Private vs. Personal Property

[Deny]

As I understand it, private property only applies to property that is held as a commodity, i.e. to be sold or exchanged. When I buy something, I remove it from being a commodity and thus it comes into my possession as personal property. Thus the Marxist objection to private property is not an objection to ownership or possession but an objection to commodification. Assuming I have this right:

What is the objection to people owning too much stuff? Too large a house, too many cars, etc.? Because I would think such an objection would have to be outside of objections to private property, because the too-much-stuff that I own is not for exchange but for my possession. Unless my theoretical possession of "things" is merely a signifier of my disparate ability to have bought them.

Either I misunderstand the commodity-possession distinction, or I need a way of understanding why I should disagree with "having" in the sense of having and having-not. I mean, I understand the opposition between classes being framed that way, but I guess I don't understand how someone who essentially is a wage-earner becomes frowned upon for being too rich. How do we make that division?

[Broletariat]

The primary objection to owning a shitton of stuff comes from the fact that there exists people who own almost literally nothing. Your excess could have easily been distributed to them.

[this is an invasion]

The primary objection to owning a shitton of stuff comes from the fact that there exists people who own almost literally nothing. Your excess could have easily been distributed to them.

I think the primary objection to owning a shit ton of stuff is that it's a shitty replacement for a real life.

[Broletariat]

I think the primary objection to owning a shit ton of stuff is that it's a shitty replacement for a real life.
Maybe on a personal level, but to be frank I'm not so much worried about whether or not Mr. Cappie is living a real life or not, I just want to take his stuff and use it to help other people actually survive.

[Deny]

The primary objection to owning a shitton of stuff comes from the fact that there exists people who own almost literally nothing. Your excess could have easily been distributed to them.

Well I sympathize with that as much is anyone else, but what would be the theoretical justification for it? I mean, is there something else to it other than "that's too much"? Where is the line drawn and why?

[Zanthorus]

As I understand it, private property only applies to property that is held as a commodity, i.e. to be sold or exchanged.

I think it's pretty clear from the Manifesto when Marx and Engels talk about how bourgeois property is the last form of private property, or in the Civil War in France when Marx answers the objection that the Commune wanted to destroy "the basis of civilisation" (Private property) by saying the Commune wanted to destroy that class property which makes the labour of the many into the wealth of the few that private property is concieved of as specifically private ownership of the means of production. As to why we object to this... do I really need to explain :p

[BAM]

I for one am looking forward to The Revolution so we can all have an abundance of cool stuff. :D

[Deny]

I think it's pretty clear from the Manifesto when Marx and Engels talk about how bourgeois property is the last form of private property, or in the Civil War in France when Marx answers the objection that the Commune wanted to destroy "the basis of civilisation" (Private property) by saying the Commune wanted to destroy that class property which makes the labour of the many into the wealth of the few that private property is concieved of as specifically private ownership of the means of production. As to why we object to this... do I really need to explain :p

Right, but what I'm trying to say is that I don't understand the theoretical justification for saying that being rich, or earning more than others, becomes symptomatic of being bourgeois, or of literally owning the means of production.

[Broletariat]

Well I sympathize with that as much is anyone else, but what would be the theoretical justification for it? I mean, is there something else to it other than "that's too much"? Where is the line drawn and why?
It becomes too much when you have 2 of x and another person has 0 and they too require it with the same "right" that you require x

[Zanthorus]

Right, but what I'm trying to say is that I don't understand the theoretical justification for saying that being rich, or earning more than others, becomes symptomatic of being bourgeois, or of literally owning the means of production.

Being a capitalist just means having enough money to go into the market and buy labour-power and means of production, so at a certain point being rich does make you bourgeois. It's a transformation of quantity into quality... if you will.

[RebelDog]

I would hope that in a libertarian socialist economy we all 'own' lots of personal stuff after the basic needs of housing, food, education, health etc are fulfilled. If we have an economic model such as Parecon, it would simply not be possible to accumulate goods to a any significant degree beyond that of others and even if it were it would be conspicious and unnecessary. You first need a system of exploitation to gain unequal remuneration and a market to buy the excessive goods. Being that libertarian socialism is about abolition of exploitation, unequal remuneration and markets, I don't see this as a problem.

[Deny]

Being a capitalist just means having enough money to go into the market and buy labour-power and means of production, so at a certain point being rich does make you bourgeois. It's a transformation of quantity into quality... if you will.


I would hope that in a libertarian socialist economy we all 'own' lots of personal stuff after the basic needs of housing, food, education, health etc are fulfilled. If we have an economic model such as Parecon, it would simply not be possible to accumulate goods to a any significant degree beyond that of others and even if it were it would be conspicious and unnecessary. You first need a system of exploitation to gain unequal remuneration and a market to buy the excessive goods. Being that libertarian socialism is about abolition of exploitation, unequal remuneration and markets, I don't see this as a problem.

That makes sense.

[Luisrah]

Being a capitalist just means having enough money to go into the market and buy labour-power and means of production, so at a certain point being rich does make you bourgeois. It's a transformation of quantity into quality... if you will.

Whoa I'm reading a book about dialectical and historical materialism and I was just thinking of that. That was awesome.

But more seriously, yeah, it's difficult to have a line, but at some point you will have too much in comparison to other people, and you'll start being ''rich''.
Of course there's no problem in being ''rich'' if everyone else is also.

[Spawn of Stalin]

I for one am looking forward to The Revolution so we can all have an abundance of cool stuff. :D
This, basically. The only reason I am a Communist is because there is a tiny tiny chance that an expropriated near mint copy of Detective Comics #27 might come my way after the revolution. I don't really give a shit about capitalism, I mean hey, it pays my wages!

[Animal Farm Pig]

When I was married, my ex-wife and I agreed that our property is our common property, and our earnings were part of a common budget that we both agreed on. I got angry with her when she went out and bought $200 worth of fucking beads. She got angry with me when she thought I spent too much money on beer.

The principal is that how we use our common resources should be decided in common. Neither of us should use our resources excessively for our own individual interests. It should be the same in a society with common ownership. Assuming a finite amount of stuff that a society can produce, it's not so good for one person to use an excessively large share.

As far as private vs. personal goes-- well, we agreed that our property is common between us. Nonetheless, I'd be pretty pissed off if she would have used my toothbrush to clean the toilet. While my toothbrush may not have been "private property" as such, it was personal to me.

[Revolutionair]

In my opinion, as long as the means of production are owned by the workers, there is nothing to worry about.
If someone has the money to buy labor, he must offer more than that worker would be able to create himself with his means of production.

No one should be able to exclude others from the means of production.

This way, nobody will be forced into a certain spot when talking about the division of labor. You can choose to be self sufficient because you have the means for it.

My English is terrible, so I hope you guys understand what I just said.

[Broletariat]

In my opinion, as long as the means of production are owned by the workers, there is nothing to worry about.
If someone has the money to buy labor, he must offer more than that worker would be able to create himself with his means of production.

No one should be able to exclude others from the means of production.

This way, nobody will be forced into a certain spot when talking about the division of labor. You can choose to be self sufficient because you have the means for it.

My English is terrible, so I hope you guys understand what I just said.

Then s/he has accumulated wealth somehow and we're about to create Capital all over again.

[ckaihatsu]

This topic is about a seemingly simple question that, when explored, actually transports us right through to the core of what an anti-capitalist, communist politics is all about.





What is the objection to people owning too much stuff? Too large a house, too many cars, etc.?


This kind of materialistic question can potentially be troublesome for a Marxist approach to politics because, as Marxists, we do *not* base our political philosophical principles on issues of *personal* consumption. In short we're *not* moralists -- and, really, *no* politics should be judgmental at the individual level because that's *outside* of the *domain* of politics. Political matters are, by their nature, about *mass* quantities, and about their *overall* administration / ownership.

Nonetheless, if we were to just summarily *dismiss* this question we might catch some flak from those with tangible humanistic concerns, asking *why*, as leftists, we're *not* addressing such realities using our political method.





[W]hat I'm trying to say is that I don't understand the theoretical justification for saying that being rich, or earning more than others, becomes symptomatic of being bourgeois, or of literally owning the means of production.




I don't understand how someone who essentially is a wage-earner becomes frowned upon for being too rich. How do we make that division?


Your questions here contain the answer -- we have to inquire as to *how* a person acquires their income and material possessions. We can actually just *scale down* the concept of a *surplus*, to the *personal* level, and examine it in the same way as we examine a mass, *societal* surplus.

Is the person in question really *only* a wage-earner, or -- more realistically -- have they *financially leveraged* *past* earnings as capital so as to play in the markets and claim portions of *other laborers'* *surplus labor value* -- ???...!!!

Additionally we can also look at the person's relationship to the means of mass production in their role in the workplace. If they are better-compensated they are most likely taking on greater (implicit or explicit) managerial / *political* roles, either internally and/or externally. In other words they may be closer to the company's "brain trust" that operates as an internal society of consensus, collectively rubber-stamping managerial decisions that come down from above. (Managerial decisions are entirely about providing a return on capital investments, so any revenue not consumed by overhead and operational costs is a *surplus* outside of *both* capital and labor, and yet is *only* distributed to the bearers of *capital* -- shareholders.)

If a wages-only worker has *truly* been able to stay employed for decades while only representing their own labor (and possibly that of fellow workers) *without* selling out in the least, then I'd say that they *deserve* whatever riches they may have been able to accumulate with such honest labor and position...(!)





Maybe on a personal level, but to be frank I'm not so much worried about whether or not Mr. Cappie is living a real life or not, I just want to take his stuff and use it to help other people actually survive.





I think the primary objection to owning a shit ton of stuff is that it's a shitty replacement for a real life.





The primary objection to owning a shitton of stuff comes from the fact that there exists people who own almost literally nothing. Your excess could have easily been distributed to them.


These three arguments are based on *moralistic* reasoning, and, as a materialist Marxist I find them to be problematic, even if I may agree with them in spirit. I'll address each one:

- Since capitalism gives rise to combined and unequal development the problem of poverty isn't one of *material capacity*, but rather of *lack of markets* for providing adequate, human-needs-directed *supply* to where it's needed for humane progress. So while charity may patch up a few holes it can never be a *solution* -- charity as an institution is incapable of satisfying the full capital requirements that *real*, modern urban living conditions require so as to provide permanent humane infrastructure. Additionally, bourgeois governments have used and would use organized violence to oppose any kind of mass-scale d.i.y. projects, as for housing, that might threaten the institution of capital-valued private property, along with their own turf-based interests in it.

- Many rich people -- arguably -- live *better* lives on the whole than their working-class counterparts, *because* of their lifelong access to more and better material options. Any one of us can recall moments in our lives when a bit of extra money would have made all the difference. That's not to say that wealth management itself is necessarily a better way of living, overall, but the material-advantages part, all other things being neutral, can certainly be a deciding factor at the personal level.

- Related to the first point regarding charity and the *distribution* of excess -- could one person's extra stuff *really* be easily whisked to another part of the world without additional cost? If not then who's paying the bill for the transportation of the stuff?





Well I sympathize with that as much is anyone else, but what would be the theoretical justification for it? I mean, is there something else to it other than "that's too much"? Where is the line drawn and why?


I'm going to take this up in more of a future, post-capitalist context, using it to ask how we *might* measure such a thing given the *full collectivization* of the means of mass production to the laborers themselves, far beyond the constraints of the elite population of wealth ownership and their political backers....

Given the end of wage labor and commodity production we might ask what would be worth *doing* with such widespread liberation and what would be worth *possessing*....

I think we'd have to focus on *use* values and "look", moment-by-moment, to see if a person is actually *using* said possessions or if those items would be better off as *public*, *communal* property. For example, if a person was an avid art collector they may *currently* have the means with which to amass an impressive private collection which could potentially give them greater enjoyment and enlightened sensibilities than an average person who *didn't* possess such works.

At the same time we *can't* just shit all over people with means who may have done *worthwhile* things with their privilege -- much of the world's current state of civilization, such as it is, is due to those more noble-minded owners of wealth who decide to engage themselves in matters of *cultural* concern (such as they are). So, by default of ownership they have become the de facto *caretakers* of cultural artifacts that are *not* in the public sector / public domain.

But we *can* ask *how much* a single individual can really *enjoy* or *gain* from their large sum of wealth, in whatever form. At *some* point the wealth has *far outstripped* its use-value to that individual and even the *owner* will admit that they have had to spread the ownership and risk around, as with "offering shares" and "going public".

As revolutionaries we're merely offering that such ownership, responsibility, and risk should be spread *even further* outward, to include *all* of society, in the *most* collective way possible, thereby creating a purely *political* society that has surpassed the need for capital altogether through its exercise of mass economic democracy, or a collectivized politically planned economy.

Towards this end I advocate a particular model that I've developed, if only for illustrative purposes at the present time:





communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://tinyurl.com/ygybheg




Ownership / Control

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only

labor [supply] -- Only active workers may control communist property -- no private accumulations are allowed and any proceeds from work that cannot be used or consumed by persons themselves will revert to collectivized communist property

consumption [demand] -- Individuals may possess and consume as much material as they want, with the proviso that the material is being actively used in a personal capacity only -- after a certain period of disuse any personal possessions not in active use will revert to collectivized communist property