A republic of private interests

The passage from communal to individual property of land was the consequence of conquest, at least in the more recent and well documented examples, in the Americas, Africa and Asia. The invader wanted to take the land from the native. To do this he could exterminate the conquered people. But, if they were numerous and used to such labour, he could keep the people in bondage to till the soil to his advantage. Killing or chasing off the natives meant bringing in labour, either from the invader’s place of origin or from elsewhere. These were subjected to the new land owners. If the invader kept the people, he had to dispossess them of their common property by more devious means. The habitual method (see Tocqueville, Luxemburg, Allen et al.) was to change the local tribal leader, who was elected and revocable, into the hereditary proprietor of the community’s land. He was then coerced or bribed to give away portions of it, or he might lose all for an act of treason or rebellion, real or supposed.

The private property of land is originally the result of robbery with violence.  And so it must be, as it contradicts the foundations of society, which are the common weal and its governance, and opposes the state and the private person. Governments swing continually between tight control and laissez faire, turning from demagogy to plutocracy and back again. They are in a double bind. Obliged constitutionally to protect and encourage the accumulation of private wealth, as well as insuring the pursuit of happiness for all. And, in the most obvious case of land property, one person’s gain is another person’s loss as the land surface of the planet is only very marginally extensible.

Governments have to synthesise the nebulous concept of common good and the precision of private interests. They are expected to steer nations towards future goals. This needs perspective and foresight, a vision of the wider picture and of the long term. But these expectations are drowned out, by the urgencies of arbitrating the sharing of wealth between labour and capital, and of keeping the workers in their place and the rich in theirs. And there are the infernal rounds of funding recurrent election campaigns, and the campaigns themselves. No wonder politicians are seen as hopeless and helpless, and as being bought and sold. Who needs a naked emperor, and would he be of more use if he were clothed? The difference between autocracy and republic is that the autocrat relies on the threatening throng to subdue the privileged few, whereas the republic unites the few against the throng.

To have or have not was, and is, a question of armed force. Force used to take and force to keep. This violence began with the acquisition of land. Then, whenever trade developed, it spread to the monetisation of exchanges and the control of credit. Finally, with the mechanisation of industry, it concerned the property of all the means of production. The ground, money, tools, patents and copyrights are the capital that demands a share of the value produced by labour. The state also takes a share for its running costs, which complicates its role as arbiter of capital and labour. Capital needs force for protection and labour needs legislation to restrain that force. The state supplies both services, but is unable to resolve the dilemma of private and public, of the individual and the group, of property and community.

The state as a power exterior and superior to the community was also the result of conquest. The passage from elected chiefs, first among peers, to hereditary monarchs accompanied the transmittable private ownership of land. The king owned and ruled his kingdom, and his law was backed by military might. War was his principal occupation, war on his rebellious subjects and war to increase his domains. Royal absolutism was a static aristocratic concept, where status and property were inherently inherited qualities. Guns levelled the battle-field and gave power to rural gentry and urban merchants, who would constitute the capitalist foundation of the industrial revolution. Government returned to its electoral form of primo inter pares, but land property remained private. It even determined the right to vote, which was reserved to proprietors until domiciliation became the criterion and included rent payers. And so was born the republic of private interests.

Private and public, individual and state are in perpetual conflict, but this is the heritage of past divisions into conqueror and conquered, have and have not, winner and loser. Armed force created a duality in society. Primitively ethnic, it became cultural, social and ideological, in a continuing justification of the original theft and of government partiality. Descendant of monarchy the state is proprietor, buying, selling and extorting on a grand scale. The state occasionally takes over all property, but this alienates everyone, except its functionaries, and brings about a police regime, which is very rigid and unproductive. Generally the state is a proprietor among others, and its legislation reinforces its own powers and those of its peers. However, now that the whole global structure is wobbling, humanity (99%) may have the opportunity to reclaim its common earthly heritage. Or at least take a step in that direction.