Common Ownership in the Cooperative Commonwealth

Labour politicians the world over have discredited the very name of socialism. Our aim is a cooperative commonwealth without a State, without leaders, without classes, in which the workers shall administer the means of production and distribution for the common benefit of all. We appeal to fellow-workers to rally to the World Socialist Revolution. 

The private property of the capitalist class, in order to become the SOCIAL property of the workers, cannot be turned over to individuals or groups of individuals. It must become the property of ALL IN COMMON. The industries, too, which supply the needs of all the people, are not the concern only of the worker, in each industry, but of ALL IN COMMON, and must be administered for the benefit of all. We seek a commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his or her faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of civilisation. Together we shall form a worldwide Co-operative Commonwealth.

The basic fact is that capitalism does not produce food for people to eat: it produces only what can be sold at a profit, regardless of what needs exist. If the starving, or the homeless, found themselves able to pay after all, they would no longer be faced by a shortage. The case against capitalism is not that it distributes wealth inequitably, but that it cannot develop the productive powers. Socialism, by removing the monumental restriction of production for profit, will enable man to produce to meet the needs of the world’s population. Socialism will be world-wide, with full access by everyone to everything which is produced, and therefore no money. There will be no parliament “to govern the people”, because government is required only in class-divided societies to maintain the monopoly by the owning class and keep the subject class in restraint.

Capitalism covers the globe and must therefore be replaced on a worldwide basis. Socialism is by definition a worldwide social system. It would not be possible to replace the market economy, with production solely for use and free access to goods and services, in one country. Ideas do not develop in isolation. The conditions which give rise to the need for socialism are experienced by workers in every country. It is extremely unlikely that socialist understanding will reach maturity in only one country. An immense majority of the worldwide working class ready to implement socialism will constitute an irresistible social force. A small time lapse between the final voting for it in different areas would be of no consequence.

Our object is socialism. A social system based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means for production requires the active participation of all of its members. It cannot therefore be achieved until the vast majority of the working class are organized consciously and politically for that sole purpose. When the working class wants socialism it will use the vote, a powerful weapon, to gain control of the machinery of government. Socialist delegates will go to Parliament with the clear mandate to dispossess the capitalist class, so that the means and instruments for production can become the common property of all. We will then have democracy in the fullest sense. Socialist ideas alone hold the solution to the problems, nothing can prevent their growth and ultimate triumph.

There can be no intermediate stage between capitalism and socialism. We either have class-owned means of production and capitalism, or common-ownership, which is socialism. There is nothing between the two, which is neither one or the other. Marx was over-optimistic in thinking that Socialism would be established in his lifetime. This led to the view he expressed in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, that during a transition period the means of the wealth production would have to be rapidly developed. But all this was more than a century ago. Today advanced technology spans the earth. The potential for abundance exists. This leads to what you imagine is a paradox, “why bother about Socialism if capitalism raises production to such a level as to allow free distribution?” It is the continuation of class-ownership with its restrictive profit-motive and antagonistic market-economy, which bars the way to free distribution. Only from the basis of world-wide common-ownership, can modern science and industry be geared to free-access and production solely for use. The property relations of capitalism are obsolete and form a barrier to social progress. When working-class thinking catches up with the implications inherent in these facts, they will remove the barrier.