Common Property

[robear]

I'm taking a intro to economics class this semester, and the teacher's textbook includes arguments against common property. The main argument that I would like help refuting is as follows:

He compares common property to everybody having a car. You are free to drive you car anywhere you like, but when you leave, you need to leave your keys in it. Somebody else would then be free to take your car and drive it someone else. Because nobody owns their own car (no private property), quality will fall.

In a nutshell, the professor argues that common property will result in shirking and other inefficiencies. Private property helps minimize these problems.

What are some good arguments against private property? What are some good arguments for common property? Thanks!

[Ostrinski]

We communists distinguish between private property (private control over means of production) and personal property (possessions). Private property is used for the sole purpose of labor exploitation while possessions are appropriated solely for your personal use.

[Caj]

That's really a bullshit strawman argument. Cars are (generally) not means of production, and are therefore personal, and not private, property. I don't ever recall encountering somebody who advocates the collectivization of personal property.

[Revolution starts with U]

Isn't that how u-hauls work? ..which would be "cars" as a means of production...ish type thing.

[Caj]

Isn't that how u-hauls work? ..which would be "cars" as a means of production...ish type thing.

Yeah, that would be an exception. I meant in general cars are personal property.

[robear]

Thanks for clarifying the difference between private property and personal property. So if I understand this correctly, communism wishes to abolish the private control over means of production. Do you feel efficiency would be sacrificed in the process? Besides ending the exploitation of the proletariat, what other arguments are there for abolishing private property? Do you feel production would be more efficient under communism? Why?

[Ostrinski]

Do you feel efficiency would be sacrificed in the process?I don't see how it would. What do you mean by efficiency? I would imagine a democratic planning of the economy would be very efficient in praxis.


Besides ending the exploitation of the proletariat, what other arguments are there for abolishing private property?It all pretty much goes back to ending wage labor, capital accumulation, and generalized commodity production.

[Ted Lawrence]

In another thread (can't remember which) I did see people arguing that cars are a means of production, arguing for something similar to what the teacher was describing :confused:

I don't consider them as such, but some apparently do.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Thanks for clarifying the difference between private property and personal property. So if I understand this correctly, communism wishes to abolish the private control over means of production. Do you feel efficiency would be sacrificed in the process? Besides ending the exploitation of the proletariat, what other arguments are there for abolishing private property? Do you feel production would be more efficient under communism? Why?
1. Research and technological developments can be pursued without being limited by an artificial quality such as "profitability". What will be considered "profitable" will be what benefits society, not what generates the most cash.

2. Potentially. People generally do better work when it's something they want to work on, rather than something they're commanded to work on by a boss. For a modern example, look at the open source movement and the incredibly high quality software that has emerged from something that's by-and-large a hobby movement.

[Revolution starts with U]

Yeah, that would be an exception. I meant in general cars are personal property.

My point was simply to show that the U-Haul company practices exactly what this guy made allegory to, in a private property enterprise. The idea that this "leave the keys in it" principle is the basis of socialist possession is absurd at best.

A better allegory would be too say "if someone has the idea for a functioning taxi business, he must make it a voluntary and free enterprise amongst the people who do the work first, and society at large when necessary." It has nothing to do with personal possessions, and everything to do with socialized productive processes.

Things that are truly private can remain that way, like sex in your bedroom, or smoking a doob on your couch. But things that are already, and must be, socialized (meaning dependant on a society, not able to even come into existence by one man alone) are to be made Socialist.

[robear]

I don't see how it would. What do you mean by efficiency? I would imagine a democratic planning of the economy would be very efficient in praxis.


I mean efficiency in the workplace. My econ professor argues that under communism, workplaces would be overstaffed and shirking would be much more prevalent.

[Ostrinski]

I mean efficiency in the workplace. My econ professor argues that under communism, workplaces would be overstaffed and shirking would be much more prevalent.There would be full employment with shorter working hours. If shirking every became a problem, means would be developed to deal with them.

[robear]

Thanks for the help everyone!

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

We communists distinguish between private property (private control over means of production) and personal property (possessions). Private property is used for the sole purpose of labor exploitation while possessions are appropriated solely for your personal use.

Yes, no one is talking about collectivising our toothbrushes, lol, quality would fall. Much more though, if your goal as a private owner of property is to exploit your employees as efficient as possible, look for the lowest costs possible, the quality of the capitalists' private property is therefore objectively hindered. Also, private property over the means of production and surplus value of the workers, is an ABSOLUTE catastrophe, as when the collective capitalist class does not pay their workers enough, they cannot buy back their production. Over the decades instruments have been made to go over this problem of capitalist production and the market; private property is an utter fail and is limited in its capabilities; But, i would as a marxist argue, so is the organisation of capitalist production. If the workers such as in China controlled their own production and means of production, they would not use chemicals that poison them as is frequently the case in for instance Apple's low "cost" (as in price) constant capital products; as the healthier they are the better they are able to work. Capitalism and especially class production, is an utter fail and limited in its capabilities. We are seeing that in the "Falling Rate of Profit" for instance at the current stage in capitalism and at the moment, in which it is not as attractive for the capitalist class to invest into producing the means of production but banking. "The Boundaries of the Market" [Die Grenzen des Marktes] by Rosa Luxemburg, a very good essay which i recommend.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Thanks for clarifying the difference between private property and personal property. So if I understand this correctly, communism wishes to abolish the private control over means of production. Do you feel efficiency would be sacrificed in the process? Besides ending the exploitation of the proletariat, what other arguments are there for abolishing private property? Do you feel production would be more efficient under communism? Why?

Another argument for this is quite simple. In the private property market capitalist way of producing, having "Efficient"(A Word that stupid capitalists love) products is as a matter of fact, UNprofitable. Say for instance the board of directors of Apple decided to hire a president that ordered the modification from complaints about the breakability of ipods. If the President of Apple decides to use the workers' surplus (profit) for actually investing into bettering the products quality, they would have no profit left for propaganda (advertisement). If you don't brainwash teens into believing the ipod is the most important thing to have and makes you happy(in this individualising society), the next company will exploit that emotional crippledness (which btw. Albert Einstein thought was "the worst evil of captialism" in his essay 'Why Socialism?', a good read) of the individual in capitalism for their monopolisation of the market. You see, Apple uses Large amounts of live labour which it can exploit, there are armies of workers that produce more value than they actually get paid, this is something good in this stage of capitalism as it gives you tons of profit to invest into designing etc. Private property is not only exploiting workers and driving Billions of humans into poverty (about 80% of humanity lives in poverty) but is ruining our planet as the capitalist organisation of production is largely incapable to use safer products or cleaner energy, it's a really really primitive system that needs to be smashed!

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Regarding Apple, it is also mainly not profitable for them to radically increase their products quality as they take such huge amounts of surplus value from Chinese low wage workers, that having an ipod warranty for their customers of ~2-3 years is still hugely profitable for them, as even giving a second (or third or fourth) ipod for free still is stabilizing for their production cycle and expansion, bringing more live labor into the production process. This, along with new propaganda waves of increasing new models, secures customers and expansionism, and mainly, their monopoly. Notice, Apple has huge profits while fully automised computer chip manufacturers whose production process is nearly fully automised, have problems staying afloat while having large sells. No one really understands this besides marxists, but once more and more industrial sectors are forced by market competition to gradually heighten their productive forces, capitalism will have huge problems of investment. This is what many marxists believe is happening now: Productive forces have increased so much, the Rate of Profit (or exploitation rate of the average worker) has fallen from 50% in 1850 to under 2% now, it is now under the financial interest rate which means it is more lucrative for the capitalist class to invest into banking (i.e. stealing capital) than invest into the actual economy. The Means of Production sector investment has fallen now under the investment into the consumption sector in all countries, even China now. Just yesterday the AlJazeera news was reporting steel production has fallen, this is a sign that the consumption sector has fallen now after we had the gradual fall of investment into the means of production sector.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't see how it would. What do you mean by efficiency?Right. Capitalism is not abstractly efficient it's efficient, for the most part, at turning a profit. When businesses are talking about time management or increasing efficiency what do they really mean? Less waste in materials, less pollution, less materials cost, more quality for the time spent, an more pleasant division of labor to produce the same quantity and quality but without burning out or overworking people? No it's none of these, more efficiency means lowering labor costs, making workers produce more in less time or produce the same total with less workers.

A democratic and collective system for production would have an inherent motivation to make production more efficient but for different reasons and with different results. We'd want to minimize wasteful production and production that is not important for what people want and need. So right off the top of my head, by doing away with copyrighted media formats, you don't need 3 or 4 different methods for watching a show on TV, a couple of choices could be offered if there was no consumer consensus on the format but then any machine in your house could read any format. Every phone made could be a smart phone with all the bells and whistles so that people don't have 3 separate devices or more for checking email, mp3s, and mobile calls. Also right off the bat, the well documented fact of capitalist production, planned obsolescence, would also be thrown out. If we spend our labor building something we'd want it to last and be modifiable to adapt to technological improvements.

Capitalism is inherently wasteful and inefficient for securing human needs - the very basic Marxist point of the system going into crisis because of overproduction while people also starve at the same time demonstrates the absurdity of the claim that capitalism is efficient when removed from the context of profit-making.

[robbo203]

We communists distinguish between private property (private control over means of production) and personal property (possessions). Private property is used for the sole purpose of labor exploitation while possessions are appropriated solely for your personal use.

Yes this is the standard argument that is made and it has much merit. However, I would not rule out altogether an intermediate class of goods between commonly owned producer goods and privately owned consumer goods. There is something of a grey area between these otherwise clear-cut categories


Many homes stock things like equipment and small scale tools in garages, basements, lofts and so on. Take something like an extending ladder. Is it a means of production - a producer good? Hmmm. Perhaps I might use my extending ladder once in a while to clear the guttering of leaves. For the rest of the time, however, it just languishes in the basement.

It strikes me that, contrary to Robear's professor's assertions about the inefficiencies of common property, the opposite is true. Private property unnecesarily makes for duplication and waste. In a capitalist market society we have a streetful of houses populated by private consumers who dutifully follow the siren calls of the advertisers, get into their private cars and head out to some monstrosity of an out-of-town shopping complex, there to purchase their very own private extending ladder. Smugly content with the said purchase, they haul it out the next day, prop it against the wall, clean the gutters and pack it away in the basement where it is forgotten about until next autumn.

Is this an efficient way of doing things? You know, I seriously dont think it is. Personally, and I can only speak personally, I would imagine that, come a sane communist society where goods are distributed on a free access basis and people voluntarily cooperate to produce them, that there will be quite a few of these intermediate-type goods - like extending ladders , power tools, lawnmovers and what not - that will be much better held collectively at a very localised neighbourhood level, perhaps, and simply used on "as and when" basis. So you pop into your neighbourhood storeroom , simply pick up the ladder and return it when you've used it. If there is no ladder at the time - no problem! You either pick one up from the big distribution store downtime or wait until the nighbourhood ladder comes back. Generally speaking, people are adaptable enough to fit in with each's other arrangements. If Jack is using the ladder today Jill can easily postpone her plan to clean the guttering till tomorrow

What are the advantages of holding a stock of intermediate goods of this nature on a neighbourhood, rather than private, basis? I can think of at least 4

1) It signficantly reduces the overall demand for things like ladders and so saves on resouces
2) It makes for less clutter in our homes and so frees up space
3) It fosters and consolidates local community bonds and a "sense of community"
4) It allows for specialised maintenance and repair of equipment . So If Jack is not mechanically-minded and trying to repair the neighbourhood lawnmower would only make things worse. it would be helpful to know that Jill, two doors down the road, is skilled at repairing such things

There are other larger items such as cars where the same principle might apply - despite what some people here say about cars. I think this is a cultural thing frankly. In a highly mobile capitalist society people attach huge importance to their car. It has become almost an extension of themselves (or, as the joke goes , their private parts - people who drive flash cars are said to over-compensate for their small willies). It allows them to drive around in their own privatised little bubble of space from home to wage slavery in the office/factory and back home again.

Im not too sure that same kind of unhealthy alienated festishised attitude towards our cars would exist in a communist society. Incidentally there have been schemes that have attempted to distribute means of personal transport such as bicycles on a free access basis. The most famous example is that of the Amsterdam Provo's "white bicycle plan" back in the 1960s. See here:
(http://www.negations.net/the-dutch-provos-burlesque-neo-liberals-or-anarchist-utopians/)


Of course such schemes are almost bound by their very nature to fail inside the framework of a commodity producing society but their potential for a genuine communist society is plain enough to see....

[Thirsty Crow]

He compares common property to everybody having a car. You are free to drive you car anywhere you like, but when you leave, you need to leave your keys in it. Somebody else would then be free to take your car and drive it someone else. Because nobody owns their own car (no private property), quality will fall. There is no clearly demonstrated cause-and-effect pattern in this hypothetical case. Why would quality fall if nobody were to own a car but, let's say, use a developed system of car renting (with minimal compensation in labour time "cheques", for instance; and actually, I think this would be a wortwhile project for a global communist society)?
I hope you understand that this is a mere assertion without any evidence or even a logical arguments. Its dogmatism of the worst kind.


In a nutshell, the professor argues that common property will result in shirking and other inefficiencies. Private property helps minimize these problems. Again, mere assertion. Try to ask yourself what is the average "lifetime" of a piece of technology like stereos produced nowadays, and how that relates to any notion of quality. If anything, the pressures of competition arising from the private property over the means of production tend to exhibit themselves in the form of attempts at cutting the costs of production, something which significantly hightens the possibility for a drop in product quality.

[Regicollis]

Try ask your professor what he means by "efficiency". That word by itself is essentially meaningless - you need to agree on what a thing has to be efficient at to determine whether it is efficient or not. A knife is efficient at cutting things but not efficient at driving in screws.

It is clear however what your professor means by efficiency. He means efficient at accumulating capital. This is basically all that capitalism lets you optimize for. In a democratic mode of production other measures would be used like utility value, environmental impact, workplace safety etc.

[Blake's Baby]

I mean efficiency in the workplace. My econ professor argues that under communism, workplaces would be overstaffed and shirking would be much more prevalent.

I think the other way to look at this is, unmployment woud cease to exist (ie, 'workplaces would be overstaffed') and we'd all get more holidays (ie, 'shirking would be much more prevalent'). I think you should agree with your professor, and point out that he's actually arguing capitalism is shit.

[Strannik]

I believe that the difference between personal and private property is not so clear-cut. If I lease a car (in capitalism), I usually have to take it to obligatory check-ups. They ensure that I keep it in good order, since I have to pay for them. In fact, I'll keep leased car in better order, because I *have* to take it to check-ups. If it were mine, I would probably skip some. Socialist society could probably use the same tactic - if a property is used in common, it does not mean that it is used anonymously.

Another thing is - it seems to me, that when in socialism you no longer want your toothbrush or car, this resource should again become social property so it can be recycled. No reason being wasteful. So its more like usership, not ownership of personal property.

One could say that arguing with bourgeois economists is like arguing with a medieaval scholars about properties of angels - even if you disprove something, what's the point?

Their models are perfectly logical, for the most part. Its just that they have nothing to do with reality (or, rather, are deliberately ignoring other half of it). So bourgeois economics is as much about ignoring as it is about explaining. So that's one tactic for arguing - point out the part that they want to ignore.

[l'Enfermé]

I would not shy away from sharing the same toothbrush with my proletarian brothers and sisters! But seriously, like people said, when Commies/Anarchists write "private property", that doesn't include personal property.

Also, has your teacher ever heard of buses?

[Blake's Baby]

I think the other way to look at this is, unmployment woud cease to exist (ie, 'workplaces would be overstaffed') and we'd all get more holidays (ie, 'shirking would be much more prevalent'). I think you should agree with your professor, and point out that he's actually arguing capitalism is shit.

Sorry, this was a bit hurried last time, but as a point of attack, I think you could argue that as capitalism is only motivated by 'profit' (ie, screwing everyone to get as much money as possible) it has no means of assessing the negative consequences except in material terms; but then again these would include...

...unemployment means extra money spent on welfare payments; policing to keep the poor from robbing the rich; extra payments for health services that result from 1-half the population being overworked and 2-half the population being too poor and stressed and depressed to look after themselves (eg welfare rates being calculated on the basis that families can travel to get cheap decent food, when many poorer families on welfare can't afford to run a car to get to those supermarkets - at least, that's how it works here, I doubt it's different there); banking and finance only move money around, millions and millions of people are doing essentially meaningless jobs that only exist because of private property; war and government in general take up a massive slice of economic output and generally this doesn't come back - war machines don't generate new profits they just sit there, costing trillions of dollars.

All these are economic burdens (inefficiencies) in capitalism that result from the unequal division of wealth in society. This I think demolishes the 'efficiency' argument - I mean, how much social wealth is actually invested in production? 20%, maybe? That would imply that only 20% of capitalism is actually making things people need, and the other 80% is inefficiency.

Beyond the economic cost there are social and environmental costs. 1/4 of the population of the western world will suffer some form of mental health disorder. It's not difficult to get figures for the number of people who exist on starvation wages in the world, I'm sure you can get those from the UN website (ILO maybe?) or whatnot; the WHO should be able to give you statistics on how many babies die from preventable causes linked to lack of food medicine and basic sanitation. Agree with your professor that it is very inefficient to keep these 30,000 children a day alive and the rest of the planet healthy and sane.

Also, I'd agree that's inefficient not to poison the planet. Oil spills and chemical leaks, nuclear reactor breakdowns and the like are terribly efficient and weed out the weak and useless, as do bad houses that collapse in earthquakes and floods and hurricanes, as it's more efficient not to build them properly.

So if socialism means the 'inefficiency' of not having unemployment, social and personal breakdown, environmental catastrophe, terrible working conditions, endless wars, and millions of preventable deaths every year, ask if 'efficiency' is really worth pursuing.

That's the way I'd go anyway.