Propertarian Absolutism
Anarcho-Capitalism and many right libertarians find the basis for their philosophy in propertarian absolutism. I choose the two words ‘propertarian absolutism’ intentionally. To claim that because I oppose property absolutely would be inaccurate under many definitions of the term property. I wrote previously about the dual meanings of the terms property and gave a few examples of the problems with certain forms of property.
The first issue with the propertarian view is that of misunderstanding a stance against property held by others. I often hear arguments which claim that to oppose what the propertarian views as property will lead to mass theft, contamination of water supply and many other terrible outcomes. A reaction I often get is that if I am not all for every definition of property defined by their terms then I oppose all they define as property, which is an inaccurate conclusion based on a preconceived bias. Some have claimed that my opposition to their definition and absolutism of property rights means that I wish for someone to pee in my water supply. The responses are more accusations that rely on this black and white idea that if one does not support absolute sanctity of property rights then they are in support of invasion, state, force or worse. This is simply an error if inductive reasoning. Absolutism in general can easily fall into the trap of inductive reasoning. To say there are no absolutes is an absolute within itself, so I will simply say that absolutes are rare.
Property rights is often seen as so sacrosanct that they can be used to trump any form of freedom. This is the absolutism found within in the philosophy. It is not all who hold to these market ideas, but a select few. Property and liberty are redefined by this absolute capitalist rule philosophy. In the philosophy liberty is defined as property, they are perceived as synonyms.
Another specific argument by one who used property as an absolute jumped to many false conclusions regarding an opposition to property as an absolute:
You don’t see anything odd, immoral, or illogical about the idea that someone who mixes their labor with an unowned thing does not have a higher degree of right to it as any stranger who comes along?
So one who has spent years cultivating, living on/off of, building, repairing, plowing, et cetera land has no more right to it as random strangers who come along and do none of this? Really?
Here we are conflating many different aspects of ownership, use and possession with the term property. Everything under the sun is grouped together as ‘property’ ignoring the current reality of property in a claim that liberty is property. Proudhon said, Property is liberty, but on the reverse side just as property is theft. This is not to say that liberty is property. To realize this is vital. To fuse a traditional state property with ownership, use rights or possessions is essential to the propertarian philosophy and argument. Without this tactic the argument falls apart. A refusal to acknowledge any difference is part of the strength.
Property is liberty but liberty is not property in the same sense to say that Bob is a man yet not all men are Bob. It is one aspect in a certain context. In the historical context of property to which Proudhon wrote ‘Property is theft’ he was writing in reaction to the reality of the exploitation of power granted through property over others. Property allows a certain liberty of the proprietor over the property.
To realize what is being opposed as property is vital This is a direct opposition to property which stems from the concept of property originally found under roman law which is property that is defined by a state. This is a form of state granted ‘property’. There is often an attempt by the propertarian or the capitalist to perpetuate this form of state property outside of the confines of a state. This is maintaining the power of the state as one abolishes the state. It simply is a shift of state power from what is termed the state to a corporate power that is justified by the illusion of liberty found in the misconception that liberty is property.
By simply stating that ‘Property is Theft’ we realize that something is indeed owned, possessed or someone has right of use or occupancy, for without some sort of ownership which the properiterian would label property how could we have theft? As stated in the beginning, the problem we find is when the properterian conflates property under an oppressive state system with ownership, right of use or occupancy etc…
Property which is derived solely from the right of first use can lead to tyranny. It can lead to the accumulation of land which one claims absolute dominion over. It has been the historical place of the state to enforce such claims to property or the buying and selling of land and the absolute dominion over said land. To claim that property rights will not lead to a capitalist tyranny is a denial of what occurred in history. To maintain this power the state or an alternative with the same function of the state must be put in place.
To confuse ones house, bed, toothbrush, farm the product of ones labor or means of production with the acquiring of thousands of acres of land by a sole individual is a misrepresentation of possession, ownership, occupancy and property. A system of capitalist rulers is still not a system of no rulers. Anarchism translates most literally to ‘no rulers’. One comment to the previous post yesterday put it nicely:
Perhaps if we were to live in a free society, property ownership could work. One could only own as much as they could produce off that land. This of course, will stop a man from owning 5000 acres. Because without wage slavery, he could not produce off this land by himself.
Holding to property as an absolute gives all power to the property owner. It is only liberty to a select few and gives power of some over others. It is something that is ambiguous. The ambiguities are often overlooked by the propertarian. When is property abandoned and available to be homesteaded? Land itself is not the product of labor. One can have ownership of the product of their labor. One can have the right of occupancy or use of land for production.
One seeks a definitive to define where the lines are and that is not a black and white answer. It is something that will vary in society. It requires acknowledgment of society. As we form federations, syndicates, communities and many other diverse stateless solutions to structure society we will see that the definitions of property will continue to vary. Each may define property and possession differently. Litigation, arbitration and dispute resolution will occur when conflicts arise. The way for some may not be the way for all.
Using property as a catch-all requires all to submit to the defined concept of property by one group. This can not be done without a rule of this group. Property is not absolute. It is ambiguous.
5:01 am
propertarian absolutism = you may exercise freedom on your property
propertarian relativism= your ability to exercise freedom depends solely on how much power you can bring to bear.
silly relativists, still trying to convince us that the law of the jungle is the best we can do.
2:19 pm
Your ability to exercise “freedom” depends solely on how much power you can bring to bear, as an inevitable matter of deductive logic. (“Ability” is just another word for “power.” Your power to do something depends on your power to do it.)
Propertarian absolutism says that we SHOULD bring our power down on the side of the “owner”, ALWAYS.
The contrary notion says that we should stop the owner from doing things with “his” property, when doing those things conflicts with more important interests than property rights.
For example, perhaps we shouldn’t let anyone bury radioactive waste that will outlive him on “his” own property. Perhaps we shouldn’t allow anyone to pave over the last remaining habitats of certain endangered species.
Perhaps we shouldn’t allow anyone to monopolize a vital resource for the survival of our own human species, either. For example, perhaps we shouldn’t allow anyone in a certain region to monopolize the supply of potable water.
5:07 pm
It is unlikely that any form of property can survive the abolition of the State, but we will know only when we finally bury that latter institution once and for all.
That’s kind of interesting because I have tended to think just the opposite. What is the reasoning behind the idea that property dies when the State dies? It seems to me that the State is what has been destroying the concept of property- through zoning and other regulation, taxation, eminent domain, and so on.
Absent the State, it seems like it will be even more necessary to have some sort of social convention by which to sort out who gets how much of what, who gets to use what and when, and so on. Even if property isn’t considered a “right” in a post-State world, it seems like some form of it would survive as a social convention. By a social convention, I mean something sort of like how there’s no law about cutting in front of someone in line, but not doing so is a pretty socially unacceptable thing to do and so is rarely done.
1:59 am
In historical materialist theory, the state exists solely to enforce property relations. At least this appears to be true. However, I hedge because I have no way of really knowing how individuals within a stateless society might organize themselves. How can I know unless we abolish the state and find out?
3:26 am
In historical materialist theory, the state exists solely to enforce property relations.
If so, I’d say it’s mainly enforcing its own dominion over property. It takes what it wants outright through asset forfeiture, eminent domain, condemnations, taxation, etc. It redistributes from the little guy to corporations, again through eminent domain, corporate welfare, favoritism in who is given access to natural resources such as in the Tim DeChristopher case, and so on. While J. Random Person ostensibly has access to legal redress, we are effectively priced out of the justice market most of the time. In other words, I wouldn’t say that the state is actually enforcing property rights the way that I understand them, or likely the way that most free market anarchists understand them.
4:13 am
Thus property is theft.
6:02 pm
Maybe. I’ll have to give that some more thought. Without another thought, I can at least agree that many manipulated concepts of property are certainly a type of theft.
3:05 pm
It’s true that not everyone can live in a beach-front dream house. But whoever maintains such a home as property deprives all others of doing the same. Hence “property is theft.” (I am no fan of such slogans: they are unintelligible to the uninitiated.)
However, it’s possible to have the beach-front house still exist, without it being property. There are ways that a society can negotiate various interests, in such a way that nobody is being deprived any more than anyone else. Property is not one of those ways, though.
In the case of the estates of the filthy rich — in a post-revolution world, should they become (as they are now) the personal domain of some (new) private monarchs, each monarch with full power within the bounds of his estate, and even hereditary rights to pass on this power after death?
In my opinion, such estates should generally become vacation resorts, so that they can be shared by everyone at different times. (Perhaps some of them could also become museums or meeting places; they could host conferences, or serve other functions.) No one needs to live on a beach for his whole life — and if anyone should be permitted such privilege (which, as stated, deprives everyone else of that beachfront), it’s certainly not bankers and actors.
The rest of the properties should be divided up so that, while not everyone can have any particular spot, no class of persons is systematically deprived in order to enrich another.
Certainly, a level of privacy in one’s place of residence is necessary: but this does not have to take the form of property rights. Indeed, where I live (New York City) almost nobody has property rights over their own place of residence, so that property is entirely opposite the right of control over one’s habitat — which right could, in theory, replace property. An important body of law in this state has resulted from two centuries of struggle between tenants and landlords, resulting in a strict set of tenants’ rights, that cannot be contracted away — note that such rights are against landlords; they are limits to property rights. These are the important rights to maintain for the majority of residents of NYC — not property rights, which benefit a tiny fraction of the population here.
The Koran commands: “Do not drive people from their homes.” Such a commandment is incompatible with property, and yet in my eyes vastly superior to it. It amounts to the right not to be thrown out of one’s home: an important right that has yet to be established. However, I am not a Muslim, and (as stated) I would make an exception to this rule in the case of luxurious homes, which should not be monopolized as homes at all.
Of course I realize the immense practical difficulty of actually managing a large-scale redistribution of property, let alone the actual dissolution of property rights into other forms of rights, such as the right not to be thrown out of one’s home. However I would emphasize that “property” is not a solution to the difficult problem, but a mere admission of failure.
2:34 pm
It’s not (mainly) enforcing its own dominion over property. The point of the USA government was to ensure that the land-owning aristocracy (which included Jefferson, etc.) was allowed to reproduce its position of power and leisure (and education, “culture,” etc.) in society, through the generations. While also ensuring personal freedoms, etc. that we hear so much about.
I mean, the first part was never stated — merely taken for granted. But it’s plain to see how that’s the primary function of the state. The land-distribution — and thus effectively the control over the output of land — was kept fixed according to the same pattern and same hereditary rules that existed before the American Revolution. (This is the primary role of government, but it DOES have other roles, and in the USA, one of them IS to guarantee personal freedoms — let’s not vilify the government more than it deserves on this point, even if Marx did.)
Of course, these days, (many) democratic nation-states are actually powerless in the face of international capital: they’re actually competing with one another for access to international capital. In many places, they’re forced to sell off their own (state-owned) property to international corporations just to survive (or anyway, to maintain their way of survival). They don’t have dominion over property, because international finance capital can always leave, and they depend on it not doing so.
5:08 pm
I wanted to find out your thoughts on something that you cited in this post, Shane:
Michael said:
Perhaps if we were to live in a free society, property
ownership could work. One could only own as much as they could produce
off that land. This of course, will stop a man from owning 5000 acres.
Because without wage slavery, he could not produce off this land by
himself.I wrote the other day that something
that an environmentalist fellow I was eavesdropping on at a libertarian
club meeting in college pointed out seems relevant here. He made this
comment with respect to property taxes, but it seems true of this as
well. He said he opposed property taxes because they forced the
property owner to extract wealth from the land rather than enable him to
conserve its resources. It seems like this requirement for ownership
shares the same problem. It basically encourages people to overproduce
in order not to lose their property.
Thinking about this more, it seems like a good way for large business
organizations to accumulate massive amounts of property because they are
equipped and funded for production whereas an organization like the
Nature Conservancy is decidedly not. I feel like the idea of basing
property ownership on how much one can produce is in direct conflict
with notions of environmental stewardship.
12:19 am
This is just another reason why we can not be absolutists when it comes to property.
5:08 pm
I wanted to find out your thoughts on something that you cited in this post, Shane:
Michael said:
Perhaps if we were to live in a free society, property
ownership could work. One could only own as much as they could produce
off that land. This of course, will stop a man from owning 5000 acres.
Because without wage slavery, he could not produce off this land by
himself.I wrote the other day that something
that an environmentalist fellow I was eavesdropping on at a libertarian
club meeting in college pointed out seems relevant here. He made this
comment with respect to property taxes, but it seems true of this as
well. He said he opposed property taxes because they forced the
property owner to extract wealth from the land rather than enable him to
conserve its resources. It seems like this requirement for ownership
shares the same problem. It basically encourages people to overproduce
in order not to lose their property.
Thinking about this more, it seems like a good way for large business
organizations to accumulate massive amounts of property because they are
equipped and funded for production whereas an organization like the
Nature Conservancy is decidedly not. I feel like the idea of basing
property ownership on how much one can produce is in direct conflict
with notions of environmental stewardship.