Own Your Job
I have, in the past, identified as an anarchist. Really, none of my opinions or positions on any major issues have changed since then. But I think the label "anarchist" is misleading and unhelpful for a lot of people and so I usually avoid using this label (see my essay on the "Eminem strategy"). But for exactly the same reasons, I think it's mostly unhelpful to use terms like "communist" or "socialist". If I need to sum up my political opinions, I can do so in a three word phrase: Own Your Job . I've asserted before that I believe in worker ownership of the means of production. But this is a bunch of jargon. What does it mean? What is the "means of production"? Most people picture buildings, machines, and raw materials. And that's true, in a way. When Marx writes about the "sublation" (Aufheben) of private property, he distinguishes private property from personal property. In a just social order, peopl...