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Anarchists should rethink common vs private property
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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Anarchism
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This isn't quite true. A means of production can become personal property if it is actively used by the person that produced it. It is just that no property right is thought to be absolute and actual usage usually trumps other means to derive personal property status.
Personally, I think Locke's provisio on occupancy and use applies: The use of land confers ownership if there is enough just as good left for others to do the same. If there is not, then those who acquire such a privilege should be required to compensate those excluded by this privilege.
Oh, you mean the occupancy and use sense of personal property. That does not allow one workers' collective to rent out means of production to another workers' collective and retain ownership. It is different from what Ellerman is arguing for. I also edited the comment to add another point
Not quite. Personal property can also be thought of as a group ownership. In fact often it has to be because it is difficult to manage in larger organizations otherwise.
Renting out the means of productions seems like a non-issue as when you are not using them why not give them to someone else to use? This is well established in Anarchist library economics texts.
The article also seems to be more concerned about investments into future returns from the means of production, but again this is basically just repeating the staking concept used in Mondragon for this, which is not uncontroversial, but benefits might out weight the risk that it creates a two class system within the company.
@poVoq Renting out means of production is another way for workers' collectives to exchange products of their labor, and receive something else that they value more. Giving away the means of production would mean forgoing compensation. It isn't clear whether the person you're giving away the means of production to will use it in a socially efficient manner. Prices provide a rough approximation of social cost especially in an economy with common ownership of natural resources @anarchism
No, sharing the means of production is ultimately to the benefit of all (see for example the open-source movement).
What you propose is akin to monopolizing or creating an artificial scarcity of them. Obviously in a library economy that prioritizes sharing of the means of production there would be a process so that people borrowing the means of production both contribute to the maintenance of them and not hog their use over other people's more productive use-cases, but the exact process would likely be sector specific and not based on an artificial abstraction like prices that gives an unjust advantage to the people that control the currency.
I think more interesting is anyway how to incentivize people to "invest" in the creation of additional/improved means of production, which is harder to solve when future returns from other peoples work are not possible to capture through private ownership of the means of production like in a capitalist society.
Software is something that can be freely duplicated without cost to its producers, so what applies to it cannot be applied to all capital. Open source is largely developed by a few dedicated contributors or employees of large corporations. Regardless, there needs to be an incentive for people to work on socially valuable projects even in open source rather than on their pet projects.
What could this process look like in a sector such that it wouldn't be basically prices?
It doesn't really matter that software can be freely replicated when talking about means of production that already exist. Withholding them from other people when you are not actually using them with the purpose of extracting some sort of personal benefit is a net negative to society.
Ultimately, money isn't a particularly good motivator (beyond preventing starvation and homelessness) for people to work on valuable projects for society. I think once you realize that and stop thinking about everything in terms of prices, it is easy to see how such a process could look like. But you need to take that first step to get rid of that capitalist brainworm yourself.
More money allows production to use more resources. Even altruists need prices. Prices signal how much people value certain goods, and ensure that the goods' production get the resources warranted.
A good's value is the future rentals' discounted present value. There is no value-based moral contrast between renting and owning capital (explicitly excluding land)
Without prices, how do you make resource allocation decisions?
Prices are not capitalism; some anti-capitalists were in favor of them