The difference is kind of simple: is it something only you are using? It’s your, personal property. Your bicycle, your home.
Is it something that is intended for communal usage? A park, a factory, a tram network, a hospital? It’s a public property and shouldn’t be privately owned.
There are books and books are written and could be written gratifying nuances around the edges, but that’s the gist of it
In Marxism, “private property” is a social relationship under which the “owner” excludes other people from enjoying the use value of a commodity. It is the unethical justification for stealing surplus value from the worker. “Personal property” can be seen as a morally just subset of private property, specifically it is a right to exclude others from using your fair share of society’s commodities intended for personal use. It means everyone has a right to own a personal toothbrush and have a place to live etc, but not own significantly more than anybody else.
In anarchism, “private property” is ownership on means of production, while “personal property” is ownership on any other commodities. This makes it difficult to set out categories of what does and doesn’t qualify, because the vast majority of commodities have both some direct use value and also some value as a mean of production. E.g. a home you live in is your personal property, a home you set up a business in is your private property and should be abolished.
I’d be fine with either definition, but we need to be aware that they are different.
E.g. a home you live in is your personal property, a home you set up a business in is your private property and should be abolished.
Maybe its an edge case, but what if you are a woodworker making a living building and selling furniture by yourself from your garage? Would that not be a “business” and would that entitle your garage to be public property?
It depends. If your workshop is suited for only one person, then it’s fine as it is. If it’s a huge-ass workshop for several people, you shouldn’t be able to gatekeep that.
Yeah I think it’s one of those edge cases and has been handled differently by different post-capitalist societies and at different stages of their development. E.g. you’d be OK with that during NEP in USSR, probably be in trouble shortly after, and probably be OK again by the 60s (as long as you didn’t exploit other people).
Ok. So what if its a worker owned and run collective of like 5 workers? They are all equals doing equal work getting equal reward from selling the goods they make. They don’t have the right to lock it up at night and prevent people from coming in and running off with all the materials and equipment? I’m just trying to understand the logistics of how this works.
In anarchist theory, co-ops neither private property nor personal property, but collective property.
In Marxism, it is a more ethically justified subset of private property.
Some anarchist movements (syndicalism, collectivism) consider complete collectivization of what is currently private or state property to be the end-goal of revolution. They envision a world economy which is a free association of co-operatives, or something similar.
Marxist movements have a more nuanced view of collective property, specifically it is envisioned as an ethical improvement over single-owner private property, and a useful stepping stone towards communism, but not an end-goal. Co-ops still allow for unfair inequality (e.g. members of one co-op can be much more well-off than members of another co-op, even if they produce the same value) and share some characteristics with private property. As such, what you are describing is once again an edge-case. Co-ops were generally glorified in USSR, especially during NEP:
Let’s all give a vow
To not let the merchants plunder
Buy in a co-op
Not a cent for the black market
During later periods, in most industries co-ops were usually overtaken by the corresponding state ministries or departments, sometimes with shares returned to the members, sometimes not. The members usually became regular employees of a state-owned enterprise. Co-ops did linger in some sectors, like consumer goods distribution in rural areas (сельпо - rural consumer association, basically a grocery store owned collectively by the village inhabitants), rarely agricultural production (колхоз - collective farm, a farm owned by everyone who works there), etc. But again, mostly they were expropriated by the state for the purposes of building a socialist planned economy. If you wanted to start a co-op during those times, if it was at all successful it would soon be overtaken by the state.
As usual, Perestroyka started with some great ideas in this area. It had the goal of returning some state property to co-ops so that employees became memebers and had more incentive to be efficient in their work, and have some agency to decide how to run the enterprise. It was supposed to complement the socialist planned economy (which would be responsible for strategic goods, like heavy industry and military) with a democratic, but more decentralized co-op economy (which would be responsible for consumer goods). As usual, it all went to shit soon after, because directors of co-ops became de-facto single owners and ran them like private businesses.
I’m just trying to understand the logistics of how this works.
Logistically speaking, co-op members did have an exclusive right over their collective property. That included locking the doors and such. But again, if your co-op was successful during the advances socialist economy stage of USSR, it would be taken over by the state.
The difference is kind of simple: is it something only you are using? It’s your, personal property. Your bicycle, your home.
Is it something that is intended for communal usage? A park, a factory, a tram network, a hospital? It’s a public property and shouldn’t be privately owned.
There are books and books are written and could be written gratifying nuances around the edges, but that’s the gist of it
I would clarify it.
In Marxism, “private property” is a social relationship under which the “owner” excludes other people from enjoying the use value of a commodity. It is the unethical justification for stealing surplus value from the worker. “Personal property” can be seen as a morally just subset of private property, specifically it is a right to exclude others from using your fair share of society’s commodities intended for personal use. It means everyone has a right to own a personal toothbrush and have a place to live etc, but not own significantly more than anybody else.
In anarchism, “private property” is ownership on means of production, while “personal property” is ownership on any other commodities. This makes it difficult to set out categories of what does and doesn’t qualify, because the vast majority of commodities have both some direct use value and also some value as a mean of production. E.g. a home you live in is your personal property, a home you set up a business in is your private property and should be abolished.
I’d be fine with either definition, but we need to be aware that they are different.
Maybe its an edge case, but what if you are a woodworker making a living building and selling furniture by yourself from your garage? Would that not be a “business” and would that entitle your garage to be public property?
It depends. If your workshop is suited for only one person, then it’s fine as it is. If it’s a huge-ass workshop for several people, you shouldn’t be able to gatekeep that.
Yeah I think it’s one of those edge cases and has been handled differently by different post-capitalist societies and at different stages of their development. E.g. you’d be OK with that during NEP in USSR, probably be in trouble shortly after, and probably be OK again by the 60s (as long as you didn’t exploit other people).
Ok. So what if its a worker owned and run collective of like 5 workers? They are all equals doing equal work getting equal reward from selling the goods they make. They don’t have the right to lock it up at night and prevent people from coming in and running off with all the materials and equipment? I’m just trying to understand the logistics of how this works.
In anarchist theory, co-ops neither private property nor personal property, but collective property.
In Marxism, it is a more ethically justified subset of private property.
Some anarchist movements (syndicalism, collectivism) consider complete collectivization of what is currently private or state property to be the end-goal of revolution. They envision a world economy which is a free association of co-operatives, or something similar.
Marxist movements have a more nuanced view of collective property, specifically it is envisioned as an ethical improvement over single-owner private property, and a useful stepping stone towards communism, but not an end-goal. Co-ops still allow for unfair inequality (e.g. members of one co-op can be much more well-off than members of another co-op, even if they produce the same value) and share some characteristics with private property. As such, what you are describing is once again an edge-case. Co-ops were generally glorified in USSR, especially during NEP:
During later periods, in most industries co-ops were usually overtaken by the corresponding state ministries or departments, sometimes with shares returned to the members, sometimes not. The members usually became regular employees of a state-owned enterprise. Co-ops did linger in some sectors, like consumer goods distribution in rural areas (сельпо - rural consumer association, basically a grocery store owned collectively by the village inhabitants), rarely agricultural production (колхоз - collective farm, a farm owned by everyone who works there), etc. But again, mostly they were expropriated by the state for the purposes of building a socialist planned economy. If you wanted to start a co-op during those times, if it was at all successful it would soon be overtaken by the state.
As usual, Perestroyka started with some great ideas in this area. It had the goal of returning some state property to co-ops so that employees became memebers and had more incentive to be efficient in their work, and have some agency to decide how to run the enterprise. It was supposed to complement the socialist planned economy (which would be responsible for strategic goods, like heavy industry and military) with a democratic, but more decentralized co-op economy (which would be responsible for consumer goods). As usual, it all went to shit soon after, because directors of co-ops became de-facto single owners and ran them like private businesses.
Logistically speaking, co-op members did have an exclusive right over their collective property. That included locking the doors and such. But again, if your co-op was successful during the advances socialist economy stage of USSR, it would be taken over by the state.
Interesting. Thanks for the explanation and history.