This point is expressed in many different forms. John Henry MacKay (an individualist anarchist) puts the point as follows:
"'Would you [the social anarchist], in the system of society which you call 'free Communism' prevent individuals from exchanging their labour among themselves by means of their own medium of exchange? And further: Would you prevent them from occupying land for the purpose of personal use?' . . . [The] question was not to be escaped. If he answered 'Yes!' he admitted that society had the right of control over the individual and threw overboard the autonomy of the individual which he had always zealously defended; if on the other hand he answered 'No!' he admitted the right of private property which he had just denied so emphatically." [Patterns of Anarchy, p. 31]
However, as is clearly explained above and in sections B.3 and I.5.7, anarchist theory has a simple and clear answer to this question. To see what this answer is it simply a case of remembering that use rights replace property rights in an anarchist society. In other words, individuals can exchange their labour as they see fit and occupy land for their own use. This in no way contradicts the abolition of private property, because occupancy and use is directly opposed to private property. Therefore, in a free communist society individuals can use land and such tools and equipment as they personally "use and occupancy" as they wish — they do not have to join the free communist society. If they do not, however, they cannot place claims on the benefits others receive from co-operation and their communal life.
This can be seen from Charlotte Wilson's discussions on anarchism written a few years before MacKay published his "inescapable" question. Wilson argues that anarchism "proposes . . . [t]hat usufruct of instruments of production — land included — should be free to all workers, or groups of workers" and that "the necessary connections between the various industries . . . should be managed on the . . . voluntary principle." She asks the question: "Does Anarchism . . . then . . . acknowledge . . . no personal property?" She answers by noting that "every man [or woman] is free to take what he [or she] requires" and so "it is hardly conceivable that personal necessaries and conveniences will not be appropriated." For "[w]hen property is protected by no legal enactments, backed by armed force, and is unable to buy personal service, its resuscitation on such a scale as to be dangerous to society is little to be dreaded. The amount appropriated by each individual . . . must be left to his [or her] own conscience, and the pressure exercised upon him [or her] by the moral sense and distinct interests of his [or her] neighbours." This is because:
"Property is the domination of an individual, or a coalition of individuals, over things; it is not the claim of any person or persons to the use of things — this is, usufruct, a very different matter. Property means the monopoly of wealth, the right to prevent others using it, whether the owner needs it or not. Usufruct implies the claim to the use of such wealth as supplies the users needs. If any individual shuts of a portion of it (which he is not using, and does not need for his own use) from his fellows, he is defrauding the whole community." [Anarchist Essays, pp. 22-23 and p. 40]
In other words, possession replaces private property in a free society. This applies to those who decide to join a free communist society and those who desire to remain outside. This is clear from Kropotkin's argument that an communist-anarchist revolution would leave self-employed artisans and peasants alone if they did not desire to join the free commune (see Act for Yourselves, pp. 104-5 and The Conquest of Bread, p. 61 and pp. 95-6). Thus the leading theorist of free communism did not think the occupying of land for personal use (or a house or the means of production) entailed the "right of private property." Obviously John Henry MacKay had not read his Proudhon!
This can be seen even clearer when Kropotkin argued that "[a]ll things belong to all, and provided that men and women contribute their share of labour for the production of necessary objects, they are entitled to their share of all that is produced by the community at large." [The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution, p. 6] He goes on to state that "free Communism . . . places the products reaped or manufactured in common at the disposal of all, leaving to each the liberty to consume them as he [or she] pleases in his [or her] own home." [Op. Cit., p. 7] This obviously implies a situation of "occupancy and use" (with those who are actually using a resource controlling it).
This clearly means, as the biographers of Kropotkin noted, that an Individualist Anarchist like Tucker (or MacKay) "partly misinterprets" Kropotkin when he "suggests that [Kropotkin's] idea of communal organisation would prevent the individual from working on his [or her] own if he wished (a fact which Kropotkin always explicitly denied, since the basis of his theory was the voluntary principle)." [G. Woodcock and I. Avakumovic, The Anarchist Prince, p. 280]
Thus the case of the non-member of free communism is clear — they would also consume what they have produced or exchanged with others in their own home (i.e. land used for their own "personal use"). The land and resources do not, however, become private property simply because they revert back into common ownership once they are no longer "occupied and used." In other words, possession replaces property. Thus communist-anarchists agree with Individualist Anarchist John Beverley Robinson when he wrote:
"There are two kinds of land ownership, proprietorship or property, by which the owner is absolute lord of the land to use it or hold it out of use, as it may please him; and possession, by which he is secure in the tenure of land which he uses and occupies, but has no claim on it at all if he ceases to use it. For the secure possession of his crops or buildings or other products, he needs nothing but the possession of the land he uses." [Patterns of Anarchy, p. 273]
This system, we must note, was used in the rural collectives during the Spanish Revolution, with people free to remain outside the collective working only as much land and equipment as they could "occupy and use" by their own labour. Similarly, the individuals within the collective worked in common and took what they needed from the communal stores. See Gaston Leval's Collectives in the Spanish Revolution for details (and section I.8).
Mackay's comments raise another interesting point. Given that Individualist Anarchists oppose the current system of private property in land, their system entails that "society ha[s] the right of control over the individual." If we look at the "occupancy and use" land system favoured by the likes of Tucker, we discover that it is based on restricting property in land (and so the owners of land). Tucker argued that if "the Anarchistic view" of "occupancy and use" would prevail then any defence associations would not protect anyone in the possession of more than they could personally use, nor would they force tenants to pay rent to landlords of housing. [The Individualist Anarchists, pp. 159-62] Thus the "prevailing view", i.e. society, would limit the amount of land which individuals could acquire, controlling their actions and violating their autonomy. Which, we must say, is not surprising as individualism requires the supremacy of the rest of society over the individual in terms of rules relating to the ownership and use of possessions (or "property") — as the Individualist Anarchists themselves implicitly acknowledge, as can be seen.
John Henry MacKay goes on to state that "every serious man must declare himself: for Socialism, and thereby for force and against liberty, or for Anarchism, and thereby for liberty and against force." [Op. Cit., p. 32] Which, we must note, is a strange statement, as individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker considered themselves socialists and opposed capitalist private property (while, confusingly, many of them calling their system of possession "property" — see section G.2.2).
However, MacKay's statement begs the question, does private property support liberty? He does not address or even acknowledge the fact that private property will inevitably lead to the owners of such property gaining control over the individuals who use, but do not own, that property and so denying them liberty (see section B.4). As Proudhon argued:
"The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, 'This is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.' Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has right to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these multiply, and soon the people . . . will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their birth-right; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, 'So perish idlers and vagrants.'" [What is Property?, p. 118]
Of course, the non-owner can gain access to the property by selling their liberty to the property-owner, by agreeing to submit to the owners authority. Little wonder that Proudhon argued that the "second effect of property is despotism." [Op. Cit., p. 259] Moreover, given that Tucker argued that the state was "the assumption of sole authority over a given area and all within it" we can see that MacKay's argument ignores the negative aspects of property and its similarity with the state [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 24]. After all, MacKay would be the first to argue that the property owner must be sovereign of their property (and not subject to any form of control). In other words, the property owner must assume sole authority over the given area they own and all within it. Little wonder Emile Pouget, echoing Proudhon, argued that:
"Property and authority are merely differing manifestations and expressions of one and the same 'principle' which boils down to the enforcement and enshrinement of the servitude of man. Consequently, the only difference between them is one of vantage point: viewed from one angle, slavery appears as a property crime, whereas, viewed from a different angle, it constitutes an authority crime." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, p. 66]
Neither does MacKay address the fact that private property requires extensive force (i.e. a state) to protect it against those who use it or could use it but do not own it.
In other words, MacKay ignores two important aspects of private property. Firstly, that private property is based upon force, which must be used to ensure the owner's right to exclude others (the main reason for the existence of the state). And secondly, he ignores the anti-libertarian nature of "property" when it creates wage labour — the other side of "private property" — in which the liberty of employees is obviously restricted by the owners whose property they are hired to use. Unlike in a free communist society, in which members of a commune have equal rights, power and say within a self-managed association, under "private property" the owner of the property governs those who use it. When the owner and the user is identical, this is not a problem (i.e. when possession replaces property) but once possession becomes property then despotism, as Proudhon noted, is created.
Therefore, it seems that in the name of "liberty" John MacKay and a host of other "individualists" end up supporting authority and (effectively) some kind of state. This is hardly surprising as private property is the opposite of personal possession, not its base.
Therefore, far from communal property restricting individual liberty (or even personal use of resources) it is in fact its only defence.