Hello, I'm new here and have some insights on social contracts that may interest.

Economics Political Theory
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Hello, I am a philosophy student that, through my own reason and thinking, has come up with a hypothesis on social contracts that led me to libertarianism. Anyways, here it is:

Beings have unlimited freedom of actions in the most primitive social state. Because this unlimited freedom of actions allows for things such as murder and theft, they soon realize that they will not prosper if they do not restrict themselves. Therefore, a contract is made that creates life and property rights for the benefit of all parties. Each individual agrees to not steal from or kill another individual, and if someone breaks the contract, then the others do not have to keep their end of it towards that person. The property that the group lives on becomes a state, and anyone who uses it must agree to the contract or be deported. Competition between different states is created, and most often the state with the freer contract, but still protects from coercion, gains the upper hand in power and wealth, forcing the other state to update their contract or dissolve. However, beliefs such as evangelical religion and socialism slow down or regress the natural evolution to a global libertarian society by trying to force others to comply with their worldview. Theocratic and socialist states could never compete with libertarian ones because of their use of coercion, and coercing other beings to make a contract or breaking voluntary contracts are illegitimate actions by definition. Therefore, only beings themselves have the right to control their own freedom of actions, and less controlling societies are the most prosperous.

That’s my take on the history of human civilization. I hope it is locially sound; I’d love to hear comments, especially critiques.

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Libertarianism is not based on contracted rights.

There is no such thing as unlimited freedom. The right to be free, logically cannot coexist with the right to coerce or aggress. So if one is absolutely free, then that means they cannot commit aggression, without compromising that right.

Welcome to the forum.

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Thank you for the welcome. Now my response:

I did not say beings have a right to be free; I said beings have unlimited freedom. Actually, I meant that beings have unlimited freedom over their actions, because they and only they can control their own actions; if someone else controls their actions, then it is really that other person’s actions. I will edit my post to fix that.

Now, onto a more radical statement: I believe that beings do not have a natural right to life or property. Why? Simply because they have no control over them. If a tornado hits and destroys a house with a family inside, does it make sense to say the tornnado infringed upon their “rights”? However, I have come to the conclusion that there is one natural right, as I said earlier: The right to control one’s own freedom of actions. I would argue that this is what turns life and property into life and property rights. I own a t-shirt not because I have the right to own one, but because everyone else has agreed to not use that t-shirt, and I am its sole user. What is wonderful about this method of thinking about property is that instead of having three “semi-absolute” rights of life, liberty, and property, one only needs the absolute right of freedom of actions to arrive at the same libertarian conclusion.

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Even in a state of nature, freedom is restricted by the actions of others, so long as more than one person exists in the same world. If you are standing at Point A, then I cannot also stand at Point A. If I take your property, then you are prevented from using it.

“Rights,” being an ethical concept, make sense only when applied to conscious beings. When we say that you have a “right to life,” we are saying that other people should prefer not killing you over killing you. It makes no sense to say that a tornado “should not” kill you, because a tornado cannot even in principle choose whether or not to kill you. Its actions therefore cannot be evaluated on an ethical basis.

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A couple of points:

You seem to be confusing freedom, in the metaphysical sense that you control your actions, and normative rights, the freedom that one ought to have from aggression. One can have one’s rights infringed, but that fact remains that those rights exits; they should be respected.

Also, just because life or property aren’t the most basic rights, doesn’t mean that they aren’t “natural” rights, in the sense that they are rights held by each and every human being by nature of being a rational and social animal. The right to property is the right to control external objects, because we have made them part of a projects, and, due to the requirements of a truly human life, extensions of our selves. The right to life is just a restatement of the right to liberty; that one has the right to live one’s life without outside interference. They are both corollaries of the right to liberty, which I would say is identical to your “right of freedom of actions”.

And welcome to the forum.

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I have already stated that it was a mistake on my part to just say unlimited freedom. What I meant was unlimited freedom of actions.

Ok, I agree with you there. I used the word “rights” in a different way.

My underlying statement is that there is only one quality of a conscious being that cannot be taken away: self-control of action. Only you can control your own actions. If someone else causes your body or physical extension of your body to perform an act, it is not your consciousness that willed it, but theirs. That is why I came to the conclusion that contracts are repressions of one’s own will in order to gain a greater benefit and will eventually form libertarian societies.

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I’m sorry, but due to my misuse of terms, this topic has become messy for me to reply to. Would anyone mind if I restructured my essay into a new topic and locked this old one? I will still reply to anyone I missed, I feel this really helps me with my understanding of things. Thanks.

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I would like to thank everyone for their responses. I realized that my aversion of natural rights stemmed from the fact that I saw incompatibilites with having both the right to liberty and property. However, I was using the “positive” definition of liberty, which is the freedom of actions. “Negative liberty,” or freedom from restraint, seems to be the definition used by libertarians, and it makes a whole heck of a lot more sense to me now. Thanks again.

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[:D]

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You might find this to be of interest.

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Thanks, I found it of incredible interest. So much that I did some research on individualist anarchy and found it fascinating. This is what I take from it, so please inform if I’m mistaken:

The basic principle individualist anarchy is based on is: No person may initiate or threaten to initiate the use of coercive physical force.

This includes taking away property from non-aggressors, which non-voluntary taxation falls under.

For institutions such as government to exist, they require taxes and/or voluntary donations. If taxes can not be used, freeloading will occur and the institution would crumble.

Anarchy offers a different solution in privatization of everything, including defense and justice.

This is what seems to occur when I think about it:

Companies (or individuals that could afford it alone) would pay competing defense agencies to patrol their property and act as “security”. In this scenario, the owner makes the laws of what people can or cannot do on or to their property, as just being on property against an owner’s wishes constitutes as coercion.

Groups of people (communities) would get together and decide on defense agencies also. They would patrol the property of the paying members and act as “police”. However, because they are splitting the cost, they would have to compromise between themselves on what the specific crimes and sentences were. These specific crimes and sentences only apply when the police are used; if an individual is confronted with a situation on their property, they could take matters into their own hands, unless the they have agreed not to as part of the defense contract.

Holy crap… This alone makes incredibly more sense than the current system of “you pay, we decide” in America. The fact that there are more non-violent offenders in prisions than murderers and rapists, and violent offenders often get out too early is enough to make most people (I hope) sick, and something that would be easily remedied by privatization If my above thinking is accurate, sign me up for anarchy!

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ha ha, we got us another one!

welcome to the team.

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Thanks. If there’s one think I can’t stand, it is contradicting myself. If the non-aggression principle (which I agree with 100%) leads to this, then either something’s wrong with the principle or anarchy is the way to go, which is apparently not a moral-free murder-zone like I and many others were taught, but quite the appealing opposite! One quick question: What is the difference between Voluntaryism, Anarcho-Capitalism, and Free Market Anarchism? They all appear to be the same thing under different names.

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Yep, it’s great to break the chains of doublethink. We’re all taught to believe that ruling ourselves means chaos while simultaneously having the capacity to choose who to rule us.

They all imply the same thing. Some people don’t like “anarcho”. Some people don’t like to use “anarchism”. But they all basically mean the same thing. Free market interaction in all relationships, social, political, economic etc.

Where you will find a lot of diversity of opinion, is on outcomes. Some folks favour let the chips fall where they may. Some would like to see a more pluralistic society. And so on. But the fundamental principle of non-aggression and voluntarism are essential. Anyone with ideas that undermine these, is a statist regardless of what they call themselves.

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I figured that might get posted sooner or later.