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Individualist anarchism (also '''anarchist individualism''', '''anarcho-individualism''', '''individualistic anarchism''') refers to any of several traditions that hold that "individual conscience and the pursuit of self-interest should not be constrained by any collective body or public authority"Heywood, Andrew, Key Concepts in Politics, Palgrave, ISBN 0-312-23381-7, 2000, p. 46 and that the State , decreed and legislated law, and "the system of democracy, of majority decision, is held null and void."Horowitz, Irving Louis. The Anarchists. Aldine Transaction 2005, p. 49 Individualist anarchism, which may be seen as Classical Liberalism "taken to the extreme,"anarchism. Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p. 21. stresses the importance of individual liberty, the sovereignty of the individual, private property or possession, and opposes all monopolies (which they believe are state created and/or maintainedBrooks, Frank H. 1994. The Individualist Anarchists. Transaction Publishers. p.15).anarchism. Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p. 21. ''Individualist'' anarchism is seen by many as one of two main categories or wings of , i.e. opposition to state or social control over the individual, while those in the collectivist wing emphasise Positive Liberty to achieve one's potential and argue for that humans have needs that society ought to fulfill, "recognizing equality of entitlement".Harrison, Kevin and Boyd, Tony. Understanding Political Ideas and Movements. Manchester University Press 2003, p. 251 Another distinction is that unlike the social/socialist/collectivist/communitarian wing which advocates common ownership as a means to eliminate unequal economic power, individualist anarchism is supportive of property being held privately, and in the case of the most prevalent strain of anarcho-individualism, advocates that this property be distributed through markets.Freeden, Micheal. Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019829414X. pp. 314 Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a group of individualistic philosophies; there are "several traditions of individualist anarchism."Ward, Colin. Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 2. Early individualist anarchists were motivated by progressive , Joe Peacott , Wendy McElroy and David D. Friedman . OVERVIEW While individualist anarchism is often seen as including , Murray Rothbard and David D. Friedman among others. There is a pure egoist form of individualist anarchism, derived from the writings of Max Stirner, which supports the individual doing exactly what he pleases, taking no notice of God, state, or moral rules.Miller, David. "anarchism." 1987. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p 11 Stirner preached self-assertion and foresaw a "Union of Egoists" who are drawn together by respect for each other's ruthlessness.Woodcock. George. 2004. Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Broadview Press. p 20 However, individualist anarchists are typically , which may include money, police, and courts, should be supplied by the market itself. But, beyond this there is disagreement among different market anarchists in regard to particular issues. Individualist anarchists use the term "capitalism" in different ways: Some, such as Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker, and Kevin Carson use "capitalism" to mean the monopolization of capital,Schwartzman, Jack. Ingalls, Hanson, and Tucker: Nineteenth-Century American Anarchists. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 62, No. 5 (November, 2003). p. 325Carson, Kevin, ''Studies in Mutualist Political Economy'', preface and chapter 5. while others, such as Murray Rothbard, David Friedman, and Wendy McElroyMcElroy, Wendy. Capitalism Versus the Free Market. Individualist anarchism is sometimes seen as an evolution of , as he took up Spencer's " Law Of Equal Liberty ." HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT See Also: History of anarchism Precursors and early anarchists William Godwin See Also: William Godwin , a radical Liberal and Utilitarian .]] William Godwin, of England, wrote essays advocating an eventual society with minimal government that are considered by many to be some of the first, if not the first, anarchist treatises. As such, some consider the Liberal British writer to be the "father of philosophical anarchism." He is regarded by some as one of the first individualist anarchists, although his philosophy had some communist-like characteristics. He advocated an extreme form of individualism, proposing that all sorts of cooperation in labor should be eliminated; he says: "everything understood by the term co-operation is in some sense an evil."Godwin, William. (2006). In Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 7, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9037183 Godwin's individualism was to such a radical degree that he even opposed individuals performing together in orchestras. The only apparent exception to this opposition to cooperation is the spontaneous association that may arise when a society is threatened by violent force. One reason he opposed cooperation is he believed it to interfere with an individual's ability to be benevolent for the greater good. Godwin opposes the idea of government, but wrote that it may be necessary until people are educated and nurtured sufficiently. He expressly opposed democracy, fearing oppression of the individual by the majority (though he believes democracy to be preferable to dictatorship). Godwin supported individual ownership of property, defining it as "the empire to which every man is entitled over the produce of his own industry." However, he also advocated that individuals give to each other their surplus property on the occasion that others have a need for it, without involving trade (see '' later. Godwin's political views were diverse and do not perfectly agree with any of the ideologies that claim his influence. Writers of the Socialist Standard consider Godwin both an individualist and a communist."William Godwin, Shelly and Communism" by ALB, The Socialist Standard Murray Rothbard did not regard Godwin as being in the individualist camp at all, and refers to him as the "founder of communist anarchism."Rothbard, Murray. " Edmund Burke, Anarchist ." Historian Albert Weisbord considers him an individualist anarchist without reservation.http://www.weisbord.org/conquest8.htm Some writers see a conflict between Godwin's advocacy of "private judgement" and utilitarianism, as he says that ethics requires that individuals give their surplus property to each other resulting in an egalitarian society, but, at the same time, he insists that all things be left to individual choice. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Many of Godwin's views changed over time, as noted by Peter Kropotkin . Pierre Proudhon , the first self-identified anarchist.]] See Also: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon France's Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was the first philosopher to label himself an "anarchist." Though Proudhon himself is not always considered an individualist anarchist (some say he is a social(ist) anarchist.Bowen, James & Purkis, Jon. 2004.Changing Anarchism: Anarchist Theory and Practice in a Global Age. Manchester University Press. p. 24), he was extremely influential among the American individualists, mainly by way of William Greene and Benjamin Tucker who had studied and translated his works. Proudhon opposed government privilege that protects capitalist, banking and land interests, and the accumulation or acquisition of property (and any form of coercion that led to it) which he believed hampers competition and keeps wealth in the hands of the few. Proudhon favoured a right of individuals to retain the product of their labor as their own property, but believed that any property beyond that which an individual produced and could possess was illegitimate. Thus, he saw private property as both essential to liberty and a road to tyranny, the former when it resulted from labor and was required for labor and the latter when it resulted in exploitation (profit, interest, rent, tax). He generally called the former "possession" and the latter "property." For large-scale industry, he supported workers associations to replace wage labour and opposed the ownership of land. Proudhon maintained that those who labor should retain the entirety of what they produce, and that monopolies on credit and land are the forces that prohibiting such. He advocated an economic system that included private property as possession and exchange market but without profit, which he called Mutualism . It is Proudhon's philosophy that was explicitly rejected by Joseph Dejacque in the inception of Anarchist-communism , with the latter asserting directly to Proudhon in a letter that "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature." Proudhon said that "communism...is the very denial of society in its foundation..." (''Philosophy of Poverty'') and was famous for declaring that "property is theft" in reference to his rejection of capitalism. After Dejacque and others split from Proudhon due to the latter's support of individual property and an exchange economy, the relationship between the individualists, who continued in relative alignment with the philosophy of Proudhon, and the anarcho-communists was characterised by various degrees of antagonism and harmony. For example, individualists like Tucker on the one hand translating and reprinted the works of collectivists like Mikhail Bakunin , while on the other hand rejecting the economic aspects of collectivism and communism as incompatible with anarchist ideals. Max Stirner was the first of the Egoist individualist anarchists. Portrait by Friedrich Engels .]] See Also: Philosophy of Max Stirner Max Stirner was a philosopher whose "name appears with familiar regularity in historically-orientated surveys of anarchist thought as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of individualist anarchism."Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In 1844, his '' The Ego And Its Own '' (''Der Einzige and sein Eigentum'' which may literally be translated as ''The Unique Individual and His Property''Moggach, Douglas. The New Hegelians. Cambridge University Press. p. 177) was published, which is considered to be "a founding text in the tradition of individualist anarchism."Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Max Stirner Stirner proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions - including the notion of State, property as a right, natural rights in general, and the very notion of society - were mere ''spooks'' in the mind. Stirner wants to "abolish not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members."Heider, Ulrike. ''Anarchism: Left, Right and Green'', San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1994, pp. 95-96 Property simply comes about through might: "Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property." And, "What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing." He says, "I do not step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which I respect nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property!"Stirner, Max. The Ego and Its Own, p. 248. His embrace of Egoism is in stark contrast to Godwin's Altruism . Stirner was opposed to communism, seeing it as a form of authority over the individual. This position on property is much different from the native American, natural law, form of individualist anarchism, which defends the inviolability of the private property that has been earned through laborWeir, David. Anarchy & Culture. University of Massachusetts Press. 1997. p. 146 and trade. However, in 1886 Benjamin Tucker rejected the natural rights philosophy and adopted Stirner's egoism, with several others joining with him. This split the American individualists into fierce debate, "with the natural rights proponents accusing the egoists of destroying libertarianism itself."McElroy, Wendy. Benjamin Tucker, Individualism, & Liberty: Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order . LITERATURE OF LIBERTY: A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY LIBERAL THOUGHT (1978-1982). Institute for Human Studies. Autumn 1981, VOL. IV, NO. 3 Other Egoists include James L. Walker , Sidney Parker , and Dora Marsden . However, it should be noted that Stirner's philosophy has also influenced some libertarian communists and anarcho-communists, such as the Egoist communists.For Ourselves, [http://thinkerforum.com/uploads/right_to_be_greedy.pdf ''The Right to Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical Necessity Of Demanding Everything'', 1974. Forms of libertarian communism such as Situationism are strongly Egoist in nature.see, for example, Christopher Gray, ''Leaving the Twentieth Century'', p. 88. Anarcho-communist Emma Goldman was influenced by both Stirner and Peter Kropotkin and blended their philosophies together in her own, as shown in books of hers such as ''Anarchism And Other Essays''.Emma Goldman, ''Anarchism and Other Essays'', p. 50. The American Traditions See Also: Anarchism in the United States The American version of individualist anarchism has a strong emphasis on the Non-aggression Principle and Individual Sovereignty .1 Some, such as Henry David Thoreau , do not speak of economics but simply the right of "disunion" from the state, and foresee the gradual elimination of the state through social evolution. However, most of the individualists are Market Anarchists , and therefore support provision of defense of the individual and his property being supplied by multiple competing providers in a free market. This may further be broadly divided into those who hold to a labor theory of value and those who do not. Some of the latter are often referred to as "anarcho-capitalists." Those referred to as 'anarcho-capitalists', do not oppose things such as profit, rent, loans or interest. They also do not object to workplace hierarchy or boss-worker economic relationship so long as such relationship as seen as non-coerced or in existence through non-aggression. Among the market anarchists, there is a strong advocacy of Private Property in the product of labor, and a competitive free market economy. Unlike Social(ist) Anarchist s, individualists do not advocate the socialization or collectivization of the means or production. (1798-1874)]] An early individualist anarchist who was very influential was : Warren supported private property and trade. However, he held the Labor Theory Of Value , and from that he concluded that labor should always trade for an equal amount of labor. He believed that exchanges of unequal amounts of labor, or of goods that required unequal amounts of labor to produce, were always exploitative or unfair to the trader having to sacrifice more of his own labor than the other trader. (Proudhon was to also later to come to a similar conclusion.) His motto become " Cost The Limit Of Price ," with "cost" referring to the actual labor that was expended. He opposed what he called "value being made the limit of price," where individuals make exchanges of goods and services based on simply on how much they value what they are purchasing.Josiah Warren, ''Equitable Commerce'' (1849), p. 10. To ensure that labor received what he believed to be its Just Price - an equal amount of labor - he advocated that a form of money called " Labor Notes " be used, which represented labor times. In this way, labor would always be exchanged with an equal amount of labor and goods would always be purchased with an equal amount of labor that was exerted to produce those goods. But, he did not confine this to theory. He put labor notes into exercise in experimental communities which he set up. The "Boston Anarchists" Benjamin Tucker, and a series of other anarchists centered in the Boston area, were influenced by Warren and also a proponent of this interpretation of the labor theory of value. Tucker believed that it was unjust for individuals to receive greater income while performing less labor than others. Tucker asserted that the solution to bring wages up to be their proper level was for the state to cease interfering in the economy and protecting monopolies from competition. Like Warren, he saw income derived without labor to be exploitative (with the exception of gifts and inheritanceTucker, Benjamin. State Socialism and Anarchism). He argued that lending money for interest involved no labor on the part of the lender and therefore saw interest charges as usurious. Rent was also seen as unjust because it involved obtaining an income without labor. To Tucker and most of his contemporary individualists, rent of land is only made possible by government-backed "monopoly" and "privilege" that restricts competition in the marketplace and concentrates wealth in the hands of a few. Tucker contended that private control of land should be supported only if the possessor of that land is using it, otherwise, the possessor would be able to charge rent to others without laboring to produce something. Tucker envisioned an individualist anarchist society as ''"each man reaping the fruits of his labour and no man able to live in idleness on an income from capital....become a great hive of Anarchistic workers, prosperous and free individuals [combining to carry on their production and distribution on the cost principle."'' The Individualist Anarchists, p. 276 However, not all of the early individualist anarchists held this philosophy of land ownership. Warren and Lysander Spooner placed no restrictions on occupancy and use for ownership. Steven T. Byington also opposed Tucker's ideas on occupancy and use requirements for land titles.Carl Watner. Benjamin Tucker and His Periodical , Liberty. Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 4, p. 308 Tucker and other nineteenth century individualists in his circle supported replacing the security functions of the state with private defense that charges for its services of protecting liberty and property. Benjamin Tucker says: : (1808-1887)]] He said that anarchism "does not exclude prisons, officials, military, or other symbols of force. It merely demands that non-invasive men shall not be made the victims of such force. Anarchism is not the reign of love, but the reign of justice. It does not signify the abolition of force-symbols but the application of force to real invaders."Tucker, Benjamin. Liberty October 19, 1891 But Spooner argued that a society with unequal conditions would lead to a society of unfree associations. He argued for the right of everyone to hold land and have access to defence association, arguing that without such, ''" number of scoundrels, having money enough to start with, can establish themselves as a 'government'; because, with money, they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort more money; and also compel general obedience to their will."'' Spooner, Lysander. No Treason As far as a judicial system, many of these individualists such as Lysander Spooner supported a jury trial with the right of the jury to nullify law, ''"Honesty, justice, natural law, is usually a very plain and simple matter, . . . made up of a few simple elementary principles, of the truth and justice of which every ordinary mind has an almost intuitive perception,"'' Spooner, Lysander. Natural Law however some such as Steven T. Byington opposed such a system saying that there is a "need for certainty in some kinds of laws." Byington suggested that adjudications be done by judges "on a business basis" through private arbitration.McElroy, Wendy. [http://libertariannation.org/a/f62m1.html A Reconsideration of Trial by Jury , ''Forumulations'', Winter 1998-1999, Free Nation Foundation "spoke for all" of the nineteenth century individualist anarchists when he said, "It is right that one man employ another, it is right that he pay him wages, and it is right that he direct him absolutely, arbitrarily in the performance of labor."Madison, Charles A. Anarchism in America. Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol 6, No 1, Jan 1945, p. 53. He cites The Science of Society, by Stephen Pearl Andrews, New York 1853, 149 Andrews said, "It is not in any, nor in all of these features combined, that the wrong of our present system is to be sought and found. It is in the simply failure to do Equity. It is not that men are employed and paid, but that they are not paid justly..."Andrews, Stephen Pearl. The Science of Society. Nichols, 1854. p. 211 For Andrews, to be paid justly was to be paid according to the "Cost Principle," which held that individuals should be paid according to the amount of labor they exert. To simplify this process, he, after Josiah Warren, advocated an economy that uses "labor notes." Labor notes are money marked in labor hours (adjusted for different types of labor based on their difficulty or repugnance). In this way, it is the amount, difficulty, and danger of labor that determines the pay of the employee, rather than the worth of the labor in the eyes of the employer.explained in The Science of Society by Stephen Pearl Andrews. Nichols, 1854. pp. 186-214 In regard to Intellectual Property there were varying opinions. "Spooner favored intellectual property laws, James L. Walker ("Tak Kak") opposed them, and others such as Tucker took an intermediate position that copyrights are legitimate only if created by contract."Review by Edward P. Stringham of The Debates if ''Liberty'': An Overview of Individualist Anrachism, 1881-1908. The Independent Review. VOLUME IX, NUMBER 1, SUMMER 2004, p. 144 Spooner's reasoning was that ideas are the product of "intellectual labor" and therefore private property.Spooner, Lysander. [http://lysanderspooner.org/intellect/contents.htm The Law of Intellectual Property: or an essay on the right of authors and inventors to a perpetual property in their ideas. , Chaper 1, Section VI. Some of the American individualist anarchists later in this era, such as Benjamin Tucker, abandoned this form of anarchism and converted to Stirner's Egoism . Rejecting the idea of moral rights, Tucker said that there were only two rights, "the right of might" and "the right of contract." He also said, after converting to Egoist individualism, "In times past...it was my habit to talk glibly of the right of man to land. It was a bad habit, and I long ago sloughed it off....Man's only right to land is his might over it."Tucker, Instead of a Book, p. 350 Most early individualist anarchists considered themselves ''"fervent anti-capitalists… see no contradiction between their individualist stance and their rejection of capitalism."''Brown, Susan Love, The Free Market as Salvation from Government: The Anarcho-Capitalist View, Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture, edited by James G. Carrier, Berg/Oxford, 1997, p. 107 and p. 104) These early individualist anarchists, however, defined "capitalism" as the state-maintained monopolization of capital.Schwartzman, Jack. Ingalls, Hanson, and Tucker: Nineteenth-Century American Anarchists. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 62, No. 5 (November, 2003). p. 325 Nevertheless, the early individualist anarchists did object to the profit-making aspect of capitalism, believing under the labor theory of value that making profit through capital was exploitative. It is in this sense that they were opposed to capitalism.McElroy, Wendy. 2000. American Anarchism. The Independent Institute. But, they would not forcibly prevent profit making, believing it to be freedom of contract. They simply thought that profit would be eliminated through competition if the state did not protect monopolies. Some of their descendents,Brown, Susan Love, The Free Market as Salvation from Government: The Anarcho-Capitalist View, Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture, edited by James G. Carrier, Berg/Oxford, 1997, p. 103) such as anarcho-capitalists,Brown, Susan Love, The Free Market as Salvation from Government: The Anarcho-Capitalist View, Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture, edited by James G. Carrier, Berg/Oxford, 1997, p. 103) do not subscribe to the labor theory of value and have no objection to profit. Anarcho-capitalism See Also: Anarcho-capitalism 19th century individualist anarchists espoused the ."Outhwaite, William. The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought, Anarchism entry, Blackwell Publishing , 2003, p. 13 As economic theory changed, the popularity of the of the labor theory of Classical Economics was superseded by the Subjective Theory Of Value of Neo-classical Economics . According to Kevin Carson (himself a Mutualist ), "most people who call themselves "individualist anarchists" today are followers of Murray Rothbard's Austrian economics." Carson, Kevin. Mutualist Political Economy, Preface Murray Rothbard , a student of Ludwig Von Mises , combined the Austrian School economics of his teacher with the absolutist views of human rights and rejection of the state he had absorbed from studying the individualist American anarchists of the nineteenth century such as Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker.Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, 1987, ISBN 0-631-17944-5, p. 290 Rothbard said: Anarcho-capitalists claim that in an anarcho-capitalist society no authority would prohibit anyone from providing, through the and David Friedman and it has been influenced by non-anarchist Libertarians such as Frederic Bastiat , Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick . Rothbard wrote, Today there is a great deal of controversy over the status of anarcho-capitalism, with some writers claiming it to be a form of individualist anarchism,
Agorism See Also: Agorism Agorism is a radical Market Anarchists who consider that property rights are Natural Right s deriving from the primary right of self-ownership and are not opposed in principle to collectively held property if individual owners of the property consent to collective ownership by contract or other voluntary mutual agreement. However, Agorists are divided on the question of Intellectual Property rights.Konkin wrote the article "Copywrongs" in opposition to the concept and Schulman countered SEK3's arguments in "Informational Property: Logorights." Agorists consider their ideas to be an evolution and superation of those of society through Advocacy and growth of the Underground Economy or " Black Market " — the "counter-economy" as Konkin put it. This process is intended to continue until the State's perceived moral authority and outright power have been so thoroughly undermined that revolutionary market anarchist Legal And Security Enterprises are able to arise from underground and ultimately suppress government as a criminal activity. In this sense, agorism is "revolutionary Market Anarchism ".''Agorism is revolutionary market anarchism.'' Agorism.info CRITICISMS See Also: Criticisms of anarchism Anarcho-communist says that individualist anarchism differs radically from revolutionary anarchism, and it "is sometimes too readily conceded 'that this is, after all, anarchism'." He says Benjamin Tucker accepting the use of a private police force (including to break up violent strikes to protect the "employer's 'freedom'") is contradictory to the definition of anarchism of "no government."Meltzer, Albert. Anarchism: Arguments For and Against. AK Press, 2000. pp. 114-115 Meltzer also opposes the anarcho-capitalist form for similar reasons. He argues that since it supports "private armies" that is actually supports a "limited State." He contends that it "is only possible to conceive of Anarchism which is free, communistic and offering no economic necessity for repression of countering it."Meltzer, Albert. Anarchism: Arguments For and Against. AK Press, 2000. p 50 However, individualist anarchists would disagree that their philosophy supports a limited State or authoritarian force, pointing to the fact that defence associations would be freely available to all citizens and workers, ''"'The land for the people'…means the protection by…voluntary associations for the maintenance of justice…of all people who desire to cultivate land in possession of whatever land they personally cultivate…and the positive refusal of the protecting power to lend its aid to the collection of any rent, whatsoever."'' and ''"inducing the people to steadily refuse the payment of rent and taxes"'' quoted by Martin Blatt, Benjamin R. Tucker and the Champions of Liberty, Coughlin, Hamilton and Sullivan (eds.), p. 299 The defence associations would defend "occupancy and use" and not the holding of landlords over society or those who use the land a would-be landlord claims to own. under individualist anarchism.]] According to Gareth Griffith, George Bernard Shaw initially had flirtations with individualist anarchism but came to the conclusion that it was "the negation of socialism, and is, in fact, unsocialism carried as near to its logical conclusion as any sane man dare carry it." Shaw's argument was that even if wealth distribution was initially distributed equally, the amount of laissez-faire advocated by Benjamin Tucker would result in the distribution of wealth becoming unequal because it allows private appropriation and accumulation.Griffith, Gareth. Socialism and Superior Brain: The Political Thought of George Bernard Shaw. Routledge (UK). 1993. p. 310 However, individualist anarchism has never aimed for equal wealth distribution. Benjamin Tucker explained, "If I go through life free and rich, I shall not cry because my neighbor, equally free, is richer. Liberty will ultimately make all men rich; it will not make all men equally rich. Authority may (and may not) make all men equally rich in purse; it certainly will make them equally poor in all that makes life best worth living."Tucker, Benjamin. Economic Rent. Tucker further argued that in an anarchist society where everyone is of equal condition and has equal access to land and capital, and equal access to protection, that differing accumulation of land and wealthy would not create hierarchy. He argued that ownership should operate on occupancy and use to prevent economic hierarchy - ''"the land monopoly…consists in the enforcement by government of land titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and cultivation…the individual should no longer be protected by their fellows in anything but personal occupation and cultivation of land"'' The Anarchist Reader, p. 150 and that individualist anarchism "would individualise and associate" workplaces and "place the means of production within the reach of all." quoted by James J. Martin, Men Against the State, p. 228 Thus preventing the rise of hierarchy through differing personal revenue. Unlike anarcho-capitalists who oppose anarcho-communism because of its objection to markets and capitalist private property, anti-capitalist individualist anarchists oppose anarcho-communism because they feel that collective ownership has the potential to exploit by robbing the individual worker of the "full product" of their labor and dividing it up amongst the community. As egoist individualist Max Stirner expressed, ''"Communism, by the abolition of all personal property, only presses me back still more into dependence on another, to wit, on the generality or collectivity… is a condition hindering my free movement, a sovereign power over me. Communism rightly revolts against the pressure that I experience from individual proprietors; but still more horrible is the might that it puts in the hands of the collectivity."'' The Ego and Its Own, p. 257 However, anarcho-communists would respond pointing to the fact that they are not opposed to private ownership of property used to produce for an individual,Kropotkin Act for yourselves. N.Walter and H. Becker, eds. (London: Freedom Press 1985) 104-5 and they are opposed to abolition of '''all''' individual "property" and value the importance of individual possessions and individual space, Peter Kropotkin expressed, "desire to manage the community after the model of a family… live all in the same house and…thus forced to continuously meet the same 'brethren and sisters'… is a fundamental error to impose on all the 'great family' instead of trying, on the contrary, to guarantee as much freedom and home life to each individual." Small Communal Experiments and Why They Fail, pp. 8-9 REFERENCES AND FOOTNOTES SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS Primary literature
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