Don't Own Your Labour ...

[Brainpolice]

I didn’t know that Anthony de Jasay shared my position on the either philosophically wrong-headed or unecessary nature of “self-ownership”.

[Solid_Choke]

I didn’t know that Anthony de Jasay shared my position on the either philosophically wrong-headed or unecessary nature of “self-ownership”.

Unfortunately Rothbard and Nozick found themselves defending some difficult propositions, because they took on the burden of proof when it should have fallen on their intellectual opponents. Epistemologically, people are innocent until proven guilty, title to property is considered good until proven otherwise, and people are free until shown why they should not be.

[Aposiopesis]

Well, if adherence to Austrian economics is logically demonstrable as the most efficient (or only long-term workable) path to personal freedom and economic prosperity, and such concepts as self-ownership are necessary to maintain the principles of Austrian economics (so as to work as a preventative measure against government interference in economic and social concerns), then they are logically justified.

I’m honestly not sure why people try to look to self-ownership and offshoot concepts to justify an austro-libertarian position. It just seems backwards. Austro-libertarian principles necessitate and justify self-ownership (and ownership of labor, etc (if you demonstrate that Austro-libertarian principles are the [best] path to freedom and prosperity).

[Brainpolice]

Aposiopesis, I’m not understanding how you can try to say that these normative notions are necessary to maintain Austrian economics or that Austrian economics necessitates and justifies them, when the root methodology of Austrian economics isn’t supposed to be normative at all. It seems to me that such normative political theorizing is outside of the domain of Austrian economics by definition. Austrian economics, by itself, can cast no formal judgement as to what property titles to consider legitimate, what definition of freedom is the right one, and so on. On the other hand, this is of course why those who claim that they can make a case for libertarianism based on economics alone seem bizarre to me.

[scineram]

@Solid_Choke

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.

Reading this reminded me of this.

@John Gray - Liberalisms

Given such manifold singularities, what is the justification for modelling the person in a way that will inevitably screen out much of the variety of personal life? The answer, of course, is that unless the variety of personhood is ironed out, there will be no agreement on principles and so no upshot of contractarian deliberation. On the other hand, any abstraction from the particularities of persons already begs every important question in favour of liberalism. Behind the veil of ignorance, we are no longer ourselves, but ciphers, constructed expressly for the purpose of grounding liberal society. The derivation of liberal principles is then circular, since it works with the artificial persons of liberal theory and not with the varieties of personhood we find in the real world… The fact that an abstract or artificial person, screened by an imaginary veil of ignorance from that knowledge of his own life that is constitutive of any real person. Would choose a specific set of moral or political principles, if he were able to choose anything at all, has no force for any real person. For any real person, only the values he in fact upholds, the projects and attachments he actually harbours, can generate reasons for action.

[Solid_Choke]

John Gray makes a good point about Rawlsianism, but it really does irk me when people call Rawls a liberal. Talk about a misnomer…

[Catalan]

I think libertarianism is as unfounded as collectivism. Am I missing something?

I am actually planning a “lecture” (for a geographically local group of Misesians) on what I consider my own theory on the merit of libertarianism, not based on the concept of natural rights, rather on that of human rationality. Ultimately, I think that perhaps a theory of natural rights can be made out of “my” “doctrine”, but I rather not see it in that fashion (because, I believe that all morality and all ethics is ultimately subjective). In any case, I think such a theory can appeal to you, since it seems that you are rejecting the doctrine of natural rights (or something similar).

In brief, it begins with the axiom of rational human action—that all (non-instinctual) human action is committed to only after positively weighing utility versus disutility—and that, absent mind control, humans own themselves in the sense that they are the only beings capable of biologically dictating their own action (to offer an example: a slave, despite being in a state of slavery, ultimately is the sole “owner” of his actions, in the sense that only he can decide how to act). Given the drive to maximize utility and minimize disutility, individuals living in any given society had to develop social boundaries, which ultimately gave rise to the concept of property rights. As processes of production became relatively more complicated (still referring to primitive societies, mind you) it became necessary to secure the means of production against the possible claims of others, as to ensure the individual of the ability to garner as much utility from his action (or series of actions) as possible.

It is my belief that libertarianism is the most appealing social structure, because (to me) it bases itself on the fact that it is the one most consistent with rational human action. It is impossible for institutions such a government to feed off society perpetually, because ultimately bureaucracy grows to such an extent that the given level of division of labor is no longer capable of sustaining its expenses (this is what Mises termed the “crisis of interventionism”). In other words, although I concede that those who compose the bureaucracy are also acting rationally, this type of slavery is made obsolete by the ever-growing division of labor (as it becomes more and more necessary to acquiesce to the demands of others).

Expanding upon the above, it must be realized that the market is a dynamic social network that slowly maximizes utility, for the very fact that all human action is rational and that all market agents rationally embark to maximize their utility while minimizing their disutility. As the division of labor extends and as production increases, therefore simultaneously increasing the volume of means of production in the hands of laborers and previously non-capitalists, they become more and more relevant in the market, and more and more capable of minimizing costs. At the same time, capitalists face fiercer competition and are more inclined to meet the demands of its potential customers, and as such this acts as another venue by which costs (viz. “externalities”) are minimized.

Therefore, I see libertarianism not just a social movement, but as a theory (narrowly, speaking, as I concede that libertarianism involves much more than just a praxeological explanation of the development of human society) that explains natural human society. I hope that this view can supplement your lack of faith in natural rights.