World in Common

Core Statement of World in Common1/ Our purpose is to help inspire a vision for an alternative way of living where the technological and material resources for creating wealth (factories, farms, land, communications etc.) are owned in common and democratically controlled by the community on an ecologically sustainable and socially harmonious basis. Individuals will voluntarily co-operate to produce goods and services and will freely take these from the stores and other such establishments, according to their needs. Buying and selling, money transactions, profits and employment for a wage or salary etc., will cease altogether, along with the very idea of property itself (except for individual possessions for one’s own use). Individuals will be able to freely develop their creative potential and to make meaningful decisions that will allow them, at last, to take real control of their own lives.2/ Such a society requires two things. Firstly, the technological capacity to produce enough to satisfy everyone’s reasonable needs. This is something we have had for a long time now. Poverty persists, not because we lack the productive potential to eliminate it but, rather, because present-day society only meets human needs if they are backed up by "purchasing power" and because more and more of that productive potential is being squandered on socially useless activities whose only function is to keep our money-economy going. Secondly, the achievement of this future society requires that large numbers of people clearly understand what it will involve and support its establishment. This, however, is still far from being the case today and is one of the reasons why we have come into existence as a conscious and democratic organisation without leaders – to help this to happen.3/ To bring about this alternative way of living we must recognise the nature of present-day society as one in which a tiny minority – either through private corporations or the state – effectively own and control the means of producing and distributing wealth, leaving the rest of us relatively powerless and compelled to sell our working abilities to this owning class, usually in return for a wage or salary. Putting our trust in politicians or leaders to solve the many social problems we face today is ultimately futile since we currently live in a global society that is essentially organised to serve the interests of this minority only, rather than the population as a whole. Despite the courageous efforts of ordinary people the world over to resist the powerful political and economic forces that work against them, we are still faced with much the same kind of social problems that we had over a century ago.4/ To get rid of this society peacefully requires that the majority of people – without distinction of gender, sexuality, ethnic/cultural identity or religion – unite for this purpose and, at the same time, oppose those poisonous ideologies that strive to divide, distract and disempower us. It requires that we organise consciously and democratically to establish an alternative society ourselves from the bottom up, without the intervention of leaders or politicians and that we critically support practical attempts in the present to empower ordinary people and strengthen their resistance to the global market and state. To that end, we call upon anyone sympathetic to this broad objective to join with us – irrespective of differences of opinion on matters of secondary importance – to help build a strong, inclusive, but principled, movement for radical change in a spirit of cooperation, friendship and solidarity.