According to Osho, the state has not disappeared because the world is still not communist; as long as capitalism persists anywhere, the state and dictatorship remain. More crucially, Marx ignored human psychology: personal egos, national rivalries, and the corrupting grip of interim rulers on power. Those in power don’t relinquish it, so classlessness, borderless unity, and the withering away of the state never arrive.
Because the whole world isn’t communist and leaders’ egos won’t let them give up power.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why has the state not disappeared after seventy years?
Gorbachev himself, before he does any act against communism, needs a great training in meditation. And after that, whatever he will do will be right. I can see the man is certainly intelligent and has good intentions for humanity, is a peace-loving person, but he has no depth of meditation. These are all superficial mind values, which don't go deep enough. They are only skin deep -- scratch just a little and all those values disappear. Meditation brings transformation from the inside. It is not an imposition of morality and commandments from outside. Anything that comes from outside is worthless -- morality, religion, spirituality, whatever you call it. Only that which blossoms within you like a lotus has ultimate value. Out of that arising of consciousness, you cannot do evil. Your every action will be spontaneous; it will come from your deepest being, and the deepest being cannot do any…
Beloved Osho, the longing for a better life, for a utopia, has been constantly in man's mind since he became aware of his consciousness. On the other hand he became more and more afraid of all his irrational powers. Can you please comment?
That's why marriage was created; otherwise it was easier for man not to have any marriage, because marriage was simply a responsibility -- of children, of a wife. When the woman is pregnant, then you have to feed her.... And there was no need to take all that responsibility. The woman was taking the whole responsibility. But the man wanted some immortality, and that his property should be possessed by his own blood. And the woman wanted some protection -- she was vulnerable. While she was pregnant, she could not work, she could not go hunting; she had to depend on somebody. So it was in the interest of both to have a contract that they would remain together, would not betray in any sense, because the whole thing was to keep the blood pure. So Marx's idea was that when communism comes, and property becomes collective, marriage becomes meaningless…
Question: OSHO, IS THE WORLD GOING TO SURVIVE THE THIRD WORLD WAR? You can put the lazy man on the same line with the Olympic runner and tell them, "We give you equal opportunity, and exactly when the bell goes off or the whistle goes off -- equal opportunity -- you run." You are giving equal opportunity, but those people are unequal. The lazy is not going to win the race. And it will not be his fault. What can he do about it? He is born lazy, just as the other is a born runner. So communism is not possible. It is an impossible idea. And those who will be in power, the dictators... because all the poor people cannot be the dictators. When you read Karl Marx it seems as if it is going to be the dictatorship of the proletariat, by the poor.
Beloved Osho, a sociologist has a theory that western civilization is taking over the whole world. Already the way of life in all the big cities of the world is the same, and wherever there is progress, it is according to the ways of western civilization. It was said that one of the by-products of standardization would be that communism and capitalism would become so similar that they would merge into a world government, so powerful that no minority could exist. Is that going to happen, or is there a way to avoid it?
Both powers are interested in looking into death rays. Both the powers are looking more and more into dangerous chemical warfare; a certain disease can be sent which spreads like wildfire; no need to drop bombs on you, just release a certain disease which is a sure killer, and which goes on spreading. As far as I can see, both are stubborn, adamant. If there is some possibility for humanity, it is going to come from the communists, not from the capitalists; it is going to come from the Soviet Union, not from America. My reasoning is that America is a decadent society which is dying of its own accord. There are poor people who are dying of hunger and starvation; and there are super-rich people who are dying because they don't have any meaning in life, they don't see any point in it. "Why go on living? Why get…
Beloved Osho, if national boundaries and visa restrictions continue to separate us from you and from each other, what is best for us to do about it?
They will not. It is for me to find a way that they don't restrict you from seeing me, from being with me. I am working on it, and I don't think it will take a long time to find a way; perhaps a month at the most. So nobody need worry about it. We will soon have our own place which will not be under any country's rule. And I want a totally new experiment that has not happened in history. There have been anarchists -- their philosophy is one of the best. But it is so good that it becomes impossible to make it real; it remains utopian. Prince Kropotkin, Tolstoy -- these people dreamed of a humanity which one day would drop all governments. They thought that governments are the causes of all the evil that exists on the earth. To some extent they are right, but…