ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a typology of private property and discusses the role of the state in relation to the production of private property in capitalism. Private property in the means of production is of different types, depending on the form of labour. The first type of private property is where one person or family uses their own abilities and own means of production to produce a commodity which they sell to another person who produces a different commodity in the same way. The second type of private property in the means of production is exploitative property. Capitalist private property is based on the state-mediated negation of small-scale private property based in own labour or family labour. Anti-theft laws represent the state’s way of stopping people from having direct access to means of subsistence. The state is a necessary precondition for value relations and for capitalist property relations.
