Anarchy: Is private property public theft?

 

 

Introduced by Stephen Peplow

 

 

Notes on the 31/7/02 meeting of HKPC's Kowloon Branch

 

 

Reported by Steve Palmquist (moderator)

 

 

Stephen began his introduction by noting that anarchists in general are united by two tendencies: a hatred of authority, hierarchy and organization; and a disapproval of capitalism or any other form of subjugating one class of persons to another. Since property rights are at the core of capitalist ideology, today's question provides a good means of assessing anarchy. Stephen then experimented with a new method of introduction. He gave three short but impassioned speeches, each adopting a different persona of a famous person speaking to this issue: the capitalist Warren Buffet, the more moderate position of Karl Marx, and the radical anarchist Emma Goldman. His handout summarized the main ideas expressed in each speech. His introduction ended without further comment, immediately after the third speech, so there was plenty of room for questions.

 

Among the interesting points raised during the question time was that defending anarchy always seems to involve a contradiction: anarchists preach decentralization, yet nearly all choose to remain in society and enjoy its benefits. Their main argument, it seems, is that owning more than we need (the very foundation of capitalism) is immoral and amounts to theft, because it means someone else is going to have too little. Many animals have evolved very cooperative societies; if the negative impact of capitalism could be reversed, anarchists believe humans could move in this direction as well. When pressed to take sides on the issue, Stephen admitted he has greatest sympathy for the anarchist position, but he cautioned that agreeing with the philosophy does not imply that it will actually work in practice! Thus, when someone asked what happens in an anarchist society when some people just decide not to do their share of the work, Stephen told the story of a 17th century community in Massachusetts that starved to death because one person decided not to work, and everyone else followed his example.

 

As someone predisposed toward anarchy myself, I wasn't very happy with how readily Stephen admitted that it just doesn't work; nevertheless, this paradox (that the structures are bad, and yet some structure seems necessary) does seem to be the core issue. Perhaps this also explains why anarchist societies that have "worked" to some degree have always been small, and why big cities are generally condemned by anarchists, as one questioner pointed out. The larger the group of people, the more some type of central organization seems to be necessary to avoid self- destruction.

 

When pressed to state the key philosophical issue raised by this subject, Stephen replied by asking: will human nature ever be good enough to allow an anarchist society to succeed? He clarified that "anarchy" is often assumed to be a synonym for "chaos". But this is technically incorrect. An anarchic society is merely a form of social organization in which nobody is in charge, nobody tries to control other people. I thought he hit the nail on the head here, for this explains why anarchism is a very noble ideal, yet it also reveals its main flaw: it assumes human beings can (or even will) be good if left to their own devices, when in fact the reality seems otherwise in most cases. Indeed, non-anarchist political systems are all concerned with who holds the power and how it is distributed, on the assumption that the power-holder(s) will motivate the people to be good. If the day were ever to arrive when all (or at least, nearly all) people really were good, then anarchism really could exist without resulting in chaos. But the problem will always be: *how* can we organize ourselves without having any leader(s)?

 

There were also brief exchanges about the difference between different forms of governmental intervention in free market and about the relationship between anarchy and the 911 tragedy. On the former point, Stephen stressed that, although differences do exist, the common factor in all politico-economic systems today is that upward mobility requires an accumulation of capital and capital can only be accumulated by extracting its value from another person, which is fundamentally immoral. On the latter point he noted that the (alleged) perpetrators of the 911 tragedy were religious fundamentalists, and that this is the very opposite of true anarchy, for fundamentalism is even more highly centralized and controlled by authority figures than is free market capitalism, where the controlling power (capital) is more hidden.

 

As usual, my report on the small group discussions can only cover the group I joined. We raised the following interesting points. First, it's important to distinguish between "anarchists" as "people who kill political leaders" and "anarchists" as "philosophers with a specific ideal about the way society should be". We agreed that the key to philosophical anarchy is individual freedom through a policy of not imposing hierarchical controls on others. We also noted that the former type of "anarchists" are often most upset over issues of territorial conflict. This justifies the claim that property is the core issue. However, the real "theft" anarchists are worried about is not "private" property, but public property--i.e., property owned by the state.

 

Most members of the small group agreed that anarchy can work to a limited degree, for example in small communes, but that even there it depends on the good will of all members. I disagreed--though only on a point of technicality: all members of a society do not need to cooperate in good will in order for anarchism to work; however, the good willed individuals must be prepared to suffer if other members decide not to be so cooperative. The real question for the anarchists, therefore, is: How much are you willing to suffer at the hands of those who do not agree with your high ideals? I also suggested the possibility of a new way of making laws, whereby they would all be "self-negating". That is, only those actions that demonstrate an intent to control other people would be subject to legal control: only the prosecutors would be liable to prosecution. After discussing this proposal briefly, we ended by noting that most people do seem to tend toward anarchy in this purely philosophical sense of the term, even though hardly anyone has the confidence to try to put it into practice.

 

Interestingly, the first one to speak after the small groups reconvened expressed a similar sentiment (though reflecting the discussion in a different small group): we are all anarchists at heart, yet perhaps the true reason is that we all want to be at the controls of our society. In discussing this suggestion a good distinction was made between "individualism", of the sort promoted by someone like Emerson, and true anarchy. The latter actually ends up restricting freedom rather than enlarging it, because in order for such a rule-less society to work, a high degree of self-regulation is required--even more than is required by non-anarchist societies. Indeed, anarchist groups tend to be rather intolerant of any differences of opinion; a very high degree of conformity is expected, and this is quite different from the "individualism" most people nowadays value so highly.

 

Some good points were also made about the difficulty small, communal societies have in holding onto their youth (once they begin to learn about other alternatives, they usually leave) and about the role of external influences, such as God or ecological ideals. The latter point took us off into a discussion of pollution and its relation to capitalism that was not directly related to the topic. Perhaps largely as a result of the touch of jet lag I was experiencing, the meeting ended on a rather inconclusive note.

 

++++

 

As usual, the meeting ended with suggestions for future topics. The following responses were given:

 

Is capitalism organized crime?

What is the prognosis for capitalism?

What is equity? or What is equitable for all people?

 

 

Return to the home page of HKPCâs Kowloon Branch.

 

Return to the main map of Steve Palmquist's web site.

 

This page was uploaded on 23 September 2002.