Property on Wheels!
From Free Talk Live
Property is theft. -- P.J. Proudhon
Property is liberty. -- P.J. Proudhon
Property is impossible. -- P.J. Proudhon
Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Proudhon, by piling up his contradictions this way, was not merely being French; he was trying to indicate that the abstraction "property" covers a variety of phenomena, some pernicious and some beneficial. Let us borrow a device from the semanticists and examine his triad with the subscripts attached for maximum clarity.
"Property1 is theft" means that property1 created by the artificial laws of feudal, capitalist, and other authoritarian societies, is based on armed robbery. Land titles, for instance, are clear examples of property1; swords and shot were the original coins of transaction.
"Property2 is liberty" means that property2, that which will be voluntarily honored in a voluntary (anarchist) society, is the foundation of the liberty in that society. The more people's interests are co-mingled and confused, as in collectivism, the more they will be stepping on each other's toes; only when the rules of the game declare clearly "This is mine and this is thine," and the game is voluntarily accepted as worthwhile by the parties to it, can true independence be achieved.
"Property3 is impossible" means that property3 (=property1) creates so much conflict of interest that society is in perpetual undeclared civil war and must eventually devour itself (and properties 1 and 3 as well). In short, Proudhon, in his own way, foresaw the Snafu Principle. He also foresaw that communism would only perpetuate and aggravate the conflicts, and that anarchy is the only viable alternative to this chaos.
It is averred, of course, that property2 will come into existence only in a totally voluntary society; many forms of it already exist. The error of most alleged libertarians -- especially the followers (!) of the egregious Ayn Rand -- is to assume that all property1 is property2. The distinction can be made by any IQ above 70 and is absurdly simple. The test is to ask, of any title of ownership you are asked to accept or which you ask others to accept, "Would this be honored in a free society of rationalists, or does it require the armed might of a State to force people to honor it?" If it be the former, it is property2 and represents liberty; if it be the latter, it is property1 and represents theft.
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
[celine]
The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations.
The usual solution is for the use of each thing to be decided by a person or by some group of persons organized under some set of rules. Such things are called property. If each thing is controlled by an individual who has the power to transfer that control to any other individual, we call the institution private property.
David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom
[friedman]
Among free-market anarchists, the divisive issue is the recognition of land as de jure private property. Mutualist anarchists, following Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Benjamin Tucker, claim land cannot be bought and sold. Land can be legitimately possessed through occupation and use (e.g., "squatting"), but cannot be purchased, cannot be sold or otherwise transferred, and cannot therefore be used as collateral in a loan or investment. Under mutualist anarchism, land cannot be willed or inherited, since such transfers involve de jure property titles. If you want to give your land to your children, they'll just have to occupy it after you're gone.
[Contrast with PROPERTARIANISM.]
bkMarcus, Reluctant Capitalist
[bk]
