This paper addresses a puzzle which at first glance might seem rather parochial but which is, we believe, of considerable practical as well as theoretical importance. The puzzle is that surrounding Marx's ideas about property and, in particular, property in his imagined 'post-capitalist' society of the future. It is well known that Marx was critical of 'capitalist private property' in the means of production. In the 1844 Manuscripts, for example, he anticipated with enthusiasm the replacement of capitalist societies based on private property by communist societies based on 'truly human and social property' (Marx, 1970 [1844], p.118). In similar vein, in Capital, written twenty years later, he looked forward to the 'transformation of capitalistic private property … into socialised property' (Marx, 1961 [1867], p.715), and in the Critique of the Gotha Programme contemplated the creation of 'co-operative property' and a 'co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production' (Marx, 2010b [1875], p.345). It is often forgotten, however, that in the Manuscripts he also wrote of the need to preserve the 'positive essence of private property' (Marx, 1970 [1844], p.135); that in Capital he anticipated not only the emergence of 'socialised property' but the simultaneous establishment of 'individual property' (Marx, 1961 [1867], p.715); and that in The Civil War in France he praised the Paris Commune's attempt to 'make individual property a truth' (Marx, 2010a [1871], p.213). Even a sympathetic commentator like Chris Arthur is driven to ask, 'What on earth does [this] mean'? (Arthur, 2004, p.114) How can 'individual property' and 'socialised'/'truly social property' in the means of production co-exist?
for their helpful advice and comments. I appreciate highly Fatme Myuhtar-May's proof-reading.
* I am very grateful for the thought-provoking comments and useful criticisms from four referees of Science & Society, and to David Laibman for his helpful suggestions and encouragement. David McLellan's consistent support over the past ten years is highly appreciated.
We consider the implications of the Covid-19 crisis for the theory and practice of governance. We define ‘governance’ as the process through which, in the case of a given entity or polity, resources are allocated, decisions made and policies implemented, with a view to ensuring the effectiveness of its operations in the face of risks in its environment. Core to this, we argue, is the organisation of knowledge through public institutions, including the legal system. Covid-19 poses a particular type of ‘Anthropogenic’ risk, which arises when organised human activity triggers feedback effects from the natural environment. As such it requires the concerted mobilisation of knowledge and a directed response from governments and international agencies. In this context, neoliberal theories and practices, which emphasise the self-adjusting properties of systems of governance in response to external shocks, are going to be put to the test. In states’ varied responses to Covid-19 to date, it is already possible to observe some trends. One of them is the widespread mischaracterisation of the measures taken to address the epidemic at the point of its emergence in the Chinese city of Wuhan in January and February 2020. Public health measures of this kind, rather than constituting a ‘state of exception’ in which legality is set aside, are informed by practices which originated in the welfare or social states of industrialised countries, and which were successful in achieving a ‘mortality revolution’ in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Relearning this history would seem to be essential for the future control of pandemics and other Anthropogenic risks.
This paper considers Douglass C. North's ‘puzzle’ concerning China's household responsibility system (HRS) and offers a possible solution. China's HRS, which has evolved over the past four decades to become its dominant form of rural land ownership, has stimulated spectacular economic growth and poverty reduction; however, it is based on a type of ownership which is far removed from the property rights regime which North regarded as essential. Two features of the HRS merit attention. The first is ‘split ownership’: this refers to the allocation of different aspects of ownership, including rights of access, use, management, exclusion and alienation, to a range of individual and collective actors with interests in the land in question. The second is polycentric governance: rules governing land use are derived in part from community-level action and in part from state intervention. We argue that in explaining the functioning of the HRS we need to move beyond the narrow conception of legally enforced private property rights on which North relied. We should instead embrace understandings of ownership as an emergent, diverse and complex institution, of the kind emphasized by A.M. Honoré's legal theory of ownership and Elinor Ostrom's theories of the common-pool resource and polycentric governance.
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