Communal ownership

“ What this exactly means will perhaps be best made plain by the supposition that the land in every parish in England was owned, not by one or more private individuals, but by the males of one or more resident families, forming a corporation in which the ownership vested. The land of the community, in fact, resembled an entailed estate, which should be inherited by all the males of a family collectively, they being forbidden to alienate any portion of it. ”

“ The system of landholding in the most ancient races was COMMUNAL. That word, and its derivative, COMMUNISM, has latterly had a bad odor. Yet all the most important public works are communal. All joint-stock companies, whether for banking, trading, or extensive works, are communes. They hold property in common, and merge individual in general rights. The possession of land by communes or companies is gradually extending, and it is by no means improbable that the ideas which governed very remote times may, like the communal joint-stock system, be applied more extensively to landholding. ”

“ It is the public ownership of all the wealth, the mills, the mines, the factories, the railroads and land. Things that are used in common, must be owned in common, by the people and for the people under democratic management by the people, instead of the present system of private ownership for profits. ”

“ Thus, even among the freeholders, landholding is often what I shall take leave to call 'shareholding,' Now, whatever ultimate explanation we may give of this fact, it has one obvious meaning. That part of the free population which holds in regular shares is not governed entirely by the rules of private ownership, but is somehow implicated in the village community. ”

“ Whether, under favourable circumstances and the rare public spirit of private owners, much can be done, or to any wide extent, so long as absolute individual ownership in land and ground values is allowed, seems to me very doubtful. ”

“ It was the raw material of Municipal Socialism, and from this time forth the Society recognised that the municipalisation of monopolies was a genuine part of the Socialist programme, that the transfer from private exploiters to public management at the start, and ultimately by the amortisation of the loans to public ownership, actually was pro tanto the transfer from private to public ownership of land and capital, as demanded by Socialists. ”

“ It is also very striking, on such rhetorical occasions, to oppose the private owner to the community or the state or the municipality, and to suppose all the vices of humanity concentrated in private ownership, and all the virtues of humanity concentrated in the community, but indeed that clear and striking contrast will not stand the rough-and-tumble of the workaday world. ”

“ Our imaginary visitor would probably quite fail to grasp the reasons why we do not forthwith shake off this obstructive and harmful idea of Private Ownership, dispossess our Landowners and so forth as gently as possible, and set to work upon collective housing and the rest of it. ”

“ They help each other in building the houses; each takes from the forest the wood that he needs for fuel; they graze the cattle in a common meadow; they till a common field and all share in the harvest. For a time all goes well. But mutterings begin to be heard. It is found that some are unwilling to do their share of the work. It becomes manifest to the thoughtful that community of property must be given up and private ownership be introduced, or else that the common work must be regulated. In the latter case, government is established by the very act of regulation ”

“ In the preamble they say, 'that the members of the society have, in a spirit of Christian love, agreed to unite in a communion of property, according to the rules and regulations specified.' The members renounce all individual ownership of property, present or future, real or personal, and transfer the same to three directors, elected by themselves annually; that they shall conduct the business of the society, take possession of all its property, and account to the society for all their transactions. ”

“ Instead of the régime of private and capitalistic ownership of property, under which it is possible for one part of mankind to lord it over the other part, they wish to institute a system of universal social co-operation which shall make of every man a legal partner. ”

“ They were permitted to have houses or portions of houses to themselves, and to live there on the share of the public produce allotted to the several members of each household. It had been assumed as matter of course by the majority that when every one was forced to work there would be more than enough for all; that public spirit, and if necessary coercion, would prove as effectual stimulants to exertion and industry as interest and necessity had done under the system of private ownership. ”

“ We say that all property that is collectively used should be collectively owned, and that all property that is individually used should be individually owned. The last clause should help out the gentleman who is afraid that Socialism would rob him of the ownership of his undershirt. ”

“ When certain strong men found themselves able to garner a larger share of property than their fellows, they rebelled against the communistic ownership of property, and the state, with the system of private ownership, was evolved, came into being to protect the private owners in their private ownership against the community, or the mass, which possessed no private property. ”

“ This change of status, which is, perhaps, the most important feature of the industrial history of the past quarter of a century, will be most easily accorded its legitimate recognition in those industries and services in which the profit-making capitalist proprietor is dispensed with in favour of public ownership, whether national, municipal, or co-operative. ”

“ ARTICLE 156 The Commonwealth may by law, without impairment of the right to compensation, and with a proper application of the regulations relating to expropriation, transfer to public ownership private business enterprises adapted for socialization. The Commonwealth itself, the States, or the municipalities may take part in the management of business enterprises and associations, or secure a dominating influence therein in any other way. ”

“ The property is deemed by the law to be vested, not in its true owners, but in one or more determinate individuals of full capacity, who hold it for safe custody on behalf of those uncertain, incapable, or multitudinous persons to whom it in truth belongs. In this manner the law is enabled to assimilate collective ownership to the simpler form of individual ownership. If the property and rights of a charitable institution or an unincorporated trading association of many members are held in trust by one or two individuals, the difficulties of the problem are greatly reduced. ”

“ The 'mir,' moreover, is in its nature opposed to private ownership, and every discussion between the member of the village communism and the property-holder is artfully prevented by the scattering about of compulsory peasants. For property-owners are at present for the most part Liberal. ”

“ But in our present world only a small minority can have that direct and honourable relation of public service in the work they do; most of the important business of the community is done upon the older and more tortuous private ownership system, and the great mass of men in socially useful employment find themselves working only indirectly for the community and directly for the profit of a private owner, or they themselves are private owners. ”

“ It may he conceded that a country could be settled upon the principle of reserving to the community the beneficial ownership in all its lands, subject only to such privileges of occupancy as may be necessary to secure an adequate cultivation of them ”

“ During the opening years of the present century socialist parties and other forward looking organizations were demanding social ownership of natural resources, public utilities and other social means of production as the next logical step toward a more equitable distribution of wealth and income. There was a possibility that such revolutionary changes could be made under bourgeois law by exercising the right of eminent domain, upon the payment of reasonable compensation to former owners. ”

“ The State shall protect and promote small and medium-sized manufacturers, cooperatives, savings funds, family-owned businesses, small businesses and any other form of community association for purposes of work, savings and consumption, under an arrangement of collective ownership, to strength the country's economic development, based on the initiative of the people. ”

“ Since 1833 the people whom the author calls 'farmers' have gradually become fall proprietors, subject to the Government lien on the land and its produce for the land revenue. For many years past the ancient custom of joint ownership and collective responsibility has been losing ground. Partitions are now continually demanded, and every year collective responsibility is becoming more unpopular and more difficult to enforce.
11. This judgement, I need hardly say, would not be accepted in Madras or Bombay. The issue raised is too large for discussion in footnotes. ”

“ Such property is managed, and the proceeds are allotted at the meeting of the married men, who, though of different settlements, are yet related to one another; for such common ownership always springs from the fact that their forefathers formed one family, which, growing too large, had divided for want of space. ”

“ There is an apparent official reluctance for political reasons abruptly to convert collective property to state ownership. Public statements have indicated that the difference between collective and state property may be eliminated by transforming both into national property. Under the prevailing economic system the distinction between state and national property is purely verbal. ”

“ Another significant institution of civilization is the idea of ownership, the division of property into public property and private property and the right of the private property owner to do what he will with his property, subject always to the over-riding principle of eminent domain: the right of the community to expropriate private property for public uses, with or without compensation.
Another institution of civilization is the provision of public services in addition to means of communication and transportation. ”

“ The private ownership of land is one of the greatest incentives to human effort that the [151] world has ever known. It would be folly to abolish it, even if we could. But here as elsewhere we can seek to re-define and regulate the conditions of ownership so as to bring them more into keeping with a common sense view of social justice. ”

“ Therefore if, in accordance with the popular theory, we attribute the ownership of lands to ‘communities,’ we ought to add that we do not attribute it to corporations and that we are fully aware that co-ownership can not be sharply contrasted with ownership by individuals. ”

“ The basis for the development of social property, which shall tend to predominate, shall be assets and units of production with useful ownership and management by worker collectives, community assets with useful ownership and management by local communities, and the cooperative sector. 2. The conditions for the development of social property are nationalization, democratic planning, management control, and the democratic power of the workers. 3. Production units managed by the State and other public legal persons shall evolve, as far as possible, into self-managed forms. ”

“ All proper municipal functions should be exercised by the municipality itself, and not delegated to others. We favour municipal ownership and municipal control of all municipal franchises. We oppose the granting of any public franchise in perpetuity. We oppose the granting or extending of any such franchise, or the bestowal of any new privilege upon a corporation holding such franchise, without adequate compensation. ”

“ Another thing seems clear, namely, that a city cannot be transformed to suit the needs of a coöperative commonwealth so long as the city is owned by a few individuals who, by virtue of their ownership, have a right to resist the transformation. ”

“ The rights of the individual and the rights of the Community commingle more or less in private property of every kind, at least to the extent that the latter may tax the property if needful for the common wellbeing, as it is bound also legally to secure it to the owner when threatened by others ”

“ As a community, they hire additional pasture and administer town lands. As a community, they make arrangements for enclosure and even sell part of their common—the common in which only individuals have proprietary rights—to persons who undertake to invest capital in improving it. ”

“ Ownership is possible for comparatively few, but there is probably nothing that contributes more to the upbuilding of a community and the development of good citizenship than the permanent residence of families in localities. ”

“ All property and all enterprises that now have, or subsequently shall have the character of a national public service or of a monopoly in fact, must become the property of the community.
The Nation shall ensure to the individual and to the family the conditions necessary to their development. ”

“ It is known as guild ownership. Knowing that many people are disinclined toward public ownership because they fear that it would merely mean the mismanagement of the public services by politicians, some labor leaders have proposed that the utilities should be owned and operated by the organized employees. In brief they suggest that the government should supply the capital (receiving interest on it, of course,) and that the employees should operate 489the utilities through officials chosen by them, or chosen by themselves and the government jointly. ”

“ It is, of course, possible to conceive of a social system which recognizes no right of property, or one which makes all property belong to the community, or a middle ground which admits the institution, but holds that every individual holds property subject to the state's, that is, the organized community's, regulation and control. A convenient term for this state of affairs to which, perhaps, in our statutes, we are approaching, is "allowable socialism"; private property is recognized, but its use is regulated. ”