I am beginning to think that there is no possible way to claim ownership over your labour, the house you built, the book you wrote, or even the organs in your body, or the idea in your head as being ‘yours’. All arguments, as far as I can see, seem to fall-apart at some stage.
So … I don’t see how libertarianism (classical liberalism, or whatever …) has any sound basis - ethical or otherwise, compared to collectivism. In fact, why can’t the community claim ownership over your house, wages etc … There is no reason why not … and although they may not have their own reasons, there is only one of you …
I think libertarianism is as unfounded as collectivism. Am I missing something?
Property rights are derived from the self ownership axiom.
Mises was a utilitarian and justified self ownership based on economic efficiency and utility maximization.
Rothbard was a natural law theorist and justified self-ownership by demonstring the absurdity of other modes of ownership (e.g. an ethic in which one person owns another fails the universality test, and an ethic where everyone owned everyone fails because we could never reach a consensus to do anything and would starve, leaving self-ownership the winner by elimination.)
Hoppe fashioned the argumentation ethic which justifies self-ownership based on the theory that someone necessarily implicitly accepts the principle that people control themselves when he engages someone else in argument rather than killing them or chasing them off like they would do to an animal.
I think the point that Fluke is trying to make is that these theories tend to presuppose that human flourishing really is good.
I prefer Rothbard’s method, but essentially it only works if we accept an objective standard, namely that ethically absurd scenarios really are ethically absurd.
As human beings, we have needs, which we like to satisfy. Some of those needs can be satisfied through resources, or ‘goods.’
If you couldn’t grab those resources from your neighbor, how would you satisfy your needs? You can either make all your own things, or you trade with others. But to sell something you must first use your brain and your body to transform some things from something less valuable into something more valuable. And you can only sell those things that people actually desire.
Productive people are constantly trading. In order to satisfy their own needs they will trade essentially every day of their lives. They trade in other things besides goods and services as well. They trade information with others to better understand the world. They trade in companionship, in support, and in love. Every extra peaceful person also adds to our security.
Peaceful people are very beneficial. Peaceful people who have accrued large amounts of wealth have been, and generally are still, particularly beneficial to other people.
Contrast this with an unpeaceful person. Someone who steals, or rapes, or murders. These actions are harmful to people who are beneficial to us. Secondly, we ourselves or someone close to us could be the next victim.
An unpeaceful person shows through his actions that he doesn’t know what society is about; he regards other people and their property as his own, and he tries to live at the expense of others. This has no place in society.
Morality is that set of principles of action that state that you cannot hurt other agents, or their property, who participate in society; for doing so must be detrimental to society.
Rothbard’s argument deals with two different types of ownership - namely; the descriptive sense of “control” and the normative sense. I’ll be daring and paraphrase but Rothbard essentially says that “denying self-ownership necessitates self-ownership, thus self-ownership must be true”. But this is merely in the descriptive sense. It’s a trick of linguistics, in my view. But his entire argument then rests on this, as he switches between the two different forms of ownership. The proposition of “I control myself” doesn’t lead to “I ought not be coerced”. I think his “denying self-ownership is impossible” seems obvious and true - at least, in the purely descriptive sense. But I don’t think one can proceed from this to anything else. Hoppe’s position seems somewhat different, in that merely debating property rights, I presuppose a few interpersonal norms of argumentation, and so they must exist. Assuming I agree with these norms, I don’t see how that makes them objectively true (or universal?). Also, I could ignore or reject these norms after our debate! I could even by playing devil’s advocate and pretend I make those assumptions.
My second problem is with the idea or, rather, the assumption of the existence of “ownership” in this world. I don’t think self-ownership is self-evident, since it relies on the existence of the concept of ownership. Ownership itself - from what I can gather - is not self-evident, but simply a popular acceptance. A belief …
Tbh, I am not sure what this all means. I am trying to formulate what my position is now …
It’s true that if human non-flourishing was embraced as ‘good’, the idea would soon fade out of popularity.
However, it still doesn’t establish that existence is good in and of itself. We get back to the is/ought problem, and distinguishing between moral epistemology and moral ontology.
What do you mean by this? I am just curious as to how other people view or deal with self-ownership etc …
I am trying to understand what is the main problem with collectivism, other than the economic problems it brings. For instance, if it was proven that collectivism improved the standards of peoples’ lives and made everyone happier, would libertarianism disappear? Is collectivism ‘bad’ not because it is wrong, but because it produces unfavourable results. I am quite confused :(.
I also agree with de Jasay’s view of property, liberty, justice and other issues. I would also recommend Jan Narveson’s explanation of moral contractarianism, which can explain why individual liberty is fundamentally different from collectivism. Particularly, property and other liberties are self-enforcing conventions. People tend to agree to respect one another’s property because doing so is in their best interest, and this agreement is enforced by the parties involved as opposed to some third-party enforcer. I agree to respect your life, organs, property, etc., under the assumption that you will respect my life, organs, property, etc. If collectivism is to mean the opposite of the above (I am allowed to use your body for my benefit, and you may use my body for yours), then it is obvious that collectivism will never be voluntarily adopted. It would demand a ruthless third-party enforcer.
So here you can see that it is not just that an individualistic order would bring greater material comfort than a collectivistic ‘order.’ Respect for life, liberty and property emerges spontaneously and is self-enforcing. If such conventions are voluntarily upheld, then that suggests that people uphold them because it is in their interest to do so - because it is considered a means to an end (e.g. peaceful relations, the accumulation of capital and thus greater wealth, etc.). If collectivism cannot arise through mutual agreement, then we must assume that collectivistic rules run contrary to people’s interests. Just as we assume that a person coerced into buying a good is worse off, as he values the good bought less than the money paid.
What you are missing lies in the statement that both ideas are unfounded. Truth being, they are both quite founded. No one in their right mind will say collectivism has no basis. It is just terribly inefficient in comparison. Ethical and moral bases stem from subjective views. It is only a difference of opinion to say “I think people have rights to property” as opposed to saying “I think the whole should dictate who gets what”. What the doctrines of this website show are the logical reasonings that demonstrate how a society with an unhampered market can progress, while both reason and historical evidence show that collectivist societies ultimately either stagnate, when they are lucky, or spiral into oblivion, usually of the despotic or starving type. The differences lay not in any ethical basis, but a reasoning that has held soundly against collectivist notions. For instance, it is true that the majority could easily decide to take your car. This holds either in a collectivist or an individualistic society. However, in a collectivist society, the government okays these actions, meaning that to defend your property you must not only go up against the majority, but the legal use of force as well. We can divulge a hundred such scenarios as that, but let’s be more general by asking this:
What the hell are 20 people going to do with your car? Damn near nothing. Maybe squabble over who will use it. But one person with a car can accomplish a lot of things in a day.
“I am trying to understand what is the main problem with collectivism, other than the economic problems it brings. For instance, if it was proven that collectivism improved the standards of peoples’ lives and made everyone happier, would libertarianism disappear? Is collectivism ‘bad’ not because it is wrong, but because it produces unfavourable results. I am quite confused :(.”
If collectivism by some magic were a better alternative, there is no reason it could not be part of a governmentless society. In fact, there is nothing saying you can’t have a communal housing project or a communal garden or farm in a free society. Nothing at all. Go nuts. If it works better, then certainly other people would adopt the notions of sharing everything and assuming no ownership, because it would satisfy their subjective wants. Whereas, those who still don’t want to be a part of communal living still have the option to live as their own values dictate. It is only the forced collectivism of society which leaves a bad taste in the mouth of freedom-loving individuals.
As far as I can tell, the only way to (partially) resolve the is-ought problem is through the concept of expectation. In this sense, “one should do X” is taken to mean the same thing as “one is expected to do X”.
Of course, that begs the question as to who is expecting him to do it. Since it doesn’t seem (so far) like anything else has articulable expectations aside from humans, that means it’s one or more (or all?) humans who hold the expectation. Note that this means there’s no way to prove which expectations are correct/incorrect, as they’re all subjective.
There are some people who’d claim that there is something above humans who has expectations for all of us – namely God.
I can’t be any less capable of claiming ownership over myself than any other telic entity but I am a lot more motivated.
There are two ways a dispute over ownership of myself (or anything else, for that matter) can go:
We fight about it. Whoever has more power wins
We argue about it. Whoever has the more persuasive argument wins.
If the Prince chooses option 1, he has to fight everyone. Outcome? The Prince loses. If the Prince chooses option 2, he has to make the amazing claim that, for some reason, he owns everyone else while he also owns himself. Not very persuasive. Either way, the Prince loses. Collectivism is a lame excuse for the Prince’s expropriation.
Another option is to argue that ownership is a relation between a person and property, and that talking about a relation between a thing and itself is either redundant or nonsensical.
