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<title>B.3 Why are anarchists against private property?</title>

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<h1>B.3 Why are anarchists against private property?</h1>

<p>
Private property is one of the three things all anarchists oppose, 
along side hierarchical authority and the state. Today, the dominant 
system of private property is capitalist in nature and, as such, 
anarchists tend to concentrate on this system and its property 
rights regime. We will be reflecting this here but do not, because 
of this, assume that anarchists consider other forms of private 
property regime (such as, say, feudalism) as acceptable. This is 
not the case -- anarchists are against every form of property 
rights regime which results in the many working for the few.
</p><p>
Anarchist opposition to private property rests on two, related, 
arguments. These were summed up by Proudhon's maxims (from 
</b>What is Property?</b> that <i>"property is theft"</i> and <i>"property is 
despotism."</i> In his words, <i>"Property . . . violates equality by 
the rights of exclusion and increase, and freedom by despotism 
. . . [and has] perfect identity with robbery."</i> [Proudhon, 
</b>What is Property</b>, 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.
</p><p>
We will summarise each argument in turn.
</p><p>
The statement <i>"property is theft"</i> 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 <a href="secB3.html#secb32">section B.3.2</a> for more discussion).
</p><p>
As we discuss in <a href="secB3.html#secb33">section B.3.3</a>, 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 <b>why</b> 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. 
</p><p>
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:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"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 <b>use</b> and <b>abuse</b> 
. . . if goods are property, why should not the proprietors 
be kings, and despotic kings -- kings in proportion to their 
<b>facultes bonitaires</b>? 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?"</i> 
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 266-7]
</blockquote></p><p>
In other words, private property is the state writ small, with the 
property owner acting as the <i>"sovereign lord"</i> 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. 
</p><p>
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 <b>do</b> 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:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"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."</i> [Proudhon, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 128]
</blockquote></p><p>
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:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"Our opponents . . . are in the habit of justifying the right to
private property by stating that property is the condition and 
guarantee of liberty.
</p><p>
"And we agree with them. Do we not say repeatedly that poverty 
is slavery?
</p><p>
"But then why do we oppose them?
</p><p>
"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."</i> 
[Malatesta, <b>The Anarchist Revolution</b>, p. 113]
</blockquote></p><p>
It will, of course, be objected that no one forces a worker to 
work for a given boss. However, as we discuss in 
<a href="secB4.html#secb43">section B.4.3</a>, 
this assertion (while true) misses the point. While workers are 
not forced to work for a <b>specific</b> 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 <i>"has sold and 
surrendered his liberty"</i> to the boss. [Proudhon, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 130] 
</p><p>
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 <a href="secB4.html#secb42">section B.4.2</a>) or a piece of machinery.
</p><p>
Little wonder, then, that anarchists oppose private property as 
Anarchy is <i>"the absence of a master, of a sovereign"</i> [Proudhon,
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 264] and call capitalism for what it is, namely 
<b>wage slavery</b>! 
</p><p>
For these reasons, anarchists agree with Rousseau when he stated: 

</p><p><blockquote><i>
"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.'"</i> 
[<i>"Discourse on Inequality,"</i> <b>The Social Contract and Discourses</b>,
p. 84]
</blockquote></p><p>
This explains anarchist opposition to capitalism. It is marked 
by two main features, <i>"private property"</i> (or in some cases, 
state-owned property -- see 
<a href="secB3.html#secb35">section B.3.5</a>) and, consequently, 
wage labour and exploitation and authority. Moreover, such a 
system requires a state to maintain itself for as <i>"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."</i> 
[Rudolf Rocker, </b>Anarcho-Syndicalism</b>, 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 <a href="secB2.html">section B.2</a>). 
</p><p>
Also, it ought to be easy to see that capitalism, by giving 
rise to an ideologically inalienable <i>"right"</i> 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 
-- <a href="secB4.html#secb42"><i>"Is capitalism based on self-ownership?"</i></a>), 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 <i>"self-ownership"</i> as 
the basis for doing so. Under capitalism, as will be seen in 
<a href="secB4.html">section B.4</a>, 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.
</p><p>
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. 
</p><p>
Before discussing the anti-libertarian aspects of capitalism, it will 
be necessary to define <i>"private property"</i> as distinct from <i>"personal
possessions"</i> and show in more detail why the former requires state
protection and is exploitative.</p>

<a name="secb31"><h2>B.3.1 What is the difference between private property and possession?</h2></a> 

<p>
Anarchists define <i>"private property"</i> (or just <i>"property,"</i> for short) 
as state-protected monopolies of certain objects or privileges which 
are used to control and exploit others. <i>"Possession,"</i> 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. 
</p><p>
To summarise, anarchists are in favour of the kind of property 
which <i>"cannot be used to exploit another -- those kinds of 
personal possessions which we accumulate from childhood and which
become part of our lives."</i> We are opposed to the kind of property
<i>"which can be used only to exploit people -- land and buildings,
instruments of production and distribution, raw materials and 
manufactured articles, money and capital."</i> [Nicholas Walter, 
<b>About Anarchism</b>, 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).
</p><p>
The key is that <i>"possession"</i> is rooted in the concept of <i>"use rights"</i> 
or <i>"usufruct"</i> while <i>"private property"</i> 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 <i>"property"</i> while a 
co-operative, where the workers manage their own work, is an example 
of <i>"possession."</i> To quote Proudhon:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"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."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 293]
</blockquote></p><p>
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 <i>"property"</i> to mean anything from a toothbrush to 
a transnational corporation -- two very different things, with very
different impacts upon society. Hence Proudhon:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"Originally the word <b>property</b> was synonymous with <b>proper</b> or 
<b>individual possession.</b> 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."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 395-6]
</blockquote></p><p>
Proudhon graphically illustrated the distinction by comparing a 
lover as a possessor, and a husband as a proprietor! As he stressed, 
the <i>"double definition of property -- domain and possession -- is 
of highest importance; and must be clearly understood, in order to
comprehend"</i> what anarchism is really about. So while some may question 
why we make this distinction, the reason is clear. As Proudhon argued, 
<i>"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 <b>possession</b> or some other equivalent; 
otherwise we should be troubled with an unpleasant synonym."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 65 and p. 373]
</p><p>
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, 
<i>"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."</i> 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.
</p><p>
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:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"Possession is a right; property is against right. Suppress property
while maintaining possession."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 271]
</blockquote></p><p>
As Alexander Berkman frames this distinction, anarchism <i>"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."</i> [<b>What is Anarchism?</b>, p. 217] 
</p><p>
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 <i>"the Anarchistic view 
that occupancy and use should condition and limit landholding 
becomes the prevailing view"</i> and so ensure that <i>"individuals
should no longer be protected by their fellows in anything but 
personal occupation and cultivation [i.e. use] of land."</i> 
[Benjamin Tucker, <b>The Individualist Anarchists</b>, p. 159 and 
p. 85] The key differences, as we noted in 
<a href="secA3.html#seca31">section A.3.1</a>, is
how they apply this principle.
</p><p>
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 <i>"occupancy and use"</i> 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 <i>"self-management"</i> for short). 
</p><p>
This logically flows from the theory of possession, of <i>"occupancy and 
use."</i> 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 <i>"all 
accumulated capital being social property, no one can be its exclusive 
proprietor."</i> <i>"In order to destroy despotism and inequality of conditions, 
men must . . . become associates"</i> and this implies workers' self-management 
-- <i>"leaders, instructors, superintendents . . . must be chosen from the 
labourers by the labourers themselves."</i> [Proudhon, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 130, 
p. 372 and p. 137] 
</p><p>
In this way, anarchists seek, in Proudhon's words, <i>"abolition of the proletariat"</i> and consider a key idea of our ideas that <i>"Industrial 
Democracy must. . . succeed Industrial Feudalism."</i>  [Proudhon, 
<b>Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon</b>, 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 
<a href="secI3.html">section I.3</a> for more discussion). 
</p><p>
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, </b>What is Property?</b>. 
</p><p>
Significantly, William Godwin in his </b>Enquiry Concerning Political 
Justice</b> 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 <i>"the empire 
to which every [person] is entitled over the produce of his [or her] 
own industry."</i> However, another kind was <i>"a system, in whatever manner 
established, by which one man enters into the faculty of disposing of 
the produce of another man's industry."</i> This <i>"species of property is 
in direct contradiction"</i> to the former kind (he similarities with
subsequent anarchist ideas is striking). For Godwin, inequality 
produces a <i>"servile"</i> spirit in the poor and, moreover, a person who 
<i>"is born to poverty, may be said, under a another name, to be born a 
slave."</i> [<b>The Anarchist Writings of William Godwin</b>, p. 133, p. 134,
p. 125 and p. 126]
</p><p>
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 <i>"possessing classes."</i> Others prefer 
to use the term <i>"personal property"</i> rather than <i>"possession"</i> or <i>"capital"</i> 
rather than <i>"private property."</i> Some, like many individualist anarchists, 
use the term <i>"property"</i> in a general sense and qualify it with <i>"occupancy 
and use"</i> in the case of land, housing and workplaces. However, no matter 
the specific words used, the key idea is the same.</p>

<a name="secb32"><h2>B.3.2 What kinds of property does the state protect?</h2></a> 

<p>
Kropotkin argued that the state was <i>"the instrument for establishing 
monopolies in favour of the ruling minorities."</i> [<b>Anarchism</b>, 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 <i>"class monopolies"</i> (to use Tucker's phrase) to ensure that 
workers do not receive their <i>"natural wage,"</i> 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 <i>"behind 
the scenes"</i> and work to ensure that capitalist domination does not 
need extensive force to maintain. 
</p><p>
Under capitalism, there are four major kinds of property, or exploitative 
monopolies, that the state protects: 
</p><p><ol>
	(1) the power to issue credit and currency, the basis of 
	    capitalist banking; <br>
	(2) land and buildings, the basis of landlordism; <br>
	(3) productive tools and equipment, the basis of 
	    industrial capitalism; <br>
	(4) ideas and inventions, the basis of copyright and 
	    patent (<i>"intellectual property"</i>) royalties. <br>
</ol></p><p>
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 <i>"initiations 
of force"</i> conducted <b>previously</b> to any specific contract being 
signed, capitalists enrich themselves at our expense because we 
<i>"are compelled to pay a heavy tribute to property holders for 
the right of cultivating land or putting machinery into action."</i> 
[Kropotkin, <b>The Conquest of Bread</b>, p. 103] These conditions 
obviously also make a mockery of free agreement (see 
<a href="secB4.html">section B.4</a>). 
</p><p>
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 <a href="secF8.html">section F.8</a> on the state's role in developing capitalism in the
first place).
</p><p>
Needless to say, despite the supposedly subtle role of such <i>"objective"</i> 
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 <i>"objective"</i> means of control 
fail, the capitalists will always turn to the use of state repression to 
restore the <i>"natural"</i> order. Then the <i>"invisible"</i> 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 
<a href="secD1.html">section D.1</a>, 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.
</p><p>
To indicate the importance of these state backed monopolies, we shall 
sketch their impact. 
</p><p>
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 
<a href="secJ5.html#secj511">section J.5.11</a>). 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.
</p><p>
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 <b>People's Bank.</b> 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).
</p><p>
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. 
</p><p>
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 <i>"the decline in real hourly wages, and the stagnation in 
household incomes, the middle and lower classes have borrowed 
more to stay in place"</i> and they have <i>"borrowed from the very rich
who have [become] richer."</i> By 1997, US households spent $1 trillion
(or 17% of the after-tax incomes) on debt service. <i>"This represents
a massive upward redistribution of income."</i> And why did they borrow?
The bottom 40% of the income distribution <i>"borrowed to compensate
for stagnant or falling incomes"</i> while the upper 20% borrowed <i>"mainly
to invest."</i> Thus <i>"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."</i> [Doug Henwood, <b>Wall Street</b>, pp. 64-6]
</p><p>
Thus credit <i>"is an important form of social coercion; mortgaged
workers are more pliable."</i> [Henwood, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 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.
</p><p>
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.
</p><p>
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.
</p><p>
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.
</p><p>
Moreover, the land monopoly did play an important role in <b>creating</b> 
capitalism (also see <a href="secF8.html#secf83">section F.8.3</a>). 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:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"The reorganisation of agricultural land [the enclosure movement] . . . 
inevitably undermined the viability of traditional peasant agriculture . . .
[it] created a sizeable labour force of disinherited peasants with only
tenuous attachments to the land. To earn a living, many of these peasants
turned to 'domestic industry' - the production of goods in their cottages
. . . It was the eighteenth century expansion of domestic industry . . . 
that laid the basis for the British Industrial Revolution. The emergence 
of labour-saving machine technology transformed . . . textile manufacture
. . . and the factory replaced the family home as the predominant site of
production."</i> [<b>Business Organisation and the Myth of the Market Economy</b>, 
pp. 3-4]
</blockquote></p><p>
By being able to <i>"legally"</i> bar people from <i>"their"</i> 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 <i>"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."</i> [Peter Kropotkin, <b>The 
Great French Revolution</b>, vol. 1, pp. 117-8] 
</p><p>
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 <i>"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."</i>
[<b>A People's History of the United States</b>, 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).
</p><p>
This was the land monopoly in action (also see sections 
<a href="secF8.html#secf83">F.8.3</a>, <a href="secF8.html#secf84">F.8.4</a> 
and <a href="secF8.html#secf85">F.8.5</a> 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.
</p><p>
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 <i>"simply stored-up labour which has already received 
its pay in full"</i> and so <i>"the lender of capital is entitled to its 
return intact, and nothing more"</i> (to use Tucker's words), due to 
legal privilege the capitalist is in a position to charge a <i>"fee"</i> 
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 <i>"fee"</i> for the use of their equipment (see 
<a href="secB3.html#secb33">section B.3.3</a>). 
</p><p>
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. <i>"Over the last 150 
years,"</i> notes Joel Bakan, <i>"the corporation has risen from relative 
obscurity to becomes the world's dominant economic institution."</i> 
The law has been changed to give corporations <i>"limited liability"</i> 
and other perks in order <i>"to attract valuable incorporation business 
. . . by jettisoning unpopular [to capitalists] restrictions from 
. . . corporate laws."</i> Finally, the courts <i>"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."</i> In America, this was achieved 
using the 14th Amendment (which was passed to protect freed slaves!). In 
summary, the corporation <i>"is not an independent 'person' with 
its own rights, needs, and desires . . . It is a state-created 
tool for advancing social and economic policy."</i> [<b>The Corporation</b>, 
p. 5, p. 13, p. 16 and p. 158] 
</p><p>
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 
<a href="secF8.html">section F.8</a>, 
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. 
</p><p>
Once this was achieved, state action became less explicit and becomes
focused around defending the capitalists' property rights. This is
because the <i>"fee"</i> 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 <i>"natural"</i> 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 <i>"tools and equipment"</i> monopoly that sprang 
from it soon became the mainspring of the system. 
</p><p>
In this way usury became self-perpetuating, with apparently <i>"free exchanges"</i> 
being the means by which capitalist domination survives. In other words, 
"past initiations of force"</i> combined with the current state protection of 
property ensure that capitalist domination of society continues with only
the use of <i>"defensive"</i> force (i.e. violence used to protect the power of
property owners against unions, strikes, occupations, etc.). The <i>"fees"</i> 
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 <i>"free competition"</i> (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 <i>"property"</i> against <i>"theft"</i> by working people ensures 
that property remains theft and the <b>real</b> thieves keep their plunder.
</p><p>
As far as the <i>"ideas"</i> 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 <i>"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."</i> [<b>The 
Individualist Anarchists</b>, p. 86]
</p><p>
The net effect of this can be terrible. The Uruguay Round of global
trade negotiations <i>"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."</i>
[Joseph Stiglitz, <b>Globalisation and its discontents</b>, 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.
</p><p>
The irony that this regime was created in a process allegedly 
about trade liberalisation should not go unnoticed. <i>"Intellectual 
property rights,"</i> as Noam Chomsky correctly points out, <i>"are a
protectionist measure, they have nothing to do with free trade 
-- in fact, they're the exact <b>opposite</b> of free trade."</i> 
[<b>Understanding Power</b>, p. 282] The fundamental injustice of the
<i>"ideas monopoly"</i> 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.
</p><p>
The <i>"ideas monopoly"</i> 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 <i>"intellectual property
rights"</i> 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.
</p><p>
As Noam Chomsky notes, today trade agreements like GATT and NAFTA <i>"impose 
a mixture of liberalisation and protection, going far beyond trade, 
designed to keep wealth and power firmly in the hands of the masters."</i> 
Thus <i>"investor rights are to be protected and enhanced"</i> and a key 
demand <i>"is increased protection for 'intellectual property,' including 
software and patents, with patent rights extending to process as well 
as product"</i> in order to <i>"ensure that US-based corporations control 
the technology of the future"</i> and so <i>"locking the poor majority 
into dependence on high-priced products of Western agribusiness, 
biotechnology, the pharmaceutical industry and so on."</i> [<b>World Orders,
Old and New</b>, 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 <i>"ideas monopoly"</i> will stop them and so <i>"these are not only
highly protectionist measures . . . they're a blow <b>against</b> economic
efficiency and technological process -- that just shows you how much
'free trade' really is involved in all of this."</i> [Chomsky, <b>Understanding
Power</b>, p. 282]
</p><p>
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 <i>"ideas monopoly"</i> 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.
</p><p>
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. 
</p><p>
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, 
<i>"monopolised a substantial part of the American electrical manufacturing 
industry, and their success had been in large measure the result of
patent control."</i> The two competitors simply pooled their patents and 
<i>"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."</i> [David Noble, <b>American By Design</b>, p. 10]
</p><p>
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 <i>"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.'"</i> 
As well as this, corporations used <i>"patents to circumvent anti-trust 
laws."</i> This reaping of monopoly profits at the expense of the customer 
made such <i>"tremendous strides"</i> between 1900 and 1929 and <i>"were of such 
proportions as to render subsequent judicial and legislative effects 
to check corporate monopoly through patent control too little too late."</i> 
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 87, p. 84 and p. 88]
</p><p>
Things have changed little since Edwin Prindle, a corporate patent lawyer, 
wrote in 1906 that:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"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."</i> [quoted by Noble, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 89]
</blockquote></p><p>
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 <i>"Information 
Age,"</i> 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. 
</p><p>
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, <i>"U.S. corporations must control seeds, plant varieties, drugs,
and the means of life generally."</i> [<b>World Orders, Old and New</b>, p. 183] 
This has been termed <i>"bio-piracy"</i> (a better term may be the new 
enclosures) and it is a process by which <i>"international companies
[are] patenting traditional medicines or foods."</i> They <i>"seek to make 
money from 'resources' and knowledge that rightfully belongs to the
developing countries"</i> and <i>"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."</i> [Joseph Stiglitz, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 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.
</p><p>
In other words, capitalists desire to skew the <i>"free market"</i> in their
favour by ensuring that the law reflects and protects their interests, 
namely their <i>"property rights."</i> By this process they ensure that
co-operative  tendencies within society are crushed by state-supported
"market forces."</i> As Noam Chomsky puts it, modern capitalism is <i>"state
protection and public subsidy for the rich, market discipline for the
poor."</i> [<i>"Rollback, Part I"</i>, <b>Z Magazine</b>]  Self-proclaimed defenders of
"free market"</i> capitalism are usually nothing  of the kind, while the few
who actually support it only object to the <i>"public subsidy"</i> aspect of
modern capitalism and happily support state protection for property
rights. 
</p><p>
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 <i>"free market"</i> and be 
exploited. In other words, the various monopolies make sure that "natural" 
barriers to entry (see 
<a href="secC4.html">section C.4</a>) are created, leaving the heights of
the economy in the control of big business while alternatives to capitalism
are marginalised at its fringes.
</p><p> 
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 <a href="secB3.html#secb35">section B.3.5</a>).</p>

<a name="secb33"><h2>B.3.3 Why is property exploitative?</h2></a> 

<p>
To answer this question, consider the monopoly of productive <i>"tools 
and equipment."</i> This monopoly, obtained by the class of industrial 
capitalists, allows this class in effect to charge workers a <i>"fee"</i> 
for the privilege of using the monopolised tools and equipment. 
</p><p>
This occurs because property, in Proudhon words, <i>"excommunicates"</i> 
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 <b>their</b> rules on those they do let use <i>"their"</i> property. So 
the boss <i>"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."</i> [Alexander Berkman, <b>What is Anarchism?</b>, p. 14] This is called wage labour and is, for anarchists, the defining 
characteristic of capitalism.
</p><p>
This class of people who are dependent on wages to survive was 
sometimes called the <i>"proletariat"</i> by nineteenth century anarchists. 
Today most anarchists usually call it the <i>"working class"</i> 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 <i><b>"capital"</b></i>
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 
<a href="secB7.html">section B.7</a> for more 
discussion of classes). 
</p><p>
This ensures that the few can profit from the work of others:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"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 <b>their profit.</b> 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 <b>using</b> 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 <b>using</b>
those tools and machinery . . .
</p><p>
"Can you guess now why the wisdom of Proudhon said that <b>the
possessions of the rich are stolen property</b>? Stolen from the
producer, the worker."</i> [Berkman, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 7-8]
</blockquote></p><p>
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 <i>"use-fee"</i> 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 <i>"commodity"</i> (labour) that can potentially produce more value 
than it gets paid for in wages. 
</p><p>
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). 
</p><p>
Thus the <i>"fee"</i> (or <i>"surplus value"</i>) 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 <i>"surplus value,"</i> 
created by and appropriated from labour, minus the firm's overhead 
and cost of raw materials (See also section C.2 -- 
<a href="secC2.html"><i>"Where do profits come from?"</i></a>).
</p><p>
So property is exploitative because it allows a surplus to be 
monopolised by the owners. Property creates hierarchical 
relationships within the workplace (the <i>"tools and equipment 
monopoly"</i> might better be called the <i>"power monopoly"</i>) 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 <i>"hierarchical 
. . . relations of the capitalist enterprise are designed to 
resolve this conflict in favour of the representatives of 
capital."</i> [William Lazonick, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 184] 
</p><p>
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 <i>"power monopoly"</i> that allows it to exist at all. 
</p><p>
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 <b>may</b> 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.
</p><p>
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.

<a name="secb34"><h2>B.3.4 Can private property be justified?</h2></a>

<p>
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 <i>"free
market"</i> 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.
</p><p>
To get round this problem, Nozick utilises the work of Locke (<i>"The Lockean
Proviso"</i>) which can be summarised as:
</p><p><ol>
	1. People own themselves and, consequently, their labour.<br>
	2. The world is initially owned in common (or unowned in Nozick's
	   case.) <br>
	3. By working on common (or unowned) resources, people turn it
	   into their own property because they own their own labour. <br>
	4. You can acquire absolute rights over a larger than average
	   share in the world, if you do not worsen the condition of
	   others. <br>
	5. Once people have appropriated private property, a free market 
	   in capital and labour is morally required. <br>
</ol></p><p>
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 <b>capitalist</b> property rights? Many cultures 
have recognised no such <i>"absolute"</i> forms of property, admitted
the right of property in what is produced but not the land itself.
</p><p>
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:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"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.
</p><p>
"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 . . .
</p><p>
"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.
</p><p>
"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 --<b>jus in re</b>; the right to means is common -- 
<b>jus ad rem</b>."</i> [<b>What is Property?</b>, pp. 120-1]
</blockquote></p><p>
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 <i>"natural law"</i> 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. 
</p><p>
Ignoring these obvious issues, what of Nozick's actual argument? 
</p><p>
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.
</p><p>
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 <i>"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."</i> [<b>Anarchy, 
State and Utopia</b>, 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. 
</p><p>
Interestingly, for a ideology that calls itself "libertarian"  
Nozick's theory defines <i>"worse off"</i> 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 <i>"Lockean Proviso"</i> 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 <i>"worse off"</i> in terms 
of liberty (i.e. autonomy or self-government) is irrelevant for 
Nozick, a <b>very</b> telling position to take. 
</p><p>
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.
</p><p>
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.
</p><p>
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:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"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."</i> 
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 84-85]
</blockquote></p><p>
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, <b>all</b> 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).
</p><p>
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:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"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."</i> [<i>"Chapters on Socialism"</i>, <b>Principles of Political 
Economy</b>, pp. 377-8]
</blockquote></p><p>
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 
<a href="secCcon.html">section C</a>, 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 - <b>not</b> private property and
capitalism.
</p><p>
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 <i>"Lockean Proviso"</i> is a patterned theory, his claims 
otherwise not withstanding).
</p><p>
In addition, we should note that private ownership by one person presupposes 
non-ownership by others (<i>"we who belong to the proletaire class, property
excommunicates us!"</i> [Proudhon, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 105]) and so the <i>"free market"</i> 
restricts as well as creates liberties just as any other economic system. 
Hence the claim that capitalism constitutes <i>"economic liberty"</i> is obviously 
false. In fact, it is <b>based</b> 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).
</p><p>
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.
</p><p>
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 <i>"property is theft"</i> and that <i>"property is despotism."</i> 
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 <i>"might is right."</i>
</p><p>
In summary, <i>"[i]f the right of life is equal, the right of labour is
equal, and so is the right of occupancy."</i> This means that <i>"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."</i> [Proudhon, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 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. 
</p><p>
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 </b>What is Property?</b>. For further
discussion on capitalist property rights see <a href="secF4.html">section F.4</a>.
</p>

<a name="secb35"><h2>B.3.5 Is state owned property different from private property?</h2></a>

<p>
No, far from it. 
</p><p>
State ownership should not be confused with the common or public 
ownership implied by the concept of <i>"use rights."</i> The state is a
hierarchical instrument of coercion and, as we discussed in
<a href="secB2.html">section B.2</a>, 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. 
</p><p>
This can easily be seen from the example of such so-called <i>"socialist"</i> 
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>"[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. <b>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.</b>"</i>
Anarchists agree with Schweickart's definition of capitalism. As such,
he is right to argue that a <i>"society of small farmers and artisans . . .
is not a capitalist society, since wage labour is largely absent."</i> He
is, however, wrong to assert that a <i>"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."</i> [<b>After Capitalism</b>, p. 23]
</p><p>
The reason is apparent. As Emma Goldman said (pointing out the 
obvious), if property is nationalised <i>"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"</i> (as that needs the <i>"socialisation of the
land and of the machinery of production and distribution"</i> which 
<i>"belong[s] to the people, to be settled and used by individuals or
groups according to their needs"</i> based on <i>"free access"</i>). [<b>Red Emma 
Speaks</b>, pp. 406-7]
</p><p>
Thus, by Schweickart's own definition, a system based on state 
ownership <b>is</b> 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 <i>"mere substitution . . .
of the State as the universal capitalist for the present capitalists."</i>
[<b>Evolution and Environment</b>, p. 106] This is why anarchists have 
tended to call such regimes <i>"state capitalist"</i> as the state basically 
replaces the capitalist as boss. 
</p><p>
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.
</p><p>
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 (<i>"all-powerful,
centralised Government with State Capitalism as its economic expression,"</i>
to quote Emma Goldman's summation of Lenin's Russia [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 388]). 
State property is in no way fundamentally different from private property 
-- all that changes is who exploits and oppresses the workers. 
</p><p>
For more discussion see section H.3.13 -- 
<a href="secH3.html#sech313"><i>"Why is state socialism just 
state capitalism?"</i></a>
</p>
</body>
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anarchism 14.0-4 / usr / share / doc / anarchism / html / secB3.html
