       F.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. They make an idol of private property and claim to
   defend "absolute" and "unrestricted" property rights. In particular,
   taxation and theft are among the greatest evils possible as they
   involve coercion against "justly held" property. It is true that they
   call for an end to the state, but this is not because they are
   concerned about the restrictions of liberty experienced by wage slaves
   and tenants but because they wish capitalists and landlords not to be
   bothered by legal restrictions on what they can and cannot do on their
   property. Anarchists stress that the right-"libertarians" are not
   opposed to workers being exploited or oppressed (in fact, they deny
   that is possible under capitalism) but because they do not want the
   state to impede capitalist "freedom" to exploit and oppress workers
   even more than is the case now! Thus they "are against the State simply
   because they are capitalists first and foremost." [Peter Marshall,
   Demanding the Impossible, p. 564]

   It should be obvious why someone is against the state matters when
   evaluating claims of a thinker to be included within the anarchist
   tradition. For example, socialist opposition to wage labour was shared
   by the pro-slavery advocates in the Southern States of America. The
   latter opposed wage labour as being worse than its chattel form
   because, it was argued, the owner had an incentive to look after his
   property during both good and bad times while the wage worker was left
   to starve during the latter. This argument does not place them in the
   socialist camp any more than socialist opposition to wage labour made
   them supporters of slavery. As such, "anarcho"-capitalist and
   right-"libertarian" opposition to the state should not be confused with
   anarchist and left-libertarian opposition. The former opposes it
   because it restricts capitalist power, profits and property while the
   latter opposes it because it is a bulwark of all three.

   Moreover, in the capitalist celebration of property as the source of
   liberty they deny or ignore the fact that private property is a source
   of "tyranny" in itself (as we have indicated in sections [1]B.3 and
   [2]B.4, for example). As we saw in [3]section F.1, this leads to quite
   explicit (if unaware) self-contradiction by leading
   "anarcho"-capitalist ideologues. As Tolstoy stressed, the "retention of
   the laws concerning land and property keeps the workers in slavery to
   the landowners and the capitalists, even though the workers are freed
   from taxes." [The Slavery of Our Times, pp. 39-40] Hence Malatesta:

     "One of the basic tenets of anarchism is the abolition of [class]
     monopoly, whether of the land, raw materials or the means of
     production, and consequently the abolition of exploitation of the
     labour of others by those who possess the means of production. The
     appropriation of the labour of others is from the anarchist and
     socialist point of view, theft." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and
     Ideas, pp. 167-8]

   As much anarchists may disagree about other matters, they are united in
   condemning capitalist 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. 'Respect for property!' . . . The position of
     affairs is different in the egoistic sense. I do not step shyly back
     from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which
     I respect nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property!

     "With this view we shall most easily come to an understanding with
     each other.

     "The political liberals are anxious that . . . every one be free
     lord on his ground, even if this ground has only so much area as can
     have its requirements adequately filled by the manure of one person
     . . . 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. Therefore does it live in incessant
     vexation. 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.

     "If, on the contrary, the 'small proprietors' had reflected that the
     great property was also theirs, they would not have respectively
     shut themselves out from it, and would not have been shut out . . .
     Instead of owning the world, as he might, he does not even own even
     the paltry point on which he turns around."
     [The Ego and Its Own, pp. 248-9]

   While different anarchists have different perspectives on what comes
   next, we are all critical of the current capitalist property rights
   system. 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 William 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]

   For anarchists, capitalist property is a source exploitation and
   domination, not freedom (it undermines the freedom associated with
   possession by creating relations of domination between owner and
   employee). Hardly surprising, then, that, according to Murray Bookchin,
   Murray Rothbard "attacked me as an anarchist with vigour because, as he
   put it, I am opposed to private property." Bookchin, correctly,
   dismisses "anarcho-capitalists as "proprietarians" ["A Meditation on
   Anarchist Ethics", pp. 328-346, The Raven, no. 28, p. 343]

   We will discuss Rothbard's "homesteading" justification of private
   property in the [4]next section. However, we will note here one aspect
   of right-"libertarian" absolute and unrestricted property rights,
   namely that it easily generates evil side effects such as hierarchy and
   starvation. As economist and 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 [5]section F.3). 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. If they were, then the state could deny
   freedom within its boundaries just as any other property owner could.
   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, as we noted in [6]section F.1, 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!

   This flows from the way "anarcho"-capitalists define "freedom," namely
   so that only deliberate acts which violate your (right-"libertarian"
   defined) rights by other humans beings that cause unfreedom ("we define
   freedom . . . as the absence of invasion by another man of an man's
   person or property." [Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, p. 41]). This
   means that if no-one deliberately coerces you then you are free. In
   this way the workings of the capitalist private property can be placed
   alongside the "facts of nature" and ignored as a source of unfreedom.
   However, a moments thought shows that this is not the case. Both
   deliberate and non-deliberate acts can leave individuals lacking
   freedom. A simply analogy will show why.

   Let us assume (in an example paraphrased from Alan Haworth's excellent
   book Anti-Libertarianism [p. 49]) that someone kidnaps you and places
   you down a deep (naturally formed) pit, miles from anyway, which is
   impossible to climb up. No one would deny that you are unfree. Let us
   further assume that another person walks by and accidentally falls into
   the pit with you. According to right-"libertarianism", while you are
   unfree (i.e. subject to deliberate coercion) your fellow pit-dweller is
   perfectly free for they have subject to the "facts of nature" and not
   human action (deliberate or otherwise). Or, perhaps, they "voluntarily
   choose" to stay in the pit, after all, it is "only" the "facts of
   nature" limiting their actions. But, obviously, both of you are in
   exactly the same position, have exactly the same choices and so are
   equally unfree! Thus a definition of "liberty" that maintains that only
   deliberate acts of others -- for example, coercion -- reduces freedom
   misses the point totally. In other words, freedom is path independent
   and the "forces of the market cannot provide genuine conditions for
   freedom any more than the powers of the State. The victims of both are
   equally enslaved, alienated and oppressed." [Peter Marshall, Demanding
   the Impossible, p. 565]

   It is worth quoting Noam Chomsky at length on this subject:

     "Consider, for example, the [right-'libertarian'] 'entitlement
     theory of justice' . . . [a]ccording to this theory, a person has a
     right to whatever he has acquired by means that are just. If, by
     luck or labour or ingenuity, a person acquires such and such, then
     he is entitled to keep it and dispose of it as he wills, and a just
     society will not infringe on this right.

     "One can easily determine where such a principle might lead. It is
     entirely possible that by legitimate means -- say, luck supplemented
     by contractual arrangements 'freely undertaken' under pressure of
     need -- one person might gain control of the necessities of life.
     Others are then free to sell themselves to this person as slaves, if
     he is willing to accept them. Otherwise, they are free to perish.
     Without extra question-begging conditions, the society is just.

     "The argument has all the merits of a proof that 2 + 2 = 5 . . .
     Suppose that some concept of a 'just society' is advanced that fails
     to characterise the situation just described as unjust. . . Then one
     of two conclusions is in order. We may conclude that the concept is
     simply unimportant and of no interest as a guide to thought or
     action, since it fails to apply properly even in such an elementary
     case as this. Or we may conclude that the concept advanced is to be
     dismissed in that it fails to correspond to the pretheorectical
     notion that it intends to capture in clear cases. If our intuitive
     concept of justice is clear enough to rule social arrangements of
     the sort described as grossly unjust, then the sole interest of a
     demonstration that this outcome might be 'just' under a given
     'theory of justice' lies in the inference by reductio ad absurdum to
     the conclusion that the theory is hopelessly inadequate. While it
     may capture some partial intuition regarding justice, it evidently
     neglects others.

     "The real question to be raised about theories that fail so
     completely to capture the concept of justice in its significant and
     intuitive sense is why they arouse such interest. Why are they not
     simply dismissed out of hand on the grounds of this failure, which
     is striking in clear cases? Perhaps the answer is, in part, the one
     given by Edward Greenberg in a discussion of some recent work on the
     entitlement theory of justice. After reviewing empirical and
     conceptual shortcomings, he observes that such work 'plays an
     important function in the process of . . . 'blaming the victim,' and
     of protecting property against egalitarian onslaughts by various
     non-propertied groups.' An ideological defence of privileges,
     exploitation, and private power will be welcomed, regardless of its
     merits.

     "These matters are of no small importance to poor and oppressed
     people here and elsewhere."
     [The Chomsky Reader, pp. 187-188]

   The glorification of property rights has always been most strongly
   advocated by those who hold the bulk of property in a society. This is
   understandable as they have the most to gain from this. Those seeking
   to increase freedom in society would be wise to understand why this is
   the case and reject it.

   The defence of capitalist property does have one interesting side
   effect, namely the need arises to defend inequality and the
   authoritarian relationships inequality creates. 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" as we have
   continually stressed. 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. As
   anarchists Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer argue, the "American oil
   baron, who sneers at any form of State intervention in his manner of
   conducting business -- that is to say, of exploiting man and nature --
   is also able to 'abolish the State' to a certain extent. But he has to
   build up a repressive machine of his own (an army of sheriffs to guard
   his interests) and takes over as far as he can, those functions
   normally exercised by the government, excluding any tendency of the
   latter that might be an obstacle to his pursuit of wealth." [Floodgates
   of Anarchy, p. 12] Unsurprising "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. This will be discussed in more detail in [7]section F.6.

   By advocating private property, right-"libertarians" contradict many of
   their other claims. For example, they tend to oppose censorship and
   attempts to limit freedom of association within society when the state
   is involved yet they will wholeheartedly support the right of the boss
   or landlord when they ban unions or people talking about unions on
   their property. They will oppose closed shops when they are worker
   created but have no problems when bosses make joining the company union
   a mandatory requirement for taking a position. Then 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). Private property, as can be seen
   from these simple examples, is the state writ small. Saying it is
   different when the boss does it is not convincing to any genuine
   libertarian.

   Then there is the possibility of alternative means of living.
   Right-"libertarians" generally argue that people can be as communistic
   as they want on their own property. They fail to note that all groups
   would have no choice about living under laws based on the most rigid
   and extreme interpretation of property rights invented and surviving
   within the economic pressures such a regime would generate. If a
   community cannot survive in the capitalist market then, in their
   perspective, it deserves its fate. Yet this Social-Darwinist approach
   to social organisation is based on numerous fallacies. It confuses the
   market price of something with how important it is; it confuses
   capitalism with productive activity in general; and it confuses profits
   with an activities contribution to social and individual well being; it
   confuses freedom with the ability to pick a master rather than as an
   absence of a master. Needless to say, as they consider capitalism as
   the most efficient economy ever the underlying assumption is that
   capitalist systems will win out in competition with all others. This
   will obviously be aided immensely under a law code which is capitalist
   in nature.

F.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]

   His theory, it should be stressed, has its roots in the same Lockean
   tradition as Robert Nozick's (which we critiqued in [8]section B.3.4).
   Like Locke, Rothbard paints a conceptual history of individuals and
   families forging a home in the wilderness by the sweat of their labour
   (it is tempting to rename his theory the "immaculate conception of
   property" as his conceptual theory is so at odds with actual historical
   fact). His one innovation (if it can be called that) was to deny even
   the rhetorical importance of what is often termed the Lockean Proviso,
   namely the notion that common resources can be appropriated only if
   there is enough for others to do likewise. As we noted in [9]section
   E.4.2 this was because it could lead (horror of horrors!) to the
   outlawry of all private property.

   Sadly for Rothbard, his "homesteading" theory of property was refuted
   by Proudhon in What is Property? in 1840 (along with many other
   justifications of property). Proudhon rightly argued 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 and p. 118]

   Proudhon's genius lay in turning apologies for private property against
   it by treating them as absolute and universal as its apologists treated
   property itself. To claims like Rothbard's that property was a natural
   right, he explained that the essence of such rights was their
   universality and that private property ensured that this right could
   not be extended to all. To claims that labour created property, he
   simply noted that private property ensured that most people have no
   property to labour on and so the outcome of that labour was owned by
   those who did. As for occupancy, he simply noted that most owners do
   not occupancy all the property they own while those who do use it do
   not own it. In such circumstances, how can occupancy justify property
   when property excludes occupancy? Proudhon showed that the defenders of
   property had to choose between self-interest and principle, between
   hypocrisy and logic.

   Rothbard picks the former over the latter and his theory is simply a
   rationale for a specific class based property rights system ("[w]e who
   belong to the proletaire class, property excommunicates us!" [P-J
   Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 105]). As Rothbard himself admitted in respect
   to the aftermath of slavery and serfdom, not having access to the means
   of life places one the position of unjust dependency on those who do
   and so private property creates economic power as much under his
   beloved capitalism as it did in post-serfdom (see [10]section F.1).
   Thus, Rothbard's account, for all its intuitive appeal, ends up
   justifying capitalist and landlord domination and ensures that the vast
   majority of the population experience property as theft and despotism
   rather than as a source of liberty and empowerment (which possession
   gives).

   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" but,
   obviously, appropriating land does violate the rights of others to
   walk, use or appropriate that land [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p.
   325]). Due to his support for appropriation and inheritance, Rothbard
   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 and exclude future
   generations.

   Even 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 as we discussed in [11]section
   E.4, Rothbard provided no coherent argument for resolving this problem
   nor the issue of environmental externalities like pollution it was
   meant to solve (in fact, he ended up providing polluters with
   sufficient apologetics to allow them to continue destroying the
   planet).

   Then there is the question of what equates to "mixing" labour. Does
   fencing in land mean you have "mixed labour" with 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" 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 any oasis owner is well within his rights letting them die). Given
   Rothbard's comments, it is probable that he could 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 the
   right-"libertarian" is all about. One thing is true, if the oasis
   became private property by some means then refusing water to travellers
   would be fine as "the owner 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." [Op.
   Cit., p. 50f and p. 221] That the owner is providing "a vital service"
   only because he has expropriated the common heritage of humanity is as
   lost on Rothbard as is the obvious economic power that this situation
   creates.

   And, of course, Rothbard ignores the fact of economic power -- a
   transnational corporation can "transform" far more virgin resources in
   a day by hiring workers than a family could in a year. A transnational
   "mixing" the labour it has bought from its wage slaves with the land
   does not spring into mind reading Rothbard's account of property but in
   the real world that is what happens. This is, perhaps, unsurprising as
   the whole point of Locke's theory was to justify the appropriation of
   the product of other people's labour by their employer.

   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. He ignores the awkward historic fact that land
   was held in common for millennium and that the notion of "mixing"
   labour to enclose it was basically invented to justify the
   expropriation of land from the general population (and from native
   populations) by the rich. 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, in rural areas there "developed a modest
   subsistence agriculture that allowed them to be almost wholly
   self-sufficient and required little, if any, currency." The economy was
   rooted in barter, with farmers trading surpluses with nearby artisans.
   This pre-capitalist economy meant people enjoyed "freedom from
   servitude to others" and "fostered" a "sturdy willingness to defend
   [their] independence from outside commercial interlopers. This
   condition of near-autarchy, however, was not individualistic; rather it
   made for strong community interdependence . . . In fact, 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." 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." [The Third Revolution, vol.
   1, p. 233]

   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 (gold or silver coin),
   which the farmers did not have. In addition, money was required to pay
   taxes (taxation has always been a key way in which the state encouraged
   a transformation towards capitalism as money could only be made by
   hiring oneself to those who had it). The farmers "were now cajoled by
   local shopkeepers" to "make all their payments and meet all their debts
   in money rather than barter. Since the farmers lacked money, the
   shopkeepers granted them short-term credit for their purchases. In
   time, many farmers became significantly indebted and could not pay off
   what they owed, least of all in specie." The creditors turned to the
   courts and many the homesteaders were dispossessed of their land and
   goods to pay their debts. In response Shay's rebellion started as the
   "urban commercial elites adamantly resisted [all] peaceful petitions"
   while the "state legislators also turned a deaf ear" as they were
   heavily influenced by these same elites. This rebellion 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 ("Elite and well-to-do sectors of the population
   mobilised in great force to support an instrument that clearly
   benefited them at the expense of the backcountry agrarians and urban
   poor.") [Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 234, p. 235 and p. 243]). Thus the
   homestead system was, ironically, undermined and destroyed by the rise
   of capitalism (aided, as usual, by a state run by and for the rich).

   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 what it was intended to do).

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB4.html
   3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF1.html
   4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF4.html#secf41
   5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF3.html
   6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF1.html
   7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF6.html
   8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB4.html#secb34
   9. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secE4.html#sece42
  10. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF1.html
  11. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secE4.html
