Eric Schechter
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Property vs. Possession & why communism won’t take your toothbrush
By Storpip
La propriété, c’est le vol!
[dropcap]A[/dropcap] common misconception about anarchism, socialism and communism is that under any of the aforementioned ideologies, you won’t be able to own your own pants, toothbrush, car and so on. The nasty commies will take it all away and you’ll have to make do with drab grey overalls, inefficient and delayed public transport, communal toothbrushes (not that you’ll have much to eat in the United Socialist States of America) etc. Often, this is a genuine error on the speakers part. However it does bring into question whether those arguing against these economic and social systems should be doing so without at least a smidgen of an idea about what private property really is. The intention of this article is to arm you with more knowledge about what type of property is ‘theft’ and the difference between property and possession in the hope for more intelligent debate. Apart from a few passing comments, I don’t intend to provide a comprehensive justification for abolishing private property, nor will I lay out the alternatives to private property and the capitalist economic system; as again these are subjects for a whole other article.
It’s obvious that people like to own stuff. Particularly those things they have worked hard for, been given or crafted with their own hands. This can be true for a number of reasons; a hygienic desire of keeping your toothbrush to yourself, an emotional attachment to your grandfather’s watch or practical grounds such as tailored trousers. This is not only understandable but natural, and (luckily for your dental hygiene) socialism doesn’t demand you give up any of your property rights over such items!
Whilst all of the items mentioned in this article so far are indeed ‘property’ in the sense that you own them, they aren’t what Proudhon was referring to when he said ‘Property is theft’, nor are they what Marx wanted to do away with when he wrote ‘ The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property’. Instead these would all be called possessions or personal property.
The difference between private property and possessions is key. Factories, capital (machinery), mills, mines, roads and buy-to-let houses are all examples of private property and are all the targets of the likes of Marx and Proudhon. What differentiates the above private property from personal property and possessions is that the bakery and the ovens in it, or the forests and the trees within them, all produce goods or services of value. For example, we depend on the bakery to provide bread for us in the same way that we depend on the forests to provide wood for us. As such, these are the ‘means of production’, and for socialists, anarchists and communists alike, its fundamentally wrong for any one person or company to own and control what all men depend on for survival.
The reason communists, socialists and anarchists want to ‘abolish’ the means of production is another matter entirely. In short they believe that the earth and its resources are the common inheritance of all, however the means of production have been monopolised by a small few; the capitalists. As a result of this, those who own property exploit those who don’t, due to the fact that everyone needs certain resources to live and work. Those that don’t own the means of production creating those resources are forced to sell themselves and their labour to the capitalists that control these means of production, in order to access those resources that they need to survive.
Because of the productive nature of private property, it affords those that own it (the capitalists) privileges to exploit and control others that don’t have access to these resources. Personal possessions however can’t be used to exploit or coerce others. Because my tie plays no role in the production of anything, I can’t use it to blackmail anyone into working for me. Anarchists, socialists and communists are in favour of property which
“cannot be used to exploit another — those kinds of personal possessions which we accumulate from childhood and which become part of our lives.”
ie. personal possessions, whilst being opposed to property which
“can be used only to exploit people — land and buildings, instruments of production and distribution, raw materials and manufactured articles, money and capital.”
However here it’s worth noting that even a house may be considered a possession, not property. For instance, a house that you live in and make no profit off is a possession. However if you own multiple houses/rooms and rent them out for a profit, the house becomes property as you are coercing someone to do something for you (pay rent) in order to access a fundamental human right; housing. Anything that goes beyond personal use, is private property, so whilst its fine to own a 4 bedroom semi-detached house for the family, its not fine to own a twenty bedroom palace, as not only could no-one personally utilise it, but its something that can only ever be communally used.
Why your possessions are less safe under capitalism
The great myth of capitalism is that it protects your ‘property’ or rather, your possessions, as in this context property refers to cars, furniture and so on. Hopefully I have dispelled the idea that communism intends to scrap your car and let anyone share your toothbrush. However now I hope to illustrate why your possessions may in fact be a lot safer under socialism/communism than it ever could be under capitalism.
Before the 2008 economic crisis, people across the UK, USA and Europe assumed they owned their homes, TVs, cars and so on. Perhaps they had money deducted every month to pay their mortgage, sent their cheques to Argos to keep up with their X-box instalments, but if asked they’d say it was their home in the same way we think our mobile phones are ours, even if we have to pay for broadband as well as the contract.
Repossession of homes in the US caused supply to outstrip demand, contributing to the housing crash
But those houses they needed to provide them shelter weren’t theirs. They belonged to the bank, just like how the ovens a restaurant needed to make pizza with weren’t really the chefs, but part owned by who-ever provided the loan for them. They had a contract, with a small print. After paying out several times the value of the house/X-box/sofa etc. for a period of time, then they would be the owners. Likewise how many people own their cars? Ninety percent of new cars are purchased on finance, yet nine out of tendon’t understand the terms of their finance agreement. The real owner is an auto dealership or a manufacturers own finance arm.
Under capitalism personal property is extremely precarious. A home is a human right, as is access to water, heat and food, yet countless people are forced to plunge themselves into debt, be it credit card loans, unpaid bills or mortgages, to acquire these rights. However even if you are lucky enough to buy things outright and not worry about falling behind on bills, all it takes is an unfortunate burglary, sudden illness or an economic recession resulting in you getting your hours cut, job seekers allowance taken away or insurance premiums raised facing you with the decision of selling off your possessions (assuming there’s someone willing to buy your grandmas necklace during a financial crisis)to afford nursery fees and ensure you’ll be able to eat tomorrow, or hope the bank will offer you an even bigger loan.
Luckily for us in the UK we have socialised healthcare and something resembling a social security net, but even so these are the first things to take a hit during austerity and are always soft targets for the government, which helped (or at least didn’t prevent) the mess in the first place. All that capitalism protects is the ‘right’ to get extremely rich through the ownership of capital, demonstrated by the government in the 2008 crisis, when despite the privatisation of gain, they nationalised the pain caused by banks through a bail-out fuelled by taxpayer money.
In times of recession the illusion that capitalism protects personal property and socialism takes it away, wears thin.
You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.
In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so: that is just what we intend.
― Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
Y.S 5/10/18
Puke if you must
This bloodsoaked monster is probably the most evil person on planet earth https://t.co/nGq2H1EPHt
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) April 9, 2020
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