Anarchists should rethink common vs private property (mastodon.social)

submitted 1 year ago by jlou@mastodon.social to c/anarchism@lemmy.ml

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Anarchists should rethink common vs private property
https://www.ellerman.org/rethinking-common-vs-private-property/
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[-] DaSaw@midwest.social 5 points 1 year ago

Don't forget that the anarcho-capitalists have been muddying branding. Some folks may not realize that anarchism is not the same thing as absolute landlordism.

[-] jlou@mastodon.social 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Anarcho-capitalists do not even correctly apply their own principles. They accept the principle that people have the right to appropriate the fruits of their labor. However, they do not recognize the routine violation of that principle embodied in the capitalist firm. They, in fact, defend the right of the employer to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of the workers' joint labor in the firm on the basis of consent missing the point about inalienability

[-] DaSaw@midwest.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm not sure Anarcho-capitalism is intended to be applied consistently. I'd be willing to bet it was originally crafted with the deliberate intent of fooling some would-be anarchists into allying themselves with authoritarians.

EDIT: Ha! It appears I am not alone in this. From the article:

Classical liberal thought has done its job well to get much of the Left to use the consent/coercion framing and to quibble about what is “really” voluntary (or whether the payment is big enough to compensate for all the “alienated labor-time”)—as if the whole institution for renting people would be acceptable if only people had other choices (like a guaranteed basic income) or were paid higher human rentals.[11]

[-] StrayCatFrump@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah. A couple of "timeless" quotes by the propertarian Murray Rothbard:

One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, “our side,” had captured a crucial word from the enemy...“Libertarians”...had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety.

We must therefore turn to history for enlightenment; here we find that none of the proclaimed anarchist groups correspond to the libertarian position, that even the best of them have unrealistic and socialistic elements in their doctrines...we find that all of the current anarchists are irrational collectivists...We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists, and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground, and are being completely unhistorical.

They knew damned well what they were doing. At least Rothbard didn't fully accept the appropriation of the latter term, even if others from his shitty movement have since then.

[-] jlou@mastodon.social -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"This is my proposition: the laborer retains, even after he has received his wages, a natural right of property in the thing which he has produced."
-- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Ellerman's modern version of this analysis was first stated in 1984. Rothbard in 1950 saw the employment contract as vital to private property and swallowed the fundamental myth of capitalism that Ellerman mentions. He would include Ellerman's position on this matter as collectivist and anti-private-property.

[-] StrayCatFrump@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm pretty sure I made obvious in the other comment tree that I'm not interested in your takes, and how defensively not-propertarian you insist you are while advocating for propertarian ideas.

When I say I'm done interacting with you and then start conversing with somebody else, that's not an invitation to jump in and continue with me. Fuck off.

[-] jlou@mastodon.social -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I replied to that comment for anyone reading to provide relevant context to place the ideas presented within the anarchism's intellectual history.
Capitalist accusations for having a different analysis and critique of capitalism are not productive.
It is a thread I started, so any reply could be interpreted as a reply to me. I was not sure of the etiquette here. I apologize if my commenting did not align with commenting etiquette here.

[-] StrayCatFrump@slrpnk.net 0 points 1 year ago

Don’t forget that the anarcho-capitalists have been muddying branding.

I hope there aren't any in this particular forum where that the title was editorialized for, though. "Anarcho-capitalists" (propertarians) aren't anarchists, and this whole forum (plus its moderators) should be very clear about that, and become very clear about it if they aren't. I mean, the very first thing in the "sidebar" info is a link to an essay by David Graeber which should inform any propertarians that we most definitely are not talking about them (especially the last two sections on listening to your mother from your early childhood and believing in people's better natures).

this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023

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