Common Ownership

Why has the working class failed? Why is there little trace of any revolutionary movement among the workers? Why is it that people all over the globe seem incapable of initiating anything aimed at their own self-liberation? To fight you must have a positive aim. The essence of the future free world community is that workers direct their work themselves, collectively. The working class has to search for new roads. The real fight for liberation has yet to begin. A deep inner revolution must take place in the working classes of clear insight, of solidarity, of perseverance, courage, and fighting spirit.  The goal of the working class is liberation from exploitation. This goal is not reached and cannot be reached by a ruling class substituting the capitalists. It can only be realised by the workers themselves being master over production. The aim of socialism is to take the means of production and distribution out of the hands of the capitalist class and place them into the hands of the workers. This aim is sometimes spoken of as common ownership.  

State ownership (nationalisation) 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 ministers, the officials, the managers, are the direct masters of the production apparatus; they direct and regulate the process of production; they command and control the workers. Common ownership is the right of disposal by the workers themselves; the people themselves are direct masters of the production administrating , managing, directing, and regulating the process of production which is, indeed, their common work.

Under state ownership 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 labor; 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 government ownership this belongs to the regulation of the process of production, which is the function of the bureaucracy. In other words: the structure of productive work remains as it is under capitalism; workers subservient to commanding directors.

Common ownership is the objective of the working class itself, fighting for self-liberation. 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 by means of which they direct their own work, as personnel, as well as social production at large. The institute of State and government 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 each personnel, of every worker, to be discussed and decided at every moment by themselves. Their organs must consist of delegates sent out as the bearers of their 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 organization of production secured.

Such bodies of delegates, for which the name of workers’ councils has come into use, form what may be called the political organisation appropriate to a working class liberating itself from exploitation. They cannot be devised beforehand, they must be shaped by the practical activity of the workers themselves when they are needed. Such delegates are no parliamentarians, no rulers, no leaders, but mediators, expert messengers, forming the connection between the separate personnel of the enterprises, 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 realised if all the workers take part in this self-management of what is the basis and content of social life.