         8 What role did the state take in the creation of capitalism?

   If the "anarcho"-capitalist is to claim with any plausibility that
   "real" capitalism is non-statist or that it can exist without a state,
   it must be shown that capitalism evolved naturally, in opposition to
   state intervention. However, in reality, the opposite is the case.
   Capitalism was born from state intervention and, in the words of
   Kropotkin, "the State . . . and capitalism . . . developed side by
   side, mutually supporting and re-enforcing each other." [Kropotkin's
   Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 181]

   Numerous writers have made this point. For example, in Karl Polanyi's
   flawed masterpiece The Great Transformation we read that "the road to
   the free market was opened and kept open by an enormous increase in
   continuous, centrally organised and controlled interventionism" by the
   state [p. 140]. This intervention took many forms -- for example, state
   support during "mercantilism," which allowed the "manufactures" (i.e.
   industry) to survive and develop, enclosures of common land, and so
   forth. In addition, the slave trade, the invasion and brutal conquest
   of the Americas and other "primitive" nations, and the looting of gold,
   slaves, and raw materials from abroad also enriched the European
   economy, giving the development of capitalism an added boost. Thus
   Kropotkin:

     "The history of the genesis of capital has already been told by
     socialists many times. They have described how it was born of war
     and pillage, of slavery and serfdom, of modern fraud and
     exploitation. They have shown how it is nourished by the blood of
     the worker, and how little by little it has conquered the whole
     world." [Op. Cit.,p. 207]

   Or, if Kropotkin seems too committed to be fair, we have John Stuart
   Mill's statement that:

     "The social arrangements of modern Europe commenced from a
     distribution of property which was the result, not of just
     partition, or acquisition by industry, but of conquest and violence.
     . . " [Principles of Political Economy, p. 15]

   Therefore, when supporters of "libertarian" capitalism say they are
   against the "initiation of force," they mean only new initiations of
   force; for the system they support was born from numerous initiations
   of force in the past. And, as can be seen from the history of the last
   100 years, it also requires state intervention to keep it going
   (section D.1, [1]"Why does state intervention occur?," addresses this
   point in some detail). Indeed, many thinkers have argued that it was
   precisely this state support and coercion (particularly the separation
   of people from the land) that played the key role in allowing
   capitalism to develop rather than the theory that "previous savings"
   did so. As the noted German thinker Franz Oppenheimer argued, "the
   concept of a 'primitive accumulation,' or an original store of wealth,
   in land and in movable property, brought about by means of purely
   economic forces" while "seem[ing] quite plausible" is in fact "utterly
   mistaken; it is a 'fairly tale,' or it is a class theory used to
   justify the privileges of the upper classes." [The State, pp. 5-6]

   This thesis will be discussed in the following sections. It is, of
   course, ironic to hear right-wing libertarians sing the praises of a
   capitalism that never existed and urge its adoption by all nations, in
   spite of the historical evidence suggesting that only state
   intervention made capitalist economies viable -- even in that Mecca of
   "free enterprise," the United States. As Noam Chomsky argues, "who but
   a lunatic could have opposed the development of a textile industry in
   New England in the early nineteenth century, when British textile
   production was so much more efficient that half the New England
   industrial sector would have gone bankrupt without very high protective
   tariffs, thus terminating industrial development in the United States?
   Or the high tariffs that radically undermined economic efficiency to
   allow the United States to develop steel and other manufacturing
   capacities? Or the gross distortions of the market that created modern
   electronics?" [World Orders, Old and New, p. 168]. To claim, therefore,
   that "mercantilism" is not capitalism makes little sense. Without
   mercantilism, "proper" capitalism would never have developed, and any
   attempt to divorce a social system from its roots is ahistoric and
   makes a mockery of critical thought.

   Similarly, it is somewhat ironic when "anarcho"-capitalists and right
   libertarians claim that they support the freedom of individuals to
   choose how to live. After all, the working class was not given that
   particular choice when capitalism was developing. Indeed, their right
   to choose their own way of life was constantly violated and denied. So
   to claim that now (after capitalism has been created) we get the chance
   to try and live as we like is insulting in the extreme. The available
   options we have are not independent of the society we live in and are
   decisively shaped by the past. To claim we are "free" to live as we
   like (within the laws of capitalism) is basically to argue that we are
   able to "buy" the freedom that every individual is due from those who
   have stolen it from us in the first place!

   Needless to say, some right-libertarians recognise that the state
   played a massive role in encouraging industrialisation (more correct to
   say "proletarianisation" as it created a working class which did not
   own the tools they used, although we stress that this process started
   on the land and not in industry). So they contrast "bad" business
   people (who took state aid) and "good" ones. Thus Rothbard's comment
   that Marxists have "made no particular distinction between
   'bourgeoisie' who made use of the state, and bourgeoisie who acted on
   the free market." [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 72]

   But such an argument is nonsense as it ignores the fact that the "free
   market" is a network (and defined by the state by the property rights
   it enforces). For example, the owners of the American steel and other
   companies who grew rich and their companies big behind protectionist
   walls are obviously "bad" bourgeoisie. But are the bourgeoisie who
   supplied the steel companies with coal, machinery, food, "defence" and
   so on not also benefiting from state action? And the suppliers of the
   luxury goods to the wealthy steel company owners, did they not benefit
   from state action? Or the suppliers of commodities to the workers that
   laboured in the steel factories that the tariffs made possible, did
   they not benefit? And the suppliers to these suppliers? And the
   suppliers to these suppliers? Did not the users of technology first
   introduced into industry by companies protected by state orders also
   not benefit? Did not the capitalists who had a large and landless
   working class to select from benefit from the "land monopoly" even
   though they may not have, unlike other capitalists, directly advocated
   it? It increased the pool of wage labour for all capitalists and
   increased their bargaining position/power in the labour market at the
   expense of the working class. In other words, such a policy helped
   maintain capitalist market power, irrespective of whether individual
   capitalists encouraged politicians to vote to create/maintain it. And,
   similarly, all capitalists benefited from the changes in common law to
   recognise and protect capitalist private property and rights that the
   state enforced during the 19th century (see section [2]B.2.5).

   It appears that, for Rothbard, the collusion between state and business
   is the fault, not of capitalism, but of particular capitalists. The
   system is pure; only individuals are corrupt. But, for anarchists, the
   origins of the modern state-capitalist system lies not in the
   individual qualities of capitalists as such but in the dynamic and
   evolution of capitalism itself -- a complex interaction of class
   interest, class struggle, social defence against the destructive
   actions of the market, individual qualities and so forth. In other
   words, Rothbard's claims are flawed -- they fail to understand
   capitalism as a system and its dynamic nature.

   Indeed, if we look at the role of the state in creating capitalism we
   could be tempted to rename "anarcho"-capitalism "marxian-capitalism".
   This is because, given the historical evidence, a political theory can
   be developed by which the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" is created
   and that this capitalist state "withers away" into anarchy. That this
   means rejecting the economic and social ideas of Marxism and their
   replacement by their direct opposite should not mean that we should
   reject the idea (after all, that is what "anarcho"-capitalism has done
   to Individualist Anarchism!). But we doubt that many
   "anarcho"-capitalists will accept such a name change (even though this
   would reflect their politics far better; after all they do not object
   to past initiations of force, just current ones and many do seem to
   think that the modern state will wither away due to market forces).

   But this is beside the point. The fact remains that state action was
   required to create and maintain capitalism. Without state support it is
   doubtful that capitalism would have developed at all.

   So, when the right suggests that "we" be "left alone," what they mean
   by "we" comes into clear focus when we consider how capitalism
   developed. Artisans and peasants were only "left alone" to starve, and
   the working classes of industrial capitalism were only "left alone"
   outside work and for only as long as they respected the rules of their
   "betters." As for the other side of the class divide, they desire to be
   "left alone" to exercise their power over others, as we will see. That
   modern "capitalism" is, in effect, a kind of "corporate mercantilism,"
   with states providing the conditions that allow corporations to
   flourish (e.g. tax breaks, subsidies, bailouts, anti-labour laws, etc.)
   says more about the statist roots of capitalism than the ideologically
   correct definition of capitalism used by its supporters.

8.1 What social forces lay behind the rise of capitalism?

   Capitalist society is a relatively recent development. As Murray
   Bookchin points out, for a "long era, perhaps spanning more than five
   centuries," capitalism "coexisted with feudal and simple commodity
   relationships" in Europe. He argues that this period "simply cannot be
   treated as 'transitional' without reading back the present into the
   past." [From Urbanisation to Cities, p. 179] In other words, capitalism
   was not a inevitable outcome of "history" or social evolution.

   He goes on to note that capitalism existed "with growing significance
   in the mixed economy of the West from the fourteenth century up to the
   seventeenth" but that it "literally exploded into being in Europe,
   particularly England, during the eighteenth and especially nineteenth
   centuries." [Op. Cit., p. 181] The question arises, what lay behind
   this "growing significance"? Did capitalism "explode" due to its
   inherently more efficient nature or where there other, non-economic,
   forces at work? As we will show, it was most definitely the later one
   -- capitalism was born not from economic forces but from the political
   actions of the social elites which its usury enriched. Unlike artisan
   (simple commodity) production, wage labour generates inequalities and
   wealth for the few and so will be selected, protected and encouraged by
   those who control the state in their own economic and social interests.

   The development of capitalism in Europe was favoured by two social
   elites, the rising capitalist class within the degenerating medieval
   cities and the absolutist state. The medieval city was "thoroughly
   changed by the gradual increase in the power of commercial capital, due
   primarily to foreign trade. . . By this the inner unity of the commune
   was loosened, giving place to a growing caste system and leading
   necessarily to a progressive inequality of social interests. The
   privileged minorities pressed ever more definitely towards a
   centralisation of the political forces of the community. . .
   Mercantilism in the perishing city republics led logically to a demand
   for larger economic units [i.e. to nationalise the market]; and by this
   the desire for stronger political forms was greatly strengthened. . . .
   Thus the city gradually became a small state, paving the way for the
   coming national state." [Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture, p. 94]

   The rising economic power of the proto-capitalists conflicted with that
   of the feudal lords, which meant that the former required help to
   consolidate their position. That aid came in the form of the
   monarchical state. With the force of absolutism behind it, capital
   could start the process of increasing its power and influence by
   expanding the "market" through state action.

   As far as the absolutist state was concerned, it "was dependent upon
   the help of these new economic forces, and vice versa. . . ." "The
   absolutist state," Rocker argues, "whose coffers the expansion of
   commerce filled . . ., at first furthered the plans of commercial
   capital. Its armies and fleets . . . contributed to the expansion of
   industrial production because they demanded a number of things for
   whose large-scale production the shops of small tradesmen were no
   longer adapted. Thus gradually arose the so-called manufactures, the
   forerunners of the later large industries." [Op. Cit., p. 117-8]

   Some of the most important state actions from the standpoint of early
   industry were the so-called Enclosure Acts, by which the "commons" --
   the free farmland shared communally by the peasants in most rural
   villages -- was "enclosed" or incorporated into the estates of various
   landlords as private property (see section [3]8.3). This ensured a pool
   of landless workers who had no option but to sell their labour to
   capitalists. Indeed, the widespread independence caused by the
   possession of the majority of households of land caused the rising
   class of merchants to complain "that men who should work as
   wage-labourers cling to the soil, and in the naughtiness of their
   hearts prefer independence as squatters to employment by a master."
   [R.H Tawney, cited by Allan Elgar in The Apostles of Greed, p. 12]

   In addition, other forms of state aid ensured that capitalist firms got
   a head start, so ensuring their dominance over other forms of work
   (such as co-operatives). A major way of creating a pool of resources
   that could be used for investment was the use of mercantilist policies
   which used protectionist measures to enrich capitalists and landlords
   at the expense of consumers and their workers. For example, one of most
   common complaints of early capitalists was that workers could not turn
   up to work regularly. Once they had worked a few days, they disappeared
   as they had earned enough money to live on. With higher prices for
   food, caused by protectionist measures, workers had to work longer and
   harder and so became accustomed to factory labour. In addition,
   mercantilism allowed native industry to develop by barring foreign
   competition and so allowed industrialists to reap excess profits which
   they could then use to increase their investments. In the words of
   Marian-socialist economic historian Maurice Dobbs:

     "In short, the Mercantile System was a system of State-regulated
     exploitation through trade which played a highly important rule in
     the adolescence of capitalist industry: it was essentially the
     economic policy of an age of primitive accumulation." [Studies in
     Capitalism Development, p. 209]

   As Rocker summarises, "when abolutism had victoriously overcome all
   opposition to national unification, but its furthering of mercantilism
   and economic monopoly it gave the whole social evolution a direction
   which could only lead to capitalism." [Op. Cit., pp. 116-7]
   This process of state aid in capitalist development was also seen in
   the United States of America. As Edward Herman points out, the "level
   of government involvement in business in the United States from the
   late eighteenth century to the present has followed a U-shaped pattern:
   There was extensive government intervention in the pre-Civil War period
   (major subsidies, joint ventures with active government participation
   and direct government production), then a quasi-laissez faire period
   between the Civil War and the end of the nineteenth century [a period
   marked by "the aggressive use of tariff protection" and state supported
   railway construction, a key factor in capitalist expansion in the USA],
   followed by a gradual upswing of government intervention in the
   twentieth century, which accelerated after 1930." [Corporate Control,
   Corporate Power, p. 162]

   Such intervention ensured that income was transferred from workers to
   capitalists. Under state protection, America industrialised by forcing
   the consumer to enrich the capitalists and increase their capital
   stock. "According to one study, of the tariff had been removed in the
   1830s 'about half the industrial sector of New England would have been
   bankrupted' . . . the tariff became a near-permanent political
   institution representing government assistance to manufacturing. It
   kept price levels from being driven down by foreign competition and
   thereby shifted the distribution of income in favour of owners of
   industrial property to the disadvantage of workers and customers."
   [Richard B. Du Boff, Accumulation and Power, p. 56]

   This protection was essential, for as Du Boff notes, the "end of the
   European wars in 1814 . . . reopened the United States to a flood of
   British imports that drove many American competitors out of business.
   Large portions of the newly expanded manufacturing base were wiped out,
   bringing a decade of near-stagnation." Unsurprisingly, the "era of
   protectionism began in 1816, with northern agitation for higher
   tariffs. . . " [Op. Cit., p. 14, p. 55]

   Combined with ready repression of the labour movement and government
   "homesteading" acts (see section [4]8.5), tariffs were the American
   equivalent of mercantilism (which, after all, was above all else a
   policy of protectionism, i.e. the use of government to stimulate the
   growth of native industry). Only once America was at the top of the
   economic pile did it renounce state intervention (just as Britain did,
   we must note).

   This is not to suggest that government aid was limited to tariffs. The
   state played a key role in the development of industry and
   manufacturing. As John Zerzan notes, the "role of the State is
   tellingly reflected by the fact that the 'armoury system' now rivals
   the older 'American system of manufactures' term as the more accurate
   to describe the new system of production methods" developed in the
   early 1800s. [Elements of Refusal, p. 100] Moreover, the "lead in
   technological innovation [during the US Industrial Revolution] came in
   armaments where assured government orders justified high fixed-cost
   investments in special-pursue machinery and managerial personnel.
   Indeed, some of the pioneering effects occurred in government-owned
   armouries." [William Lazonick, Competitive Advantage on the Shop Floor,
   p. 218] The government also "actively furthered this process [of
   "commercial revolution"] with public works in transportation and
   communication." [Richard B. Du Boff, Op. Cit., p. 15]

   In addition to this "physical" aid, "state government provided critical
   help, with devices like the chartered corporation" [Ibid.] and, as we
   noted in section [5]B.2.5, changes in the legal system which favoured
   capitalist interests over the rest of society.

   Interestingly, there was increasing inequality between 1840 and 1860 in
   the USA This coincided with the victory of wage labour and industrial
   capitalism -- the 1820s "constituted a watershed in U.S. life. By the
   end of that decade . . .industrialism assured its decisive American
   victory, by the end of the 1830s all of its cardinal features were
   definitely present." [John Zerzan, Op. Cit., p. 99] This is
   unsurprising, for as we have argued many times, the capitalist market
   tends to increase, not reduce, inequalities between individuals and
   classes. Little wonder the Individualist Anarchists at the time
   denounced the way that property had been transformed into "a power
   [with which] to accumulate an income" (to use the words of J.K.
   Ingalls).

   Over all, as Paul Ormerod puts it, the "advice to follow pure
   free-market polices seems . . . to be contrary to the lessons of
   virtually the whole of economic history since the Industrial Revolution
   . . . every country which has moved into . . . strong sustained growth
   . . . has done so in outright violation of pure, free-market
   principles." "The model of entrepreneurial activity in the product
   market, with judicious state support plus repression in the labour
   market, seems to be a good model of economic development." [The Death
   of Economics, p. 63]

   Thus the social forces at work creating capitalism was a combination of
   capitalist activity and state action. But without the support of the
   state, it is doubtful that capitalist activity would have been enough
   to generate the initial accumulation required to start the economic
   ball rolling. Hence the necessity of Mercantilism in Europe and its
   modified cousin of state aid, tariffs and "homestead acts" in America.

8.2 What was the social context of the statement "laissez-faire?"

   The honeymoon of interests between the early capitalists and autocratic
   kings did not last long. "This selfsame monarchy, which for weighty
   reasons sought to further the aims of commercial capital and was. . .
   itself aided in its development by capital, grew at last into a
   crippling obstacle to any further development of European industry."
   [Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture, p. 117]

   This is the social context of the expression "laissez-faire" -- a
   system which has outgrown the supports that protected it in its early
   stages of growth. Just as children eventually rebel against the
   protection and rules of their parents, so the capitalists rebelled
   against the over-bearing support of the absolutist state. Mercantilist
   policies favoured some industries and harmed the growth of industrial
   capitalism in others. The rules and regulations imposed upon those it
   did favour reduced the flexibility of capitalists to changing
   environments. As Rocker argues, "no matter how the abolutist state
   strove, in its own interest, to meety the demands of commerce, it still
   put on industry countless fetters which became gradually more and more
   oppressive . . . [it] became an unbearable burden . . . which paralysed
   all economic and social life." [Op. Cit., p. 119] All in all,
   mercantilism became more of a hindrance than a help and so had to be
   replaced. With the growth of economic and social power by the
   capitalist class, this replacement was made easier.

   Errico Malatesta notes, "[t]he development of production, the vast
   expansion of commerce, the immeasurable power assumed by money . . .
   have guaranteed this supremacy [of economic power over the political
   power] to the capitalist class which, no longer content with enjoying
   the support of the government, demanded that government arise from its
   own ranks. A government which owed its origin to the right of conquest
   . . . though subject by existing circumstances to the capitalist class,
   went on maintaining a proud and contemptuous attitude towards its now
   wealthy former slaves, and had pretensions to independence of
   domination. That government was indeed the defender, the property
   owners' gendarme, but the kind of gendarmes who think they are
   somebody, and behave in an arrogant manner towards the people they have
   to escort and defend, when they don't rob or kill them at the next
   street corner; and the capitalist class got rid of it . . . [and
   replaced it] by a government [and state] . . . at all times under its
   control and specifically organised to defend that class against any
   possible demands by the disinherited." [Anarchy, pp. 19-20]

   Malatesta here indicates the true meaning of "leave us alone," or
   "laissez-faire." The absolutist state (not "the state" per se) began to
   interfere with capitalists' profit-making activities and authority, so
   they determined that it had to go -- as happened, for example, in the
   English, French and American revolutions. However, in other ways, state
   intervention in society was encouraged and applauded by capitalists.
   "It is ironic that the main protagonists of the State, in its political
   and administrative authority, were the middle-class Utilitarians, on
   the other side of whose Statist banner were inscribed the doctrines of
   economic Laissez Faire" [E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English
   Working Class, p. 90]. Capitalists simply wanted capitalist states to
   replace monarchical states, so that heads of government would follow
   state economic policies regarded by capitalists as beneficial to their
   class as a whole. And as development economist Lance Taylor argues:

     "In the long run, there are no laissez-faire transitions to modern
     economic growth. The state has always intervened to create a
     capitalist class, and then it has to regulate the capitalist class,
     and then the state has to worry about being taken over by the
     capitalist class, but the state has always been there." [quoted by
     Noam Chomsky, Year 501, p. 104]

   In order to attack mercantilism, the early capitalists had to ignore
   the successful impact of its policies in developing industry and a
   "store of wealth" for future economic activity. As William Lazonick
   points out, "the political purpose of [Adam Smith's] the Wealth of
   Nations was to attack the mercantilist institutions that the British
   economy had built up over the previous two hundred years. . . In his
   attack on these institutions, Smith might have asked why the extent of
   the world market available to Britain in the late eighteenth century
   was so uniquely under British control. If Smith had asked this 'big
   question,' he might have been forced to grant credit for [it] . . . to
   the very mercantilist institutions he was attacking . . ." Moreover, he
   "might have recognised the integral relation between economic and
   political power in the rise of Britain to international dominance."
   Overall, "[w]hat the British advocates of laissez-faire neglected to
   talk about was the role that a system of national power had played in
   creating conditions for Britain to embark on its dynamic development
   path . . . They did not bother to ask how Britain had attained th[e]
   position [of 'workshop of the world'], while they conveniently ignored
   the on going system of national power - the British Empire -- that . .
   . continued to support Britain's position." [Business Organisation and
   the Myth of the Market Economy, p. 2, p. 3, p.5]

   Similar comments are applicable to American supporters of laissez faire
   who fail to notice that the "traditional" American support for
   world-wide free trade is quite a recent phenomenon. It started only at
   the end of the Second World War (although, of course, within America
   military Keynesian policies were utilised). While American industry was
   developing, the country had no time for laissez-faire. After it had
   grown strong, the United States began preaching laissez-faire to the
   rest of the world -- and began to kid itself about its own history,
   believing its slogans about laissez-faire as the secret of its success.
   In addition to the tariff, nineteenth-century America went in heavily
   for industrial planning--occasionally under that name but more often in
   the name of national defence. The military was the excuse for what is
   today termed rebuilding infrastructure, picking winners, promoting
   research, and co-ordinating industrial growth (as it still is, we
   should add).

   As Richard B. Du Boff points out, the "anti-state" backlash of the
   1840s onwards in America was highly selective, as the general opinion
   was that "[h]enceforth, if governments wished to subsidise private
   business operations, there would be no objection. But if public power
   were to be used to control business actions or if the public sector
   were to undertake economic initiatives on its own, it would run up
   against the determined opposition of private capital." [Accumulation
   and Power, p. 26] In other words, the state could aid capitalists
   indirectly (via tariffs, land policy, repression of the labour
   movement, infrastructure subsidy and so on) and it would "leave them
   alone" to oppress and exploit workers, exploit consumers, build their
   industrial empires and so forth.

   So, the expression "laissez-faire" dates from the period when
   capitalists were objecting to the restrictions that helped create them
   in the first place. It has little to do with freedom as such and far
   more to do with the needs of capitalist power and profits (as Murray
   Bookchin argues, it is an error to depict this "revolutionary era and
   its democratic aspirations as 'bourgeois,' an imagery that makes
   capitalism a system more committed to freedom, or even ordinary civil
   liberties, than it was historically" [From Urbanisation to Cities, p.
   180f]). Takis Fotopoules, in his essay "The Nation-state and the
   Market", indicates that the social forces at work in "freeing" the
   market did not represent a "natural" evolution towards freedom:

     "Contrary to what liberals and Marxists assert, marketisation of the
     economy was not just an evolutionary process, following the
     expansion of trade under mercantilism . . . modern [i.e. capitalist]
     markets did not evolve out of local markets and/or markets for
     foreign goods . . . the nation-state, which was just emerging at the
     end of the Middle Ages, played a crucial role creating the
     conditions for the 'nationalisation' of the market . . . and . . .
     by freeing the market [i.e. the rich and proto-capitalists] from
     effective social control." [Society and Nature, Vol. 3, pp. 44-45]

   The "freeing" of the market thus means freeing those who "own" most of
   the market (i.e. the wealthy elite) from "effective social control,"
   but the rest of society was not as lucky. Peter Kropotkin makes a
   similar point in Modern Science and Anarchism, "[w]hile giving the
   capitalist any degree of free scope to amass his wealth at the expense
   of the helpless labourers, the government has nowhere and never. .
   .afforded the labourers the opportunity 'to do as they pleased'."
   [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 182]

   The one essential form of support the "Libertarian" right wants the
   state (or "defence" firms) to provide capitalism is the enforcement of
   property rights -- the right of property owners to "do as they like" on
   their own property, which can have obvious and extensive social
   impacts. What "libertarian" capitalists object to is attempts by others
   -- workers, society as a whole, the state, etc. -- to interfere with
   the authority of bosses. That this is just the defence of privilege and
   power (and not freedom) has been discussed in [6]section B and
   elsewhere in [7]section F, so we will not repeat ourselves here.

   Samuel Johnson once observed that "we hear the loudest yelps for
   liberty among the drivers of Negroes." Our modern "libertarian"
   capitalist drivers of wage-slaves are yelping for exactly the same kind
   of "liberty." [Johnson quoted in Noam Chomsky, Year 501, p. 141]

8.3 What other forms did state intervention in creating capitalism take?

   Beyond being a paymaster for new forms of production and social
   relations and defending the owners' power, the state intervened
   economically in other ways as well. As we noted in section [8]B.2.5,
   the state played a key role in transforming the law codes of society in
   a capitalistic fashion, ignoring custom and common law to do so.
   Similarly, the use of tariffs and the granting of monopolies to
   companies played an important role in accumulating capital at the
   expense of working people, as did the breaking of unions and strikes by
   force.

   However, one of the most blatant of these acts was the enclosure of
   common land. In Britain, by means of the Enclosure Acts, land that had
   been freely used by poor peasants for farming their small family plots
   was claimed by large landlords as private property. As E.P. Thompson
   notes, "Parliament and law imposed capitalist definitions to exclusive
   property in land" [Customs in Common, p. 163]. Property rights, which
   exclusively favoured the rich, replaced the use rights and free
   agreement that had governed peasant's use of the commons. Unlike use
   rights, which rest in the individual, property rights require state
   intervention to create and maintain.

   This stealing of the land should not be under estimated. Without land,
   you cannot live and have to sell your liberty to others. This places
   those with capital at an advantage, which will tend to increase, rather
   than decrease, the inequalities in society (and so place the landless
   workers at an increasing disadvantage over time). This process can be
   seen from early stages of capitalism. With the enclosure of the land,
   an agricultural workforce was created which had to travel where the
   work was. This influx of landless ex-peasants into the towns ensured
   that the traditional guild system crumbled and was transformed into
   capitalistic industry with bosses and wage slaves rather than master
   craftsmen and their journeymen. Hence the enclosure of land played a
   key role, for "it is clear that economic inequalities are unlikely to
   create a division of society into an employing master class and a
   subject wage-earning class, unless access to the mans of production,
   including land, is by some means or another barred to a substantial
   section of the community." [Maurice Dobbs, Studies in Capitalist
   Development, p. 253]

   The importance of access to land is summarised by this limerick by the
   followers of Henry George (a 19th century writer who argued for a
   "single tax" and the nationalisation of land). The Georgites got their
   basic argument on the importance of land down these few, excellent
   lines:

                         A college economist planned
                       To live without access to land
                           He would have succeeded
                          But found that he needed
                    Food, shelter and somewhere to stand.

   Thus the Individualist (and other) anarchists' concern over the "land
   monopoly" of which the Enclosure Acts were but one part. The land
   monopoly, to use Tucker's words, "consists in the enforcement by
   government of land titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and
   cultivation." [The Anarchist Reader, p. 150] It is important to
   remember that wage labour first developed on the land and it was the
   protection of land titles of landlords and nobility, combined with
   enclosure, that meant people could not just work their own land.

   In other words, the circumstances so created by enclosing the land and
   enforcing property rights to large estates ensured that capitalists did
   not have to point a gun at workers head to get them to work long hours
   in authoritarian, dehumanising conditions. In such circumstances, when
   the majority are dispossessed and face the threat of starvation,
   poverty, homelessness and so on, "initiation of force" is not required.
   But guns were required to enforce the system of private property that
   created the labour market in the first place, to enforce the enclosure
   of common land and protect the estates of the nobility and wealthy.

   In addition to increasing the availability of land on the market, the
   enclosures also had the effect of destroying working-class
   independence. Through these Acts, innumerable peasants were excluded
   from access to their former means of livelihood, forcing them to
   migrate to the cities to seek work in the newly emerging factories of
   the budding capitalist class, who were thus provided with a ready
   source of cheap labour. The capitalists, of course, did not describe
   the results this way, but attempted to obfuscate the issue with their
   usual rhetoric about civilisation and progress. Thus John Bellers, a
   17th-century supporter of enclosures, claimed that commons were "a
   hindrance to Industry, and . . . Nurseries of Idleness and Insolence."
   The "forests and great Commons make the Poor that are upon them too
   much like the indians." [quoted by Thompson, Op. Cit., p. 163]
   Elsewhere Thompson argues that the commons "were now seen as a
   dangerous centre of indiscipline . . . Ideology was added to
   self-interest. It became a matter of public-spirited policy for
   gentlemen to remove cottagers from the commons, reduce his labourers to
   dependence . . ." [The Making of the English Working Class, pp. 242-3]

   The commons gave working-class people a degree of independence which
   allowed them to be "insolent" to their betters. This had to be stopped,
   as it undermined to the very roots of authority relationships within
   society. The commons increased freedom for ordinary people and made
   them less willing to follow orders and accept wage labour. The
   reference to "Indians" is important, as the independence and freedom of
   Native Americans is well documented. The common feature of both
   cultures was communal ownership of the means of production and free
   access to it (usufruct). This is discussed further in section I.7
   ([9]Won't Libertarian Socialism destroy individuality?)

   As the early American economist Edward Wakefield noted in 1833, "where
   land is cheap and all are free, where every one who so pleases can
   easily obtain a piece of land for himself, not only is labour dear, as
   respects the labourer's share of the product, but the difficulty is to
   obtain combined labour at any price." [England and America, quoted by
   Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, Commonsense for Hard Times, p. 24]

   The enclosure of the commons (in whatever form it took -- see section
   [10]8.5 for the US equivalent) solved both problems -- the high cost of
   labour, and the freedom and dignity of the worker. The enclosures
   perfectly illustrate the principle that capitalism requires a state to
   ensure that the majority of people do not have free access to any means
   of livelihood and so must sell themselves to capitalists in order to
   survive. There is no doubt that if the state had "left alone" the
   European peasantry, allowing them to continue their collective farming
   practices ("collective farming" because, as Kropotkin shows in Mutual
   Aid, the peasants not only shared the land but much of the farm labour
   as well), capitalism could not have taken hold (see Mutual Aid, pp.
   184-189, for more on the European enclosures). As Kropotkin notes,
   "[i]nstances of commoners themselves dividing their lands were rare,
   everywhere the State coerced them to enforce the division, or simply
   favoured the private appropriation of their lands" by the nobles and
   wealthy. [Mutual Aid, p. 188]

   Thus Kropotkin's statement that "to speak of the natural death of the
   village community [or the commons] in virtue of economical law is as
   grim a joke as to speak of the natural death of soldiers slaughtered on
   a battlefield." [Op. Cit., p. 189]

   Like the more recent case of fascist Chile, "free market" capitalism
   was imposed on the majority of society by an elite using the
   authoritarian state. This was recognised by Adam Smith when he opposed
   state intervention in The Wealth of Nations. In Smith's day, the
   government was openly and unashamedly an instrument of wealth owners.
   Less than 10 per cent of British men (and no women) had the right to
   vote. When Smith opposed state interference, he was opposing the
   imposition of wealth owners' interests on everybody else (and, of
   course, how "liberal", nevermind "libertarian", is a political system
   in which the many follow the rules and laws set-down in the so-called
   interests of all by the few? As history shows, any minority given, or
   who take, such power will abuse it in their own interests). Today, the
   situation is reversed, with neo-liberals and right libertarians
   opposing state interference in the economy (e.g. regulation of Big
   Business) so as to prevent the public from having even a minor impact
   on the power or interests of the elite.

   The fact that "free market" capitalism always requires introduction by
   an authoritarian state should make all honest "Libertarians" ask: How
   "free" is the "free market"? And why, when it is introduced, do the
   rich get richer and the poor poorer? This was the case in Chile (see
   [11]Section C.11). For the poverty associated with the rise of
   capitalism in England 200 years ago, E.P. Thompson's The Making of the
   English Working Class provides a detailed discussion. Howard Zinn's A
   People's History of the United States describes the poverty associated
   with 19th-century US capitalism.

8.4 Aren't the enclosures a socialist myth?

   The short answer is no, they are not. While a lot of historical
   analysis has been spent in trying to deny the extent and impact of the
   enclosures, the simple fact is (in the words of noted historian E.P.
   Thompson) enclosure "was a plain enough case of class robbery, played
   according to the fair rules of property and law laid down by a
   parliament of property-owners and lawyers." [The Making of the English
   Working Class, pp. 237-8]

   The enclosures were one of the ways that the "land monopoly" was
   created. The land monopoly was used to refer to capitalist property
   rights and ownership of land by (among others) the Individualist
   Anarchists. Instead of an "occupancy and use" regime advocated by
   anarchists, the land monopoly allowed a few to bar the many from the
   land -- so creating a class of people with nothing to sell but their
   labour. While this monopoly is less important these days in developed
   nations (few people know how to farm) it was essential as a means of
   consolidating capitalism. Given the choice, most people preferred to
   become independent farmers rather than wage workers (see [12]next
   section).

   However, the importance of the enclosure movement is downplayed by
   supporters of capitalism. Little wonder, for it is something of an
   embarrassment for them to acknowledge that the creation of capitalism
   was somewhat less than "immaculate" -- after all, capitalism is
   portrayed as an almost ideal society of freedom. To find out that an
   idol has feet of clay and that we are still living with the impact of
   its origins is something pro-capitalists must deny. So is the
   enclosures a socialist myth? Most claims that it is flow from the work
   of the historian J.D. Chambers' famous essay "Enclosures and the Labour
   Supply in the Industrial Revolution." [Economic History Review, 2nd
   series, no. 5, August 1953] In this essay, Chambers attempts to refute
   Karl Marx's account of the enclosures and the role it played in what
   Marx called "primitive accumulation."

   We cannot be expected to provide an extensive account of the debate
   that has raged over this issue. All we can do is provide a summary of
   the work of William Lazonick who presented an excellent reply to those
   who claim that the enclosures were an unimportant historical event. We
   are drawing upon his summary of his excellent essay "Karl Marx and
   Enclosures in England" [Review of Radical Political Economy, no. 6,
   Summer, 1974] which can be found in his books Competitive Advantage on
   the Shop Floor and Business Organisation and the Myth of the Market
   Economy. There are three main claims against the socialist account of
   the enclosures. We will cover each in turn.

   Firstly, it is often claimed that the enclosures drove the uprooted
   cottager and small peasant into industry. However, this was never
   claimed. It is correct that the agricultural revolution associated with
   the enclosures increased the demand for farm labour as claimed by
   Chambers and others. And this is the whole point - enclosures created a
   pool of dispossessed labourers who had to sell their time/liberty to
   survive. The "critical transformation was not the level of agricultural
   employment before and after enclosure but the changes in employment
   relations caused by the reorganisation of landholdings and the
   reallocation of access to land." [Competitive Advantage on the Shop
   Floor, p. 30] Thus the key feature of the enclosures was that it
   created a supply for farm labour, a supply that had no choice but to
   work for another. This would drive down wages and increase demand.
   Moreover, freed from the land, these workers could later move to the
   towns in search for better work.

   Secondly, it is argued that the number of small farm owners increased,
   or at least did not greatly decline, and so the enclosure movement was
   unimportant. Again, this misses the point. Small farm owners can still
   employ wage workers (i.e. become capitalist farmers as opposed to
   "yeomen" -- independent peasant proprietor). As Lazonick notes, "[i]t
   is true that after 1750 some petty proprietors continued to occupy and
   work their own land. But in a world of capitalist agriculture, the
   yeomanry no longer played an important role in determining the course
   of capitalist agriculture. As a social class that could influence the
   evolution of British economy society, the yeomanry had disappeared."
   [Op. Cit., p. 32]

   Thirdly, it is often claimed that it was population growth, rather than
   enclosures, that caused the supply of wage workers. So was population
   growth more important that enclosures? Maurice Dobbs argues that "the
   centuries in which a proletariat was most rapidly recruited were apt to
   be those of slow rather than of rapid natural increase of population,
   and the paucity or plenitude of a labour reserve in different countries
   was not correlated with comparable difference in their rates of
   population-growth." [Studies in Capitalist Development, p. 223]
   Moreover, the population argument ignores the question of whether the
   changes in society caused by enclosures and the rise of capitalism have
   an impact on the observed trends towards earlier marriage and larger
   families after 1750. Lazonick argues that "[t]here is reason to believe
   that they did." [Op. Cit., p. 33] Also, of course, the use of child
   labour in the factories created an economic incentive to have more
   children, an incentive created by the developing capitalist system.
   Overall, Lazonick notes that "[t]o argue that population growth created
   the industrial labour supply is to ignore these momentous social
   transformations" associated with the rise of capitalism [Business
   Organisation and the Myth of the Market Economy, p. 273].

   In other words, there is good reason to think that the enclosures, far
   from being some kind of socialist myth, in fact played a key role in
   the development of capitalism. As Lazonick himself notes, "Chambers
   misunderstood" "the argument concerning the 'institutional creation' of
   a proletarianised (i.e. landless) workforce. Indeed, Chamber's own
   evidence and logic tend to support the Marxian [and anarchist!]
   argument, when it is properly understood." [Op. Cit., p. 273]

8.5 What about the lack of enclosures in the Americas?

   The enclosure movement was but one way of creating the "land monopoly"
   which ensured the creation of a working class. The circumstances facing
   the ruling class in the Americas were distinctly different than in the
   Old World and so the "land monopoly" took a different form there. In
   the Americas, enclosures were unimportant as customary land rights did
   not really exist. Here the problem was that (after the original users
   of the land were eliminated, of course) there were vast tracts of land
   available for people to use.

   Unsurprisingly, there was a movement towards independent farming and
   this pushed up the price of labour, by reducing the supply. Capitalists
   found it difficult to find workers willing to work for them at wages
   low enough to provide them with sufficient profits. It was due the
   difficulty in finding cheap enough labour that capitalists in America
   turned to slavery. All things being equal, wage labour is more
   productive than slavery. But in early America all things were not
   equal. Having access to cheap (indeed, free) land meant that working
   people had a choice, and few desired to become wage slaves. Because of
   this, capitalists turned to slavery in the South and the "land
   monopoly" in the North and West.

   This was because, in the words of Maurice Dobbs, it "became clear to
   those who wished to reproduce capitalist relations of production in the
   new country that the foundation-stone of their endeavour must be the
   restriction of land-ownership to a minority and the exclusion of the
   majority from any share in [productive] property." [Studies in
   Capitalist Development, pp. 221-2] As one radical historian puts it,
   "[w]hen land is 'free' or 'cheap'. as it was in different regions of
   the United States before the 1830s, there was no compulsion for farmers
   to introduce labour-saving technology. As a result, 'independent
   household production' . . . hindered the development of capitalism . .
   . [by] allowing large portions of the population to escape wage
   labour." [Charlie Post, "The 'Agricultural Revolution' in the United
   States", pp. 216-228, Science and Society, vol. 61, no. 2, p. 221]

   It was precisely this option (i.e. of independent production) that had
   to be destroyed in order for capitalist industry to develop. The state
   had to violate the holy laws of "supply and demand" by controlling the
   access to land in order to ensure the normal workings of "supply and
   demand" in the labour market (i.e. that the bargaining position on the
   labour market favoured employer over employee). Once this situation
   became the typical one (i.e. when the option of self-employment was
   effectively eliminated) a (protectionist based) "laissez-faire"
   approach could be adopted and state action used only to protect private
   property from the actions of the dispossessed.

   So how was this transformation of land ownership achieved?

   Instead of allowing settlers to appropriate their own farms as was the
   case before the 1830s, the state stepped in once the army had cleared
   out the original users. Its first major role was to enforce legal
   rights of property on unused land. Land stolen from the Native
   Americans was sold at auction to the highest bidders, namely
   speculators, who then sold it on to farmers. This process started right
   "after the revolution, [when] huge sections of land were bought up by
   rich speculators" and their claims supported by the law [Howard Zinn, A
   People's History of the United States, p. 125] Thus land which should
   have been free was sold to land-hungry farmers and the few enriched
   themselves at the expense of the many. Not only did this increase
   inequality within society, it also encouraged the development of wage
   labour -- having to pay for land would have ensured that many
   immigrants remained on the East Coast until they had enough money. Thus
   a pool of people with little option but to sell their labour was
   increased due to state protection of unoccupied land. That the land
   usually ended up in the hands of farmers did not (could not)
   countermand the shift in class forces that this policy created.

   This was also the essential role of the various "Homesteading Acts"
   and, in general, the "Federal land law in the 19th century provided for
   the sale of most of the public domain at public auction to the higher
   bidder . . . Actual settlers were forced to buy land from speculators,
   at prices considerably above the federal minimal price" (which few
   people could afford anyway) [Charlie Post, Op. Cit., p. 222]. Little
   wonder the Individualist Anarchists supported an "occupancy and use"
   system of land ownership as a key way of stopping capitalist and
   landlord usury as well as the development of capitalism itself.

   This change in the appropriation of land had significant effects on
   agriculture and the desirability of taking up farming for immigrants.
   As Post notes, "[w]hen the social conditions for obtaining and
   maintaining possession of land change, as they did in the midwest
   between 1830 and 1840, pursuing the goal of preserving [family
   ownership and control] . . . produced very different results. In order
   to pay growing mortgages, debts and taxes, family farmers were
   compelled to specialise production toward cash crops and to market more
   and more of their output." [Op. Cit., p. 221-2]

   So, in order to pay for land which was formerly free, farmers got
   themselves into debt and increasingly turned to the market to pay it
   off. Thus, the "Federal land system, by transforming land into a
   commodity and stimulating land speculation, made the midwestern farmers
   dependent upon markets for the continual possession of their farms."
   [Charlie Post, Op. Cit., p. 223] Once on the market, farmers had to
   invest in new machinery and this also got them into debt. In the face
   of a bad harvest or market glut, they could not repay their loans and
   their farms had to be sold to so do so. By 1880, 25% of all farms were
   rented by tenants, and the numbers kept rising.

   This means that Murray Rothbard's comment that "once the land was
   purchased by the settler, the injustice disappeared" is nonsense -- the
   injustice was transmitted to other parts of society and this, along
   with the legacy of the original injustice, lived on and helped
   transform society towards capitalism [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 73]. In
   addition, his comments about "the establishment in North America of a
   truly libertarian land system" would be one the Individualist
   Anarchists would have seriously disagreed with! [Ibid.]

   Thus state action, in restricting free access to the land, ensured that
   workers were dependent on wage labour. In addition, the "transformation
   of social property relations in northern agriculture set the stage for
   the 'agricultural revolution' of the 1840s and 1850s . . . [R]ising
   debts and taxes forced midwestern family farmers to compete as
   commodity producers in order to maintain their land-holding . . . The
   transformation . . . was the central precondition for the development
   of industrial capitalism in the United States." [Charlie Post, Ibid.,
   p. 226]

   In addition to seizing the land and distributing it in such a way as to
   benefit capitalist industry, the "government played its part in helping
   the bankers and hurting the farmers; it kept the amount of money -
   based in the gold supply - steady while the population rose, so there
   was less and less money in circulation. The farmer had to pay off his
   debts in dollars that were harder to get. The bankers, getting loans
   back, were getting dollars worth more than when they loaned them out -
   a kind of interest on top of interest. That was why . . . farmers'
   movements [like the Individualist Anarchists, we must add] . . .
   [talked about] putting more money in circulation." [Howard Zinn, Op.
   Cit., p. 278]

   Overall, therefore, state action ensured the transformation of America
   from a society of independent workers to a capitalist one. By creating
   and enforcing the "land monopoly" (of which state ownership of
   unoccupied land and its enforcement of landlord rights were the most
   important) the state ensured that the balance of class forces tipped in
   favour of the capitalist class. By removing the option of farming your
   own land, the US government created its own form of enclosure and the
   creation of a landless workforce with little option but to sell its
   liberty on the "free market". This, combined with protectionism,
   ensured the transformation of American society from a pre-capitalist
   one into a capitalist one. They was nothing "natural" about it.

   Little wonder the Individualist Anarchist J.K. Ingalls attacked the
   "land monopoly" in the following words:

     "The earth, with its vast resources of mineral wealth, its
     spontaneous productions and its fertile soil, the free gift of God
     and the common patrimony of mankind, has for long centuries been
     held in the grasp of one set of oppressors by right of conquest or
     right of discovery; and it is now held by another, through the right
     of purchase from them. All of man's natural possessions . . . have
     been claimed as property; nor has man himself escaped the insatiate
     jaws of greed. The invasion of his rights and possessions has
     resulted . . . in clothing property with a power to accumulate an
     income." [quoted by James Martin, Men Against the State, p. 142]

8.6 How did working people view the rise of capitalism?

   The best example of how hated capitalism was can be seen by the rise
   and spread of the socialist movement, in all its many forms, across the
   world. It is no coincidence that the development of capitalism also saw
   the rise of socialist theories. However, in order to fully understand
   how different capitalism was from previous economic systems, we will
   consider early capitalism in the US, which for many "Libertarians" is
   the example of the "capitalism-equals-freedom" argument.

   Early America was pervaded by artisan production -- individual
   ownership of the means of production. Unlike capitalism, this system is
   not marked by the separation of the worker from the means of life. Most
   people did not have to work for another, and so did not. As Jeremy
   Brecher notes, in 1831 the "great majority of Americans were farmers
   working their own land, primarily for their own needs. Most of the rest
   were self-employed artisans, merchants, traders, and professionals.
   Other classes - employees and industrialists in the North, slaves and
   planters in the South - were relatively small. The great majority of
   Americans were independent and free from anybody's command." [Strike!,
   p. xxi] These conditions created the high cost of combined (wage)
   labour which ensured the practice of slavery existed.

   However, toward the middle of the 19th century the economy began to
   change. Capitalism began to be imported into American society as the
   infrastructure was improved, which allowed markets for manufactured
   goods to grow. Soon, due to (state-supported) capitalist competition,
   artisan production was replaced by wage labour. Thus "evolved" modern
   capitalism. Many workers understood, resented, and opposed their
   increasing subjugation to their employers ("the masters", to use Adam
   Smith's expression), which could not be reconciled with the principles
   of freedom and economic independence that had marked American life and
   sunk deeply into mass consciousness during the days of the early
   economy. In 1854, for example, a group of skilled piano makers wrote
   that "the day is far distant when they [wage earners] will so far
   forget what is due to manhood as to glory in a system forced upon them
   by their necessity and in opposition to their feelings of independence
   and self-respect. May the piano trade be spared such exhibitions of the
   degrading power of the day [wage] system." [quoted by Brecher and
   Costello, Common Sense for Hard Times, p. 26]

   Clearly the working class did not consider working for a daily wage, in
   contrast to working for themselves and selling their own product, to be
   a step forward for liberty or individual dignity. The difference
   between selling the product of one's labour and selling one's labour
   (i.e. oneself) was seen and condemned ("[w]hen the producer . . . sold
   his product, he retained himself. But when he came to sell his labour,
   he sold himself . . . the extension [of wage labour] to the skilled
   worker was regarded by him as a symbol of a deeper change" [Norman
   Ware, The Industrial Worker, 1840-1860, p. xiv]). Indeed, one group of
   workers argued that they were "slaves in the strictest sense of the
   word" as they had "to toil from the rising of the sun to the going down
   of the same for our masters - aye, masters, and for our daily bread"
   [Quoted by Ware, Op. Cit., p. 42] and another argued that "the factory
   system contains in itself the elements of slavery, we think no sound
   reasoning can deny, and everyday continues to add power to its
   incorporate sovereignty, while the sovereignty of the working people
   decreases in the same degree." [quoted by Brecher and Costello, Op.
   Cit., p. 29]

   Almost as soon as there were wage workers, there were strikes, machine
   breaking, riots, unions and many other forms of resistance. John
   Zerzan's argument that there was a "relentless assault on the worker's
   historical rights to free time, self-education, craftsmanship, and play
   was at the heart of the rise of the factory system" is extremely
   accurate [Elements of Refusal, p. 105]. And it was an assault that
   workers resisted with all their might. In response to being subjected
   to the "law of value," workers rebelled and tried to organise
   themselves to fight the powers that be and to replace the system with a
   co-operative one. As the printer's union argued, "[we] regard such an
   organisation [a union] not only as an agent of immediate relief, but
   also as an essential to the ultimate destruction of those unnatural
   relations at present subsisting between the interests of the employing
   and the employed classes. . . .[W]hen labour determines to sell itself
   no longer to speculators, but to become its own employer, to own and
   enjoy itself and the fruit thereof, the necessity for scales of prices
   will have passed away and labour will be forever rescued from the
   control of the capitalist." [quoted by Brecher and Costello, Op. Cit.,
   pp. 27-28]

   Little wonder, then, why wage labourers considered capitalism as a form
   of "slavery" and why the term "wage slavery" became so popular in the
   anarchist movement. It was just reflecting the feelings of those who
   experienced the wages system at first hand and joined the socialist and
   anarchist movements. As labour historian Norman Ware notes, the "term
   'wage slave' had a much better standing in the forties [of the 19th
   century] than it has today. It was not then regarded as an empty
   shibboleth of the soap-box orator. This would suggest that it has
   suffered only the normal degradation of language, has become a cliche,
   not that it is a grossly misleading characterisation." [Op. Cit., p.
   xvf]

   These responses of workers to the experience of wage labour is
   important to show that capitalism is by no means "natural." The fact is
   the first generation of workers tried to avoid wage labour is at all
   possible as they hated the restrictions of freedom it imposed upon
   them. They were perfectly aware that wage labour was wage slavery --
   that they were decidedly unfree during working hours and subjected to
   the will of another. While many working people now are accustomed to
   wage labour (while often hating their job) the actual process of
   resistance to the development of capitalism indicates well its
   inherently authoritarian nature. Only once other options were closed
   off and capitalists given an edge in the "free" market by state action
   did people accept and become accustomed to wage labour.

   Opposition to wage labour and factory fascism was/is widespread and
   seems to occur wherever it is encountered. "Research has shown",
   summarises William Lazonick, "that the 'free-born Englishman' of the
   eighteenth century - even those who, by force of circumstance, had to
   submit to agricultural wage labour - tenaciously resisted entry into
   the capitalist workshop." [Business Organisation and the Myth of the
   Market Economy, p. 37] British workers shared the dislike of wage
   labour of their American cousins. A "Member of the Builders' Union" in
   the 1830s argued that the trade unions "will not only strike for less
   work, and more wages, but will ultimately abolish wages, become their
   own masters and work for each other; labour and capital will no longer
   be separate but will be indissolubly joined together in the hands of
   workmen and work-women." [quoted by Geoffrey Ostergaard, The Tradition
   of Workers' Control, p. 133] This is unsurprising, for as Ostergaard
   notes, "the workers then, who had not been swallowed up whole by the
   industrial revolution, could make critical comparisons between the
   factory system and what preceded it." [Op. Cit., p. 134] While wage
   slavery may seem "natural" today, the first generation of wage
   labourers saw the transformation of the social relationships they
   experienced in work, from a situation in which they controlled their
   own work (and so themselves) to one in which others controlled them,
   and they did not like it. However, while many modern workers
   instinctively hate wage labour and having bosses, without the awareness
   of some other method of working, many put up with it as "inevitable."
   The first generation of wage labourers had the awareness of something
   else (although, of course, a flawed something else) and this gave then
   a deep insight into the nature of capitalism and produced a deeply
   radical response to it and its authoritarian structures.

   Far from being a "natural" development, then, capitalism was imposed on
   a society of free and independent people by state action. Those workers
   alive at the time viewed it as "unnatural relations" and organised to
   overcome it. These feelings and hopes still exist, and will continue to
   exist until such time as we organise and "abolish the wage system" (to
   quote the IWW preamble) and the state that supports it.

8.7 Why is the history of capitalism important?

   Simply because it provides us with an understanding of whether that
   system is "natural" and whether it can be considered as just and free.
   If the system was created by violence, state action and other unjust
   means then the apparent "freedom" which we currently face within it is
   a fraud, a fraud masking unnecessary and harmful relations of
   domination, oppression and exploitation. Moreover, by seeing how
   capitalist relationships were viewed by the first generation of wage
   slaves reminds us that just because many people have adjusted to this
   regime and consider it as normal (or even natural) it is nothing of the
   kind.

   Murray Rothbard is well aware of the importance of history. He
   considered the "moral indignation" of socialism arises from the
   argument "that the capitalists have stolen the rightful property of the
   workers, and therefore that existing titles to accumulated capital are
   unjust." He argues that given "this hypothesis, the remainder of the
   impetus for both Marxism and anarchosyndicalism follow quote
   logically." [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 52]

   So some right-libertarians are aware that the current property owners
   have benefited extensively from violence and state action in the past.
   Murray Rothbard argues (in The Ethics of Liberty, p. 57) that if the
   just owners cannot be found for a property, then the property simply
   becomes again unowned and will belong to the first person to
   appropriate and utilise it. If the current owners are not the actual
   criminals then there is no reason at all to dispossess them of their
   property; if the just owners cannot be found then they may keep the
   property as the first people to use it (of course, those who own
   capital and those who use it are usually different people, but we will
   ignore this obvious point).

   Thus, since all original owners and the originally dispossessed are
   long dead nearly all current title owners are in just possession of
   their property except for recently stolen property. The principle is
   simple, dispossess the criminals, restore property to the dispossessed
   if they can be found otherwise leave titles where they are (as Native
   American tribes owned the land collectively this could have an
   interesting effect on such a policy in the USA. Obviously tribes that
   were wiped out need not apply, but would such right-libertarian policy
   recognise such collective, non-capitalist ownership claims? We doubt
   it, but we could be wrong -- the Libertarian Party Manifesto states
   that their "just" property rights will be restored. And who defines
   "just"? And given that unclaimed federal land will be given to Native
   Americans, its seems pretty likely that the original land will be left
   alone).

   Of course, that this instantly gives an advantage to the wealthy on the
   new "pure" market is not mentioned. The large corporations that, via
   state protection and support, built their empires and industrial base
   will still be in an excellent position to continue to dominate the
   market. Wealthy land owners, benefiting from the effects of state
   taxation and rents caused by the "land monopoly" on farmstead failures,
   will keep their property. The rich will have a great initial advantage
   and this may be more than enough to maintain them in there place. After
   all, exchanges between worker and owner tend to reinforce existing
   inequalities, not reduce them (and as the owners can move their capital
   elsewhere or import new, lower waged, workers from across the world,
   its likely to stay that way).

   So Rothbard's "solution" to the problem of past force seems to be
   (essentially) a justification of existing property titles and not a
   serious attempt to understand or correct past initiations of force that
   have shaped society into a capitalist one and still shape it today. The
   end result of his theory is to leave things pretty much as they are,
   for the past criminals are dead and so are their victims.

   However, what Rothbard fails to note is that the results of this state
   action and coercion are still with us. He totally fails to consider
   that the theft of productive wealth has a greater impact on society
   than the theft itself. The theft of productive wealth shapes society in
   so many ways that all suffer from it (including current generations).
   This (the externalities generated by theft) cannot be easily undone by
   individualistic "solutions".

   Let us take an example somewhat more useful that the one Rothbard uses
   (namely, a stolen watch). A watch cannot really be used to generate
   wealth (although if I steal a watch, sell it and buy a winning lottery
   ticket, does that mean I can keep the prize after returning the money
   value of your watch to you? Without the initial theft, I would not have
   won the prize but obviously the prize money far exceeds the amount
   stolen. Is the prize money mine?). Let us take a tool of production
   rather than a watch.

   Let assume a ship sinks and 50 people get washed ashore on an island.
   One woman has foresight to take a knife from the ship and falls
   unconscious on the beach. A man comes along and steals her knife. When
   the woman awakes she cannot remember if she had managed to bring the
   knife ashore with her or not. The man maintains that he brought it with
   him and no one else saw anything. The survivors decide to split the
   island equally between them and work it separately, exchanging goods
   via barter.

   However, the man with the knife has the advantage and soon carves
   himself a house and fields from the wilderness. Seeing that they need
   the knife and the tools created by the knife to go beyond mere
   existing, some of the other survivors hire themselves to the knife
   owner. Soon he is running a surplus of goods, including houses and
   equipment which he decides to hire out to others. This surplus is then
   used to tempt more and more of the other islanders to work for him,
   exchanging their land in return for the goods he provides. Soon he owns
   the whole island and never has to work again. His hut is well stocked
   and extremely luxurious. His workers face the option of following his
   orders or being fired (i.e. expelled from the island and so back into
   the water and certain death). Later, he dies and leaves his knife to
   his son. The woman whose knife it originally was had died long before,
   childless.

   Note that the theft did not involve taking any land. All had equal
   access to it. It was the initial theft of the knife which provided the
   man with market power, an edge which allowed him to offer the others a
   choice between working by themselves or working for him. By working for
   him they did "benefit" in terms of increased material wealth (and also
   made the thief better off) but the accumulate impact of unequal
   exchanges turned them into the effective slaves of the thief.

   Now, would it really be enough to turn the knife over to the whoever
   happened to be using it once the theft was discovered (perhaps the
   thief made a death-bed confession). Even if the woman who had
   originally taken it from the ship been alive, would the return of the
   knife really make up for the years of work the survivors had put in
   enriching the the thief or the "voluntary exchanges" which had resulted
   in the thief owning all the island? The equipment people use, the
   houses they life in and the food they eat are all the product of many
   hours of collective work. Does this mean that the transformation of
   nature which the knife allowed remain in the hands of the descendants
   of the thief or become the collective property of all? Would dividing
   it equally between all be fair? Not everyone worked equally hard to
   produce it. So we have a problem -- the result of the initial theft is
   far greater than the theft considered in isolation due to the
   productive nature of what was stolen.

   In other words, what Rothbard ignores in his attempt to undermine
   anarchist use of history is that when the property stolen is of a
   productive nature, the accumulative effect of its use is such as to
   affect all of society. Productive assets produce new property, new
   values, create a new balance of class forces, new income and wealth
   inequalities and so on. This is because of the dynamic nature of
   production and human life. When the theft is such that it creates
   accumulative effects after the initial act, it is hardly enough to say
   that it does not really matter any more. If a nobleman invests in a
   capitalist firm with the tribute he extracted from his peasants, then
   (once the firm starts doing well) sells the land to the peasants and
   uses that money to expand his capitalist holdings, does that really
   make everything all right? Does not the crime transmit with the cash?
   After all, the factory would not exist without the prior exploitation
   of the peasants.

   In the case of actually existing capitalism, born as it was of
   extensive coercive acts, the resultant of these acts have come to shape
   the whole society. For example, the theft of common land (plus the
   enforcement of property rights -- the land monopoly -- to vast estates
   owned by the aristocracy) ensured that working people had no option to
   sell their labour to the capitalists (rural or urban). The terms of
   these contracts reflected the weak position of the workers and so
   capitalists extracted surplus value from workers and used it to
   consolidate their market position and economic power. Similarly, the
   effect of mercantilist policies (and protectionism) was to enrich the
   capitalists at the expense of workers and allow them to build
   industrial empires.

   The accumulative effect of these acts of violation of a "free" market
   was to create a class society wherein most people "consent" to be wage
   slaves and enrich the few. While those who suffered the impositions are
   long gone and the results of the specific acts have multiplied and
   magnified well beyond their initial form. And we are still living with
   them. In other words, the initial acts of coercion have been
   transmitted and transformed by collective activity (wage labour) into
   society-wide affects.

   Rothbard argues in the situation where the descendants (or others) of
   those who initially tilled the soil and their aggressors ("or those who
   purchased their claims") still extract "tribute from the modern
   tillers" that this is a case of "continuing aggression against the true
   owners". This means that "the land titles should be transferred to the
   peasants, without compensation to the monopoly landlords." [Op. Cit.,
   p. 65] But what he fails to note is that the extracted "tribute" could
   have been used to invest in industry and transform society. Why ignore
   what the "tribute" has been used for? Does stolen property not remain
   stolen property after it has been transferred to another? And if the
   stolen property is used to create a society in which one class has to
   sell their liberty to another, then surely any surplus coming from
   those exchanges are also stolen (as it was generated directly and
   indirectly by the theft).

   Yes, anarchist agree with Rothbard -- peasants should take the land
   they use but which is owned by another. But this logic can equally be
   applied to capitalism. Workers are still living with the effects of
   past initiations of force and capitalists still extract "tribute" from
   workers due to the unequal bargaining powers within the labour market
   that this has created. The labour market, after all, was created by
   state action (directly or indirectly) and is maintained by state action
   (to protect property rights and new initiations of force by working
   people). The accumulative effects of stealing productive resources as
   been to increase the economic power of one class compared to another.
   As the victims of these past abuses are long gone and attempts to find
   their descendants meaningless (because of the generalised effects the
   thefts in question), anarchists feel we are justified in demanding the
   "expropriation of the expropriators".

   Due to Rothbard's failure to understand the dynamic and generalising
   effects that result from the theft of productive resources (i.e.
   externalities that occur from coercion of one person against a specific
   set of others) and the creation of a labour market, his attempt to
   refute anarchist analysis of the history of "actually existing
   capitalism" also fails. Society is the product of collective activity
   and should belong to us all (although whether and how we divide it up
   is another question).

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secD1.html
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb25
   3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append138.html#secf83
   4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append138.html#secf85
   5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb25
   6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secBcon.html
   7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append13con.html
   8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB2.html#secb25
   9. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI7.html
  10. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append138.html#secf85
  11. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secC11.html
  12. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append138.html#secf85
