Proudhon is absurd.
By Michael Price.
> http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProProp.html
Bad definition, bad reasoning and bad (not to mention foreordained)
conclusions. For a start I have never heard anyone else say that
property is the "right of increase" and even Proudhon admits there is
other rights inherent in it, meaning that the definition is incomplete. The
right of property is the right to control a thing and deny others such
control. From this the fictional "right of increase" arises because the owner has the right to demand payment or refuse to allow the
productive use of his property. He does not however have the right
to demand any increase due to his ownership of a thing, only to deny
it's use if he doesn't get it. Captain Boycott can demand all the rent
he wants, if people refuse to work his lands he'll get nothing. Thus
Proudhon is shown to be just plain wrong.
Secondly it can be proved that the "right of increase" is not the
power to produce without labour and I will do so. Consider
self-employed workers who produce a capital good with their own
labour and rent it out. While the machine is being rented they are
recieving what Proudhon calls the "right of increase", yet they do not recieve it without labour, merely without _present_ labour. Since there is no reason why present labour should be rewarded and past labour ignored they have as much right to reward as those using their machine.
Now suppose a labourer, Mr Thrifty worked hard and saved up to buy
their machine then rented it out to others. The purchase price comes
from his labour and so therefore does his right of ownership and the
rewards of such. Now consider he retires and lives off the
rent/profits from the capital good. He finds that he can save up
enough to buy a bigger machine and rent it out. Remember the money
he buys it with is the result of his labour as I point out above. Is
not the rent from this bigger machine not also the result of his
labour? If he had not laboured surely he would not have the machine
to gain an income to buy the second machine. So when is the ownership
of capital property actually the power to produce without labour? Only
when the original amount is not the result of labour i.e. when it was
stolen. So property is theft only when stolen.
Of course ownership of capital goods is not the only form of property.
There is such a thing as cash. Suppose the capital good owner above
was unable to afford to invest in a bigger piece of capital equipment,
having only 50% of the purchse price. He could decide not to order
it resulting in one less piece of capital being created or he could
borrow the difference. He goes to see another worker Miserly, who
lends him the rest of the money. Miserly of course does not do this
for free, and why should he? The money is the result of his labour and
therefore he has the right to any benefit the money brings or at least
such share of the benefit as may satisfy him. He settles on 5% (it's
a fully secured loan so little risk). Thrifty recieves payment for his past
labour in the form of rental payments and out of that pays Miserly who
payments called interest as a result of the money that is the result of his
labour. In short Miserly recieves payment for past labour.
I could go on to mention all the types of property except perhaps
unimproved land value[*] I shall sumerise. 1) All property
that can acquired through money can be acquired through labour.
2) All revenues derived from property acquired through labour are
rewards for labour. 3) All revenues derived from revenues described
in the above point 2 are also the result of labour and so on ad infinitum.
4) This means that property can only be theft if the "seed money" from perhaps centuries ago was stolen.
However not content with the ridiculous idea that the right of property
rests in one aspect of it (ignoring the more fundamental qualities). He
makes even more ridiculous claims. That capital is both an arithmetic
and a geometric series. That the payments of rents is a dead loss to
the renter, which is a strange way to think of the only means I have
of not freezing to death as a homeless person. If paying rent is a dead
loss so is buying food, for do I not have to buy more the next day?
He claims that "The right of increase oppresses the proprietor
as well as the stranger.". This seemed strange untill I read
further and realised the "oppression" was that if the
proprietor did not act in a certain way he would get less money. Oh,
the horror! It ranks up there with the Holocost and the Spanish
Inquistion, NOT!
He askes stupid questions (that he intends to be rhetorical) like
"What! if the husbandman forfeited his right to the land as soon
as he ceased to occupy it, would he become more covetous?". In
short "HELL YES!". Under land-ownership and rents you can
leave the land for a year, come back and know that it you could still
use it. In the abscence of property you'd better not have a long
honeymoon or you'll come back to see find while you were ploughing
your bride your neighbours were ploughing your fields.
"Would laboring men, who respect -- much to their own detriment --
the pretended rights of the idler, violate the natural rights of the
producer and the manufacturer?" again HELL YES! The producer
has maybe a couple of shotguns and maybe a .308, the "idler"
is backed by a government with tanks, aircraft and artillery. Which
would you rather fuck with? And how are "natural rights"
to a piece of land supposed to help retain possession without a right
of property? The law he proposes is in effect, you have right of
occupation, unless someone pushes you off.
He implies that a system where "the husbandman forfeited his
right to the land as soon as he ceased to occupy it" would not
result in "taxing another's labour" but think. If you
worked the best land in the county wouldn't people want to work
it instead? After all by definition it produces more for the same
labour. Couldn't you easily demand payment for ceasing work on the
land and allowing someone else to work it? Would there be any other
way to get good land? So in the end his system would end up with
land ownership with the paralysing proviso "use it or lose
it". People would be unable to use good land unless they
acquired property to pay for the transer fee. Property he says
does not exist.
He claims that "The proprietor who asks to be rewarded for the
use of a tool, or the productive power of his land, takes for granted,
then, that which is radically false; namely, that capital produces by
its own effort,". When did anyone claim that? Tools by definition
add to productive power of the labour they are added to.
He contines, " -- and, in taking pay for this imaginary product,
he literally receives something for nothing.". If the increase in
productive power tools give is nothing I would like to see his idea of
quot;something". If he thinks that he can produce as much without
an anvil as I can with a foundry then let him refuse payment for all
tools and see how much wealthier he becomes. He has committed the old
socialist blunder of saying "This cannot produce without help,
therefore this cannot produce". In fact tools produce an increase
in production and this increase is valuable. I hate having to say this
but it seems socialists have not learned what savages in the jungles
knew since before they contacted civilisation.[**] This is because
savages are uneducated in western thought, but still capable of it,
whereas socialists are educated in it, but not capable of it.
He goes on to postualate that "Property is impossible,
because, with a given capital, Production is proportional to labor,
not to property." In other words, given that there is a certain
amount of capital, production changes with labour not capital. I could
as easily say "Labour is impossible, because, with a given labour,
Production is proportional to capital, not to labour.". It would
make as much sense. I could go on but I'm sick of it. This man talks
crap and I've read too much crap on usenet to mine the literature of
centuries for more of it.
[*] This deserves it's own post, hell it's own thread - and it probably has
one going at any given moment.
[**] I am thinking here of the tribes the Leahry brothers contacted in
PNG who were smart enough to invest in steel tools without ever contacting
white men. They understood the value of tools and trade, why can't
socialists?