[A-List] Academic life of Mises

[Waistline2 at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/18/02 5:30:18 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
Annewilliamson at msn.com writes:

> It also occurs to me that the Henry George
> approach to property might be of interest to A-Listers.  I
> learned about his work through Michael, and I have a
> number of books on it but - alas - I have not read them
> yet (your note prompted the guilty memory of that failure,
> and oh what an educated woman I'd be if I just got all the
> books on my shelves read :-), but perhaps all the A-listers 
> already know all about that approach. -A.
> 
> 
> 
> 

 I, also am not familiar with the material quoted above and several days ago 
added by two-cents or rather dollar (must take into account 30 years of 
inflation or value reduction) concerning the meaning of property. 

By property is not meant buying a house or simply owning. My use of property 
as I have come to understand Marx, means ownership of the material 
wherewithal that reproduces capitalist property relations or ownership of 
those things that allows one to dominate people. The quality of this 
"domination" compels a huge section of society to sell their labor power to 
the owners or institutions and institutional frameworks reproducing capital. 

Capital most certainly means money in our day and age, but more fundamentally 
it - capital, is a historically evolved social relations or better yet, a 
social power. This social power is the instrument by which humanity is 
converted into modern proletarians and compelled to sell the only thing they 
own - labor power. 

My computer is not my personal property as such but part of my personal 
possessions, as is my car, home, books, etc. 

Property in the modern sense of the word is bound up with means of production 
and a home is not means of production, nor is a car.  

I wanted to follow this thread, as Mark Jones introduced some material from 
Marx "Outline" that spoke of the genesis of "property" before the emergence 
of the mode of production in material life. I sidestepped this presentation 
because personal consumption items is not my meaning of property or that of 
Marx in his works published for the masses. 

If our working class thinks that private property means personal possessions 
devoid of the ability to reproduced a historically evolved social relations 
of production, we can all go home and forget winning them to a certain kind 
of political revolution. No one has to give up their Mercedes-Benz or mansion 
for that matter. Our country is very developed and does not require taking 
things from individuals. Nor is there a need for the state as such, to own 
the means and instruments of production. 

We probably need to be a lot more creative in our approach to how people 
think things out and understand their surrounding.

Melvin P.


Melvin P. 
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