN should be tasked with observing global manners like climate change, spread of disease and equality. A common fund should be made into which rich regions invest and poor regions receive. The money would be given to local governments so they may build infrastructure or commune owned businesses, or to be provided for local entrepreneurs that seek to open new businesses and factories. These may compete for the attention of local distribution centers which may choose to carry local products over foreign ones for reason of cost and environmental preservation. The issue with this idea is that it expects communes, which may I remind you are entirely accountable to the people themselves, to voluntarily spend some of their tax money on the betterment of other people. While it would be nice to imagine a world in which the members of the commune would willingly give their taxes to the betterment of mankind it is just as realistic to expect that Elon Musk will bring forth fully automated communism. In the real world many communes may be ruled by conservative types who do not wish to help those who are foreign.

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Therefore, I propose a second but inferior method of equalizing the economy between industrialized and rural communes. Loans. The more well-off communes and states may simply decide to use their wealth to loan money to poorer regions with interest. Ideally this interest would be nothing more than a compensation for the administrative task of loaning the money. However, if we apply the lens of reality this may be a way for richer areas to exploit poorer ones. There are many examples of the International Monetary Fund burdening developing nations with so much debt that their entire economy is locked up paying interest which prevents them from developing their own economy which opens the way for exploitative western cooperations taking over resources in developing countries. This agenda of the IMF and multiple national governments like the G7 nations, is a well-established pattern, but there is hope that a Vikiist world would be different. Since loans would be decided between communes or states directly the loans would be under control from either the people directly or from the people who were elected by the people and can be recalled. The lack of career politicians, and especially the (hopefully) lower quantity of neoliberal economists in the government would lead to government relying less on international schemes and instead on openness and the best for all people of the earth. Since the Vikiist world is based on political participation of all people in all communes there needs to be a certain level of education, both politically and in general. Democracy tried in countries were people lack political education often leads to the collapse of the government in favor of an authoritarian 45

one, Rome and the February revolution illustrate this issue. For this reason, schools, and libraries in the Vikiist future must be free for all people, no matter origin, age, or intellectual ability. To facilitate this, schools should be well funded and evenly distributed among the area of communes so everyone may live close enough to schools to make education feasible. These schools would be run by themselves, meaning the teachers would elect the principal and vote on who to add to the team as new teachers to replace those who grow old and leave the workforce. School funding should be divided between the state and commune providing payment to the school staff to ensure schools are run for education not profit. The curricular should be decided upon by democratic organizations that span many schools and write textbooks. For a free society it is imperative that these organizations are guided by the most current scientific understanding of current happenings, and neutrality on political issues of the day. The same would apply to higher education facilities like colleges/universities. All must be state financed to allow all people, no matter their wealth or their family’s wealth a good education and options in life. Equality of education is most important to guarantee equality of opportunity for all people. Schools should be centrally located to allow the shortest possible travel times for the people. This falls under the broader topic of transportation. In the near future traffic in a Vikiist world may not look any different to how it looks today but eventually communes should aim to de-emphasize cars for transportation, even if cars were made to be entirely climate neutral, they would still pose a danger to cyclists and 46

pedestrians and even the drivers of those cars. Not to mention the traffic issues that come with them. Ultimately from a purely logical perspective cars take up way more space than alternatives. For this reason, cities should change large intersections and highways towards pedestrianized zones for people to walk and bike freely without danger of being hit by cars. Experience in the Netherlands and other regions has shown that removing cars betters the living quality of most people by giving them pleasant pedestrian areas to spend time, to walk and to bike, both of which have the side effect of boosting individual health. Emphasizing bikes over cars may work well for some regions like city centers but in regions which are more rural with kilometers between cities it would not be feasible to expect people to bike to work or even just do shopping if there are no distribution centers in the town. For this supplementary bus and tram lines should be used to transport distances that are too long for walking. For long distance travel between communes, trains should be used. For these plans, many changes in the physical infrastructure must be made which would be paid by different government layers depending on the issue. Pedestrianizing car centric cities would be left up to the city communes, installing trams may be a task of the city council and long-range rails would be organized by the state level government or federal government(s) depending on the type of route. Ultimately a socialist world would phase out individual car ownership in favor of walking, biking, car sharing, busses, trams, and trains. Affordable mobility is necessary for a free world to function.

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Now comes the part of the manifesto in which I address the most pressing counter argument I foresee. The matter of finances. How could communes, states and federal governments possibly hope to pay for all the things promised here? Roads, public transportation, free healthcare, and education. All tremendously expensive things that need many resources to be paid for. So how would the communes, states and federal governments raise money? Though taxes of course. There would be 3 main income streams for the governments. Since resource distribution is run directly by the commune there is no sense in adding a sales tax to products being sold. Instead, one of the main income streams would be an individual income tax paid by everyone who makes money. This should be a progressive tax to make sure those who make more, contribute more to society. Despite what many will tell you, progressive income taxes are not as unfair as often presented. Progressive income tax means that if we had a tax of 0% on income below 12 thousand € a year and 10% for 12 to 30 thousand € a year, then someone making 25 thousand would not be taxed at 10% flat. Rather their first 12 thousand would be tax free and the other 13 thousand would be taxed at 10%. This way more work is always rewarded more. Though of course the more someone makes the more they are taxed since they have more than they need already. This money then goes to finance the actions of the commune for the benefit of everyone. I do believe that taxing the profit of businesses would be of no use in this world. Businesses already find ways to reduce their official profit to almost nothing, and in a socialist world this would be easier than ever. All a co-op would need to do to have 0 income would be to pay out the profit to its 48

workers. I do believe that when faced with paying the extra profit in taxes and giving the money to the workers they would always choose paying the workers. For this reason, there is no use in taxing profit since little to no businesses would end up paying. Instead, a new type of tax which does not exist in real life at the moment at all should be used, a financial transaction tax. Every commune ran bank, every coop and every individual would pay a fraction of a % on any digital transaction of money. This would not affect the people in any notable way, but when it comes to large multicommune businesses that transfer huge amounts of money it would be a goldmine for any tax collector allowing for the financing of all the great things Vikiism has in store for us. But even with income and financial transaction tax there is a hole in the budget of the commune. And this hole will be filled via actions on the semi-free market. As mentioned before people can build and buy houses if they have the money, and once they die the houses are returned to the commune to be rented out or sold to people. With control over the entire real estate market the commune could easily make enough money by selling and renting out property to pay for everything imagined in this manifesto and much more. Harnessing the profit of the real estate market will be the gateway to all those free and cheap things the communes provide, giving the people of the world the things, they need and deserve.

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Conclusion Ultimately this text is not a list of steps, rather it is a peak into one possible future for humanity. It may be hopelessly optimistic and even utopian, but I believe we need strong visions for the future if we wish to improve the world. But it is easy to imagine how things may be in a best-case scenario, we should never forget that without our actions nothing will change in the world. Any person taking part in raise the wage demonstrations or talking to friends and family about social issues is doing more significant work than this text could ever hope to. In the end it is up to the people to rise and change the system. May the workers of the world unite for a better future.

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This text is a description of of a future world, not the future world but one of many possibilities that lay before us. This is a libertarian socialist word, but it is not concerned with laying bare the exploitations and suffering caused by the current capoitalist society, rather it is a vision of the world that may lay beyond liberation. A socialist world that is not reliant on a state as we know it today, one in which the workers of the world have their fate in hand themselves, where things of need like water and housing are provided for everyone who needs them and where worrying about putting food on the table is a mere horrible memory from a different past. A world in which there can be no war anymore and in which anyone can presue their desires. In short: A utopia, explained to the last detail by Viktoria Wagner, known on YouTube as Viki1999, a mere 23 year old austrian socialist with a dream. 51