Peter Kropotkin, you are against ALL private property? explain how this works?
First off, when I say I am “against private property,” it doesn’t mean I want to outlaw personal belongings like your clothes, your toothbrush, or your bicycle. I am specifically talking about private property in the means of production—land, factories, farms, tools, machines—things that can be used to generate profit from the labor of others. I break it down carefully below:
Items you use directly like your clothes, your bike, your phone, your home (if you live in it). I defend people owning the things they need for personal use.
But I oppose Private property - capitalist property- property that can be used to exploit others’ labor for profit. For exampls: a factory you own but don’t work in, farmland you rent to tenant farmers, or a bank controlling loans.
I oppose this, because it allows people to live off the labor of others rather than their own.
I imagine a society where land, factories, tools, and other production resources are collectively owned or cooperatively managed by the people who work them. Where workers keep the full value of their labor, rather than paying rent, interest, or profits to absentee owners. Where communities manage shared resources (like forests, water, or transportation) without central government control, relying on mutual aid.
So, in my ideal society, you could own your bicycle, your clothes, or your home if you live there, but you couldn’t “own” a factory that others must work in and pay you profits for. Instead, the factory would belong to the workers themselves.
I believe this is necessary because private ownership of productive property creates hierarchies, inequality, and dependency. People end up forced to sell their labor to survive, which leads to exploitation. My anarchist communist society is against private property as a tool of exploitation, but it is for personal property as a tool of freedom. I want people to have what they need for themselves and to freely cooperate for the rest.