Vertically Integrated Socialism
Objective
Solve major problems in urban areas:
- Provide a living space for everyone;
- Avoid segregation of lower classes in distinct neighborhoods;
- Facilitate accessibility to services and resources to everyone.
Considerations
Given current American political and economic ideals, social problems should not be solved without preserving individual opportunity for wealth accumulation and social elevation, as well as values of democracy, equality and liberty.
Concrete, bipartisan solution
The solution, given those parameters, is to satisfy the ideals of the lower class (socialist values / inclusivity and equality) by making the upper class more socially responsible without compromising their position and beliefs (capitalist values / exclusivity and individualism).
"Vertically integrated socialism" is one realistic way to solve the problem by combining vertical integration, a model of corporate management, and socialism.
Vertical intégration: in microeconomics and management, the term vertical integration describes a style of management control. Vertically integrated companies are united through a hierarchy with a common owner. Usually each member of the hierarchy produces a different product or service that corresponds to one step in the production chain, from raw material to retail, and the products combine to satisfy a common need.
If we consider lower classes as the raw material from which wealth is produced (and social classes as the different stages of the production chain), it is then easy to follow the model of vertical integration and incorporate all classes into one unified community. Translated into a housing structure, that concept allows the accommodation of socialist values and ideals within the current hierarchy of social classes: the common owner is the community as a whole, and each social class occupies a specific position and function in the structure.
Residents who move to higher levels (when their finances make it possible) are like material in the production chain: as they move from one level to another, they get purified and transformed, until they become the finished product—the top level—which corresponds to the American dream.
Danger and responsibility
If, however, a resident moves upwards without being completely purified of his/her social ideals, like a defective product that goes unreported and gets packaged and retailed, the community is then threaten. Although it is extremely unlikely, a resident who would reach the highest levels with socialist values could renounce his/her own exclusive privileges and share them with members of lower social classes, thus threatening the social order and equilibrium in the community. In such a case it is the responsibility of the community to fight and expulse the dissident.