• MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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    11 months ago

    If the collective has to enforce collective ownership, isn’t that just a monopoly on violence again?

    Private ownership doesn’t require a collective, or a monopoly on violence. You only get to keep what you can defend.

    • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      If everyone has equal ownership, there is no "mono"poly.

      Private ownership requires a monopoly on violence to exist, if you can’t defend it there are no rights.

      • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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        11 months ago

        I have a gun. Try taking it from me.

        There are no laws saying I can’t have one, and there are no laws saying I can’t shoot you if you try to take it.

        • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          You cannot seriously believe in a might makes right society, can you?

          • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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            11 months ago

            I mean, first of all, have you taken a look at our current society, and second of all, this is just a thought experiment to prove that anarcho-communism is pure fantasy, or at the very least not inevitable.

            • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              Anarcho-Capitalism cannot exist, it would cease to exist the very second it did.

              Anarcho-Communism is a lofty goal, but is fully capable of existing.

              That’s the fundamental difference, what you consider to be Private Property simply wouldn’t be, it would either be personal property or you wouldn’t have it. It is only through threat of violence that one can own the products of tools despite not doing the labor.

              • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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                11 months ago

                Okay, as frustrating as it is to have you simply repeat your initial statements despite any arguments made to the contrary, it seems as though your point hinges on the distinction between personal and private property.

                However, I don’t see how private property couldn’t be maintained as long as you have the ability to defend it. Hiring guards for instance does not constitute a monopoly on violence, since others can do so as well. In an anarcho-communist scenario, for instance, if the workers want to maintain control of the means of production after ousting the owner, they would potentially have to post guards as well, or the property owner could hire a bunch of mercenaries to take the property back.

                The long and short if this is, I don’t see how anarchy would favor either the creation of capitalist or communist structures of organization. Most likely, there would be both, and survival would be a matter of who is better at organizing.

                • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  There are numerous critical flaws of what you just said.

                  1. Why would Guards support you? If you become a robber-baron, hiring muscle to protect your factories from the Workers, you have to deal with the fact that either you don’t actually control and own your factories, the mercenaries do, or accept that you have become a micro-state.

                  2. What is preventing any of these micro-states from absorbing others and becoming a full state? Nothing.

                  3. Why would anyone willingly work for you, unless it already reached the point where you are essentially a state? They could make more money simply by working cooperatively.

                  Private Property cannot maintain itself unless you have a monopoly on violence and thus a state.

                  Cooperatively owned property, on the other hand, supports itself and is maintained cooperatively. There are no avenues to realistically overturn it.

                  • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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                    11 months ago

                    I don’t think you’re wrong about the idea of micro-states forming, but I don’t see how a communist cooperative isn’t a micro-state by the same definition as well.

                    As far as cooperatives being naturally more efficient, I highly doubt that. Centralized structures are far more conducive to decision making. While your commune is still debating about whether both Marx’ and Engels’ birthdays should be a day off, the capitalists are already working.

                    Also, the idea that property somehow magically supports itself by virtue of being communally owned is complete fantasy. You clearly have no actual experience and are just spouting off a bunch of dogma you’ve read somewhere.