The first thing is that the rich people of the world should start living in communes. Let those communes be of the rich! So they will not be dragged down from their standard of life, their comforts and their luxuries. Let there be, around the world, hundreds of communes of rich people – that is, rich communes.
And to me, wealth is a certain kind of creativity. If five thousand rich people who have all created wealth individually are together, they can create wealth a million-fold. Their standard will not go lower; their standard could go even higher. Or they can start sharing. They can start inviting people who are not rich but who are creative in some other way, who will enhance the life of their commune although they may be poor.
Five thousand rich people, together with their genius for creating wealth, are capable of creating so much wealth that they can invite thousands of other people who may not be rich in the sense of being wealthy, but who may be rich as painters, poets, dancers, singers.
What are you going to do only with wealth? You cannot play music on money; you cannot dance just because you have so much cash in the bank. And these rich communes can start becoming bigger, absorbing more and more creative people. They can make beautiful places all around the world, and slowly, new people can be absorbed.
For example, you will need plumbers, however rich you may be; you will need mechanics; technicians; you will need shoemakers. Invite them – and they come to you not as servants, but as members of the commune. They will be enriching the commune doing whatever they can do the best. And it is the commune’s duty to raise those people to the same standard of life.
Slowly, we can transform the whole world – without any bloodshed and without any dictatorship.
A communism that comes out of love, out of intelligence, out of generosity, will be real. A communism that comes through force is going to be unreal. There is not a single man in the world, howsoever poor, who has nothing to contribute. Around the world all the rich communes will need people; and slowly, slowly your commune will become bigger and bigger.
The rich will not become poor, but the poor will become rich, and respectable, and equal – in no way inferior to anybody else – because they are also functioning in the same way as anybody else. And whatever they are doing is needed as much as anybody else’s expertise is needed.
I conceive of this just like a flower opening up, becoming bigger – all the petals opening up. A commune, full-blown, complete, lacking nothing, will not be only of rich people. Many poor people will have been transformed into richness. And they will be contributing; they will not be a burden, and they will not be beggars. They will have their pride. You cannot exist without them.
