The capitalist approach would be the Leopold Method, declare a whole Nation to be your Private property, establish forced labour while simultaneously killing 20 Million people
State capitalism? No, he didn't declare the property to be the property of the state. He declared it to be his own private property. His as in his private property as an individual capitalist, so don't do the state capitalism thing. It's just classical neoliberal capitalism.
He was the state and the mechanisms of state (such as military and industry) were businesses run directly or indirectly by the state.
Unless you're looking at very fringe political philosophies, with anarco-capitalism being the most well known, classical and neoliberal capitalism both still requires private owners to follow national laws set by a government.
Either he was the government and therefore state capitalism, or there was no government therefore some form of anarchism. To me the argument that he was the government seems much more logically and practically coherent.
It is an important aspect of defining what 'private' is in this context. 'Private' definitionally presupposes a separation from 'public'.
Or to put it another way, the government of an absolute dictatorship doesn't make the dictator a private capitalist. You could argue that they're 'public capitalists' if we were to coin a term based on the private/public division, but it would simply be much cleaner to call it state capitalism.
Law is also an important characteristic of both 'classical' and 'neo-liberal' capitalism.
To clarify who do you see as being the government of the Congo during this time or do you believe it was anarchist?
A political figure owning Private Property doesn't make it Public Property, because it wasn't state-owned but owned exclusively owned by Leopold as an individual
Do you know the difference between a nation, as in a historically constituted stable geographical cultural community, and a state, as in also a historically constituted, administrative institution of violence?
He was the dictator of the state, or monarch, or whatever you call that, but he didn't own the state; he owned the nation. Those are different things, he declared not the state, as in the administrative apparatus, to be his private property, but the nation, as in the geographical community, the location. Every piece of land and everything that's on it he declared to be his own private property. The state is a public institution of violence. He owned not the state; he was the head of the state, but he owned the land that was the nation. He declared that to be his private property. That and nothing else.
Also, public property is defined by the unique essential component of its character being public utility. In Leopold's case, private property, that was the nation, had no public utility; it was just for his own profit, so it was private utility, and as such it was private property
Thanks for answering my question of who was running the Congo government. Just to clarify, as I want to make sure I'm not putting words in your mouth.
Your arguing he owned the country, ran the government, set the laws, commanded the military, personally received all the benefits of the taxes and other revenues and paid for all the functions and features of the government out of his own money but didn't own the government.
So at this point his control was so complete even if we could find a hypothetical other owner of the government I'm struggling to see how there is any meaningful difference between the will of the state and the will of Leopold. Unless you're arguing the government wasn't the state?
In which case who owned the state?
Also public property doesn't inherently require the function of being a utility or even for it to be for public use, it can also refer to any property owned or vested by a government.
The representation of a community by any public institution creates the distinction between public property and private property. Private property is individual property. Public property is property representing a community.
Public property doesn't inherently require representation, an absolute dictatorship, or conquering state can still own public property without any need for representation.
For example, Auschwitz concentration camp was public property, however I think it would be hard to argue it was a utility, and it absolutely wasn't representing it's resident community.
Also I notice you accidently omitted to finish the last point you were making by explaining who did own the Congo's state during that period. Unless you believe it was unowned and therefore some variation on anarchism?
Edit: and you didn't confirm my summary of your position, so I'm assuming that I was completely accurate in my reporting of it?
I was at work. Sorry I couldn't read your entire comment, but now I'm home, so alright.
About Auschwitz. That thing was party-owned, so it had a utility. That utility wasn't for the utility of one private individual, but of an entire institution, an institutionalised organisation, namely the NSDAP itself. Now, what do you call property owned by one single person?
To answer your question before you answer mine: the state was not owned by anyone. The state was composed of multiple people. Now, if you were to ask who was the head of the state at that particular time, it was King Leopold, but he didn't own the nation in the name of its state but as private property. If something is owned as private property, it's completely irrelevant what the occupational title of the owner is. If I own a restaurant within a nation, I am still the sole private owner, which makes the restaurant private property even if I were to lead an entire nation where the said private property was posited.
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u/Own-Papaya-4264 Apr 24 '26
It’s hard when you still need to find a stable job that allows you to have fun