The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.
A system of society alludes to the sum total of human relationships – necessarily a worldwide system – and is meant to distinguish us from those who seek to organise co-operative colonies, islands within a sea of capitalism. Socialism will not be a colony, not a kibbutz, but a system of society in the sense that capitalism, feudalism, and chattel slavery must be characterised as systems of society.
The term common ownership should not be confused with such phenomena as state ownership, or public ownership, terms used under capitalism to designate a more direct ownership of certain industries by the capitalist class as a whole. Common ownership implies the absence of ownership and we specify that this common ownership is to apply to the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth. We do not speak here of one’s personal belongings as some not too discerning opponents of our case delight in inferring. Democratic control should speak for itself but the point must be made nevertheless that in a society wherein the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution are commonly owned it is difficult to conceive of control other than democratic.
In order to rule out all possibility of misunderstanding it is necessary to indicate some of the consequences of establishing the socialist system of society summarised above. Production will be solely and directly for the use of the whole population, with no buying and selling, and no price system. Rent, interest and profit, and the wages system will be abolished. Production and distribution will be on the socialist principle: “From each according to ability: to each according to need”. All will have free access to society’s products. There will be no class division, no working class or owning class and no trade unions: there can be no trade unions because there will be no wages to bargain over and employers to bargain with. Socialist society can only be world-wide; humanity will not be segregated behind national frontiers or coerced by the armed forces of governments.
