              F.5 Will privatising "the commons" increase liberty?

   "Anarcho"-capitalists aim for a situation in which "no land areas, no
   square footage in the world shall remain 'public,'" in other words
   everything will be "privatised." [Murray Rothbard, Nations by Consent,
   p. 84] They claim that privatising "the commons" (e.g. roads, parks,
   etc.) which are now freely available to all will increase liberty. Is
   this true? Here we will concern ourselves with private ownership of
   commonly used "property" which we all take for granted (and often pay
   for with taxes).

   Its clear from even a brief consideration of a hypothetical society
   based on "privatised" roads (as suggested by Murray Rothbard [For a New
   Liberty, pp. 202-203] and David Friedman [The Machinery of Freedom, pp.
   98-101]) that the only increase of liberty will be for the ruling
   elite. As "anarcho"-capitalism is based on paying for what one uses,
   privatisation of roads would require some method of tracking
   individuals to ensure that they pay for the roads they use. In the UK,
   for example, during the 1980s the British Tory government looked into
   the idea of toll-based motorways. Obviously having toll-booths on
   motorways would hinder their use and restrict "freedom," and so they
   came up with the idea of tracking cars by satellite. Every vehicle
   would have a tracking device installed in it and a satellite would
   record where people went and which roads they used. They would then be
   sent a bill or have their bank balances debited based on this
   information (in the fascist city-state/company town of Singapore such a
   scheme has been introduced). In London, the local government has
   introduced a scheme which allowed people to pay for public transport by
   electronic card. It also allowed the government to keep a detailed
   record of where and when people travelled, with obvious civil liberty
   implications.

   If we extrapolate from these to a system of fully privatised "commons,"
   it would clearly require all individuals to have tracking devices on
   them so they could be properly billed for use of roads, pavements, etc.
   Obviously being tracked by private firms would be a serious threat to
   individual liberty. Another, less costly, option would be for private
   guards to randomly stop and question car-owners and individuals to make
   sure they had paid for the use of the road or pavement in question.
   "Parasites" would be arrested and fined or locked up. Again, however,
   being stopped and questioned by uniformed individuals has more in
   common with police states than liberty. Toll-boothing every street
   would be highly unfeasible due to the costs involved and difficulties
   for use that it implies. Thus the idea of privatising roads and
   charging drivers to gain access seems impractical at best and
   distinctly freedom endangering at worse. Would giving companies that
   information for all travellers, including pedestrians, really eliminate
   all civil liberty concerns?

   Of course, the option of owners letting users have free access to the
   roads and pavements they construct and run would be difficult for a
   profit-based company. No one could make a profit in that case. If
   companies paid to construct roads for their customers/employees to use,
   they would be financially hindered in competition with other companies
   that did not, and thus would be unlikely to do so. If they restricted
   use purely to their own customers, the tracking problem appears again.
   So the costs in creating a transport network and then running it
   explains why capitalism has always turned to state aid to provide
   infrastructure (the potential power of the owners of such investments
   in charging monopoly prices to other capitalists explains why states
   have also often regulated transport).

   Some may object that this picture of extensive surveillance of
   individuals would not occur or be impossible. However, Murray Rothbard
   (in a slightly different context) argued that technology would be
   available to collate information about individuals. He argued that
   "[i]t should be pointed out that modern technology makes even more
   feasible the collection and dissemination of information about people's
   credit ratings and records of keeping or violating their contracts or
   arbitration agreements. Presumably, an anarchist [sic!] society would
   see the expansion of this sort of dissemination of data." [Society
   Without A State", p. 199] So with the total privatisation of society we
   could also see the rise of private Big Brothers, collecting information
   about individuals for use by property owners. The example of the
   Economic League (a British company which provided the "service" of
   tracking the political affiliations and activities of workers for
   employers) springs to mind.

   And, of course, these privatisation suggestions ignore differences in
   income and market power. If, for example, variable pricing is used to
   discourage road use at times of peak demand (to eliminate traffic jams
   at rush-hour) as is suggested both by Murray Rothbard and David
   Friedman, then the rich will have far more "freedom" to travel than the
   rest of the population. And we may even see people having to go into
   debt just to get to work or move to look for work.

   Which raises another problem with notion of total privatisation, the
   problem that it implies the end of freedom of travel. Unless you get
   permission or (and this seems more likely) pay for access, you will not
   be able to travel anywhere. As Rothbard himself makes clear,
   "anarcho"-capitalism means the end of the right to roam. He states that
   "it became clear to me that a totally privatised country would not have
   open borders at all. If every piece of land in a country were owned . .
   . no immigrant could enter there unless invited to enter and allowed to
   rent, or purchase, property." What happens to those who cannot afford
   to pay for access or travel (i.e., exit) is not addressed (perhaps,
   being unable to exit a given capitalist's land they will become bonded
   labourers? Or be imprisoned and used to undercut workers' wages via
   prison labour? Perhaps they will just be shot as trespassers? Who can
   tell?). Nor is it addressed how this situation actually increases
   freedom. For Rothbard, a "totally privatised country would be as closed
   as the particular inhabitants and property owners [not the same thing,
   we must point out] desire. It seems clear, then, that the regime of
   open borders that exists de facto in the US really amounts to a
   compulsory opening by the central state. . . and does not genuinely
   reflect the wishes of the proprietors." [Nations by Consent, p. 84 and
   p. 85] Of course, the wishes of non-proprietors (the vast majority) do
   not matter in the slightest. Thus, it is clear, that with the
   privatisation of "the commons" the right to roam, to travel, would
   become a privilege, subject to the laws and rules of the property
   owners. This can hardly be said to increase freedom for anyone bar the
   capitalist class.

   Rothbard acknowledges that "in a fully privatised world, access rights
   would obviously be a crucial part of land ownership." [Op. Cit., p. 86]
   Given that there is no free lunch, we can imagine we would have to pay
   for such "rights." The implications of this are obviously unappealing
   and an obvious danger to individual freedom. The problem of access
   associated with the idea of privatising the roads can only be avoided
   by having a "right of passage" encoded into the "general libertarian
   law code." This would mean that road owners would be required, by law,
   to let anyone use them. But where are "absolute" property rights in
   this case? Are the owners of roads not to have the same rights as other
   owners? And if "right of passage" is enforced, what would this mean for
   road owners when people sue them for car-pollution related illnesses?
   (The right of those injured by pollution to sue polluters is the main
   way "anarcho"-capitalists propose to protect the environment -- see
   [1]section E.4). It is unlikely that those wishing to bring suit could
   find, never mind sue, the millions of individual car owners who could
   have potentially caused their illness. Hence the road-owners would be
   sued for letting polluting (or unsafe) cars onto "their" roads. The
   road-owners would therefore desire to restrict pollution levels by
   restricting the right to use their property, and so would resist the
   "right of passage" as an "attack" on their "absolute" property rights.
   If the road-owners got their way (which would be highly likely given
   the need for "absolute" property rights and is suggested by the
   variable pricing way to avoid traffic jams mentioned above) and were
   able to control who used their property, freedom to travel would be
   very restricted and limited to those whom the owner considered
   "desirable." Indeed, Murray Rothbard supports such a regime ("In the
   free [sic!] society, they [travellers] would, in the first instance,
   have the right to travel only on those streets whose owners agree to
   have them there." [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 119]). The threat to
   liberty in such a system is obvious -- to all but Rothbard and other
   right-"libertarians", of course.

   To take another example, let us consider the privatisation of parks,
   streets and other public areas. Currently, individuals can use these
   areas to hold political demonstrations, hand out leaflets, picket and
   so on. However, under "anarcho"-capitalism the owners of such property
   can restrict such liberties if they desire, calling such activities
   "initiation of force" (although they cannot explain how speaking your
   mind is an example of "force"). Therefore, freedom of speech, assembly
   and a host of other liberties we take for granted would be eliminated
   under a right-"libertarian" regime. Or, taking the case of pickets and
   other forms of social struggle, its clear that privatising "the
   commons" would only benefit the bosses. Strikers or political activists
   picketing or handing out leaflets in shopping centres are quickly
   ejected by private security even today. Think about how much worse it
   would become under "anarcho"-capitalism when the whole world becomes a
   series of malls -- it would be impossible to hold a picket when the
   owner of the pavement objects (as Rothbard himself gleefully argued.
   [Op. Cit., p. 132]). If the owner of the pavement also happens to be
   the boss being picketed, which Rothbard himself considered most likely,
   then workers' rights would be zero. Perhaps we could also see
   capitalists suing working class organisations for littering their
   property if they do hand out leaflets (so placing even greater stress
   on limited resources).

   The I.W.W. went down in history for its rigorous defence of freedom of
   speech because of its rightly famous "free speech" fights in numerous
   American cities and towns. The city bosses worried by the wobblies'
   open air public meetings simply made them illegal. The I.W.W. used
   direct action and carried on holding them. Violence was inflicted upon
   wobblies who joined the struggle by "private citizens," but in the end
   the I.W.W. won (for Emma Goldman's account of the San Diego struggle
   and the terrible repression inflicted on the libertarians by the
   "patriotic" vigilantes see Living My Life [vol. 1, pp. 494-503]).
   Consider the case under "anarcho"-capitalism. The wobblies would have
   been "criminal aggressors" as the owners of the streets have refused to
   allow "subversives" to use them to argue their case. If they refused to
   acknowledge the decree of the property owners, private cops would have
   taken them away. Given that those who controlled city government in the
   historical example were the wealthiest citizens in town, its likely
   that the same people would have been involved in the fictional
   ("anarcho"-capitalist) account. Is it a good thing that in the real
   account the wobblies are hailed as heroes of freedom but in the
   fictional one they are "criminal aggressors"? Does converting public
   spaces into private property really stop restrictions on free speech
   being a bad thing?

   Of course, Rothbard (and other right-"libertarians") are aware that
   privatisation will not remove restrictions on freedom of speech,
   association and so on (while, at the same time, trying to portray
   themselves as supporters of such liberties!). However, for them such
   restrictions are of no consequence. As Rothbard argues, any
   "prohibitions would not be state imposed, but would simply be
   requirements for residence or for use of some person's or community's
   land area." [Nations by Consent, p. 85] Thus we yet again see the
   blindness of right-"libertarians" to the commonality between private
   property and the state we first noted in [2]section F.1. The state also
   maintains that submitting to its authority is the requirement for
   taking up residence in its territory. As Tucker noted, the state can be
   defined as (in part) "the assumption of sole authority over a given
   area and all within it." [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 24] If the
   property owners can determine "prohibitions" (i.e. laws and rules) for
   those who use the property then they are the "sole authority over a
   given area and all within it," i.e. a state. Thus privatising "the
   commons" means subjecting the non-property owners to the rules and laws
   of the property owners -- in effect, privatising the state and turning
   the world into a series of monarchies and oligarchies without the
   pretence of democracy and democratic rights.

   These examples can hardly be said to be increasing liberty for society
   as a whole, although "anarcho"-capitalists seem to think they would. So
   far from increasing liberty for all, then, privatising the commons
   would only increase it for the ruling elite, by giving them yet another
   monopoly from which to collect income and exercise their power over. It
   would reduce freedom for everyone else. Ironically, therefore, Rothbard
   ideology provides more than enough evidence to confirm the anarchist
   argument that private property and liberty are fundamentally in
   conflict. "It goes without saying that th[e] absolute freedom of
   thought, speech, and action" anarchists support "is incompatible with
   the maintenance of institutions that restrict free thought, rigidify
   speech in the form of a final and irrevocable vow, and even dictate
   that the worker fold his arms and die of hunger at the owners'
   command." [Elisee Reclus, quoted by John P. Clark and Camille Martin
   (eds.), Anarchy, Geography, Modernity, p. 159] As Peter Marshall notes,
   "[i]n the name of freedom, the anarcho-capitalists would like to turn
   public spaces into private property, but freedom does not flourish
   behind high fences protected by private companies but expands in the
   open air when it is enjoyed by all." [Demanding the Impossible, p. 564]

   Little wonder Proudhon argued that "if the public highway is nothing
   but an accessory of private property; if the communal lands are
   converted into private property; if the public domain, in short, is
   guarded, exploited, leased, and sold like private property -- what
   remains for the proletaire? Of what advantage is it to him that society
   has left the state of war to enter the regime of police?" [System of
   Economic Contradictions, p. 371]

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secE4.html
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF1.html
