Editing Common Wealth Party (section)

==Later platform==
Common Wealth's later political philosophy was heavily influenced by a notion that a new [[mode of production]], known as [[managerialism]], was replacing the archetypal forms of capitalism. This idea was drawn from works such as [[James Burnham]]'s ''[[James Burnham#The Managerial Revolution|The Managerial Revolution]]'' (1941).  Burnham (a former [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist Marxist]] turned pioneering [[neoconservative]]) argued that the rise of a [[salary|salaried]] managerial class, accompanied by the withdrawal of shareholders from active running of big businesses, was creating a split between the (legal) proprietors of organisations and a class of non-proprietorial professionals who were responsible for the day-to-day management of those organisations. CW used this to develop a modified Marxist analysis &mdash; this saw managerialism as a historical stage between capitalism and socialism.

This, per Common Wealth, characterised the [[Clement Attlee|Attlee government]]'s post-war programme of [[nationalisation]]. The party set out its critique of managerialism in a pamphlet entitled ''Nationalisation is not Socialism'' (1948). In essence, this critique suggested that: many features of the [[British Labour Party|Labour Party]]'s programme had not been approved by voters; this confirmed the theory that power, in "socialised" economies as much as market ones, was in the hands of a largely unaccountable managerial class, which served the [[capitalist class|owners of capital]] at arm's length; most private ownership was continuing; shares were being replaced by [[loan stock]] at inflated valuations, the interest on which was paid from the profits of state-run industries; ministers refused to answer questions in parliament on operational matters, meaning that the management of nationalised industries were not subject to meaningful democratic control; worker representation at board level was either token or non-existent and often justified by stereotyping that workers did not yet have the skills required (unconvincing in CW's view given the record of the co-operative movement, the trade unions, and the Labour Party itself), and; a growing cult of "experts" (i.e. [[technocracy]]) and a drift towards authoritarianism, as in oft-appointed ex-military officers running such industries.
 
[[Worker cooperative|Worker-controlled organisations]] were also promoted by CW, which publicised successful real-world examples, such as the chemical manufacturer [[Scott Bader Commonwealth]]. While CW was critical of communist dictatorships, it expressed limited support for the system of [[worker self-management]] in [[Yugoslavia]] under [[Josep Tito]] (see [[Economy of SFR Yugoslavia]]).

Although sympathetic to the [[non-aligned movement]], CW was critical of its inclusion of dictatorships from various part of the political spectrum. Some members of CW were active in [[Amnesty International]].