Register › Concepts › Usufruct
Usufruct
The right to use and manage something you do not own, for as long as you are actually using it.
The word
Usufruct is the right to use a thing and take its fruits, without the right to sell it, mortgage it, or dispose of it. It is how the Republic holds productive property. A cooperative holds its workshop in usufruct. A farm holds its land in usufruct. Nobody holds the title.
What it lets you do
Use, organise, maintain and improve. A cooperative decides what it makes, how it works, and how tasks are shared, and its improvements stay with it.
What it does not let you do
Sell, mortgage, lease for gain, or dispose. Usufruct is never inheritable. When the activity ends, when the cooperative dissolves, or when the ecological budgets are persistently breached, the assets return to the commune, region or federation that granted them.
Why not ownership
Ownership of productive assets generates a claim on income without work, which Article 6(3) abolishes. Usufruct keeps everything ownership is good for, which is secure, long-horizon control by the people who actually use a thing, and drops the part that produces a rentier.
What you do own
Your dwelling, your household goods, your tools, the products of your own labour. That is personal property, and it is guaranteed. It simply cannot be turned into a means of employing anyone else.