Anarchist opposition to private property rests on two, related, arguments. These were summed up by Proudhon's maxims (from What is Property? that "property is theft" and "property is despotism." In his words, "Property . . . violates equality by the rights of exclusion and increase, and freedom by despotism . . . [and has] perfect identity with robbery." [Proudhon, What is Property, p. 251] Anarchists, therefore, oppose private property (i.e. capitalism) because it is a source of coercive, hierarchical authority as well as exploitation and, consequently, elite privilege and inequality. It is based on and produces inequality, in terms of both wealth and power.
We will summarise each argument in turn.
The statement "property is theft" is one of anarchism's most famous sayings. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that anyone who rejects this statement is not an anarchist. This maxim works in two related ways. Firstly, it recognises the fact that the earth and its resources, the common inheritance of all, have been monopolised by a few. Secondly, it argues that, as a consequence of this, those who own property exploit those who do not. This is because those who do not own have to pay or sell their labour to those who do own in order to get access to the resources they need to live and work (such as workplaces, machinery, land, credit, housing, products under patents, and such like -- see section B.3.2 for more discussion).
As we discuss in section B.3.3, this exploitation (theft) flows from the fact that workers do not own or control the means of production they use and, as a consequence, are controlled by those who do during work hours. This alienation of control over labour to the boss places the employer in a position to exploit that labour -- to get the worker to produce more than they get paid in wages. That is precisely why the boss employs the worker. Combine this with rent, interest and intellectual property rights and we find the secret to maintaining the capitalist system as all allow enormous inequalities of wealth to continue and keep the resources of the world in the hands of a few.
Yet labour cannot be alienated. Therefore when you sell your labour you sell yourself, your liberty, for the time in question. This brings us to the second reason why anarchists oppose private property, the fact it produces authoritarian social relationships. For all true anarchists, property is opposed as a source of authority, indeed despotism. To quote Proudhon on this subject:
"The proprietor, the robber, the hero, the sovereign -- for all these titles are synonymous -- imposes his will as law, and suffers neither contradiction nor control; that is, he pretends to be the legislative and the executive power at once . . . [and so] property engenders despotism . . . That is so clearly the essence of property that, to be convinced of it, one need but remember what it is, and observe what happens around him. Property is the right to use and abuse . . . if goods are property, why should not the proprietors be kings, and despotic kings -- kings in proportion to their facultes bonitaires? And if each proprietor is sovereign lord within the sphere of his property, absolute king throughout his own domain, how could a government of proprietors be any thing but chaos and confusion?" [Op. Cit., pp. 266-7]
In other words, private property is the state writ small, with the property owner acting as the "sovereign lord" over their property, and so the absolute king of those who use it. As in any monarchy, the worker is the subject of the capitalist, having to follow their orders, laws and decisions while on their property. This, obviously, is the total denial of liberty (and dignity, we may note, as it is degrading to have to follow orders). And so private property (capitalism) necessarily excludes participation, influence, and control by those who use, but do not own, the means of life.
It is, of course, true that private property provides a sphere of decision-making free from outside interference -- but only for the property's owners. But for those who are not property owners the situation if radically different. In a system of exclusively private property does not guarantee them any such sphere of freedom. They have only the freedom to sell their liberty to those who do own private property. If I am evicted from one piece of private property, where can I go? Nowhere, unless another owner agrees to allow me access to their piece of private property. This means that everywhere I can stand is a place where I have no right to stand without permission and, as a consequence, I exist only by the sufferance of the property owning elite. Hence Proudhon:
"Just as the commoner once held his land by the munificence and condescension of the lord, so to-day the working-man holds his labour by the condescension and necessities of the master and proprietor." [Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 128]
This means that far from providing a sphere of independence, a society in which all property is private thus renders the property-less completely dependent on those who own property. This ensures that the exploitation of another's labour occurs and that some are subjected to the will of others, in direct contradiction to what the defenders of property promise. This is unsurprising given the nature of the property they are defending:
"Our opponents . . . are in the habit of justifying the right to private property by stating that property is the condition and guarantee of liberty."And we agree with them. Do we not say repeatedly that poverty is slavery?
"But then why do we oppose them?
"The reason is clear: in reality the property that they defend is capitalist property, namely property that allows its owners to live from the work of others and which therefore depends on the existence of a class of the disinherited and dispossessed, forced to sell their labour to the property owners for a wage below its real value . . . This means that workers are subjected to a kind of slavery, which, though it may vary in degree of harshness, always means social inferiority, material penury and moral degradation, and is the primary cause of all the ills that beset today's social order." [Malatesta, The Anarchist Revolution, p. 113]
It will, of course, be objected that no one forces a worker to work for a given boss. However, as we discuss in section B.4.3, this assertion (while true) misses the point. While workers are not forced to work for a specific boss, they inevitably have to work for a boss. This is because there is literally no other way to survive -- all other economic options have been taken from them by state coercion. The net effect is that the working class has little choice but to hire themselves out to those with property and, as a consequence, the labourer "has sold and surrendered his liberty" to the boss. [Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 130]
Private property, therefore, produces a very specific form of authority structure within society, a structure in which a few govern the many during working hours. These relations of production are inherently authoritarian and embody and perpetuate the capitalist class system. The moment you enter the factory gate or the office door, you lose all your basic rights as a human being. You have no freedom of speech nor association and no right of assembly. If you were asked to ignore your values, your priorities, your judgement, and your dignity, and leave them at the door when you enter your home, you would rightly consider that tyranny yet that is exactly what you do during working hours if you are a worker. You have no say in what goes on. You may as well be a horse (to use John Locke's analogy -- see section B.4.2) or a piece of machinery.
Little wonder, then, that anarchists oppose private property as Anarchy is "the absence of a master, of a sovereign" [Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 264] and call capitalism for what it is, namely wage slavery!
For these reasons, anarchists agree with Rousseau when he stated:
"The first man who, having fenced off a plot of land, thought of saying, 'This is mine' and found people simple enough to believe him was the real founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, how many miseries and horrors might the human race had been spared by the one who, upon pulling up the stakes or filling in the ditch, had shouted to his fellow men: 'Beware of listening to this impostor; you are lost if you forget the fruits of the earth belong to all and that the earth belongs to no one.'" ["Discourse on Inequality," The Social Contract and Discourses, p. 84]
This explains anarchist opposition to capitalism. It is marked by two main features, "private property" (or in some cases, state-owned property -- see section B.3.5) and, consequently, wage labour and exploitation and authority. Moreover, such a system requires a state to maintain itself for as "long as within society a possessing and non-possessing group of human beings face one another in enmity, the state will be indispensable to the possessing minority for the protection for its privileges." [Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 11] Thus private ownership of the means of production is only possible if there is a state, meaning mechanisms of organised coercion at the disposal of the propertied class (see section B.2).
Also, it ought to be easy to see that capitalism, by giving rise to an ideologically inalienable "right" to private property, will also quickly give rise to inequalities in the distribution of external resources, and that this inequality in resource distribution will give rise to a further inequality in the relative bargaining positions of the propertied and the property less. While apologists for capitalism usually attempt to justify private property by claiming that "self-ownership" is a "universal right" (see section B.4.2 -- "Is capitalism based on self-ownership?"), it is clear that capitalism actually makes universal autonomy implied by the flawed concept of self-ownership (for the appeal of the notion of self-ownership rests on the ideal that people are not used as a means but only as an end in themselves). The capitalist system, however, has undermined autonomy and individual freedom, and ironically, has used the term "self-ownership" as the basis for doing so. Under capitalism, as will be seen in section B.4, most people are usually left in a situation where their best option is to allow themselves to be used in just those ways that are logically incompatible with genuine self-ownership, i.e. the autonomy which makes it initially an appealing concept.
Only libertarian socialism can continue to affirm the meaningful autonomy and individual freedom which self-ownership promises whilst building the conditions that guarantee it. Only by abolishing private property can there be access to the means of life for all, so making the autonomy which self-ownership promises but cannot deliver a reality by universalising self-management in all aspects of life.
Before discussing the anti-libertarian aspects of capitalism, it will
be necessary to define "private property" as distinct from "personal
possessions" and show in more detail why the former requires state
protection and is exploitative.
To summarise, anarchists are in favour of the kind of property
which "cannot be used to exploit another -- those kinds of
personal possessions which we accumulate from childhood and which
become part of our lives." We are opposed to the kind of property
"which can be used only to exploit people -- land and buildings,
instruments of production and distribution, raw materials and
manufactured articles, money and capital." [Nicholas Walter,
About Anarchism, p. 40] As a rule of thumb, anarchists oppose
those forms of property which are owned by a few people but which
are used by others. This leads to the former controlling the latter
and using them to produce a surplus for them (either directly, as
in the case of a employee, or indirectly, in the case of a tenant).
The key is that "possession" is rooted in the concept of "use rights"
or "usufruct" while "private property" is rooted in a divorce between
the users and ownership. For example, a house that one lives in is a
possession, whereas if one rents it to someone else at a profit it
becomes property. Similarly, if one uses a saw to make a living as
a self-employed carpenter, the saw is a possession; whereas if one
employs others at wages to use the saw for one's own profit, it is
property. Needless to say, a capitalist workplace, where the workers
are ordered about by a boss, is an example of "property" while a
co-operative, where the workers manage their own work, is an example
of "possession." To quote Proudhon:
While it may initially be confusing to make this distinction, it is
very useful to understand the nature of capitalist society. Capitalists
tend to use the word "property" to mean anything from a toothbrush to
a transnational corporation -- two very different things, with very
different impacts upon society. Hence Proudhon:
Proudhon graphically illustrated the distinction by comparing a
lover as a possessor, and a husband as a proprietor! As he stressed,
the "double definition of property -- domain and possession -- is
of highest importance; and must be clearly understood, in order to
comprehend" what anarchism is really about. So while some may question
why we make this distinction, the reason is clear. As Proudhon argued,
"it is proper to call different things by different names, if we keep
the name 'property' for the former [possession], we must call the
latter [the domain of property] robbery, repine, brigandage. If, on
the contrary, we reserve the name 'property' for the latter, we must
designate the former by the term possession or some other equivalent;
otherwise we should be troubled with an unpleasant synonym." [Op. Cit.,
p. 65 and p. 373]
The difference between property and possession can be seen from the
types of authority relations each generates. Taking the example of
a capitalist workplace, its clear that those who own the workplace
determine how it is used, not those who do the actual work. This
leads to an almost totalitarian system. As Noam Chomsky points out,
"the term 'totalitarian' is quite accurate. There is no human
institution that approaches totalitarianism as closely as a business
corporation. I mean, power is completely top-down. You can be inside
it somewhere and you take orders from above and hand 'em down.
Ultimately, it's in the hands of owners and investors." Thus the
actual producer does not control their own activity, the product
of their labour nor the means of production they use. In modern
class societies, the producer is in a position of subordination
to those who actually do own or manage the productive process.
In an anarchist society, as noted, actual use is considered the only
title. This means that a workplace is organised and run by those who
work within it, thus reducing hierarchy and increasing freedom and
equality within society. Hence anarchist opposition to private
property and capitalism flows naturally from anarchism's basic
principles and ideas. Hence all anarchists agree with Proudhon:
As Alexander Berkman frames this distinction, anarchism "abolishes
private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and
with it goes capitalistic business. Personal possession remains only
in the things you use. Thus, your watch is your own, but the watch
factory belongs to the people. Land, machinery, and all other public
utilities will be collective property, neither to be bought nor sold.
Actual use will be considered the only title -- not to ownership
but to possession." [What is Anarchism?, p. 217]
This analysis of different forms of property is at the heart of both
social and individualist anarchism. This means that all anarchists
seek to change people's opinions on what is to be considered as
valid forms of property, aiming to see that "the Anarchistic view
that occupancy and use should condition and limit landholding
becomes the prevailing view" and so ensure that "individuals
should no longer be protected by their fellows in anything but
personal occupation and cultivation [i.e. use] of land."
[Benjamin Tucker, The Individualist Anarchists, p. 159 and
p. 85] The key differences, as we noted in
section A.3.1, is
how they apply this principle.
This anarchist support for possession does not imply the break up of
large scale organisations such as factories or other workplaces which
require large numbers of people to operate. Far from it. Anarchists
argue for association as the complement of possession. This means
applying "occupancy and use" to property which is worked by more than
one person results in associated labour, i.e. those who collectively
work together (i.e. use a given property) manage it and their own
labour as a self-governing, directly democratic, association of
equals (usually called "self-management" for short).
This logically flows from the theory of possession, of "occupancy and
use." For if production is carried on in groups who is the legal
occupier of the land? The employer or their manager? Obviously not,
as they are by definition occupying more than they can use by
themselves. Clearly, the association of those engaged in the work
can be the only rational answer. Hence Proudhon's comment that "all
accumulated capital being social property, no one can be its exclusive
proprietor." "In order to destroy despotism and inequality of conditions,
men must . . . become associates" and this implies workers' self-management
-- "leaders, instructors, superintendents . . . must be chosen from the
labourers by the labourers themselves." [Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 130,
p. 372 and p. 137]
In this way, anarchists seek, in Proudhon's words, "abolition of the proletariat" and consider a key idea of our ideas that "Industrial
Democracy must. . . succeed Industrial Feudalism." [Proudhon,
Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 179 and p. 167]
Thus an anarchist society would be based on possession, with workers'
self-management being practised at all levels from the smallest one
person workplace or farm to large scale industry (see
section I.3 for more discussion).
Clearly, then, all anarchists seek to transform and limit property rights.
Capitalist property rights would be ended and a new system introduced
rooted in the concept of possession and use. While the exact nature of
that new system differs between schools of anarchist thought, the basic
principles are the same as they flow from the same anarchist theory of
property to be found in Proudhon's, What is Property?.
Significantly, William Godwin in his Enquiry Concerning Political
Justice makes the same point concerning the difference between property
and possession (although not in the same language) fifty years before
Proudhon, which indicates its central place in anarchist thought. For
Godwin, there were different kinds of property. One kind was "the empire
to which every [person] is entitled over the produce of his [or her]
own industry." However, another kind was "a system, in whatever manner
established, by which one man enters into the faculty of disposing of
the produce of another man's industry." This "species of property is
in direct contradiction" to the former kind (he similarities with
subsequent anarchist ideas is striking). For Godwin, inequality
produces a "servile" spirit in the poor and, moreover, a person who
"is born to poverty, may be said, under a another name, to be born a
slave." [The Anarchist Writings of William Godwin, p. 133, p. 134,
p. 125 and p. 126]
Needless to say, anarchists have not be totally consistent in using
this terminology. Some, for example, have referred to the capitalist
and landlord classes as being the "possessing classes." Others prefer
to use the term "personal property" rather than "possession" or "capital"
rather than "private property." Some, like many individualist anarchists,
use the term "property" in a general sense and qualify it with "occupancy
and use" in the case of land, housing and workplaces. However, no matter
the specific words used, the key idea is the same.
Under capitalism, there are four major kinds of property, or exploitative
monopolies, that the state protects:
By enforcing these forms of property, the state ensures that the
objective conditions within the economy favour the capitalist,
with the worker free only to accept oppressive and exploitative
contracts within which they forfeit their autonomy and promise
obedience or face misery and poverty. Due to these "initiations
of force" conducted previously to any specific contract being
signed, capitalists enrich themselves at our expense because we
"are compelled to pay a heavy tribute to property holders for
the right of cultivating land or putting machinery into action."
[Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread, p. 103] These conditions
obviously also make a mockery of free agreement (see
section B.4).
These various forms of state intervention are considered so normal
many people do not even think of them as such. Thus we find
defenders of "free market" capitalism thundering against forms
of "state intervention" which are designed to aid the poor while
seeing nothing wrong in defending intellectual property rights,
corporations, absentee landlords and the other multitude of laws
and taxes capitalists and their politicians have placed and kept upon
the statute-books to skew the labour market in favour of themselves
(see section F.8 on the state's role in developing capitalism in the
first place).
Needless to say, despite the supposedly subtle role of such "objective"
pressures in controlling the working class, working class resistance has
been such that capital has never been able to dispense with the powers
of the state, both direct and indirect. When "objective" means of control
fail, the capitalists will always turn to the use of state repression to
restore the "natural" order. Then the "invisible" hand of the market is
replaced by the visible fist of the state and the indirect means of
securing ruling class profits and power are supplemented by more direct
forms by the state. As we indicate in
section D.1, state intervention
beyond enforcing these forms of private property is the norm of capitalism,
not the exception, and is done so to secure the power and profits of
the capitalist class.
To indicate the importance of these state backed monopolies, we shall
sketch their impact.
The credit monopoly, by which the state controls who can and cannot
issue or loan money, reduces the ability of working class people to
create their own alternatives to capitalism. By charging high amounts
of interest on loans (which is only possible because competition is
restricted) few people can afford to create co-operatives or one-person
firms. In addition, having to repay loans at high interest to capitalist
banks ensures that co-operatives often have to undermine their own
principles by having to employ wage labour to make ends meet (see
section J.5.11). It is unsurprising, therefore, that the very
successful Mondragon co-operatives in the Basque Country created
their own credit union which is largely responsible for the experiment's
success.
Just as increasing wages is an important struggle within capitalism,
so is the question of credit. Proudhon and his followers supported the
idea of a People's Bank. If the working class could take over and
control increasing amounts of money it could undercut capitalist power
while building its own alternative social order (for money is ultimately
the means of buying labour power, and so authority over the labourer -
which is the key to surplus value production). Proudhon hoped that by
credit being reduced to cost (namely administration charges) workers
would be able to buy the means of production they needed. While most
anarchists would argue that increased working class access to credit
would no more bring down capitalism than increased wages, all
anarchists recognise how more cheap credit, like more wages, can
make life easier for working people and how the struggle for such
credit, like the struggle for wages, might play a useful role in
the development of the power of the working class within capitalism.
Obvious cases that spring to mind are those where money has been
used by workers to finance their struggles against capital,
from strike funds and weapons to the periodical avoidance of work
made possible by sufficiently high money income. Increased access
to cheap credit would give working class people slightly more
options than selling their liberty or facing misery (just as
increased wages and unemployment benefit also gives us more
options).
Therefore, the credit monopoly reduces competition to capitalism
from co-operatives (which are generally more productive than
capitalist firms) while at the same time forcing down wages for
all workers as the demand for labour is lower than it would
otherwise be. This, in turn, allows capitalists to use the fear
of the sack to extract higher levels of surplus value from
employees, so consolidating capitalist power (within and outwith
the workplace) and expansion (increasing set-up costs and so
creating oligarchic markets dominated by a few firms). In addition,
high interest rates transfer income directly from producers to banks.
Credit and money are both used as weapons in the class struggle. This
is why, again and again, we see the ruling class call for centralised
banking and use state action (from the direct regulation of money
itself, to the attempted management of its flows by the manipulation
of the interest) in the face of repeated threats to the nature (and
role) of money within capitalism.
The credit monopoly has other advantages for the elite. The 1980s
were marked by a rising debt burden on households as well as the
increased concentration of wealth in the US. The two are linked.
Due to "the decline in real hourly wages, and the stagnation in
household incomes, the middle and lower classes have borrowed
more to stay in place" and they have "borrowed from the very rich
who have [become] richer." By 1997, US households spent $1 trillion
(or 17% of the after-tax incomes) on debt service. "This represents
a massive upward redistribution of income." And why did they borrow?
The bottom 40% of the income distribution "borrowed to compensate
for stagnant or falling incomes" while the upper 20% borrowed "mainly
to invest." Thus "consumer credit can be thought of as a way to
sustain mass consumption in the face of stagnant or falling wages.
But there's an additional social and political bonus, from the
point of view of the creditor class: it reduces pressure for
higher wages by allowing people to buy goods they couldn't
otherwise afford. It helps to nourish both the appearance and
reality of a middle-class standard of living in a time of
polarisation. And debt can be a great conservatising force;
with a large monthly mortgage and/or MasterCard bill, strikes
and other forms of troublemaking look less appealing than they
would other wise." [Doug Henwood, Wall Street, pp. 64-6]
Thus credit "is an important form of social coercion; mortgaged
workers are more pliable." [Henwood, Op. Cit., p. 232] Money is
power and any means which lessens that power by increasing the
options of workers is considered a threat by the capitalist class
-- whether it is tight labour markets, state provided unemployment
benefit, or cheap, self-organised, credit -- will be resisted.
The credit monopoly can, therefore, only be fought as part of a
broader attack on all forms of capitalist social power.
In summary, the credit monopoly, by artificially restricting the
option to work for ourselves, ensures we work for a boss while
also enriching the few at the expense of the many.
The land monopoly consists of enforcement by government of land
titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and use. It also
includes making the squatting of abandoned housing and other forms
of property illegal. This leads to ground-rent, by which landlords
get payment for letting others use the land they own but do not
actually cultivate or use. It also allows the ownership and control
of natural resources like oil, gas, coal and timber. This monopoly
is particularly exploitative as the owner cannot claim to have
created the land or its resources. It was available to all until
the landlord claimed it by fencing it off and barring others from
using it.
Until the nineteenth century, the control of land was probably
the single most important form of privilege by which working people
were forced to accept less than its product as a wage. While this
monopoly is less important in a modern capitalist society (as few
people know how to farm), it still plays a role (particularly in
terms of ownership of natural resources). At a minimum, every
home and workplace needs land on which to be built. Thus while
cultivation of land has become less important, the use of land
remains crucial. The land monopoly, therefore, ensures that working
people find no land to cultivate, no space to set up shop and no
place to sleep without first having to pay a landlord a sum for
the privilege of setting foot on the land they own but neither
created nor use. At best, the worker has mortgaged their life for
decades to get their wee bit of soil or, at worse, paid their
rent and remained as property-less as before. Either way, the
landlords are richer for the exchange.
Moreover, the land monopoly did play an important role in creating
capitalism (also see section F.8.3). This took two main forms. Firstly,
the state enforced the ownership of large estates in the hands of a
single family. Taking the best land by force, these landlords turned
vast tracks of land into parks and hunting grounds so forcing the
peasants little option but to huddle together on what remained. Access
to superior land was therefore only possible by paying a rent for the
privilege, if at all. Thus an elite claimed ownership of vacant lands,
and by controlling access to it (without themselves ever directly
occupying or working it) they controlled the labouring classes of the
time. Secondly, the ruling elite also simply stole land which had
traditionally been owned by the community. This was called enclosure,
the process by which common land was turned into private property.
Economist William Lazonick summaries this process:
By being able to "legally" bar people from "their" property, the landlord
class used the land monopoly to ensure the creation of a class of people
with nothing to sell but their labour (i.e. liberty). Land was taken from
those who traditionally used it, violating common rights, and it was used
by the landlord to produce for their own profit (more recently, a similar
process has been going on in the Third World as well). Personal occupancy
was replaced by landlordism and agricultural wage slavery, and so "the
Enclosure Acts . . . reduced the agricultural population to misery,
placed them at the mercy of the landowners, and forced a great number of
them to migrate to the towns where, as proletarians, they were delivered
to the mercy of the middle-class manufacturers." [Peter Kropotkin, The
Great French Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 117-8]
A variation of this process took place in countries like America,
where the state took over ownership of vast tracks of land and then
sold it to farmers. As Howard Zinn notes, the Homestead Act "gave 160
acres of western land, unoccupied and publicly owned, to anyone who
would cultivate it for fives years. Anyone willing to pay $1.25 an
acre could buy a homestead. Few ordinary people had the $200 necessary
to do this; speculators moved in and bought up much of the land."
[A People's History of the United States, p. 233] Those farmers
who did pay the money often had to go into debt to do so, placing an
extra burden on their labour. Vast tracks of land were also given to
railroad and other companies either directly (by gift or by selling
cheap) or by lease (in the form of privileged access to state owned
land for the purpose of extracting raw materials like lumber and oil).
Either way, access to land was restricted and those who actually did
work it ended up paying a tribute to the landlord in one form or
another (either directly in rent or indirectly by repaying a loan).
This was the land monopoly in action (also see sections
F.8.3, F.8.4
and F.8.5 for more details) and from it sprang the tools and equipment monopoly
as domestic industry could not survive in the face of industrial capitalism.
Confronted with competition from industrial production growing rich on the
profits produced from cheap labour, the ability of workers to own their
own means of production decreased over time. From a situation where most
workers owned their own tools and, consequently, worked for themselves,
we now face an economic regime were the tools and equipment needed
for work are owned by a capitalists and, consequently, workers now
work for a boss.
The tools and equipment monopoly is similar to the land monopoly as
it is based upon the capitalist denying workers access to their
capital unless the worker pays tribute to the owner for using it.
While capital is "simply stored-up labour which has already received
its pay in full" and so "the lender of capital is entitled to its
return intact, and nothing more" (to use Tucker's words), due to
legal privilege the capitalist is in a position to charge a "fee"
for its use. This is because, with the working class legally barred
from both the land and available capital (the means of life), members
of that class have little option but to agree to wage contracts which
let capitalists extract a "fee" for the use of their equipment (see
section B.3.3).
Thus the capital-monopoly is, like the land monopoly, enforced by
the state and its laws. This is most clearly seen if you look at
the main form in which such capital is held today, the corporation.
This is nothing more than a legal construct. "Over the last 150
years," notes Joel Bakan, "the corporation has risen from relative
obscurity to becomes the world's dominant economic institution."
The law has been changed to give corporations "limited liability"
and other perks in order "to attract valuable incorporation business
. . . by jettisoning unpopular [to capitalists] restrictions from
. . . corporate laws." Finally, the courts "fully transformed the
corporation onto a 'person,' with its own identity . . . and
empowered, like a real person, to conduct business in its own name,
acquire assets, employ workers, pay taxes, and go to court to assert
its rights and defend its actions." In America, this was achieved
using the 14th Amendment (which was passed to end slavery!). In
summary, the corporation "is not an independent 'person' with
its own rights, needs, and desires . . . It is a state-created
tool for advancing social and economic policy." [The Corporation,
p. 5, p. 13, p. 16 and p. 158]
Nor can it be said that this monopoly is the product of hard work
and saving. The capital-monopoly is a recent development and how
this situation developed is usually ignored. If not glossed over as
irrelevant, some fairy tale is spun in which a few bright people
saved and worked hard to accumulate capital and the lazy majority
flocked to be employed by these (almost superhuman) geniuses. In
reality, the initial capital for investing in industry came from
wealth plundered from overseas or from the proceeds of feudal and
landlord exploitation. In addition, as we discuss in
section F.8,
extensive state intervention was required to create a class of wage
workers and ensure that capital was in the best position to exploit
them. This explicit state intervention was scaled down once the
capital-monopoly found its own feet.
Once this was achieved, state action became less explicit and becomes
focused around defending the capitalists' property rights. This is
because the "fee" charged to workers was partly reinvested into capital,
which reduced the prices of goods, ruining domestic industry and so
narrowing the options available to workers in the economy. In addition,
investment also increased the set-up costs of potential competitors,
which continued the dispossession of the working class from the means
of production as these "natural" barriers to entry into markets ensured
few members of that class had the necessary funds to create co-operative
workplaces of appropriate size. So while the land monopoly was essential
to create capitalism, the "tools and equipment" monopoly that sprang
from it soon became the mainspring of the system.
In this way usury became self-perpetuating, with apparently "free exchanges"
being the means by which capitalist domination survives. In other words,
"past initiations of force" combined with the current state protection of
property ensure that capitalist domination of society continues with only
the use of "defensive" force (i.e. violence used to protect the power of
property owners against unions, strikes, occupations, etc.). The "fees"
extracted from previous generations of workers has ensured that the
current one is in no position to re-unite itself with the means of life
by "free competition" (in other words, the paying of usury ensures that
usury continues). Needless to say, the surplus produced by this generation
will be used to increase the capital stock and so ensure the dispossession
of future generations and so usury becomes self-perpetuating. And, of course,
state protection of "property" against "theft" by working people ensures
that property remains theft and the real thieves keep their plunder.
As far as the "ideas" monopoly is concerned, this has been used to enrich
capitalist corporations at the expense of the general public and the
inventor. Patents make an astronomical price difference. Until the early
1970s, for example, Italy did not recognise drug patents. As a result,
Roche Products charged the British National Health Service over 40 times
more for patented components of Librium and Valium than charged by
competitors in Italy. As Tucker argued, the patent monopoly "consists
in protecting investors and authors against competition for a period
long enough to enable them to extort from the people a reward enormously
in excess of the labour measure of their services, -- in other words,
in giving certain people a right of property for a term of years and
facts of nature, and the power to extract tribute from others for
the use of this natural wealth which should be open to all." [The
Individualist Anarchists, p. 86]
The net effect of this can be terrible. The Uruguay Round of global
trade negotiations "strengthen intellectual property rights. American
and other Western drug companies could now stop drug companies in
India and Brazil from 'stealing' their intellectual property. But
these drug companies in the developing world were making these
life-saving drugs available to their citizens at a fraction of the
price at which the drugs were sold by the Western drug companies
. . . Profits of the Western drug companies would go up . . . but
the increases profits from sales in the developing world were small,
since few could afford the drugs . . . [and so] thousands were
effectively condemned to death, becomes governments and individuals
in developing countries could no longer pay the high prices demanded."
[Joseph Stiglitz, Globalisation and its discontents, pp. 7-8] While
international outrage over AIDS drugs eventually forced the drug
companies to sell the drugs at cost price in late 2001, the
underlying intellectual property rights regime was still in place.
The irony that this regime was created in a process allegedly
about trade liberalisation should not go unnoticed. "Intellectual
property rights," as Noam Chomsky correctly points out, "are a
protectionist measure, they have nothing to do with free trade
-- in fact, they're the exact opposite of free trade."
[Understanding Power, p. 282] The fundamental injustice of the
"ideas monopoly" is exacerbated by the fact that many of these
patented products are the result of government funding of research
and development, with private industry simply reaping monopoly
profits from technology it did not spend a penny to develop. In
fact, extending government aid for research and development is
considered an important and acceptable area of state intervention
by governments and companies verbally committed to the neo-liberal
agenda.
The "ideas monopoly" actually works against its own rationale. Patents
suppress innovation as much as they encourage it. The research scientists
who actually do the work of inventing are required to sign over patent
rights as a condition of employment, while patents and industrial security programs used to bolster competitive advantage on the market actually
prevent the sharing of information, so reducing innovation (this evil is
being particularly felt in universities as the new "intellectual property
rights" regime is spreading there). Further research stalls as the
incremental innovation based on others' patents is hindered while the
patent holder can rest on their laurels as they have no fear of a
competitor improving the invention. They also hamper technical progress
because, by their very nature, preclude the possibility of independent
discovery. Also, of course, some companies own a patent explicitly not
to use it but simply to prevent someone else from so doing.
As Noam Chomsky notes, today trade agreements like GATT and NAFTA "impose
a mixture of liberalisation and protection, going far beyond trade,
designed to keep wealth and power firmly in the hands of the masters."
Thus "investor rights are to be protected and enhanced" and a key
demand "is increased protection for 'intellectual property,' including
software and patents, with patent rights extending to process as well
as product" in order to "ensure that US-based corporations control
the technology of the future" and so "locking the poor majority
into dependence on high-priced products of Western agribusiness,
biotechnology, the pharmaceutical industry and so on." [World Orders,
Old and New, p. 183, p. 181 and pp. 182-3] This means that if a
company discovers a new, more efficient, way of producing a drug
then the "ideas monopoly" will stop them and so "these are not only
highly protectionist measures . . . they're a blow against economic
efficiency and technological process -- that just shows you how much
'free trade' really is involved in all of this." [Chomsky, Understanding
Power, p. 282]
All of which means that the corporations (and their governments) in
the developed world are trying to prevent emergence of competition by
controlling the flow of technology to others. The "free trade"
agreements are being used to create monopolies for their products
and this will either block or slow down the rise of competition. While
corporate propagandists piously denounce "anti-globalisation" activists
as enemies of the developing world, seeking to use trade barriers to
maintain their (Western) lifestyles at the expense of the poor nations,
the reality is different. The "ideas monopoly" is being aggressively
used to either suppress or control the developing world's economic
activity in order to keep the South as, effectively, one big sweatshop.
As well as reaping monopoly profits directly, the threat of "low-wage"
competition from the developing world can be used to keep the wage
slaves of the developed world in check and so maintain profit levels
at home.
This is not all. Like other forms of private property, the usury
produced by it helps ensure it becomes self-perpetuating. By creating
"legal" absolute monopolies and reaping the excess profits these
create, capitalists not only enrich themselves at the expense of
others, they also ensure their dominance in the market. Some of
the excess profits reaped due to patents and copyrights are invested
back into the company, securing advantages by creating various
"natural" barriers to entry for potential competitors. Thus patents
impact on business structure, encouraging the formation and dominance
of big business.
Looking at the end of the nineteenth century, the ideas monopoly played
a key role in promoting cartels and, as a result, laid the foundation
for what was to become corporate capitalism in the twentieth century.
Patents were used on a massive scale to promote concentration of capital,
erect barriers to entry, and maintain a monopoly of advanced technology
in the hands of western corporations. The exchange or pooling of patents
between competitors, historically, has been a key method for the creation
of cartels in industry. This was true especially of the electrical
appliance, communications, and chemical industries. For example, by
the 1890s, two large companies, General Electric and Westinghouse,
"monopolised a substantial part of the American electrical manufacturing
industry, and their success had been in large measure the result of
patent control." The two competitors simply pooled their patents and
"yet another means of patent and market control had developed: corporate
patent-pooling agreements. Designed to minimise the expense and
uncertainties of conflict between the giants, they greatly reinforced
the position of each vis-à-vis lesser competitors and new entrants into
the field." [David Noble, American By Design, p. 10]
While the patent system is, in theory, promoted to defend the small
scale inventor, in reality it is corporate interests that benefit. As
David Noble points out, the "inventor, the original focus of the patent
system, tended to increasingly to 'abandon' his patent in exchange for
corporate security; he either sold or licensed his patent rights to
industrial corporations or assigned them to the company of which
he became an employee, bartering his genius for a salary. In addition,
by means of patent control gained through purchase, consolidation,
patent pools, and cross-licensing agreements, as well as by regulated
patent production through systematic industrial research, the
corporations steadily expanded their 'monopoly of monopolies.'"
As well as this, corporations used "patents to circumvent anti-trust
laws." This reaping of monopoly profits at the expense of the customer
made such "tremendous strides" between 1900 and 1929 and "were of such
proportions as to render subsequent judicial and legislative effects
to check corporate monopoly through patent control too little too late."
[Op. Cit., p. 87, p. 84 and p. 88]
Things have changed little since Edwin Prindle, a corporate patent lawyer,
wrote in 1906 that:
Thus, the ruling class, by means of the state, is continually trying
to develop new forms of private property by creating artificial
scarcities and monopolies, e.g. by requiring expensive licenses to
engage in particular types of activities, such as broadcasting or
producing certain kinds of medicines or products. In the "Information
Age," usury (use fees) from intellectual property are becoming a much
more important source of income for elites, as reflected in the
attention paid to strengthening mechanisms for enforcing copyright
and patents in the recent GATT agreements, or in US pressure on foreign
countries (like China) to respect such laws.
This allows corporations to destroy potential competitors and ensure
that their prices can be set as high as possible (and monopoly profits
maintained indefinitely). It also allows them to enclose ever more of
the common inheritance of humanity, place it under private ownership
and charge the previous users money to gain access to it. As Chomsky
notes, "U.S. corporations must control seeds, plant varieties, drugs,
and the means of life generally." [World Orders, Old and New, p. 183]
This has been termed "bio-piracy" (a better term may be the new
enclosures) and it is a process by which "international companies
[are] patenting traditional medicines or foods." They "seek to make
money from 'resources' and knowledge that rightfully belongs to the
developing countries" and "in so doing, they squelch domestic firms
that have long provided the products. While it is not clear whether
these patents would hold up in court if they were effectively
challenged, it is clear that the less developed countries many not
have the legal and financial resources required to challenge the
patent." [Joseph Stiglitz, Op. Cit., p. 246] They may also not
withstand the economic pressures they may experience if the
international markets conclude that such acts indicate a regime
that is less that business friendly. That the people who were
dependent on the generic drugs or plants can no longer afford them
is as irrelevant as the impediments to scientific and technological
advance they create.
In other words, capitalists desire to skew the "free market" in their
favour by ensuring that the law reflects and protects their interests,
namely their "property rights." By this process they ensure that
co-operative tendencies within society are crushed by state-supported
"market forces." As Noam Chomsky puts it, modern capitalism is "state
protection and public subsidy for the rich, market discipline for the
poor." ["Rollback, Part I", Z Magazine] Self-proclaimed defenders of
"free market" capitalism are usually nothing of the kind, while the few
who actually support it only object to the "public subsidy" aspect of
modern capitalism and happily support state protection for property
rights.
All these monopolies seek to enrich the capitalist (and increase their
capital stock) at the expense of working people, to restrict their ability
to undermine the ruling elites power and wealth. All aim to ensure that any
option we have to work for ourselves (either individually or collectively)
is restricted by tilting the playing field against us, making sure that we
have little option but to sell our labour on the "free market" and be
exploited. In other words, the various monopolies make sure that "natural"
barriers to entry (see
section C.4) are created, leaving the heights of
the economy in the control of big business while alternatives to capitalism
are marginalised at its fringes.
So it is these kinds of property and the authoritarian social relationships
that they create which the state exists to protect. It should be noted that
converting private to state ownership (i.e. nationalisation) does not
fundamentally change the nature of property relationships; it just
removes private capitalists and replaces them with bureaucrats (as we
discuss in section B.3.5).
This occurs because property, in Proudhon words, "excommunicates"
the working class. This means that private property creates a class
of people who have no choice but to work for a boss in order to pay
the landlord rent or buy the goods they, as a class, produce but do
not own. The state enforces property rights in land, workplaces
and so on, meaning that the owner can bar others from using them and
enforce their rules on those they do let use "their" property. So
the boss "gives you a job; that is, permission to work in the factory
or mill which was not built by him but by other workers like yourself.
And for that permission you help to support him for . . . as long as
you work for him." [Alexander Berkman, What is Anarchism?, p. 14]
This is called wage labour and is, for anarchists, the defining
characteristic of capitalism.
This class of people who are dependent on wages to survive was
sometimes called the "proletariat" by nineteenth century anarchists.
Today most anarchists usually call it the "working class" as most
workers in modern capitalist nations are wage workers rather than
peasants or artisans (i.e. self-employed workers who are also
exploited by the private property system, but in different ways).
It should also be noted that property used in this way (i.e. to
employ and exploit other people's labour) is also called "capital"
by anarchists and other socialists. Thus, for anarchists, private
property generates a class system, a regime in which the few, due
to their ownership of wealth and the means of producing it, rule
over the many who own very little (see
section B.7 for more
discussion of classes).
This ensures that the few can profit from the work of others:
"Can you guess now why the wisdom of Proudhon said that the
possessions of the rich are stolen property? Stolen from the
producer, the worker." [Berkman, Op. Cit., pp. 7-8]
Thus the daily theft/exploitation associated with capitalism is
dependent on the distribution of wealth and private property (i.e.
the initial theft of the means of life, the land, workplaces
and housing by the owning class). Due to the dispossession of the
vast majority of the population from the means of life, capitalists
are in an ideal position to charge a "use-fee" for the capital they
own, but neither produced nor use. Having little option, workers agree
to contracts within which they forfeit their autonomy during work and
the product of that work. This results in capitalists having access
to a "commodity" (labour) that can potentially produce more value
than it gets paid for in wages.
For this situation to arise, for wage labour to exist, workers must
not own or control the means of production they use. As a consequence,
are controlled by those who do own the means of production they use
during work hours. As their labour is owned by their boss and as
labour cannot be separated from the person who does it, the boss
effectively owns the worker for the duration of the working day and,
as a consequence, exploitation becomes possible. This is because
during working hours, the owner can dictate (within certain limits
determined by worker resistance and solidarity as well as objective
conditions, such as the level of unemployment within an industry or
country) the organisation, level, duration, conditions, pace and
intensity of work, and so the amount of output (which the owner
has sole rights over even though they did not produce it).
Thus the "fee" (or "surplus value") is created by owners paying
workers less than the full value added by their labour to the
products or services they create for the firm. The capitalist's
profit is thus the difference between this "surplus value,"
created by and appropriated from labour, minus the firm's overhead
and cost of raw materials (See also section C.2 --
"Where do profits come from?").
So property is exploitative because it allows a surplus to be
monopolised by the owners. Property creates hierarchical
relationships within the workplace (the "tools and equipment
monopoly" might better be called the "power monopoly") and as
in any hierarchical system, those with the power use it to
protect and further their own interests at the expense of
others. Within the workplace there is resistance by workers
to this oppression and exploitation, which the "hierarchical
. . . relations of the capitalist enterprise are designed to
resolve this conflict in favour of the representatives of
capital." [William Lazonick, Op. Cit., p. 184]
Needless to say, the state is always on hand to protect the rights of
property and management against the actions of the dispossessed. When
it boils down to it, it is the existence of the state as protector of
the "power monopoly" that allows it to exist at all.
So, capitalists are able to appropriate this surplus value from workers
solely because they own the means of production, not because they earn it
by doing productive work themselves. Of course some capitalists may also
contribute to production, in which case they are in fairness entitled to
the amount of value added to the firm's output by their own labour; but
owners typically pay themselves much more than this, and are able to
do so because the state guarantees them that right as property owners
(which is unsurprising, as they alone have knowledge of the firms inputs
and outputs and, like all people in unaccountable positions, abuse that
power -- which is partly why anarchists support direct democracy as the
essential counterpart of free agreement, for no one in power can be trusted
not to prefer their own interests over those subject to their decisions).
And of course many capitalists hire managers to run their businesses for
them, thus collecting income for doing nothing except owning.
Capitalists' profits, then, are a form of state-supported exploitation.
This is equally true of the interest collected by bankers and rents
collected by landlords. Without some form of state, these forms of
exploitation would be impossible, as the monopolies on which they depend
could not be maintained. For instance, in the absence of state troops
and police, workers would simply take over and operate factories for
themselves, thus preventing capitalists from appropriating an unjust
share of the surplus they create.
To get round this problem, Nozick utilises the work of Locke ("The Lockean
Proviso") which can be summarised as:
However, there are numerous flaws in this theory. Most obvious is
why does the mixing of something you own (labour) with something
owned by all (or unowned) turn it in your property? Surely it would
be as likely to simply mean that you have lost the labour you have
expended (for example, few would argue that you owned a river
simply because you swam or fished in it). Even if we assume the
validity of the argument and acknowledge that by working on a
piece of land creates ownership, why assume that this ownership
must be based on capitalist property rights? Many cultures
have recognised no such "absolute" forms of property, admitted
the right of property in what is produced but not the land itself.
As such, the assumption that expending labour turns the soil into
private property does not automatically hold. You could equally argue
the opposite, namely that labour, while producing ownership of the
goods created, does not produce property in land, only possession.
In the words of Proudhon:
"To change possession into property, something is needed besides
labour, without which a man would cease to be proprietor as soon
as he ceased to be a laborer. Now, the law bases property upon
immemorial, unquestionable possession; that is, prescription.
Labour is only the sensible sign, the physical act, by which
occupation is manifested. If, then, the cultivator remains
proprietor after he has ceased to labor and produce; if his
possession, first conceded, then tolerated, finally becomes
inalienable, -- it happens by permission of the civil law, and
by virtue of the principle of occupancy. So true is this, that
there is not a bill of sale, not a farm lease, not an annuity,
but implies it . . .
"Man has created every thing -- every thing save the material
itself. Now, I maintain that this material he can only possess
and use, on condition of permanent labor, -- granting, for the
time being, his right of property in things which he has produced.
"This, then, is the first point settled: property in product, if
we grant so much, does not carry with it property in the means of
production; that seems to me to need no further demonstration.
There is no difference between the soldier who possesses his arms,
the mason who possesses the materials committed to his care, the
fisherman who possesses the water, the hunter who possesses the
fields and forests, and the cultivator who possesses the lands: all,
if you say so, are proprietors of their products -- not one is
proprietor of the means of production. The right to product is
exclusive --jus in re; the right to means is common --
jus ad rem." [What is Property?, pp. 120-1]
Proudhon's argument has far more historical validity than Nozick's.
Common ownership of land combined with personal use has been the
dominant form of property rights for tens of thousands of years
while Nozick's "natural law" theory dates back to Locke's work
in the seventh century (itself an attempt to defend the encroachment
of capitalist norms of ownership over previous common law ones).
Nozick's theory only appears valid because we live in a society
where the dominant form of property rights are capitalist. As
such, Nozick is begging the question -- he is assuming the thing
he is trying to prove.
Ignoring these obvious issues, what of Nozick's actual argument?
The first thing to note is that it is a fairy tale, it is a myth.
The current property system and its distribution of resources and
ownership rights is a product of thousands of years of conflict,
coercion and violence. As such, given Nozick's arguments, it is
illegitimate and the current owners have no right to deprive others
of access to them or to object to taxation or expropriation. However,
it is precisely this conclusion which Nozick seeks to eliminate
by means of his story. By presenting an ahistoric thought experiment,
he hopes to convince the reader to ignore the actual history of
property in order to defend the current owners of property from
redistribution. Nozick's theory is only taken seriously because,
firstly, it assumes the very thing it is trying to justify (i.e.
capitalist property rights) and, as such, has a superficial
coherence as a result and, secondly, it has obvious political
utility for the rich.
The second thing to note is that the argument itself is deeply
flawed. To see why, take (as an example) two individuals who
share land in common. Nozick allows for one individual to claim
the land as their own as long as the "process normally giving
rise to a permanent bequeathable property right in a previously
unowned thing will not do so if the position of others no longer
at liberty to use the thing is therefore worsened." [Anarchy,
State and Utopia, p. 178] Given this, one of our two land sharers
can appropriate the land as long as they can provide the other
with a wage greater than what they were originally producing.
If this situation is achieved then, according to Nozick, the
initial appropriation was just and so are all subsequent market
exchanges. In this way, the unowned world becomes owned and a
market system based on capitalist property rights in productive
resources (the land) and labour develop.
Interestingly, for a ideology that calls itself "libertarian"
Nozick's theory defines "worse off" in terms purely of material
welfare, compared to the conditions that existed within the society
based upon common use. However, the fact is if one person appropriated
the land that the other cannot live off the remaining land then we
have a problem. The other person has no choice but to agree to become
employed by the landowner. The fact that the new land owner offers the
other a wage to work their land that exceeds what the new wage slave
originally produced may meet the "Lockean Proviso" misses the point.
The important issue is that the new wage slave has no option but to
work for another and, as a consequence, becomes subject to that
person's authority. In other words, being "worse off" in terms
of liberty (i.e. autonomy or self-government) is irrelevant for
Nozick, a very telling position to take.
Nozick claims to place emphasis on self-ownership in his ideology
because we are separate individuals, each with our own life to lead.
It is strange, therefore, to see that Nozick does not emphasise
people's ability to act on their own conception of themselves in
his account of appropriation. Indeed, there is no objection to an
appropriation that puts someone in an unnecessary and undesirable
position of subordination and dependence on the will of others.
Notice that the fact that individuals are now subject to the decisions
of other individuals is not considered by Nozick in assessing the
fairness of the appropriation. The fact that the creation of private
property results in the denial of important freedoms for wage slaves
(namely, the wage slave has no say over the status of the land they
had been utilising and no say over how their labour is used). Before
the creation of private property, all managed their own work, had
self-government in all aspects of their lives. After the appropriation,
the new wage slave has no such liberty and indeed must accept the
conditions of employment within which they relinquish control over
how they spend much of their time. That this is issue is irrelevant
for the Lockean Proviso shows how concerned about liberty capitalism
actually is.
Considering Nozick's many claims in favour of self-ownership and why
it is important, you would think that the autonomy of the newly
dispossessed wage slaves would be important to him. However, no such
concern is to be found -- the autonomy of wage slaves is treated as if
it were irrelevant. Nozick claims that a concern for people's freedom to
lead their own lives underlies his theory of unrestricted property-rights,
but, this apparently does not apply to wage slaves. His justification
for the creation of private property treats only the autonomy of the
land owner as relevant. However, as Proudhon rightly argues:
The implications of Nozick's argument become clear once we move
beyond the initial acts of appropriation to the situation of a
developed capitalist economy. In such a situation, all of the
available useful land has been appropriated. There is massive
differences in who owns what and these differences are passed on
to the next generation. Thus we have a (minority) class of people
who own the world and a class of people (the majority) who can
only gain access to the means of life on terms acceptable to the
former. How can the majority really be said to own themselves if
they may do nothing without the permission of others (the owning
minority).
Under capitalism people are claimed to own themselves, but this is
purely formal as most people do not have independent access to resources.
And as they have to use other peoples' resources, they become under the
control of those who own the resources. In other words, private property
reduces the autonomy of the majority of the population and creates a
regime of authority which has many similarities to enslavement. As John
Stuart Mill put it:
Capitalism, even though claiming formal self-ownership, in fact not only
restricts the self-determination of working class people, it also makes
them a resource for others. Those who enter the market after others
have appropriated all the available property are limited to charity or
working for others. The latter, as we discuss in
section C, results in
exploitation as the worker's labour is used to enrich others. Working
people are compelled to co-operate with the current scheme of property
and are forced to benefit others. This means that self-determination
requires resources as well as rights over one's physical and mental
being. Concern for self-determination (i.e. meaningful self-ownership)
leads us to common property plus workers' control of production and so
some form of libertarian socialism - not private property and
capitalism.
And, of course, the appropriation of the land requires a state to
defend it against the dispossessed as well as continuous interference
in people's lives. Left to their own devices, people would freely use
the resources around them which they considered unjustly appropriated
by others and it is only continuous state intervention that prevents
then from violating Nozick's principles of justice (to use Nozick's own
terminology, the "Lockean Proviso" is a patterned theory, his claims
otherwise not withstanding).
In addition, we should note that private ownership by one person presupposes
non-ownership by others ("we who belong to the proletaire class, property
excommunicates us!" [Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 105]) and so the "free market"
restricts as well as creates liberties just as any other economic system.
Hence the claim that capitalism constitutes "economic liberty" is obviously
false. In fact, it is based upon denying liberty for the vast majority
during work hours (as well as having serious impacts on liberty outwith
work hours due to the effects of concentrations of wealth upon society).
Perhaps Nozick can claim that the increased material benefits of private
property makes the acquisition justified. However, it seems strange that
a theory supporting "liberty" should consider well off slaves to be better
than poor free men and women. As Nozick claims that the wage slaves consent
is not required for the initial acquisition, so perhaps he can claim that
the gain in material welfare outweighs the loss of autonomy and so allows
the initial act as an act of paternalism. But as Nozick opposes paternalism
when it restricts private property rights he can hardly invoke it when
it is required to generate these rights. And if we exclude paternalism
and emphasise autonomy (as Nozick claims he does elsewhere in his theory),
then justifying the initial creation of private property becomes much more
difficult, if not impossible.
And if each owner's title to their property includes the historical
shadow of the Lockean Proviso on appropriation, then such titles are
invalid. Any title people have over unequal resources will be qualified
by the facts that "property is theft" and that "property is despotism."
The claim that private property is economic liberty is obviously untrue,
as is the claim that private property can be justified in terms of
anything except "might is right."
In summary, "[i]f the right of life is equal, the right of labour is
equal, and so is the right of occupancy." This means that "those who
do not possess today are proprietors by the same title as those who
do possess; but instead of inferring therefrom that property should be
shared by all, I demand, in the name of general security, its entire
abolition." [Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 77 and p. 66] Simply put, if it
is right for the initial appropriation of resources to be made then,
by that very same reason, it is right for others in the same and
subsequent generations to abolish private property in favour of a
system which respects the liberty of all rather than a few.
For more anarchist analysis on private property and why it cannot be
justified (be it by occupancy, labour, natural right, or whatever)
consult Proudhon's classic work What is Property?. For further
discussion on capitalist property rights see section F.4.
State ownership should not be confused with the common or public
ownership implied by the concept of "use rights." The state is a
hierarchical instrument of coercion and, as we discussed in
section B.2, is marked by power being concentrated in a few hands.
As the general populate is, by design, excluded from decision
making within it this means that the state apparatus has control
over the property in question. As the general public and those who
use a piece of property are excluded from controlling it, state
property is identical to private property. Instead of capitalists
owning it, the state bureaucracy does.
This can easily be seen from the example of such so-called "socialist"
states as the Soviet Union or China. To show why, we need only quote
a market socialist who claims that China is not capitalist. According
to David Schweickart a society is capitalist if, "[i]n order to gain
access to means of production (without which no one can work), most
people must contract with people who own (or represent the owners of)
such means. In exchange for a wage of a salary, they agree to supply
the owners with a certain quantity and quality of labour. It is a
crucial characteristic of the institution of wage labour that the
goods or services produced do not belong to the workers who produce
them but to those who supply the workers with the means of production."
[After Capitalism, p. 23]
Anarchists agree with Schweickart's definition of capitalism. As such,
he is right to argue that a "society of small farmers and artisans . . .
is not a capitalist society, since wage labour is largely absent." He
is, however, wrong to assert that a "society in which most of [the]
means of production are owned by the central government or by local
communities -- contemporary China, for example -- is not a capitalist
society, since private ownership of the means of production is not
dominant." [Op. Cit., p. 23]
The reason is apparent. As Emma Goldman said (pointing out the
obvious), if property is nationalised "it belongs to the state;
this is, the government has control of it and can dispose of it
according to its wishes and views . . . Such a condition of affairs
may be called state capitalism, but it would be fantastic to consider
it in any sense Communistic" (as that needs the "socialisation of the
land and of the machinery of production and distribution" which
"belong[s] to the people, to be settled and used by individuals or
groups according to their needs" based on "free access"). [Red Emma
Speaks, pp. 406-7]
Thus, by Schweickart's own definition, a system based on state
ownership is capitalist as the workers clearly do not own the own
means of production they use, the state does. Neither do they own the
goods or services they produce, the state which supplies the workers
with the means of production does. The difference is that rather
than being a number of different capitalists there is only one,
the state. It is, as Kropotkin warned, the "mere substitution . . .
of the State as the universal capitalist for the present capitalists."
[Evolution and Environment, p. 106] This is why anarchists have
tended to call such regimes "state capitalist" as the state basically
replaces the capitalist as boss.
While this is most clear for regimes like China's which are
dictatorships, the logic also applies to democratic states. No matter
if a state is democratic, state ownership is a form of exclusive
property ownership which implies a social relationship which is
totally different from genuine forms of socialism. Common ownership
and use rights produce social relationships based on liberty and
equality. State ownership, however, presupposes the existence of a
government machine, a centralised bureaucracy, which stands above
the members of society, both as individuals and as a group, and
has the power to coerce and dominate them. In other words, when a
state owns the means of life, the members of society remain
proletarians, non-owners, excluded from control. Both legally and
in reality, the means of life belong not to them, but to the state.
As the state is not an abstraction floating above society but rather
a social institution made up of a specific group of human beings,
this means that this group controls and so effectively owns the
property in question, not society as a whole nor those who actually
use it. Just as the owning class excludes the majority, so does the
state bureaucracy which means it owns the means of production,
whether or not this is formally and legally recognised.
This explains why libertarian socialists have consistently stressed
workers' self-management of production as the basis of any real form
of socialism. To concentrate on ownership, as both Leninism and social
democracy have done, misses the point. Needless to say, those regimes
which have replaced capitalist ownership with state property have shown
the validity the anarchist analysis in these matters ("all-powerful,
centralised Government with State Capitalism as its economic expression,"
to quote Emma Goldman's summation of Lenin's Russia [Op. Cit., p. 388]).
State property is in no way fundamentally different from private property
-- all that changes is who exploits and oppresses the workers.
For more discussion see section H.3.13 --
"Why is state socialism just
state capitalism?"
B.3.1 What is the difference between private property and possession?
Anarchists define "private property" (or just "property," for short)
as state-protected monopolies of certain objects or privileges which
are used to control and exploit others. "Possession," on the other
hand, is ownership of things that are not used to exploit others
(e.g. a car, a refrigerator, a toothbrush, etc.). Thus many things
can be considered as either property or possessions depending on how
they are used.
"The proprietor is a man who, having absolute control of an instrument
of production, claims the right to enjoy the product of the instrument
without using it himself. To this end he lends it." [Op. Cit., p. 293]
"Originally the word property was synonymous with proper or
individual possession. It designated each individual's special
right to the use of a thing. But when this right of use . . .
became active and paramount -- that is, when the usufructuary
converted his right to personally use the thing into the right
to use it by his neighbour's labour -- then property changed
its nature and this idea became complex." [Op. Cit., pp. 395-6]
"Possession is a right; property is against right. Suppress property
while maintaining possession." [Op. Cit., p. 271]
B.3.2 What kinds of property does the state protect?
Kropotkin argued that the state was "the instrument for establishing
monopolies in favour of the ruling minorities." [Anarchism, p. 286]
In every system of class exploitation, a ruling class controls access
to the means of production in order to extract tribute from labour.
Capitalism is no exception. In this system the state maintains various
kinds of "class monopolies" (to use Tucker's phrase) to ensure that
workers do not receive their "natural wage," the full product of
their labour. While some of these monopolies are obvious (such as
tariffs, state granted market monopolies and so on), most are "behind
the scenes" and work to ensure that capitalist domination does not
need extensive force to maintain.
(1) the power to issue credit and currency, the basis of
capitalist banking;
(2) land and buildings, the basis of landlordism;
(3) productive tools and equipment, the basis of
industrial capitalism;
(4) ideas and inventions, the basis of copyright and
patent ("intellectual property") royalties.
"Patents are the best and most effective means of controlling competition.
They occasionally give absolute command of the market, enabling their
owner to name the price without regard to the cost of production. . .
Patents are the only legal form of absolute monopoly . . . The power
which a patentee has to dictate the conditions under which his monopoly
may be exercised had been used to form trade agreements throughout
practically entire industries." [quoted by Noble, Op. Cit., p. 89]
B.3.3 Why is property exploitative?
To answer this question, consider the monopoly of productive "tools
and equipment." This monopoly, obtained by the class of industrial
capitalists, allows this class in effect to charge workers a "fee"
for the privilege of using the monopolised tools and equipment.
"In the capitalist system the working man cannot [in general]
work for himself . . . So . . . you must find an employer. You
work for him . . . In the capitalist system the whole working
class sells its labour power to the employing class. The workers
build factories, make machinery and tools, and produce goods.
The employers keep the factories, the machinery, the tools and
the goods for themselves as their profit. The workers only get
their wages . . . Though the workers, as a class, have built the
factories, a slice of their daily labour is taken from them for
the privilege of using those factories . . . Though the workers
have made the tools and the machinery, another slice of their
daily labour is taken from them for the privilege of using
those tools and machinery . . .
B.3.4 Can private property be justified?
No. Even though a few supporters of capitalism recognise that private
property, particularly in land, was created by the use of force, most
maintain that private property is just. One common defence of private
property is found in the work of Robert Nozick (a supporter of "free
market" capitalism). For Nozick, the use of force makes acquisition
illegitimate and so any current title to the property is illegitimate
(in other words, theft and trading in stolen goods does not make
ownership of these goods legal). So, if the initial acquisition of
land was illegitimate then all current titles are also illegitimate.
And since private ownership of land is the basis of capitalism,
capitalism itself would be rendered illegal.
1. People own themselves and, consequently, their labour.
2. The world is initially owned in common (or unowned in Nozick's
case.)
3. By working on common (or unowned) resources, people turn it
into their own property because they own their own labour.
4. You can acquire absolute rights over a larger than average
share in the world, if you do not worsen the condition of
others.
5. Once people have appropriated private property, a free market
in capital and labour is morally required.
"I maintain that the possessor is paid for his trouble and
industry . . . but that he acquires no right to the land. 'Let
the labourer have the fruits of his labour.' Very good; but I do
not understand that property in products carries with it property
in raw material. Does the skill of the fisherman, who on the same
coast can catch more fish than his fellows, make him proprietor
of the fishing-grounds? Can the expertness of a hunter ever be
regarded as a property-title to a game-forest? The analogy is
perfect, -- the industrious cultivator finds the reward of his
industry in the abundancy and superiority of his crop. If he has
made improvements in the soil, he has the possessor's right of
preference. Never, under any circumstances, can he be allowed to
claim a property-title to the soil which he cultivates, on the
ground of his skill as a cultivator.
"if the liberty of man is sacred, it is equally sacred in all
individuals; that, if it needs property for its objective action,
that is, for its life, the appropriation of material is equally
necessary for all . . . Does it not follow that if one individual
cannot prevent another . . . from appropriating an amount of material
equal to his own, no more can he prevent individuals to come."
[Op. Cit., pp. 84-85]
"No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority
are so by force of property; they are still chained to a place, to an
occupation, and to conformity with the will of an employer, and debarred
by the accident of birth to both the enjoyments, and from the mental and
moral advantages, which others inherit without exertion and independently
of desert. That this is an evil equal to almost any of those against
which mankind have hitherto struggles, the poor are not wrong in
believing." ["Chapters on Socialism", Principles of Political
Economy, pp. 377-8]
B.3.5 Is state owned property different from private property?
No, far from it.