In accordance with the theory of Marxism, communism is the highest stage of social development for human beings. Marx himself, however, didn't know how to get to communism. There is none in the world, I think, who knows about it.
People's living standard can be divided into four grades. The first grade is necessary consumption of clothing, food, housing and transportation. The second grade is ordinary consumption, which means buying some more clothes and purchasing TV sets and washers, etc. The third grade is extravagant consumption, which means going to hotel and restaurants, taking cars and going to dancing-halls, etc. The fourth grade is over-extravagant consumption.
My article "On the Development of Social Economy" divides social-economic development into four stages and regards "the stage of time-decreasing in work" as the last, also the highest stage of the development of social economy. In this stage, there may be a great number of people out of work. But, after the government intervention and regulation, working people work hard, and the unemployed can get relief-fund from the government. The relief-fund of unemployment, of course, is much less than working people's wages. But, nowadays, in the developed industrial countries of western Europe and in the USA, the relief-fund of unemployment is sufficient to maintain a person's living standard of the first, even the second grade. This sort of living standard for the unemployed is undoubtedly much higher than that in Marxist times. If Marx were still alive, he, I guess, would be satisfied with this last stage of social-economic development.
If anybody is discontent with this last stage of mine, or thinks there exists still better one in the world, please put it forward. We can make a comparison between them and exchange our ideas so as to find out the highest stage and form of social development for human beings. -- Sincerely, Ju-chang He
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