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Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization,enterprise, or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in everyeconomic system. Common ownership of themeans of production is a central goal ofsocialist political movements as it is seen as a necessarydemocratic mechanism for the creation and continued function of acommunist society. Advocates make a distinction betweencollective ownership and common property (thecommons) as the former refers to property owned jointly by agreement of a set of colleagues, such as producercooperatives, whereas the latter refers to assets that are completely open for access, such as a public park freely available to everyone.[1][2]
TheEarly Church of Jerusalem shared all their money and possessions (Acts of the Apostles 2 and 4).[3][4] Inspired by theearly Christians, many Christians have since tried to follow their example ofcommunity of goods and common ownership.[5] Common ownership is practiced by some Christian groups, such as theHutterites (for about 500 years), theBruderhof Communities (for some 100 years), and others.[6][7] In those cases, property is generally owned by a charity set up for the purpose of maintaining the members of the religious groups.[8][9]Christian communists typically regard biblical texts inActs 2 andActs 4 as evidence that the first Christians lived in acommunist society.[10][11][12] Additionally, the phrase "To each according to his needs" has a biblical basis in Acts 4:35, which says "to the emissaries to distribute to each according to his need".[13][14]
Common ownership is practiced by large numbers of voluntary associations and non-profit organizations, as well as implicitly by all public bodies. While cooperatives generally align with collectivist and socialist economics,retailers' cooperatives in particular exhibit elements of common ownership, and their retailer members may be individually owned. Some individuals and organizations intentionally produce or supportfree content, includingopen source software,public domain works, andfair use media.[15][16]Mutual aid is a form of common ownership that is practiced on small scales within capitalist economies, particularly among marginalized communities,[17][18][19][20] and during emergencies such as theCOVID-19 pandemic.[21][22][23][24]
Manysocialist movements, includingMarxist,anarchist,reformist, andcommunalist movements, advocate the common ownership of the means of production by all of society as an eventual goal to be achieved through the development of theproductive forces, although many socialists classify socialism aspublic ownership orcooperative ownership of the means of production, reserving common ownership for whatKarl Marx andFriedrich Engels termed "upper-stage communism",[25] or what other socialist theoreticians, such asVladimir Lenin,[26]Emma Goldman,[27] andPeter Kropotkin,[28] simply termed "communism". From Marxist and anarchist analyses, a society based on a superabundance of goods and common ownership of the means of production would be devoid of classes based on ownership of productive property.[29][27]
Common ownership in a hypotheticalcommunist society is often distinguished fromprimitive communism, in that communist common ownership is the outcome of social and technological developments leading topost-scarcity and thus the elimination of material scarcity in society.[30] From 1918 until 1995, the "common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange" was cited inClause IV of its constitution as a goal of the BritishLabour Party and was quoted on the back of its membership cards. The clause read:
To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.[31]
Inantitrust economics, common ownership describes a situation in which largeinvestors ownshares in several firms that compete within the sameindustry. As a result of this overlapping ownership, these firms may have reduced incentives to compete against each other because they internalize the profit-reducing effect that their competitive actions have on each other. The theory was first developed byJulio Rotemberg in 1984.[32] Several empirical contributions document the growing importance of common ownership and provide evidence to support the theory.[33] Because of concern about these anticompetitive effects, common ownership has "stimulated a major rethinking of antitrust enforcement".[34] Several government departments and intergovernmental organizations, such as theUnited States Department of Justice,[35] theFederal Trade Commission,[36] theEuropean Commission,[37] and theOECD,[38] have acknowledged concerns about the effects of common ownership on lessening productmarket competition.
Neoclassical economic theory analyzes common ownership usingcontract theory. According to theincomplete contracting approach pioneered byOliver Hart and his co-authors, ownership matters because the owner of an asset has residual control rights.[39][40] This means that the owner can decide what to do with the asset in every contingency not covered by a contract. In particular, an owner has stronger incentives to make relationship-specific investments than a non-owner, so ownership can ameliorate thehold-up problem. As a result, ownership is a scarce resource (i.e. there are limits to how much they can invest) that should not be wasted. In particular, a central result of the property rights approach says that joint ownership is suboptimal.[41] If there is a start with joint ownership (where each party has veto power over the use of the asset) and move to a situation in which there is a single owner, the investment incentives of the new owner are improved while the investment incentives of the other parties remain the same; however, in the basic incomplete contracting framework, the suboptimal aspect of joint ownership holds only if the investments are inhuman capital while joint ownership can be optimal if the investments are in physical capital.[42] Several authors have shown that joint ownership can actually be optimal even if investments are in human capital.[43] In particular, joint ownership can be optimal if the parties are asymmetrically informed,[44] if there is a long-term relationship between the parties,[45] or if the parties have know-how that they may disclose.[46]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)By 1888, the term 'socialism' was in general use among Marxists, who had dropped 'communism', now considered an old fashioned term meaning the same as 'socialism'. ... At the turn of the century, Marxists called themselves socialists. ... The definition of socialism and communism as successive stages was introduced into Marxist theory by Lenin in 1917 ... , the new distinction was helpful to Lenin in defending his party against the traditional Marxist criticism that Russia was too backward for a socialist revolution.
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