‘R’ responded to one of my postings to the recent lengthy discussion on the worldincommon discussion forum on the subject ‘Socialism must prove itself.’

Hi R, Just to recap:

I suggested: ‘Where words like ‘ownership’ and ‘control’ pop up automatically as seeming to be crucial to conceiving a future socialist society, we should be suspicious. This is ideology, false consciousness, learned very early on, but artificial and IMV needs to be dropped.’

You said: ‘I sort of accept the “no ownership” argument – the idea that ownership as a concept would die out in socialism. Not too sure about “control” though. Would you care to elaborate on this a little more. Is being able to control something necessarily a bad thing. We talk about being in control of our own labour in a non alienated economy. Can’t the idea of control in its positive sense be extended to things like community control over its own locality which is the outcome of joint decision making at the local level?’

I’d urge you to think more about the ideology / false consciousness idea. Both ‘ownership’ and ‘control’ are ideological constructs. It is perhaps easier to drop ‘ownership’, although it has a fascinating history. I’ve been reminded recently by Kevin Cahill, author of Who Owns Britain? and Who Owns the World? that the Queen owns the whole of Britain, and elsewhere in the world, generally the state owns the nation – apart, apparently from the USA where individuals who own land really do. But it’s pretty irrelevant. HMQ isn’t going to order us all off her land in favour of sheep. During the 300 years (1600-1900) of the 5000 enclosure acts, very vocal resistance to the process (and not just by those personally affected) was not because those enclosing landlords did not have legal title to the land – they did – it was because society / people would be disrupted and suffer as a result. OK, let’s ‘accept the “no ownership” argument’ – you’re ‘sort of’ happy with that. So, what about ‘control’? You suggest ‘control’ is real and necessary and not false consciousness. Again, I’d say, be careful! Another one that’s come up in recent discussions is ‘planning’ – also assumed necessary and real, not ideologically tainted. Again, beware – i.e. be aware, of your own deeply embedded assumptions. To make a revolution, we need a new vocabulary, not invented words, but newly reclaimed words. Think ‘cooperation’, ‘engagement’, ‘commitment’, ‘influence’ instead of ‘ownership and control’, think ‘design’ rather than ‘plan’. Does that help?

Love, Chris

top