Trade without private property

 Recently, on facebook, someone commented that "You can't have markets without private property."  This was my response:

You definitely can have markets without private property. Remember, in the Communist Manifesto, Marx distinguishes between "private property" and "personal property." He doesn't have any quarrel with personal property (individual property, like your toothbrush and your lawnmower). His quarrel is with private property - that is, bourgeois ownership of the means of production. (Notice that this is usually NOT individual property: rarely does 1 person own a factory. Usually a factory is owned by a corporation, a "fictive person," a made-up person that is recognized by the law, which is in turn owned collectively by its stockholders, which may number in the millions, all over the world.)
 
Private property is an innovation of capitalism. Early examples include the British East India Company and the V.O.C., which both started around the year 1600.
 
Markets, on the other hand, have existed since prehistoric times. Early trade required neither personal property nor private property - most trade was not trade between individuals, but trade between tribes, in a highly ritualized format, and often involved the trade of people: marriage partners and slaves, for instance.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why Capitalism is Ending

Why Sam Harris is Wrong About Free Will

Why Ayn Rand was Wrong