The Kantian Critique of Marx’s Property Theory

Abstract

Although not explicitly a socialist, in his political philosophy Kant provides arguments that can be deployed by socialists to argue for radically different forms of social and economic organisation. In this article I contrast Karl Marx’s criticism of capitalist property relations with the general theory of property which Kant outlines in his Doctrine of Right. I demonstrate that Kant’s concept of property provides a sounder ethical basis for the regulating and reform of capitalist economic organisations than Marx’s historical materialist view of economic and social development. Kant’s theory of property relations may fall short of Marx’s in terms of the sociological and historical insights it affords but Kant’s theory more than makes up for this is with its greater moral and political astuteness.

1. Introduction

My argument in this article is that Kant presents a coherent left position on property ownership which can supplement and add weight to Marx’s radical critique of capitalist private property and serve well as the basis of the socialist development of society. Kant situates his defence of individually-owned property rights both as a critique of the usual arguments for capitalist property as presented by philosophers such as John Locke, but also as a counter to the radical socially and politically antagonistic doctrines which call for a complete overthrow of inherited property relations. His justification, which relies on an intelligible or noumenal conception of property, points beyond capitalist society. In contrast to Marx, Kant is a gradualist and reformist advocate of change. Kant encourages top-down reform through amending the laws, established previously through the activity of an elected group of representatives. Like Lenin, Kant would not necessarily put political leadership in the hands of everyday members of the public at large let alone the working class. Indeed, Kant did not advocate widening the franchise of his day to include wage workers. He preferred to leave the power of voting to individuals of independent means. This of course included individuals like himself who can earn their living with their skills, but also of course the wealthy aristocratic and commercial classes. Kant believed that members of the working class being subservient to capitalist owners in their productive activities implied that the ordinary worker might also be subservient in their voting behaviour and thinking. In democratic terms then Kant was not fully left-wing. Not only does he want to exclude wage workers but also members of the female sex from voting rights. The franchise should, for him, be extended slowly through the emergence of more independent individuals and their greater education. Despite noticeable hiatuses, such as these, between twenty first century socialist ideals and Kant’s political theory nonetheless he presents within that theory an understanding of property rights which stands considerably to benefit socialist thought. We turn first to Marx’s radical criticism of capitalist property relations so we can later see how Kant’s ideas on property can compensate for some deficiencies that bedevil the Marxist account.

2. Marx’s historical and economic theory of property relations

Marx constantly draws attention to the strengths of capitalist or bourgeois property theory. Private property is one of the key features of modern commercial society. Marx thinks the theory has strength not only as a defence of capitalist society but also as an attractive feature of the life of subjects in such a society. In the Communist Manifesto, he and Friedrich Engels seek to demonstrate time and again how private property has structured and dominated modern society. It has made things possible which formerly were only dreamt of. The drive to acquire endless wealth in the form of private property has led the human species to occupy and seek to cultivate all parts of the globe. In the first instance the object was mere plunder. These seaborne explorers of the further reaches of the world went there in part to bring home extraordinary riches of nature and commodities to sell at the highest price. Gold and precious metals of all kinds were the most sought-after products. Latin America was especially rich in these resources. Native plants and their fruit and seeds were brought back to ever-curious and acquisitive inhabitants of the more developed societies, largely in Europe. It was taken for granted by these determined explorers that the natural riches they found belonged to no one, but once seized by them they were theirs to exploit to their best advantage.

This point of view was well represented by the English political theorist John Locke when he said that in the beginning all the world was like America. ¹ There is a strongly international dimension to Locke’s theory about our natural right to property. John Locke had close and powerful connections with North America; at one time occupying a post dealing with the colonisation of Carolina, where in the 17th century lasting property claims were being established by European settlers through acquisition of land and its cultivation. These property rights were contrary to the established patterns of agriculture and settlement enjoyed by the American Indians, the original occupants of the land. Locke found no difficulty in proving the right of European settlers to the land because of the emphasis he put on the role of labour and establishing entitlement. ‘Though the water running in the fountain be everyone’s, yet who can doubt but that in the picture is his only who drew it out? His labour has taken it out of the hands of nature where it was in common, and belonged equally to all her children, and have thereby appropriated it to himself (Locke 1993, 275).’ It is perfectly reasonable to expect we can acquire property in the state of nature such as that which obtained in 17th century North America.

The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels was written in the shadow of the property beliefs held so strongly by thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. As Marx and Engels remark. ‘The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering society, a rapid development.’ (Marx and Engels 1985, 36)

Marx and Engels stress that in their view ‘the bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old mode of production in unaltered form, was on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes, constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of social conditions, everlasting and certainty and agitation distinguished the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with train of ancient and venerable prejudice and opinions, are swept away, all new formed runs become antiquated before they can ossify.’ Capitalist societies are in a condition of constant change and unavoidable outward expansion. Driven by the need to acquire more property, and so greater profits, a world market becomes firmly established. This need for a ‘constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.’ (Marx and Engels 1985, 38)

This leads to radical changes in the nature of human society. The move from the land to the city becomes unavoidable. ‘In place of the old local national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations’ (Marx and Engels 1985, 39). This property takes on not only a material form but also an intellectual one. More and more intellectual products become commodities, not only the printed word but also other artistic creations. ‘The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literature, there arises a world literature.‘ (Marx and Engels 1985, 39)

In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels dispute John Locke’s theory of property. Although they too like Locke are convinced by the liberating effects of the individual ownership of property however, they are not so convinced that the emancipatory effect of capitalist property can be sustained. For it is the growth of capital itself and the competition of the many manufacturers and traders that makes the Lockean model more and more unstable.

In answer to Locke’s emphasis on capitalist private property (Wood, 2004, 40), Marx and Engels maintain that a worldwide market economy cannot bring about independence for individual producers. They think the original benefits of the private ownership of property can only be delivered by the transformation of the economy into a socialist form. They stress that the distinguishing feature of their communist vison is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property: ‘modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, in the exploitation of the many by the few‘ (Marx and Engels, 1985, 47).

The sense of freedom originally generated by the ownership of the tools of production and land by the direct producer can only be preserved in a modified form by the replacement of capitalist economic relations with relations of a communist variety.

‘We communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a manual labour, which property is acknowledged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence’ (Marx and Engels, 1985, 47). But it is capitalism itself which brings about this loss of freedom and activity. Marx and Engels are taken aback by the incoherent reasoning of the advocates for a perpetual adherence to market economics and private capital. ‘Hard won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of the petty artisan and the small peasant, the form of property that proceeded the bourgeois form?’

‘There is no need to abolish that: the development of industry has a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily. But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation.’

‘Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism. To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.’ (Marx and Engels, 1985, 47)

3. Property and Marx’s method of enquiry

Not only does the concept of property play a central role in Marx’s political theory it also figures at the basis of the method of enquiry he adopts in presenting his general philosophical and historical outlook. We can see in the well-known statement of his method in what is known as the 1859 Preface to a Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy:

‘The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies can be summarised as follows. In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their Will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of the material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political, and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness’ (Marx, 1971, 20-1). This insight provides the basis for Marx’s historical materialist outlook.

The term ‘historical materialism’ is carefully chosen to demonstrate Marx’s support for classical materialist philosophy from Epicurus onwards, but also to note his divergence from that philosophy through his emphasis on human agency in the generation and understanding of the world (Wood, 2004, 165-9). We are indeed material, organic beings who stand in relation to a natural environment which is both hostile to human beings but also accommodating to it and open to our shaping. We are both conditioned by our empirical, natural context and structure it through our creative working abilities (Cf. Lukes, 1985, 71-91). This comes out in the further elaboration of his standpoint in the same passage: ‘At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production, or this may express the same thing in legal terms - with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetter. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation leads sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.’ (Marx, 1971, 21)

What is particularly important for understanding Marx’s theory of property is what now follows. Although the general picture up until this point is one of human property relations solely brought about and determined by economic circumstances with the role of individual deliberation severely underplayed, Marx argues that studying such transformations it is ‘always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic short ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.’ (Marx, 1971, 20-1; Cf. Torrance, 1995).

Marx believes that there is an element of the involvement of the human will here in the implementation of the social and political transformation which must follow new economic developments. The economic problems posed, and the materials available for their resolution, need to be brought into some kind of practical harmony. At this point the Marx interpolates a judgment that ‘mankind inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation (Marx, 1971, 20-1).’ This is an optimistic interpretation of the potential for transition. Marx offers no proof at this point of why the economic problems will generate of their own accord potentials for solution. But it seems that even on the author’s own interpretation (Cohen, 1978, ‘Capitalism’s mission,’ 201) there is an element of human intervention in bringing about a new state of affairs where new social arrangements are called into being.

4. The historical tendency of capital accumulation

As may be expected, Marx pays close attention to the development of property relations in his major work Capital, volume one. He sees property relations as in a continuous process of transformation as market relations and the growth of capital increase. The economy has its own dynamic driven by competition between companies and competition between capitalist states. One transition in particular takes his attention. Indeed, it is one of the main focuses of the work. Marx wants to show how through its own development capitalist society helps undermine itself, and here the dialectic of property relations plays a vital role. Marx turns to economic and social history to give his account of the rise of capitalist property relations. Normative thinking enters his analysis, but not as a motivating force, but rather as necessarily implicated in the process of the development of private property forms (Wood, 2004, 111-118). Prior to the emergence of the fully formed capitalist economic system there was required what Marx terms a process of primitive accumulation. What occurs through primitive accumulation is the emergence of a working class that can maintain its existence only by offering its abilities to labour. In earlier stages of human history work was performed by subordinate classes whose dependency arose from either being owned by their masters as slaves or through their working on their land as serfs. Serfs were not owned by their masters but the land on which they lived and produced their sustenance was owned by a lord. The historical genesis of capitalism is brought about by the undermining of both forms of production (slavery and serfdom) through the introduction of capitalist wage labour. But there is a crucial intermediary stage where for a short period of time serfs become the owners of their own land. They become peasants and later ‘homesteaders’ when they as free labourers acquired virgin lands (so-called although those lands were usually already occupied and exploited by native populations) in colonized territories. And in urban areas the domestic dependence of the direct workers as household servants is gradually replaced by the emergence of a group of free artisans and small producers. This for Marx is the ethical heyday of capitalist society. He thinks that the moral arguments for its superiority as a social and economic form arise from this early period of the generation of the system. Direct labour was for a short period in human history – at the dawn of capitalist production – free from exploitation by another class. There is room to believe that Koenigsberg in Kant’s time will have approximated to such a condition before the arrival of large-scale industrial capitalism.

In Karl Marx’s view it is in this period where the classic individualist property theory which is typified by the work of John Locke emerges and holds sway. As Marx puts it in Capital ‘private property, as the antithesis to social, collective property, exists only where the means of labour and the external conditions of labour belong to private individuals. But according to whether these private individuals are workers or non-workers, private property has a different character. The innumerable different shades of private property which appear at first sight are only reflections of the intermediate situations which lie between the two extremes’ (Marx, 1976, 927). The crucial ingredient for the success of the primitive accumulation of capital is that the producer should be alienated from the conditions of production, in other words that a situation where neither do the raw materials of production nor the tools of production belong to the direct producers. In Marx’s terms the producers have already to be expropriated. ‘The private property of the worker in his means of production is the foundation of small-scale industry, and small-scale industry is a necessary condition for the development of social production and of the free individuality of the worker himself. Of course, this mode of production also exists under slavery, serfdom and other situations of dependence. But it flourishes, unleashes the whole of its energy, attains its adequate classical form (author’s emphasis), only where the worker is the free proprietor of the conditions of his labour, and set them in motion himself: where the peasant owns the land he cultivates, or the artisan owns the tool which he is an accomplished performer (Marx, 1976, 927).’ Unfortunately, such halcyon conditions do not last for a very long time in the history of the economic forms of capitalist development. The fragmentation of holdings which it requires hampers eventually the process of production itself (Elster, 1985, 279-80). Individual ownership of this kind prevents bringing together large numbers to work on more sophisticated tools of production. It also makes cooperation amongst producers difficult. More efficient methods of production drive the individually owned and managed units out of business. Small businesses which are successful become big and the former individual producers which are not successful die.

‘Its annihilation, the transformation of the individualised and scattered means of production into socially concentrated means of production, the transformation therefore, of the dwarf like property of the many into the giant property of the few, on the expert expropriation of the great mass of the people from the soil, from the means of subsistence and from the instruments of labour, this terrible and arduously accomplished expropriation of the mass of the rule forms the pre-history of capital (Marx, 1976, 928).’ Marx believes that this transformation was accomplished in the most brutal way. He presents the highland clearances of the Scottish peasantry by the landed aristocracy in the 18th and 19th centuries as but one example of this destructive process. His conclusion is that the expropriation of the direct producers was accomplished by means of the most ‘merciless barbarism, and under the stimulus of the most infamous, the most sordid, the most petty and the most odious of passions. Private property, which is personally earned, i.e., that which is based, as it were, ‘on the fusing together of the isolated, independent working individual with the conditions of his labour, is supplanted by capitalist private property, which rests on the exploitation of alien, but formally free labour (Marx, 1976, 928).’

Here Marx’s sociological and historical account of the development of capitalism comes into full play, leading not only to a profound analysis of property relations but also an intimation of a new form of property relationships arising. Once the metamorphosis of isolated individual production by the owners themselves has been replaced by large scale socialised production under the control of a minority other opportunities for experimenting with new property relations occur. Once capitalist production is fully established the socialisation of labour continues and we have the ‘further transformation of the soil and other means of production into socially exploited and therefore communal means of production take a new form (Marx, 1976, 928).’ It is Marx’s observation of the economic circumstances of his day and the development of capitalist business in Europe, primarily in England where he lived at the time of his writing Capital, that leads him to the prediction that production based on a free market and the private ownership of the means of production must ultimately undermine itself (Cf. Elster, 1985, 294-6). ‘The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production which has flourished alongside and under it. The centralisation of the means of production and the socialisation of labour reach a point at which they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated (Marx, 1976, 929).’ Marx concludes perhaps over-optimistically that the transformation of this now centralised and monopolised means of production to a fully socialised form of production with the public ownership of businesses and enterprises can proceed in a lot more peaceful way than the original bloody and brutal process of the private accumulation of capital. Arguably Kant has no complete answer to Marx’s ambitious expectations about the collapse of capitalism and the formation of a new economic system, however Kant’s property theory does provide us with a normative basis which helps us by stressing the the importance of a functioning community of interests in civil society in maintaining oversight and control over economic relations. Kant’s property theory should help us avert the catastrophe that Marx seemingly welcomes. For Marx capitalist private property came into existence on the back of the exploitation not only of the masses of the leading European countries but also on the back of the total spoilation of the rest of the world and the enslavement of many of its inhabitants. The debts of the capitalist class to the poor of the world are in his view irredeemable.

What we get from a close reading of the 1859 preface and the chapter on the ‘historical tendency of capitalist accumulation’ in Capital is that there is a necessary process that can be causally explained, however some human judgement and action is necessary also to bring about the progressive change that Karl Marx advocates. The methods of natural science are indeed employable in terms of understanding the history of capitalism but projections on its future must consider normative ideas and the efficacy with which those normative ideas are put into a practice. Here again Kant’s more explicitly normative analysis of property relations can help Marx out.

5. Marx’s normative assumptions

We can see clearly from Marx’s writings that he has a theory of property relations which is always set in a historical and social context. Marx makes no attempt to provide a theory of a universal kind which holds for all human societies. He is indeed concerned with property relations in the past, the present and how they might develop in the future. But he nonetheless draws normative conclusions in following through his economic, sociological, and historical analysis. ² One of the key normative conclusions he draws is that human labour is best performed when the direct labourer both owns and controls the means of production. And this he concludes is ultimately not possible for the vast majority under capitalism. If we take Marx’s 1859 Preface what stands out is the differentiation between the development of the economic base which seems to move forward in a mechanical way, and the ideological superstructure which sees humans thought presented by complex problems as a result of those economic changes (Elster, 1985, 155-60). Marx anticipates a different time range for the speed at which the two different levels develop. The thinking through and acting which is necessary for the change in the legal and political superstructure to alter appropriately may not necessarily happen immediately. This opens the possibility of political and legal change being held up and even having to be thought through more carefully in the light of the circumstances. This is not a difference upon which Marx puts a great deal of emphasis in the Preface itself. The tone of that writing is that the economic changes will carry all before them. But Marx seems to be dealing with his own best-case scenario, not the situation that we can always necessarily anticipate. So, there is no clear formula for how the pressing difficulties of material production and distribution of the product can in social and legal terms be fully carried through and resolved. Here some choices must be made, and I believe they are choices of the moral kind. For Marx acknowledges it is not just a technical question when or how an economy should be transformed into a more socialist but also a question which needs to be evaluated by human beings in the light of their assumptions about the damage that may be caused physically and mentally by their implementation at any point in time.

This makes the Marxian project more open than many commentators have usually stressed. Though not fully drawn out by Marx himself there is a powerful normative dimension to both the timing and the nature of the transition to socialist modes of production and exchange. And we can see from the attempts to implement socialist policies over the last two centuries how complex both the pragmatic and the moral aspect of the project can be. There has to be uncertainty about the prospects of success. The supersession of capitalism by socialism is no forgone conclusion. The same uncertainty may be seen Marx’s own discussion of the ‘historical tendency of capitalist accumulation’ and its outcome in Chapter 32 of Capital. Indeed, how Marx presents the topic as a ‘historical tendency’ does hint at hesitation about how the transition to a more socialised form of production from the capitalist one may eventually occur. It is possible to detect in Marx’s writing a desire that things go forward in the socialist direction he clearly would like, but we can also read into it a plausible doubt about whether the process will inevitably occur or whether it will occur at all. Kant’s a priori theory of property relations demonstrates more clearly how the economic system is constantly in need of reform in order to be sustained in a way that is compatible with the freedom, equality and independence of each citizen.

Here we can turn to another well-known passage in the writings of Karl Marx to illuminate his intimation that important ethical choices confront those who would wish to transform capitalist society. In his essay, the ‘18th of Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’ Marx makes the bold statement that ‘men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under the circumstances chosen by themselves, but under the circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past’ (Marx and Engels, 1968, 97). As Marx sees it, ‘the tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. And just when they seem engaged in revolutionising themselves and things, and creating something that has never yet existed, precisely in such period of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle cries and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time honoured disguise and this borrowed language.’ (Marx and Engels, 1968, 97-8) The implication of this is that the future of human society is open to our shaping of it, albeit it that the directions in which we can take it are limited and hemmed in by the institutions and structures established by the society up until the present. Thus, our actions are not set out on a blank canvas but rather on a canvas upon which there has been a considerable amount of creative work already. And in taking human society in a new direction – since this is such a formidable challenge – we are inclined to seek parallels and examples in the past to inspire our current activities. As Marx puts it, in referring to similar periods of exceptional social and political transition, ‘thus Luther in ushering in the new Protestant religious order donned the masked of the apostle Paul, the revolution of 1789 to 1814 draped itself alternately as the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789 now the revolutionary tradition of 1793 to 1795. (Marx and Engels, 1968, 98)’

I think the best gloss that we can put on the projections for the future that Marx puts forward is that they are not predictions but recommendations. They are recommendations made on behalf of humanity as a whole and its majority class of employed workers. Marx is navigating the future with these presently dependant subjects in mind. We can see Marx writing along these lines also in his essays on the Civil War in France where he discusses the Paris Commune of 1871 and its impact on French society. He is concerned not only to present an account of the upheaval from the standpoint of the proletariat involved in it but also analyses its fate from the standpoint of what errors were made and how in future political clashes his favoured protagonists can do better. Significantly also Marx wants to draw out of the experience of the Paris working class in the Commune some general conclusions about the nature of property in future society. He derides the critics of the commune with these words. ‘The commune, they exclaim, intends to abolish property, the basis of all civilization! Yes, gentlemen, the commune intended to abolish that class property which makes the labour of the many the wealth of the few. It aimed at the expropriation of the expropriated. It wanted to make individual property a truth by transforming the means of production, land and capital, now chiefly the means of in slaving and exploiting labour, into mere instruments of free under sociated labour.’ For Marx the bloody suppression of the Commune by the forces or order, with the help of the invading Prussian army, was a wanton act of destruction. (Marx and Engels, 1968, 294)

Many things stand out from this brief survey of Marx’s thinking on property which he presents as part of his active attempt to help change human society for the better, taking advantage of the economic, social, and political movements which were already engaged within it. Here there are two clear themes. First, Marx assumes that there is a functional aspect to human historical development, and particularly to our economic development. He believes this development follows a rational course, where logic of a certain kind can be discerned (Cf. Cohen, 1978, 278-84). This is a quite heroic assumption given the evidence of the study of economics and economic history, where contingency and chance seem to be as much evident as coherent progress. Secondly, Marx also assumes that the forces that are developing in society in terms of social classes will work for improvement of their own accord. Kant in contrast already sees the market economy as sustained by a civil, public system of support which can be called upon to act on behalf of all to mitigate such crises as they arise. Marx sees this existing system of support as highly partisan, reflecting on the interest of the dominant bourgeois class in civil society. He prefers therefore to allow this class conflict to follow its course. For him the socialist movement has a built-in ethical advantage over other social and political outlooks because it follows the onward progress of history. This is never fully argued for, rather it seems that Marx decides to choose sides in political and social conflict based on his optimistic assumptions about economic development and the class conflicts it brings about. It is difficult not to conclude, as does Steven Lukes in his excellent short book Marxism and Morality, ³ that there are several normative deficiencies in Marx’s account of property that need to be more fully addressed. This is where Kant’s theory of property comes in.

6. Kant’s a priori theory of property relations

What Marx fails fully to deal with is, I suggest, what Kant would call the metaphysical dimension of property ownership. Kant has a highly abstract theory of property ownership which he applies in the first place to rational beings as such. These are rational embodied beings who reside on a surface that takes the form of a globe, so a territory that is vast but not unlimited. Property relations are not to be taken for granted with Kant. They should not be seen simply as arising from historical developments and accepted uncritically. They arise neither solely from nature nor from mere necessity. They are relations that are the product of human reflection adapted to their practice. Above all property relations require justification and legitimation to be effective. This is what he attempts to provide in his lectures on natural right and, in one of his final main publications, the Doctrine of Right in the Metaphysics of Morals.

As we might expect, his theory of property draws heavily from the main works of his critical philosophy. The epistemological structure for the theory derives as we might expect from the Critique of Pure Reason and the moral context for it is highly influenced, if not determined, by his Critique of Practical Reason, and especially also the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals which followed on from the publication of the first Critique.

In comparison with the theory of Marx – which depends heavily on the economic an historical context – Kant’s theory is highly cerebral. It draws on the distinction between what we can call phenomenal possession and intelligible possession. Phenomenal possession is the power that we hold over an object at one point in time and in one place. Something is ours here because we have it in our hands or on our body. This might also be called empirical or physical possession. This contrasts with the possession which is founded on human reflection and mutual recognition or noumenal possession. Kant regards this as possession properly understood and it requires some metaphysical insight to comprehend it. ⁴

His deduction of the right of property in the metaphysics of morals presents the intellectual grounds for recognising property in human society. He defends the rights of property, not so much based on the material benefits this provides, but more on the basis that without such rights human society itself would not be possible. Without what he calls the possibility of their being a ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ human social interaction and cooperation as we know it would not exist. In deducing property rights therefore, we are uncovering a central feature of human civilisation. Having property rights is not only better for us but is essential if there is to be an ‘us’ at all. This value is not so evident in the writings of Marx, but in his avowal of the need of producers to engage with nature and appropriate it productively, he clearly indicates that there is a requirement to have a reliable relationship of control over objects by individuals for them to be free. His objection to commodity production to which capitalist society is devoted is after all based on his judgement that producing commodities takes wealth and power out of the control of the majority (Cf. Cohen, 1978, 115-29).

Kant provides more grounds for regulating and controlling commodity production which is an important feature of capitalism if we follow through his justification of property ownership in the Doctrine of Right. He clearly depicts it as depending on the reciprocal recognition by individuals of rights of others to corresponding ownership. In Kant’s terms we can only establish property rights through omnilateral legislation. The unilateral assertion of a property right cannot, as we shall see later, succeed. Above all for the property right to function it is required that we have the assent of all others. As a matter of fact, Kant thinks that such omnilateral rights to property can only be achieved within what he calls a civil society. For him a civil society is one where the rule of law is observed and carried out. Within such a society where anyone is drawn to not respecting property rights this can be countered by using the threat of force. The threat of punishment under law is deployed to act as a deterrent to such failures to respect the ownership of others. Thus, although the noumenal justification of property rights can be demonstrated a priori, and so is a possibility before the establishment of an organised society, property can effectively be brought into being only within a civil society under law. For Kant, as we shall see, just the establishment of one civil society – even if it has neighbours that form a similar civil society - is not sufficient to bring into being property in a wholly satisfactory way. That requires a worldwide federation of such civil societies.

This stems from the fact that property is an intelligible or a noumenal reality (MM 6: 249/403). ⁵ It must, however, Kant recognizes, have a practical reality: in other words, it has to be applicable to the objects of experience. Now, in Kant’s view, there is only one way in which this dilemma may be resolved. As an actual empirical situation, he argues, it is only possible to have external things for one’s property in a civil society (buergerliche Gesellschaft). Thus, for the noumenon, property, to become a reality ‘the subject must be … allowed to compel everyone else with whom he comes into conflict over the question of the ownership of such an object to enter with him a society under a civil Constitution” (MM 6, 366/65). Quite clearly, therefore, the noumenal possibility that an external object may become my property is not sufficient to secure it as my property in a concrete sense. To back it up there has in addition always to be the possibility of using coercion to bring into existence such a condition where none yet exists. This possibility of being coerced into a civil society is grounded for Kant on a general will (which is again a noumenal possibility) to establish such a society. According to Kant the power of coercion cannot be entrusted to a particular or one-sided (einseitige) will as that would deny the universality of law and our freedom under it. So, the constitution of such a society can only be founded on a will binding everyone subject to their freedom. It is, in other words, only a contract amongst a people as a whole that can provide the necessary guarantee. Kant does not require that this contract has in fact taken place for the possibility of coercion into such a society to be made into a reality (Williams, 1983, 89-90). For the existence of such an universal will sanctioning such use of force is an a priori idea of the pure practical Reason, and wherever civil society exists such a universal will has to be presupposed. The notion of such a public social contract must guide our behaviour in society, otherwise we would not be bound to leave another’s property untouched. It is only through the reciprocal guarantee of ownership in the contract that ownership becomes a dependable status. Kant believes that this reciprocal obligation inheres as an idea of pure practical Reason in the very assertion of ownership, for the conditions under which I may own an object are those under which all others are potentially able to do so. This omnilateral foundation for property ownership might have provided Marx with an excellent normative standpoint from which to advocate the public involvement through the state and its institutions in the economic life of crises-ridden capitalist economies had he not been hampered by his optimistic view of history and his faith in the working class. His revolutionary outlook downplays the role of persuasion and principle, stressed by Kant, in historical advance.

Here we can see clearly why Kant conceives of property as an idea of pure practical Reason. Property, he argues, is an objective but not empirical reality. Now, Kant would be the first to admit that as a matter of plain historical fact civil society may not have been founded on a contract. Indeed, he considers the view that an actual social contract has been signed to be naive. But, where a civil society (buergerliche Gesellschaft) exists, underpinning that society in Kant’s view are certain tacit agreements which must be recognized by all humans capable of moral judgement. Without these tacit understandings being kept to by all the cohesion of the society would be threatened. As Kant points out, the conditions for my holding property are the same as the conditions which make it possible for all to own property. Property holding requires an omnilateral agreement by all members of a society for individual property rights to be realised.

Kant does not believe we have an immediate right to property in the state of nature. Any such Lockean-style first acquisition must be matched by the aim of entering a social contract with others and our creating a civil society. The grounds for this argument are surprising: ‘All human beings are originally (i.e., prior to any act of choice that establishes a right) in a possession of land that is in conformity with right, that is, they have a right to be wherever nature or chance (apart from their will) has placed them. This kind of possession (possessio)- which is to be distinguished from residence (sedes), a chosen and therefore an acquired lasting possession - is a possession in common because the spherical surface of the earth unites all the places on its surface; for if its surface were an unbounded plane, people could be so dispersed on it that they would not come into any community with one another, and community would not then be a necessary result of their existence on the earth (MM 6: 262/414).’ We have to assume an original community of ownership to acquire something as our own where we find it in nature. Empirical possession is always possible where no one else is present but for us to own it a great deal more has to be taken into account. Everyone with whom we may come into contact has to be conceived as affirming this right to acquisition derived from the assumption of the earth and its products first being owned in common. ‘The possession by all human beings on the earth which precedes any acts of theirs that would establish rights (as constituted by nature itself) is an original possession in common, (communio possessionis originaria), the concept of which is not empirical and dependent upon temporal conditions, like that of a supposed primitive possession in common (communio primaeva), which can never be proved. Original possession in common is, rather, a practical rational concept which contains a priori the principle in accordance with which alone people can use a place on the earth in accordance with principles of right.’ (MM 6: 262/14-15) There is no such original right of possession to be found in recorded history because it can only be an imagined condition for any kind of ownership to proceed. We cannot observe the conditions that make ownership possible because it rests on principles that occur only internally (in the consciousness of intelligent human beings). Twenty-first century Marxists need to bring out this social dimension of all property rights.

Kant grants the first act of possession has, as in the supposed state of nature, to be a unilateral act (so important in establishing Lockean ownership right) but this only opens up the possibility of it. Of its own accord possession never establishes legal ownership. ‘The only condition under which taking possession (apprehensio), beginning to hold (possessionis physicae) a corporeal thing in space, conforms with the law of everyone’s outer freedom (hence a priori) is that of priority in time, that is, only insofar as it is the first taking possession (prior apprehensio), which is an act of choice. But the will that a thing (and so too a specific, separate place on the earth) is to be mine, that is, appropriation of it (appropriatio), in original acquisition can be only unilateral (voluntas unilateralis s. propria). Acquisition of an external object of choice by a unilateral will is taking control of it. So original acquisition of an external object, and hence too of a specific and separate piece of land, can take place only through taking control of it (occupatio).’ (MM 6: 262/414-15)

For Kant no insight can be had into the possibility of acquiring in this way, nor can it be demonstrated by reasons; rather ‘its possibility is instead an immediate consequence of the postulate of practical reason. But the aforesaid will can justify an external acquisition only in so far as it is included in a will that is united a priori (i.e., only through the union of the choice of all who can come into practical relations with one another) and that commands absolutely. For a unilateral will (and a bilateral but still particular will is also unilateral) cannot put everyone under an obligation that is in itself contingent; this requires a will that is omnilateral, that is united not contingently but a priori and therefore necessarily, and because of this is the only will that is lawgiving. For only in accordance with this principle of the will is it possible for the free choice of each to accord with the freedom of all, and therefore possible for there to be any right, and so too possible for any external object to be mine or yours.’ (MM 6: 262/414-16).

The isolated individual who stakes out and cultivates or otherwise manages a piece of land cannot establish property in simply with that act (See K. Flikschuh, 2001, 124-7). As does Marx, Kant sees property as a social relationship which requires the cooperation of others to be fully realised:

‘But the rational title of acquisition can lie only in the idea of a will of all united a priori (necessarily to be united), which is here tacitly assumed as a necessary condition (conditio sine qua non); for a unilateral will cannot put others under an obligation they would not otherwise have.- But the condition in which the will of all is actually united for giving law is the civil condition. Therefore, something external can be originally acquired only in conformity with the idea of a civil condition, that is, with a view to it and to its being brought about, but prior to its realization (for otherwise acquisition would be derived). Hence original acquisition can be only provisional.’ (MM 6: 264/416) A Marxist can learn from Kant here. Kant’s ideal of a civil condition should be seen as a prerequisite for the creation of a socialist society. Change towards a socialist organisation of society should take place within or moving towards the civil condition and not as Marx often implies against it. Of course, how likely such a change is will depend how republican and how democratically responsive the society is.

7. Original possession of the earth’s surface in common

Here we have another principle in Kant’s theory of property which underlines the need for a more socialist development of human society not only at a national but also at an international level. A highly significant feature of Kant’s theory of property which arises in his discussion of first acquisition is the use that he makes of the idea of the original possession of the earth’s surface and its product in common. As Flikschuh points out, Kant provides a ‘deliberate inversion of the natural law sequence from common possession to individual acquisition’ found in the writings of Grotius and Locke. ‘While for Grotius, common possession gradually gives way to human beings’ separation into individual households and distinct nations, Kant argues that unilateral acquisition obligates individuals and nations towards each other, entailing his conception of the Weltbuerger and of Cosmopolitan Right.’ (Flikschuh, 2001, 152) This also draws Kant closer to Marx’s thinking. The latter envisions that the individual working classes will first within their nations establish common ownership of the means of production which then ultimately should lead to a worldwide unity through the cooperation of the working classes of each nation. For Marx too the idea of the community of the ownership of the earth’s surface and its historical subversion through a consecutive domination of exploiting classes is not deployed simply to berate the property-owning monopoly of the few but rather it is an idea which looks forward to a national community of ownership gradually to be superseded by an international community of ownership. Here we might see Kant’s use of the idea as more cogent that Marx’s since the harmony of international communists Marx advocated has been hard to achieve in practice and may be defective in theory since separate national groups, although dominated by representatives of the previous classes who did not enjoy the ownership of capital, need not necessarily determine to place their interests on an equal footing with those of their communist neighbours. When there was a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics it did not necessarily enjoy complete internal harmony amongst the various republics nor was their always clear solidarity evident in relations between the USSR and other Communist states around the world. Though of course the practice of communist states which were formed not after the demise of capitalism but in most cases, as with the Soviet Union at the ending of feudalism, or as with the post Second World War states of Eastern Europe, through external force, might not be regarded as decisive in this respect.

In capitalist societies today the individual does not possess the fruit of her/his labour rather it is the ‘company,’ the ‘business,’ the enterprise, or the large corporation. The connection between labour and property ownership for the overwhelming majority has been undermined by the growth of capitalism itself. In each branch of industry and commerce there is a continuous process of the concentration and centralisation of capital. Centralisation occurs in a physical form where the activity which provides the basis of the business is predominantly to be found only in one location and concentration occurs through the continued growth of the ownership of enterprises through continuously fewer capitalists. Concentration can occur without centralisation because financial capital knows no boundaries, centralisation may occur with less concentration – where companies which rely on the same skills locate themselves in the same areas to take advantage of a plentiful supply of the necessary workers. Instead of private individuals owning the means of production and enjoying their interrelationship with their peers in the one locality (as was the case in the early individualist phase of capitalist production), nowadays the huge accumulation of private property in the hands of a tiny minority alienates the vast majority of producers. In contrast to this inexorable process of concentration of wealth and power Marx and Engels want ownership to fall into the hands of the community. The aim of doing this is to restore the connection between labour and its product under new terms. In these new economic relations, there will indeed be social property but also individual property.

However, one of the weaknesses of the reception of the socialist argument of Marx and Engels is that their communist followers often fail to distinguish properly (and successfully) between altering the status of property in general and removing individual property. These supporters fail to give proper attention to the arguments in the Communist Manifesto and Capital for maintaining individual property rights within a socialist society. This is reflected in the often commonly-held prejudice that the communist doctrine does not allow any ownership of property. But that would be to confuse communism with certain types of radical anarchism. Some anarchists such as William Godwin are hostile to the form of property in general. ⁶ Godwin even recommends, that musicians should not join orchestras on the grounds that individual freedom would be limited by it. ⁷ He accords ownership (in his altruistic presentation of property) to the person who can make the best use of an object. Marx and Engels set their sights, more realistically, a good deal lower.

The founders of modern communism are highly positive about the benefits of individual property. However, this is not how their ideas are generally understood. when people hear of Marx’s views on ownership the ordinary person starts to worry about their own home, their furniture, their garden and perhaps their clothes! But this is not their view of communism at all. It is not about the seizure of people’s personal belongings. The founders of communism wanted to see the wealth of the society increasing and being in shared out more equally. The bourgeois ideal of property was not for them entirely negative. Indeed, it was its exclusivity that they found damaging and unattractive. The full benefits of the ownership of property were being enjoyed only by the minority. Everybody should be able to enjoy the fruits of the society’s labour.

In relation to these common misunderstandings of what communism might imply the distinction between possession and ownership which Kant proposes would I believe be of great value to Marx. Individual empirical (phenomenal) possession would not be undermined by their conception of communism. It is capitalist ownership they want to remove which produces the world whereby a diminishing number of individuals through their ownership of capital can take possession of more wealth than they could ever use themselves, and through which the owner of capital can also have a huge influence, often negative, on the lives of large numbers of people. Unfortunately, the ownership of capital grants an extraordinary level of social influence to an ever-diminishing minority of individuals that society itself does not adequately control. It is for this reason that Marx disagrees with the ownership of property which is also the ownership of capital. Marx then does not believe that the capitalist owner merits that privileged status. The large business owner enjoys social status and power which is not fully and directly responsible to the society which affords that standing.

Kant’s theory of property clearly indicates that the wealth and power of private producers derives its authority from the society itself. In terms of his political theory, this power and authority should be answerable to what he calls the united general will, which should be expressed in the laws of the society (Cf. Flikschuh, 2010, 59). All individuals should feel secure with the personal property they own and can physically use themselves. It is the large-scale property that has been acquired through finance, commerce and trade which leads to control over the lives of others which must prove itself to be legitimate and fair to retain its status. With both Marx and Kant this type of property must be subject to justification and social control. The social dimension of the capacity to produce and trade for a profit should be recognized and be subject to public scrutiny and, if necessary, control.

8. Conclusion

This article has addressed the question whether there are left-wing arguments in Kant’s philosophy. In one clear sense the question is anachronistic. The idea of left in politics was not properly formed in Kant’s lifetime. The idea of the left originates only in the last decade of his life. It arises from the arrangements in the seating of the elected national assembly brought into being in the 1790s period in revolutionary France. The anti-royalist delegates to the national assembly seated themselves to the presiding officers left, while the more conservative and aristocratic supporters of the monarchy gathered to the right. ⁸ Gradually over the course of the 19th century the terms got attached also to major differences between groups and parties on economic issues. The conservative or aristocratic right quite naturally attached themselves to traditionalist movements on ownership and wealth (mainly their own retention of both) and those on the left to the more egalitarian, redistributive tendencies in the society. Whether Kant is left wing in this economic sense is clearly a question which sets him outside his time. He could neither oppose nor support social and political movements which had not come into being at his time. However, perhaps oddly, in relation to the starting point of the debate in the last decade of the 18th Century we can say with some certainty that Kant’s principles place him decidedly on the left. His Republican views were very often made public in his own lifetime. And, in his systematic writings on political theory he shows himself to be attached to many of the principles that animated the left in the French National assembly in the 1790s. This can be seen in his article on ‘Theory and Practice’ published in 1793. Here Kant makes a systematic case for adopting the principles of liberty and equality in society, departing only from the renowned revolutionary slogan of liberte, egalite, et fraternite to replace the third feature, fraternity, with the idea of independence. What now needs to be added to the list of his left proclivities is his omnilateral, cosmopolitan theory of property. It not only serves to embed better many of Marx’s critical views of capitalist property but also suggests a more cogent and lasting way of implementing them.

The advantage that Kant’s theory of property has over Marx’s in bringing about a just system of ownership and production is that he demonstrates how a more socialised and responsible manner of regulating economic relations is implicit within the notion of property itself.