, Latvia Public ownership of the
means of production is a subset of
social ownership, which is the defining characteristic of a
socialist economy. However, state ownership and nationalization by themselves are not socialist, as they can exist under a wide variety of different
political and
economic systems for a variety of different reasons. State ownership by itself does not imply social ownership where income rights belong to society as a whole. As such, state ownership is only one possible expression of public ownership, which itself is one variation of the broader concept of social ownership. In the context of socialism, public ownership implies that the
surplus product generated by publicly owned assets accrues to all of society in the form of a
social dividend, as opposed to a distinct class of private capital owners. There is a wide variety of organizational forms for state-run industry, ranging from specialized technocratic management to direct
workers' self-management. In traditional conceptions of non-market socialism, public ownership is a tool to consolidate the means of production as a precursor to the establishment of
economic planning for the allocation of resources between organizations, as required by government or by the state. State ownership is advocated as a form of social ownership for practical concerns, with the state being seen as the obvious candidate for owning and operating the means of production. Proponents assume that the state, as the representative of the
public interest, would manage resources and production for the benefit of the public. As a form of social ownership, state ownership may be contrasted with cooperatives and common ownership. Socialist theories and political ideologies that favor state ownership of the means of production may be labelled
state socialism. State ownership was recognized by
Friedrich Engels in
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific as, by itself, not doing away with capitalism, including the process of
capital accumulation and structure of wage labor. Engels argued that state ownership of commercial industry would represent the final stage of capitalism, consisting of ownership and management of large-scale production and manufacture by the state. Within the United Kingdom, public ownership is mostly associated with the
Labour Party (a
centre-left democratic socialist party), specifically due to the creation of
Clause IV of the "Labour Party Manifesto" in 1918. "Clause IV" was written by
Fabian Society member
Sidney Webb. == Public property ==