So I just read Bill Gates’ 1976 Open Letter To Hobbyists, in which he whines about not making more money from his software. You know, instead of being proud of making software that people wanted to use. And then the bastard went on and made proprietary licences for software the industry standard, holding back innovation and freedom for decades. What a douche canoe.
Anarchists believe that “all property is theft”? Lol
There is some disagreement between people who, for example, favor Proudhon versus those who favor Kropotkin over the ownership of personal tools that are involved in individual trade-craft. As with any ideology there are varying schools of thought but the common ideological baseline is that anything that requires capital investment should be collectively controlled and operated for the common good. A person’s personal possessions including their home and tools required for self sufficiency are not considered “property” or a “means of production” by almost anyone.
A good real world example is the FOSS community, most of us would be quite vexed to say the least if someone started changing stuff on our personal computers but we also actively share our code, experience, and knowledge with the world for free. Same goes for the open hardware folks, permacomputing community, and the open research community.
Yet none of that can be interpreted as “all property is theft” unless you redefine what “property” itself means which is a terrible strategy for advertising Anarchy.
You know how the scientific definition of theory has a fundamentally different meaning as the colloquial meaning of theory? The anarchist definition of property is synonymous with capital while the colloquial idea of property is more synonymous with the anarchist definition of possessions.
I am physically able enough and have the ability do almost all the necessary maintenance on my house, car, and other possessions myself. Of course everyone needs expert help from time to time, for example I can solder copper pipe but I don’t want to risk a gas leak so I call a HVAC tech if I need a new furnace valve. However other than external inputs like water, power, gas, and internet service which intrinsically require collective effort, a single person (who is physically able enough) can efficiently maintain a modern house by themselves.
A single person has no way of doing anything but very basic maintenance on something as technologically complex as a modern factory. Even if they were a master mechanic, electrician, calibration engineer, and every other diverse skill set involved in just maintaining a factory it would be impossible for them to run it as anything but an inefficient workshop without some sort of external labor. Things that intrinsically require collective effort to function should be collectively operated for the benefit of the community.
The same is true for a large property like a mansion (which should not really exist beyond serving a purpose as a historical artifact), an industrial farm, a power generation facility, or a water treatment plant. If it requires collective effort to run and maintain to function it is capital, thus falls under “property” and should be collectivized.
The fact that someone can own and profit off something while unable to maintain it or use it without collective effort solely for their own benefit and enrichment is theft. Without their workers they would have a decrepit building full of the rusting hulks of machinery yet there are factory workers in the US who have to sleep in their cars or work multiple jobs while the C-Suit takes home millions.
private property, distinct from personal property.
Is it? This dichotomy seems incredibly artificial and unsustainable.
Does it really? I don’t find it to be a challenging distinction at all