Private Property and its roles are often misunderstood

Here I will speak of private property in the leftist and anarchist sense, instead of the more common capitalist “legal” meaning. In leftism and anarchism three main different types of property are used: Private Property, Personal Property, and Collective Property. Today I will be going over Private Property.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Wolfsburg_VW-Werk.jpg source

Private Property

In many countries private property legally applies to everything you legally own. This is only correct in a “capitalist” sense. In a leftist sense private property is property which is used to accumulate profit. It is something you own, but do not labor on or use wholly yourself. This includes: Railroads, factories, restaurants, and other non-cooperative businesses. This profit comes directly from the workers, there is no other place it could come from. Profit is not magically created, it is taken. For every person that gets resources without working, another works without getting the resources they are due. Also for those of you who will say: “just get a better job”, there is a youtube video directly below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nt7Ol4d7ug

Legal Fictions

To quote Max Stirner: >“Private property exists by grace of law. It is not a fact, but a legal fiction.” Private property can only exist with a state. No anarchist society has had private property. A group that is socially above the workers is needed to keep private property. In most societies this is seperated into multiple levels. The first level is a form of guards. As with the workers something above these guards is needed to keep the private property in control of the rich. This works all the way up until we find the highest power. This highest power must employ a force to keep all the other forces in check. This force must willingly become subservient to the private property owners at all times, or they will lose their power. Lies and propaganda are often used to keep them in line. This “highest power” is a direct extension of the governing body. This group is often called the police. This means that the government and the rich are also an inseparable force and that the private property only exists through violence.

The Origin of Private Property

I am not going into the origin of the idea for private property. I am going into where the private property we use of today came from. Originally no private property existed. The majority of property was common property, property, which was not owned or controlled by one individual. This common property was often used for farming, leisure, or anything else the people saw fit. This changed with the enclosure acts, the birth of modern capitalism. The property was stolen through legal and violent acts and turned into private property. This property was used to extract resources from the working class, the people which were unable to gain this property themselves. This system runs to this day. It doesn’t matter if you “bought” the property, it was originally stolen from the people through violence. This clip of a youtube video sums it up nicely:

https://youtu.be/eknoQYrgq60?t=1m28s

Private Property and Freedom

Every anarchist (and communist) wish to abolish private property. Anarchy seeks to do away with unjustified hierarchies, which is the literal definition of liberty. I have shown that private property is only upheld and created through violence. This means private property and freedom are mutually exclusive. The worker himself is forced to sell his liberty hour by hour to the capitalist class just to survive. Just because the system gives them the rare opportunity take rise and take resources from others, does not make the workers free.

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