Common Ownership V State Ownership

Marx and Engels visualised a socialism where all the accumulated treasures in machines and technical appliances created by the genius of man, all that science and art had given to the human race in generations is to be utilised, not for the few, but for the benefit of mankind as a whole. Those who considered themselves to be Marxists saw socialism as being based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, a new and higher economic system is to be built up, raising production to a higher economic level, and ending all social oppression by dissolving the hostile classes into a community of free and equal producers striving not for sectional interests, but for the common good, socialist commonwealth, liberating the individual from all economic, political and social oppression. This would provide the basis, for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind.

At present there prevails a great confusion of thought, and certain forms of state capitalism are often referred to as Socialism. Some who called themselves socialists mistakenly regarded state-ownership as stage on the way to socialism. The experiences of the Russian Revolution have revealed to us the grave innate dangers of State capitalism. History has taught us that the Leninist-inspired left-wing parties turn from a sheepdog into a wolf, preying on the very flock it promised to guard. State capitalism concentrates an overwhelming power in the hands of the state, and places the citizen completely at the mercy of the State, presenting a bureaucracy with this tremendous power to subjugate the people. Under State capitalism the government derives its income automatically from the economic enterprises of the State and as the owner of banking, industry, agriculture and transport becomes the universal employer, that controls everything on which the fate and happiness of the individual citizen depend. The citizen is dependent on the State as regards his employment, his housing, his supplies, his amusement, his educational and transport facilities. A conflict with the State might affect the citizen as an employee, tenant, etc. This enormous power of the State over the individual citizen must needs call forth or strengthen tendencies towards a dictatorship. State capitalism does not solve any of the outstanding problems. It does not abolish crises, the classes, the wage system. Under State capitalism there is production of commodities for sale, not production for use. Between production and consumption there still remains the partition wall of the purchasing power.

State capitalism is the ownership, i.e. the right of disposal, by a public body representing society, by government, state power or some other political body. The persons forming this body, the politicians, the ministry and department officials, and the managers of the various enterprises , are the direct masters of the production apparatus; they direct and regulate the process of production; they command the workers. Common ownership is the right of disposal by the workers themselves; the working class itself — taken in the widest sense of all that partake in really productive work, including employees, farmers, scientists — is direct master of the production apparatus, managing, directing, and regulating the process of production which is, indeed, their common work.

Under State capitalism the workers are not masters of their work; they may be better treated and their wages may be higher than under private ownership; but they are still exploited. Exploitation does not mean simply that the workers do not receive the full produce of their labour; a considerable part must always be spent on the production apparatus and for unproductive though necessary departments of society. Exploitation consists in that others, forming another class, dispose of the produce and its distribution; that they decide what part shall be assigned to the workers as wages, what part they retain for themselves and for other purposes. Under State capitalism this belongs to the regulation of the process of production, which is the function of the bureaucracy. Thus in Russia the Party bureaucracy (the nomenclature or the apparatchiks) was the ruling class and the Russian workers were the exploited class. In other words: the structure of productive work remains as it is under capitalism; workers subservient to commanding directors. Nationalisation is the programme of supposed“friends” of the workers who for the hard exploitation of private capitalism wish to substitute a milder modernised exploitation.  Therein lies the chief danger of State capitalism. It hides an abyss into which the nation may easily tumble, sinking back into barbarism instead of making its way further towards socialism.

Common ownership is self-liberation. The working class themselves can take care of social production if there is no police or State power to keep them off. They have the tools, the machines in their hands, they use and manage them. They do not need masters to command them, nor finances to control the masters. If the working class rejects State ownership with its servitude and exploitation, and demands common ownership with its freedom and self-rule, it cannot do so without fulfilling conditions and shouldering duties. Common ownership of the workers implies, first, that the entirety of producers is master of the means of production and works them in a well-planned system of social production. It implies secondly that in all shops, factories, enterprises the personnel regulate their own collective work as part of the whole. So they have to create the organs of administration by means of which they direct their own work as well as social production at large. The State and its government departments cannot serve for this purpose because it is essentially an organ of domination, and concentrates the general affairs in the hands of a group of rulers. But under socialism the general affairs consist in social production; so they are the concern of all, of every worker, to be discussed and decided at every moment by themselves. Their administrative organs must consist of delegates elected to be bearers of  opinion, and will be continually returning and reporting on the results arrived at in the assemblies of delegates. By means of such delegates that at any moment can be changed and called back the connection of the working masses into smaller and larger groups can be established and organisation of production secured. Such an organizational structure may well be based upon workers’ councils. They cannot be devised beforehand, they must be shaped by the practical activity of the workers themselves when they are needed. Such delegates are not politicians, nor rulers or leaders, but mediators or messengers, forming the connection between the separate workplaces, combining their separate opinions into one common resolution. Common ownership demands common management of the work as well as common productive activity; it can only be realized if all the workers take part in this self-management of what is the basis and content of social life; and if they go to create the organs that unite their separate wills into one common action.

It is important to note that the Socialist Party does not speak here of a higher stage of development, when production will be organized so far as to be no problem any more, when out of the abundance of produce everybody takes according to his wishes, and the entire concept of “ownership” has disappeared. We speak of the time that the working class has conquered political and social power, and stands before the task of organising production and distribution under most difficult conditions. We talk about the here and now.

For over a hundred years the cause of socialism has been dominated by the machinations of two statist creeds, social democracy and Leninism. These have fed off the discontent and aspirations of the working class to become alternative managers of capitalism. Their heydays are long past; the Labourites have long abandoned any pretence to 'reforming capitalism' in favour of simply managing it, after the end of 'communism' the Leninists have been reduced to mini sects which replicate within their own structures the regimes of the old Stalinist States in a homage to Marx's dictum, "first astragedy, now as farce". Their aspirations have shrunk with their horizons, whilst they grandly imagine storming the winter palace and fantasise about bloody revolutions, in reality they have little or no belief in the working class ever rallying to their 'proletarian leadership', and even less in the ability of the working class to emancipate itself. They hide themselves in front campaigns for partial reforms, and embrace and promote a succession of 'Saviours from high' who they are sure will deliver us, until the inevitable betrayal, when they move on to the next. All previous revolutions have been the overthrow of one minority ruling class and the victory of a new one. Such revolutions have needed abstract slogans and ideals (Liberté, Fraternité, Egalité, or Peace, Land, and Bread, ) in order to enlist the support of the masses. They have needed heroes and demagogues to inspire the majority to give their lives for the victory of new masters. The state socialists may talk about socialism, but in reality they wish to replace our present system of class exploitation with another, only with a new bureaucratic exploitative class. This is why they too need heroes, martyrs, demagogues and saviours, because they need to beguile the masses to support their revolution, to support another new ruling class.

The socialist revolution can only take place when the majority of the working class not only understand that it is possible, but also desirable. It needs no abstract ideals to mask it's true purpose, no demagogues to beguile the masses. It needs no heroes.