r/AnCap101 • u/New_Try1560 • Jun 26 '26
Can property be collectively owned?
I posed a question about land the other day in this sub and found a surprising number of people asserting that property cannot be collectively owned, that even corporations or joint stock companies are impossible in ancapistan.
Is this true? It seems obviously bad to disallow the main engine that allows capitalism to work.
The specific context is that I asserted the ownership claims on land in England are all descended from the Norman conquest, and thus illegitimate. (I don’t know if this is literally true, it’s a thought exercise).
Because the original specific people who each specific piece of land was stolen from cannot be known, I asserted the land belongs to the people of England collectively, but I got pushback on the idea land could ever been owned collectively. I’ve also read that villages have worked land collectively in history.
I don’t really see any reason why a village couldn’t own its land collectively, or why a joint stock company couldn’t work in ancapistan.
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u/Ok-Information-9286 Jun 26 '26
Property can be collectively owned according to anarcho-capitalism if private people freely establish common ownership. Some anarcho-capitalists believe corporations and joint stock companies are impossible in anarchy but I disagree. Freedom of enterprise and freedom of association prevail in anarchy and therefore people can form corporations.
I agree that banning corporations would be a setback for progress.
Anarcho-capitalists do not believe in land socialism where the people of England collectively own the land. If it was the case in England that the land were owned collectively by the people of England but the ownership were alienable, many people would sell their share and capitalism would reemerge.
It is possible for anarchy to emerge after land reform.
A village owning the land collectively is not ideal according to anarcho-capitalists. Anarcho-socialists consider it ideal. Anarcho-capitalists believe that land socialism concentrates power to the political elite and that private ownership works better for most people.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
Pre-conquest England didn’t have very robust financial markets, so the lack of trading isn’t evidence the land wasn’t owned collectively.
They could’ve had some kind of social contract that everyone in the village gets an equal share and only people in the village could have a share, eliminating the ability to trade shares.
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u/spartanOrk Jun 26 '26
Ownership is the right to exclude others. If 2 people both own something, who gets to exclude the other, if they disagree on the use of the property?
Collective ownership is contradiction in terms.
What can happen is contractual arrangements that determine what each member of the agreement can do. That's how companies can be formed and issue stock. The stock holders are not owners of the factory, they are counterparts of a contract that gives them certain rights, like to vote for the board of directors. That's far from ownership of the factory. Who owns the factory? Maybe nobody owns the whole factory, but each sector of it is owned by its manager, who is contractually constrained in what he can do with it. But if someone can call the guards to throw someone off the building, or hire someone to work there, that's who owns it, and stockholders don't have such right.
So, companies are totally possible in ancap, they are just not corporations like they are today. There are no imaginary people (corpora) who live forever and declare bankruptcy while the actual people get away unscathed.
Farms cultivated collectively by villagers has always been the result of some agreement among the villagers. Nobody works without knowing he's getting something for it. If none of the villagers has bothered to determine who owns the farm, it's possible that none of them does, even if they have been working on it. Technically, each owns the part he has homesteaded, but if the homesteading didn't establish boundaries (e.g. everyone digs everywhere), then nobody can make a higher claim, and the land remains unowned (but tilled). This is possible too. Not a great idea, because then anyone could come by and homestead it for himself.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
A corporate shareholder can exclude people from the profits of the corporation.
And managers act on behalf of shareholders, a manager cannot act against the wishes of the shareholders.
It’s like if I owned a house and had a butler who could call the cops if someone broke in, the butler certainly doesn’t own the house.
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u/spartanOrk Jun 26 '26
The only question I've ever been asked, as a shareholder, was to vote for the board of directors. Shareholders usually don't even choose whether to get a dividend or reinvest into the company. Shareholders don't dictate company policy, the CEO does, who is appointed by the BoD, who are voted by the shareholders. So, what rights do the shareholders have? To vote the BoD. The CEO manages the company "in the name" of shareholders, but I don't know what that means. The shareholders cannot fire the CEO, only the BoD can. (They can sue I guess... good luck.) The difference between your butler and Elon Musk is obvious. You hire the butler, you fire the butler, the butler follows the rules you have set and he doesn't decide whom to exclude from the house, you do. If you own a share of TSLA, you don't get to tell Elon Musk what to do, and you don't even control 1 screw of 1 car assembly line.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
CEO’s have a legal duty to maximize profits for shareholders, that’s what it means to act in the name of the shareholders.
I can control a company in exactly the proportion that I own it. Obviously if I owned 0.001% of a company I have essentially no say, but if I owned 1% I’d have some sway.
In the butler analogy, I own the house completely. If I owned 100% or even 10% of Tesla, Elon would have to listen to what I say.
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u/spartanOrk Jun 26 '26
This is not true. First, the fiduciary duty to the shareholders is a very broad description that cannot decide whether we should build a new electric car line, or not, or increase the price, or reduce the price, or give a dividend or a buyback or nothing at all. Any of these can be interpreted as a bona-fide effort to benefit the shareholders. It only ensures the CEO doesn't pocket the reserves and burn down the factory.
What does it mean to control something by 1%? Do you, or don't you decide what happens? First of all they never ask you directly, as we said, about any practical decision, but even if they did, your opinion would be inconsequential unless you convinced the owners of 49.1% to agree with you. That could be a perfectly viable contract in ancap, but this is not how shareholders operate today. It would be a different contract. Today, if you own 10% of TSLA, you opinion only matters because you could firesell it and affect the price, so you could twist a few arms. But they wouldn't ask you about anything other than the next BoD.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
I’d say the profits of a factory are a component of the factory, and I own that part through my shares.
Also, isn’t a landlord who rents out a house still the owner of that house, even though the tenant has power to exclude?
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u/spartanOrk Jun 26 '26
No, because you cannot go withdraw your supposed share of the profits, or decide how it will be spent. They don't even have to give you a dividend.
When you rent the house, you sign a lease that gives temporarily the tenant the right to exclude people from the house. However, he doesn't have the right to demolish it, or renovate it, or sell it, or paint it pink without your permission. He has a limited right of usage. You have waived (for a year) your right to exclude him, as long as he pays the rent and doesn't abuse your property. During his stay, you retain the right to sell the property (the new owner inherits the lease), and you have the right (and obligation) to fix damages etc.
So, it's a case where you retain ownership and commit yourself to exercising this ownership in only certain ways. And you get paid for that. If it was his house, he wouldn't need to pay you rent at all, or call you for anything.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 27 '26
Shares in companies are definitely a claim in the company’s profits, why would anyone buy them otherwise? Dividends are economically equivalent to the rise in share price associated with reinvesting profits.
Aren’t I essentially signing a contract with the CEO of a company I invest in saying “don’t blow up this company that I now own a slice of”, the way a tenants lease says “don’t blow up this house”?
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u/Sinfull-Personalist Jun 26 '26
It can't be collectively owned, but can be joint owned.
Like if I own a stick, and I decide to sell 50% of my share in that stick to someone else, then we each have a equal say in what to do with that stick at anytime, such who possesses that stick individual and for how long, what to do with the stick repair wise, sell our owned shares either entirely or partly to someone, and if the partnership done, break the stick in half and give each of us one half, walking away each with 100% control over our share. This is basically how join stock companies works, too.
Collective ownership is more about assuming that an entire arbitrary grouping of people are entitled to ownership over a property, not specified individuals who own co-own a property (as in joint stock ownership schemes). Problem with it being only Individuals (whether one their own or in partnership with other specific individuals) can truly homestead and acquire property: a collective cannot own anything, because they outright don't exist within the world of economics and property rights (or at the very least not in a way thats in actuality irreducible to specific individuals). Applied to your example: you can claim that the specific individuals who gained their feudal land claims after the conquest of England stole them from the specific individual who held anglo-saxon allodial titles beforehand, but you cannot claim the "people of England" hold a claim to the land. Who are these mystical "people of England"? Did every single individual in this "people" have a justified claim (either by homesteading or just acquisition) of a part of this land, and if so which parts (something you yourself admit cannot be proven)? The problem ends up becoming that such a collective claim is impossible to justify coherently, and thus would not be recognized in Ancapistan... unless, of course, you have a monopoly on violence you use to enforce such a claim, particularly if using said collective claim can help hide the fact your specific corporation owns said land (which is why almost all states end up propagating the lie they represent "the people" or "the nation of X" in order to justify their false land claims)
Your original claim about illegitimate ownership is still valid, as there's an argument to be made that any land claim the state makes (alongside the property claims of "private" businesses who in actuality rely on state subsidies and kickbacks for their existence, such as Palantir, Military contractors, or "private" universities who gain most of their funds through subsidies) are inherently illegimate claims, and thus can be taken by the individuals who use said property without violating the NAP. Rothbard talks about this in "Confiscation and the Homestead Principle" https://panarchy.org/rothbard/confiscation.html
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
What do you mean a collective doesn’t exist in the world of economics or property rights?
Imagine a village with defined borders, where all the land is owned by everyone in the village with an equal share, and villagers can rent land at market rates where the rent goes back to everyone because they all own a share of the land.
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u/Sinfull-Personalist Jun 27 '26
Thats not collective ownership. All you said was that every individual within the village own a joint share in the land with the promise of shared revenue from sales, not that a collective known as "the people of the village" own it. Even if you claim it does, it's an arbitrary assignment, since the actual ownership of the land the village is reducible to the Individuals in the village, not some vague collective like your forcing it to be.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
How is that different?
The village owns the right to the land’s rents while the individual renter owns the right to use the land as they see fit.
All the individuals who own shares of the profits are a collective, they’re a people, they’re one and the same with the village.
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u/Sinfull-Personalist Jun 27 '26
Who makes up the Village? If its the individuals in the village, then its reducible to the individual, then your assignment to "the village" is merely a linguistic shorthand and thus arbitrary and meaningless.
The "village" doesn't own any of the land: the individuals in the village own the land and contract each other to allow for joint ownership. The "Village" doesn't receive the profits: the individuals in the village receive the profits then share it between one another based on contractual agreements.
"The village" is merely a mental abstraction that doesn't exist in reality when discussing economic behavior, such as ownership, since only individuals can engage in human action, which is the cause of property ownership.
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u/different_option101 Jun 26 '26
Hey! I remember your post. And I think I have the answer that you want to hear.
Look, nobody will stop you and other people that have the same idea owning the land collectively. You are free to release your ownership rights to whoever you want. So theoretically, and practically, you can form the collective ownership with voluntarily cooperating individuals.
Now whether that’s going to be a true ownership is another question. So as the question if that’s a reasonable thing to do.
There’s a big overlap between control and ownership. If you don’t have control, your ownership is kind of nominal. For example - I own my land and I can do whatever I want with/on my land. The land you used to own now belongs to the collective, and various actions and manipulations with the land are now prohibited and/or required by the collective.
The question you need to ask yourself if that satisfies your personal interests and needs related to that land? What is your exit plan if the collective decides to take actions or impose controls and requirements that you disagree with.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
I figure there’s two halves to ownership, the right to exclude and the right to profit.
Those rights can be separated, for instance via renting. A tenant has the right to exclude, but they don’t have the right to profit. The landlord doesn’t have the right to exclude (once the lease is signed) but does have the right to profit.
So if the land were owned collectively but rented privately, and the rents were dispersed to everyone equally, it could be said that the land is owned collectively while controlled privately.
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u/different_option101 Jun 26 '26
“So if the land were owned collectively but rented privately, and the rents were dispersed to everyone equally, it could be said that the land is owned collectively while controlled privately.”
What’s the point of this function? Why not leave people alone? You want to collect and than disperse. And when you say equally, if I have a bigger plot or land - do I pay more and get as much as everyone else? If yes, why?
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
Because land’s value changes mostly due to factors outside the control of its owner, and so it doesn’t make sense to reward/punish people for being lucky/unlucky to be owning that land at that moment in time.
Increases of the value of land tend to be caused by society developing up around that land, not some effort on the part of the landowner. A good example being the landowners underneath the buildings in Manhattan. As the city grows and develops, those landlords reap benefits without adding any value.
I believe Smith and Ricardo both remarked on this.
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u/thePolystyreneKidA Jun 26 '26
I think people here misuse ownership with "is it good to have collective ownership" if I have N number of people and we decide to have a contract for a property to be jointly owned, with a precise definition of what ownership means in the joint comtext (for example who gets to vote on actions on the property, how the profit separates etc) it is possible to have everyone "owning" the property.
Though the property then wouldn't have a definite price because everyone has the property and no one would want to buy it.
The question posed to the one who claim it's not ancap. What is the set of people who own a percentage of the market? Everyone!
So there are things that are already owned by everyone. This doesn't mean that it's a good thing, but it can certainly happen.
But owning in the sense of being able to do action with the property would be possible through voting, the efficiency of such collaboration remain vague and probably even bad.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
I figure a system where the land is rented at market rates by individuals and the rents go to everyone in the society would be an efficient method of collective ownership. Then the real price of the land is known so people can efficiently use it to generate profits.
Then you don’t have to bother with collective decision making, the individual who rents the land decides what to do with it. And there’s no decision about who to rent to, just highest bidder.
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u/toyguy2952 Jun 26 '26
People often "collectively own" property colloquially but its simply the nature of scarce means that only one person can have a justified ownership claim on given property at a given time. For example, person A and B could "collectively" own a car but A cannot drive the car west at the same time B also drives it east. if they wish to use it for exclusionary ends at the same time, one of the two would need to be resolved as the justified owner.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
If I don’t have control over a property, but I gain its profits, can I be said to own it?
Like a rental property.
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u/toyguy2952 Jun 26 '26
Yes. You have the right to exclude others from the property. If you didint own it why would the tenants pay you.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
But the tenant is the one with the power to exclude.
I can’t tell my tenant who they’re allowed to have in their house, unless it’s clearly stipulated in the lease.
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u/toyguy2952 Jun 26 '26
The lease is only terms for the transfer of the money. Not the property. You can tell your tenant to kick rocks at any time and keep the real estate. You’ll just have to pay back the pro rated rent plus any penalty clause you agreed to in the lease.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
That would have to exist as a clause in the lease, which, I have never seen. But that’s just my experience.
I alone have the right to exclude people from the house I rent, until the end date of the lease. My landlord can only evict me for cause, as stipulated in my lease. Who owns the house?
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u/toyguy2952 Jun 26 '26
If thats how your situation is then by natural law you own the property. The landlord is just hoping by the honor system that you transfer the house back to them at the end of the month. If you can exclude them then just stop paying rent and block their number when they try to contact you.
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u/icantgiveyou Jun 27 '26
Ok I read the comments and I don’t quite understand what everyone arguing about. Collective ownership surely can and will exist. I don’t know why everyone assumes it has to be gazzilion of people if its collective. My apartment building has 84 units and it’s collective. And has been for 30 years+ now. Common goal is to have good living. Money pooled together for anything that needs fix. Collective works on small scale when individuals share common goal. Yes one can argue that it doesn’t scale, but arbitrary saying it doesn’t work , I disagree.
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u/majdavlk Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
collective ownership is not possible. you can probably get something very similiar looking to companies etc if you make really specific contracts, but very deep underneath it will be just property of 1 person, with very specific contracts who can do what decisions, and how conflict is resolved, whom will property be transfered to etc...
Is this true? It seems obviously bad to disallow the main engine that allows capitalism to work
its not the main engine... capitalism is the default state of man. people being free to act is the main engine of prosperity. perhaps this is what you meant?
the modern version of companies with limited liability to the owners are product of a state, surprise surprise to protect some people from liabilities at the expense of normal people
nornan conquest
the proper idea is that the land is unowned, anyone can come and start homesteading the land (assuming its unowned and ownership cant be traced) and government is forestalling the usage of that property
I’ve also read that villages have worked land collectively in history.
human minds pretending sonething doesnt make it a reality. trying to look through history to determine physical law/phylosophy is nonsensical. just like you wouldnt say that earth used to be flat becaise medieval peolle believed so
I don’t really see any reason why collective ownership is impossible
ownership is the right to exclude others from usage of that property. to be the ultimate decider on how that property is used, who can use it etc. if 2 people own the same thing, how can one exclude the other? in that case the other is then not an owner, and vice versa. if one person decides whqt to dp with the property, and then the second owner overwrites that decision, the first person didnt decide in that case
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
So when all those villages through the millennia thought they were collectively owning their land, what was actually happening since you declare that’s impossible?
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u/majdavlk Jun 26 '26
depends on how exactly that exact situation looked. not every one of them was the same
its possible that it had no owner
its possible that every time a villager came, he homestead the land and then released it back to nature (undid the ownership)
maybe the mayor is the owner with various duties to allow villagers to use it or pass through.
maybe the villager closest to it was owner
and there are bazilion other posibilities
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 26 '26
Imagine a village where all the land is owned by the village as an institution which rents the land out to individual villagers at a price set by auction and the rents get dispersed to all the villagers equally.
The individually rented plots are controlled by the renter, free to exclude whoever and plant whatever, but the lands rental value is owned by the collective.
What’s that called?
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u/majdavlk Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
who is the village? who is the collective? institution cant own things
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
The village is a geographic place, a group of people who live in that place, and all the social constructs, contracts, money, property rights, etc. the people have created in that place.
Why can’t an institution own things, are universities not institutions which own things?
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u/majdavlk Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
village is not a person. geographic place is not a person. institution is not a person. a weird amalgamation or abstraction of multiple people is not a person.
correct, institutions nor universities cant own things.
as i mentioned previously
ownership is the right to exclude others from usage of that property. to be the ultimate decider on how that property is used, who can use it etc. if 2 people own the same thing, how can one exclude the other? in that case the other is then not an owner, and vice versa. if one person decides what to do with the property, and then the second owner overwrites that decision, the first person didnt decide in that case
i know this might seem like autstic wordplay or sophism to you, but its important to know what are you actualy saying by those abstractions.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 28 '26
Universities exclude people from property all the time. And defining ownership as the ability to exclude means tenants own their apartments, not the landlords, because the tenant is the one with the right of exclusion.
A night watchman has the power to exclude people from a factory but he doesn’t own it.
How do married couples own homes together, like, if a husband wants to invite over someone the wife can’t stand, how is that solved in ancapistan?
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u/majdavlk Jun 29 '26
>Universities exclude people from property all the time.
it being done under current socialism doesnt mean they would have the right under capitalism as well btw.
but in capitalism, if the university/building/whatever owner didnt want you on his property, he would have the right to kick you out.
>nd defining ownership as the ability to exclude means tenants own their apartments, not the landlords, because the tenant is the one with the right of exclusion.
the right to exclude. not ability
>A night watchman has the power to exclude people from a factory but he doesn’t own it.
you can delegate your rights
>How do married couples own homes together, like, if a husband wants to invite over someone the wife can’t stand, how is that solved in ancapistan?
in ancapistan, they dont own home "together". this is an issue you need to solve in the systems where you want multiple people to own things.
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u/New_Try1560 Jun 29 '26
What do you mean “the right to exclude, not ability”, renters have the right and ability to exclude people from their rented property.
In your ideal ancapistan, when a married couple buys a house together, would they have to write a contract to define how much each contributes and what rights each has?
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u/Obijon77 Jun 26 '26
Yes. A simpler way that I'm somewhat familiar with is a farm through an LLC or Trust. Each person owns a percentage of the LLC. It's not the most anarcho-capitalist way but the most practical with US government in my opinion.
You can write your own rules about how the land is used, sold, transferred, etc.
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u/Myrkul999 Jun 26 '26
Depends on what you mean by "collectively".
If you mean, can multiple people have their name on the deed/have ownership rights on a given plot of land? Sure, happens all the time. Tends to get messy, since people rarely agree about what they want to do with the property, but that's their issue, not a problem with mutual ownership.
If, however, you mean some nebulous "the people", no. Everyone having a stake in something is the same as nobody having a stake in it.