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Det Anarkistiske Bibliotek (Danish)

Anarchistische Bibliothek (German)

Det Anarkistiska Biblioteket (Swedish)

Bibliothèque Anarchiste (French)

De Anarchistische Bibliotheek (Dutch)

Анархистичка библиотека (Macedonian)

Anarkistinen kirjasto (Finnish)

Biblioteca anarquista (Spanish)

Southeast Asian Anarchist Library

Biblioteca Anarquista (Portugese)

Biblioteka-Anarkiste (Albanian)

I. Rise and Persistence of the Village Commune.

II. Destruction of the Peasant Commune by the State.

France: War on the Commons by Monarchy, Republic and Empire.

The Permanent Settlement in India.

The Destruction of the Mir in Russia.

III. The Question of Efficiency

Appendix: The Debates on Enclosure

The Question of Efficiency in the Enclosures.

The dominant market anarchist view of property takes for granted individual, fee-simple ownership through individual appropriation as the only natural form of property. Although common or collective ownership is grudgingly accepted as a legitimate—if inefficient—form of “voluntary socialism,” it’s taken for granted that such forms of ownership can only come about through some sort of special contract between preexisting owners of fee-simple individual property. Land can only be appropriated, runs the usually tacit assumption, by individuals.

Right-wing libertarian and Objectivist forums are full of statements that “there’s no such thing as collective property,” “all property rights are individual,” and the like. Ayn Rand argued that it was impossible for European settlers to steal the land of American Indians, because the latter had no valid property rights:

Now, I don’t care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country. And you’re a racist if you object, because it means you believe that certain men are entitled to something because of their race. You believe that if someone is born in a magnificent country and doesn’t know what to do with it, he still has a property right to it. He does not. Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights—they didn’t have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal “cultures”—they didn’t have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using. It’s wrong to attack a country that respects (or even tries to respect) individual rights. If you do, you’re an aggressor and are morally wrong. But if a “country” does not protect rights—if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief—why should you respect the “rights” that they don’t have or respect? ...[Y]ou can’t claim one should respect the “rights” of Indians, when they had no concept of rights and no respect for rights. But let’s suppose they were all beautifully innocent savages—which they certainly were not. What were they fighting for, in opposing the white man on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence; for their “right” to keep part of the earth untouched—to keep everybody out so they could live like animals or cavemen. Any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this …