                  I.6 What about the "Tragedy of the Commons"?

   The term "Tragedy of the Commons" is a phrase which is used to describe
   why, according to some, commonly owned resources will be destructively
   overused. The term was first coined by Garret Hardin in December 1968.
   ["The Tragedy of the Commons", Science, Vol. 162, No. 3859, pp.
   1243-1248] It quickly became popular with those arguing against any
   form of collective ownership or socialism and would be the basis for
   many arguments for privatisation.

   Unsurprisingly, given its popularity with defenders of capitalism and
   neo-classical economists, Hardin's argument was a pure thought
   experiment with absolutely no empirical evidence to support it. He
   suggested a scenario in which commonly owned pasture was open to all
   local herdsmen to feed their cattle on. Completing this assumption with
   the standard ones of neo-classical economics, with Hardin arguing that
   each herdsman would try to keep as many cattle as possible on the
   commons to maximise their income. This would result in overgrazing and
   environmental destruction as the cost of each feeding addition animals
   is shouldered by all who use the commons while the benefits accrue to
   the individual herdsman. However, what is individually rational becomes
   collectively irrational when each herdsman, acting in isolation, does
   the same thing. The net result of the individual's actions is the
   ending of the livelihood of every herdsman as the land becomes
   overused.

   His article was used to justify both nationalisation and privatisation
   of communal resources (the former often a precursor for the latter). As
   state ownership fell out of favour, the lesson of this experiment in
   logic was as uniform as it was simple: only privatisation of common
   resources could ensure their efficient use and stop them being overused
   and destroyed. Coming as it before the rise of neo-liberalism in the
   1970s, Hardin's essay was much referenced by those seeking to privatise
   nationalised industries and eliminate communal institutions in tribal
   societies in the Third World. That these resulted in wealth being
   concentrated in a few hands should come as no surprise.

   Needless to say, there are numerous problems with Hardin's analysis.
   Most fundamentally, it was a pure thought experiment and, as such, was
   not informed by historical or current practice. In other words, it did
   not reflect the reality of the commons as a social institution. The
   so-called "Tragedy of the Commons" was no such thing. It is actually an
   imposition of the "tragedy of the free-for-all" to communally owned
   resources (in this case, land). In reality, commons were never "free
   for all" resources and while the latter may be see overuse and
   destruction the former managed to survive thousands of years. So,
   unfortunately for the supporters of private property who so regularly
   invoke the "Tragedy of the Commons", they simply show their ignorance
   of what true commons are. As socialist Allan Engler points out:

     "Supporters of capitalism cite what they call the tragedy of the
     commons to explain the wanton plundering of forests, fish and
     waterways, but common property is not the problem. When property was
     held in common by tribes, clans and villages, people took no more
     than their share and respected the rights of others. They cared for
     common property and when necessary acted together to protect it
     against those who would damage it. Under capitalism, there is no
     common property. (Public property is a form of private property,
     property owned by the government as a corporate person.) Capitalism
     recognises only private property and free-for-all property. Nobody
     is responsible for free-for-all property until someone claims it as
     his own. He then has a right to do as he pleases with it, a right
     that is uniquely capitalist. Unlike common or personal property,
     capitalist property is not valued for itself or for its utility. It
     is valued for the revenue it produces for its owner. If the
     capitalist owner can maximise his revenue by liquidating it, he has
     the right to do that." [Apostles of Greed, pp. 58-59]

   Therefore, as Colin Ward argues, "[l]ocal, popular, control is the
   surest way of avoiding the tragedy of the commons." [Reflected in
   Water, p. 20] Given that a social anarchist society is a communal,
   decentralised one, it will have little to fear from irrational overuse
   or abuse of communally owned and used resources.

   So, the real problem is that a lot of economists and sociologists
   conflate Hardin's scenario, in which unmanaged resources are free for
   all, with the situation that prevailed in the use of commons which were
   communally managed resources in village and tribal communities.
   Historian E.P. Thompson, for example, noted that Hardin was
   "historically uninformed" when he assumed that commons were pastures
   open to all. The commons, in reality, were managed by common agreements
   between those who used them. In an extensive investigation on this
   subject, Thompson showed that the "argument [is] that since resources
   held in common are not owned and protected by anyone, there is an
   inexorable economic logic that dooms them to over-exploitation . . .
   Despite its common sense air, what it overlooks is that commoners
   themselves were not without common sense. Over time and over space the
   users of commons have developed a rich variety of institutions and
   community sanctions which have effected restraints and stints upon use
   . . . As the old . . . institutions lapsed, so they fed into a vacuum
   in which political influence, market forces, and popular assertion
   contested with each other without common rules." [Customs in Common, p.
   108fn and p. 107] Colin Ward points to a more recent example, that of
   Spain after the victory of Franco:

     "The water history of Spain demonstrates that the tragedy of the
     commons is not the one identified by Garrett Hardin. Communal
     control developed an elaborate and sophisticated system of fair
     shares for all. The private property recommended by Hardin resulted
     in the selfish individualism that he thought was inevitable with
     common access, or in the lofty indifference of the big landowners."
     [Op. Cit., p. 27]

   So, for a while, Hardin's essay "was taken to provide an argument for
   the privatisation of the commons. It is now a well-developed point that
   Hardin's argument is not a tragedy of common ownership at all . . .
   Hardin's argument is a problem not of common ownership, but of open
   access in a context of private ownership of particular assets." [John
   O'Neill, Markets, Deliberation and Environment, p. 54] Significantly,
   Hardin later admitted his mistake and noted that "it is clear to me
   that the title of my original contribution should have been The Tragedy
   of the Unmanaged Commons . . . I can understand how I might have misled
   others." [quoted by O'Neill, Op. Cit., p. 199] But, of course, by then
   the damage had been done.

   There is something quite arrogant about Hardin's assertions, as he
   basically assumed that peasant farmers are unable to recognise certain
   disaster and change their behaviour accordingly. This, apparently, is
   where enlightened elites (governmental and economic) step in. However,
   in the real world, small farmers (and others) have created their own
   institutions and rules for preserving resources and ensuring that their
   community has the resources it needed to survive. Hardin, in other
   words, ignored what actually happens in a real commons, namely communal
   control and self-regulation by the communities involved who develop the
   appropriate communal institutions to do so.

   Surely, the very obvious fact that humans have lived in societies with
   commons for centuries and did not overuse them disproves Hardin's most
   fundamental assumptions. "If we misunderstand the true nature of the
   commons," argues scientist Susan Jane Buck Cox "we also misunderstand
   the implications of the demise of the traditional, commons system.
   Perhaps what existed in fact was not a 'tragedy of the commons' but
   rather a triumph: that for hundreds of years -- and perhaps thousands,
   although written records do not exist to prove the longer era -- land
   was managed successfully by communities." This suggests that it is a
   case of "the myth of the tragedy of the commons", rooted in an argument
   which is "historically false" as the "commons were carefully and
   painstakingly regulated." She points to a wider issue, namely whether
   "our perceptions of the nature of humankind are awry" for "it seems
   quite likely if 'economic man' had been managing the commons that
   tragedy really would have occurred," so "perhaps someone else was
   running the common." ["No Tragedy on the Commons", pp. 49-61,
   Environmental Ethics, vol. 7, p. 60, p. 53, p. 56 and p. 61]

   One economist has noted that the "tragedy of the commons" only makes
   sense once the assumption of neo-classical economics are taken for
   granted. If we assume atomised individuals accessing unmanaged lands
   then Hardin's conclusions automatically flow. However, "if the property
   were really common, this would imply the necessary existence of
   institutional agreements . . . between the co-owners to establish the
   rules for decisions governing the management of the resource. To put it
   more clearly, for common property to be truly common property implies
   its existence as an institution." It is precisely these kinds of human
   institutions which neo-classical economics ignores and so "the
   so-called 'tragedy of the commons' is more accurately considered 'the
   tragedy of a methodological individualism'". As many critics note,
   there are numerous "conceptual errors" contained in the article and
   these "have been repeated systematically by economists." In summary,
   "the so-called tragedy of the commons has nothing to do with common
   property, but with unrestricted and unregulated access." [F.
   Aguilera-Klink, "Some Notes on the Misuse of Classic Writings in
   Economics on the Subject of Common Property", pp. 221-8, Ecological
   Economics, No. 9, p. 223, p. 221, p. 224 and p. 226]

   Much the same can be said against those who argue that the experience
   of the Stalinism in the Eastern Block and elsewhere shows that public
   property leads to pollution and destruction of natural resources. Such
   arguments also show a lack of awareness of what common property
   actually is (it is no co-incidence that the propertarian-right use such
   an argument). This is because the resources in question, as we
   discussed in [1]section B.3.5, were not owned or managed in common --
   the fact that these countries were dictatorships excluded popular
   control of resources. Thus Stalinism does not, in fact, show the
   dangers of having commons or public ownership. Rather it shows the
   danger of not subjecting those who manage a resource to public control
   (and it is no co-incidence that the USA is far more polluted than
   Western Europe -- in the USA, like in the USSR, the controllers of
   resources are not subject to popular control and so pass pollution on
   to the public). Stalinism shows the danger of state owned resource use
   (nationalisation) rather than commonly owned resource use
   (socialisation), particularly when the state in question is not under
   even the limited control of its subjects implied in representative
   democracy.

   This confusion of public and state owned resources has, of course, been
   used to justify the stealing of communal property by the rich and the
   state. The continued acceptance of this "confusion" in political
   debate, like the continued use of Hardin's original and flawed "Tragedy
   of the Commons", is due to the utility of the theory for the rich and
   powerful, who have a vested interest in undermining pre-capitalist
   social forms and stealing communal resources. Most examples used to
   justify the "tragedy of the commons" are false examples, based on
   situations in which the underlying social context is assumed to be
   radically different from that involved in using true commons.

   In reality, the "tragedy of the commons" comes about only after wealth
   and private property, backed by the state, starts to eat into and
   destroy communal life. This is well indicated by the fact that commons
   existed for thousands of years and only disappeared after the rise of
   capitalism -- and the powerful central state it requires -- had eroded
   communal values and traditions. Without the influence of wealth
   concentrations and the state, people get together and come to
   agreements over how to use communal resources and have been doing so
   for millennia. That was how the commons were successfully managed
   before the wealthy sought to increase their holdings and deny the poor
   access to land in order to make them fully dependent on the power and
   whims of the owning class.

   Thus, as Kropotkin stressed, the state "systematically weeded out all
   institutions in which the mutual-aid tendency had formerly found its
   expression. The village communities were bereft of their folkmotes,
   their courts and independent administration; their lands were
   confiscated." [Mutual Aid, p. 182] The possibilities of free discussion
   and agreement were destroyed in the name of "absolute" property rights
   and the power and authority which goes with them. Both political
   influence and market forces were, and are, dominated by wealth: "There
   were two occasions that dictated absolute precision: a trial at law and
   a process of enclosure. And both occasions favoured those with power
   and purses against the little users." Popular assertion meant little
   when the state enforces property rights in the interests of the
   wealthy. Ultimately, "Parliament and law imposed capitalist definitions
   to exclusive property in land." [Thompson, Op. Cit., p. 134 and p. 163]
   As Cox suggested, many tenants were "denied [their] remedy at law for
   the illegal abuses of the more powerful landowners" and "[s]ponsored by
   wealthy landowners, the land reform was frequently no more than a
   sophisticated land-grab." [Op. Cit., p. 58 and p. 59] Gerrard
   Winstanley, the Digger (and proto-anarchist), was only expressing a
   widespread popular sentiment when he complained that "in Parishes where
   Commons lie the rich Norman Freeholders, or the new (more covetous)
   Gentry overstock the Commons with sheep and cattle, so that the
   inferior Tenants and poor labourers can hardly keep a cow but half
   starve her." [quoted by Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development of
   Capitalism, p. 173] The working class is only "left alone" to starve.

   As discussed in [2]section F.8, the enclosures were part of a wider
   state-imposition of capitalism onto society. Of course, enclosure was
   often justified by supporters of capitalism by the increased
   productivity which, they claim, resulted from it (in effect, repeating
   Locke's earlier, and flawed, argument -- see [3]section B.3.4). There
   are three objections to this. First, it cannot be assumed that
   increased productivity could not be achieved by keeping the commons and
   by the commoners applying the improved techniques and technologies that
   contributed to any post-enclosure increased productivity. Second, it
   ignores the key issue of liberty and replaces it with property
   (increases in wealth being considered more important than reducing the
   freedom of the working class). Third, and more importantly, this
   paternalistic rationale for coercion and state action does not fit well
   with such apologist's opposition to (certain forms of) state
   intervention today (such as taxation or popular land reform). If the
   "ends justify the means" (which is what their arguments boil down to)
   when applied to the rural working class, then they have little basis
   for opposing taxation of the wealthy elite or pro-worker land-reform in
   a democracy or a popular social revolution.

   To conclude. The "tragedy of the commons" argument is conceptually
   flawed and empirically wrong (unsurprising, given that no actual
   empirical evidence was presented to support the argument). Sadly, this
   has not stopped Hardin, or those inspired by his arguments, from
   suggesting policies based on a somewhat dubious understanding of
   history and humanity. Perhaps this is not that surprising, given that
   Hardin's assumptions (which drive his conclusions) are based not on
   actual people nor historical evidence but rather by fundamental
   components of capitalist economic theory. While under capitalism, and
   the short-termism imposed by market forces, you could easily imagine
   that a desire for profit would outweigh a person's interest in the
   long-term survival of their community, such a perspective is relatively
   recent in human history.

   In fact, communal ownership produces a strong incentive to protect such
   resources for people are aware that their offspring will need them and
   so be inclined to look after them. By having more resources available,
   they would be able to resist the pressures of short-termism and so
   resist maximising current production without regard for the future.
   Capitalist owners have the opposite incentive for, as argued in
   [4]section E.3, unless they maximise short-term profits then they will
   not be around in the long-term (so if wood means more profits than
   centuries-old forests then the trees will be chopped down). By
   combining common ownership with decentralised and federated communal
   self-management, anarchism will be more than able to manage resources
   effectively, avoiding the pitfalls of both privatisation and
   nationalisation.

I.6.1 How can property "owned by everyone in the world" be used?

   First, we need to point out the fallacy normally lying behind this
   objection. It is assumed that because everyone owns something, then
   everyone has to be consulted in what it is used for. This, however,
   applies the logic of private property to non-capitalist social forms.
   While it is true that everyone owns collective "property" in an
   anarchist society, it does not mean that everyone uses it. Carlo
   Cafiero, one of the founders of communist-anarchism, stated the
   obvious:

     "The common wealth being scattered right across the planet, while
     belonging by right to the whole of humanity, those who happen to be
     within reach of that wealth and in a position to make use of it will
     utilise it in common. The folk from a given country will use the
     land, the machines, the workshops, the houses, etc., of that country
     and they will all make common use of them. As part of humanity, they
     will exercise here, in fact and directly, their rights over a
     portion of mankind's wealth. But should an inhabitant of Peking
     visit this country, he [or she] would enjoy the same rights as the
     rest: in common with the others, he would enjoy all the wealth of
     the country, just as he [or she] would have in Peking." [No Gods, No
     Masters, vol. 1, p. 250]

   Anarchists, therefore, think that those who use a part of society's
   wealth have the most say in what happens to it (e.g., workers control
   the means of production they use and the work they do when using it).
   This does not mean that those using it can do what they like to it.
   Users would be subject to recall by local communities if they are
   abusing their position (for example, if a workplace were polluting the
   environment, then the local community could act to stop or, if need be,
   close down the workplace). Thus use rights (or usufruct) replace
   property rights in a free society, combined with a strong dose of
   "think globally, act locally."

   It is no coincidence that societies that are stateless are also without
   private property. As Murray Bookchin pointed out "an individual
   appropriation of goods, a personal claim to tools, land, and other
   resources . . . is fairly common in organic [i.e. aboriginal] societies
   . . . By the same token, co-operative work and the sharing of resources
   on a scale that could be called communistic is also fairly common . . .
   But primary to both of these seemingly contrasting relationships is the
   practice of usufruct." Such stateless societies are based upon "the
   principle of usufruct, the freedom of individuals in a community to
   appropriate resources merely by the virtue of the fact they are using
   them . . . Such resources belong to the user as long as they are being
   used. Function, in effect, replaces our hallowed concept of
   possession." [The Ecology of Freedom, p. 116] The future stateless
   society anarchists hope for would also be based upon such a principle.

   In effect, critics of social anarchism confuse property with possession
   and think that abolishing property automatically abolishes possession
   and use rights. However, as argued in [5]section B.3, property and
   possession are distinctly different. In the words of Charlotte Wilson:

     "Property is the domination of an individual, or a coalition of
     individuals, over things; it is not the claim of any person or
     persons to the use of things -- this is, usufruct, a very different
     matter. Property means the monopoly of wealth, the right to prevent
     others using it, whether the owner needs it or not. Usufruct implies
     the claim to the use of such wealth as supplies the users needs. If
     any individual shuts of a portion of it (which he is not using, and
     does not need for his own use) from his fellows, he is defrauding
     the whole community." [Anarchist Essays, p. 40]

   Thus an anarchist society has a simple and effective means of deciding
   how communally owned resources are used, one based on possession and
   usufruct. The key thing to remember, as discussed in [6]section I.3.3,
   is that socialisation means that access is free: users of a resource
   are not subjected to hierarchical social relationships in order to use
   it. Socialisation does not mean that people can, say, wander into
   someone's workplace and simply take away a machine or computer. Rather,
   it means that when someone joins a workplace they are sharing in the
   use of a common resource and do so as a free and equal associate rather
   than as an obedient wage-slave. If a resource is not being used, then
   they have free access to use it. If it is being used then it will be
   managed by those who use it, with access granted in agreed ways which
   ensure egalitarian, and so free, relationships and outcomes.

   As for deciding what a given area of commons is used for, that falls to
   the local communities who live next to them. If, for example, a local
   self-managed factory wants to expand and eat into the commons, then the
   local community who uses (and so controls) the local commons would
   discuss it and come to an agreement concerning it. If a minority really
   objects, they can use direct action to put their point across. But
   anarchists argue that rational debate among equals will not result in
   too much of that. Or suppose an individual wanted to set up an
   allotment in a given area, which had not been allocated as a park. Then
   he or she would notify the community assembly by appropriate means
   (e.g. on a notice board or newspaper), and if no one objected at the
   next assembly or in a set time-span, the allotment would go ahead, as
   no one else desired to use the resource in question.

   Other communities would be confederated with this one, and joint
   activity would also be discussed by debate, with a community (like an
   individual) being free not to associate if they so desire. Other
   communities could and would object to ecologically and individually
   destructive practices. The interrelationships of both ecosystems and
   freedom is well known, and its doubtful that free individuals would sit
   back and let some amongst them destroy their planet.

   Therefore, those who use something control it. This means that "users
   groups" would be created to manage resources used by more than one
   person. For workplaces this would (essentially) be those who worked
   there (with, possibly, the input of consumer groups and co-operatives).
   Housing associations made up of tenants would manage housing and
   repairs. Resources that are used by associations within society, such
   as communally owned schools, workshops, computer networks, and so
   forth, would be managed on a day-to-day basis by those who use them.
   User groups would decide access rules (for example, time-tables and
   booking rules) and how they are used, making repairs and improvements.
   Such groups would be accountable to their local community. Hence, if
   that community thought that any activities by a group within it was
   destroying communal resources or restricting access to them, the matter
   would be discussed at the relevant assembly. In this way, interested
   parties manage their own activities and the resources they use (and so
   would be very likely to have an interest in ensuring their proper and
   effective use), but without private property and its resulting
   hierarchies and restrictions on freedom.

   Lastly, let us examine clashes of use rights, i.e. cases where two or
   more people, communes or syndicates desire to use the same resource. In
   general, such problems can be resolved by discussion and decision
   making by those involved. This process would be roughly as follows: if
   the contesting parties are reasonable, they would probably mutually
   agree to allow their dispute to be settled by some mutual friend whose
   judgement they could trust, or they would place it in the hands of a
   jury, randomly selected from the community or communities in question.
   This would take place only if they could not come to an agreement
   between themselves to share the resource in question.

   On thing is certain, however, such disputes are much better settled
   without the interference of authority or the re-creation of private
   property. If those involved do not take the sane course described above
   and instead decide to set up an authority, disaster will be the
   inevitable result. In the first place, this authority will have to be
   given power to enforce its judgement in such matters. If this happens,
   the new authority will undoubtedly keep for itself the best of what is
   disputed (as payment for services rendered, of course!). If private
   property were re-introduced, such authoritarian bodies would develop
   sooner, rather than later, with two new classes of oppressors being
   created -- the property owners and the enforcers of "justice."
   Ultimately, it is strange to think that two parties who meet on terms
   of equality and disagree could not be reasonable or just, and that a
   third party with power backed up by violence will be the incarnation of
   justice itself. Common sense should warn us against such an illusion
   and, if common sense is lacking, then history shows that using
   authority or property to solve disputes is not wise!

   And, we should note, it is equally as fallacious, as Leninists suggest,
   that only centralisation can ensure common access and common use.
   Centralisation, by removing control from the users into a body claiming
   to represent "society", replaces the dangers of abuse by a small group
   of workers with the dangers of abuse by a bureaucracy invested with
   power and authority over all. If members of a commune or syndicate can
   abuse their position and restrict access for their own benefit, so can
   the individuals who make up the bureaucracy gathered round a
   centralised body (whether that body is, in theory, accountable by
   election or not). Indeed, it is far more likely to occur as the
   experience of Leninism shows beyond doubt. Thus decentralisation is the
   key to common ownership and access, not centralisation.

   Communal ownership needs communal structures in order to function. Use
   rights, and discussion among equals, replace property rights in a free
   society. Freedom cannot survive if it is caged behind laws enforced by
   public or private states.

I.6.2 Doesn't communal ownership involve restricting individual liberty?

   This point is expressed in many different forms. John Henry MacKay (an
   individualist anarchist) put the point as follows:

     "'Would you [the social anarchist], in the system of society which
     you call 'free Communism' prevent individuals from exchanging their
     labour among themselves by means of their own medium of exchange?
     And further: Would you prevent them from occupying land for the
     purpose of personal use?' . . . [The] question was not to be
     escaped. If he answered 'Yes!' he admitted that society had the
     right of control over the individual and threw overboard the
     autonomy of the individual which he had always zealously defended;
     if on the other hand he answered 'No!' he admitted the right of
     private property which he had just denied so emphatically."
     [Patterns of Anarchy, p. 31]

   However, anarchist theory has a simple and clear answer to this
   question. To see what this answer is, it simply a case of remembering
   that use rights replace property rights in an anarchist society. In
   other words, individuals can exchange their labour as they see fit and
   occupy land for their own use. This in no way contradicts the abolition
   of private property, because occupancy and use is directly opposed to
   private property (see [7]section B.3). Socialisation is rooted in this
   concept of "occupancy and use" and this means that in a free communist
   society individuals can occupy and use whatever land and such tools and
   equipment as they need -- they do not have to join the free communist
   society (see [8]section I.5.7). If they do not, however, they cannot
   place claims on the benefits others receive from co-operation and
   communal life.

   This can be seen from Charlotte Wilson's discussions on anarchism
   written a few years before MacKay published his "inescapable" question.
   She asks the question: "Does Anarchism . . . then . . . acknowledge . .
   . no personal property?" She answers by noting that "every man [or
   woman] is free to take what he [or she] requires" and so "it is hardly
   conceivable that personal necessaries and conveniences will not be
   appropriated" by individual's for their personal consumption and use.
   For "[w]hen property is protected by no legal enactments, backed by
   armed force, and is unable to buy personal service, its resuscitation
   on such a scale as to be dangerous to society is little to be dreaded.
   The amount appropriated by each individual . . . must be left to his
   [or her] own conscience, and the pressure exercised upon him [or her]
   by the moral sense and distinct interests of his [or her] neighbours."
   This system of "usufruct" would also apply to the "instruments of
   production -- land included", being "free to all workers, or groups of
   workers" for "as long as long and capital are unappropriated, the
   workers are free, and that, when these have a master, the workers also
   are slaves." [Anarchist Essays, p. 24 and p. 21] This is because, as
   with all forms of anarchism, communist-anarchism bases itself on the
   distinction between property and possession.

   In other words, possession replaces private property in a free society.
   This applies to those who decide to join a free communist society and
   those who desire to remain outside. This is clear from the works of
   many leading theorists of free communism (as indicated in [9]section
   G.2.1), none of whom thought the occupying of land for personal use (or
   a house or the means of production) entailed the "right of private
   property." For example, looking at land we find both Kropotkin and
   Proudhon arguing along the same lines. For the former: "Who, then, can
   appropriate for himself the tiniest plot of ground . . . without
   committing a flagrant injustice?" [Conquest of Bread, p. 90] For the
   latter: "The land cannot be appropriated". Neither denied that
   individuals could use the land or other resources, simply that it could
   not be turned into private property. Thus Proudhon: "Every occupant is,
   then, necessarily a possessor or usufructuary, -- a function that
   excludes proprietorship." [What is Property?, p. 103 and p. 98]
   Obviously John Henry MacKay, unlike Kropotkin, had not read his
   Proudhon! As Wilson argued:

     "Proudhon's famous dictum, 'Property is theft', is the key to the
     equally famous enigma . . . 'From each according to his capacities,
     to each according to his needs'. When the workers clearly understand
     that in taking possession of railways and ships, mines and fields,
     farm buildings and factories, raw material and machinery, and all
     else they need for their labour, they are claiming the right to use
     freely for the benefit of society, what social labour has created,
     or utilised in the past, and that, in return for their work, they
     have a just right to take from the finished product whatever they
     personally require." [Op. Cit., pp. 20-1]

   This can be seen from libertarian communist William Morris and his
   account of Proudhon. Morris classed the French anarchist as "the most
   noteworthy figure" of a group of "Socialist thinkers who serve as a
   kind of link between the Utopians and the school of . . . scientific
   Socialists." As far as his critique of property went, Morris argued
   that in What is Property? Proudhon's "position is that of a Communist
   pure and simple." [Political Writings, p. 569 and p. 570]

   Unsurprisingly, then, we find Kropotkin arguing that "[a]ll things
   belong to all, and provided that men and women contribute their share
   of labour for the production of necessary objects, they are entitled to
   their share of all that is produced by the community at large." He went
   on to state that "free Communism . . . places the products reaped or
   manufactured in common at the disposal of all, leaving to each the
   liberty to consume them as he [or she] pleases in his [or her] own
   home." [The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution,, p. 6 and p.
   7] This obviously implies a situation of "occupancy and use" (with
   those who are actually using a resource controlling it).

   This support for possession does not, of course, imply any
   contradiction with communism as MacKay suggested. The aim of communism
   is to place the fruits of society at the disposal of society, to be
   used and consumed as the members of that society desire. As such,
   individuals are not stopped from taking and using the goods produced
   and, obviously, this automatically means "excluding" others from using
   and consuming them. This in no way implies the recreation of private
   property in any meaningful sense. Significantly, this perspective has
   been pretty commonplace in human society and numerous authors have
   pointed out "how many languages lack any verb for unilateral
   ownership." [David Graeber, Possibilities, p. 23]

   For example, a group of friends go on a picnic and share the food
   stuffs they bring. If someone takes an apple from the common bounty and
   eats it, then obviously it is no longer available for others to eat.
   However, this does not change the common ownership of foodstuffs the
   picnic is based on. Similarly, in a communist society people would
   still have their own homes and, of course, would have the right to
   restrict entry to just those whom they have invited. People would not
   come in from the street and take up residence in the main bedroom on
   the dubious rationale that it is not being used as the inhabitant is
   watching TV in the lounge, is on holiday or visiting friends.

   Thus communism is based on the obvious fact that individuals will
   "appropriate" (use) the products of society to satisfy their own needs
   (assuming they can find someone who needs to produce it). What it does,
   though, is to deprive individuals of the ability to turn possession
   into private property and, as a result, subjugate others to their will
   by means of wage labour or landlordism.

   In other words, possession (personal "property") is not transformed
   into social property. Hence the communist support for individuals not
   joining the commune, working their land or tools and living by their
   own hands. Being based on possession, this is utterly compatible with
   communist principles and the abolition of private property. This is
   because people are using the resources in question and for that simple
   reason are exercising the same rights as the rest of communist society.
   Thus the case of the non-member of free communism is clear -- they
   would also have access to what they possessed and used such as the
   land, housing and means of production. The difference is that the
   non-communists would have to barter with the rest of society for goods
   rather than take what they need from the communal stores.

   To re-iterate, the resources non-communists use do not become private
   property because they are being used and they revert back into common
   ownership once they are no longer occupied and used. In other words,
   possession replaces property. Thus communist-anarchists agree with
   Individualist Anarchist John Beverley Robinson when he wrote:

     "There are two kinds of land ownership, proprietorship or property,
     by which the owner is absolute lord of the land to use it or hold it
     out of use, as it may please him; and possession, by which he is
     secure in the tenure of land which he uses and occupies, but has no
     claim on it at all if he ceases to use it. For the secure possession
     of his crops or buildings or other products, he needs nothing but
     the possession of the land he uses." [Patterns of Anarchy, p. 273]

   This system, we must note, was used in the rural collectives during the
   Spanish Revolution, with people free to remain outside the collective
   working only as much land and equipment as they could "occupy and use"
   by their own labour. Similarly, the individuals within the collective
   worked in common and took what they needed from the communal stores
   (see [10]section I.8).

   MacKay's comments raise another interesting point. Given that
   Individualist Anarchists oppose the current system of private property
   in land, their system entails that "society ha[s] the right of control
   over the individual." If we look at the "occupancy and use" land system
   favoured by the likes of Tucker, we discover that it is based on
   restricting property in land (and so the owners of land). As discussed
   in [11]section G.1.2, the likes of Tucker looked forward to a time when
   public opinion (i.e., society) would limit the amount of land which
   individuals could acquire and so, from MacKay's perspective,
   controlling their actions and violating their autonomy. Which, we must
   say, is not surprising as individualism requires the supremacy of the
   rest of society over the individual in terms of rules relating to the
   ownership and use of possessions (or "property") -- as the
   Individualist Anarchists themselves implicitly acknowledge.

   MacKay goes on to state that "every serious man must declare himself:
   for Socialism, and thereby for force and against liberty, or for
   Anarchism, and thereby for liberty and against force." [Op. Cit., p.
   32] Which, we must note, is a strange statement for, as indicated in
   [12]section G.1, individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker
   considered themselves socialists and opposed capitalist private
   property (while, confusingly, many of them calling their system of
   possession "property").

   However, MacKay's statement begs the question: does private property
   support liberty? He does not address or even acknowledge the fact that
   private property will inevitably lead to the owners of such property
   gaining control over the individuals who use, but do not own, it and so
   denying them liberty (see [13]section B.4). As Proudhon argued:

     "The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, 'This
     is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.' Here, then, is
     a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has right to step,
     save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save
     the proprietor and his servants. Let these multiply, and soon the
     people . . . will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no
     ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on
     the edge of that property which was their birth-right; and the
     proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, 'So perish idlers and
     vagrants.'" [Op. Cit., p. 118]

   Of course, as Proudhon suggested, the non-owner can gain access to the
   property by becoming a servant, by selling their liberty to the owner
   and agreeing to submit to the owner's authority. Little wonder that he
   argued that the "second effect of property is despotism." [Op. Cit., p.
   259] As discussed in [14]section G.4.1, this points to a massive
   contradiction in any form of individualist anarchism which defends
   private property which goes beyond possession and generates
   wage-labour. This is because both the state and the property owner both
   assume sole authority over a given area and all within it. Little
   wonder Emile Pouget, echoing Proudhon, argued that:

     "Property and authority are merely differing manifestations and
     expressions of one and the same 'principle' which boils down to the
     enforcement and enshrinement of the servitude of man. Consequently,
     the only difference between them is one of vantage point: viewed
     from one angle, slavery appears as a property crime, whereas, viewed
     from a different angle, it constitutes an authority crime." [No
     Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, p. 66]

   So the issue changes if someone claims more resources than they can use
   as individuals or as a co-operative group. If they are attempting to
   restrict access to others of resources they are not using then the
   others are entitled to simply ignore the pretensions of the would-be
   monopoliser. Without a state to enforce capitalist property rights,
   attempts to recreate private property will flounder in the laughter of
   their neighbours as these free people defend their liberty by ignoring
   the would-be capitalist's attempts to subjugate the labour of others
   for their own benefit by monopolising the means of life.
   Unsurprisingly, MacKay does not address the fact that private property
   requires extensive force (i.e. a state) to protect it against those who
   use it or could use it but do not own it.

   So MacKay ignores two important aspects of private property. Firstly,
   that private property is based upon force, which must be used to ensure
   the owner's right to exclude others (the main reason for the existence
   of the state). And secondly, he ignores the anti-libertarian nature of
   "property" when it creates wage labour -- the other side of "private
   property" -- in which the liberty of employees is obviously restricted
   by the owners whose property they are hired to use. Unlike in a free
   communist society, in which members of a commune have equal rights,
   power and say within a self-managed association, under "private
   property" the owner of the property governs those who use it. When the
   owner and the user is identical, this is not a problem (i.e. when
   possession replaces property) but once possession becomes property then
   despotism, as Proudhon noted, is created. As Charlotte Wilson put it:

     "Property -- not the claim to use, but to a right to prevent others
     from using -- enables individuals who have appropriated the means of
     production, to hold in subjection all those who possess nothing . .
     . and who must work that they may live. No work is possible without
     land, materials, and tools or machinery; thus the masters of those
     things are the masters also of the destitute workers, and can live
     in idleness upon their labour. . . We look for th[e] socialisation
     of wealth, not to restraints imposed by authority upon property, but
     to the removal, by direct personal action of the people themselves,
     of the restraints which secure property against the claims of
     popular justice. For authority and property are both manifestations
     of the egoistical spirit of domination". [Op. Cit., pp. 57-8]

   Therefore, it seems that in the name of "liberty" John Henry MacKay and
   a host of other "individualists" end up supporting authority and
   (effectively) some kind of state. This is hardly surprising as private
   property is the opposite of personal possession, not its base. In
   summary, then, far from communal property restricting individual
   liberty (or even personal use of resources) it is in fact its only
   defence. That is why all anarchists would agree with Emma Goldman that
   "it is our endeavour to abolish private property, State . . . we aim to
   free men from tyrants and government." [A Documentary History of the
   American Years, vol. 1, p. 181]

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html#secb35
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF8.html
   3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html#secb34
   4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secE3.html
   5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html
   6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI3.html#seci33
   7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html
   8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI5.html#seci57
   9. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG2.html#secg21
  10. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI8.html
  11. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG1.html#secg12
  12. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG1.html
  13. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB4.html
  14. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG4.html#secg41
