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<title>F.4 What is the right-"libertarian" position on private property?
</title>

</head>

<h1>F.4 What is the right-"libertarian" position on private property?</h1>

Right-"libertarians" are not interested in eliminating capitalist
private property and thus the authority, oppression and exploitation
which goes with it. They make an idol of private property and claim to 
defend "absolute" and "unrestricted" property rights. In particular, 
taxation and theft are among the greatest evils possible as they involve 
coercion against "justly held" property. It is true that they call for 
an end to the state, but this is not because they are concerned about 
the restrictions of liberty experienced by wage slaves and tenants but
because they wish capitalists and landlords not to be bothered by legal
restrictions on what they can and cannot do on their property. Anarchists
stress that the right-"libertarians" are not opposed to workers being 
exploited or oppressed (in fact, they deny that is possible under 
capitalism) but because they do not want the state to impede capitalist 
"freedom" to exploit and 
oppress workers even more than is the case now! Thus they <i>"are against 
the State simply because they are capitalists first and foremost."</i> 
[Peter Marshall, <b>Demanding the Impossible</b>, p. 564]
</p><p>
It should be obvious <b>why</b> someone is against the state matters when 
evaluating claims of a thinker to be included within the anarchist
tradition. For example, socialist opposition to wage labour was 
shared by the pro-slavery advocates in the Southern States of America. 
The latter opposed wage labour as being worse than its chattel form
because, it was argued, the owner had an incentive to look after his 
property during both good and bad times while the wage worker was left 
to starve during the latter. This argument does not place them in the
socialist camp any more than socialist opposition to wage labour 
made them supporters of slavery. As such, "anarcho"-capitalist and
right-"libertarian" opposition to the state should not be confused
with anarchist and left-libertarian opposition. The former opposes
it because it restricts capitalist power, profits and property while
the latter opposes it because it is a bulwark of all three. 
</p><p>
Moreover, in the capitalist celebration of property as the source of liberty 
they deny or ignore the fact that private property is a source of "tyranny" 
in itself (as we have indicated in sections <a href="secB3.html">B.3</a> 
and <a href="secB4.html">B.4</a>, for example). As we saw in 
<a href="secF1.html">section F.1</a>, this leads to quite explicit (if 
unaware) self-contradiction by leading "anarcho"-capitalist ideologues. 
As Tolstoy stressed, the <i>"retention of the laws concerning land and property keeps 
the workers in slavery to the landowners and the capitalists, even though the 
workers are freed from taxes."</i> [<b>The Slavery of Our Times</b>, pp. 39-40]
Hence Malatesta:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"One of the basic tenets of anarchism is the abolition of [class] monopoly, 
whether of the land, raw materials or the means of production, and consequently 
the abolition of exploitation of the labour of others by those who possess the 
means of production. The appropriation of the labour of others is from the 
anarchist and socialist point of view, theft."</i> [<b>Errico Malatesta: His Life
and Ideas</b>, pp. 167-8]
</blockquote></p><p>
As much anarchists may disagree about other matters, they are united in condemning 
capitalist property. Thus Proudhon argued that property was <i>"theft"</i> and 
<i>"despotism"</i> while Stirner indicated the religious and statist nature of 
private property and its impact on individual liberty when he wrote:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"Property in the civic sense means <b>sacred</b> property, such that I must 
<b>respect</b> your property. 'Respect for property!' . . . The position of
affairs is different in the egoistic sense. I do not step shyly back from
your property, but look upon it always as <b>my</b> property, in which I
respect nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property! 
</p><p>
"With this view we shall most easily come to an understanding with each other.
</p><p>
"The political liberals are anxious that . . . every one be free lord on his
ground, even if this ground has only so much area as can have its requirements
adequately filled by the manure of one person . . . Be it ever so little, if 
one only has somewhat of his own -- to wit, a <b>respected</b> property: The 
more such owners . . . the more 'free people and good patriots' has the State.
</p><p>
"Political liberalism, like everything religious, counts on <b>respect,</b> 
humaneness, the virtues of love. Therefore does it live in incessant vexation.
For in practice people respect nothing, and everyday the small possessions are 
bought up again by greater proprietors, and the 'free people' change into day 
labourers.
</p><p>
"If, on the contrary, the 'small proprietors' had reflected that the great 
property was also theirs, they would not have respectively shut themselves
out from it, and would not have been shut out . . . Instead of owning the
world, as he might, he does not even own even the paltry point on which 
he turns around."</i> [<b>The Ego and Its Own</b>, pp. 248-9]
</blockquote>
</p><p>
While different anarchists have different perspectives on what comes next,
we are all critical of the current capitalist property rights system. Thus 
"anarcho"-capitalists reject totally one of the common (and so
defining) features of all anarchist traditions -- the opposition to
capitalist property. From Individualist Anarchists like Tucker to
Communist-Anarchists like Bookchin, anarchists have been opposed to what 
William Godwin termed <i>"accumulated property."</i> This was because it was in 
<i>"direct contradiction"</i> to property in the form of <i>"the produce of his 
[the worker's] own industry"</i> and so it allows <i>"one man. . . [to] dispos[e] 
of the produce of another man's industry."</i> [<b>The Anarchist Reader</b>, 
pp. 129-131] 
</p><p>
For anarchists, capitalist property is a source exploitation and domination, 
<b>not</b> freedom (it undermines the freedom associated with possession by 
creating relations of domination between owner and employee). Hardly surprising, 
then, that, according to Murray Bookchin, Murray Rothbard <i>"attacked me as 
an anarchist with vigour because, as he put it, I am opposed to private 
property."</i> Bookchin, correctly, dismisses "anarcho-capitalists as 
<i>"proprietarians"</i> [<i>"A Meditation on Anarchist Ethics"</i>, pp. 328-346,
<b>The Raven</b>, no. 28, p. 343]
</p><p>
We will discuss Rothbard's "homesteading" justification of private property in 
the <a href="secF4.html#secf41">next section</a>. However, we will note here one 
aspect of right-"libertarian" absolute and unrestricted property rights, namely 
that it easily generates evil side effects such as hierarchy and starvation. As 
economist and famine expert Amartya Sen notes:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"Take a theory of entitlements based on a set of rights of 'ownership, 
transfer and rectification.' In this system a set of holdings of 
different people are judged to be just (or unjust) by looking at past
history, and not by checking the consequences of that set of holdings.
But what if the consequences are recognisably terrible? . . .[R]efer[ing]
to some empirical findings in a work on famines . . . evidence [is
presented] to indicate that in many large famines in the recent past,
in which millions of people have died, there was no over-all decline
in food availability at all, and the famines occurred precisely because
of shifts in entitlement resulting from exercises of rights that are
perfectly legitimate. . . . [Can] famines . . . occur with a system of
rights of the kind morally defended in various ethical theories, including
Nozick's[?] I believe the answer is straightforwardly yes, since for many
people the only resource that they legitimately possess, viz. their
labour-power, may well turn out to be unsaleable in the market, giving
the person no command over food . . . [i]f results such as starvations
and famines were to occur, would the distribution of holdings still
be morally acceptable despite their disastrous consequences? There is
something deeply implausible in the affirmative answer."</i> [<b>Resources,
Values and Development</b>, pp. 311-2]
</p><p></blockquote>
Thus "unrestricted" property rights can have seriously bad consequences
and so the existence of "justly held" property need not imply a just
or free society -- far from it. The inequalities property can generate 
can have a serious on individual freedom (see  <a href="secF3.html">section F.3</a>). 
Indeed, Murray Rothbard argued that the state was evil not because it restricted 
individual freedom but because the resources it claimed to own were 
not "justly" acquired. If they were, then the state could deny freedom 
within its boundaries just as any other property owner could. Thus 
right-"libertarian" theory judges property <b>not</b> on its impact on 
current freedom but by looking at past history. This has the interesting 
side effect, as we noted in <a href="secF1.html">section F.1</a>, 
of allowing its supporters to look at capitalist and statist hierarchies, 
acknowledge their similar negative effects on the liberty of those subjected 
to them but argue that one is legitimate and the other is not simply because 
of their history. As if this changed the domination and unfreedom that both 
inflict on people living today!
</p><p>
This flows from the way "anarcho"-capitalists define "freedom," namely so
that only <b>deliberate</b> acts which violate your (right-"libertarian" defined) 
rights by other humans beings that cause unfreedom (<i>"we define freedom . . . 
as the <b>absence of invasion</b> by another man of an man's person or property."</i> 
[Rothbard, <b>The Ethics of Liberty</b>, p. 41]). This means that if no-one 
deliberately coerces you then you are free. In this way the workings of the 
capitalist private property can be placed alongside the "facts of nature" and 
ignored as a source of unfreedom. However, a moments thought shows that this 
is not the case. Both deliberate and non-deliberate acts can leave individuals 
lacking freedom. A simply analogy will show why.
</p><p>
Let us assume (in an example paraphrased from Alan Haworth's excellent 
book <b>Anti-Libertarianism</b> [p. 49]) that someone kidnaps you and places you 
down a deep (naturally formed) pit, miles from anyway, which is impossible 
to climb up. No one would deny that you are unfree. Let us further assume
that another person walks by and accidentally falls into the pit with you. 
According to right-"libertarianism", while you are unfree (i.e. subject to 
deliberate coercion) your fellow pit-dweller is perfectly free for they 
have subject to the "facts of nature" and not human action (deliberate or 
otherwise). Or, perhaps, they "voluntarily choose" to stay in the pit, 
after all, it is "only" the "facts of nature" limiting their actions. But, 
obviously, both of you are in <b>exactly the same position,</b> have <b>exactly 
the same choices</b> and so are <b>equally</b> unfree! Thus a definition of 
"liberty" that maintains that only deliberate acts of others -- for 
example, coercion -- reduces freedom misses the point totally. In other
words, freedom is path independent and the <i>"forces of the market cannot 
provide genuine conditions for freedom any more than the powers of the State. 
The victims of both are equally enslaved, alienated and oppressed."</i> 
[Peter Marshall, <b>Demanding the Impossible</b>, p. 565]
</p><p>
It is worth quoting Noam Chomsky at length on this subject:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"Consider, for example, the [right-'libertarian'] 'entitlement theory of justice'
. . . [a]ccording to this theory, a person has a right to whatever he has acquired 
by means that are just. If, by luck or labour or ingenuity, a person acquires
such and such, then he is entitled to keep it and dispose of it as he
wills, and a just society will not infringe on this right.
</p><p>
"One can easily determine where such a principle might lead. It is entirely
possible that by legitimate means -- say, luck supplemented by contractual
arrangements 'freely undertaken' under pressure of need -- one person
might gain control of the necessities of life. Others are then free to
sell themselves to this person as slaves, if he is willing to accept
them. Otherwise, they are free to perish. Without extra question-begging
conditions, the society is just.
</p><p>
"The argument has all the merits of a proof that 2 + 2 = 5 . . . Suppose
that some concept of a 'just society' is advanced that fails to characterise
the situation just described as unjust. . . Then one of two conclusions
is in order. We may conclude that the concept is simply unimportant and
of no interest as a guide to thought or action, since it fails to
apply properly even in such an elementary case as this. Or we may conclude
that the concept advanced is to be dismissed in that it fails to correspond 
to the pretheorectical notion that it intends to capture in clear cases.
If our intuitive concept of justice is clear enough to rule social
arrangements of the sort described as grossly unjust, then the sole interest
of a demonstration that this outcome might be 'just' under a given 'theory
of justice' lies in the inference by <b>reductio ad absurdum</b> to the
conclusion that the theory is hopelessly inadequate. While it may capture
some partial intuition regarding justice, it evidently neglects others.
</p><p>
"The real question to be raised about theories that fail so completely
to capture the concept of justice in its significant and intuitive
sense is why they arouse such interest. Why are they not simply dismissed
out of hand on the grounds of this failure, which is striking in
clear cases? Perhaps the answer is, in part, the one given by Edward 
Greenberg in a discussion of some recent work on the entitlement theory
of justice. After reviewing empirical and conceptual shortcomings, he
observes that such work 'plays an important function in the process of
. . . 'blaming the victim,' and of protecting property against egalitarian
onslaughts by various non-propertied groups.' An ideological defence of
privileges, exploitation, and private power will be welcomed, regardless
of its merits.
</p><p>
"These matters are of no small importance to poor and oppressed people
here and elsewhere."</i> [<b>The Chomsky Reader</b>, pp. 187-188]
</blockquote></p><p>
</p><p>
The glorification of property rights has always been most strongly advocated 
by those who hold the bulk of property in a society. This is understandable 
as they have the most to gain from this. Those seeking to increase freedom in
society would be wise to understand why this is the case and reject it.
</p><p>
The defence of capitalist property does have one interesting side 
effect, namely the need arises to defend inequality and the authoritarian 
relationships inequality creates. Due to (capitalist) private property, 
wage labour would still exist under "anarcho"-capitalism (it is capitalism 
after all). This means that "defensive" force, a state, is required to 
"defend" exploitation, oppression, hierarchy and authority from those who 
suffer them. Inequality makes a mockery of free agreement and "consent" 
as we have continually stressed. As Peter Kropotkin 
pointed out long ago:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"When a workman sells his labour to an employer . . . it is a mockery to 
call that a free contract. Modern economists may call it free, but the 
father of political economy -- Adam Smith -- was never guilty of such 
a misrepresentation. As long as three-quarters of humanity are compelled 
to enter into agreements of that description, force is, of course, 
necessary, both to enforce the supposed agreements and to maintain such 
a state of things. Force -- and a good deal of force -- is necessary to 
prevent the labourers from taking possession of what they consider unjustly 
appropriated by the few. . . . The Spencerian party [proto-right-'libertarians'] 
perfectly well understand that; and while they advocate no force for changing 
the existing conditions, they advocate still more force than is now used 
for maintaining them. As to Anarchy, it is obviously as incompatible with 
plutocracy as with any other kind of -cracy."</i> [<b>Anarchism and Anarchist 
Communism</b>, pp. 52-53]
</blockquote></p><p>
Because of this need to defend privilege and power, "anarcho"-capitalism 
is best called "private-state" capitalism. As anarchists Stuart Christie
and Albert Meltzer argue, the <i>"American oil baron, who sneers at any form 
of State intervention in his manner of conducting business -- that is to say,
of exploiting man and nature -- is also able to 'abolish the State' to a 
certain extent. But he has to build up a repressive machine of his own (an 
army of sheriffs to guard his interests) and takes over as far as he can, 
those functions normally exercised by the government, excluding any tendency 
of the latter that might be an obstacle to his pursuit of wealth."</i> [<b>Floodgates 
of Anarchy</b>, p. 12] Unsurprising "anarcho"-capitalists propose private 
security forces rather than state security forces (police and military) -- 
a proposal that is equivalent to bringing back the state under another name. 
This will be discussed in more detail in <a href="secF6.html">section F.6</a>.
</p><p>
By advocating private property, right-"libertarians" contradict many of 
their other claims. For example, they tend to oppose censorship and 
attempts to limit freedom of association within society when the 
state is involved yet they will wholeheartedly support the right of
the boss or landlord when they ban unions or people talking about 
unions on their property. They will oppose closed shops when they are
worker created but have no problems when bosses make joining the company
union a mandatory requirement for taking a position. Then they say that 
they support the right of individuals to travel where they like. They 
make this claim because they assume that only the state limits free 
travel but this is a false assumption. Owners must agree to let you 
on their land or property (<i>"people only have the right to move to 
those properties and lands where the owners desire to rent or sell to 
them."</i> [Murray Rothbard, <b>The Ethics of Liberty</b>, p. 119]. There 
is no "freedom of travel" onto private property (including private roads). 
Therefore immigration may be just as hard under "anarcho"-capitalism as 
it is under statism (after all, the state, like the property owner, only 
lets people in whom it wants to let in). Private property, as can be seen 
from these simple examples, is the state writ small. Saying it is different 
when the boss does it is not convincing to any genuine libertarian.
</p><p>
Then there is the possibility of alternative means of living. Right-"libertarians" 
generally argue that people can be as communistic as they want on their own 
property. They fail to note that all groups would have no choice about living 
under laws based on the most rigid and extreme interpretation of property rights 
invented and surviving within the economic pressures such a regime would generate. 
If a community cannot survive in the capitalist market then, in their perspective, 
it deserves its fate. Yet this Social-Darwinist approach to social organisation is 
based on numerous fallacies. It confuses the market price of something with how 
important it is; it confuses capitalism with productive activity in general; and 
it confuses profits with an activities contribution to social and individual well 
being; it confuses freedom with the ability to pick a master rather than as an 
absence of a master. Needless to say, as they consider capitalism as the most 
efficient economy ever the underlying assumption is that capitalist systems will 
win out in competition with all others. This will obviously be aided immensely 
under a law code which is capitalist in nature.</p>

<a name="secf41"><h2>F.4.1 What is wrong with a "homesteading" theory of property?</h2></a>

<p>
So how do "anarcho"-capitalists justify property? Looking at Murray 
Rothbard, we find that he proposes a <i>"homesteading theory of property"</i>. 
In this theory it is argued that property comes from occupancy and mixing 
labour with natural resources (which are assumed to be unowned). Thus the 
world is transformed into private property, for <i>"title to an unowned 
resource (such as land) comes properly only from the expenditure of 
labour to transform that resource into use."</i> [<b>The Ethics of Liberty</b>, 
p. 63] 
</p><p>
His theory, it should be stressed, has its roots in the same Lockean tradition 
as Robert Nozick's (which we critiqued in <a href="secB4.html#secb34">section B.3.4</a>). 
Like Locke, Rothbard paints a conceptual history of individuals and families forging 
a home in the wilderness by the sweat of their labour (it is tempting to rename his 
theory the <b><i>"immaculate conception of property"</i></b> as his conceptual theory 
is so at odds with actual historical fact). His one innovation (if it can be called 
that) was to deny even the rhetorical importance of what is often termed the Lockean 
Proviso, namely the notion that common resources can be appropriated only if there 
is enough for others to do likewise. As we noted in <a href="secE4.html#sece42">section E.4.2</a>
this was because it could lead (horror of horrors!) to the outlawry of all private property.
</p><p>
Sadly for Rothbard, his "homesteading" theory of property was refuted 
by Proudhon in <b>What is Property?</b> in 1840 (along with many other 
justifications of property). Proudhon rightly argued that <i>"if the 
liberty of man is sacred, it is equally sacred in all individuals; 
that, if it needs property for its objective action, that is, for its 
life, the appropriation of material is equally necessary for all . . . 
Does it not follow that if one individual cannot prevent another . . . 
from appropriating an amount of material equal to his own, no more can 
he prevent individuals to come."</i> And if all the available resources
are appropriated, and the owner <i>"draws boundaries, fences himself in
. . . Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one
has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends . . . Let
[this]. . . multiply, and soon the people . . . will have nowhere
to rest, no place to shelter, no ground to till. They will die at
the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their
birthright."</i> [<b>What is Property?</b>, pp. 84-85 and p. 118]
</p><p>
Proudhon's genius lay in turning apologies for private property against it 
by treating them as absolute and universal as its apologists treated property 
itself. To claims like Rothbard's that property was a natural right, he 
explained that the essence of such rights was their universality and that
private property ensured that this right could not be extended to all. To
claims that labour created property, he simply noted that private property
ensured that most people have no property to labour on and so the outcome
of that labour was owned by those who did. As for occupancy, he simply 
noted that most owners do not occupancy all the property they own 
while those who do use it do not own it. In such circumstances, how can 
occupancy justify property when property excludes occupancy? Proudhon 
showed that the defenders of property had to choose between self-interest
and principle, between hypocrisy and logic. 
</p><p>
Rothbard picks the former over the latter and his theory is simply a rationale 
for a specific class based property rights system (<i>"[w]e who belong to the 
proletaire class, property excommunicates us!"</i> [P-J Proudhon, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 105]). As Rothbard <b>himself</b> admitted in respect to the aftermath of 
slavery and serfdom, not having access to the means of life places one the 
position of unjust dependency on those who do and so private property creates 
economic power as much under his beloved capitalism as it did in post-serfdom
(see <a href="secF1.html">section F.1</a>). Thus, Rothbard's account, for all 
its intuitive appeal, ends up justifying capitalist and landlord domination 
and ensures that the vast majority of the population experience property as 
theft and despotism rather than as a source of liberty and empowerment (which 
possession gives). 
</p><p>
It also seems strange that while (correctly) attacking social contract
theories of the state as invalid (because <i>"no past generation can bind
later generations"</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 145]) he fails to see he is doing
<b>exactly that</b> with his support of private property (similarly, Ayn
Rand argued that <i>"[a]ny alleged 'right' of one man, which necessitates
the violation of the right of another, is not and cannot be a right"</i>
but, obviously, appropriating land does violate the rights of others to 
walk, use or appropriate that land [<b>Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal</b>, p. 325]). 
Due to his support for appropriation and inheritance, Rothbard is clearly 
ensuring that future generations are <b>not</b> born as free as 
the first settlers were (after all, they cannot appropriate any land, 
it is all taken!). If future generations cannot be bound by past ones, 
this applies equally to resources and property rights. Something 
anarchists have long realised -- there is no defensible reason why 
those who first acquired property should control its use and exclude future 
generations.
</p><p>
Even if we take Rothbard's theory at face value we find numerous
problems with it. If title to unowned resources comes via the <i>"expenditure
of labour"</i> on it, how can rivers, lakes and the oceans be appropriated? 
The banks of the rivers can be transformed, but can the river itself? How
can you mix your labour with water? "Anarcho"-capitalists usually blame
pollution on the fact that rivers, oceans, and so forth are unowned but as
we discussed in <a href="secE4.html">section E.4</a>, Rothbard provided no
coherent argument for resolving this problem nor the issue of environmental 
externalities like pollution it was meant to solve (in fact, he ended up 
providing polluters with sufficient apologetics to allow them to continue
destroying the planet). 
</p><p>
Then there is the question of what equates to "mixing" labour. Does fencing 
in land mean you have "mixed labour" with it? Rothbard argues that this is not 
the case (he expresses opposition to <i>"arbitrary claims"</i>). He notes
that it is <b>not</b> the case that <i>"the first discoverer . . . could properly
lay claim to"</i> a piece of land by <i>"laying out a boundary for the
area."</i> He thinks that <i>"their claim would still be no more than the boundary
<b>itself</b>, and not to any of the land within, for only the boundary will
have been transformed and used by men"</i> However, if 
the boundary <b>is</b> private property and the owner refuses others permission 
to cross it, then the enclosed land is inaccessible to others! If an "enterprising" 
right-"libertarian" builds a fence around the only oasis in a desert and refuses 
permission to cross it to travellers unless they pay his price (which is everything 
they own) then the person <b>has</b> appropriated the oasis without "transforming" 
it by his labour. The travellers have the choice of paying the price or dying (and 
any oasis owner is well within his rights letting them die). Given Rothbard's 
comments, it is probable that he could claim that such a boundary is null and void 
as it allows "arbitrary" claims -- although this position is not at all clear. After 
all, the fence builder <b>has</b> transformed the boundary and "unrestricted" 
property rights is what the right-"libertarian" is all about. One thing is true,
if the oasis became private property by some means then refusing water to travellers 
would be fine as <i>"the owner is scarcely being 'coercive'; in fact he is supplying a 
vital service, and should have the right to refuse a sale or charge whatever the 
customers will pay. The situation may be unfortunate for the customers, as are 
many situations in life."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 50f and p. 221] That the owner
is providing <i>"a vital service"</i> only because he has expropriated the
common heritage of humanity is as lost on Rothbard as is the obvious economic power
that this situation creates.
</p><p>
And, of course, Rothbard ignores the fact of economic power -- a transnational 
corporation can "transform" far more virgin resources in a day by hiring workers
than a family could in a year. A transnational "mixing" the labour it has bought
from its wage slaves with the land does not spring into mind reading Rothbard's 
account of property but in the real world that is what happens. This is, perhaps,
unsurprising as the whole point of Locke's theory was to justify the appropriation
of the product of other people's labour by their employer.
</p><p>
Which is another problem with Rothbard's account. It is completely ahistoric (and 
so, as we noted above, is more like an <i>"immaculate conception of property"</i>). 
He has transported "capitalist man" into the dawn of time and constructed a history 
of property based upon what he is trying to justify. He ignores the awkward historic
fact that land was held in common for millennium and that the notion of "mixing"
labour to enclose it was basically invented to justify the expropriation of land
from the general population (and from native populations) by the rich. What 
<b>is</b> interesting to note, though, is that the <b>actual</b> experience of 
life on the US frontier (the historic example Rothbard seems to want to claim) 
was far from the individualistic framework he builds upon it and (ironically
enough) it was destroyed by the development of capitalism.
</p><p>
As Murray Bookchin notes, in rural areas there <i>"developed a modest subsistence 
agriculture that allowed them to be almost wholly self-sufficient and 
required little, if any, currency."</i> The economy was rooted in barter, 
with farmers trading surpluses with nearby artisans. This pre-capitalist
economy meant people enjoyed <i>"freedom from servitude to others"</i>
and <i>"fostered"</i> a <i>"sturdy willingness to defend [their] independence
from outside commercial interlopers. This condition of near-autarchy, 
however, was not individualistic; rather it made for strong community
interdependence . . . In fact, the independence that the New England yeomanry
enjoyed was itself a function of the co-operative social base from which
it emerged. To barter home-grown goods and objects, to share tools and
implements, to engage in common labour during harvesting time in a
system of mutual aid, indeed, to help new-comers in barn-raising, 
corn-husking, log-rolling, and the like, was the indispensable cement
that bound scattered farmsteads into a united community."</i> Bookchin 
quotes David P. Szatmary (author of a book on Shay' Rebellion) stating 
that it was a society based upon <i>"co-operative, community orientated 
interchanges"</i> and not a <i>"basically competitive society."</i> 
[<b>The Third Revolution</b>, vol. 1, p. 233]
</p><p>
Into this non-capitalist society came capitalist elements. Market forces 
and economic power soon resulted in the transformation of this society.
Merchants asked for payment in specie (gold or silver coin), which the
farmers did not have. In addition, money was required to pay taxes 
(taxation has always been a key way in which the state encouraged a
transformation towards capitalism as money could only be made by 
hiring oneself to those who had it). The farmers <i>"were now cajoled by 
local shopkeepers"</i> to <i>"make all their payments and meet all their
debts in money rather than barter. Since the farmers lacked money, the
shopkeepers granted them short-term credit for their purchases. In
time, many farmers became significantly indebted and could not pay off
what they owed, least of all in specie."</i> The creditors turned to the
courts and many the homesteaders were dispossessed of their land and 
goods to pay their debts. In response Shay's rebellion started as 
the <i>"urban commercial elites adamantly resisted [all] peaceful 
petitions"</i> while the <i>"state legislators also turned a deaf ear"</i>
as they were heavily influenced by these same elites. This rebellion 
was an important factor in the centralisation of state power in America 
to ensure that popular input and control over government were marginalised 
and that the wealthy elite and their property rights were protected 
against the many (<i>"Elite and well-to-do sectors of the population mobilised
in great force to support an instrument that clearly benefited them at
the expense of the backcountry agrarians and urban poor."</i>) [Bookchin,
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 234, p. 235 and p. 243]). Thus the homestead system was,
ironically, undermined and destroyed by the rise of capitalism (aided,
as usual, by a state run by and for the rich).
</p><p>
So while Rothbard's theory as a certain appeal (reinforced by watching
too many Westerns, we imagine) it fails to justify the "unrestricted"
property rights theory (and the theory of freedom Rothbard derives
from it). All it does is to end up justifying capitalist and landlord 
domination (which is what it was intended to do).
</p>

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