RE: Anarcho-Capitalism isn't the "true anarchism"... but neither is Anarcho-Communism
Thank you for this thorough and insightful post, Kenny. I'm always interested in how others think and what factors influence their conclusions. There's so much to mull over here, on both (all?) sides. It would be cool to have a video series--open discussions on the principles and economic possibilities of anarchism with two hosts to represent a capitalist and an anti-capitalist point of view. The trouble would be to keep it from spiraling into a debate. But I think it could be done, and would prove educational.
Having lived the first portion of my anarchist career, in my late teens and early twenties, as more of a left (but adjectiveless) anarchist, I can relate to a lot of what you're saying here because that's how I would have thought about things back then. I've read works by most of the left-anarchists you refer to, and all of them way, way prior to even hearing about Mises or Rothbard.
I no longer agree that land ownership is illegitimate, or that profit is inherently exploitative, or that a worker's life is involuntary due to the fact that he "must either work or starve". I no longer see capitalism as an inevitable consolidation of wealth, property, and power to an elite few, as I did then.
I've lived with anarchists in collectives and squats, with just myself in rented apartments, and with family on property we purchased. I've lived "outside of the system", trying to avoid money to the best of my ability and relying on sharing and barter for my sustenance, and I've worked for employers, and I've worked for myself. I've seen the pros and cons of all different kinds of living and working situations, and none are perfect. To me, anarchism is about individual choice, and so I would never personally endorse an anarchist society in which mutualists couldn't base their lives and economic behavior on mutual aid or communists on the commune or capitalists on investment and the free exchange of money for goods and services.
But the more I've examined these philosophies, the more I am convinced that capitalism (with its focus on property rights as a moral imperative) is the only one that could accommodate all others. Mutual aid societies, worker collectives, and communes can all exist within an anarcho-capitalist economy, or adjacent to it. Individuals whose preferences led them to reject property or land ownership could practice their values within that system. But individuals whose preferences led them to embrace property or land ownership (especially for profit) could not practice their values within, for instance, a mutualist system. Perhaps the two could peacefully co-exist side-by-side; I don't know. Maybe that is what the adjectives of anarchism all lead to--an anarchism of regions; one where mutualism is practiced, one where capitalism is practiced, one that is a big commune, etc. etc. LeGuin would have had a field day with that.
I think that could very easily be done, and would actually love to see it play out as something where it's always two different schools of anarchy, with one mediator, so we could have AnCap vs AnSyndicalist, AnMutualist vs AnCom, AnCap vs AnCom, etc. The more people can be introduced to the wide variety of schools of thought within anarchy (and constantly reminded of the similarities), the more new ideas will come from it.
It's funny, because the more I interact with, read, listen to capitalists, the more convinced I am that it is not a viable option, with its focus on personal betterment, "profit motive", the built-in incentive to consolidate power.
Only if they "claim" land before it's all become owned through someone mixing their labor with it one time and owning it indefinitely. If we started with a completely unclaimed planet and everyone could start spreading out and claiming land, that would be one thing, but how could we make it work when we're starting from the point of a tiny % of people owning most of the land already? Is property gained illegitimately (through the state) removed from the current owners?
That makes the most sense, both logistically and socially, as why would anyone want to live with people who have completely different understandings of what is important in life and how to operate in interpersonal situations? As long as everyone's an anarchist (meaning they believe in the sovereignty of each and will not initiate violence), then all of those different models would be able to just leave each other alone peacefully.
I see the necessary healing of trauma, exploration of self (and Self), moving from belief sets based on fear & lack into those based on love & abundance removing most of the need for what these different economic models claim to offer, as the human race becomes more empowered and enlightened.
In anarcho-capitalist philosophy, it's generally understood that homesteading is how property is originally claimed, and that in a situation with finite land like we have on earth, eventually all or most of the land available will have already been homesteaded and become private property, and future generations of people will obtain land through barter, monetary transaction, bequeathment, gifting, etc. This is how it works (for the most part) in propertarian societies, even statist ones, but there are some exceptions in our present scenario. Namely, "publicly owned" land would be considered illegitimate and available for homesteading after the dissolution of the state.
I tend to agree with @kafkanarchy84 that such transfers of ownership should occur at a local level, where the federal government (if we are talking about publicly owned land in the states) simply releases ownership of said property and those who are already using it mixing their labor with it (most likely locals who hunt, fish, hike there, etc.) would be able to retroactively homestead it, while unused portions or places that were built specifically for government use like office buildings and federal courthouses would be available for new homesteading. In that scenario, perhaps the Rainbow community would be able to show retroactive homesteading of any lands that are used for gatherings.
There are other exceptions. Sometimes a piece of property goes unused or abandoned for so long that it becomes clear the owners (if they are still alive) do not care about it. In an instance like that, you might try contacting the owners and if none are found, go ahead and homestead the land. If someone turns up later who claims to have ownership rights to the land, the matter could be settled through arbitration. There have been at least two such properties that have entered my awareness in the past few years near where I live.
Related to this topic is your point from the article that:
As I pointed out above, this is already the way things work in post-raw land propertarian societies, and that has not resulted in people being unable to obtain land or in land ownership consolidating into the hands of a few.
There are several reasons for this. First, people change their minds. Sometimes we think we want to have an apartment in the city, and then later on we decide we'd rather have a little farm in the country. So we put the apartment up for sale and go looking for a farm to buy. Second, wealthy families tend to grow poorer as generations pass. (Tend to. There are of course exceptions to this, and most of them are royalty or in some other way state-connected.) This means that they end up having to sell their mansions, break up their country properties into smaller parcels, etc. And thirdly, ordinary people move up and down the economic ladder throughout the course of their lives. So we might start out renting and later become a landlord, then experience some kind of financial or health trouble and sell off our rental properties, and use the part of the proceeds to buy a one bedroom house for our personal use.
Real estate changes hands all the time in a capitalist society, and not only the wealthy have access to it. Many of the very poorest people on the planet count their privately owned land as their most important asset in life. It feeds them, shelters them, and is the only thing they will be able to pass onto their children. The greatest bane of their existence is likely to be property tax.
Furthermore, in free markets the hurdle to owning land for the first time is not "massive", as you put it, but just regular-old challenging, as is everything in life that is worth doing. If it were that difficult to become a real estate owner, there would be basically no real estate market.
EDIT: I forgot to address this question:
Yes. Absolutely. If the "owner" can be shown to have obtained the property through illegitimate means (paid for with tax money, obtained through eminent domain or conquest) the property should be returned to its rightful owners, or, if none can be located, made available for homesteading.
Oh, I don't know, Kenny...you and I disagree about a lot but I would gladly have you as my neighbor. :)
I do not accumulate wealth for selfish reasons however, not saying you suggested that, but the opposite. Good and moral people must seek and accumulate wealth, or only the opposite type of people will. My production and the fruits of it have to be mine too, or I am the slave of others. My production requires my effort, and my effort requires my time. My time is literally my life. I build wealth to better the world through it. The more wealth I have too, the more good I can do with it. The more wealth I have, the more charity I can give to worthy causes.
Hi. That's a very well researched article, thank you. The point of rules is to reduce the likelyhood of conflicts. If you do not have clear and simple rules on who owns a piece of Land, you will have more conflicts. It might not be ideal, but maybe ideal is not the correct word and "utopian" is. I'd rather have someone buy a piece of Land and have every lifeform on it protected as the Buyer pleases instead of having lots of conflicts about the Land because people say there is no way of legitimately own Land.
People keep bringing up the idea that if we do not have agreements on acceptable behavior, then conflict will ensue.. which may be true. That does not, however, mean that those agreements have to be a specific one (like capitalistic land ownership), but simply that there must be agreements.
Exactly. Voluntaryism is open to other philosophies as long as all human interaction is voluntary. It is live and let live. The same cannot be said for large swathes (almost the entire, I dare say) anarcho-communist community.
I’ve actually received nerdy veiled death threats from more than one of these folks for suggesting I should be able to run a cookie shop from my house if I please.
Very silly.
The crux of this piece was basically around that concept, that ANARCHY doesn't require anyone to conform to any given economic model, and that those who are attempting to say it can't be real anarchy without their specific adjective are sort of missing the point.