brockm on Nostr: I think this is directionally-correct. But I think we can move up a layer of ...
I think this is directionally-correct. But I think we can move up a layer of distraction to identify the epistemic problem with Rothbard's concept of self-ownership and property.
Fundamentally, property is a necessarily social construct. The idea that your own body is your property in a self-evident, universalist way sounds compelling. And it makes intuitive sense. However, this is only for the very reason that we are not defining what "property" is very well.
Imagine you are alone on an island. And you will be alone on that island for the rest of your life. You will never encounter another human being. In what sense, does the concept of property even have moral purchase, here?
It doesn't, because prosperity is inherently a *social* construct. It exists as a constructed set of social rules around humans behave in a *community*. This is the *only* relevant domain for the concept of property, which is functionally -- as far as I can tell -- the right to exclude others from the use of thing. It presupposes other people in the first instance. The concept of property has no functional purchase in Rothbard's most idealized sense of it as starting from self-ownership. What does yourself as property even mean? You she's the right to exclude yourself from yourself?
I don't think property as the state of possession or even exclusive possession, outside of a social context, is a terribly meaningful moral concept.
Fundamentally, property is a necessarily social construct. The idea that your own body is your property in a self-evident, universalist way sounds compelling. And it makes intuitive sense. However, this is only for the very reason that we are not defining what "property" is very well.
Imagine you are alone on an island. And you will be alone on that island for the rest of your life. You will never encounter another human being. In what sense, does the concept of property even have moral purchase, here?
It doesn't, because prosperity is inherently a *social* construct. It exists as a constructed set of social rules around humans behave in a *community*. This is the *only* relevant domain for the concept of property, which is functionally -- as far as I can tell -- the right to exclude others from the use of thing. It presupposes other people in the first instance. The concept of property has no functional purchase in Rothbard's most idealized sense of it as starting from self-ownership. What does yourself as property even mean? You she's the right to exclude yourself from yourself?
I don't think property as the state of possession or even exclusive possession, outside of a social context, is a terribly meaningful moral concept.