cy-ber-net-ics n. (used with a sing. verb). The theoretical study of communication and control processes in biological, mechanical, and electronic systems, especially the comparison of these processes in biological and artificial systems.

so-cial-ism n. 1.a. A social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community. b. The theory or practice of those who support such a social system.

Cybernetic Socialism is a social, economic and political system I have been developing for the past few years. When I first started thinking along these lines I discovered that others had developed similar or complementary theories before me. If what you see here interests you, you may want to look into the works of Buckminster Fuller or Robert Anton Wilson. For more on socialism in general see the World Socialist Movement Homepage.

I believe it was Socrates who said, the only free society is where the tools do their own work. We now have much of the technology to bring that society about. Most menial tasks can be done by machines. With proper development soon all work could be taken over by machines, leaving humans free to do whatever they want with their time. Yet humans continue to toil at tedious, boring, stressful, or dangerous jobs. What happened to the science fiction world we were supposed to be living in by now where people spend their days at leisure; making art; studying science; or exploring new worlds while the robots do all the schlep work? We could be living in that world now except for...

The problem of course is this. When a human's job is taken over by a machine, the human is out of work. Because of the need for money this is a bad thing, not the opportunity for freedom that it should be. Only the person who owns the machine benifits.

What if we all owned the machines together? Then we could all share the benifits of their labor. In economic terms this would be fully automated industry with a dividend based economy rather than the labor intensive industry with a wage based economy we now have.