THE RATIONALE  FOR SOCIAL  OWNERSHIP.......

A simple reflection on what is at the core of our social problems - the turmoil, poverty, joblessness,
crime and racism, the lack of even basic healthcare for all, unequal and inadequate educational opportunities,
the environmental devastation and inadequate safeguards to our towns and communities, the corruption
of government on all levels - can be narrowed to one cause: the economy and how it is being run. We are
the wealthiest nation on earth and yet it should be clear to everyone that the present system has failed to
sustain a peaceful, healthy, prosperous and harmonious society.

While the big social question facing us in this 21st Century ought to be how to
best share in our potential bounty,and it could be argued with the stakes higher than ever, we are no better
off  than we were as we entered the last century. Now we face true global disaster, war, famines and genocides,
poisoned air and food, threats to our political freedoms, strife between low-wage working people and
lower-waged illegal immigrants, loss of jobs to even cheaper overseas labor pools. We are being pauperized
at ever greater rates and increasingly behind in our credit and mortgage debts. We fight amongst ourselves at
home and abroad with other nations. We have little but a token part in a government that has become a pawn
in an economic battlefield- nationally and globally- bought & paid for by the economic system's owners.
We must face the real underlying question: Without social ownership of the economy, and the real decision-
making power it brings, can anything really change for the better?
 
                           For a meaningful, participatory democracy that enables us to have input
                           and actual control of our lives, we need to begin the process of
                           rebuilding our society..on a sound, rational base... starting at the very
                           ground floor of ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION & ON A NEW PLAN
                           that meets the real needs and wants of the community. To do this requires
                           that our nation's valuable, socially-needed resources and industries - now
                           the privately owned corporations in which we work & on which we depend-
                           must be socially owned and managed. Only then, democratically-based, can
                           we be sure that they will be used to best serve all of us and not just the few.

IN THE REALM OF ETHICAL MORALITY, SOCIAL OWNERSHIP OF THE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
IS NATURAL AND JUST. It is natural because the socially-operated industrial tool and the technology we have
developed is the product of every human being, historically, who has brought us to this point. And just, because it
has become the foremost instrument for survival in the modern industrialized world as well as the most potentially
hazardous. Therefore, by virtue of its critical place in modern times, it becomes imperative that it not be misused
for narrow, short term or private gain, especially by any small, however powerful, element of the larger social
body, which is humanity itself. Social ownership is the natural and just outgrowth of our historical struggle for ever-
greater self-governance and democracy, and the ultimate recognition of the fundamental equality of all people.

SOCIAL OWNERSHIP CORRESPONDS TO THE UNIVERSALLY-ACCEPTED AXIOM: THE
PRODUCT BELONGS TO THE PRODUCER. Yet, we have been hoodwinked into thinking we are incapable of
managing our own lives or our own economy. Hoodwinked into thinking that without capitalism & the capitalist,
we are incapable of doing the work that needs to be done. Yet everyday we do it all, so much so that we hardly
notice and believe the lie. Who was it that once said:

"YOU CAN FOOL SOME OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME, AND ALL OF THE PEOPLE SOME OF
THE TIME,  BUT YOU CAN'T FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME'....?

Well, we have been hoodwinked long enough... convinced into thinking we have no right to control our economy....
that it is rightfully owned and ruled by capitalists because they are the best at making the 'right decisions' or fearlessly
following the 'free-market system'... best at creating profit and incentive and thereby ensuring our society's success.

Yet it has been long recognized that the real wealth and power and creativity is in the hands of those who provide the
labor to produce it: the majority, the ordinary people who work for a wage, you and I. Understanding the complete
dependence of the capitalist on the people who do the work,once again it was Abraham Lincoln who also pointed out:

"LABOR IS PRIOR TO CAPITAL. LABOR CAN EXIST WITHOUT CAPITAL;  BUT CAPITAL CANNOT
EXIST WITHOUT LABOR'' 


SO WHAT IS HOLDING US BACK?
Since the majority of society is of the working class- today those of us wearing a white, blue or pink collar & all who
work for a paycheck - and since this majority has created all the wealth and operates all the industries, institutions &
technologies already, and since we already provide all the goods and services we use & need to function as we do,
it becomes a matter of elementary justice that the industrial tool we use and live with, be fully owned and fully
administered by those who actually make it work, the people.

The time is at hand to recognize that we can finally begin to make our existing political system and our new technology
work for us by 'simply not settling for less than we deserve' and refusing to support parties that are owned, lock, stock
& barrel by those who want us to remain divided, hoodwinked and hopeless. A clear, peaceful agenda can begin to
replace minority control with a new, authentic Economic and Social Democracy based on a plan for social co-operation
and social ownership. Our story, our history is not over. Its time to begin the necessary and fruitful work of turning the
page, writing a new chapter for ourselves today and for our children's tomorrow. Not only must we begin. Even more
importantly, we must recognize that we can begin.