Doesn any form of communal ownership involve restricting individual liberty?
This point is expressed in many different forms. John Henry MacKay (an individualist anarchist) puts the point as follows: “‘Would you [the social anarchist], in the system of society which you call ‘free Communism’ prevent individuals from exchanging their labour among themselves by means of their own medium of exchange? And further: Would you prevent them from occupying land for the purpose of personal use?’ . . . [The] question was not to be escaped. If he answered ‘Yes!’ he admitted that society had the right of control over the individual and threw overboard the autonomy of the individual which he had always zealously defended; if on the other hand he answered ‘No!’ he admitted the right of private property which he had just denied so emphatically.” [Patterns of Anarchy, p. 31] However, as is clearly explained above and in sections B.3 and I.5.7, anarchist theory has a simple and clear answer to this question. To see what this answer is it simply a case of remembering that use rig
