What
is Socialism?
Central to the meaning of
socialism is common ownership. This
means the resources of the world being owned in common by the entire
global population.
But does it really make sense
for
everybody to own everything in common? Of course, some goods tend to be
for personal consumption, rather than to share—clothes, for example.
People 'owning' certain personal possessions does not contradict the
principle of a society based upon common ownership.
In practice, common ownership
will
mean everybody having the right to participate in decisions on how
global resources will be used. It means nobody being able to take
personal control of resources, beyond their own personal possessions.
Democratic control
is
therefore also essential to the meaning of socialism. Socialism will be
a society in which everybody will have the right to participate in the
social decisions that affect them. These decisions could be on a wide
range of issues—one of the most important kinds of decision, for
example, would be how to organise the production of goods and services.
Production
under
socialism would be directly and solely for use. With
the natural and technical resources of the world held in common and
controlled democratically, the sole object of production would be to
meet human needs. This would entail an end to buying, selling and
money. Instead, we would take freely what we had communally produced.
The old slogan of "from each according to ability, to each according to
needs" would apply.
So how would we decide what
human
needs are? This question takes us back to the concept of democracy, for
the choices of society will reflect their needs. These needs will, of
course, vary among different cultures and with individual
preferences—but the democratic system could easily be designed to
provide for this variety.
We cannot, of course, predict
the
exact form that would be taken by this future global democracy. The
democratic system will itself be the outcome of future democratic
decisions. We can however say that it is likely that decisions will
need to be taken at a number of different levels—from local to global.
This would help to streamline the democratic participation of every
individual towards the issues that concern them.
In socialism, everybody would
have free
access to the goods and services designed to directly meet
their needs and there need be no system of payment for the work that
each individual contributes to producing them. All work would be on a
voluntary basis. Producing for needs means that people would engage in
work that has a direct usefulness. The satisfaction that this would
provide, along with the increased opportunity to shape working patterns
and conditions, would bring about new attitudes to work.
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What
is capitalism?
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