1
I.6 What about the "Tragedy of the Commons"?
3
The term "Tragedy of the Commons" is a phrase which is used to describe
4
why, according to some, commonly owned resources will be destructively
5
overused. The term was first coined by Garret Hardin in December 1968.
6
["The Tragedy of the Commons", Science, Vol. 162, No. 3859, pp.
7
1243-1248] It quickly became popular with those arguing against any
8
form of collective ownership or socialism and would be the basis for
9
many arguments for privatisation.
11
Unsurprisingly, given its popularity with defenders of capitalism and
12
neo-classical economists, Hardin's argument was a pure thought
13
experiment with absolutely no empirical evidence to support it. He
14
suggested a scenario in which commonly owned pasture was open to all
15
local herdsmen to feed their cattle on. Completing this assumption with
16
the standard ones of neo-classical economics, with Hardin arguing that
17
each herdsman would try to keep as many cattle as possible on the
18
commons to maximise their income. This would result in overgrazing and
19
environmental destruction as the cost of each feeding addition animals
20
is shouldered by all who use the commons while the benefits accrue to
21
the individual herdsman. However, what is individually rational becomes
22
collectively irrational when each herdsman, acting in isolation, does
23
the same thing. The net result of the individual's actions is the
24
ending of the livelihood of every herdsman as the land becomes
27
His article was used to justify both nationalisation and privatisation
28
of communal resources (the former often a precursor for the latter). As
29
state ownership fell out of favour, the lesson of this experiment in
30
logic was as uniform as it was simple: only privatisation of common
31
resources could ensure their efficient use and stop them being overused
32
and destroyed. Coming as it before the rise of neo-liberalism in the
33
1970s, Hardin's essay was much referenced by those seeking to privatise
34
nationalised industries and eliminate communal institutions in tribal
35
societies in the Third World. That these resulted in wealth being
36
concentrated in a few hands should come as no surprise.
38
Needless to say, there are numerous problems with Hardin's analysis.
39
Most fundamentally, it was a pure thought experiment and, as such, was
40
not informed by historical or current practice. In other words, it did
41
not reflect the reality of the commons as a social institution. The
42
so-called "Tragedy of the Commons" was no such thing. It is actually an
43
imposition of the "tragedy of the free-for-all" to communally owned
44
resources (in this case, land). In reality, commons were never "free
45
for all" resources and while the latter may be see overuse and
46
destruction the former managed to survive thousands of years. So,
47
unfortunately for the supporters of private property who so regularly
48
invoke the "Tragedy of the Commons", they simply show their ignorance
49
of what true commons are. As socialist Allan Engler points out:
51
"Supporters of capitalism cite what they call the tragedy of the
52
commons to explain the wanton plundering of forests, fish and
53
waterways, but common property is not the problem. When property was
54
held in common by tribes, clans and villages, people took no more
55
than their share and respected the rights of others. They cared for
56
common property and when necessary acted together to protect it
57
against those who would damage it. Under capitalism, there is no
58
common property. (Public property is a form of private property,
59
property owned by the government as a corporate person.) Capitalism
60
recognises only private property and free-for-all property. Nobody
61
is responsible for free-for-all property until someone claims it as
62
his own. He then has a right to do as he pleases with it, a right
63
that is uniquely capitalist. Unlike common or personal property,
64
capitalist property is not valued for itself or for its utility. It
65
is valued for the revenue it produces for its owner. If the
66
capitalist owner can maximise his revenue by liquidating it, he has
67
the right to do that." [Apostles of Greed, pp. 58-59]
69
Therefore, as Colin Ward argues, "[l]ocal, popular, control is the
70
surest way of avoiding the tragedy of the commons." [Reflected in
71
Water, p. 20] Given that a social anarchist society is a communal,
72
decentralised one, it will have little to fear from irrational overuse
73
or abuse of communally owned and used resources.
75
So, the real problem is that a lot of economists and sociologists
76
conflate Hardin's scenario, in which unmanaged resources are free for
77
all, with the situation that prevailed in the use of commons which were
78
communally managed resources in village and tribal communities.
79
Historian E.P. Thompson, for example, noted that Hardin was
80
"historically uninformed" when he assumed that commons were pastures
81
open to all. The commons, in reality, were managed by common agreements
82
between those who used them. In an extensive investigation on this
83
subject, Thompson showed that the "argument [is] that since resources
84
held in common are not owned and protected by anyone, there is an
85
inexorable economic logic that dooms them to over-exploitation . . .
86
Despite its common sense air, what it overlooks is that commoners
87
themselves were not without common sense. Over time and over space the
88
users of commons have developed a rich variety of institutions and
89
community sanctions which have effected restraints and stints upon use
90
. . . As the old . . . institutions lapsed, so they fed into a vacuum
91
in which political influence, market forces, and popular assertion
92
contested with each other without common rules." [Customs in Common, p.
93
108fn and p. 107] Colin Ward points to a more recent example, that of
94
Spain after the victory of Franco:
96
"The water history of Spain demonstrates that the tragedy of the
97
commons is not the one identified by Garrett Hardin. Communal
98
control developed an elaborate and sophisticated system of fair
99
shares for all. The private property recommended by Hardin resulted
100
in the selfish individualism that he thought was inevitable with
101
common access, or in the lofty indifference of the big landowners."
104
So, for a while, Hardin's essay "was taken to provide an argument for
105
the privatisation of the commons. It is now a well-developed point that
106
Hardin's argument is not a tragedy of common ownership at all . . .
107
Hardin's argument is a problem not of common ownership, but of open
108
access in a context of private ownership of particular assets." [John
109
O'Neill, Markets, Deliberation and Environment, p. 54] Significantly,
110
Hardin later admitted his mistake and noted that "it is clear to me
111
that the title of my original contribution should have been The Tragedy
112
of the Unmanaged Commons . . . I can understand how I might have misled
113
others." [quoted by O'Neill, Op. Cit., p. 199] But, of course, by then
114
the damage had been done.
116
There is something quite arrogant about Hardin's assertions, as he
117
basically assumed that peasant farmers are unable to recognise certain
118
disaster and change their behaviour accordingly. This, apparently, is
119
where enlightened elites (governmental and economic) step in. However,
120
in the real world, small farmers (and others) have created their own
121
institutions and rules for preserving resources and ensuring that their
122
community has the resources it needed to survive. Hardin, in other
123
words, ignored what actually happens in a real commons, namely communal
124
control and self-regulation by the communities involved who develop the
125
appropriate communal institutions to do so.
127
Surely, the very obvious fact that humans have lived in societies with
128
commons for centuries and did not overuse them disproves Hardin's most
129
fundamental assumptions. "If we misunderstand the true nature of the
130
commons," argues scientist Susan Jane Buck Cox "we also misunderstand
131
the implications of the demise of the traditional, commons system.
132
Perhaps what existed in fact was not a 'tragedy of the commons' but
133
rather a triumph: that for hundreds of years -- and perhaps thousands,
134
although written records do not exist to prove the longer era -- land
135
was managed successfully by communities." This suggests that it is a
136
case of "the myth of the tragedy of the commons", rooted in an argument
137
which is "historically false" as the "commons were carefully and
138
painstakingly regulated." She points to a wider issue, namely whether
139
"our perceptions of the nature of humankind are awry" for "it seems
140
quite likely if 'economic man' had been managing the commons that
141
tragedy really would have occurred," so "perhaps someone else was
142
running the common." ["No Tragedy on the Commons", pp. 49-61,
143
Environmental Ethics, vol. 7, p. 60, p. 53, p. 56 and p. 61]
145
One economist has noted that the "tragedy of the commons" only makes
146
sense once the assumption of neo-classical economics are taken for
147
granted. If we assume atomised individuals accessing unmanaged lands
148
then Hardin's conclusions automatically flow. However, "if the property
149
were really common, this would imply the necessary existence of
150
institutional agreements . . . between the co-owners to establish the
151
rules for decisions governing the management of the resource. To put it
152
more clearly, for common property to be truly common property implies
153
its existence as an institution." It is precisely these kinds of human
154
institutions which neo-classical economics ignores and so "the
155
so-called 'tragedy of the commons' is more accurately considered 'the
156
tragedy of a methodological individualism'". As many critics note,
157
there are numerous "conceptual errors" contained in the article and
158
these "have been repeated systematically by economists." In summary,
159
"the so-called tragedy of the commons has nothing to do with common
160
property, but with unrestricted and unregulated access." [F.
161
Aguilera-Klink, "Some Notes on the Misuse of Classic Writings in
162
Economics on the Subject of Common Property", pp. 221-8, Ecological
163
Economics, No. 9, p. 223, p. 221, p. 224 and p. 226]
165
Much the same can be said against those who argue that the experience
166
of the Stalinism in the Eastern Block and elsewhere shows that public
167
property leads to pollution and destruction of natural resources. Such
168
arguments also show a lack of awareness of what common property
169
actually is (it is no co-incidence that the propertarian-right use such
170
an argument). This is because the resources in question, as we
171
discussed in [1]section B.3.5, were not owned or managed in common --
172
the fact that these countries were dictatorships excluded popular
173
control of resources. Thus Stalinism does not, in fact, show the
174
dangers of having commons or public ownership. Rather it shows the
175
danger of not subjecting those who manage a resource to public control
176
(and it is no co-incidence that the USA is far more polluted than
177
Western Europe -- in the USA, like in the USSR, the controllers of
178
resources are not subject to popular control and so pass pollution on
179
to the public). Stalinism shows the danger of state owned resource use
180
(nationalisation) rather than commonly owned resource use
181
(socialisation), particularly when the state in question is not under
182
even the limited control of its subjects implied in representative
185
This confusion of public and state owned resources has, of course, been
186
used to justify the stealing of communal property by the rich and the
187
state. The continued acceptance of this "confusion" in political
188
debate, like the continued use of Hardin's original and flawed "Tragedy
189
of the Commons", is due to the utility of the theory for the rich and
190
powerful, who have a vested interest in undermining pre-capitalist
191
social forms and stealing communal resources. Most examples used to
192
justify the "tragedy of the commons" are false examples, based on
193
situations in which the underlying social context is assumed to be
194
radically different from that involved in using true commons.
196
In reality, the "tragedy of the commons" comes about only after wealth
197
and private property, backed by the state, starts to eat into and
198
destroy communal life. This is well indicated by the fact that commons
199
existed for thousands of years and only disappeared after the rise of
200
capitalism -- and the powerful central state it requires -- had eroded
201
communal values and traditions. Without the influence of wealth
202
concentrations and the state, people get together and come to
203
agreements over how to use communal resources and have been doing so
204
for millennia. That was how the commons were successfully managed
205
before the wealthy sought to increase their holdings and deny the poor
206
access to land in order to make them fully dependent on the power and
207
whims of the owning class.
209
Thus, as Kropotkin stressed, the state "systematically weeded out all
210
institutions in which the mutual-aid tendency had formerly found its
211
expression. The village communities were bereft of their folkmotes,
212
their courts and independent administration; their lands were
213
confiscated." [Mutual Aid, p. 182] The possibilities of free discussion
214
and agreement were destroyed in the name of "absolute" property rights
215
and the power and authority which goes with them. Both political
216
influence and market forces were, and are, dominated by wealth: "There
217
were two occasions that dictated absolute precision: a trial at law and
218
a process of enclosure. And both occasions favoured those with power
219
and purses against the little users." Popular assertion meant little
220
when the state enforces property rights in the interests of the
221
wealthy. Ultimately, "Parliament and law imposed capitalist definitions
222
to exclusive property in land." [Thompson, Op. Cit., p. 134 and p. 163]
223
As Cox suggested, many tenants were "denied [their] remedy at law for
224
the illegal abuses of the more powerful landowners" and "[s]ponsored by
225
wealthy landowners, the land reform was frequently no more than a
226
sophisticated land-grab." [Op. Cit., p. 58 and p. 59] Gerrard
227
Winstanley, the Digger (and proto-anarchist), was only expressing a
228
widespread popular sentiment when he complained that "in Parishes where
229
Commons lie the rich Norman Freeholders, or the new (more covetous)
230
Gentry overstock the Commons with sheep and cattle, so that the
231
inferior Tenants and poor labourers can hardly keep a cow but half
232
starve her." [quoted by Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development of
233
Capitalism, p. 173] The working class is only "left alone" to starve.
235
As discussed in [2]section F.8, the enclosures were part of a wider
236
state-imposition of capitalism onto society. Of course, enclosure was
237
often justified by supporters of capitalism by the increased
238
productivity which, they claim, resulted from it (in effect, repeating
239
Locke's earlier, and flawed, argument -- see [3]section B.3.4). There
240
are three objections to this. First, it cannot be assumed that
241
increased productivity could not be achieved by keeping the commons and
242
by the commoners applying the improved techniques and technologies that
243
contributed to any post-enclosure increased productivity. Second, it
244
ignores the key issue of liberty and replaces it with property
245
(increases in wealth being considered more important than reducing the
246
freedom of the working class). Third, and more importantly, this
247
paternalistic rationale for coercion and state action does not fit well
248
with such apologist's opposition to (certain forms of) state
249
intervention today (such as taxation or popular land reform). If the
250
"ends justify the means" (which is what their arguments boil down to)
251
when applied to the rural working class, then they have little basis
252
for opposing taxation of the wealthy elite or pro-worker land-reform in
253
a democracy or a popular social revolution.
255
To conclude. The "tragedy of the commons" argument is conceptually
256
flawed and empirically wrong (unsurprising, given that no actual
257
empirical evidence was presented to support the argument). Sadly, this
258
has not stopped Hardin, or those inspired by his arguments, from
259
suggesting policies based on a somewhat dubious understanding of
260
history and humanity. Perhaps this is not that surprising, given that
261
Hardin's assumptions (which drive his conclusions) are based not on
262
actual people nor historical evidence but rather by fundamental
263
components of capitalist economic theory. While under capitalism, and
264
the short-termism imposed by market forces, you could easily imagine
265
that a desire for profit would outweigh a person's interest in the
266
long-term survival of their community, such a perspective is relatively
267
recent in human history.
269
In fact, communal ownership produces a strong incentive to protect such
270
resources for people are aware that their offspring will need them and
271
so be inclined to look after them. By having more resources available,
272
they would be able to resist the pressures of short-termism and so
273
resist maximising current production without regard for the future.
274
Capitalist owners have the opposite incentive for, as argued in
275
[4]section E.3, unless they maximise short-term profits then they will
276
not be around in the long-term (so if wood means more profits than
277
centuries-old forests then the trees will be chopped down). By
278
combining common ownership with decentralised and federated communal
279
self-management, anarchism will be more than able to manage resources
280
effectively, avoiding the pitfalls of both privatisation and
283
I.6.1 How can property "owned by everyone in the world" be used?
285
First, we need to point out the fallacy normally lying behind this
286
objection. It is assumed that because everyone owns something, then
287
everyone has to be consulted in what it is used for. This, however,
288
applies the logic of private property to non-capitalist social forms.
289
While it is true that everyone owns collective "property" in an
290
anarchist society, it does not mean that everyone uses it. Carlo
291
Cafiero, one of the founders of communist-anarchism, stated the
294
"The common wealth being scattered right across the planet, while
295
belonging by right to the whole of humanity, those who happen to be
296
within reach of that wealth and in a position to make use of it will
297
utilise it in common. The folk from a given country will use the
298
land, the machines, the workshops, the houses, etc., of that country
299
and they will all make common use of them. As part of humanity, they
300
will exercise here, in fact and directly, their rights over a
301
portion of mankind's wealth. But should an inhabitant of Peking
302
visit this country, he [or she] would enjoy the same rights as the
303
rest: in common with the others, he would enjoy all the wealth of
304
the country, just as he [or she] would have in Peking." [No Gods, No
305
Masters, vol. 1, p. 250]
307
Anarchists, therefore, think that those who use a part of society's
308
wealth have the most say in what happens to it (e.g., workers control
309
the means of production they use and the work they do when using it).
310
This does not mean that those using it can do what they like to it.
311
Users would be subject to recall by local communities if they are
312
abusing their position (for example, if a workplace were polluting the
313
environment, then the local community could act to stop or, if need be,
314
close down the workplace). Thus use rights (or usufruct) replace
315
property rights in a free society, combined with a strong dose of
316
"think globally, act locally."
318
It is no coincidence that societies that are stateless are also without
319
private property. As Murray Bookchin pointed out "an individual
320
appropriation of goods, a personal claim to tools, land, and other
321
resources . . . is fairly common in organic [i.e. aboriginal] societies
322
. . . By the same token, co-operative work and the sharing of resources
323
on a scale that could be called communistic is also fairly common . . .
324
But primary to both of these seemingly contrasting relationships is the
325
practice of usufruct." Such stateless societies are based upon "the
326
principle of usufruct, the freedom of individuals in a community to
327
appropriate resources merely by the virtue of the fact they are using
328
them . . . Such resources belong to the user as long as they are being
329
used. Function, in effect, replaces our hallowed concept of
330
possession." [The Ecology of Freedom, p. 116] The future stateless
331
society anarchists hope for would also be based upon such a principle.
333
In effect, critics of social anarchism confuse property with possession
334
and think that abolishing property automatically abolishes possession
335
and use rights. However, as argued in [5]section B.3, property and
336
possession are distinctly different. In the words of Charlotte Wilson:
338
"Property is the domination of an individual, or a coalition of
339
individuals, over things; it is not the claim of any person or
340
persons to the use of things -- this is, usufruct, a very different
341
matter. Property means the monopoly of wealth, the right to prevent
342
others using it, whether the owner needs it or not. Usufruct implies
343
the claim to the use of such wealth as supplies the users needs. If
344
any individual shuts of a portion of it (which he is not using, and
345
does not need for his own use) from his fellows, he is defrauding
346
the whole community." [Anarchist Essays, p. 40]
348
Thus an anarchist society has a simple and effective means of deciding
349
how communally owned resources are used, one based on possession and
350
usufruct. The key thing to remember, as discussed in [6]section I.3.3,
351
is that socialisation means that access is free: users of a resource
352
are not subjected to hierarchical social relationships in order to use
353
it. Socialisation does not mean that people can, say, wander into
354
someone's workplace and simply take away a machine or computer. Rather,
355
it means that when someone joins a workplace they are sharing in the
356
use of a common resource and do so as a free and equal associate rather
357
than as an obedient wage-slave. If a resource is not being used, then
358
they have free access to use it. If it is being used then it will be
359
managed by those who use it, with access granted in agreed ways which
360
ensure egalitarian, and so free, relationships and outcomes.
362
As for deciding what a given area of commons is used for, that falls to
363
the local communities who live next to them. If, for example, a local
364
self-managed factory wants to expand and eat into the commons, then the
365
local community who uses (and so controls) the local commons would
366
discuss it and come to an agreement concerning it. If a minority really
367
objects, they can use direct action to put their point across. But
368
anarchists argue that rational debate among equals will not result in
369
too much of that. Or suppose an individual wanted to set up an
370
allotment in a given area, which had not been allocated as a park. Then
371
he or she would notify the community assembly by appropriate means
372
(e.g. on a notice board or newspaper), and if no one objected at the
373
next assembly or in a set time-span, the allotment would go ahead, as
374
no one else desired to use the resource in question.
376
Other communities would be confederated with this one, and joint
377
activity would also be discussed by debate, with a community (like an
378
individual) being free not to associate if they so desire. Other
379
communities could and would object to ecologically and individually
380
destructive practices. The interrelationships of both ecosystems and
381
freedom is well known, and its doubtful that free individuals would sit
382
back and let some amongst them destroy their planet.
384
Therefore, those who use something control it. This means that "users
385
groups" would be created to manage resources used by more than one
386
person. For workplaces this would (essentially) be those who worked
387
there (with, possibly, the input of consumer groups and co-operatives).
388
Housing associations made up of tenants would manage housing and
389
repairs. Resources that are used by associations within society, such
390
as communally owned schools, workshops, computer networks, and so
391
forth, would be managed on a day-to-day basis by those who use them.
392
User groups would decide access rules (for example, time-tables and
393
booking rules) and how they are used, making repairs and improvements.
394
Such groups would be accountable to their local community. Hence, if
395
that community thought that any activities by a group within it was
396
destroying communal resources or restricting access to them, the matter
397
would be discussed at the relevant assembly. In this way, interested
398
parties manage their own activities and the resources they use (and so
399
would be very likely to have an interest in ensuring their proper and
400
effective use), but without private property and its resulting
401
hierarchies and restrictions on freedom.
403
Lastly, let us examine clashes of use rights, i.e. cases where two or
404
more people, communes or syndicates desire to use the same resource. In
405
general, such problems can be resolved by discussion and decision
406
making by those involved. This process would be roughly as follows: if
407
the contesting parties are reasonable, they would probably mutually
408
agree to allow their dispute to be settled by some mutual friend whose
409
judgement they could trust, or they would place it in the hands of a
410
jury, randomly selected from the community or communities in question.
411
This would take place only if they could not come to an agreement
412
between themselves to share the resource in question.
414
On thing is certain, however, such disputes are much better settled
415
without the interference of authority or the re-creation of private
416
property. If those involved do not take the sane course described above
417
and instead decide to set up an authority, disaster will be the
418
inevitable result. In the first place, this authority will have to be
419
given power to enforce its judgement in such matters. If this happens,
420
the new authority will undoubtedly keep for itself the best of what is
421
disputed (as payment for services rendered, of course!). If private
422
property were re-introduced, such authoritarian bodies would develop
423
sooner, rather than later, with two new classes of oppressors being
424
created -- the property owners and the enforcers of "justice."
425
Ultimately, it is strange to think that two parties who meet on terms
426
of equality and disagree could not be reasonable or just, and that a
427
third party with power backed up by violence will be the incarnation of
428
justice itself. Common sense should warn us against such an illusion
429
and, if common sense is lacking, then history shows that using
430
authority or property to solve disputes is not wise!
432
And, we should note, it is equally as fallacious, as Leninists suggest,
433
that only centralisation can ensure common access and common use.
434
Centralisation, by removing control from the users into a body claiming
435
to represent "society", replaces the dangers of abuse by a small group
436
of workers with the dangers of abuse by a bureaucracy invested with
437
power and authority over all. If members of a commune or syndicate can
438
abuse their position and restrict access for their own benefit, so can
439
the individuals who make up the bureaucracy gathered round a
440
centralised body (whether that body is, in theory, accountable by
441
election or not). Indeed, it is far more likely to occur as the
442
experience of Leninism shows beyond doubt. Thus decentralisation is the
443
key to common ownership and access, not centralisation.
445
Communal ownership needs communal structures in order to function. Use
446
rights, and discussion among equals, replace property rights in a free
447
society. Freedom cannot survive if it is caged behind laws enforced by
448
public or private states.
450
I.6.2 Doesn't communal ownership involve restricting individual liberty?
452
This point is expressed in many different forms. John Henry MacKay (an
453
individualist anarchist) put the point as follows:
455
"'Would you [the social anarchist], in the system of society which
456
you call 'free Communism' prevent individuals from exchanging their
457
labour among themselves by means of their own medium of exchange?
458
And further: Would you prevent them from occupying land for the
459
purpose of personal use?' . . . [The] question was not to be
460
escaped. If he answered 'Yes!' he admitted that society had the
461
right of control over the individual and threw overboard the
462
autonomy of the individual which he had always zealously defended;
463
if on the other hand he answered 'No!' he admitted the right of
464
private property which he had just denied so emphatically."
465
[Patterns of Anarchy, p. 31]
467
However, anarchist theory has a simple and clear answer to this
468
question. To see what this answer is, it simply a case of remembering
469
that use rights replace property rights in an anarchist society. In
470
other words, individuals can exchange their labour as they see fit and
471
occupy land for their own use. This in no way contradicts the abolition
472
of private property, because occupancy and use is directly opposed to
473
private property (see [7]section B.3). Socialisation is rooted in this
474
concept of "occupancy and use" and this means that in a free communist
475
society individuals can occupy and use whatever land and such tools and
476
equipment as they need -- they do not have to join the free communist
477
society (see [8]section I.5.7). If they do not, however, they cannot
478
place claims on the benefits others receive from co-operation and
481
This can be seen from Charlotte Wilson's discussions on anarchism
482
written a few years before MacKay published his "inescapable" question.
483
She asks the question: "Does Anarchism . . . then . . . acknowledge . .
484
. no personal property?" She answers by noting that "every man [or
485
woman] is free to take what he [or she] requires" and so "it is hardly
486
conceivable that personal necessaries and conveniences will not be
487
appropriated" by individual's for their personal consumption and use.
488
For "[w]hen property is protected by no legal enactments, backed by
489
armed force, and is unable to buy personal service, its resuscitation
490
on such a scale as to be dangerous to society is little to be dreaded.
491
The amount appropriated by each individual . . . must be left to his
492
[or her] own conscience, and the pressure exercised upon him [or her]
493
by the moral sense and distinct interests of his [or her] neighbours."
494
This system of "usufruct" would also apply to the "instruments of
495
production -- land included", being "free to all workers, or groups of
496
workers" for "as long as long and capital are unappropriated, the
497
workers are free, and that, when these have a master, the workers also
498
are slaves." [Anarchist Essays, p. 24 and p. 21] This is because, as
499
with all forms of anarchism, communist-anarchism bases itself on the
500
distinction between property and possession.
502
In other words, possession replaces private property in a free society.
503
This applies to those who decide to join a free communist society and
504
those who desire to remain outside. This is clear from the works of
505
many leading theorists of free communism (as indicated in [9]section
506
G.2.1), none of whom thought the occupying of land for personal use (or
507
a house or the means of production) entailed the "right of private
508
property." For example, looking at land we find both Kropotkin and
509
Proudhon arguing along the same lines. For the former: "Who, then, can
510
appropriate for himself the tiniest plot of ground . . . without
511
committing a flagrant injustice?" [Conquest of Bread, p. 90] For the
512
latter: "The land cannot be appropriated". Neither denied that
513
individuals could use the land or other resources, simply that it could
514
not be turned into private property. Thus Proudhon: "Every occupant is,
515
then, necessarily a possessor or usufructuary, -- a function that
516
excludes proprietorship." [What is Property?, p. 103 and p. 98]
517
Obviously John Henry MacKay, unlike Kropotkin, had not read his
518
Proudhon! As Wilson argued:
520
"Proudhon's famous dictum, 'Property is theft', is the key to the
521
equally famous enigma . . . 'From each according to his capacities,
522
to each according to his needs'. When the workers clearly understand
523
that in taking possession of railways and ships, mines and fields,
524
farm buildings and factories, raw material and machinery, and all
525
else they need for their labour, they are claiming the right to use
526
freely for the benefit of society, what social labour has created,
527
or utilised in the past, and that, in return for their work, they
528
have a just right to take from the finished product whatever they
529
personally require." [Op. Cit., pp. 20-1]
531
This can be seen from libertarian communist William Morris and his
532
account of Proudhon. Morris classed the French anarchist as "the most
533
noteworthy figure" of a group of "Socialist thinkers who serve as a
534
kind of link between the Utopians and the school of . . . scientific
535
Socialists." As far as his critique of property went, Morris argued
536
that in What is Property? Proudhon's "position is that of a Communist
537
pure and simple." [Political Writings, p. 569 and p. 570]
539
Unsurprisingly, then, we find Kropotkin arguing that "[a]ll things
540
belong to all, and provided that men and women contribute their share
541
of labour for the production of necessary objects, they are entitled to
542
their share of all that is produced by the community at large." He went
543
on to state that "free Communism . . . places the products reaped or
544
manufactured in common at the disposal of all, leaving to each the
545
liberty to consume them as he [or she] pleases in his [or her] own
546
home." [The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution,, p. 6 and p.
547
7] This obviously implies a situation of "occupancy and use" (with
548
those who are actually using a resource controlling it).
550
This support for possession does not, of course, imply any
551
contradiction with communism as MacKay suggested. The aim of communism
552
is to place the fruits of society at the disposal of society, to be
553
used and consumed as the members of that society desire. As such,
554
individuals are not stopped from taking and using the goods produced
555
and, obviously, this automatically means "excluding" others from using
556
and consuming them. This in no way implies the recreation of private
557
property in any meaningful sense. Significantly, this perspective has
558
been pretty commonplace in human society and numerous authors have
559
pointed out "how many languages lack any verb for unilateral
560
ownership." [David Graeber, Possibilities, p. 23]
562
For example, a group of friends go on a picnic and share the food
563
stuffs they bring. If someone takes an apple from the common bounty and
564
eats it, then obviously it is no longer available for others to eat.
565
However, this does not change the common ownership of foodstuffs the
566
picnic is based on. Similarly, in a communist society people would
567
still have their own homes and, of course, would have the right to
568
restrict entry to just those whom they have invited. People would not
569
come in from the street and take up residence in the main bedroom on
570
the dubious rationale that it is not being used as the inhabitant is
571
watching TV in the lounge, is on holiday or visiting friends.
573
Thus communism is based on the obvious fact that individuals will
574
"appropriate" (use) the products of society to satisfy their own needs
575
(assuming they can find someone who needs to produce it). What it does,
576
though, is to deprive individuals of the ability to turn possession
577
into private property and, as a result, subjugate others to their will
578
by means of wage labour or landlordism.
580
In other words, possession (personal "property") is not transformed
581
into social property. Hence the communist support for individuals not
582
joining the commune, working their land or tools and living by their
583
own hands. Being based on possession, this is utterly compatible with
584
communist principles and the abolition of private property. This is
585
because people are using the resources in question and for that simple
586
reason are exercising the same rights as the rest of communist society.
587
Thus the case of the non-member of free communism is clear -- they
588
would also have access to what they possessed and used such as the
589
land, housing and means of production. The difference is that the
590
non-communists would have to barter with the rest of society for goods
591
rather than take what they need from the communal stores.
593
To re-iterate, the resources non-communists use do not become private
594
property because they are being used and they revert back into common
595
ownership once they are no longer occupied and used. In other words,
596
possession replaces property. Thus communist-anarchists agree with
597
Individualist Anarchist John Beverley Robinson when he wrote:
599
"There are two kinds of land ownership, proprietorship or property,
600
by which the owner is absolute lord of the land to use it or hold it
601
out of use, as it may please him; and possession, by which he is
602
secure in the tenure of land which he uses and occupies, but has no
603
claim on it at all if he ceases to use it. For the secure possession
604
of his crops or buildings or other products, he needs nothing but
605
the possession of the land he uses." [Patterns of Anarchy, p. 273]
607
This system, we must note, was used in the rural collectives during the
608
Spanish Revolution, with people free to remain outside the collective
609
working only as much land and equipment as they could "occupy and use"
610
by their own labour. Similarly, the individuals within the collective
611
worked in common and took what they needed from the communal stores
612
(see [10]section I.8).
614
MacKay's comments raise another interesting point. Given that
615
Individualist Anarchists oppose the current system of private property
616
in land, their system entails that "society ha[s] the right of control
617
over the individual." If we look at the "occupancy and use" land system
618
favoured by the likes of Tucker, we discover that it is based on
619
restricting property in land (and so the owners of land). As discussed
620
in [11]section G.1.2, the likes of Tucker looked forward to a time when
621
public opinion (i.e., society) would limit the amount of land which
622
individuals could acquire and so, from MacKay's perspective,
623
controlling their actions and violating their autonomy. Which, we must
624
say, is not surprising as individualism requires the supremacy of the
625
rest of society over the individual in terms of rules relating to the
626
ownership and use of possessions (or "property") -- as the
627
Individualist Anarchists themselves implicitly acknowledge.
629
MacKay goes on to state that "every serious man must declare himself:
630
for Socialism, and thereby for force and against liberty, or for
631
Anarchism, and thereby for liberty and against force." [Op. Cit., p.
632
32] Which, we must note, is a strange statement for, as indicated in
633
[12]section G.1, individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker
634
considered themselves socialists and opposed capitalist private
635
property (while, confusingly, many of them calling their system of
636
possession "property").
638
However, MacKay's statement begs the question: does private property
639
support liberty? He does not address or even acknowledge the fact that
640
private property will inevitably lead to the owners of such property
641
gaining control over the individuals who use, but do not own, it and so
642
denying them liberty (see [13]section B.4). As Proudhon argued:
644
"The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, 'This
645
is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.' Here, then, is
646
a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has right to step,
647
save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save
648
the proprietor and his servants. Let these multiply, and soon the
649
people . . . will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no
650
ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on
651
the edge of that property which was their birth-right; and the
652
proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, 'So perish idlers and
653
vagrants.'" [Op. Cit., p. 118]
655
Of course, as Proudhon suggested, the non-owner can gain access to the
656
property by becoming a servant, by selling their liberty to the owner
657
and agreeing to submit to the owner's authority. Little wonder that he
658
argued that the "second effect of property is despotism." [Op. Cit., p.
659
259] As discussed in [14]section G.4.1, this points to a massive
660
contradiction in any form of individualist anarchism which defends
661
private property which goes beyond possession and generates
662
wage-labour. This is because both the state and the property owner both
663
assume sole authority over a given area and all within it. Little
664
wonder Emile Pouget, echoing Proudhon, argued that:
666
"Property and authority are merely differing manifestations and
667
expressions of one and the same 'principle' which boils down to the
668
enforcement and enshrinement of the servitude of man. Consequently,
669
the only difference between them is one of vantage point: viewed
670
from one angle, slavery appears as a property crime, whereas, viewed
671
from a different angle, it constitutes an authority crime." [No
672
Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, p. 66]
674
So the issue changes if someone claims more resources than they can use
675
as individuals or as a co-operative group. If they are attempting to
676
restrict access to others of resources they are not using then the
677
others are entitled to simply ignore the pretensions of the would-be
678
monopoliser. Without a state to enforce capitalist property rights,
679
attempts to recreate private property will flounder in the laughter of
680
their neighbours as these free people defend their liberty by ignoring
681
the would-be capitalist's attempts to subjugate the labour of others
682
for their own benefit by monopolising the means of life.
683
Unsurprisingly, MacKay does not address the fact that private property
684
requires extensive force (i.e. a state) to protect it against those who
685
use it or could use it but do not own it.
687
So MacKay ignores two important aspects of private property. Firstly,
688
that private property is based upon force, which must be used to ensure
689
the owner's right to exclude others (the main reason for the existence
690
of the state). And secondly, he ignores the anti-libertarian nature of
691
"property" when it creates wage labour -- the other side of "private
692
property" -- in which the liberty of employees is obviously restricted
693
by the owners whose property they are hired to use. Unlike in a free
694
communist society, in which members of a commune have equal rights,
695
power and say within a self-managed association, under "private
696
property" the owner of the property governs those who use it. When the
697
owner and the user is identical, this is not a problem (i.e. when
698
possession replaces property) but once possession becomes property then
699
despotism, as Proudhon noted, is created. As Charlotte Wilson put it:
701
"Property -- not the claim to use, but to a right to prevent others
702
from using -- enables individuals who have appropriated the means of
703
production, to hold in subjection all those who possess nothing . .
704
. and who must work that they may live. No work is possible without
705
land, materials, and tools or machinery; thus the masters of those
706
things are the masters also of the destitute workers, and can live
707
in idleness upon their labour. . . We look for th[e] socialisation
708
of wealth, not to restraints imposed by authority upon property, but
709
to the removal, by direct personal action of the people themselves,
710
of the restraints which secure property against the claims of
711
popular justice. For authority and property are both manifestations
712
of the egoistical spirit of domination". [Op. Cit., pp. 57-8]
714
Therefore, it seems that in the name of "liberty" John Henry MacKay and
715
a host of other "individualists" end up supporting authority and
716
(effectively) some kind of state. This is hardly surprising as private
717
property is the opposite of personal possession, not its base. In
718
summary, then, far from communal property restricting individual
719
liberty (or even personal use of resources) it is in fact its only
720
defence. That is why all anarchists would agree with Emma Goldman that
721
"it is our endeavour to abolish private property, State . . . we aim to
722
free men from tyrants and government." [A Documentary History of the
723
American Years, vol. 1, p. 181]
727
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