RE: A Communist Definition of Property
Hello this is quite a long response so i tried to format it in a way that is easy to read without reading my whole response. Id like to see what you have to say in response to the following issues. My central points are 2, 4 and 5. so if you want to just respond to those that would be fine with me. I apologize in advance for any abundant grammar mistakes which I'm sure are present here.
within your example of machines:
(1)
your word choice in referring to the owners of the means of production as a group of entities, in my view, masks the fact that ownership of the means of production is more fluid. Despite the fact that many wealthy families may hold their wealth, there is an ever present circulation of people in and out of the working class.
(2)
Additionally you ignore the fact that the owners of the machines either produced or otherwise expended valuable resources to establish or obtain them. This means that the man who created the machine is rightfully the owner of the machine or that he engaged in a voluntary transaction to exchange his property for resources. Do you fundamentally reject the notions that an individual is entitled to the fruits of his labor and that one is entitled to engage in voluntary transactions? If so then you are embracing a fundamentally coercive economic system
(3)
Lastly on this topic you present a false dichotomy in place of the spectrum of options available to the working class. you claim that he either comes to an agreement with the owners of the machines or starves, but he has other options. Firstly he could establish his own means of production or otherwise provide a service which other individuals wish to exchange goods for second he could sustain himself through other means such as farming and/or foraging. Assuming he is not a slave there is no factor which forces the individual to work for another man.
Regarding your statements on the state's relation to property:
(4)
Firstly you claim that the social relations of the worker to the owner can not exist without a monopoly of force (presumably in favor of the owner). This is inaccurate, perhaps you could argue that it is not likely to exist without use of force but to claim that it can not exist is wrong. For example if both the owner and the worker respect property rights as a fundamental moral principle, then there is no need for a monopoly of force. As another example, if we are feeling especially pessimistic on human nature, lets say both the workers and owners posses the ability to attack and defend each other with equal ability then the workers have no reason to attack the owners knowing that it would not be worth the risk. Thus property rights are respected without the need for a monopoly of force. The central point in this is that you can not simply assert that the relationship between workers and owner is only attainable through a monopoly of force and therefore immoral. You must make the argument that it this is the case, which you have not done.
(5)
You state that the workers made and use the means of production, which I think we can again refer to as machines without losing any generality. It then appears that you make the claim that the owner must use violence to claim ownership of the machines. Now if it is the case that the owner just happened to stumble into a factory with workers building machines and called his guards to claim ownership of the machines then yes that would clearly be an inexcusable use of force, but if the owner walked into town with a box of gears and drill bits and entered a voluntary transaction with a group of workers to exchange labor for money wherein it was agreed that the completed machine would remain the property of the owner
On point one: The fact of the matter is that he’s referring to the capitalist class that owns the Means of Production (MOP). As he points it out, five wealthy individuals “own more wealth than the bottom half of the population of the world.” This statement is not a meaningless factoid but a statement of our reality as it is today, the concentration of capital. These five people managed to accumulate capital and PRIVATE property into their hands while weeding out competition. This was bound to happen when selfish greed, generated by the system and is not INNATE in humans, kicks in to perserve the individual at their peak and kill off any potential threat. Competition to a single capitalist in the long run makes no sense since it will harm more than help them.
On point two: First of all, rarely, if ever, do most capitalists ever expand labor into making a machine. Nonetheless, most inherit it from their ancestors, and their ancestors either enclosed farming lands to farming units or worked with the government to kill of the guilds in the city already producing the commodity at hand. What you are thinking of is a petit-bourgeois (“small” capitalist) and we rarely have any of those today.
Even then, does the owner work exponentially harder than his worker? The answer is no, for if the capitalist could we wouldn’t need jobs in the first place. Moreso, without the worker, the capitalist would go out of business as they have no one to operate the MOP. The worker is lifeline, the Force of Production, for the MOP and the capitalist, the second they revolt is the second you make concessions to not lose it all.
Truly in the worker’s case is it hard to survive in this world since ‘tis nye-on impossible for them to acquire the MOP without loosing an arm and a leg. And, nonetheless, to even have any leverage as an individual worker on the table with capitalist who has many other people waiting to take their spot eargerly for less. Their two choices are death and wage-labor. The former is meaningless since ‘tis a dead-end that extends not the person’s life and the latter an alienated life where someone produces something only to get a check to continue on struggling.
On point three: I refer to Anarchyhasnogod’s points down below. I think he covered it well enough. Plus some of my response in point two can easily bleed into this point here.
On point four: Again I refer you to read Anarchy’s points, but this time I have something to say.
The monopoly of force is first and foremost guarneteed by the state and protects the ruling class, that being the capitalist class. The state protects the ruling class since the ruling class controls the functions of the state in a way that gurantees their survival and surpresses the working class in a way that their class consciousness is murky and a revolt would be a net-negative. Also if they were equal in fighting power, then Anarchy’s points would still remain.
On point five: Again you conflate capitalists with petit-bourgeoisie (“small” capitalists if you had forgotten already). The workers’ only bargaining chip is their labor power, to which capitalist has capital and MOP to threaten back with. (Again the choices are death or wage-labor for the worker, the real choice being the latter since that continues their existence and won’t starve or die that easily.) Also the capitalist has to exploit the worker of their surplus value, value created that is more than socially necessary to produce a commodity. Otherwise, they cannot get any profits nor can they continue to live on in the market economy where time is of the essence.
To add onto my point: Revolutions in other countries have shown that private property actually slows down growth and takes resources away from the workers. If this is true, and the workers know it, then any transaction must not be voluntary and must be for some other reason, like all of the ones I pointed out. There is no reason the workers would settle for less, isn't that the whole point of markets?
to me it seems like you missed the entire point of the post