As I see it, in a society one owns property because everyone else has agreed not to take it for one reason or another. Socialists propose to determine ownership (or “use rights,” as some prefer) of unowned property democratically or by consensus (in other words, voluntarily). From the little I understand of Rothbard’s views, he thought that someone gains ownership of land after transforming it–regardless of whether others in the community voluntarily acknowledge that person’s right to the property. Thus, in capitalism property is ultimately obtained from the community involunarily.
What gives the community property rights, Fool on the Hill?
Fool on the Hill wrote:
Socialists propose to determine … rights … by consensus (in other words, voluntarily). … in capitalism property is ultimately obtained from the community involunarily.
So when two wolves and a lamb vote on what to have for dinner, the lamb is a voluntary participant?
And unowned property is really owned property of the ‘community’?
Mr. Fool, where do our rights come from, are we born with them or are they granted to us by consensus of the ‘community’? If you answer the latter, then do realize that we are then little more than babbling masses of flesh owned by the ‘community’.
It all really boils down to what people actually accept as legitimate. You can yell about how your natural rights entitle you to your orchard while the hungry freely pick apples off of the trees or how the democratic process is legitimate while the dissenters do as they please. The point is that something being voluntary is not necessarily adequate criteria for being anarchist, and this goes both ways. People in a given area could all sign contracts agreeing upon the democratic process as the valid way to decide the use of common property or they could all accept a natural rights position. The amount of voluntary participation doesn’t really do much for understanding different strains of thought.
Isn’t the asymetry of information a beautiful thing? Sorry if this rambles on and for any ambiguous use of language.
If you hope to understand the ancap position we need to come to an understanding and agreement on some things first. It appears consensus on defining capitalism and socialism is missing. Someone already posited some general ancap definitions. Capitalism: the private ownership and control over the means of production. Socialism: state ownership and control over the means of production. I have added control because it is entirely possible to hold title to some property and have the state dictate what you can or cannot do with ‘your’ property. Under capitalism the individual is sovereign; under socialism the state is sovereign.
To understand the position that capitalism is the natural outcome you must start from the beginning. Humans act. We use means to achieve ends. Property rights originate with our exclusive ownership and control of our own bodies. We face scarcity. We must economize. We specialize and engage in trade. Markets emerge as a result of human action.
The progression of markets and the rise of capitalism began with primitive tribal man. Even the most primitive peoples have specialization of labor and some private property, even beyond their own bodies. Just like us they face scarcity and must act. How did hunter gatherers advance to farming and animal husbandry? How did small farming communities turn into towns and cities? How did early cities become empires and nation states? Capital accumulation.
The power of human action is undeniable. The government here in the US spends trillions of dollars to prevent or persuade people from making certain exchanges/choices. They ban prostitution. They outlaw drugs. Yet I can have a hooker show up at my house within the hour who will bring cocaine and marijuana. All the state can ever do is distort the market. All any of the socialist fantasies and delusions about economics can result in is destruction. The empirical evidence is everywhere and goes back over a century. As long as humans act the market will exist. The more property rights (being free to make your own choices/exchanges included) are infringed, the more difficult it is for the market to operate.
Hey, I don’t think that a lot of ancap thought is in line with traditional socialist anarchist thought and thats the reason they balk at the term being used in this way and say "anarcho"capitalist. As far back as ancap thought goes though, in my understanding, was Molinari’s “The Production of Security,” (1819) which although he doesn’t call it anarchism, it talks about how the state isn’t needed for the production of anything and that the market can take care of it.
Anywho, so, I think the confusion comes in because people see the word “anarchy” and take it to mean its literal definition “without rule” so ancaps use it themselves since this does accurately describe the position (as we see it); while socialist anarchist use the term in the historical sense.
Robert LeFevre, who is my favorite! has written a handful of articles about why capitalist anarchist should call use “autarchy” meaning “self rule” to distingusigh themselves from this school of thought and because its more accurate, which I agree with but still use the term anarchist most of the time. If you’re interested, here is one of his articles about it: http://fair-use.org/rampart-journal/1965/12/autarchy-versus-anarchy
And if I remember correctly, the term capitalism was coined by Marx? so, given that he though this system of mass amounts of wealth being in the hands of the view was mainly due to these people running the government, etc., this might also not be the best term. But as it stands, “anarcho capitalism” is the most efficient and understandable way for people to get across what their ideas are, so I think it’ll stick around.
That all being said, the definition of property is a tricky thing and all stripes of thought do believe in property, the question is what’s legitimate property.
So, Imma give my best answer and anyone can feel free to correct me. In anarcho-capitalism:
Homesteading (mixing your labor) gives you a legitimate claim to property to the extent that it is actually utilized for production (you cannot put a flag on the moon and claim it your own) which can only be done by a first-comer (you cannot homestead previously owned property); as well as exchange and gifts giving you a legit claim. Because of this idea, only use/occ giving being legit does not work in our definition because this would necessarily mean that a second-comer then owns the property–as for abandonment of property, it seems to be the case that it is your duty to try to find a title owner and if all avenues are tried in order to find this person fail, I think it’s okay to go forth.
And next, the huge difference between ancaps and other economic schools of thought is what determines value which informs property theory. I’m not so well versed in socialist theory so stop me if I’m wrong, but as far as I can tell, all schools of socialism believe in the labor theory of value which is why it is unjust for a capitalist to make money off a worker–the capitalist making profits proves that he’s stealing the surplus value of the workers labor. And in any theory of property, stealing is wrong.
Austrians on the other hand think that LTV is demonstrably false. In the Austrian concept, we have subjective value theory, as opposed to LTV which would be an objective value theory (labor hours). Value is something that each person weighs on a private set of scales. So, because labor doesn’t put value into something, only the consumer puts value into something, the capitalist is not stealing the value that the laborer produced. Some examples of why labor theory doesn’t make sense: if you walk down a beach and find a piece of paper and a crystal, even though you put the same labor into them, you can still get more money for one over the other and the value of long dead artists and writers waver in price…I think you’d be able to find others if you’re interested.
So, capitalism is voluntary trade under property rights defined by homesteading and subjective value theory.
Hope that wasn’t too long and was informative.
"Capitalism: the private ownership and control over the means of production. Socialism: state ownership and control over the means of production. "
Once again, this definition assumes that all socialists support a state! It’s simply not true! And as for the history of capital accumulation, it’s hardly a history of homesteading and voluntary trade. There are all kinds of bloody wars over “this is mine, that is yours” type of arguments. So it would appear that humans haven’t all been on the same page about what kind of property rights are legitimate.
"As far back as ancap thought goes though, in my understanding, was Molinari’s “The Production of Security,” (1819) which although he doesn’t call it anarchism, it talks about how the state isn’t needed for the production of anything and that the market can take care of it. "
I’ve heard that a lot, but the confusing thing is that Molinari was a liberal who refused to call himself an anarchist.
"Anywho, so, I think the confusion comes in because people see the word “anarchy” and take it to mean its literal definition “without rule” so ancaps use it themselves since this does accurately describe the position (as we see it); while socialist anarchist use the term in the historical sense. "
That’s possible, but I think it’s more about what is considered a ruler. A good great deal of socialists anarchist see a landlord as a ruler as much as a police officer. It is, of course, the landlord that calls the cops to kick you out after all.
Anyway, I think I’m finally getting somewhere. Amelia, your response was well thought and informative. So I’m going to address some LTV stuff, “I’m not so well versed in socialist theory so stop me if I’m wrong, but as far as I can tell, all schools of socialism believe in the labor theory of value which is why it is unjust for a capitalist to make money off a worker–the capitalist making profits proves that he’s stealing the surplus value of the workers labor. And in any theory of property, stealing is wrong.”
This is pretty accurate, but even more confusing than it seems, especially once you get into Subjective LTV (I’m not even kidding). Economics as a huge developed branch of thought hadn’t been very popular at the beginning of anarchist thought. So while most socialists ascribed to some sort of LTV as the basis of their theory, as far as determining prices went STV could still be employed. The idea is that if possible most people would rather receive the full market price for what they produce than be factored in as a cost, and that the only way it can become reasonable for someone to work for a wage instead of risk starting a business or joining a cooperative is if those who control capital maintain their control of it and monopolize land and capital.
Birthday Pony- You’re obviously not getting anywhere with this discussion as you refuse to actually take the answers given to you. In place of “state” put “common ownership” or “collective ownership”. If you say “not all socialists believe that” yada yada yada, you are just wrong, end of story.
Please listen to this http://mises.org/media/1235 Marx and Mercantilism by David Osterfield.
“Birthday Pony- You’re obviously not getting anywhere with this discussion as you refuse to actually take the answers given to you. In place of “state” put “common ownership” or “collective ownership”. If you say “not all socialists believe that” yada yada yada, you are just wrong, end of story.”
To some extent you are correct. I refuse to take answers about what socialism is from capitalists, just as I refused to take answers about what capitalism is from socialists (which is why I came here). I’ve only tried to understand what is being said while challenging myself and others here. There are some answers here that contradict themselves, there are some that have been helpful.
Suggesting that socialists just replace the state with something else is also ridiculous. The anarchist militia in Spain in the 1930’s for example had open defiance, dissent, and desertion with no reprimand as a core principal. That is fundamentally different from the state.
I plan on listening to that link when I get a moment. If it is anti-Marx I can’t imagine it would be disagreeable. I only hope it doesn’t equate Marxists to anarchists.
Do you have any reading/watching you would recommend in order to understand the Subjective LTV? I’ve read Carson’s exposition of it and have criticisms but I’m not sure that he is the only authority on it.
In my understanding of his ideas, the only way in which subjectivity is applied to the labor theory is through the individual workers valuation of the disutility he incurred by having worked as opposed to laboring in another field or not laboring at all; labor being the one and only “true cost” as opposed to marginal costs. Austrians believe that labor is not the only true cost, but that costs are opportunity costs to the next best thing you could have done with your time and energies, and that the disutlity that comes with abstaining from consuming your goods (creating savings) such as occurs with people who collect interest, or rent land, or put their capital towards the production process, creates no less objective disutility than what a wage laborer goes through.
Again, stop me if this is a mischaracterization because I don’t know too much, but the confusion in theory for me comes in because if someone is entitled to the product of their labor (either through workers hours or subjective disutility), then does that make it immoral when somebody labors and cannot get the price they feel they’re entitled to?
Being “ruled over” is not a blanket term and does have to be informed by your idea of what freedom and free association means. For ancaps this is largely decided by the ability to freely associate within the rules of property norms dictated by value theory.
That all being said, I do think people working for themselves or in smaller businesses is desirable and much more likely in a statist society; but that is predictive and not very perscriptive. Hierarchies don’t appeal to me much in the business world or otherwise because it can create information problems making things more inefficient, and more importantly, make someone feel less autonomous in their lives. Roderick Long is the most popular ancap who is against hierarchies which I think is extremely appealing to anybody who hates the idea of being ruled over in a broader sense. This is a good post on his blog about it: http://aaeblog.com/2009/04/26/why-we-fight-the-power/#comments
*stateless society
Ideas like Josiah Warren’s time-based labour currency are interesting to look into and mess around with in your own thought experiments as far as more complex LTV goes. It’s quite hard finding good economic writing from the socialist anarchist tradition because early anarchists were more political philosophers than economists and the mainstream economic school has been austrian or keynseian, both of which anarchists hate. So it’s been pretty neglected for a while until modern day mutualists like Carson came around. Long story short, aside from Warren nothing too good comes to mind right away. Then again, who knows if stateless political economy would represent anything near what we can observe now?
If you are going to insist that only a socialist can define socialism I don’t see you getting very far in understanding the ancap position. I am not offering my own definitions. I am paraphrasing the Mises and the other Austrians defined capitalism and socialism. If you want citations, ask.
Anyway, let’s break ownership down into possibilities…
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No one owns anything. Nothing belongs to any individual or group of individuals. Everyone is free to do whatever they wish with whatever they come across. I see a woman on the street, she can’t own herself so I am free to use her body however I see fit. I see a nice car in a parking lot; I am free to hop in and drive away (I doubt there would even be cars in such a world). In this world might makes right. In order for this world to exist he concept of property would have to be non-existant.
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The state/collective/group/tribe owns everything. Commitees/councils/legislatures make most decisions. The individual becomes chattel of the rulers. Force is used against individuals who do not comply. Another world where might makes right.
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A single individual, i.e. the king, owns everything. The individual is chattel. Might still makes right.
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Some things are owned by the state, some things are owned by individuals. While the individual has some property rights, the state is still sovereign. There are a wide range of possibilites here. This is the realm of the “mixed economy.” Most modern countries fall somewhere in this category.
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Individuals own everything. The only way to acquire anything is through free trade. The individual is sovereign. Consumer becomes king. The culture is one of cooperation and respect not one of force and subjugation.
Those are all the ones I an think of. As you can see only one possibility is consitent with liberty. If you have some other possibilites I would like to see them.
The LTV is dead. You can try to spin it into subjective LTV, but it wont change the following facts. Labor is paid a wage commesurate with the marginal productivity of the labor before the product of his labor is sold. The entrepreneur only gets paid his profit if he calculated correctly and he is able to sell his product for more than his cost of the factors of production. This distinction of how and when a person gets paid is too important to overlook. There is no exploitation in a free exchange.
- You own what you use. The use of things used by multiple individuals is decided by each individual. Dissenters are not punished. <–This is closer to most anti-authoritarian socialist schools of thought like mutualists, syndicalists, and even some collectivists. Not only is it a theory they supported, but it was widely practiced as well.
And really, an employer can only make a profit if conditions outside the workplace are such that it is reasonable for a laborer to sell their time. Given the choice, most people would rather be in the position of employers than employees unless we start using gross justifications about how the working class isn’t smart enough to handle management, too scared, or too lazy. I do not think at all that wage labor is necessarily a bloody, horrible exploitative endeavor any time it occurs. The history of capital accumulation is not, however, a peaceful one of voluntary exchange. In order for capital accumulation to really be justified, we would have to start from scratch.
Marissa: What gives the community property rights, Fool on the Hill?
bbnet: And unowned property is really owned property of the ‘community’?
The community owns it in the sense that anyone who wanders on it is free to use it. So I guess it’s really what you would call unowned property. Where capitalists and socialists might differ is if one individual thought he were entitled to chop down an entire forest, the socialist community might feel it has the right to stop the person from doing so, where in a capitalist society an individual would not only be able to chop down a forest but doing so would give him exclusive rights over the property for eternity (from my understanding, correct me if this is not their view).
So when two wolves and a lamb vote on what to have for dinner, the lamb is a voluntary participant?
Maybe if it’s by consensus. Not if it’s democratic. I’m not really thinking in terms of votes though. I’m thinking more practically. If someone farms a plot of land and no one else decides to farm it, then in a sense the community has decided to let that land be his to farm. But the next year someone else might want to farm it, so this decision isn’t fixed.
I think we are thinking of property in a different way. I’m thinking of property rights as what a person actually controls–what is acknowledged by the community–where I gather others here are thinking of them as what the community should acknowledge by the rationale of some natural process.
Mr. Fool, where do our rights come from, are we born with them or are they granted to us by consensus of the ‘community’? If you answer the latter, then do realize that we are then little more than babbling masses of flesh owned by the ‘community’.
I’d probably say that they result from a dialectic process between the self and the other. The (rest of the) community tells me what they’re going to give me, but I have the ability to respond in a variety of ways, which in turn has an affect on how the community behaves. So we are not born with them, but rather we must negotiate them through a continuing interactive process. I’m not owned by the community, but part of it.
I should emphasize that I am not all that familiar with how libertarian socialists propose society to be organized–I’m much more familiar with their critique of capitalism. Pony can probably give a better representation of the position(s).
A single individual, i.e. the king, owns everything. The individual is chattel. Might still makes right.
Individuals own everything. The only way to acquire anything is through free trade. The individual is sovereign. Consumer becomes king. The culture is one of cooperation and respect not one of force and subjugation.
If you are going to lump a tribe and a state into the same category, then surely these belong together as well.
Quite honestly, I’ve never been a big fan of a natural rights position. A hungry bear doesn’t give two shits about NAP or self-ownership if they want to it you. I favor the approach that rights are a fluid process that are not unilaterally asserted, but bilaterally, trilaterally, or so on reciprocated.