Many people who are actively involved in overcoming capitalism strive for the socialisation of property. But we must remember that even social property is property.

In real existing socialism, all means of production and raw materials were socialised. The author of this draft programme has lived in real existing socialism for 35 years and is very familiar with public property. At that time, the inhibition threshold for taking a writing pad home from the office, i.e. making it private property, was not particularly high, since it already belonged to some extent to the employee. And that also happened on a large scale. After 1989, everyone was able to witness how their public property was converted back into private property in a very unspectacular way.

This privatisation would be much more difficult if there were no property at all, as it was before the beginning of ‘civilisation’, until about 10,000 years ago. The reason is that in such a system the formal legal infrastructure is lacking to clearly define property and transfer it privately. If land is not understood as property, it is more difficult to legally sell or transfer it to individuals because there are no fixed claims to it that could serve as a basis for privatisation.

When we think of property, we imagine fenced-in land or a privately owned factory. But we can also look at ‘property’ from a completely different perspective. We don’t have to see ownership as a subject, because it is above all an object.

Property is a tool for generating profit.

Even a self-used condominium generates profit by allowing you to spend the unpaid rent on something else. Even fenced-in land that is not cultivated at all generates profit by making the remaining area scarcer, thereby increasing the price of the land.

Property did not come into being so that someone could say, ‘This is my property.’ The main reason for the creation of property was to make other people work in the fenced fields to make a profit. Before that, there was no property at all. The land did not belong to everyone, but to no one.

Now, of course, the big question is how we could get back to exactly that. If there were no profit at all, as described in this draft programme, then the tool of property would be as useless as a broken knife. You leave the handle lying in the corner for a while and then throw it in the yellow bin.

So the owner loses interest in his property and what’s more, he will be interested in getting rid of it because he still bears responsibility for it, even if he can no longer make a profit.

Since there is no more money, he cannot sell his property and so he will release it. This release means that it does not belong to everyone, but to no one. This is the big difference to socialisation.

When there is no more profit, that is, after the overcoming of the financial system and money as described here, property will automatically become common property again, as it was the case in 95 percent of human history.

It is precisely at that point that raw material deposits such as iron ore mines, oil wells or drinking water wells also become common property. This ensures that all raw materials are available free of charge.

Therefore, the decoupling of the financial system from the economy and the resulting dissolution of the financial system and money is the only solution to completely abolish property.