This is a ChatGPT-generated essay covering some topics that I'd like to work with later, so I'm saving it here as a note.

Possessiveness is an infant’s first taste of power. Before money, before labor, before the state comes that primal moment when a child clutches something in their hand and decides: this is mine. Not for use. Not for need. But because possession itself is comforting. This is the beginning of control, the moment when self and environment become distinguishable. And once learned, the instinct to own—to hold, to claim, to keep—never quite goes away. It grows, mutates, is shaped by context. What begins as a child’s defense against chaos is transformed by social forces into a fundamental structure of human civilization: economy, law, property, hierarchy. The way we define power itself.

Capitalism is not just an economic system—it is an optimization machine for possessiveness. It recognizes fear as the fuel that makes possessiveness burn hotter, so it manufactures scarcity to make sure we never feel secure enough to let go. It tells us that if we do not claim, we will be claimed. If we do not hoard, we will be deprived. It doesn’t just rely on possessiveness; it ensures that possessiveness is necessary for survival. And through this, it keeps us obedient.

Anarchists, historically, have fought against this. But too often, they have done so while remaining utterly dependent on the very conditions they oppose—never breaking free from the machine, only screaming at its gears. Meanwhile, in the rare moments when humans have successfully abandoned possessiveness, something interesting happens. Sometimes, it collapses under the weight of a market-driven world. Other times, it flourishes, but only when the market is failing. The kibbutz is an excellent example of this contradiction. A living experiment in de-possessiveness, but also a lesson in why abandoning possessiveness is not enough—one must also prepare for the moment when it is forced back in.

If anarchists ever want to build something that can last, they need to understand how possessiveness emerges, how it is manipulated, and what it takes to actually destroy its grip on the human psyche.

Where Possessiveness Comes From, and What Capitalism Does With It

If you want to understand why capitalism works, go to a playground and watch two toddlers fight over a toy. They don’t care what the object is. A plastic truck. A ball. A twig. The moment one child claims it, the other needs it.

Possessiveness begins as a survival instinct, an emotional response to the terror of uncertainty. For a baby, the world is unpredictable. Objects appear and vanish. A parent is present, then gone. To survive, an infant learns to attach itself to what is familiar and defensible. It does not think of possession as ownership—it thinks of it as control over the uncontrollable.

By toddlerhood, this becomes externalized. The child learns that objects can be possessed in relation to others. That one can not only have, but deny others from having. This is when “mine” becomes an assertion of agency. A toddler does not hoard because they need. They hoard because to possess is to exist as a force in the world.

Later, this possessiveness becomes socially conditioned. First through basic trade and loss—the realization that giving something up might mean never getting it back. Then through comparison, as the child learns that their possessions signal status. By adolescence, the connection is clear: possessions are power, and power determines belonging. This is where capitalism steps in and refines the instinct, shaping it into a full system of control.

Possessiveness does not fade in adulthood. It is simply weaponized against us. You will not have a home unless you work for one. You will not have security unless you buy it. You will not have time, autonomy, freedom, unless you first acquire enough possessions to buy back the parts of yourself that have already been sold. Capitalism uses artificial scarcity to ensure that possessiveness is never a childish phase we leave behind, but a lifelong condition of insecurity.

The Kibbutz and the Limits of Anti-Possessiveness

The kibbutz was founded on a simple idea: possessiveness is not inevitable. In the early days, it was an experiment in deprogramming—an attempt to create a society where people no longer needed to hoard, because they could trust in collective security.

It worked, but only under certain conditions.

Early kibbutzim eliminated personal ownership almost entirely. There was no private property. Even children were raised collectively, sleeping in separate houses from their parents. The idea was to make dependency on others the default, rather than self-reliance through possession. Scarcity was minimized because all needs were met collectively.

And it worked. But only when the surrounding capitalist economy was either immature or failing. During its early days or during economic crises, the kibbutzim thrive because they provide security when capitalism does not. The people who live in them dodn’t want to return to private ownership because there is no private market providing better options. But when capitalism booms, people leave. They leave because the surrounding system still values possessiveness, and the moment that world provides an opportunity to profit, to climb, to own, the kibbutz loses its hold.

This is the lesson anarchists must learn.

The kibbutz did not fail because communal living is impossible. It failed because it existed within a larger world that still rewarded possessiveness. As long as that condition exists, any anti-possessive experiment is vulnerable to being out-competed, abandoned, or outright destroyed.

The answer is not simply to reject capitalism and hope people opt out. The answer is to destroy capitalism’s ability to be the more attractive option.

How Anarchists Should Respond

Possessiveness is not beaten with moral arguments. It is beaten by creating an alternative that provides security where capitalism cannot. The goal is not to demand that people “give up” on possessions. The goal is to make possession unnecessary in the first place.

Anarchists have failed at this before, because too often, they build structures that depend on capitalist wealth to sustain them. They build communes, then expect them to survive through donations, subsidies, or the labor of members still working in the capitalist system. But the only way to actually kill possessiveness is to ensure that anarchist infrastructure cannot be bought, out-competed, or destroyed.

This means:

Material security must be self-generating. Every attempt at economic autonomy that relies on external funding is doomed. The movement must own land, production, and logistics outright, and it must be structured so that no single seizure of wealth can wipe it out.

Parallel systems must be more resilient than capitalist ones. If a commune can be bulldozed, it will be. If an economic network can be regulated out of existence, it will be. The only answer is to build structures so deeply embedded in real economic survival that removing them would cause a crisis for everyone involved.

Wealth must not be hoarded, but weaponized. Money is just a tool. The question is who uses it, and for what. If anarchists refuse to build economic power, capitalists will continue to own everything, and all resistance will remain dependent on begging for scraps.

Possessiveness is a function of insecurity. Capitalism keeps people possessive by keeping them afraid. The only way to destroy that fear is to build something so materially viable that the instinct to hoard, to clutch, to cling, is no longer necessary. Until then, no argument will be enough.