Difference between private and personal property?

[PinkoCommieScum]

This "alienation" [caused by private property] can, of course, only be abolished given two practical premises. For it to become an "intolerable" power, i.e. a power against which men make a revolution, it must necessarily have rendered the great mass of humanity "propertyless"

So personal property is your house, clothes, etc., right? What exactly is private property?

[NovelGentry]

Personaly property isn't so much the house itself, but your right to the house as a personal object. Lack of personal property would destroy individualism, as you'd never have anything that you could express yourself with.

From the Manifesto:

Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labor.....

To be a capitalist, is not only to have a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society can it be set in motion.

Capital is, therefore not personal, it is a social power.

When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.

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Private property as such is indicative of a social condition.

Back to the Manifesto:

Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation.

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Thus you eliminate the social characteristic of property.

Once again from the Manifesto (although this actually backtracks):

But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is soley due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the nonexistence of any property for the immense majority of society.

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Private property is thus a social aspect of property, which enables one man to subjugate the labor of another. It becomes a property which is held onto by the capitalists, if the working class indeed had a right to acquire private property they would have nothing by which to make us submit our labor power to them.

Indeed this seems confusing, but let me go back to what has become the "toothbrush" argument here.

When asked if I believed someone had the right to own a toothbrush, I responded no, on the basis alone that if someone has the right to own it they could force someone else who needed one to work for it. You have to look at this on a much more massive scale though, try to think of it without money as money abstracts the nature of property.

Private property is done away with only when the accumulated labor of society is shared by all. There is indeed no reason to sell your labor to an individual capitalist for say, a house, if indeed all houses constructed (by the labor of others) were shared with equal right among men.

What makes this property strictly private in nature is that it is the capitalist who own the lot of it, and thus can subjugate the labor of the working class. While you may indeed acquire a house for your labor, however, you would have to continue to work in order to survive because the whole of property is indeed held privately by the bourgeoisie.

Is it possible to acquire enough of their private property so that you no longer have to work? Possibly, but not so long as surplus value exists as you will never be paid an exchange value equivalent to the use value which you create for them. Seen individually it seems possible, but seen as a class antagonism, which it is, it is obviously impossible. The whole of the working class could never buy the whole of the property they produce.

Does that clarify?

[Vallegrande]

I anger at the use of private property. I like to take hikes throughout the wilderness. When I come upon a sign "Private Property: No Trespassing" I walk right past it, for I did not notice that this land, so noticeable by countless people, was in fact one man's private property.

[NovelGentry]

To expand on the toothbrush argument as an illustration:

Say that only a single toothbrush existed in the world. In view of private property one man would own this toothbrush, and no one else would have a right to it, unless that man deemed they did. This would allow this single individual the ability to subjugate the labor of all people who want that toothbrush (or need it).

This example seems foolish because you would probably ask yourself, why would we only make one toothbrush? The answer is, we wouldn't. However, this is no more foolish to the question of, "So does that mean I could just use your toothbrush?" To which the answer is subsequent to the answer of the first foolish question, you wouldn't have to.

[Latifa]

What if an object could come under both categories?

[NovelGentry]

What if? It makes no difference, I would say in many cases they do. Private property remains a social aspect to property, it is this social aspect we should wish to abolish.

[RAT]

Personaly property isn't so much the house itself, but your right to the house as a personal object. Lack of personal property would destroy individualism, as you'd never have anything that you could express yourself with.

First, I may not know the definitions of private and personal properties, however I could try to discover their meanings.

Second, what is property?, how does one acquires that right?

I will assume, that property is which one labored for. For example, land can not be own, but if you plant a seed, and looked out for it, its fruits are yours.
So property is aquired through labor.
Do we agree that far?

Third, the distinction between personal, and private property is solely expressed between personal (untangible,) such as the knowledge in a certain field. One could right a book. Education is a personal property. The books and all necessities needed to gain that knowledge if you could show a receipt, they are your private property.( tangible, materials)

Do you agree that far?

So why property right is so bad, except when talking of personal property?
First, one always aquires some personal properties, through the experience of living. However, private property rights are problematic. They encourage competition among the members of the society. Yes, for a capitalistic system, it is what is needed. Competition will raise production. However, what is the cost of competition?
Most of all industrialized nations have their poors. Those that lost in the competition.
Private property, creates envy, since it expressed pride.

I am of the beleif that I own my body, my mind and nothing more. The rest they come and go. Which tools I have now are different than the one I had once, and so they will be another day.
Because of that beleif it entails that I be an Anarchist, a Revolutionaire. I have no authority above me. As Pythagoras said, to be free a man must have command of himself. Not that others could command him. However, we live in a different world.
Every day we do which we are told. We do not live alone.

Mankind formed society because of fear, then it became a necessity. If one man saw a prey, usually the kill was his to feast, however, they shared as in the animal kingdom. They shared not because the wished to, but when one had killed, one knows, one too could be killed. However, society supposely permitted the allocation of the wealth among all members. As with the beast, even the vaultures and the hyiena have a feast. Not so with the human, society.

It became a necessity for the survival of the strong. A few leads, and manipulate, they are the governements of nations. The masses, the populace, even the intellectuals are the puppets in their show.

Look at history, to what revolutions lead to? After, removing an asshole, we put a different one in place. Why Che didn't stay in Cuba, and enjoyed being a member of that revolutionairy elite (Castro). But instead, followed the path of a true revolutionaire and went on to fight in Bolivia. He was an idealist, a visionaire, a revolutionaire. I do not think that if he was alive, he will be pleased with the situation in Cuba, and all over Latin America.

The imperialist US, is expanding now towards the middle east. However, Latin america is still struggling. In Peru, in Brazil, Colombia, in Venezuela, in Mexico. One can see the US influence and support for some asshole dictators in those regions, and some other place like Nepal (China is involved). The masses are poor.
The poor does not wish for property, but that the labor that he produced be his and his familly or tribe.
It is strange, that when living in third world countries, with the poors, I learned what kindess was about. Even that they had little they shared.
It was not logical to them that if one had food, and another none, that the one with food will eat alone.
We live in a society where a man can own many things, more that what he could use, but people go hungry.
The majority of the poor in the US are Children (YES in the US some CHILDREN are hungry).
It is also strange, that the leading religion in that country is Christianity, Because if my learning is right. Did Jesus asked from his followers, to sell all belongings, and give to the poors, and then follow him.

[DaCuBaN]

Lack of personal property would destroy individualism, as you'd never have anything that you could express yourself with.

Your "self expression" is in that which you create, not that which you hoarde. 'Nuff said.

[Vallegrande]

Property should be abolished completely. It is the reason why wars occurr. One person claims property without any others' consent. An example is the "Manifest Destiny" where ruthless colonialists drove westward, claiming "their" land, not caring if that land was also the Natives'. They did not understand sharing, and called Natives "savages" to help contribute to their greed. No wonder there is violence in South America, Africa, Middle East. Obviously "terrorists" are savages too? One person may claim something even when it belonged to others before.

You know the Birthday Song? Yeah, that is private property owned by one family. Well, they got a patent on it I should say. It was at a restaurant where the Birthday song was sung, and some people got in trouble for that. Property sucks! :(

[leftist resistance]

Property should be abolished completely

That cannot be done my friend.Property are things that you own(i think so).That includes your clothes,your tv,etc.

[NovelGentry]

So property is aquired through labor.
Do we agree that far?

Yes


Third, the distinction between personal, and private property is solely expressed between personal (untangible,) such as the knowledge in a certain field. One could right a book. Education is a personal property. The books and all necessities needed to gain that knowledge if you could show a receipt, they are your private property.( tangible, materials)

Do you agree that far?

No, if private property is indeed something other than a social condition (a mere abstraction of the true nature of property) then you destroy any further argument for why certain people have so much private property.

If we agree that property is acquired through labor, and private property is indeed tangible materials, then they are tangible materials acquired through labor. This says nothing about the actual private nature of private property. Property I would argue is indeed acquired through labor, it is both tangible and untangible and thus is a product of mental labor, physical labor, or a combination of the two.

In short, there is nothing about your definition which makes it private. While this is great to argue that private property doesn't really exist, it is not the generally accepted idea of the term, and it does exist, if it didn't exist the proletariat would not have a problem.


So why property right is so bad, except when talking of personal property?

Property rights are not so bad, no one ever said they were. Private property rights, are indeed bad. What makes the private, which you fail to see in your lacking definition up above is the fact that some people have it, others don't, the ruling class has it, the working class does not, and as such it is a social condition, one which more to the point allows the ruling class to subjugate the labor of the working class.


They encourage competition among the members of the society.

They do nothing of the such. They only serve to allow subjugation of the members of society that do not have it. If you want to see competition within a society that has no concept of private property go look at software licensed under the GPL. There are a number of pieces of software that do generally the same thing, but specifically each one has certai advanced features which feeds the competition between the two - whether this is derived by need or the ego to have the largest user base does not matter, competition exists well outside of societies with private property.


Yes, for a capitalistic system, it is what is needed. Competition will raise production. However, what is the cost of competition?

In a capitalist society capital is what is required to raise production, and in doing so only serves to create more capital. There is no cost of competition, only benefits. This is something laissez-fair economics as the plus side of capitalism when in reality it is inherent in almost any society, without it society would have never moved forward.


Most of all industrialized nations have their poors. Those that lost in the competition.

You have now changed the true nature of competition into a competition of wealth, he who has the most capital is the winner of the competition. Does competition relate to the advancement of technology or the advancement of capital? They are independent of one another within a free society -- yet you link them here because you are unable to see beyond bourgeois principles.


I am of the beleif that I own my body, my mind and nothing more.

If my own you mean that those are your private property, then yes, I would agree with that. Although technically you are the product of someone elses labor, your parents... but this would conflict with the principles of freedom among conscious beings and thus we would only be freed upon their death. While this is truth, it's not a very good way to look at things.


The rest they come and go. Which tools I have now are different than the one I had once, and so they will be another day.

The rest may be products of your labor and as such are certainly property, whether they are personal or private or not depends completely on the social aspects they entail.


Mankind formed society because of fear, then it became a necessity. If one man saw a prey, usually the kill was his to feast, however, they shared as in the animal kingdom.

This is indicative of material conditions, particularly when you say "then it became necessity." It became necessity because no one is willing to go back to the stone age, because material conditions now deemed that society exist. With that material conditions of society were improved by society, and those new material conditions deemed new social aspects. We know this already from Marx, productive forces outgrow society, and society has to be transformed. Capitalism has accelerated this beyond belief, and thus it is moving ever faster to a time when a new society will have to be born of it, one which the productive forces cannot outgrow because indeed the productive forces of society are now in equilibrium with society, society will grow as productive forces increase, and if productive forces wane so will society.


It became a necessity for the survival of the strong. A few leads, and manipulate, they are the governements of nations. The masses, the populace, even the intellectuals are the puppets in their show.

All of which is dictated by material conditions of present society, as post-revolutionary society (in any form) will be dictated by the material conditions that once were a part of this society before they outgrew it.


But instead, followed the path of a true revolutionaire and went on to fight in Bolivia. He was an idealist, a visionaire, a revolutionaire. I do not think that if he was alive, he will be pleased with the situation in Cuba, and all over Latin America.

Agreed, but it was never the intention of Castro to transform society beyond a certain social aspect. It is arguable whether or not he is a social democrat/socialist/communist. Beyond that it is even more arguable (if he is communist) how exactly he believes is the best method to go about it.

Note: This could be because of my lack of personal knowledge on Castro, if he has indeed claimed and ideology as his own, I am simply ignorant of that fact. Whether or not he fits this ideology is another question alltogether.

It would appear you tried to make a valid attempt at explaining persona/private property and moreso why it deemed you be anarchist. While I think your ideas are wrong, and I have explained why up above, I do not see Marxism as conflicting with your idea that you own only your body and mind. So these are really not principles which make you anarchist, more so they are simply principles that back why you believe in stateless and classless society, which we all do (or so I think with the exception of those in OI).

[NovelGentry]

Property should be abolished completely. It is the reason why wars occurr. One person claims property without any others' consent.

You appear to be talking about property as land, while this is a form of property it is not specifically what we're talking about, although it falls under the same principles. Land can certainly something that can be acquired through labor, but not in the traditional sense. In the traditional sense land has been acquired through labor, just not the labor of man. It has instead been acquired through the labor of nature, thus it should not be personal property OR private property.

Edit: I just want to note I'm aware this is a sliperly slope argument as nature is the reason everything is here, including what we make houses out of. This is probably what that last guy I responded to thought was in line with his view on anarchism. But in that sense you are also a product of nature and thus would not even own yourself. In the end we have to draw the line somewhere unless we are to become extreme naturalists who do nothing for fear of imposing on the ways of nature.

[Vallegrande]

Property should be abolished completely



That cannot be done my friend.Property are things that you own(i think so).That includes your clothes,your tv,etc.

Yeah true 'tis why I said should, knowing that it is nearly impossible, though not totally.

About nature, it doesn't matter if it is nature or not, just that someone claims something is theirs without the consent of others. Property in my opinion is greed. When someone claims something to be theirs they dont put into account other peoples' welfare. That something could have been shared long before someone came along and stole it through property rights. BTW, when did property start existing?

[NovelGentry]

About nature, it doesn't matter if it is nature or not, just that someone claims something is theirs without the consent of others. Property in my opinion is greed. When someone claims something to be theirs they dont put into account other peoples' welfare. That something could have been shared long before someone came along and stole it through property rights. BTW, when did property start existing?

This is demi-bullshit. While some of us follow communism on moral grounds, keeping the welfare of all people in mind. It is driven to itself by material conditions, not because we as humans should or shouldn't treat each other better. This is something that a lot of people misunderstand and it is the primary reason we see things like "Communism would work if everyone was nicer and not selfish."

I say demi-bullshit because you bring in the following sentence, "that something could have been shared long before....."

And this is of course true, but still not on a moral level, on the level alone that it is not theirs. They indeed contributed no labor time to the creation. The products of man have both an individual aspect and a collective aspect, both must be taken into account when you donsider it's price to man, not it's price in the traditional sense, but in the sense that it is costing something to produce that, namely the labor time put into the product. But that's going off topic.

What I am trying to say here is that there are scenarios when a worker has actually "paid" for the thing he is claiming to own. For example, if you were to build a computer, you would have to take into account that certain parts of the computer may not have been made by machine, and thus in order to specifically own that computer you would have to in essence pay the labor time of all the other individuals who contributed time to it. This is indeed how we TRULY equalize people on a material level before communism itself is able to overcome this with a growth in productive forces. But more to the point, until communism is reached by the people, where they will not contribute only to what they want, but to what is needed. The first material equality is possible under a state which enforces it, people would say that the second one is aswell, but then they are not truly seeing that, and thus would never be prepaired to move on.

The biggest offender to this is of course the capitalist, who pays workers a flat rate, and exchange value, and in return is given a product with a use value (a true value of all the workers time). The cost to the person making the product is then the more of a serires of exchange values, as everything at one level was produced by a worker, with the exception of when it was a strictly raw unprocessed material (say for example iron ore in the ground). This string of exchange vlues lower than use values creates the ability to profit, of course this does not come under the control of a single capitalist. One may produce the metal, another may use the metal to create say a case, and a computer manufacturer then uses the case for their computer. At each level the capitalist at the top of the chain makes profit by exploiting the worker.

This is indeed why the bourgeoisie controls all private property - as they are taking the surplus value i. e. the *price* of labor-time which exceeds the price of their exchange value, that price is often called the use value. But I wanted to explain more where use value comes from. That price is of course the burden to the worker, as if the worker had the option of making products, they would only make products they had use for (even if that use was to satisfy desire). What the capitalist always aims to do is increase the total use value they have created, usually by increasing the amount of product made by giving some form of automation to the labor, in proportion to that, the exchange value does not change.

While I went into a fair bit of depth here, we can see that if indeed the property is a product of labor, more to the point labor time, then indeed the act of the capitalist is theft. Once again, where it becomes private is further created by the social aspect of the property, which is not only STOLEN, but then used to subjugate MORE LABOR TIME! (If you want to buy soemthing you have to work).

Once again, while this is a moral problem for most of us, I personally find it sickening, it is above all based on very material things that determine where that exploitation comes from. More to the point the productive forces will at some point outweigh what this system can sustain, and thus will be replaced with a new system. As someone said before, this could be why a "depression" would be indicative of a the time for revolution, but no means a cause for one.

The only true way to sustain infinite productive forces of man, is to have a system where those productive forces can never outgrow their people who own them. Communism is indeed that system. We know that the productive forces grow with the population, as more is needed to be produced and more people are needed to produce it -- thus a system where those people are the *owners* of the productive forces is one which is set in equilibrium.

[Vallegrande]

At each level the capitalist at the top of the chain makes profit by exploiting the worker.


I'm checking out this book by John Kenneth Galbraith's Money, he brings up that fact. "The loss of those who recieved the lagging wages was in turn the gain of those who paid them and received the high and increasing prices. The result was high profits.." Every aspect of capitalism works in this way. What pisses me off is that corporations are able to have rights equal to humans. When I learned that I couldn't believe it!

Oh yeh sorry for the demi-bullshit :lol: . Sometimes I may not be clear as I expect myself to be. I don't know any way to put it, other than that. Just that something was used for material gain instead of spiritual gain is bullshit in itself.

[leftist resistance]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2004, 06:33 PM


About nature, it doesn't matter if it is nature or not, just that someone claims something is theirs without the consent of others. Property in my opinion is greed. When someone claims something to be theirs they dont put into account other peoples' welfare. That something could have been shared long before someone came along and stole it through property rights. BTW, when did property start existing?
You mean stealing?
Stealing sucks