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The Essence of Libety



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Liberty knows no compromise


A Universal Ethic for All Mankind: A Detailed Review and Synopsis of The Ethics of Liberty

by Murray N. Rothbard

Chapter 8: Interpersonal Relations: Ownership and Aggression

Compiled and Edited

by

Dr. Jimmy T. (Gunny) LaBaume

Aggressive violence is another type of interpersonal relation. This occurs when one man invades the property of another without the victim's consent. This invasion may be against a man's person (bodily assault) or against his property (robbery or trespass). In both cases the aggressor imposes his will onto the natural property of another. In so doing, he deprives the other man of his freedom and the full exercise of his natural self-ownership.

There are only two alternatives to a man's ownership of his own body. Either each man owns his own body or he does not. If he does , then we have the foundation for the libertarian natural law of a free society. If not, then either one of two conditions exist. The first is the “communist” one (universal and equal other-ownership). The second is partial ownership of one group by another—e.g. rule by one class over another.

Consider the second alternative--one person or group owns themselves and the remainder of society. A universal or natural-law ethic for the human race cannot exist under such ownership. Instead, this would imply that the owned group are subhuman and do not have a right as full humans.

On the other hand, the first alternative holds that an equal part of the ownership of A's body should be vested in B, C, etc. with the same being true for each of the others—e.g. B is owned by A, C, etc and C is owned by A, B and so-fourth. In practice (with more than a very few people in the society) this alternative would reduce to the second alternative—partial rule by some over others. That is simply because it would be physically impossible for everyone to keep constant tabs on everyone else—e.g. there would be no way for anyone to exercise his equal share of partial ownership over every one else. Therefore, supervision (and hence ownership) of others would, by necessity, become a specialized activity of a ruling class.

It is absurd to hold that no man is entitled to own himself and, at the same time, hold that each man is entitled to own a part of all other men. In a world where no man is free to take any action without prior approval of everyone else, no one would be able to do anything. The human race would quickly become extinct.

By the same token, giving one group full ownership of another would violate the most elemental rule for any ethic—that it apply to every man.

Tangible property must be covered in order to fully explain the natural laws of property. Crusoe applied his free will and self-ownership to satisfy his wants. He transformed nature-given resources by “mixing” them with his labor. He produced and created property.

But now let's say that Friday lands on another part of this island. He has two possible courses of action. He may engage in production and exchange (also creating property), or he may seize the fruits of Crusoe's labor by violence—e.g. he may aggress against the producer.

If Friday decides to produce, he will own the land area which he uses and the fruits of its product. But suppose that Crusoe claims that he owns the entire island, even though he has made no use of it, but only by virtue of his landing there first. This would be an illegitimate pressing of his property claim beyond its homesteading-natural law boundaries. Further, any attempt to eject Friday by force would be an illegitimate aggression against his person and property. (This idea that the first discoverer of a new, un-owned island or continent rightfully owns the entire area by simply asserting his claim is known as the “ Columbus complex.”)

How about the sculptor who creates a work by transforming clay and other materials? Who properly owns the work? There are only three logical conclusions: (1) the sculptor because he is the creator; (2) another man or group of men can expropriate the work by force; or (3) every individual in the world owns an equal share—e.g. the “communist” solution..

If every man owns his own body, and if he must transform natural objects in order to survive, then he surely owns the product of that transformation because it is a veritable extension of his own personality. Any group who expropriated the work would be aggressive and parasitical. This would be true whether the expropriator was a group or the “world commune.” Furthermore, if the sculptor has a right to his own product, so do the others who extracted the clay from the ground and produced the tools.

If every man owns his own person, labor and whatever property he has “created,” who owns the earth itself—e.g. the land on which these activities have taken place? No man actually creates matter. Instead, he takes nature-given matter and transforms it with his ideas and labor. This is what the homesteader does. Land communalists claim that the entire population of the world owns the land in common. However, this is contradictory to natural fact. Before the homesteader no one used and controlled, and hence owned, the land. The homesteader is the man who first brings unused natural objects into production. Prior to his action, these objects were valueless.

There are only two ways to acquire property. One is production (which is normally followed by voluntary exchange). This has been called the economic means . The other is through unilateral seizure—e.g. the coercive expropriation of property by violence. This predatory method has been called the political means.

The only way man can live and prosper by through his own production and exchange. The aggressor is not a producer. He is a predator who lives parasitically off of others. This is a complete violation of any kind of universal ethic because man cannot live as a parasite. Parasites must have producers to feed upon. Any increase in coercive parasitism decreases the quantity of the output of the producers. Finally, at some point, the producers will die out. At that point the parasites will quickly follow. Therefore, the man who seizes another's property is living in basic contradiction to his own nature. So, parasitic predation and robbery violate both the nature of the victim as well as the aggressor himself. The aggressor injures himself as well as his victim.

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