4
<title>4 What is the right-libertarian position on private property?
9
<h1>4 What is the right-libertarian position on private property?</h1>
11
Right libertarians are not interested in eliminating capitalist
12
private property and thus the authority, oppression and exploitation
13
which goes with it. It is true that they call for an end to the state,
14
but this is not because they are concerned about workers being exploited
15
or oppressed but because they don't want the state to impede capitalists'
16
"freedom" to exploit and oppress workers even more than is the case now!
18
They make an idol of private property and claim to defend absolute,
19
"unrestricted" property rights (i.e. that property owners can do anything
20
they like with their property, as long as it does not damage the property
21
of others. In particular, taxation and theft are among the greatest evils
22
possible as they involve coercion against "justly held" property). They
23
agree with John Adams that <i>"[t]he moment that idea is admitted into
24
society that property is not as sacred as the Laws of God, and that
25
there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy
26
and tyranny commence. Property must be sacred or liberty cannot exist."</i>
28
But in their celebration of property as the source of liberty they
29
ignore the fact that private property is a source of "tyranny" in itself
30
(see sections <a href="secB1.html">B.1</a> and <a href="secB4.html">B.4</a>, for example -- and please note that anarchists
31
only object to private property, <b>not</b> individual possession, see section
32
<a href="secB3.html#secb31">B.3.1</a>). However, as much anarchists may disagree about other matters,
33
they are united in condemning private property. Thus Proudhon argued
34
that property was <i>"theft"</i> and <i>"despotism"</i> while Stirner indicated the
35
religious and statist nature of private property and its impact on
36
individual liberty when he wrote :
38
<i>"Property in the civic sense means <b>sacred</b> property, such that I must
39
<b>respect</b> your property... Be it ever so little, if one only has somewhat
40
of his own - to wit, a <b>respected</b> property: The more such owners... the
41
more 'free people and good patriots' has the State.
43
"Political liberalism, like everything religious, counts on <b>respect,</b>
44
humaneness, the virtues of love. . . . For in practice people respect
45
nothing, and everyday the small possessions are bought up again by greater
46
proprietors, and the 'free people' change into day labourers."</i> [<b>The Ego
47
and Its Own</b>, p. 248]
50
Thus "anarcho"-capitalists reject totally one of the common (and so
51
defining) features of all anarchist traditions -- the opposition to
52
capitalist property. From Individualist Anarchists like Tucker to
53
Communist-Anarchists like Bookchin, anarchists have been opposed to
54
what Godwin termed <i>"accumulated property."</i> This was because it was in
55
<i>"direct contradiction"</i> to property in the form of <i>"the produce of his
56
[the worker's] own industry"</i> and so it allows <i>"one man. . . [to] dispos[e]
57
of the produce of another man's industry."</i> [<b>The Anarchist Reader</b>,
58
pp. 129-131] Thus, for anarchists, capitalist property is a source
59
exploitation and domination, <b>not</b> freedom (it undermines the freedom
60
associated with possession by created relations of domination between
63
Hardly surprising then the fact that, according to Murray Bookchin, Murray
64
Rothbard <i>"attacked me [Bookchin] as an anarchist with vigour because, as
65
he put it, I am opposed to private property."</i> [<b>The Raven</b>, no. 29, p. 343]
67
We will discuss Rothbard's "homesteading" justification of property in
68
the <a href="append134.html#secf41">next section</a>. However, we will note here one aspect of right-libertarian
69
defence of "unrestricted" property rights, namely that it easily generates
70
evil side effects such as hierarchy and starvation. As famine expert Amartya
73
<i>"Take a theory of entitlements based on a set of rights of 'ownership,
74
transfer and rectification.' In this system a set of holdings of
75
different people are judged to be just (or unjust) by looking at past
76
history, and not by checking the consequences of that set of holdings.
77
But what if the consequences are recognisably terrible? . . .[R]efer[ing]
78
to some empirical findings in a work on famines . . . evidence [is
79
presented] to indicate that in many large famines in the recent past,
80
in which millions of people have died, there was no over-all decline
81
in food availability at all, and the famines occurred precisely because
82
of shifts in entitlement resulting from exercises of rights that are
83
perfectly legitimate. . . . [Can] famines . . . occur with a system of
84
rights of the kind morally defended in various ethical theories, including
85
Nozick's. I believe the answer is straightforwardly yes, since for many
86
people the only resource that they legitimately possess, viz. their
87
labour-power, may well turn out to be unsaleable in the market, giving
88
the person no command over food . . . [i]f results such as starvations
89
and famines were to occur, would the distribution of holdings still
90
be morally acceptable despite their disastrous consequences? There is
91
something deeply implausible in the affirmative answer."</i> [<b>Resources,
92
Values and Development</b>, pp. 311-2]
94
Thus "unrestricted" property rights can have seriously bad consequences
95
and so the existence of "justly held" property need not imply a just
96
or free society -- far from it. The inequalities property can generate
97
can have a serious on individual freedom (see section <a href="append133.html#secf31">3.1</a>). Indeed,
98
Murray Rothbard argued that the state was evil not because it restricted
99
individual freedom but because the resources it claimed to own were
100
not "justly" acquired. Thus right-libertarian theory judges property
101
<b>not</b> on its impact on current freedom but by looking at past history.
102
This has the interesting side effect of allowing its supporters to
103
look at capitalist and statist hierarchies, acknowledge their similar
104
negative effects on the liberty of those subjected to them but argue
105
that one is legitimate and the other is not simply because of their
106
history! As if this changed the domination and unfreedom that both
107
inflict on people living today (see section <a href="append132.html#secf23">2.3</a> for further
108
discussion and sections <a href="append132.html#secf28">2.8</a> and <a href="append134.html#secf42">4.2</a> for other examples of
109
"justly acquired" property producing terrible consequences).
111
The defence of capitalist property does have one interesting side
112
effect, namely the need arises to defend inequality and the authoritarian
113
relationships inequality creates. In order to protect the private property
114
needed by capitalists in order to continue exploiting the working class,
115
"anarcho"-capitalists propose private security forces rather than state
116
security forces (police and military) -- a proposal that is equivalent
117
to bringing back the state under another name.
119
Due to (capitalist) private property, wage labour would still exist under
120
"anarcho"-capitalism (it is capitalism after all). This means that "defensive"
121
force, a state, is required to "defend" exploitation, oppression, hierarchy
122
and authority from those who suffer them. Inequality makes a mockery of
123
free agreement and "consent" (see section <a href="append133.html#secf31">3.1</a>). As Peter Kropotkin
124
pointed out long ago:
126
<i>"When a workman sells his labour to an employer . . . it is a mockery to
127
call that a free contract. Modern economists may call it free, but the
128
father of political economy -- Adam Smith -- was never guilty of such
129
a misrepresentation. As long as three-quarters of humanity are compelled
130
to enter into agreements of that description, force is, of course,
131
necessary, both to enforce the supposed agreements and to maintain such
132
a state of things. Force -- and a good deal of force -- is necessary to
133
prevent the labourers from taking possession of what they consider unjustly
134
appropriated by the few. . . . The Spencerian party [proto-right-libertarians]
135
perfectly well understand that; and while they advocate no force for changing
136
the existing conditions, they advocate still more force than is now used
137
for maintaining them. As to Anarchy, it is obviously as incompatible with
138
plutocracy as with any other kind of -cracy."</i> [<b>Anarchism and Anarchist
139
Communism</b>, pp. 52-53]
141
Because of this need to defend privilege and power, "anarcho"-capitalism
142
is best called "private-state" capitalism. This will be discussed in more
143
detail in section <a href="append136.html">6</a>.
145
By advocating private property, right libertarians contradict many of
146
their other claims. For example, they say that they support the right of
147
individuals to travel where they like. They make this claim because they
148
assume that only the state limits free travel. But this is a false
149
assumption. Owners must agree to let you on their land or property
150
(<i>"people only have the right to move to those properties and lands where
151
the owners desire to rent or sell to them."</i> [Murray Rothbard, <b>The Ethics
152
of Liberty</b>, p. 119]. There is no "freedom of travel" onto private property
153
(including private roads). Therefore immigration may be just as hard under
154
"anarcho"-capitalism as it is under statism (after all, the state, like
155
the property owner, only lets people in whom it wants to let in). People
156
will still have to get another property owner to agree to let them in
157
before they can travel -- exactly as now (and, of course, they also have
158
to get the owners of the road to let them in as well). Private property,
159
as can be seen from this simple example, is the state writ small.
161
One last point, this ignoring of ("politically incorrect") economic and
162
other views of dead political thinkers and activists while claiming them
163
as "libertarians" seems to be commonplace in right-Libertarian circles. For
164
example, Aristotle (beloved by Ayn Rand) <i>"thought that only living things
165
could bear fruit. Money, not a living thing, was by its nature barren, and
166
any attempt to make it bear fruit (<b>tokos</b>, in Greek, the same word used
167
for interest) was a crime against nature."</i> [Marcello de Cecco, quoted
168
by Doug Henwood, <b>Wall Street</b>, p. 41] Such opposition to interest hardly
169
fits well into capitalism, and so either goes unmentioned or gets classed
170
as an "error" (although we could ask why Aristotle is in error while Rand is
171
not). Similarly, individualist anarchist opposition to capitalist property
172
and rent, interest and profits is ignored or dismissed as "bad economics"
173
without realising that these ideas played a key role in their politics
174
and in ensuring that an anarchy would not see freedom corrupted by
175
inequality. To ignore such an important concept in a person's ideas is
176
to distort the remainder into something it is not.
178
<a name="secf41"><h2>4.1 What is wrong with a "homesteading" theory of property?</h2>
180
So how do "anarcho"-capitalists justify property? Looking at Murray
181
Rothbard, we find that he proposes a <i>"homesteading theory of property"</i>.
182
In this theory it is argued that property comes from occupancy and mixing
183
labour with natural resources (which are assumed to be unowned). Thus the
184
world is transformed into private property, for <i>"title to an unowned
185
resource (such as land) comes properly only from the expenditure of
186
labour to transform that resource into use."</i> [<b>The Ethics of Liberty</b>,
189
Rothbard paints a conceptual history of individuals and families
190
forging a home in the wilderness by the sweat of their labour (its
191
tempting to rename his theory the <i>"immaculate conception of property"</i>
192
as his conceptual theory is somewhat at odds with actual historical
195
Sadly for Murray Rothbard, his "homesteading" theory was refuted
196
by Proudhon in <b>What is Property?</b> in 1840 (along with many other
197
justifications of property). Proudhon rightly argues that <i>"if the
198
liberty of man is sacred, it is equally sacred in all individuals;
199
that, if it needs property for its objective action, that is, for its
200
life, the appropriation of material is equally necessary for all . . .
201
Does it not follow that if one individual cannot prevent another . . .
202
from appropriating an amount of material equal to his own, no more can
203
he prevent individuals to come."</i> And if all the available resources
204
are appropriated, and the owner <i>"draws boundaries, fences himself in
205
. . . Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one
206
has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends . . . Let
207
[this]. . . multiply, and soon the people . . . will have nowhere
208
to rest, no place to shelter, no ground to till. They will die at
209
the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their
210
birthright."</i> [<b>What is Property?</b>, pp. 84-85, p. 118]
212
As Rothbard himself noted in respect to the aftermath of slavery
213
(see section <a href="append132.html#secf21">2.1</a>), not having access to the means of life places
214
one the position of unjust dependency on those who do. Rothbard's
215
theory fails because for <i>"[w]e who belong to the proletaire class,
216
property excommunicates us!"</i> [P-J Proudhon, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 105] and so
217
the vast majority of the population experience property as theft and
218
despotism rather than as a source of liberty and empowerment (which
219
possession gives). Thus, Rothbard's account fails to take into account
220
the Lockean Proviso (see section <a href="secB3.html#secb34">B.3.4</a>) and so, for all its intuitive
221
appeal, ends up justifying capitalist and landlord domination (see
222
<a href="append134.html#secf42">next section</a> on why the Lockean Proviso is important).
224
It also seems strange that while (correctly) attacking social contract
225
theories of the state as invalid (because <i>"no past generation can bind
226
later generations"</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 145]) he fails to see he is doing
227
<b>exactly that</b> with his support of private property (similarly, Ayn
228
Rand argued that <i>"[a]ny alleged 'right' of one man, which necessitates
229
the violation of the right of another, is not and cannot be a right"</i>
230
[<b>Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal</b>, p. 325] but obviously appropriating
231
land does violate the rights of others to walk, use or appropriate that
232
land). Due to his support for appropriation and inheritance, he is
233
clearly ensuring that future generations are <b>not</b> born as free as
234
the first settlers were (after all, they cannot appropriate any land,
235
it is all taken!). If future generations cannot be bound by past ones,
236
this applies equally to resources and property rights. Something
237
anarchists have long realised -- there is no defensible reason why
238
those who first acquired property should control its use by future
241
However, if we take Rothbard's theory at face value we find numerous
242
problems with it. If title to unowned resources comes via the <i>"expenditure
243
of labour"</i> on it, how can rivers, lakes and the oceans be appropriated?
244
The banks of the rivers can be transformed, but can the river itself? How
245
can you mix your labour with water? "Anarcho"-capitalists usually blame
246
pollution on the fact that rivers, oceans, and so forth are unowned, but
247
how can an individual "transform" water by their labour? Also, does fencing
248
in land mean you have "mixed labour" with it? If so then transnational
249
corporations can pay workers to fence in vast tracks of virgin land
250
(such as rainforest) and so come to "own" it. Rothbard argues that this
251
is not the case (he expresses opposition to <i>"arbitrary claims"</i>). He notes
252
that it is <b>not</b> the case that <i>"the first discoverer . . . could properly
253
lay claim to [a piece of land] . . . [by] laying out a boundary for the
254
area."</i> He thinks that <i>"their claim would still be no more than the boundary
255
<b>itself</b>, and not to any of the land within, for only the boundary will
256
have been transformed and used by men"</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 50f]
258
However, if the boundary <b>is</b> private property and the owner refuses others
259
permission to cross it, then the enclosed land is inaccessible to others! If
260
an "enterprising" right-libertarian builds a fence around the only oasis in
261
a desert and refuses permission to cross it to travellers unless they pay
262
his price (which is everything they own) then the person <b>has</b> appropriated
263
the oasis without "transforming" it by his labour. The travellers have the
264
choice of paying the price or dying (and the oasis owner is well within his
265
rights letting them die). Given Rothbard's comments, it is probable that
266
he will claim that such a boundary is null and void as it allows "arbitrary"
267
claims -- although this position is not at all clear. After all, the fence
268
builder <b>has</b> transformed the boundary and "unrestricted" property rights
269
is what right-libertarianism is all about.
271
And, of course, Rothbard ignores the fact of economic power -- a transnational
272
corporation can "transform" far more virgin resources in a day than a family
273
could in a year. Transnational's "mixing their labour" with the land does
274
not spring into mind reading Rothbard's account of property growth, but in
275
the real world that is what will happen.
277
If we take the question of wilderness (a topic close to many eco-anarchists'
278
and deep ecologists' hearts) we run into similar problems. Rothbard states
279
clearly that <i>"libertarian theory must invalidate [any] claim to ownership"</i>
280
of land that has <i>"never been transformed from its natural state"</i> (he
281
presents an example of an owner who has left a piece of his <i>"legally owned"</i>
282
land untouched). If another person appears who <b>does</b> transform the land,
283
it becomes <i>"justly owned by another"</i> and the original owner cannot stop her
284
(and should the original owner <i>"use violence to prevent another settler from
285
entering this never-used land and transforming it into use"</i> they also become
286
a <i>"criminal aggressor"</i>). Rothbard also stresses that he is <b>not</b> saying that
287
land must continually be in use to be valid property [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 63-64]
288
(after all, that would justify landless workers seizing the land from
289
landowners during a depression and working it themselves).
291
Now, where does that leave wilderness? In response to ecologists who oppose
292
the destruction of the rainforest, "anarcho"-capitalists suggest that they
293
put their money where their mouth is and <b>buy</b> rainforest land. In this way,
294
it is claimed, rainforest will be protected (see section <a href="secB5.html">B.5</a> for why such
295
arguments are nonsense). As ecologists desire the rainforest <b>because it
296
is wilderness</b> they are unlikely to "transform" it by human labour (its
297
precisely that they want to stop). From Rothbard's arguments it is fair
298
to ask whether logging companies have a right to "transform" the virgin
299
wilderness owned by ecologists, after all it meets Rothbard's criteria
300
(it is still wilderness). Perhaps it will be claimed that fencing off
301
land "transforms" it (hardly what you imagine "mixing labour" with to
302
mean, but nevermind) -- but that allows large companies and rich
303
individuals to hire workers to fence in vast tracks of land (and
304
recreate the land monopoly by a "libertarian" route). But as we noted
305
above, fencing off land does not seem to imply that it becomes property
306
in Rothbard's theory. And, of course, fencing in areas of rainforest
307
disrupts the local eco-system -- animals cannot freely travel, for example --
308
which, again, is what ecologists desire to stop. Would Rothbard accept a
309
piece of paper as "transforming" land? We doubt it (after all, in his
310
example the wilderness owner <b>did</b> legally own it) -- and so most
311
ecologists will have a hard time in "anarcho"-capitalism (wilderness
312
is just not an option).
314
As an aside, we must note that Rothbard fails to realise -- and this comes
315
from his worship of the market and his "Austrian economics" -- is that people
316
value many things which do not appear on the market. He claims that wilderness
317
is <i>"valueless unused natural objects"</i> (for it people valued them, they would
318
use -- i.e. appropriate -- them). But unused things may be of <b>considerable</b>
319
value to people, wilderness being a classic example. And if something <b>cannot</b>
320
be transformed into private property, does that mean people do not value it?
321
For example, people value community, stress free working environments,
322
meaningful work -- if the market cannot provide these, does that mean they
323
do not value them? Of course not (see Juliet Schor's <b>The Overworked American</b>
324
on how working people's desire for shorter working hours was not transformed
325
into options on the market).
327
Moreover, Rothbard's "homesteading" theory actually violates his support
328
for unrestricted property rights. What if a property owner <b>wants</b> part
329
of her land to remain wilderness? Their desires are violated by the
330
"homesteading" theory (unless, of course, fencing things off equals
331
"transforming" them, which it apparently does not). How can companies
332
provide wilderness holidays to people if they have no right to stop
333
settlers (including large companies) "homesteading" that wilderness?
334
And, of course, where does Rothbard's theory leave hunter-gather or
335
nomad societies. They <b>use</b> the resources of the wilderness, but they
336
do not "transform" them (in this case you cannot easily tell if virgin
337
land is empty or being used as a resource). If a troop of nomads find
338
its traditionally used, but natural, oasis appropriated by a homesteader
339
what are they to do? If they ignore the homesteaders claims he can call
340
upon his "defence" firm to stop them -- and then, in true Rothbardian
341
fashion, the homesteader can refuse to supply water to them unless they
342
hand over all their possessions (see section <a href="append134.html#secf42">4.2</a> on this). And if
343
the history of the United States (which is obviously the model for
344
Rothbard's theory) is anything to go by, such people will become
345
"criminal aggressors" and removed from the picture.
347
Which is another problem with Rothbard's account. It is completely
348
ahistoric (and so, as we noted above, is more like an <i>"immaculate
349
conception of property"</i>). He has transported "capitalist man" into
350
the dawn of time and constructed a history of property based upon
351
what he is trying to justify (not surprising, as he does this with
352
his "Natural Law" theory too - see <a href="append137.html">section 7</a>). What <b>is</b> interesting
353
to note, though, is that the <b>actual</b> experience of life on the US
354
frontier (the historic example Rothbard seems to want to claim) was
355
far from the individualistic framework he builds upon it and (ironically
356
enough) it was destroyed by the development of capitalism.
358
As Murray Bookchin notes, <i>"the independence that the New England yeomanry
359
enjoyed was itself a function of the co-operative social base from which
360
it emerged. To barter home-grown goods and objects, to share tools and
361
implements, to engage in common labour during harvesting time in a
362
system of mutual aid, indeed, to help new-comers in barn-raising,
363
corn-husking, log-rolling, and the like, was the indispensable cement
364
that bound scattered farmsteads into a united community."</i> [<b>The Third
365
Revolution</b>, vol. 1, p. 233] Bookchin quotes David P. Szatmary (author
366
of a book on Shay' Rebellion) stating that it was a society based
367
upon <i>"co-operative, community orientated interchanges"</i> and not a
368
<i>"basically competitive society."</i> [<b>Ibid.</b>]
370
Into this non-capitalist society came capitalist elements. Market forces
371
and economic power soon resulted in the transformation of this society.
372
Merchants asked for payment in specie which (and along with taxes)
373
soon resulted in indebtedness and the dispossession of the homesteaders
374
from their land and goods. In response Shay's rebellion started,
375
a rebellion which was an important factor in the centralisation of
376
state power in America to ensure that popular input and control over
377
government were marginalised and that the wealthy elite and their
378
property rights were protected against the many (see Bookchin, <b>Op.
379
Cit.</b>, for details). Thus the homestead system was undermined,
380
essentially, by the need to pay for services in specie (as demanded
383
So while Rothbard's theory as a certain appeal (reinforced by watching
384
too many Westerns, we imagine) it fails to justify the "unrestricted"
385
property rights theory (and the theory of freedom Rothbard derives
386
from it). All it does is to end up justifying capitalist and landlord
387
domination (which is probably what it was intended to do).
389
<a name="secf42"><h2>4.2 Why is the "Lockean Proviso" important?</h2>
391
Robert Nozick, in his work <b>Anarchy, State, and Utopia</b> presented a
392
case for private property rights that was based on what he termed
393
the <i>"Lockean Proviso"</i> -- namely that common (or unowned) land and
394
resources could be appropriated by individuals as long as the position
395
of others is not worsen by so doing. However, if we <b>do</b> take this
396
Proviso seriously private property rights cannot be defined (see
397
section <a href="secB3.html#secb34">B.3.4</a> for details). Thus Nozick's arguments in favour of
398
property rights fail.
400
Some right-libertarians, particularly those associated with the
401
Austrian school of economics argue that we must reject the Lockean
402
Proviso (probably due to the fact it can be used to undermine the
403
case for absolute property rights). Their argument goes as follows:
404
if an individual appropriates and uses a previously unused resource,
405
it is because it has value to him/her, as an individual, to engage in
406
such action. The individual has stolen nothing because it was previously
407
unowned and we cannot know if other people are better or worse off, all
408
we know is that, for whatever reason, they did not appropriate the
409
resource (<i>"If latecomers are worse off, well then that is their proper
410
assumption of risk in this free and uncertain world. There is no longer
411
a vast frontier in the United States, and there is no point crying
412
over the fact."</i> [Murray Rothbard, <b>The Ethics of Liberty</b>, p. 240]).
414
Hence the appropriation of resources is an essentially individualistic,
415
asocial act -- the requirements of others are either irrelevant or
416
unknown. However, such an argument fails to take into account <b>why</b>
417
the Lockean Proviso has such an appeal. When we do this we see that
418
rejecting it leads to massive injustice, even slavery.
420
However, let us start with a defence of rejecting the Proviso from a
421
leading Austrian economist:
423
<i>"Consider . . . the case . . . of the unheld sole water hole in the
424
desert (which <b>everyone</b> in a group of travellers knows about), which
425
one of the travellers, by racing ahead of the others, succeeds in
426
appropriating . . . [This] clearly and unjustly violates the Lockean
427
proviso. . . For use, however, this view is by no means the only one
428
possible. We notice that the energetic traveller who appropriated
429
all the water was not doing anything which (always ignoring, of course,
430
prohibitions resting on the Lockean proviso itself) the other travellers
431
were not equally free to do. The other travellers, too, could have
432
raced ahead . . . [they] did <b>not</b> bother to race for the water . . .
433
It does not seem obvious that these other travellers can claim that
434
they were <b>hurt</b> by an action which they could themselves have easily
435
taken"</i> [Israel M. Kirzner, <i>"Entrepreneurship, Entitlement, and Economic
436
Justice"</i>, pp. 385-413, in <b>Reading Nozick</b>, p. 406]
438
Murray Rothbard, we should note, takes a similar position in a similar
439
example, arguing that <i>"the owner [of the sole oasis] is scarcely being
440
'coercive'; in fact he is supplying a vital service, and should have
441
the right to refuse a sale or charge whatever the customers will pay.
442
The situation may be unfortunate for the customers, as are many situations
443
in life."</i> [<b>The Ethics of Liberty</b>, p. 221] (Rothbard, we should note,
444
is relying to the right-libertarian von Hayek who -- to his credit --
445
does maintain that this is a coercive situation; but as others, including
446
other right-libertarians, point out, he has to change his definition
447
of coercion/freedom to do so -- see Stephan L. Newman's <b>Liberalism at
448
Wit's End</b>, pp. 130-134 for an excellent summary of this debate).
450
Now, we could be tempted just to rant about the evils of the right
451
libertarian mind-frame but we will try to present a clam analysis
452
of this position. Now, what Kirzner (and Rothbard et al) fails to note is
453
that without the water the other travellers will die in a matter of days.
454
The monopolist has the power of life and death over his fellow travellers.
455
Perhaps he hates one of them and so raced ahead to ensure their death.
456
Perhaps he just recognised the vast power that his appropriation would
457
give him and so, correctly, sees that the other travellers would give
458
up all their possessions and property to him in return for enough water
461
Either way, its clear that perhaps the other travellers did not <i>"race
462
ahead"</i> because they were ethical people -- they would not desire to
463
inflict such tyranny on others because they would not like it inflicted
466
Thus we can answer Kirzner's question -- <i>"What . . . is so obviously
467
acceptable about the Lockean proviso. . . ?"</i> [<b>Ibid.</b>]
469
It is the means by which human actions are held accountable to social
470
standards and ethics. It is the means by which the greediest, most
471
evil and debased humans are stopped from dragging the rest of humanity
472
down to their level (via a "race to the bottom") and inflicting untold
473
tyranny and domination on their fellow humans. An ideology that could
474
consider the oppression which could result from such an appropriation
475
as "supplying a vital service" and any act to remove this tyranny as
476
"coercion" is obviously a very sick ideology. And we may note that
477
the right-libertarian position on this example is a good illustration
478
of the dangers of deductive logic from assumptions (see section <a href="append131.html#secf13">1.3</a>
479
for more on this right-libertarian methodology) -- after all W. Duncan
480
Reekie, in his introduction to Austrian Economics, states that <i>"[t]o be
481
intellectually consistent one must concede his absolute right to the
482
oasis."</i> [<b>Markets, Entrepreneurs and Liberty</b>, p. 181] To place ideology
483
before people is to ensure humanity is placed on a Procrustean bed.
485
Which brings us to another point. Often right-libertarians say that
486
anarchists and other socialists are "lazy" or "do not want to work".
487
You could interpret Kirzner's example as saying that the other
488
travellers are "lazy" for not rushing ahead and appropriating the
489
oasis. But this is false. For under capitalism you can only get rich
490
by exploiting the labour of others via wage slavery or, within a
491
company, get better pay by taking "positions of responsibility"
492
(i.e. management positions). If you have an ethical objection to
493
treating others as objects ("means to an end") then these options
494
are unavailable to you. Thus anarchists and other socialists are
495
not "lazy" because they are not rich -- they just have no desire to
496
get rich off the labour and liberty of others (as expressed in their
497
opposition to private property and the relations of domination it
498
creates). In other words, Anarchism is not the "politics of envy";
499
it is the politics of liberty and the desire to treat others as
500
"ends in themselves".
502
Rothbard is aware of what is involved in accepting the Lockean Proviso
503
to the outlawry of <b>all</b> private property of land, since one can always
504
say that the reduction of available land leaves everyone else . . .
505
worse off"</i>, <b>The Ethics of Liberty</b>, p. 240 -- see section <a href="secB3.html#secb34">B.3.4</a> for
506
a discussion on why the Proviso <b>does</b> imply the end of capitalist
507
property rights). Which is why he, and other right-libertarians, reject
508
it. Its simple. Either you reject the Proviso and embrace capitalist
509
property rights (and so allow one class of people to be dispossessed
510
and another empowered at their expense) or you reject private property
511
in favour of possession and liberty. Anarchists, obviously, favour
514
As an aside, we should point out that (following Stirner) the would-be
515
monopolist is doing nothing wrong (as such) in attempting to monopolise
516
the oasis. He is, after all, following his self-interest. However, what
517
is objectionable is the right-libertarian attempt to turn thus act into
518
a "right" which must be respected by the other travellers. Simply put,
519
if the other travellers gang up and dispose of this would be tyrant
520
then they are right to do so -- to argue that this is a violation of
521
the monopolists "rights" is insane and an indication of a slave
522
mentality (or, following Rousseau, that the others are <i>"simple"</i>).
523
Of course, if the would-be monopolist has the necessary <b>force</b> to
524
withstand the other travellers then his property then the matter is
525
closed -- might makes right. But to worship rights, even when they
526
obviously result in despotism, is definitely a case of <i>"spooks in
527
the head"</i> and "man is created for the Sabbath" not "the Sabbath
530
<a name="secf43"><h2>4.3 How does private property effect individualism?</h2>
532
Private property is usually associated by "anarcho"-capitalism with
533
individualism. Usually private property is seen as the key way of
534
ensuring individualism and individual freedom (and that private
535
property is the expression of individualism). Therefore it is useful
536
to indicate how private property can have a serious impact on
539
Usually right-libertarians contrast the joys of "individualism" with
540
the evils of "collectivism" in which the individual is sub-merged into
541
the group or collective and is made to work for the benefit of the
542
group (see any Ayn Rand book or essay on the evils of collectivism).
544
But what is ironic is that right-libertarian ideology creates a view
545
of industry which would (perhaps) shame even the most die-hard fan of
546
Stalin. What do we mean? Simply that right-libertarians stress the
547
abilities of the people at the top of the company, the owner, the
548
entrepreneur, and tend to ignore the very real subordination of those
549
lower down the hierarchy (see, again, any Ayn Rand book on the worship
550
of business leaders). In the Austrian school of economics, for example,
551
the entrepreneur is considered the driving force of the market process
552
and tend to abstract away from the organisations they govern. This
553
approach is usually followed by right-libertarians. Often you get the
554
impression that the accomplishments of a firm are the personal triumphs
555
of the capitalists, as though their subordinates are merely tools not
556
unlike the machines on which they labour.
558
We should not, of course, interpret this to mean that right-libertarians
559
believe that entrepreneurs run their companies single-handedly (although
560
you do get that impression sometimes!). But these abstractions help hide
561
the fact that the economy is overwhelmingly interdependent and organised
562
hierarchically within industry. Even in their primary role as organisers,
563
entrepreneurs depend on the group. A company president can only issue
564
general guidelines to his managers, who must inevitably organise and
565
direct much of their departments on their own. The larger a company gets,
566
the less personal and direct control an entrepreneur has over it. They must
567
delegate out an increasing share of authority and responsibility, and is
568
more dependent than ever on others to help him run things, investigate
569
conditions, inform policy, and make recommendations. Moreover, the authority
570
structures are from the "top-down" -- indeed the firm is essentially a
571
command economy, with all members part of a collective working on a common
572
plan to achieve a common goal (i.e. it is essentially collectivist in
573
nature -- which means it is not too unsurprising that Lenin argued that
574
state socialism could be considered as one big firm or office and why
575
the system he built on that model was so horrific).
577
So the firm (the key component of the capitalist economy) is marked by
578
a distinct <b>lack</b> of individualism, a lack usually ignored by right
579
libertarians (or, at best, considered as "unavoidable"). As these firms
580
are hierarchical structures and workers are paid to obey, it does make
581
<b>some</b> sense -- in a capitalist environment -- to assume that the
582
entrepreneur is the main actor, but as an individualistic model of
583
activity it fails totally. Perhaps it would not be unfair to say that
584
capitalist individualism celebrates the entrepreneur because this
585
reflects a hierarchical system in which for the one to flourish, the
586
many must obey? (Also see section <a href="append131.html#secf11">1.1</a>).
588
Capitalist individualism does not recognise the power structures that
589
exist within capitalism and how they affect individuals. In Brian
590
Morris' words, what they fail <i>"to recognise is that most productive
591
relations under capitalism allow little scope for creativity and
592
self-expression on the part of workers; that such relationships
593
are not equitable; nor are they freely engaged in for the mutual
594
benefit of both parties, for workers have no control over the
595
production process or over the product of their labour. Rand [like
596
other right-libertarians] misleadingly equates trade, artistic
597
production and wage-slavery. . . [but] wage-slavery . . . is quite
598
different from the trade principle"</i> as it is a form of <i>"exploitation."</i>
599
[<b>Ecology & Anarchism</b>, p. 190]
601
He further notes that <i>"[s]o called trade relations involving human
602
labour are contrary to the egoist values Rand [and other capitalist
603
individualists] espouses - they involve little in the way of
604
independence, freedom, integrity or justice."</i> [<b>Ibid.</b>, p. 191]
606
Moreover, capitalist individualism actually <b>supports</b> authority and
607
hierarchy. As Joshua Chen and Joel Rogers point out, the <i>"achievement
608
of short-run material satisfaction often makes it irrational [from
609
an individualist perspective] to engage in more radical struggle, since
610
that struggle is by definition against those institutions which
611
provide one's current gain."</i> In other words, to rise up the company
612
structure, to "better oneself," (or even get a good reference) you
613
cannot be a pain in the side of management -- obedient workers do
614
well, rebel workers do not.
616
Thus the hierarchical structures help develop an "individualistic"
617
perspective which actually reinforces those authority structures.
618
This, as Cohn and Rogers notes, means that <i>"the structure in which
619
[workers] find themselves yields less than optimal social results
620
from their isolated but economically rational decisions."</i> [quoted
621
by Alfie Kohn, <b>No Contest</b>, p. 67, p. 260f]
623
Steve Biko, a black activist murdered by the South African police
624
in the 1970s, argued that <i>"the most potent weapon of the oppressor
625
is the mind of the oppressed."</i> And this is something capitalists
626
have long recognised. Their investment in "Public Relations" and
627
"education" programmes for their employees shows this clearly,
628
as does the hierarchical nature of the firm. By having a ladder
629
to climb, the firm rewards obedience and penalises rebellion. This
630
aims at creating a mind-set which views hierarchy as good and so
631
helps produce servile people.
633
This is why anarchists would agree with Alfie Kohn when he argues that
634
<i>"the individualist worldview is a profoundly conservative doctrine: it
635
inherently stifles change."</i> [<b>Ibid.</b>, p. 67] So, what is the best way
636
for a boss to maintain his or her power? Create a hierarchical workplace
637
and encourage capitalist individualism (as capitalist individualism
638
actually works <b>against</b> attempts to increase freedom from hierarchy).
639
Needless to say, such a technique cannot work forever -- hierarchy
640
also encourages revolt -- but such divide and conquer can be <b>very</b>
643
And as anarchist author Michael Moorcock put it, <i>"Rugged individualism
644
also goes hand in hand with a strong faith in paternalism -- albeit a
645
tolerant and somewhat distant paternalism -- and many otherwise
646
sharp-witted libertarians seem to see nothing in the morality of a
647
John Wayne Western to conflict with their views. Heinlein's paternalism
648
is at heart the same as Wayne's. . . To be an anarchist, surely, is
649
to reject authority but to accept self-discipline and community
650
responsibility. To be a rugged individualist a la Heinlein and
651
others is to be forever a child who must obey, charm and cajole
652
to be tolerated by some benign, omniscient father: Rooster Coburn
653
shuffling his feet in front of a judge he respects for his office
654
(but not necessarily himself) in True Grit."</i> [<b>Starship Stormtroopers</b>]
656
One last thing, don't be fooled into thinking that individualism or concern
657
about individuality -- not <b>quite</b> the same thing -- is restricted to the
658
right, they are not. For example, the <i>"individualist theory of society . . .
659
might be advanced in a capitalist or in an anti-capitalist form . . . the
660
theory as developed by critics of capitalism such as Hodgskin and the
661
anarchist Tucker saw ownership of capital by a few as an obstacle to
662
genuine individualism, and the individualist ideal was realisable only
663
through the free association of labourers (Hodgskin) or independent
664
proprietorship (Tucker)."</i> [David Miller, <b>Social Justice</b>, pp. 290-1]
666
And the reason why social anarchists oppose capitalism is that it creates
667
a <b>false</b> individualism, an abstract one which crushes the individuality
668
of the many and justifies (and supports) hierarchical and authoritarian
669
social relations. In Kropotkin's words, <i>"what has been called 'individualism'
670
up to now has been only a foolish egoism which belittles the individual.
671
It did not led to what it was established as a goal: that is the complete,
672
broad, and most perfectly attainable development of individuality."</i> The
673
new individualism desired by Kropotkin <i>"will not consist . . . in the
674
oppression of one's neighbour . . . [as this] reduced the [individualist]
675
. . .to the level of an animal in a herd."</i> [<b>Selected Writings</b>, p, 295,
678
<a name="secf44"><h2>4.4 How does private property affect relationships?</h2>
680
Obviously, capitalist private property affects relationships between people
681
by creating structures of power. Property, as we have argued all through
682
this FAQ, creates relationships based upon domination -- and this cannot
683
help but produce servile tendencies within those subject to them (it also
684
produces rebellious tendencies as well, the actual ratio between the two
685
tendencies dependent on the individual in question and the community they
686
are in). As anarchists have long recognised, power corrupts -- both those
687
subjected to it and those who exercise it.
689
While few, if any, anarchists would fail to recognise the importance of
690
possession -- which creates the necessary space all individuals need to
691
be themselves -- they all agree that private property corrupts this
692
liberatory aspect of "property" by allowing relationships of domination
693
and oppression to be built up on top of it. Because of this recognition,
694
all anarchists have tried to equalise property and turn it back into
697
Also, capitalist individualism actively builds barriers between people.
698
Under capitalism, money rules and individuality is expressed via
699
consumption choices (i.e. money). But money does not encourage an
700
empathy with others. As Frank Stronach (chair of Magna International, a
701
Canadian auto-parts maker that shifted its production to Mexico) put
702
it, <i>"[t]o be in business your first mandate is to make money, and
703
money has no heart, no soul, conscience, homeland."</i> [cited by Doug
704
Henwood, <b>Wall Street</b>, p. 113] And for those who study economics,
705
it seems that this dehumanising effect also strikes them as well:
707
<i>"Studying economics also seems to make you a nastier person. Psychological
708
studies have shown that economics graduate students are more likely to
709
'free ride' -- shirk contributions to an experimental 'public goods'
710
account in the pursuit of higher private returns -- than the general
711
public. Economists also are less generous that other academics in
712
charitable giving. Undergraduate economics majors are more likely to
713
defect in the classic prisoner's dilemma game that are other majors.
714
And on other tests, students grow less honest -- expressing less of
715
a tendency, for example, to return found money -- after studying
716
economics, but not studying a control subject like astronomy.
718
"This is no surprise, really. Mainstream economics is built entirely
719
on a notion of self-interested individuals, rational self-maximisers
720
who can order their wants and spend accordingly. There's little room
721
for sentiment, uncertainty, selflessness, and social institutions.
722
Whether this is an accurate picture of the average human is open to
723
question, but there's no question that capitalism as a system and
724
economics as a discipline both reward people who conform to the
725
model."</i> [Doug Henwood, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p, 143]
727
Which, of course, highlights the problems within the "trader" model
728
advocated by Ayn Rand. According to her, the trader is <b>the</b> example
729
of moral behaviour -- you have something I want, I have something you
730
want, we trade and we both benefit and so our activity is self-interested
731
and no-one sacrifices themselves for another. While this has <b>some</b>
732
intuitive appeal it fails to note that in the real world it is a pure
733
fantasy. The trader wants to get the best deal possible for themselves
734
and if the bargaining positions are unequal then one person will gain
735
at the expense of the other (if the "commodity" being traded is labour,
736
the seller may not even have the option of not trading at all). The
737
trader is only involved in economic exchange, and has no concern for
738
the welfare of the person they are trading with. They are a bearer of
739
things, <b>not</b> an individual with a wide range of interests, concerns,
740
hopes and dreams. These are irrelevant, unless you can make money out
741
of them of course! Thus the trader is often a manipulator and outside
742
novels it most definitely is a case of "buyer beware!"
744
If the trader model is taken as the basis of interpersonal relationships,
745
economic gain replaces respect and empathy for others. It replaces human
746
relationships with relationships based on things -- and such a mentality
747
does not encompass how interpersonal relationships affect both you and
748
the society you life in. In the end, it impoverishes society and
749
individuality. Yes, any relationship must be based upon self-interest
750
(mutual aid is, after all, something we do because we benefit from it
751
in some way) but the trader model presents such a <b>narrow</b> self-interest
752
that it is useless and actively impoverishes the very things it should be
753
protecting -- individuality and interpersonal relationships (see section
754
<a href="secI7.html#seci74">I.7.4</a> on how capitalism does not protect individuality).
756
<a name="secf45"><h2>4.5 Does private property co-ordinate without hierarchy?</h2>
758
It is usually to find right-libertarians maintain that private property
759
(i.e. capitalism) allows economic activity to be co-ordinated by
760
non-hierarchical means. In other words, they maintain that capitalism
761
is a system of large scale co-ordination without hierarchy. These
762
claims follow the argument of noted right-wing, "free market"
763
economist Milton Friedman who contrasts <i>"central planning involving
764
the use of coercion - the technique of the army or the modern
765
totalitarian state"</i> with <i>"voluntary co-operation between
766
individuals - the technique of the marketplace"</i> as two distinct
767
ways of co-ordinating the economic activity of large groups
768
(<i>"millions"</i>) of people. [<b>Capitalism and Freedom</b>, p. 13].
770
However, this is just playing with words. As they themselves point
771
out the internal structure of a corporation or capitalist company
772
is <b>not</b> a "market" (i.e. non-hierarchical) structure, it is a
773
"non-market" (hierarchical) structure of a market participant
774
(see section <a href="append132.html#secf22">2.2</a>). However "market participants" are part of
775
the market. In other words, capitalism is <b>not</b> a system of
776
co-ordination without hierarchy because it does contain hierarchical
777
organisations which <b>are an essential part of the system</b>!
779
Indeed, the capitalist company <b>is</b> a form of central planning and
780
shares the same "technique" as the army. As the pro-capitalist writer
781
Peter Drucker noted in his history of General Motors, <i>"[t]here is a
782
remarkably close parallel between General Motors' scheme of organisation
783
and those of the two institutions most renowned for administrative
784
efficiency: that of the Catholic Church and that of the modern army . . ."</i>
785
[quoted by David Enger, <b>Apostles of Greed</b>, p. 66]. And so capitalism
786
is marked by a series of totalitarian organisations -- and since when
787
was totalitarianism liberty enhancing? Indeed, many "anarcho"-capitalists
788
actually celebrate the command economy of the capitalist firm as being
789
more "efficient" than self-managed firms (usually because democracy
790
stops action with debate). The same argument is applied by the Fascists
791
to the political sphere. It does not change much -- nor does it become
792
less fascistic -- when applied to economic structures. To state the
793
obvious, such glorification of workplace dictatorship seems somewhat
794
at odds with an ideology calling itself "libertarian" or "anarchist".
795
Is dictatorship more liberty enhancing to those subject to it than
796
democracy? Anarchists doubt it (see section <a href="secA2.html#seca211">A.2.11</a> for details).
798
In order to claim that capitalism co-ordinates individual activity
799
without hierarchy right-libertarians have to abstract from individuals
800
and how they interact <b>within</b> companies and concentrate purely on
801
relationships <b>between</b> companies. This is pure sophistry. Like markets,
802
companies require at least two or more people to work - both are forms
803
of social co-operation. If co-ordination within companies is hierarchical,
804
then the system they work within is based upon hierarchy. To claim that
805
capitalism co-ordinates without hierarchy is simply false - its based
806
on hierarchy and authoritarianism. Capitalist companies are based upon
807
denying workers self-government (i.e. freedom) during work hours. The
808
boss tells workers what to do, when to do, how to do and for how long.
809
This denial of freedom is discussed in greater depth in sections <a href="secB1.html">B.1</a>
810
and <a href="secB4.html">B.4</a>.
812
Because of the relations of power it creates, opposition to capitalist
813
private property (and so wage labour) and the desire to see it ended
814
is an essential aspect of anarchist theory. Due to its ideological
815
blind spot with regards to apparently "voluntary" relations of
816
domination and oppression created by the force of circumstances
817
(see section <a href="append132.html">2</a> for details), "anarcho"-capitalism considers
818
wage labour as a form of freedom and ignore its fascistic aspects
819
(when not celebrating those aspects). Thus "anarcho"-capitalism is not
820
anarchist. By concentrating on the moment the contract is signed, they
821
ignore that freedom is restricted during the contract itself. While
822
denouncing (correctly) the totalitarianism of the army, they ignore
823
it in the workplace. But factory fascism is just as freedom destroying
824
as the army or political fascism.
826
Due to this basic lack of concern for freedom, "anarcho"-capitalists
827
cannot be considered as anarchists. Their total lack of concern
828
about factory fascism (i.e. wage labour) places them totally outside
829
the anarchist tradition. Real anarchists have always been aware of that
830
private property and wage labour restriction freedom and desired to
831
create a society in which people would be able to avoid it. In other
832
words, where <b>all</b> relations are non-hierarchical and truly co-operative.
834
To conclude, to claim that private property eliminates hierarchy is false.
835
Nor does capitalism co-ordinate economic activities without hierarchical
836
structures. For this reason anarchists support co-operative forms of
837
production rather than capitalistic forms.
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