This is a translation of my previous essay, “Harmleikur eignarréttarins og andsvar skynseminnar” with slight modifications and clarifications. This translation was originally published on the p2p-research mailing list.

—

I have frequently been asked what the difference is between libertarianism and anarchism, in light of the fact that anarchists have adopted the moral that libertarians have claimed ownership of, that individual freedom is only limited by the equal freedom of others. Because of this, both libertarians and anarchists reject the authority of others, especially the authority of governments.

“The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government” - Milton Friedman

So what is the difference? The answer is simple. There is only one difference between anarchism and that which has been called libertarianism, but that single difference has a number of very important consequences.

The difference is this: Anarchists do not recognize the concept of property.

Anarchism is first and foremost about freedom, but anarchists do not accept that their freedom is limited by physical or imaginary property. Therefore it may be more correct to speak of propertarianism than liberalism.

The consequences start to become apparent when we appreciate the need to protect property, since the concept of property cannot be assumed to be universally accepted, simply by virtue of the existence of anarchists. The protection of property can be done in a number of ways. The threat of violence and whichever form of making good on that threat was common, but another method is the creation of a legislation or agreement which grants some organization the authority to punish in some way for infringement of property rights

“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.” - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776)

That propertarians take care of their own property rights by way of violence or other means is the method many of the more liberal propertarians have advocated, and the most radical amongst them have styled themselves anarcho-capitalists. However, the managing of ones own affairs is an uncommon approach, seeing as how few wish to shit where they eat, let alone murder where they live.

It is simpler for the conscience to let others take care of the violence. For this and many other reasons, most propertarians accept that although an authorative government is a bad thing, it is important to have laws to maintain property rights.

“Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulations.” - Milton Friedman

Hence the legislative authority, the first part of government. They accept that although it goes against their ideals, there must be a government, but then it shall be a minimal government. The minimal government should not offer social services, as this would intrude on market efficiencies. Rather, it should only maintain property rights on everything, whether it is objects, resources or ideas, and enforce those rights with punishments of some kind.

Now the propertarians are faced with a liberal dilemma: how do we ensure fairness? Can we guarantee the liberty of those who infringe on our property rights? Well, we can’t, but we may be able to ensure justice by way of some arbitrative authority which use the rules to punish everybody equally.

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” - Anatole France, The Red Lily (1894)

And now that the punishment has been delved out it, action must be taken to enforce it. There must also be some way to bring infringers – criminals – to justice. Hence the executive authority, with its ability to execute all of the above, including the criminals if need be.

Let’s remember that here we speak only of the most pure form of libertarianism: in a perfect libert… – sorry, in a perfect propertarian society the government would neither operate schools nor hospitals, these would be privately owned. The government would not provide social benefits or physical security, as all of these functions would be functions of the market. The only purpose of government is to enforce property rights. Anything else is simply communism, isn’t it?

“Once wide coercive powers are given to governmental agencies for particular purposes, such powers cannot be effectively controlled by democratic assemblies.” - Friedrich von Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (1960)

This tiny detail, property, is enough to have the propertarian unravel all her beliefs and build around herself a powerful system of coercion which is very easy to use for oligarchical purposes. Taxation, trade barriers and an unfree market are natural consequences of having such power hanging over us. But this they accept anyway, because in the world of the propertarians, property is more important than freedom.

“Property is theft.” - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government (1840)

Unfortunately, very few are anarchists. Very few people have considered property in this light and very few have considered the consequences of eliminating the concept of property. So it may not be unreasonable to consider some of the implications of doing so.

Imagine owning nothing. This is different from not having anything: when you sit in a cinema you do not own the seat you are sitting in, but yet you have it. You are using it and nobody is likely to take it from you. If anybody were likely to do so it would be the owner of the cinema, which can do simply because it is his property.

Laws do differentiate between having and owning. When discussing resource rights there is an understandable difference between usage rights and property rights. Usage rights can be temporary or more permanent, and they don’t necessarily need protecting with laws. Few people would consider using another persons toothbrush or bed without permission.

What if a house stands vacant? If property exists then the house shall stand vacant if that is the will of the owner; it is his prerogative as owner to have the house fall into disrepair. But if no property rights exist, then it is clear that usage rights do not apply if the house is not being used, so another could use, lest the resource be squandered.

“The idea of property, or permanent empire, in those things which ought to be applied to our personal use, and still more in the produce of our industry, unavoidably suggests the idea of some species of law or practice by which it is guaranteed. Without this, property could not exist.” - William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness (1793)

Keep in mind that this does not contradict the right to privacy. If you are using a room it is not socially accepted that another barge in and begin using it; rooms are rival, and rivalry transcends property. Dropping the right to property would not mean that people could not have private possessions either: people will always respect one another’s privacy to a sensible degree determined by the social context. Laws are only needed to enforce injustice.

In economics things are considered to be either scarce or abundant, meaning that with sensible use of these things can be depleted, or else there will be enough to fulfill any sensible demand for the resource. An example of a scarce object is the Eiffel tower. There is only one Eiffel tower, and there never be more than one Eiffel tower, because copies will only be copies – what makes the Eiffel tower what it is is not its shape or chemical composition, but rather its cultural significance. However, there is an abundance of oxygen on Earth, and it would be unreasonable to intend to deplete it.

On the other hand there are rival goods, and social goods. This refers to whether or not the usage of one individual of the resource precludes the use of others of the same resource. A carrot used by one man cannot be used by another. A chair cannot be used, under normal circumstances, by more than one at a time. However many can sit in the same cinema, and many can use the same garden.

(It’s worth noting that most economists don’t see any difference between rivalry and scarcity, which may explain some of their mistakes.)

“Since neither property nor capital produces anything when not fertilized by labor–that means the power and the right to live by exploiting the works of someone else, the right to exploit the work of those who possess neither property nor capital and who thus are forced to sell their productive power to the lucky owners of both.” - Michael Bakunin, Selected Writings

Labor is of course on of those things for which there is both competition and rivalry: each individual only has a fixed number of hours in the day, and the propertarian model has established a culture of the owners of the means of production having others work on their behalf in exchange for a small portion of the produce, and this is generally not provided in the form of the produce itself, but rather in the form of a currency.

In light of recent events it is dilligent to ask of currency: is it scarce? Yes. Is it rival? Yes. Need this be the case?

This last question is important not least because it is so rarely asked. The monetary system has been constructed around the belief that all things are scarce and that all things are rival. Because of this, the monetary system is incapable of properly estimating the value of things that are abundant or social.

“Money is a sign of poverty.” - Iain M. Banks, The State of the Art (1989)

The concept of property has been used to justify scarcity for many centuries. Many centuries ago, in England, many large forests were considered to be commons – a concept all but exterminated from our culture – areas which all had equal usage rights to and nobody had formal property rights for. At some point the lords realized that these commons were quite valuable, and suddenly realized that which has come to be known as the tragedy of the commons.

The farmers made use of the forests, cutting small branches off the trees in the autumn to use as firewood during the winter. This helped the trees conserve energy during the winter months and start growing earlier in the spring, and the farmers had enough to keep them warm. When the lords suddenly realized that this was a scarce resource, despite this having been the way of life since time immemorial, they had no other choice than to demand that farmers pay for the right to collect these branches.

The farmers, of course, had to pay, or else not have firewood. The use of the forests did not change. Property did not solve a problem that didn’t exist to begin with.

“No complaint…is more common than that of a scarcity of money.” - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776)

Money as such are not as large a problem as the way people think about money. The properties of money come from the needs that property – and the power structure that maintains property – has created to maintain scarcity.

In the last century money has been created out of nothing. They are created when banks lend each other money. This is a type of centralization, enacted to ensure that only a limited amount of money exists. A central bank, the regulator of the currency, decides how much of the currency exists at any given time. Most people do not have freedom to create money.

The banks that have the right to create money have, just as the owners who oppress the workers, used their situation to increase their property value by enacting usury.

“If he has exacted usury Or taken increase — Shall he then live? He shall not live! If he has done any of these abominations, He shall surely die; His blood shall be upon him.” - Biblían, Ezekiel 18:13 (King James version)

Usury, or intrest, creates an interesting situation in the monetary system. There is a constant demand for more money than has been created. This, along with the centralization of the means of production of money, create a game, which has a few rules:

Everybody must participate, they cannot quit, they cannot win, they cannot break even. The goal of the game is to be the last person to loose. The best strategy? Own more. Avoid bankruptcy. Lie, cheat, decieve. Drive others to bankruptcy. The worse you are as a person, the better you are at the game.

So what is the solution? How do we change the game?

Simple: We stop assuming that everything is scarce, and that all things are rival. This tiny change unravels the current failures in the monetary system. Then we can build a new monetary system and a new market economy which does not rely on the concept of property.

First, we stop accepting centralization of the means of production, and allow everybody to create credit, the value of which is determined by their merit. By using computers we can make this fast, simple and safe.

“Abundant cheap credit would drastically alter the balance of power between capital and labor, and returns on labor would replace returns on capital as the dominant form of economic activity.” - Kevin Carson, Mutualist Political Economy

The monetary system would be constructed thus: business transactions between individuals, where items of value are exchanged – irrespective of ownership thereof – based on statements of gratitude from the “buyer” to the “seller”. The computer system can collate the enumerated gratitude at a moment’s notice, throughout the entire society. With strong encryption these statements will be nigh impossible to forge.

What’s more, the contradictory nature of capitalism gets put to good use. The capitalist model assumes that the only motivation for human activity is profit, while at the same time neoliberal economics point out that in a perfect free market competition will eliminate profit. This would mean, in the case of loans, that due to the availability of cheap credit, no interest would need to be payed, nor loan fees, any more than you pay the attendant at the supermarket a handling fee for accepting your money.

The technological basis for this exists, but they are outside the scope of this short rant. The point is this:

Property is weaker now than often before, as it goes against the morality of those who have nothing.

The monetary system is weak now, because it was designed around assumptions that no longer apply.

Centralization is not the future, scarcity is not the future, property is not the future. Anarchism is the future: freedom for all to live in equality and cooperation.

I read today about the WIPO (World Intellectiual Property Organization) meeting in Geneva where the US, Canada, the EU, Norway, New Zealand and the Vatican are working against a proposed treaty which aims to guarantee the rights of blind and otherwise reading-impared people to written media. Not for the first time, I thought “who represents Iceland at this meeting?”, seeing as how it isn’t obvious - there’s no government RSS feed listing meetings and attendees, there’s no website where our participation in international organizations or treaties is disseminated, in fact, there’s no obvious way to find out what Iceland’s representative voted for at such meetings.

I decided I would settle for one of two things:

1. The name of the Icelandic representative at the meeting
2. Confirmation that Iceland had no representative at the meeting

So I set off on a journey through the deep dark realms of Icelandic bureaucracy, first by calling up the organization WIPO listed on their website as the “competant administration” for Iceland: The Ministry of Education.

The receptionist who answered didn’t seem to know what WIPO was at first, but when I explained that it was a United Nations organisation for intellectual property rights, she went “ah, then you probably want to talk to <somenamethatIdidn’tget>, but it’s his day off. You might be able to get information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

So I call up the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Unlike the Ministry of Education, they had an automated switchboard, so I pressed 4 for “department of International and Security affairs”, the only option that seemed reasonable. The guy who answered was equally in the dark about what WIPO was, but pointed out that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs no longer actually has anything to do with the United Nations and that they’re now managed by Félag Sameinuðu Þjóðanna.

This struck me as very odd indeed, seeing as how Félag Sameinuðu Þjóðanna, or the United Nations Association, is an NGO (non-governmental organisation) which aims to “provide information on and raise public opinion about the UN in Iceland.” (I’m sure they meant to say “awareness”). They go on, on their website, to say:

The aim is to engage people to actively participate in debate towards the goals of the UN, and in lobbying the government, political parties, interest groups, and trade and industry. UNA Iceland began its activities in 1946. UNA Iceland is a non-governmental, non-political, non-partisan and secular organization.

So, in a way, they’re the exact opposite of what I’m looking for. It didn’t matter anyway, since they didn’t answer their phone.

Next I decided to try the Prime Minister’s office. A friend of mine works there doing international treaty work, so I know they sometimes deal with stuff like that. I called them up and the guy who answered - no automated switchboard - was immediately sympathetic to my request, and tried to find a colleague who might be able to give me answers. I finally got through to somebody who said “ah, WIPO” when I said I was looking for information regarding Iceland’s participation in the World Intellectual Property Organization. Initial thought: Ah, he knows the acronym, this is promising!

This guy tells me that the person who knows these things is somebody working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that they are in charge of all UN related matters, although they very frequently delegate those matters to specialist agencies, and that the Ministry of Education is most likely in charge of this particular matter.

Nothing for it but to call the Ministry of Foreign Affairs again, see what this guy said. Except, when I called, it turned out he was also on vacation.

I think I’ll try to follow up on this on Tuesday. The meeting will be long done by then and the treaty proposal probably clobbered, but it’s a worthy battle. The problem is, this entire exercise - while taking on 30 minutes - was like out of a bad episode of Yes, Minister. Organizations pointing at each other, despite best intentions, without anybody actually answering the question. In bureaucracies, the concept of democracy gets ignored once the elections are up and the bureaucrats take over the reins. I wrote a piece about bureaucracy earlier which, I think, illustrates this fairly well.

The fact that delegates to conventions such as these have almost zero accountability to the people they claim to represent is a black mark on the idea of democracy. It is one of many things that I aim to fix.

James Dixon recently blogged about the Forking Protocol: Why, When, and How to Fork an Open Source Project. I have for some time been a follower of implementing the forking protocol, as eloquently described in his blog, on a national level.

He asks why, when and how to fork. I shall give the same answers, rewritten in the terms of the national entity.

(Really, I’ve been meaning to cover this in far more detail than I will here, but I had to get this at least partially out of my system for now…)

Why Fork?

Answer - Because you cannot get the country to meet your needs any other way.

Within national entities there is a strong tendency for elites to amass power and take an increasingly large piece of the cake. Government intervention is the prototypical mechanism for doing so, and through increasingly unjust legislature, often targeting and disabling the actions or needs of important minorities, governments manage to ostracize the majority of the population whilst maintaining the illusion of democracy. Rebellious citizens, seeing through the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, are labeled hippies or hackers or dangerous radicals or terrorists or whatever the term of the day is, and legislated out of existence or forced underground.

Avoiding forks is a possibility. James Dixon cites plug-ins and inversion of control as mechanisms. Plug-ins are essentially the creation of disruptive entities within the governance model that force the government to react in a beneficial way. Inversion of control can be seen as revolution, but hasn’t really been going very well.

When to Fork?

Answer - When you have exhausted all other options.

Say what you will, there’s still a place in the world for diplomacy. Forking is an inherently (if implicitly) hostile act, and the likelihood of retaliation in this uncivilized society we live in is fairly vast. Look, for example, at active fork motions in Chechnya, South Ossetia, Palestine, and Northern Ireland. It’s a dangerous path to go down. Don’t do it unless you’re serious.

How to Fork?

Answer: Carefully and responsibly

An example of a careless and irresponsible fork motion enacted is the recent announcement made by Russell Means declaring the independence of the Lakota Republic. While I support the motion, as such, they failed to address internal issues first, leading to the breakoff of Canupa Gluha Mani and his followers. So the guidelines go as so:

Step 1: Exhaust all other Options

Again, try diplomacy first. If you do this for too little a reason, shit happens. If you screw this up, people will die. I am dead serious here: Do not take the forking of a community light heartedly.

If you fail and are otherwise lucky, you’ll be ignored. The trick is not to fail, which means do your homework.

Step 2: Communicate Intent Privately

This is slightly dangerous. Rally up support for the motion within your community first, but beware not to be too loud about this to the wrong people, because you might get snuffed out. A concrete swimsuit isn’t the best way for a fork motion to end. Again, be diplomatic, explain your reasons, do your homework – be ready to show economical figures regarding natural resources, workforce, income, sustainability, etc. Make sure you have contingency plans for retaliation. Make sure the community is capable of reaching high levels of sustainability with minimal impact to welfare and lifestyle.

Step 3: Publicly Announce Intent to Fork

This is a very complicated issue. International treaties, such as the Montevideo Convention, stipulate the terms by which a new state can come into existence, and although that particular convention was very much in favor of separatist movements many others are not. Generally, there are four requirements of statehood accepted internationally:

1. People

2. Land

3. A Method of Government

4. Organizational and Jurisdictional Autonomy

If you have all of these, then you can attempt to seek endorsement of another nation state, which would legitimize your fork. Of course, we’re playing Cold War ethics here. If Israel were to endorse the sovereignty of Chechnya, then Russia could retaliate by endorsing Palestine. (See, this is a lock-in mechanism!)… in reality, very few nation states can endorse sovereignty claims without retaliation of some kind.

Tread carefully. Read up on international law first, and make sure that you’ve figured out how to do it right. This is actually a very interesting subject and warrants several hundred more blog posts. I’ll try to do one, eventually.

Step 4: Fork

Congratulations. You have a new state! When creating your new state choose a name that is different from the original state. In your state constitution, make it clear that this is a fork, and why the fork occurred.

This post is brought to you by FOME, the Federation of Microstate Entrepreneurs. :)

Seahorse is cool. FireGPG (http://getfiregpg.org/) is cool. OpenPGP plugin for Thunderbird is cool. The three things make strong encryption a breeze.

FireGPG makes it wonderfully simple to use GPG with GMail, which has always been a bother for a lot of people. I don’t use GMail myself, for various reasons, but a lot of people do.

I use Thunderbird for mail, it does sweet stuff and works well. Add the OpenPGP plugin for goodness.

I’m planning a Cyberactivism workshop for next Saturday, 18. April, in the basement of Kaffi Rót, between 13:00 and 16:00.

The Internet is one of the best tools that activists have ever had, and it’s a shame so few people know how to use it effectively. I’m not going to go very deep, but rather broad, hoping to get people thinking about this stuff.

I WON’T be talking about viruses, exploits, cracking, denial of service or anything like that, mostly because that stuff bores me and it’s not sensible anyway.

I WILL however be talking about strong encryption, reverse-deniability (I never said that!), onion routing (covering your tracks), counter-surveillance techniques (how to blind CCTV cameras for example) and perhaps finish up with a bit of effective use of Internet technologies (crowdsourcing, googlebombing, tweeting, etc). We’ll see what we can pack into three hours.

Bring laptops if you can for interactivity, but I’ll try to do things in such a way that you won’t _need_ them. It’ll be in English if one or more people prefer it.

If you’re interested, let me know by private mail (GPG:0xC903BEF1) and I can provide some “read this first” stuff if you want it.

Be there.

This morning the squat at Vatnsstígur 4 in Reykjavík was raided by riot police. After threats yesterday that didn’t pan out, squatters were removed and some arrested. MBL says in an article:

Between forty and fifty policemen in riot gear have broken their way into Vatnsstígur 4 in Reykjavík where squatters are dwelling. A few have been arrested. Police used mace after they had been pelted with loose items. The street has been closed and eight police cars occupy it.

The fire brigade is on alert and likewise the special forces. Some fighting occurred, but according to police everything is quiet as is. Squatters have been arrested and taken for questioning.

Police had given squatters a deadline of 16:00 yesterday to evacuate the house. But they didn’t show up. Police did however come at 8:00 this morning. Squatters said yesterday that the fact that police didn’t show up was a sign that they were afraid of the unity of the people.

So much for unity of the people. It was bound to happen, but I was hoping it wouldn’t until after the elections. Give people time to prepare. In a way, it’s good that it’s happened now. This means that nerves are even more frayed, tempers even more mismanaged, and these coming weeks even more interesting.

Á síðustu dögum hef ég tvívegis heyrt menn spyrja hver munurinn sé á frjálshyggu og anarkisma, í ljósi þess að anarkistar hafa þann sið sem svokallaðir frjálshyggjumenn hafa eignað sér að frelsi einstaklingsins sé eingöngu takmarkað af rétti hans til að skaða aðra. Því hafna bæði frjálshyggjumenn og anarkistar nokkurskonar yfirráðum annarra, þá sérstaklega ríkisapparatinu.

“The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government” - Milton Friedman

Svarið við spurningunni er einfallt: eingöngu einn munur er á anarkisma og því sem menn hafa kallað frjálshyggju. Sá staki munur hefur hinsvegar alveg ótrúlega djúpstæðar afleiðingar.

Munurinn er þessi: anarkistar viðurkenna ekki eignarrétt.

Anarkismi snýst fyrst og fremst um frelsi, en anarkistar samþykkja ekki að frelsið afmarkist við efnislegar eða huglægar eignir. Því ætti frekar að tala um eignahyggju heldur en frjálshyggju.

Til að varðveita eignaréttinn þá þarf einhverskonar vald. Þetta getur verið með hótun ofbeldis og hverslags framfylgd þess, eða einhverskonar löggjöf sem gefur einhverskonar skipulagt fyrirbæri á borð við ríki vald til þess að refsa fyrir brot gegn eignarétti.

“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.” - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776)

Að eignahyggjumenn sjái um sig sjálfir án ríkisapparats er sú stefna sem margir frjálslyndari eignahyggjumenn hafa kosið sér, en róttækustu meðal þeirra hafa titlað sig anarkó-kapitalista, en þetta er ekki algeng stefna, kannski fyrst og fremst vegna þess að fæstir vilja skíta þar sem þeir borða, hvað þá myrða þar sem þeir búa.

Ofbeldi sem trygging á eignarrétti

Það er mun auðveldara fyrir samviskuna að láta aðra sjá um ofbeldið fyrir sig. Fyrir vikið samþykkja flestir eignahyggjumenn að þrátt fyrir að valdstjórn sé af hinu illa sé mjög mikilvægt að hafa lög til að tryggja eignaréttinn.

“Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulations.” - Milton Friedman

Þá er komið til löggjafarvald, fyrsti hluti ríkisins. Þeir samþykkja að þrátt fyrir að það gangi gegn hugsjónum þeirra verði að vera til ríki, en þá skuli það vera lágmarksríki. Lágmarksríkið á ekki að veita félagslegar þjónustur, enda geti fólk séð um sjálft sig, en hinsvegar á ríkið að tryggja eignarétt yfir öllu, hvort sem það kallast auðlindir, stakir munir eða hugmyndir, og framfylgja þeim eignarétti með refsingum.

Nú fara þeir í baklás og hugsa um sanngirni: hvernig getum við varið frelsi einstaklingsins og refsað honum um leið fyrir að brjóta gegn okkur? Jú, ef við gerum það á sanngjarnan hátt þá er það í lagi. Þá koma dómstólar til kastanna, sem fyrirbæri sem eiga að nota reglurnar til að láta refsa öllum jafnt sem brjóta gegn reglunum.

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” - Anatole France, The Red Lily (1894)

Nú þegar refsingunni hefur verið útdeilt þarf að framfylgja henni. Sömuleiðis þarf að tryggja það að dómstólarnir hafi geti til að útdeila refsingum. Til kastanna kemur þá framkvæmdarvaldið, sem rekur ýmsar stofnannir til að sjá um þetta alltsaman, svo sem fangelsi, og lögreglu.

Munum að hér er verið að tala um hreinasta form frjálshyggju: í fullkomnu frjáls- – nei, afsakið – eignahyggjusamfélagi myndi ríkið hvorki reka skóla né sjúkrahús, heldur væru þau einkarekin. Ríkið myndi hvorki sjá um almannatryggingar né almannavarnir. Eini tilgangur ríkisins í fullkomnu eignahyggjusamfélagi væri að tryggja eignaréttinn. Allt annað er í rauninni tilbúningur kommúnista sem vilja að ríkið veiti fólki þjónustu, er það ekki?

“Once wide coercive powers are given to governmental agencies for particular purposes, such powers cannot be effectively controlled by democratic assemblies.” - Friedrich von Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (1960)

Þetta eina litla atriði, eignarétturinn, fær eignahyggjumennina til að rekja upp nær alla sína hugmyndafræði og byggja umhverfis sig valdstýringartæki sem auðvelt er að nota til auka á vald fárra. Skattpíning, viðskiptahöft og ófrjáls markaður eru náttúrulegar afleiðingar þess að hafa yfir sér slíkt vald, en þetta samþykkja þeir samt, vegna þess að meðal eignahyggjumanna er eignarétturinn mikilvægari en frelsið.

“Property is theft.” - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government (1840)

En nú eru því miður fæstir anarkistar. Fæstir hafa hugsað um þetta svona og fæstir hafa velt fyrir sér afleiðingum þess að uppræta eignahugtakið. Því er kannski ekki úr vegi að skoða aðeins afleiðingar þess.

Ímyndaðu þér að þú átt ekki neitt. Þetta er ekki það sama og að hafa ekki neitt. Þegar þú ert í bíói áttu ekki sætið sem þú situr í, en þú hefur það samt. Þú ert að nota það og það er enginn líklegur til að taka það af þér. Sé einhver líklegur til þess, þá er það bíóeigandinn, og hann getur það eingöngu vegna þess að honum hefur verið veittur eignarréttur.

Lagalega er gerður greinarmunur á því að hafa og að eiga. Í umræðum um auðlindir er oft talað um nýtingarrétt. Nýtingarréttur getur verið tímabundinn eða varanlegri, og hann þarf í raun ekki að verja með löggjöf. Fáir myndu hugsa sér að nýta tannbursta annars manns, eða rúm hans, án leyfis.

En hvað um hús sem stendur autt? Sé eignarréttur fyrir hendi skal húsið standa autt áfram sé það vilji eigandans, enda er það hans réttur sem eigandi að láta húsið grotna niður. En sé slíkur réttur ekki fyrir hendi er ljóst að þó svo að einhver hafi nýtingarrétt er sá réttur einskis virður sé engin nýting. Því ætti annar að geta nýtt sér, og auðlindin farið síður til spillis.

“The idea of property, or permanent empire, in those things which ought to be applied to our personal use, and still more in the produce of our industry, unavoidably suggests the idea of some species of law or practice by which it is guaranteed. Without this, property could not exist.” - William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness (1793)

Höfum í huga að þetta stangast ekki á við það að óska sér einkalífs. Sért þú að nýta þér herbergi er ekki sjálfsagt að menn ryðjist þar inn og fari að nota það. Og það að fella þennan lagalega varða eignarétt úr gildi þýðir ekki að fólk hafi ekki lengur einkamuni sem það vilji halda fyrir sig. Fólk mun alltaf virða rétt hvers annars til að hafa hluti, upp að skynsamlegu marki. Það þarf bara lög til að framfylgja óréttlæti.

Í hagfræði er gerður tvennskonar greinarmunur á eiginleikum hluta. Annars vegar er talað um að hlutir hafi skort (scarce) eða gnægð (abundant), það er að segja, að með skynsamlegri nýtingu þeirra getur samt orðið skortur á þeim, eða öðrum kosti það verður enginn skortur séu þær skynsamlega nýttar. Dæmi um hlut sem er af skornum skammti er Eiffelturninn. Það er eingöngu til einn Eiffelturn, og það verður alltaf bara til einn Eiffelturn. Það er hægt að afrita hann, en jafnvel afrit sem er nákvæmt upp á sérhverja öreind væri samt afrit, því Eiffelturninn fær sinn einstakleika ekki af lögun sinni, heldur af menningararfleiðinni sem fylgir honum. Afturámóti er ofgnótt af súrefni á jörðinni, og það væri mjög erfitt að ætla sér að klára það alltsaman.

Hinsvegar er talað um keppnisvörur (rival) og vinalegar vörur (non-rival). Hér er átt við það hvort að nýting eins einstaklings á vörunni muni útiloka að annar geti notað hana. Gulrót sem notuð er af einum manni getur ekki verið notuð af öðrum. Stóll getur ekki verið notaður (undir venjulegum kringumstæðum) af fleiri en einum í einu. En hinsvegar geta margir setið í sama bíósal, og margir geta notað sama matjurtargarðinn.

(Athugið að margir hagfræðingar gera ekki greinarmun á rival og scarce, sem gæti útskýrt hvers vegna þeir gera svona mörg mistök.)

“Since neither property nor capital produces anything when not fertilized by labor–that means the power and the right to live by exploiting the works of someone else, the right to exploit the work of those who possess neither property nor capital and who thus are forced to sell their productive power to the lucky owners of both.” - Michael Bakunin, Selected Writings

Vinna er auðvitað eitt af þeim fyrirbærum sem er bæði samkeppni um og skortur á: sérhver einstaklingur býr bara yfir ákveðnum fjölda vinnutíma, og því hefur myndast hefð í kringum eignahyggjusamfélagið að eigendur láti aðra vinna fyrir sig í skiptum fyrir lítinn hlut af framleiðninni. Yfirleitt er þessi hlutur ekki greiddur út í formi framleiðninnar sjálfrar, heldur í formi gjaldmiðils.

Og það er rétt, í núverandi árferði, að spyrja um peninga. Eru þeir skortvara? Já. Eru þeir keppnisvara? Já. Þarf þetta að vera raunin?

Þessi síðasta spurning er mikilvæg ekki síst vegna þess hve sjaldan hún er spurð. Peningakerfið hefur verið byggt upp í kringum þá trú að allar vörur séu skortvörur og að allar vörur séu samkeppnisvörur, og þetta þýðir það að peningakerfið getur ekki með góðu móti metið verðmæti þeirra hluta sem er hvorki skortur á né samkeppni um.

“Money is a sign of poverty.” - Iain M. Banks, The State of the Art (1989)

Eignarrétturinn hefur verið notaður til að réttlæta skort í fleiri hundruð ár. Áður fyrr, í Englandi, voru miklar víðáttur skóglendis álitnir almenningar – hugtak sem er nánast búið að uppræta úr íslenskri menningu – svæði sem allir hafa jafnan afnotarétt af og enginn átti formlegan eignarrétt á. Á einhverjum tímapunkti áttuðu lénsherrar sig á því að þarna leyndust mikil verðmæti, og uppgötvuðu um leið það sem hefur verið kallað harmleikur almenningsins (Tragedy of the Commons).

Skortur

Bændurnir hjuggu á haustin stuttar greinar af trjánum í skógunum og söfnuðu þannig eldivið. Þetta hjálpaði trjánum að spara orku yfir vetrarmánuðina og byrja að vaxa fyrr á vorin, og auk þess höfðu bændurnir nóg til að brenna. En þegar lénsherrarnir áttuðu sig á því að yfirvofandi skortur var á þessari auðlind sem hafði verið í almenningi árþúsundum saman þá var þeim ekki annars kostar auðið en að fara að heimta gjald af bændum fyrir afnotarétt af skóginum.

Bændurnir, auðvitað, þurftu að borga, því annars höfðu þeir ekki eldivið. Nýting skóganna breyttist ekki. Eignarrétturinn leysti ekki vandamálið, sem var hvort eð er ekki til staðar.

“No complaint…is more common than that of a scarcity of money.” - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776)

Peningar sem slíkir eru ekki jafn alvarlegt vandamál og það hvernig fólk hefur vanist því að hugsa um peninga. Eiginleikar peninga spretta frá þeirri þörf sem eignarrétturinn – og valdstrúktúrinn sem viðheldur honum – hefur skapað á því að viðhalda skorti.

Síðustu hálfa öld hafa peningar verið búnir til úr engu. Þeir verða til þegar bankar lána hver öðrum fé. Þetta er ákveðin tegund af miðstýringu, sem er viðhöfð til að tryggja að eingöngu séu búnir til ákveðið miklir peningar. Seðlabanki, miðstjórn gjaldmiðilsins, ákveður hve mikið af gjaldmiðlinum getur verið í umferð hverju sinni. Flestir hafa ekki frelsi til að búa til peninga.

Bankarnir sem hafa það frelsi hafa, rétt eins og eigendurnir sem kúga vinnumenn, notað aðstöðu sína til að auka umfang sitt stöðugt með vöxtum.

“If he has exacted usury Or taken increase — Shall he then live? He shall not live! If he has done any of these abominations, He shall surely die; His blood shall be upon him.” - Biblían, Ezekiel 18:13 (King James version)

Vaxtataka skapar áhugaverða stöðu í peningakerfinu. Stöðugt er gerð krafa til meira magns peninga en búið er að skapa. Þetta ásamt einokuninni – miðstýringunni – á framleiðslugetunni verður til þess að úr verður leikur.

Leikurinn hefur nokkrar reglur: Allir verða að taka þátt, það er ekki hægt að hætta, það er ekki hægt að sigra, og það er ekki hægt að koma út á sléttu. Markmið leiksins er að vera síðastur til að tapa. Hvernig fer maður að því? Jú. Eignast meira. Forðast gjaldþrot. Ljúga, svindla, blekkja. Keyra aðra í gjaldþrot. Því verri manneskja sem þú ert, því betur mun þér farnast í þessum leik.

Gjaldmiðill með áfastri vaxtatöku

Hver er lausnin? Hvernig breytum við leiknum?

Við hættum að gera ráð fyrir því að skortur sé á öllum fyrirbærum, að öll fyrirbæri séu samkeppnisvara. Þetta er ofsalega einfalt. Og þessi oggulitla breyting gerir það að verkum að við getum endurbyggt peningakerfið á eftirfarandi hátt.

Fyrst hættum við allri miðstýringu og gefum það frjálst að framleiða peninga. Við getum hagnýtt okkur tölvutækni til að gera þetta hraðvirkt, einfallt og öruggt.

“Abundant cheap credit would drastically alter the balance of power between capital and labor, and returns on labor would replace returns on capital as the dominant form of economic activity.” - Kevin Carson, Mutualist Political Economy

Peningakerfið væri þá byggt þannig upp: viðskipti milli einstaklinga, þar sem skipst er á verðmætum sem eru raunverulegur skortur á eða samkeppni um – sem er óháð eignarrétti sem slíkum! – fara fram þannig að kaupandi undirritar skuldayfirlýsingu til seljanda. Skuldayfirlýsingarnar getur tölvukerfið gert upp jafn óðum á augabragði í gegnum allt samfélagið. Með sterkri dulkóðun væru skuldayfirlýsingarnar ófalsanlegar.

Það sem meira er, eitt mest mótsagnakennda lögmál kapitalismans kemur að góðum notum. Kapitalíska hagkenningin gerir ráð fyrir því að hvatinn fyrir öllum mannlegum aðgerðum sé gróði, en um leið er það trú eignahyggjumannanna að í raunverulega frjálsum markaði verði samkeppni það mikil að gróði af viðskiptum fer niður í núll. Þetta myndi þýða, í tilfelli lána, að engir vextir yrðu greiddir, né lántökugjald, ekkert frekar en að þú borgar umsýslugjald þegar þú borgar búðarmanni með fimmhundruðkalli.

Tæknilegar forsendur þessa eru til staðar. Þær skal ég glaður lýsa í smáatriðum fyrir þeim sem hafa áhuga, en látum þær liggja milli hluta að sinni.

Aðalatriðið er þetta:

Eignarrétturinn er veikburða núna, vegna þess að hann er að ganga gegn siðferðisvitund þeirra sem ekkert eiga.

Peningakerfið er veikburða núna, vegna þess að það er byggt upp á forsendum sem eru brostnar.

Miðstýring er ekki framtíðin, skortur er ekki framtíðin, eign er ekki framtíðin. Anarkismi er framtíðin – frelsi allra til alls, jafnræði, kærleikur, samvinna.

Using PGP for elections is the way to do it.

Be sure to vote in the Wikipedia License Update elections.

It has been an interesting weekend here in Reykjavík. On Thursday evening a group of young people with anarchistic tendencies squatted a large residential building on Vatnsstígur, dead-center in Reykjavík. (City center that is, not geographical center or population center. For those interested and familiar it’s close to bars Boston and Dillon and around the corner from Hljómalind.)

Squatting is not common in Iceland; the same group squatted a building last autumn (pre-crash) but it only lasted a couple of days, and most squatting is done without much public awareness.

This building has stood empty for over a year. So have most of the buildings around it. Reykjavík’s city center was, over the last year, largely bought up by investors intending to tear old buildings down and
reshape the city center; this particular lot, currently with mixed zoning, was intended to be a shopping mall.

Several things prevented this. One issue was that several buildings on the lot are more than 100 years old, which by Icelandic preservation law means that they’re automatically protected. The protection can be waived
if the building is in poor condition. So the contractors left the buildings stand empty - nature will take its course. It only takes about two years for a building to be ruined in this climate if it isn’t maintained.

Then the crash happened.

I heard an estimate that 9000 apartments in Reykjavík are vacant; I’m not sure how they arrived at that number, but I’ll easily believe that it’s not less than half of that: entire freshly built suburbs are empty, with hundreds of buildings half-completed. (Note that many buildings have many apartments) In the city center, new skyrises have been abandoned half way through construction. This plus the buildings that had been bought and left to rot by the contractors, plus the fact that hundreds of families have been evicted for being unable to pay their mortgages. Many more families have been granted permission to postpone mortgage payments.

So 2000-4000 livable spaces, perhaps. And possibly thousands of homeless people. Unemployment is soaring: roughly 15000 people were unemployed last time I checked. Remember that there’s only 310000 people in this country - the workforce is only 184100 people (2008 estimate, see http://hagstofa.is/?PageID=637&src=/temp/Dialog/varval.asp?ma=VIN01001%26ti=Atvinnu%FE%E1tttaka%2C+atvinnuleysi%2C+vinnut%EDmi+og+fj%F6ldi+starfandi+eftir+%E1rsfj%F3r%F0ungum+2003%2D2008+%26path=../Database/vinnumarkadur/rannsoknir/%26lang=3%26units=Fj%F6ldi/hlutfall
). That means 8% unemployment, which I’ve heard is expected to go to 20%. For a lot of countries this is normal, granted, but for Iceland it’s unprecedented.

So to the squat.

The contractor went bankrupt, so ownership of the buildings went to one of the banks that had previously been nationalized. The state essentially owns the lot.

There’s general elections here after two weeks. I heard from an acquaintance high up in one of the political parties that there’s no political will to throw them out until after the elections - with massive support for left wing parties these days people are generally sympathetic towards the cause, with ALL news reports so far having been astoundingly positive:

* http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2009/04/09/hustokufolk_a_vatnsstig/

(Pictures near the bottom)

One of the key points is that the first thing they did after squatting the house was they started to paint it’s exterior, and fix up the interior, which appeared to have been used as a drug den - i.e., it was really being resquatted.  The fact that it’s being fixed up has been resounded in the media.

The neighbors were all contacted by the squatters and their support received. One even allowed them use of electricity, it seems, by way of an extension cord leading out through a window.

The blogosphere has been similar. Of blogs I found on the subject of the squat, only two were negative. The bloggers in question also commented heavily on other blogs:

* http://geiragustsson.blog.is/blog/geiragustsson/entry/850034/
* http://vest1.blog.is/blog/vest1/entry/849774/
* http://baldvinj.blog.is/blog/baldvinj/entry/849972/
* http://salvor.blog.is/blog/salvor/entry/850776/

(All in Icelandic, but links included for completeness)

So here’s where it gets interesting. Several bloggers, and several people I’ve talked to - people even not typically affiliated with radical movements - have brought into question, in light of this action, the entire notion of property. This is not to say that the idea of property is about to be defenestrated nationwide, but rather that the idea that property is an unalienable right (which is granted by our constitution) is being shaken quite noticably.

A friend of mine, a law student, had never heard of squatting before. She was completely boggled at the entire notion: “What about property rights?” she asked. “Do they weigh heavier than basic human rights, such
as the right to shelter?” I retorted, albeit not quite so eloquently. There were half a dozen people there, the discussion was quite interesting.  The same basic concept is plastered over the front of the building, a huge banner:

“HEIMILIÐ ER HEILAGT / EIGNARÉTTURINN EKKI”

- “The home is sacred / property isn’t”

(Homage to an advertising campaign that’s been going on where all the ads start with “The home is sacred”)

She’s not the only one. One of the offending bloggers wrote: (my translation)

“If I have a car that’s broken down and I don’t want to fix it, so I just let it rust in my yard, do these kids think they have the right to break into it and fix it up and go for a ride? If they think that, I’ll get my shotgun.”

One blogger said:

“The heat was taken off the building to kill the cockroaches.”, which is funny since the only cockroaches in Iceland are at the former US Navy base (now a University campus) - Americans take cockroaches with them
everywhere. He was met with sarcasm.

In light of sudden accidental housing abundance crossed with increasing unemployment and homelessness, are Icelanders about to “go native” with further squatting actions? It’ll be interesting to see what happens. I wish the nascent squatting culture the best of luck.

I’ve not been active for a while, been very busy doing all sorts of crazy shit. But it’s Ēostre fest now so I’m chilling out, replenishing my energies, and refocusing for another spurt of good fun. Stay tuned.