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Title: Letters on “property is despotism” Author: Anarcho Date: March 3, 2009 Language: en Topics: anarcho-capitalism, Freedom Press, letter, property Source: Retrieved on 29th January 2021 from https://anarchism.pageabode.com/?p=217 Notes: A couple of letters in reply to an “anarcho”-capitalist who wrote to Freedom. Sadly, the person in question used to consider himself a mutualist, before leaving anarchism for propertarianism. As can be expected, he fails to consider the authoritarian aspects of private property, something anarchists have been pointing out since (at least) 1840.
Dear Freedom
Richard Garner’s letter (Freedom, 21^(st) April) raised some interesting
questions.
He states that under his system there would be no “group issues” and so
the “problem ... lies not with anarchism but with communism.” Taken
literally, of course, this implies that Garner’s version of “anarchy”
there would be no forms of association at all. No groups, no families,
no clubs: nothing bar the isolated individual. It implies no economic
activity bar peasant farming and one-person artisan workplaces. Why?
Simply because any form of organisation implies “group issues.” Two
people deciding to live together or three people working together
becomes a group, twenty people forming a football club becomes a group.
And these people have joint interests and so group issues. In other
words, Mr. Garner is implying a social situation that has never existed
nor ever will.
I doubt he is suggesting this. Like any society, his particular form of
“anarchy” will have groups. Now, Mr. Garner is right to state that
“anarchism, is not, has not always been, and need not always be
communist.” But it has been, has always been and will always be
socialist. Anarchists like Proudhon, Tucker and Bakunin rejected
communism but called themselves socialists. They opposed capitalism,
they opposed profit, rent and interest as exploitation. Their ideas
automatically suggest workers’ self-management of production and so the
end of wage slavery (i.e. capitalism). Proudhon and Bakunin stated this
explicitly, Tucker’s ideas logically imply it.
There are two ways of having a group. You can be an association of
equals, governing yourselves collectively as regards collective issues.
Or you can have capitalists and wage slaves, bosses and servants,
government and governed. As Proudhon put it, “either the workman... will
be simply the employee of the proprietor-capitalist-promoter; or he will
participate... he will become an associate.” He stressed that “in the
first case the workman is subordinated, exploited: his permanent
condition is one of obedience” and “in the second case he resumes his
dignity as a man and citizen... he forms part of the producing
organisation, of which he was before but the slave; as, in the town, he
forms part of the sovereign power, of which he was before but the
subject ... we need not hesitate, for we have no choice... it is
necessary to form an ASSOCIATION among workers ... because without that,
they would remain related as subordinates and superiors, and there would
ensue two ... castes of masters and wage-workers, which is repugnant to
a free and democratic society.”
Simply put, anarchism is based on self-management of group issues, not
in their denial. Mr. Garner, by arguing that “group issues” will not
exist in his form of “anarchy” shows that it is not anarchist. He is an
“anarcho”-capitalist, a supporter of the authority of the property owner
over the worker and the tenant. In other words, private statism.
This private statism can be extreme. Henry Ford, for example, employed
over three thousand private police and had his own spies (organised by
his own secret police). He ensured that his employees were denied
freedom of association (no unions), speech (no talking union) and so on.
He, like other employers, could employ various private police to enforce
their rule over their property. Yes, indeed, no “group issues” existed,
only Ford’s dictatorship. As Proudhon argued, “property is despotism.”
In the “anarcho”-capitalist perspective, Ford’s workers were not
oppressed or exploited. They were totally and utterly free as they could
leave the company and join another. Which also means that Mr. Garner is
totally free — he can leave the U.K. at any time and join another state.
No one forces him to say here. He even presents a country (Somalia)
which approaches his vision. That he does not go to it implies he is
happy with his current landlord (the U.K. state). “Anarcho”-capitalism
exists to justify tyranny by arguing that private power and authority do
not count. Sadly, its faulty logic equally applies to the state.
Let us look at his example of Somalia. Ironically, Somali may be an
example of “anarchy” working, but it is not capitalist.
I visited the webpage he gave. It is by a group aiming at “economic
government” (and I had always thought anarchists were against
government. Apparently “private police” enforcing private power and
authority is freedom). It discusses how Somalia does not have a “central
government” but indicate that it has tribal structures. As they put it,
“Africa’s tribal governments are organised as follows. In each village
one finds a chief... The role of the chief is to execute the decisions
of the Council of Elders, who, in turn, must seek the consensus of the
village assembly.” Yet in his letter, Mr. Garner explained how communes,
assemblies and consensus do not work. How strange, then, that his
example of an “anarcho”-capitalist society is one marked by the
institutions on which communist-anarchism is based!
Indeed, rather than being an individualist society, it is based on
“group issues,” namely those of the tribe/clan as well as the family:
“Compensations and fines are not due to the victim, but to his family,
just as they are not paid by the criminal ... but by his family.”
Nor is it capitalist. It is based on collective ownership of land: “Land
is allotted by the tribe to individuals and subject to private grazing
rights. There are no tribal laws against freedom of contract and
voluntary exchange, except that in some tribes or clans tribal land
cannot be owned by people from another tribe.” It also has “public”
watering places (access determined by custom).
Ironically, for a political theory so in love with property,
“anarcho”-capitalists do not really analyse it in any depth. They do not
realise that different societies have different definitions of property
and that different societies generate different social relationships
based on these different forms of property. Somalia tribal society is
based on common (tribal) ownership of land, with individuals given use
rights over specific parts of it.
There is a danger for the people of Somali. The webpage argues that “the
only way of letting the Somalis travel the way to peace and prosperity
is by establishing a small model country in their midst, populated with
dynamic foreign businessmen who base themselves on the fundamentals of
Somali society.” I doubt that these businessmen will base themselves on
common ownership of land or on tribal assemblies (history shows that the
bourgeoisie always destroys popular assemblies in favour of centralised
government). These businessmen will desire to own land and hire workers,
so turning themselves into the masters of Somali. Property will generate
despotism and theft.
Mr. Garner quotes the webpage as stating “the Somalis have a holy
respect for private property.” As Stirner argued, “Property in the Civic
sense means sacred property, such that I must respect your property...
Be it ever so little, if one only has somewhat of his own — to wit, a
respected property! ... in practice people respect nothing and every day
the small possessions are bought up again by greater proprietors, and
the ‘free people’ change into day labourers.” If Somali is turned into a
capitalist nation, then this will be the means. Sacred property will
ensure real people are sacrificed to the new god, the market.
The Somali people are at a turning point. Either they strengthen their
communal assemblies and ownership or they will break down to be replaced
by rule by the rich. This process has constantly been at work in history
(see Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid for details). Somali may be stateless, but
it is so because it is not capitalist. Once capitalist property
dominates, the state will develop. It may be private bosses hiring their
own police or it may be a public state, but a state will appear to
enforce the power of property owners over their property (land) and
those who use it.
Anarchism and capitalism are incompatible, as history and logic show.
Iain
Dear Freedom
Mr. Garner asks Nel two questions. Firstly, would an anarcho-communist
society “permit workers to exchange their labour amongst themselves.”
Secondly, would such a society ban capitalist acts between consenting
adults.
Well, I have discussed question one with Mr. Garner in the pages of
Freedom before and will not do so again (suffice to say, he knows the
answer so why is he asking?). As for the second, the question arises
“what is a capitalist act”?
Does it mean exchanging the product of your labour? No, as that predates
capitalism. So it must mean “can people become wage slaves in a free
society?” The answer then becomes, why would they want to? While the
idea that people will happily become wage slaves may be somewhat common
place (particularly with supporters of capitalism) the evidence of
history is that people, given a choice, will prefer self-employment and
resist wage labour. As E. P. Thompson notes, at the start of the 19^(th)
century, the “gap in status between a ‘servant,’ a hired wage-labourer
subject to the orders and discipline of the master, and an artisan, who
might ‘come and go’ as he pleased, was wide enough for men to shed blood
rather than allow themselves to be pushed from one side to the other.
And, in the value system of the community, those who resisted
degradation were in the right.” Over one hundred years later, the rural
working class of Aragon showed the same dislike of wage slavery. After
Communist troops destroyed their self-managed collectives, the
“dispossessed peasants, intransigent collectivists, refused to work in a
system of private property, and were even less willing to rent out their
labour.” (Jose Peirats).
Moreover, the would-be capitalist would have to provide such excellent
conditions of labour that it would be unprofitable for him to do so.
With the possibility of managing your own work and working conditions
available for all, few, if any, would take up the offer. Combined with
the constant dangers of agitators organising strikes, unions and
boycotts, the possibility of someone turning possession into property is
slight in the extreme.
Ironically, capitalism must forbid “capitalist” acts between consenting
adults. For 40 hours plus a week, workers are employed by a boss. In
that time they are given resources to use, under instructions of their
boss. They are most definitely not allowed to use the resources they
have been given access to for furthering their own plans. If they do,
they will be fired. Moreover, private property involves the continual
banning of socialist acts between consenting adults. For example, if
workers agree to form a union, then the boss can fire them. If they
decide to control their own work, the boss can fire them for not obeying
orders.
Now, it is true that a very small percentage of people do not sell their
liberty to a boss to survive (around ten per cent are not wage slaves,
some being bosses, others self-employed). As a generalisation, the
comment that under capitalism people are obliged to sell themselves to a
boss is true. A handful of exceptions just proves the rule. Under
capitalism, a very small percentage of the population owns the means of
life. The vast majority has to sell their liberty to them in order to
survive. This, obviously, restricts liberty. It has absolutely nothing
to do with workers being forced to supply goods to other workers, as Mr.
Garner knows full well. It is, rather, the monopolisation of the means
of life by a few and the exclusion of the rest of society from them (as
Proudhon put it, “we who belong to the proletaire class, property
excommunicates us!”).
And as for “Richard A” stating that Proudhon “seems to have had no
problem with the private ownership of property” I would suggest he
consult my earlier exchange with Mr. Garner where I proved that Proudhon
argued for the abolition of private property in favour of possession.
yours,
Iain McKay