The Ethics Of Liberty - Interpersonal Relations: Ownership And Aggression

 The Ethics Of Liberty by Murray Rothbard

In the previous chapter Rothbard spells out one type of interpersonal relationship where individuals interact with one another on a voluntary basis.  He showed logically that when people exchange what they have produced with one another they both benefit.  The foundation of production and exchange is the idea that you own your own body and the resources you produce by mixing your labor with land.  This mixing also gives ownership rights of that land to the individual.  Herein is defined the absolutely free society or libertarian society.  In contrast there is another type of interpersonal relationship, which is the "use of aggressive violence".  Instead of individuals trading their goods with one another, one person takes the property of another by force.

With respect to the concept of a person's right to control his own body there are two alternatives, either individuals own themselves completely or they don't.  If he does then we have the natural law for a free society.  If he doesn't then there is the possibility of two different conditions.  The first condition is the "Partial Ownership of One Group by Another" where one class or group of people gets to rule over others.  The second condition is "Universal and Equal Other-ownership" which is essentially communism where every person owns each other person by an equal amount.

In "Partial Ownership of One Group by Another", the ruling person or class gets to own themselves and also everyone else in society.  It is a condition of arbitrary rules for different classes of people.  Compared to the natural law ethic, this system dehumanizes most of society since they don't own themselves.  The implication of this condition is that there is no universal natural law for mankind, which is what Rothbard's whole project has been to find.  Therefore it is to be rejected.

In "Universal and Equal Other-ownership", there is a universal ethic for mankind but it has several other problems which make it unworkable.

                "no man is entitled to 100 percent  ownership of his own person.  Instead,

                an equal part of the ownership of A's body should be vested in B, C, ...,

                and the same should hold true  for each of the others."

The problems with this condition are practical.

                "it is physically impossible  for everyone to keep continual tabs on

                everyone else, and thereby to exercise his equal share of partial

                ownership over every other man."

Either this condition devolves into a ruling class like the first condition or it leads to complete stagnation of activity in society.  In such a society no individual would be able to do anything without the consent of everyone else in society.  The practical outcome would be the death of every individual.  Even without that condition completely in place, the logical outcome of any movement of society towards that condition is some impoverishment for each individual.  The end result is that the only universal and practical ethic for humanity is one of 100 percent self ownership.

Going back to the example of Robinson Crusoe.  With Crusoe on the island first he must mix his labor with the land to produce all the things needed to support his life.  He is a producer by necessity. Then if Friday arrives at the island later, he can choose to either become a producer himself and engage in trade with Crusoe.  Or he can decide to take Crusoe's products by force.  In that case he has violated universal human natural law.  If he decides to become a laborer/producer then Friday also owns the land from which he produces goods.  This example illustrates the error of the "Columbus complex", where the first person to discover a land mass can claim or assert ownership to the whole island or continent.  Crusoe rightfully owns only the land with which he mixes his labor and no more.

In order to further explain the concept of ownership, Rothbard uses an example of a sculptor and his sculpture.  When a sculptor take clay and make a beautiful statue out of it, who owns this sculpture?  There are the same three options discussed previously.  Either the sculpture owns it, a ruling class does, or everyone owns an equal portion.  Our intuition, I would say our conscience, tells us that it is clearly the sculptor.  That alone is evidence that self-ownership is natural law.  He mixed his ideas, skills, even his own personality into the clay to bring about this object.  The example follows all the other discussions in the book of ownership based on mixing labor with land.  If a person, or a group of people, or an international communist organization came to take the sculpture away from the sculptor by force, it should be clear that it would be a violation of the natural rights of the sculptor.

This same principle holds true for any person and any good they produce.  You could say the same thing about the person who mined the clay or produced the tools that the sculptor used.  The miner and toolmaker both have ownership rights over the goods they make.  The principle transfers down to the land itself.

                "If the gatherer has the right to own the acorns or berries he picks,

                or the farmer his crop of wheat, who has the right to own the land on

                which these activities have taken place?  ...the same for that of any 

                other property."

The character at the foundation of this principle is the pioneer, also known as the homesteader.  He is the first to find, clear, and use a piece of land, thereby making him its owner.

There are two means for a person to attain wealth.  Franz Oppenheimer described the process of production and exchange as "economic means" and taking others' production by force or violence as  "political means".

Rothbard then describes the "political means" as parasitic.  A parasite lives off of what others have produced.  Parasites reduce the pool of wealth they do not add to it.  Therefore if any population contains enough parasites, the whole society will die off because all the labor of the producers will be consumed by the parasites.  That means using "political means" can't be a universal ethic or natural law of mankind, because not everyone can live and thrive via that method.  However, if everyone produces and exchanges in accordance with "economic means", that society will live and thrive.

In conclusion, we now understand the only universal natural law for mankind is one of absolute freedom where everyone owns their own body, labor, and resources and relates to others in society via "economics means."  To live any other way is to violate the essence of human nature.