property

Contr'un

Occupancy-and-use: Response to Kevin Carson’s Rejoinder

July 14, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] [This post originally appeared at the Center for a Stateless Society, as part of an exchange on occupancy-and-use property.] At base, Kevin and I disagree about the possibility of, as I put it, “a truly anarchic space, outside the legal order and beyond the realm of permissions and prohibitions.” That’s a serious disagreement, since it amounts, for me, to a disagreement about the possibility of anarchy. If I was, as Kevin suggests, implicitly acknowledging any “set of rules” governing property, it would amount to a complete failure of my project. The point of giving familiar, more-or-less legal names to […]
Contr'un

Occupancy-and-Use: Neo-Proudhonian Remarks

July 14, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
This post originally appeared at the Center for a Stateless Society, as part of an exchange on occupancy-and-use property. Those familiar with the rest of my work will recognize the proposal for “mutual extrication” as essentially a reintroduction, in different terms, of the “gift economy of property.”  There is a great deal that could be said in response to Kevin Carson’s opening statement, from the “neo-Proudhonian” mutualist perspective, but I’ll try to keep things at least relatively short. Like Kevin, my introduction to the notion of occupancy-and-use land tenure was through the works of Benjamin R. Tucker and the Liberty […]
Contr'un

To “property” via “mutual extrication”

November 10, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve been taking part in a C4SS-sponsored discussion of occupancy-and-use property norms, “Occupancy and Use: Potential Applications and Possible Shortcomings,” which is now appearing on the Center’s website. The exchange opened with a piece by Kevin Carson, “Are We All Mutualists?,” which suggests that perhaps the answer is “yes.” A series of responses will be posted every other day, with my “Neo-Proudhonian Remarks” already posted under the title “Limiting Conditions and Local Desires.” For me, this first response was an opportunity to talk again about the development of Proudhon’s thoughts on property, but also to return to the question of […]
Proudhon Library

Property? It’s just a phase… (Proudhon to the Academy of Besançon, 1840)

May 3, 2014 Shawn P. Wilbur
This response by Proudhon to the Academy of Besançon fills in a bit of the story told in the introduction to What is Property? I’ve been tracking down some of these bits and pieces in order to establish more of the context for that work, as we get ready to do a group reading of the text. This letter has at least one unintentionally funny bit, when Proudhon explains that this property stuff is just a passing interest. Besançon, August 3, 1840 TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMY OF BESANÇON Gentlemen, I have learned through the confidences of some of […]
Contr'un

How does property become capitalist?

August 2, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur
Contrun Revisited: One of the tasks of this phase of work on Contr’un, and one of the purposes of the Contr’un Revisited project, is to find the dangling threads, of which there have been many, that could not be properly finished off at the time and see what can be done to accomplish that work of finishing. This is one of those posts that was really designed in large part as a provocation to myself, with the unspoken question being: How does property become something other than capitalist? I’m finally taking up my own challenge, in a post dealing with […]
Contr'un

Are Hotels Immoral?

October 27, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’ve been trying to collect my contributions to various discussion threads, where the off-the-cuff stuff seems to advance the conversation, and I’m presenting them in the form of one-sided conversations, with just enough of the contributions of others to give context. Here’s a bit from Reddit, on the question of occupancy and use property norms: Q. Are Hotels Immoral? A. No. If someone is actively maintaining a hotel, then they are obviously occupying and using it. A large hotel is likely to be a collectively owned affair, like most large enterprises under usufructory ownership. A. Can that somebody hire people […]
Contr'un

Varieties of Proprietors: Lovers, Husbands, and Mother Hens

September 24, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
SIDEBAR Le propriétaire qui épargne empêche les autres de jouir sans jouir lui-même ; pour lui, ni possession ni propriété. Comme l’avare, il couve son trésor il n’en use pas. Qu’il en repaisse ses yeux, qu’il le couche avec lui, qu’il s’endorme en l’embrassant : il aura beau faire, les écus n’engendrent pas les écus. Point de propriété entière sans jouissance, point de jouissance sans consommation, point de consommation sans perte de la propriété : telle est l’inflexible nécessité dans laquelle le jugement de Dieu a placé le propriétaire. Malédiction sur la propriété! Back in April 2010, in a post […]
Contr'un

1838: Property is theft (Jules Leroux)

August 30, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
EPISODES in another history of anarchism: In volume 4 of the Encyclopédie nouvelle, which appeared in 1838, Jules Leroux contributed a lengthy entry on Political Economy. There is a lot there that is of interest, but perhaps nothing that touches this passage for topical interest here in the mutualist blogosphere: Et la propriété se trouve être nécessairement définie en ces termes: La possession et l’usage d’un objet propre à satisfaire un besoin. Supprimez le mot possession, et la propriété disparaît. Supprimez le mot usage, et la propriété devient une chose immorale, anti-humaine : c’est l’accaparement, c’est le vol. That is: […]