         4 What is the right-libertarian position on private property?

   Right libertarians are not interested in eliminating capitalist private
   property and thus the authority, oppression and exploitation which goes
   with it. It is true that they call for an end to the state, but this is
   not because they are concerned about workers being exploited or
   oppressed but because they don't want the state to impede capitalists'
   "freedom" to exploit and oppress workers even more than is the case
   now!

   They make an idol of private property and claim to defend absolute,
   "unrestricted" property rights (i.e. that property owners can do
   anything they like with their property, as long as it does not damage
   the property of others. In particular, taxation and theft are among the
   greatest evils possible as they involve coercion against "justly held"
   property). They agree with John Adams that "[t]he moment that idea is
   admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the Laws of
   God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect
   it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be sacred or liberty
   cannot exist."

   But in their celebration of property as the source of liberty they
   ignore the fact that private property is a source of "tyranny" in
   itself (see sections [1]B.1 and [2]B.4, for example -- and please note
   that anarchists only object to private property, not individual
   possession, see section [3]B.3.1). However, as much anarchists may
   disagree about other matters, they are united in condemning private
   property. Thus Proudhon argued that property was "theft" and
   "despotism" while Stirner indicated the religious and statist nature of
   private property and its impact on individual liberty when he wrote :

     "Property in the civic sense means sacred property, such that I must
     respect your property... Be it ever so little, if one only has
     somewhat of his own - to wit, a respected property: The more such
     owners... the more 'free people and good patriots' has the State.

     "Political liberalism, like everything religious, counts on respect,
     humaneness, the virtues of love. . . . For in practice people
     respect nothing, and everyday the small possessions are bought up
     again by greater proprietors, and the 'free people' change into day
     labourers."
     [The Ego and Its Own, p. 248]

   Thus "anarcho"-capitalists reject totally one of the common (and so
   defining) features of all anarchist traditions -- the opposition to
   capitalist property. From Individualist Anarchists like Tucker to
   Communist-Anarchists like Bookchin, anarchists have been opposed to
   what Godwin termed "accumulated property." This was because it was in
   "direct contradiction" to property in the form of "the produce of his
   [the worker's] own industry" and so it allows "one man. . . [to]
   dispos[e] of the produce of another man's industry." [The Anarchist
   Reader, pp. 129-131] Thus, for anarchists, capitalist property is a
   source exploitation and domination, not freedom (it undermines the
   freedom associated with possession by created relations of domination
   between owner and employee).

   Hardly surprising then the fact that, according to Murray Bookchin,
   Murray Rothbard "attacked me [Bookchin] as an anarchist with vigour
   because, as he put it, I am opposed to private property." [The Raven,
   no. 29, p. 343]

   We will discuss Rothbard's "homesteading" justification of property in
   the [4]next section. However, we will note here one aspect of
   right-libertarian defence of "unrestricted" property rights, namely
   that it easily generates evil side effects such as hierarchy and
   starvation. As famine expert Amartya Sen notes:

     "Take a theory of entitlements based on a set of rights of
     'ownership, transfer and rectification.' In this system a set of
     holdings of different people are judged to be just (or unjust) by
     looking at past history, and not by checking the consequences of
     that set of holdings. But what if the consequences are recognisably
     terrible? . . .[R]efer[ing] to some empirical findings in a work on
     famines . . . evidence [is presented] to indicate that in many large
     famines in the recent past, in which millions of people have died,
     there was no over-all decline in food availability at all, and the
     famines occurred precisely because of shifts in entitlement
     resulting from exercises of rights that are perfectly legitimate. .
     . . [Can] famines . . . occur with a system of rights of the kind
     morally defended in various ethical theories, including Nozick's. I
     believe the answer is straightforwardly yes, since for many people
     the only resource that they legitimately possess, viz. their
     labour-power, may well turn out to be unsaleable in the market,
     giving the person no command over food . . . [i]f results such as
     starvations and famines were to occur, would the distribution of
     holdings still be morally acceptable despite their disastrous
     consequences? There is something deeply implausible in the
     affirmative answer." [Resources, Values and Development, pp. 311-2]

   Thus "unrestricted" property rights can have seriously bad consequences
   and so the existence of "justly held" property need not imply a just or
   free society -- far from it. The inequalities property can generate can
   have a serious on individual freedom (see section [5]3.1). Indeed,
   Murray Rothbard argued that the state was evil not because it
   restricted individual freedom but because the resources it claimed to
   own were not "justly" acquired. Thus right-libertarian theory judges
   property not on its impact on current freedom but by looking at past
   history. This has the interesting side effect of allowing its
   supporters to look at capitalist and statist hierarchies, acknowledge
   their similar negative effects on the liberty of those subjected to
   them but argue that one is legitimate and the other is not simply
   because of their history! As if this changed the domination and
   unfreedom that both inflict on people living today (see section [6]2.3
   for further discussion and sections [7]2.8 and [8]4.2 for other
   examples of "justly acquired" property producing terrible
   consequences).

   The defence of capitalist property does have one interesting side
   effect, namely the need arises to defend inequality and the
   authoritarian relationships inequality creates. In order to protect the
   private property needed by capitalists in order to continue exploiting
   the working class, "anarcho"-capitalists propose private security
   forces rather than state security forces (police and military) -- a
   proposal that is equivalent to bringing back the state under another
   name.

   Due to (capitalist) private property, wage labour would still exist
   under "anarcho"-capitalism (it is capitalism after all). This means
   that "defensive" force, a state, is required to "defend" exploitation,
   oppression, hierarchy and authority from those who suffer them.
   Inequality makes a mockery of free agreement and "consent" (see section
   [9]3.1). As Peter Kropotkin pointed out long ago:

     "When a workman sells his labour to an employer . . . it is a
     mockery to call that a free contract. Modern economists may call it
     free, but the father of political economy -- Adam Smith -- was never
     guilty of such a misrepresentation. As long as three-quarters of
     humanity are compelled to enter into agreements of that description,
     force is, of course, necessary, both to enforce the supposed
     agreements and to maintain such a state of things. Force -- and a
     good deal of force -- is necessary to prevent the labourers from
     taking possession of what they consider unjustly appropriated by the
     few. . . . The Spencerian party [proto-right-libertarians] perfectly
     well understand that; and while they advocate no force for changing
     the existing conditions, they advocate still more force than is now
     used for maintaining them. As to Anarchy, it is obviously as
     incompatible with plutocracy as with any other kind of -cracy."
     [Anarchism and Anarchist Communism, pp. 52-53]

   Because of this need to defend privilege and power,
   "anarcho"-capitalism is best called "private-state" capitalism. This
   will be discussed in more detail in section [10]6.

   By advocating private property, right libertarians contradict many of
   their other claims. For example, they say that they support the right
   of individuals to travel where they like. They make this claim because
   they assume that only the state limits free travel. But this is a false
   assumption. Owners must agree to let you on their land or property
   ("people only have the right to move to those properties and lands
   where the owners desire to rent or sell to them." [Murray Rothbard, The
   Ethics of Liberty, p. 119]. There is no "freedom of travel" onto
   private property (including private roads). Therefore immigration may
   be just as hard under "anarcho"-capitalism as it is under statism
   (after all, the state, like the property owner, only lets people in
   whom it wants to let in). People will still have to get another
   property owner to agree to let them in before they can travel --
   exactly as now (and, of course, they also have to get the owners of the
   road to let them in as well). Private property, as can be seen from
   this simple example, is the state writ small.

   One last point, this ignoring of ("politically incorrect") economic and
   other views of dead political thinkers and activists while claiming
   them as "libertarians" seems to be commonplace in right-Libertarian
   circles. For example, Aristotle (beloved by Ayn Rand) "thought that
   only living things could bear fruit. Money, not a living thing, was by
   its nature barren, and any attempt to make it bear fruit (tokos, in
   Greek, the same word used for interest) was a crime against nature."
   [Marcello de Cecco, quoted by Doug Henwood, Wall Street, p. 41] Such
   opposition to interest hardly fits well into capitalism, and so either
   goes unmentioned or gets classed as an "error" (although we could ask
   why Aristotle is in error while Rand is not). Similarly, individualist
   anarchist opposition to capitalist property and rent, interest and
   profits is ignored or dismissed as "bad economics" without realising
   that these ideas played a key role in their politics and in ensuring
   that an anarchy would not see freedom corrupted by inequality. To
   ignore such an important concept in a person's ideas is to distort the
   remainder into something it is not.

4.1 What is wrong with a "homesteading" theory of property?

   So how do "anarcho"-capitalists justify property? Looking at Murray
   Rothbard, we find that he proposes a "homesteading theory of property".
   In this theory it is argued that property comes from occupancy and
   mixing labour with natural resources (which are assumed to be unowned).
   Thus the world is transformed into private property, for "title to an
   unowned resource (such as land) comes properly only from the
   expenditure of labour to transform that resource into use." [The Ethics
   of Liberty, p. 63]

   Rothbard paints a conceptual history of individuals and families
   forging a home in the wilderness by the sweat of their labour (its
   tempting to rename his theory the "immaculate conception of property"
   as his conceptual theory is somewhat at odds with actual historical
   fact).

   Sadly for Murray Rothbard, his "homesteading" theory was refuted by
   Proudhon in What is Property? in 1840 (along with many other
   justifications of property). Proudhon rightly argues that "if the
   liberty of man is sacred, it is equally sacred in all individuals;
   that, if it needs property for its objective action, that is, for its
   life, the appropriation of material is equally necessary for all . . .
   Does it not follow that if one individual cannot prevent another . . .
   from appropriating an amount of material equal to his own, no more can
   he prevent individuals to come." And if all the available resources are
   appropriated, and the owner "draws boundaries, fences himself in . . .
   Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a
   right to step, save the proprietor and his friends . . . Let [this]. .
   . multiply, and soon the people . . . will have nowhere to rest, no
   place to shelter, no ground to till. They will die at the proprietor's
   door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright." [What
   is Property?, pp. 84-85, p. 118]

   As Rothbard himself noted in respect to the aftermath of slavery (see
   section [11]2.1), not having access to the means of life places one the
   position of unjust dependency on those who do. Rothbard's theory fails
   because for "[w]e who belong to the proletaire class, property
   excommunicates us!" [P-J Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 105] and so the vast
   majority of the population experience property as theft and despotism
   rather than as a source of liberty and empowerment (which possession
   gives). Thus, Rothbard's account fails to take into account the Lockean
   Proviso (see section [12]B.3.4) and so, for all its intuitive appeal,
   ends up justifying capitalist and landlord domination (see [13]next
   section on why the Lockean Proviso is important).

   It also seems strange that while (correctly) attacking social contract
   theories of the state as invalid (because "no past generation can bind
   later generations" [Op. Cit., p. 145]) he fails to see he is doing
   exactly that with his support of private property (similarly, Ayn Rand
   argued that "[a]ny alleged 'right' of one man, which necessitates the
   violation of the right of another, is not and cannot be a right"
   [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 325] but obviously appropriating
   land does violate the rights of others to walk, use or appropriate that
   land). Due to his support for appropriation and inheritance, he is
   clearly ensuring that future generations are not born as free as the
   first settlers were (after all, they cannot appropriate any land, it is
   all taken!). If future generations cannot be bound by past ones, this
   applies equally to resources and property rights. Something anarchists
   have long realised -- there is no defensible reason why those who first
   acquired property should control its use by future generations.

   However, if we take Rothbard's theory at face value we find numerous
   problems with it. If title to unowned resources comes via the
   "expenditure of labour" on it, how can rivers, lakes and the oceans be
   appropriated? The banks of the rivers can be transformed, but can the
   river itself? How can you mix your labour with water?
   "Anarcho"-capitalists usually blame pollution on the fact that rivers,
   oceans, and so forth are unowned, but how can an individual "transform"
   water by their labour? Also, does fencing in land mean you have "mixed
   labour" with it? If so then transnational corporations can pay workers
   to fence in vast tracks of virgin land (such as rainforest) and so come
   to "own" it. Rothbard argues that this is not the case (he expresses
   opposition to "arbitrary claims"). He notes that it is not the case
   that "the first discoverer . . . could properly lay claim to [a piece
   of land] . . . [by] laying out a boundary for the area." He thinks that
   "their claim would still be no more than the boundary itself, and not
   to any of the land within, for only the boundary will have been
   transformed and used by men" [Op. Cit., p. 50f]

   However, if the boundary is private property and the owner refuses
   others permission to cross it, then the enclosed land is inaccessible
   to others! If an "enterprising" right-libertarian builds a fence around
   the only oasis in a desert and refuses permission to cross it to
   travellers unless they pay his price (which is everything they own)
   then the person has appropriated the oasis without "transforming" it by
   his labour. The travellers have the choice of paying the price or dying
   (and the oasis owner is well within his rights letting them die). Given
   Rothbard's comments, it is probable that he will claim that such a
   boundary is null and void as it allows "arbitrary" claims -- although
   this position is not at all clear. After all, the fence builder has
   transformed the boundary and "unrestricted" property rights is what
   right-libertarianism is all about.

   And, of course, Rothbard ignores the fact of economic power -- a
   transnational corporation can "transform" far more virgin resources in
   a day than a family could in a year. Transnational's "mixing their
   labour" with the land does not spring into mind reading Rothbard's
   account of property growth, but in the real world that is what will
   happen.

   If we take the question of wilderness (a topic close to many
   eco-anarchists' and deep ecologists' hearts) we run into similar
   problems. Rothbard states clearly that "libertarian theory must
   invalidate [any] claim to ownership" of land that has "never been
   transformed from its natural state" (he presents an example of an owner
   who has left a piece of his "legally owned" land untouched). If another
   person appears who does transform the land, it becomes "justly owned by
   another" and the original owner cannot stop her (and should the
   original owner "use violence to prevent another settler from entering
   this never-used land and transforming it into use" they also become a
   "criminal aggressor"). Rothbard also stresses that he is not saying
   that land must continually be in use to be valid property [Op. Cit.,
   pp. 63-64] (after all, that would justify landless workers seizing the
   land from landowners during a depression and working it themselves).

   Now, where does that leave wilderness? In response to ecologists who
   oppose the destruction of the rainforest, "anarcho"-capitalists suggest
   that they put their money where their mouth is and buy rainforest land.
   In this way, it is claimed, rainforest will be protected (see section
   [14]B.5 for why such arguments are nonsense). As ecologists desire the
   rainforest because it is wilderness they are unlikely to "transform" it
   by human labour (its precisely that they want to stop). From Rothbard's
   arguments it is fair to ask whether logging companies have a right to
   "transform" the virgin wilderness owned by ecologists, after all it
   meets Rothbard's criteria (it is still wilderness). Perhaps it will be
   claimed that fencing off land "transforms" it (hardly what you imagine
   "mixing labour" with to mean, but nevermind) -- but that allows large
   companies and rich individuals to hire workers to fence in vast tracks
   of land (and recreate the land monopoly by a "libertarian" route). But
   as we noted above, fencing off land does not seem to imply that it
   becomes property in Rothbard's theory. And, of course, fencing in areas
   of rainforest disrupts the local eco-system -- animals cannot freely
   travel, for example -- which, again, is what ecologists desire to stop.
   Would Rothbard accept a piece of paper as "transforming" land? We doubt
   it (after all, in his example the wilderness owner did legally own it)
   -- and so most ecologists will have a hard time in "anarcho"-capitalism
   (wilderness is just not an option).

   As an aside, we must note that Rothbard fails to realise -- and this
   comes from his worship of the market and his "Austrian economics" -- is
   that people value many things which do not appear on the market. He
   claims that wilderness is "valueless unused natural objects" (for it
   people valued them, they would use -- i.e. appropriate -- them). But
   unused things may be of considerable value to people, wilderness being
   a classic example. And if something cannot be transformed into private
   property, does that mean people do not value it? For example, people
   value community, stress free working environments, meaningful work --
   if the market cannot provide these, does that mean they do not value
   them? Of course not (see Juliet Schor's The Overworked American on how
   working people's desire for shorter working hours was not transformed
   into options on the market).

   Moreover, Rothbard's "homesteading" theory actually violates his
   support for unrestricted property rights. What if a property owner
   wants part of her land to remain wilderness? Their desires are violated
   by the "homesteading" theory (unless, of course, fencing things off
   equals "transforming" them, which it apparently does not). How can
   companies provide wilderness holidays to people if they have no right
   to stop settlers (including large companies) "homesteading" that
   wilderness? And, of course, where does Rothbard's theory leave
   hunter-gather or nomad societies. They use the resources of the
   wilderness, but they do not "transform" them (in this case you cannot
   easily tell if virgin land is empty or being used as a resource). If a
   troop of nomads find its traditionally used, but natural, oasis
   appropriated by a homesteader what are they to do? If they ignore the
   homesteaders claims he can call upon his "defence" firm to stop them --
   and then, in true Rothbardian fashion, the homesteader can refuse to
   supply water to them unless they hand over all their possessions (see
   section [15]4.2 on this). And if the history of the United States
   (which is obviously the model for Rothbard's theory) is anything to go
   by, such people will become "criminal aggressors" and removed from the
   picture.

   Which is another problem with Rothbard's account. It is completely
   ahistoric (and so, as we noted above, is more like an "immaculate
   conception of property"). He has transported "capitalist man" into the
   dawn of time and constructed a history of property based upon what he
   is trying to justify (not surprising, as he does this with his "Natural
   Law" theory too - see [16]section 7). What is interesting to note,
   though, is that the actual experience of life on the US frontier (the
   historic example Rothbard seems to want to claim) was far from the
   individualistic framework he builds upon it and (ironically enough) it
   was destroyed by the development of capitalism.

   As Murray Bookchin notes, "the independence that the New England
   yeomanry enjoyed was itself a function of the co-operative social base
   from which it emerged. To barter home-grown goods and objects, to share
   tools and implements, to engage in common labour during harvesting time
   in a system of mutual aid, indeed, to help new-comers in barn-raising,
   corn-husking, log-rolling, and the like, was the indispensable cement
   that bound scattered farmsteads into a united community." [The Third
   Revolution, vol. 1, p. 233] Bookchin quotes David P. Szatmary (author
   of a book on Shay' Rebellion) stating that it was a society based upon
   "co-operative, community orientated interchanges" and not a "basically
   competitive society." [Ibid.]

   Into this non-capitalist society came capitalist elements. Market
   forces and economic power soon resulted in the transformation of this
   society. Merchants asked for payment in specie which (and along with
   taxes) soon resulted in indebtedness and the dispossession of the
   homesteaders from their land and goods. In response Shay's rebellion
   started, a rebellion which was an important factor in the
   centralisation of state power in America to ensure that popular input
   and control over government were marginalised and that the wealthy
   elite and their property rights were protected against the many (see
   Bookchin, Op. Cit., for details). Thus the homestead system was
   undermined, essentially, by the need to pay for services in specie (as
   demanded by merchants).

   So while Rothbard's theory as a certain appeal (reinforced by watching
   too many Westerns, we imagine) it fails to justify the "unrestricted"
   property rights theory (and the theory of freedom Rothbard derives from
   it). All it does is to end up justifying capitalist and landlord
   domination (which is probably what it was intended to do).

4.2 Why is the "Lockean Proviso" important?

   Robert Nozick, in his work Anarchy, State, and Utopia presented a case
   for private property rights that was based on what he termed the
   "Lockean Proviso" -- namely that common (or unowned) land and resources
   could be appropriated by individuals as long as the position of others
   is not worsen by so doing. However, if we do take this Proviso
   seriously private property rights cannot be defined (see section
   [17]B.3.4 for details). Thus Nozick's arguments in favour of property
   rights fail.

   Some right-libertarians, particularly those associated with the
   Austrian school of economics argue that we must reject the Lockean
   Proviso (probably due to the fact it can be used to undermine the case
   for absolute property rights). Their argument goes as follows: if an
   individual appropriates and uses a previously unused resource, it is
   because it has value to him/her, as an individual, to engage in such
   action. The individual has stolen nothing because it was previously
   unowned and we cannot know if other people are better or worse off, all
   we know is that, for whatever reason, they did not appropriate the
   resource ("If latecomers are worse off, well then that is their proper
   assumption of risk in this free and uncertain world. There is no longer
   a vast frontier in the United States, and there is no point crying over
   the fact." [Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, p. 240]).

   Hence the appropriation of resources is an essentially individualistic,
   asocial act -- the requirements of others are either irrelevant or
   unknown. However, such an argument fails to take into account why the
   Lockean Proviso has such an appeal. When we do this we see that
   rejecting it leads to massive injustice, even slavery.

   However, let us start with a defence of rejecting the Proviso from a
   leading Austrian economist:

     "Consider . . . the case . . . of the unheld sole water hole in the
     desert (which everyone in a group of travellers knows about), which
     one of the travellers, by racing ahead of the others, succeeds in
     appropriating . . . [This] clearly and unjustly violates the Lockean
     proviso. . . For use, however, this view is by no means the only one
     possible. We notice that the energetic traveller who appropriated
     all the water was not doing anything which (always ignoring, of
     course, prohibitions resting on the Lockean proviso itself) the
     other travellers were not equally free to do. The other travellers,
     too, could have raced ahead . . . [they] did not bother to race for
     the water . . . It does not seem obvious that these other travellers
     can claim that they were hurt by an action which they could
     themselves have easily taken" [Israel M. Kirzner, "Entrepreneurship,
     Entitlement, and Economic Justice", pp. 385-413, in Reading Nozick,
     p. 406]

   Murray Rothbard, we should note, takes a similar position in a similar
   example, arguing that "the owner [of the sole oasis] is scarcely being
   'coercive'; in fact he is supplying a vital service, and should have
   the right to refuse a sale or charge whatever the customers will pay.
   The situation may be unfortunate for the customers, as are many
   situations in life." [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 221] (Rothbard, we
   should note, is relying to the right-libertarian von Hayek who -- to
   his credit -- does maintain that this is a coercive situation; but as
   others, including other right-libertarians, point out, he has to change
   his definition of coercion/freedom to do so -- see Stephan L. Newman's
   Liberalism at Wit's End, pp. 130-134 for an excellent summary of this
   debate).

   Now, we could be tempted just to rant about the evils of the right
   libertarian mind-frame but we will try to present a clam analysis of
   this position. Now, what Kirzner (and Rothbard et al) fails to note is
   that without the water the other travellers will die in a matter of
   days. The monopolist has the power of life and death over his fellow
   travellers. Perhaps he hates one of them and so raced ahead to ensure
   their death. Perhaps he just recognised the vast power that his
   appropriation would give him and so, correctly, sees that the other
   travellers would give up all their possessions and property to him in
   return for enough water to survive.

   Either way, its clear that perhaps the other travellers did not "race
   ahead" because they were ethical people -- they would not desire to
   inflict such tyranny on others because they would not like it inflicted
   upon them.

   Thus we can answer Kirzner's question -- "What . . . is so obviously
   acceptable about the Lockean proviso. . . ?" [Ibid.]

   It is the means by which human actions are held accountable to social
   standards and ethics. It is the means by which the greediest, most evil
   and debased humans are stopped from dragging the rest of humanity down
   to their level (via a "race to the bottom") and inflicting untold
   tyranny and domination on their fellow humans. An ideology that could
   consider the oppression which could result from such an appropriation
   as "supplying a vital service" and any act to remove this tyranny as
   "coercion" is obviously a very sick ideology. And we may note that the
   right-libertarian position on this example is a good illustration of
   the dangers of deductive logic from assumptions (see section [18]1.3
   for more on this right-libertarian methodology) -- after all W. Duncan
   Reekie, in his introduction to Austrian Economics, states that "[t]o be
   intellectually consistent one must concede his absolute right to the
   oasis." [Markets, Entrepreneurs and Liberty, p. 181] To place ideology
   before people is to ensure humanity is placed on a Procrustean bed.

   Which brings us to another point. Often right-libertarians say that
   anarchists and other socialists are "lazy" or "do not want to work".
   You could interpret Kirzner's example as saying that the other
   travellers are "lazy" for not rushing ahead and appropriating the
   oasis. But this is false. For under capitalism you can only get rich by
   exploiting the labour of others via wage slavery or, within a company,
   get better pay by taking "positions of responsibility" (i.e. management
   positions). If you have an ethical objection to treating others as
   objects ("means to an end") then these options are unavailable to you.
   Thus anarchists and other socialists are not "lazy" because they are
   not rich -- they just have no desire to get rich off the labour and
   liberty of others (as expressed in their opposition to private property
   and the relations of domination it creates). In other words, Anarchism
   is not the "politics of envy"; it is the politics of liberty and the
   desire to treat others as "ends in themselves".

   Rothbard is aware of what is involved in accepting the Lockean Proviso
   -- namely the existence of private property ("Locke's proviso may lead
   to the outlawry of all private property of land, since one can always
   say that the reduction of available land leaves everyone else . . .
   worse off", The Ethics of Liberty, p. 240 -- see section [19]B.3.4 for
   a discussion on why the Proviso does imply the end of capitalist
   property rights). Which is why he, and other right-libertarians, reject
   it. Its simple. Either you reject the Proviso and embrace capitalist
   property rights (and so allow one class of people to be dispossessed
   and another empowered at their expense) or you reject private property
   in favour of possession and liberty. Anarchists, obviously, favour the
   latter option.

   As an aside, we should point out that (following Stirner) the would-be
   monopolist is doing nothing wrong (as such) in attempting to monopolise
   the oasis. He is, after all, following his self-interest. However, what
   is objectionable is the right-libertarian attempt to turn thus act into
   a "right" which must be respected by the other travellers. Simply put,
   if the other travellers gang up and dispose of this would be tyrant
   then they are right to do so -- to argue that this is a violation of
   the monopolists "rights" is insane and an indication of a slave
   mentality (or, following Rousseau, that the others are "simple"). Of
   course, if the would-be monopolist has the necessary force to withstand
   the other travellers then his property then the matter is closed --
   might makes right. But to worship rights, even when they obviously
   result in despotism, is definitely a case of "spooks in the head" and
   "man is created for the Sabbath" not "the Sabbath is created for man."

4.3 How does private property effect individualism?

   Private property is usually associated by "anarcho"-capitalism with
   individualism. Usually private property is seen as the key way of
   ensuring individualism and individual freedom (and that private
   property is the expression of individualism). Therefore it is useful to
   indicate how private property can have a serious impact on
   individualism.

   Usually right-libertarians contrast the joys of "individualism" with
   the evils of "collectivism" in which the individual is sub-merged into
   the group or collective and is made to work for the benefit of the
   group (see any Ayn Rand book or essay on the evils of collectivism).

   But what is ironic is that right-libertarian ideology creates a view of
   industry which would (perhaps) shame even the most die-hard fan of
   Stalin. What do we mean? Simply that right-libertarians stress the
   abilities of the people at the top of the company, the owner, the
   entrepreneur, and tend to ignore the very real subordination of those
   lower down the hierarchy (see, again, any Ayn Rand book on the worship
   of business leaders). In the Austrian school of economics, for example,
   the entrepreneur is considered the driving force of the market process
   and tend to abstract away from the organisations they govern. This
   approach is usually followed by right-libertarians. Often you get the
   impression that the accomplishments of a firm are the personal triumphs
   of the capitalists, as though their subordinates are merely tools not
   unlike the machines on which they labour.

   We should not, of course, interpret this to mean that
   right-libertarians believe that entrepreneurs run their companies
   single-handedly (although you do get that impression sometimes!). But
   these abstractions help hide the fact that the economy is
   overwhelmingly interdependent and organised hierarchically within
   industry. Even in their primary role as organisers, entrepreneurs
   depend on the group. A company president can only issue general
   guidelines to his managers, who must inevitably organise and direct
   much of their departments on their own. The larger a company gets, the
   less personal and direct control an entrepreneur has over it. They must
   delegate out an increasing share of authority and responsibility, and
   is more dependent than ever on others to help him run things,
   investigate conditions, inform policy, and make recommendations.
   Moreover, the authority structures are from the "top-down" -- indeed
   the firm is essentially a command economy, with all members part of a
   collective working on a common plan to achieve a common goal (i.e. it
   is essentially collectivist in nature -- which means it is not too
   unsurprising that Lenin argued that state socialism could be considered
   as one big firm or office and why the system he built on that model was
   so horrific).

   So the firm (the key component of the capitalist economy) is marked by
   a distinct lack of individualism, a lack usually ignored by right
   libertarians (or, at best, considered as "unavoidable"). As these firms
   are hierarchical structures and workers are paid to obey, it does make
   some sense -- in a capitalist environment -- to assume that the
   entrepreneur is the main actor, but as an individualistic model of
   activity it fails totally. Perhaps it would not be unfair to say that
   capitalist individualism celebrates the entrepreneur because this
   reflects a hierarchical system in which for the one to flourish, the
   many must obey? (Also see section [20]1.1).

   Capitalist individualism does not recognise the power structures that
   exist within capitalism and how they affect individuals. In Brian
   Morris' words, what they fail "to recognise is that most productive
   relations under capitalism allow little scope for creativity and
   self-expression on the part of workers; that such relationships are not
   equitable; nor are they freely engaged in for the mutual benefit of
   both parties, for workers have no control over the production process
   or over the product of their labour. Rand [like other
   right-libertarians] misleadingly equates trade, artistic production and
   wage-slavery. . . [but] wage-slavery . . . is quite different from the
   trade principle" as it is a form of "exploitation." [Ecology &
   Anarchism, p. 190]

   He further notes that "[s]o called trade relations involving human
   labour are contrary to the egoist values Rand [and other capitalist
   individualists] espouses - they involve little in the way of
   independence, freedom, integrity or justice." [Ibid., p. 191]

   Moreover, capitalist individualism actually supports authority and
   hierarchy. As Joshua Chen and Joel Rogers point out, the "achievement
   of short-run material satisfaction often makes it irrational [from an
   individualist perspective] to engage in more radical struggle, since
   that struggle is by definition against those institutions which provide
   one's current gain." In other words, to rise up the company structure,
   to "better oneself," (or even get a good reference) you cannot be a
   pain in the side of management -- obedient workers do well, rebel
   workers do not.

   Thus the hierarchical structures help develop an "individualistic"
   perspective which actually reinforces those authority structures. This,
   as Cohn and Rogers notes, means that "the structure in which [workers]
   find themselves yields less than optimal social results from their
   isolated but economically rational decisions." [quoted by Alfie Kohn,
   No Contest, p. 67, p. 260f]

   Steve Biko, a black activist murdered by the South African police in
   the 1970s, argued that "the most potent weapon of the oppressor is the
   mind of the oppressed." And this is something capitalists have long
   recognised. Their investment in "Public Relations" and "education"
   programmes for their employees shows this clearly, as does the
   hierarchical nature of the firm. By having a ladder to climb, the firm
   rewards obedience and penalises rebellion. This aims at creating a
   mind-set which views hierarchy as good and so helps produce servile
   people.

   This is why anarchists would agree with Alfie Kohn when he argues that
   "the individualist worldview is a profoundly conservative doctrine: it
   inherently stifles change." [Ibid., p. 67] So, what is the best way for
   a boss to maintain his or her power? Create a hierarchical workplace
   and encourage capitalist individualism (as capitalist individualism
   actually works against attempts to increase freedom from hierarchy).
   Needless to say, such a technique cannot work forever -- hierarchy also
   encourages revolt -- but such divide and conquer can be very effective.

   And as anarchist author Michael Moorcock put it, "Rugged individualism
   also goes hand in hand with a strong faith in paternalism -- albeit a
   tolerant and somewhat distant paternalism -- and many otherwise
   sharp-witted libertarians seem to see nothing in the morality of a John
   Wayne Western to conflict with their views. Heinlein's paternalism is
   at heart the same as Wayne's. . . To be an anarchist, surely, is to
   reject authority but to accept self-discipline and community
   responsibility. To be a rugged individualist a la Heinlein and others
   is to be forever a child who must obey, charm and cajole to be
   tolerated by some benign, omniscient father: Rooster Coburn shuffling
   his feet in front of a judge he respects for his office (but not
   necessarily himself) in True Grit." [Starship Stormtroopers]

   One last thing, don't be fooled into thinking that individualism or
   concern about individuality -- not quite the same thing -- is
   restricted to the right, they are not. For example, the "individualist
   theory of society . . . might be advanced in a capitalist or in an
   anti-capitalist form . . . the theory as developed by critics of
   capitalism such as Hodgskin and the anarchist Tucker saw ownership of
   capital by a few as an obstacle to genuine individualism, and the
   individualist ideal was realisable only through the free association of
   labourers (Hodgskin) or independent proprietorship (Tucker)." [David
   Miller, Social Justice, pp. 290-1]

   And the reason why social anarchists oppose capitalism is that it
   creates a false individualism, an abstract one which crushes the
   individuality of the many and justifies (and supports) hierarchical and
   authoritarian social relations. In Kropotkin's words, "what has been
   called 'individualism' up to now has been only a foolish egoism which
   belittles the individual. It did not led to what it was established as
   a goal: that is the complete, broad, and most perfectly attainable
   development of individuality." The new individualism desired by
   Kropotkin "will not consist . . . in the oppression of one's neighbour
   . . . [as this] reduced the [individualist] . . .to the level of an
   animal in a herd." [Selected Writings, p, 295, p. 296]

4.4 How does private property affect relationships?

   Obviously, capitalist private property affects relationships between
   people by creating structures of power. Property, as we have argued all
   through this FAQ, creates relationships based upon domination -- and
   this cannot help but produce servile tendencies within those subject to
   them (it also produces rebellious tendencies as well, the actual ratio
   between the two tendencies dependent on the individual in question and
   the community they are in). As anarchists have long recognised, power
   corrupts -- both those subjected to it and those who exercise it.

   While few, if any, anarchists would fail to recognise the importance of
   possession -- which creates the necessary space all individuals need to
   be themselves -- they all agree that private property corrupts this
   liberatory aspect of "property" by allowing relationships of domination
   and oppression to be built up on top of it. Because of this
   recognition, all anarchists have tried to equalise property and turn it
   back into possession.

   Also, capitalist individualism actively builds barriers between people.
   Under capitalism, money rules and individuality is expressed via
   consumption choices (i.e. money). But money does not encourage an
   empathy with others. As Frank Stronach (chair of Magna International, a
   Canadian auto-parts maker that shifted its production to Mexico) put
   it, "[t]o be in business your first mandate is to make money, and money
   has no heart, no soul, conscience, homeland." [cited by Doug Henwood,
   Wall Street, p. 113] And for those who study economics, it seems that
   this dehumanising effect also strikes them as well:

     "Studying economics also seems to make you a nastier person.
     Psychological studies have shown that economics graduate students
     are more likely to 'free ride' -- shirk contributions to an
     experimental 'public goods' account in the pursuit of higher private
     returns -- than the general public. Economists also are less
     generous that other academics in charitable giving. Undergraduate
     economics majors are more likely to defect in the classic prisoner's
     dilemma game that are other majors. And on other tests, students
     grow less honest -- expressing less of a tendency, for example, to
     return found money -- after studying economics, but not studying a
     control subject like astronomy.

     "This is no surprise, really. Mainstream economics is built entirely
     on a notion of self-interested individuals, rational self-maximisers
     who can order their wants and spend accordingly. There's little room
     for sentiment, uncertainty, selflessness, and social institutions.
     Whether this is an accurate picture of the average human is open to
     question, but there's no question that capitalism as a system and
     economics as a discipline both reward people who conform to the
     model."
     [Doug Henwood, Op. Cit., p, 143]

   Which, of course, highlights the problems within the "trader" model
   advocated by Ayn Rand. According to her, the trader is the example of
   moral behaviour -- you have something I want, I have something you
   want, we trade and we both benefit and so our activity is
   self-interested and no-one sacrifices themselves for another. While
   this has some intuitive appeal it fails to note that in the real world
   it is a pure fantasy. The trader wants to get the best deal possible
   for themselves and if the bargaining positions are unequal then one
   person will gain at the expense of the other (if the "commodity" being
   traded is labour, the seller may not even have the option of not
   trading at all). The trader is only involved in economic exchange, and
   has no concern for the welfare of the person they are trading with.
   They are a bearer of things, not an individual with a wide range of
   interests, concerns, hopes and dreams. These are irrelevant, unless you
   can make money out of them of course! Thus the trader is often a
   manipulator and outside novels it most definitely is a case of "buyer
   beware!"

   If the trader model is taken as the basis of interpersonal
   relationships, economic gain replaces respect and empathy for others.
   It replaces human relationships with relationships based on things --
   and such a mentality does not encompass how interpersonal relationships
   affect both you and the society you life in. In the end, it
   impoverishes society and individuality. Yes, any relationship must be
   based upon self-interest (mutual aid is, after all, something we do
   because we benefit from it in some way) but the trader model presents
   such a narrow self-interest that it is useless and actively
   impoverishes the very things it should be protecting -- individuality
   and interpersonal relationships (see section [21]I.7.4 on how
   capitalism does not protect individuality).

4.5 Does private property co-ordinate without hierarchy?

   It is usually to find right-libertarians maintain that private property
   (i.e. capitalism) allows economic activity to be co-ordinated by
   non-hierarchical means. In other words, they maintain that capitalism
   is a system of large scale co-ordination without hierarchy. These
   claims follow the argument of noted right-wing, "free market" economist
   Milton Friedman who contrasts "central planning involving the use of
   coercion - the technique of the army or the modern totalitarian state"
   with "voluntary co-operation between individuals - the technique of the
   marketplace" as two distinct ways of co-ordinating the economic
   activity of large groups ("millions") of people. [Capitalism and
   Freedom, p. 13].

   However, this is just playing with words. As they themselves point out
   the internal structure of a corporation or capitalist company is not a
   "market" (i.e. non-hierarchical) structure, it is a "non-market"
   (hierarchical) structure of a market participant (see section [22]2.2).
   However "market participants" are part of the market. In other words,
   capitalism is not a system of co-ordination without hierarchy because
   it does contain hierarchical organisations which are an essential part
   of the system!

   Indeed, the capitalist company is a form of central planning and shares
   the same "technique" as the army. As the pro-capitalist writer Peter
   Drucker noted in his history of General Motors, "[t]here is a
   remarkably close parallel between General Motors' scheme of
   organisation and those of the two institutions most renowned for
   administrative efficiency: that of the Catholic Church and that of the
   modern army . . ." [quoted by David Enger, Apostles of Greed, p. 66].
   And so capitalism is marked by a series of totalitarian organisations
   -- and since when was totalitarianism liberty enhancing? Indeed, many
   "anarcho"-capitalists actually celebrate the command economy of the
   capitalist firm as being more "efficient" than self-managed firms
   (usually because democracy stops action with debate). The same argument
   is applied by the Fascists to the political sphere. It does not change
   much -- nor does it become less fascistic -- when applied to economic
   structures. To state the obvious, such glorification of workplace
   dictatorship seems somewhat at odds with an ideology calling itself
   "libertarian" or "anarchist". Is dictatorship more liberty enhancing to
   those subject to it than democracy? Anarchists doubt it (see section
   [23]A.2.11 for details).

   In order to claim that capitalism co-ordinates individual activity
   without hierarchy right-libertarians have to abstract from individuals
   and how they interact within companies and concentrate purely on
   relationships between companies. This is pure sophistry. Like markets,
   companies require at least two or more people to work - both are forms
   of social co-operation. If co-ordination within companies is
   hierarchical, then the system they work within is based upon hierarchy.
   To claim that capitalism co-ordinates without hierarchy is simply false
   - its based on hierarchy and authoritarianism. Capitalist companies are
   based upon denying workers self-government (i.e. freedom) during work
   hours. The boss tells workers what to do, when to do, how to do and for
   how long. This denial of freedom is discussed in greater depth in
   sections [24]B.1 and [25]B.4.

   Because of the relations of power it creates, opposition to capitalist
   private property (and so wage labour) and the desire to see it ended is
   an essential aspect of anarchist theory. Due to its ideological blind
   spot with regards to apparently "voluntary" relations of domination and
   oppression created by the force of circumstances (see section [26]2 for
   details), "anarcho"-capitalism considers wage labour as a form of
   freedom and ignore its fascistic aspects (when not celebrating those
   aspects). Thus "anarcho"-capitalism is not anarchist. By concentrating
   on the moment the contract is signed, they ignore that freedom is
   restricted during the contract itself. While denouncing (correctly) the
   totalitarianism of the army, they ignore it in the workplace. But
   factory fascism is just as freedom destroying as the army or political
   fascism.

   Due to this basic lack of concern for freedom, "anarcho"-capitalists
   cannot be considered as anarchists. Their total lack of concern about
   factory fascism (i.e. wage labour) places them totally outside the
   anarchist tradition. Real anarchists have always been aware of that
   private property and wage labour restriction freedom and desired to
   create a society in which people would be able to avoid it. In other
   words, where all relations are non-hierarchical and truly co-operative.

   To conclude, to claim that private property eliminates hierarchy is
   false. Nor does capitalism co-ordinate economic activities without
   hierarchical structures. For this reason anarchists support
   co-operative forms of production rather than capitalistic forms.

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB1.html
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB4.html
   3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html#secb31
   4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append134.html#secf41
   5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append133.html#secf31
   6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append132.html#secf23
   7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append132.html#secf28
   8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append134.html#secf42
   9. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append133.html#secf31
  10. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append136.html
  11. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append132.html#secf21
  12. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html#secb34
  13. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append134.html#secf42
  14. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB5.html
  15. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append134.html#secf42
  16. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append137.html
  17. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html#secb34
  18. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append131.html#secf13
  19. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html#secb34
  20. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append131.html#secf11
  21. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI7.html#seci74
  22. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append132.html#secf22
  23. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA2.html#seca211
  24. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB1.html
  25. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB4.html
  26. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append132.html
