Public ownership is a legitimate form of public control which no modern state can do without. It serves to protect freedom against domination by large economic concerns. In these concerns power is held today by managers who are themselves the servants of anonymous forces. Private ownership of the means of production is therefore no longer identical with the control of power. Economic power, rather than ownership, is the central problem today. Where sound economic power relations cannot be guaranteed by other means, public ownership is appropriate and necessary.
Every concentration of economic power, even in the hands of the state, harbours dangers. This is why the principles of self-government and decentralisation must be applied to the public sector. The interests of wage and salary earners as well as the public interest and the interests of the consumer must be represented on the management boards of public enterprises. Not centralised bureaucracy but responsible co-operation between all concerned serves the interests of the community best.
Distribution of Income and Wealth
The competition economy does not guarantee by itself just distribution of income and wealth. This can only be achieved through measures of economic policy.
Income and wealth are distributed unjustly. This is not only the result of mass destruction of property through crises, war and inflation but is largely due to an economic and fiscal policy which has favoured large incomes and the accumulation of capital in the hands of a few, and which has made it difficult for those without capital to acquire it.
The Social Democratic Party aims to create conditions in which everybody is able to save part of his rising income and acquire property. This presupposes a constant increase in production and a fair distribution of the national income.
Wage and salary policies are adequate and necessary means of distributing incomes and wealth more justly.
Appropriate measures must ensure that an adequate part of the steadily growing capital of big business is widely distributed or made to serve public purposes. It is a deplorable symptom of our times that privileged groups in society indulge in luxury while important public tasks, especially in the fields of science, research and education, are neglected in a way unworthy of a civilised nation.
Agriculture
The principles of Social Democratic economic policy apply also to agriculture. The structure of agriculture, however, and its dependence on uncontrollable forces of nature call for special measures.
The farmer is entitled to own his land. Efficient family holdings should be protected by modern laws on land tenure and leases.
Support of the existing system of co-operatives is the best way of increasing the efficiency of small and medium sized holdings whilst maintaining their independence.
Agriculture must adjust itself to the changing economic structure in order to make its proper contribution to economic development and to assure an adequate standard of living to the people working in it. These changes are determined not only by technical and scientific progress, but also by the changes in the location of the market within the framework of European co-operation and by the fact that the German economy is increasingly linked with that of the rest of the world. The modernisation of agriculture and its efficiency are a public responsibility. The interests of the farming population are best served by the integration of agriculture into an economy with high productivity and an ever more widely distributed mass purchasing power. Price and market policies necessary to protect agricultural incomes should take into account the interests of the consumers and of the economy as a whole.
The cultural, economic, and social condition of the entire farming population must be improved. The lag in social legislation must be overcome.
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