1 – Property Relations: A Historical Look
In a society that has been founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment, on the philosophes and the thinkers of centuries past, there is no skepticism as to why reason flourishes to some degree. The all too typical political arguments rage furiously, between liberals and conservatives, between libertarians and statists. Issues like gun control and abortion are argued, each side tying together its different positions through sometimes inane connections and poor generalizations. There is a certain amount of diversity and disagreement in the political arena. It was not the intention of the Rationalist philosophers to say that reason leads all men to the same conclusions, but only that every conclusion or position must be guarded with evidence, reasoning, and logic. To support a government candidate without offering any proof for such support is as idiotic as it is unreasonable. So it happens, that the arguments in the political arena follow a certain set of code, a certain informal rule: if an argument is to have merit, it must have evidence. Thoughts may be considered, but can never be accepted without reasoning. Ideas may be proposed, but will never be believed without arguments.
mediaimage
Among the ideas that are commonly debated in our modern society,Are We Barbarians? Articles there is the idea of wealth redistribution, an idea that is largely associated with liberals and liberalism. Its essential definition is the transferring of wealth from one part of society to another, after the in-place rules of economics have given wealth to one member or another. One of the primary methods that wealth redistribution is enacted is through heavy taxing of the rich, and in turn using that taxes to fund programs such as college funds, better schools, improved social security, among other social programs, so that the taxes of the rich go to the poorer parts of society in a more equitable way. Those who support wealth redistribution also support other things such as raising the minimum wage laws, increasing health care, decreasing the work week, and other things that would otherwise aid the working class and eliminate poverty. However, these progressive reforms that are being implemented into our system, as much as they seem to take hold, poverty, crime, and unemployment still manage to exist and infect millions of lives. And, even beyond this, these progressive reforms are highly criticized by conservatives as being destructive to the economy and antithetic towards ideals of justice. Not only are these progressive reforms ineffective, conservatives argue, but they violate the rights and liberties of people — particularly, they violate the right to property of the people. The property rights of the people as they exist today I shall call property relations.
I am not going to make my views or opinions a mystery here. I firmly hold to the belief that wealth redistribution is, in fact, ineffective. The most effective method of preventing poverty, unemployment, and misery is by reorganizing and rearranging society so that the public is in ownership of the means of production. That is to say, the farms that harvest the food, the mines that bring up the metal ore, the factories that manufacture the products, the stores that distribute the goods, and the vehicles that transport the value created by society, all of these things should be owned publicly. Just as public as the roads, the railroads, the highways, the utility (water and electricity) companies, and parks are publicly owned, so shall the means of production be owned by the public. Regulation may be largely ineffective, but no regulation at all simply allows for so much poverty and misery to flow through. While a bureaucracy might pose as a hurdle to the economy, a completely free market economy may be viewed as a wall that reaches to the heavens, impassable by those who love justice and freedom. It is only by an ownership of the means of production by the public that the ills of a Capitalist society can be remedied. It would require a complete revolution of the property relations as they exist.
“But it is unjust!” is the first cry uttered. The idea that property can be taken away from the Capitalist class, who has worked so hard and so diligently to produce the wealth that they have amassed, is almost seen as theft. If we were to take the wealth of corporations, and put it under the control of the people, we would be violating the property relations of society! There is no doubt to this, as it is my intention to revolutionize the property relations of society. However, there is still the cry that what we are doing is unjust, what we are doing is immoral, what we are doing violates a higher, ethical principle. Some people honestly believe that the words “Laissez Faire” truly exist on some stone tablet in heaven (an opinion which I must admit is quite frightening). “Why should anybody have the right to touch the property of anyone else?” it is asked of us, “Why should the people have any right to touch, to manipulate, to control, to operate, or to possess the means of production, which is the legal property of investors and entrepreneurs today?” These questions, I shall here answer.
2 – Serf to Lord
Prior to the rise of Capitalism and free trade, the belief that individuals are allowed to trade their commodities and goods with minimal restriction, there was the system of Feudalism, or what most historians regard as Manorialism. Feudalism was a term adopted by the French revolutionaries to classify those they opposed. It was believed in that day that serfs belonged to the land, and the land belonged to a vassal and a lord, who in turn had to face others in the hierarchy. The difference between a slave and a serf was not all that enormous. However, the brutality that was displayed against slaves in the Americas was probably much more common than the brutality given towards the serfs. The serfs, while they were considered to a large extent the property of their lords, were still somewhat free. Food was more common and work was not, to my understanding, as brutish as it would be for the African slaves. It is believed by most historians that the system of Feudalism (or Manorialism) arose after the fall of the Roman Empire, with slaves living on large estates with their masters. These were the property relations of this feudal society.
Anyone who saw the misery, the absolute wretched poverty, the injustice of this system, would come to the conclusion that there was a time limit on Feudalism. The day would come when these property relations, and the government (the force) that supports them, would be smashed into oblivion. Of course, those who predicted this believed in some form of posivitism, believing that the course of mankind would — through successive generations — become more humane, more rational, and more gentle and kind in its manifestations. Just as we see so much support of slavery when reading the Law of Hammurabi or Torah, we felt that such oppressive chains must be destroyed. And, so too, when we look at the feudal society, we feel that it could not last. In good time, enough men of boldness, enough men of courage, would gather, organize, and some would sacrifice their lives and their liberty, that the rest of society may breathe freely.
If we were to offer these arguments, though, to a Feudalist, to a vassal or a lord or a king of this era, the arguments we would receive would be plentiful. We might be told that a lord has the right to tell his serfs whatever he wants them to do, because it creates prosperity and wealth for society. Among these arguments, we might hear the same claim that has supported every brutal and vicious movement, the argument that god condones what is going on — essentially, the argument that only the kings and the lords and the knights and the vassals have the ear of god, and the peasants, the poor, and the oppressed are deaf towards any sense of justice. But, among these arguments, we will hear something else: the lords of the manor have the right to do what they like to the serfs, because it is their right to property that they are exercising. It is the property relations of that society which allow this.
We would look at these arguments, with a few drops of suspicion, a bit of disgust, and ultimately, with a fervent zeal that what these men were telling us was lies. If we were to imagine the toils and the labors of the serf class, we see essentially a group of people with few rights. Many of them, for a great deal of time, believed that the way things were are simply the ways things will always be — a traditional argument of tradition. But, no, the state of things in Feudalist society are as unbearable as they are without any regard for justice, honor, or truth. We firmly believe in our hearts that every man has the right to leave any piece of land, that they must be in control of their own lives and their own destiny. Any argument that claims they should be tied to land, that they should be chained to a master, is an argument for injustice and cruelty.
In what argument, though, are we defending the rights of the serfs against the rights of the lords? Very bluntly, very simply, the argument that we are proposing is one on behalf of justice. We believe that each and every person should be endowed to the same rights and privileges. A person cannot be born into the position of a lord or vassal, nor can someone be born into the oppressive situation of the serf. Each and every man has faculties of thought, of suffering, of happiness, of sympathy, of consideration, of responsibility, and with these faculties, each person should be allowed their rights, their freedoms, and their liberty. With these as our arguments, we support the serf’s right to no longer be a serf, but to be a citizen, on an equal footing with a vassal, who is no longer a vassal but just a citizen. We believe that the property relations of the feudal state were without justice. Those who agree with me have, effectively, agreed with revolutionizing the property relations of society.
3 – Slave to Master
Slavery is a cruel, brutish system which has existed from the dawn of time and still exists today. The ancient Sumerians believed and practiced slavery, as much as any ancient culture did. It was common practice that once a tribe conquered another tribe in warfare, the conquered became the slaves of the conqueror. So it seems that war is sparked by the darker side of human passion, it endures through a cruel instinct, and it results with an unrestricted savagery on behalf of greed. Even today, nations that are conquered by other nations do not impose a slavery on the conquered peoples, but a form of Imperialism and economic exploitation through mercantilism. The Roman Empire practiced a form of slavery between natural born Romans and those who have no relatives from the country. Several centuries ago, slavery existed in the United States, but it was a form of racial slavery, of one race owning another race. Slavery, in all of its forms, in the various regions and cultures and nations that it was practiced in, always differed. In some cases, it was a difference between class, as it was in Sumer, or it was a difference between race, as it was in the United States In some cases, the slaves were allowed some form of advancement in society. Even in the United States, slaves were allowed to sell their goods, and use their money to buy their freedom, though this was susceptible to corruption by slavers. I think I can confidently say that there has never been a nation that has not had slavery, except perhaps with very few and very rare examples. Even today slavery still exists in third world, Asian nations that are under the control of a military coup.
The property relations of a society that uses slavery are not that far from the property relations of a feudal society. There is a separation of classes. One class is subservient and another class is oppressive and in control. The serfs in the feudal society were the oppressed, just as slaves in a slave society were the oppressed. The difference is not all that great. In fact, one might argue that the primary difference between these society is the terms and the culture or tradition that exist with them — and those who argue for this are basically correct.
Since many people in America today are descended from slaves, but are now free citizens, our society looks upon slavery as perhaps one of the most evil institutions. The rights of masters over slaves was perhaps much greater than the rights of lords over serfs. We have read and heard so many stories of slaves in the south being beaten, abused, raped, sold from their families, and exploited. We have read the testimony of Frederick Douglass with watered eyes and a deep heart. It seems that the more we learn about the culture of a slave nation, the more we detest it, the more resentful we become of it, the more our hearts fill with passion to liberate the oppressed and vengeance to punish those who committed these crimes. I feel that it is quite unnecessary to defend Abolitionism or to argue for the end of slavery in this society. The reasons that I could offer would simply be ones that are well known to a people and a society that are familiar with the cruelty of this brutish and savaged institution.
I believe that the reason why we detest and abhor slavery is the same reason why we rejected Feudalism as an oppressive, cruel system. In both systems, there is a class of individuals who are treated poorly, who spend the entirety of their lives in the chains of poverty, and are given no right to determine their own destiny. The lords of the manor had a relationship with their serfs that was not entirely unlike the masters with their slaves. We believed in liberating serfs because they are conscious individuals, they have pains and sufferings, they are capable of thought and emotion. Their minds are not at all different than those who govern them, so we must say this: every person must be justly recognized as an independent entity, allowed their own rights, their own liberties. And, so, too, this is our response to the system of slavery: the master must be demoted, the slave must be promoted, so that they may look eye to eye, as citizens, deserving of freedom, deserving of rights. Perhaps one day, when the oppressive systems that have been imposed on man by man have been destroyed, all men can look at each other as kin, and they can view all animals as brothers and sisters in different forms — perhaps, if the flame of liberation continues to grow and expand, if we still feel hope when we grab our chests, then one day, all men and women will regard each other as countrymen.
Yet, there is still something that must be realized in this. When we are crushing the chains that have kept serfs to land and slaves to masters, when we are telling each person that they are free to do as their heart feels and as their mind thinks, we are engaging in revolutionary activity. In the slave societies, slaves are considered property. That is the property relations of such a society. By telling slaves that they no longer must answer to a well-dressed savage, we are essentially revolutionizing the property relations of such a society. This is no mere small reform. We are not limiting the physical abuse that a slave may be forced to endure. We are not limiting the hours a week that a master can push his slaves. To completely overthrow the system of slavery, we are becoming revolutionaries. Thusfar, we have two instances where we felt that it was necessary to completely crush, destroy, and completely rewrite the property relations of society.