Ah, I see. So you define property as being attained through initial use, and from this point on it is forever the property of that individual unless exchanged or seized as just recompense?
Correct. From Rothbard’s Ethics of Liberty:
“We thus have a theory of the rights of property: that every man has an absolute right to the control and ownership of his own body, and to unused land resources that he finds and transforms. He also has the right to give away such tangible property (though he cannot alienate control over his own person and will) and to exchange it for the similarly derived properties of others. Hence, all legitimate property-right derives from every man’s property in his own person, as well as the “homesteading” principle of unowned property rightly belonging to the first possessor.”
- Murray N. Rothbard (1998-08-16 00:00:00-07:00). The Ethics of Liberty (Kindle Locations 2152-2156). New York University Press. Kindle Edition.
It would not be legitimate to “homestead” property that is no longer in a state of nature, even by one’s effort. Thus, the worker cannot homestead the tools the capitalist provides for him to do his job. That’s actually known as theft.
It’s rather amazing to me that the syndicalists can fail to see this. However, the left has never been able to think clearly about property ever since Godwin came on the scene and blamed private ownership for all the evils in the world. When in fact, all the evils of the world are actually caused by a lack of private property, for if all needs, wants and desires were fulfilled we should find ourselves in a state equivalent to paradise.
And by the way, if we do not define property in that way, then we open the door for all sorts of statist interventions and coercions. If you do not own property sovereignly, if it’s legitimate for other people to tell you what to do with your own property, then they are in actuality claiming to be a part-owner of that property, to the extent they force their decisions on you.
You cannot mix slavery and freedom. Either each person is a sovereign over themselves and their property, or people are slaves entirely. A mix of the two is self-contradictory and will eventually fail, leading either to total freedom or total slavery. However, total slavery is contrary to the nature of man, and thus is doomed to failure as well, as the USSR, among others, has so recently shown.
No, the true means of progress, of moving humanity forward, will never again be the discovery of a new continent or planet, nor a new scientific discovery–those things have already changed the world.
The true way forward will be the discovery that humankind is free. Always has been, always will be, and that we have been fooling and hurting ourselves by trying to live elsewise.
Freedom must eventually win because humankind is free by nature.
I’m convinced that the next big breakthrough for freedom will be via libertarians creating a libertarian haven somewhere in the world and showing what libertarian ideals mean in practice and in actuality, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.