Can Common Ownership Meet the Challenge?

The argument advanced so far is that there are significant areas of conflict underlying effective industrial policy, and that there are no panaceas which will enable them to be overcome without difficulty. This fact may appear obvious — yet it has rarely been explicitly recognised in political dialogues on industrial policy. Once it has been accepted, the role of public ownership can be considered from a different standpoint. Supporters of nationalisation must demonstrate how a transfer of ownership can help to cope with this conflict. The proposition developed in the remainder of this book is that the elimination of private ownership, while not in itself offering a complete answer to all industrial problems, is necessary to give the Government the tools with which to achieve its policy objectives. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.