FAQAnar:F.2.1 - Comment la propriété privée affecte la liberté ?
Catégorie:L’anarcho-capitalisme est-il un type d’anarchisme ? The right-"libertarian" either does not acknowledge or dismisses as irrelevant the fact that the (absolute) right of private property may lead to extensive control by property owners over those who use, but do not own, property (such as workers and tenants). Thus a free-market capitalist system leads to a very selective and class-based protection of "rights" and "freedoms." For example, under capitalism, the "freedom" of employers inevitably conflicts with the "freedom" of employees. When stockholders or their managers exercise their "freedom of enterprise" to decide how their company will operate, they violate their employee's right to decide how their labouring capacities will be utilised and so under capitalism the "property rights" of employers will conflict with and restrict the "human right" of employees to manage themselves. Capitalism allows the right of self-management only to the few, not to all. Or, alternatively, capitalism does not recognise certain human rights as universal which anarchism does.
This can be seen from Austrian Economist W. Duncan Reekie's defence of wage labour. While referring to "intra-firm labour markets" as "hierarchies", Reekie (in his best ex cathedra tone) states that "[t]here is nothing authoritarian, dictatorial or exploitative in the relationship. Employees order employers to pay them amounts specified in the hiring contract just as much as employers order employees to abide by the terms of the contract." [Markets, Entrepreneurs and Liberty, p. 136 and p. 137]. Given that "the terms of contract" involve the worker agreeing to obey the employers orders and that they will be fired if they do not, its pretty clear that the ordering that goes on in the "intra-firm labour market" is decidedly one way. Bosses have the power, workers are paid to obey. And this begs the question: if the employment contract creates a free worker, why must she abandon her liberty during work hours?
Reekie actually recognises this lack of freedom in a "round about" way when he notes that "employees in a firm at any level in the hierarchy can exercise an entrepreneurial role. The area within which that role can be carried out increases the more authority the employee has." [Op. Cit., p. 142] Which means workers are subject to control from above which restricts the activities they are allowed to do and so they are not free to act, make decisions, participate in the plans of the organisation, to create the future and so forth within working hours. And it is strange that while recognising the firm as a hierarchy, Reekie tries to deny that it is authoritarian or dictatorial -- as if you could have a hierarchy without authoritarian structures or an unelected person in authority who is not a dictator. His confusion is shared by Austrian guru Ludwig von Mises, who asserted that the "entrepreneur and capitalist are not irresponsible autocrats" because they are "unconditionally subject to the sovereignty of the consumer" while, on the next page, admitting there was a "managerial hierarchy" which contains "the average subordinate employee." [Human Action, p. 809 and p. 810] It does not enter his mind that the capitalist may be subject to some consumer control while being an autocrat to their subordinated employees. Again, we find the right-"libertarian" acknowledging that the capitalist managerial structure is a hierarchy and workers are subordinated while denying it is autocratic to the workers! Thus we have "free" workers within a relationship distinctly lacking freedom -- a strange paradox. Indeed, if your personal life were as closely monitored and regulated as the work life of millions of people across the world, you would rightly consider it the worse form of oppression and tyranny.
Somewhat ironically, right-wing liberal and "free market" economist Milton Friedman contrasted "central planning involving the use of coercion -- the technique of the army or the modern totalitarian state" with "voluntary co-operation between individuals -- the technique of the marketplace" as two distinct ways of co-ordinating the economic activity of large groups ("millions") of people. [Capitalism and Freedom, p. 13] However, this misses the key issue of the internal nature of the company. As right-"libertarians" themselves note, the internal structure of a capitalist company is hierarchical. Indeed, the capitalist company is a form of central planning and so shares the same "technique" as the army. As Peter Drucker noted in his history of General Motors, "[t]here is a remarkably close parallel between General Motors' scheme of organisation and those of the two institutions most renowned for administrative efficiency: that of the Catholic Church and that of the modern army." [quoted by David Engler, Apostles of Greed, p. 66] Thus capitalism is marked by a series of totalitarian organisations. Dictatorship does not change much -- nor does it become less fascistic -- when discussing economic structures rather than political ones. To state the obvious, "the employment contract (like the marriage contract) is not an exchange; both contracts create social relations that endure over time - social relations of subordination." [Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract, p. 148]
Perhaps Reekie (like most right-"libertarians") will maintain that workers voluntarily agree ("consent") to be subject to the bosses dictatorship (he writes that "each will only enter into the contractual agreement known as a firm if each believes he will be better off thereby. The firm is simply another example of mutually beneficial exchange." [Op. Cit., p. 137]). However, this does not stop the relationship being authoritarian or dictatorial (and so exploitative as it is highly unlikely that those at the top will not abuse their power). Representing employment relations as voluntary agreement simply mystifies the existence and exercise of power within the organisation so created.
As we argue further in the section F.3, in a capitalist society workers have the option of finding a job or facing abject poverty and/or starvation. Little wonder, then, that people "voluntarily" sell their labour and "consent" to authoritarian structures! They have little option to do otherwise. So, within the labour market workers can and do seek out the best working conditions possible, but that does not mean that the final contract agreed is "freely" accepted and not due to the force of circumstances, that both parties have equal bargaining power when drawing up the contract or that the freedom of both parties is ensured.
Which means to argue (as right-"libertarians" do) that freedom cannot be restricted by wage labour because people enter into relationships they consider will lead to improvements over their initial situation totally misses the point. As the initial situation is not considered relevant, their argument fails. After all, agreeing to work in a sweatshop 14 hours a day is an improvement over starving to death -- but it does not mean that those who so agree are free when working there or actually want to be there. They are not and it is the circumstances, created and enforced by the law (i.e., the state), that have ensured that they "consent" to such a regime (given the chance, they would desire to change that regime but cannot as this would violate their bosses property rights and they would be repressed for trying).
So the right-wing "libertarian" right is interested only in a narrow concept of freedom (rather than in freedom or liberty as such). This can be seen in the argument of Ayn Rand that "Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state -- and nothing else!" [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 192] By arguing in this way, right-"libertarians" ignore the vast number of authoritarian social relationships that exist in capitalist society and, as Rand does here, imply that these social relationships are like "the laws of nature." However, if one looks at the world without prejudice but with an eye to maximising freedom, the major coercive institutions are the state and capitalist social relationships (and the latter relies on the former). It should also be noted that, unlike gravity, the power of the landlord and boss depends on the use of force -- gravity does not need policemen to make things fall!
The right "libertarian," then, far from being a defender of freedom, is in fact a keen defender of certain forms of authority. As Kropotkin argued against a forerunner of right-"libertarianism":
"The modern Individualism initiated by Herbert Spencer is, like the critical theory of Proudhon, a powerful indictment against the dangers and wrongs of government, but its practical solution of the social problem is miserable -- so miserable as to lead us to inquire if the talk of 'No force' be merely an excuse for supporting landlord and capitalist domination." [Act For Yourselves, p. 98]
To defend the "freedom" of property owners is to defend authority and privilege -- in other words, statism. So, in considering the concept of liberty as "freedom from," it is clear that by defending private property (as opposed to possession) the "anarcho"-capitalist is defending the power and authority of property owners to govern those who use "their" property. And also, we must note, defending all the petty tyrannies that make the work lives of so many people frustrating, stressful and unrewarding.
Anarchism, by definition, is in favour of organisations and social relationships which are non-hierarchical and non-authoritarian. Otherwise, some people are more free than others. Failing to attack hierarchy leads to massive contradiction. For example, since the British Army is a volunteer one, it is an "anarchist" organisation! Ironically, it can also allow a state to appear "libertarian" as that, too, can be considered voluntary arrangement as long as it allows its subjects to emigrate freely. So equating freedom with (capitalist) property rights does not protect freedom, in fact it actively denies it. This lack of freedom is only inevitable as long as we accept capitalist private property rights. If we reject them, we can try and create a world based on freedom in all aspects of life, rather than just in a few.
Notes et references
| |
