Michael Matulef on Nostr: Libertarians tend to agree on a wide array of policies and principles. Nonetheless it ...
Libertarians tend to agree on a wide array of policies and principles. Nonetheless it is not easy to find consensus on what libertarianism's defining characteristic is, or on what distinguishes it from other political theories and systems.
Various formulations abound. It is said that libertarianism is about: individual rights; property rights; the free market; capitalism; justice; the nonaggression principle. Not all these will do, however. Capitalism and the free market describe the catallactic conditions that arise or are permitted in a libertarian society, but do not encompass other aspects of libertarianism. And individual rights, justice, and aggression collapse into property rights. As Murray Rothbard explained, individual rights are property rights. And justice is just giving someone his due -- which, again, depends on what his rights are.
The nonaggression principle is also dependent on property rights, since what aggression is depends on what our (property) rights are. If you hit me, it is aggression because I have a property right in my body. If I take from you the apple you possess, this is trespass, aggression, only because you own the apple. One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim.
So, as descriptive terms for our political philosophy, capitalism and the free market are too narrow, and justice, individual rights, and aggression all boil down to, or are defined in terms of, property rights.
What of property rights, then? Is this what differentiates libertarianism from other political philosophies -- that we favor property rights, and all others do not? Surely such a claim is untenable. After all, a property right is simply the exclusive right to control a scarce resource -- what I often refer to now as conflictable resources. Property rights specify which persons own -- have the right to control -- various scarce resources in a given region or jurisdiction. Yet everyone and every political theory advances some theory of property. None of the various forms of socialism deny property rights; each socialism will specify an owner for every scarce resource. If the state nationalizes an industry it is asserting ownership of these means of production. If the state taxes you, it is implicitly asserting ownership of the funds taken. If my land is transferred to a private developer by eminent domain statutes, the developer is now the owner. If the law allows a recipient of racial discrimination to sue his employer for a sum of money -- he is the (new) owner of the money. If the state conscripts someone, or imprisons them as the penalty for refusing to serve in the military, or for failure to pay taxes, or for using illegal narcotics, then the state is claiming legal ownership of the person's body.
Protection of and respect for property rights is thus not unique to libertarianism. Every legal system defines and enforces some property rights system. What is distinctive about libertarianism is its particular property assignment rules its view as to who is the owner of each contestable, conflictable resource, and how to determine this.
- Stephan Kinsella
Various formulations abound. It is said that libertarianism is about: individual rights; property rights; the free market; capitalism; justice; the nonaggression principle. Not all these will do, however. Capitalism and the free market describe the catallactic conditions that arise or are permitted in a libertarian society, but do not encompass other aspects of libertarianism. And individual rights, justice, and aggression collapse into property rights. As Murray Rothbard explained, individual rights are property rights. And justice is just giving someone his due -- which, again, depends on what his rights are.
The nonaggression principle is also dependent on property rights, since what aggression is depends on what our (property) rights are. If you hit me, it is aggression because I have a property right in my body. If I take from you the apple you possess, this is trespass, aggression, only because you own the apple. One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim.
So, as descriptive terms for our political philosophy, capitalism and the free market are too narrow, and justice, individual rights, and aggression all boil down to, or are defined in terms of, property rights.
What of property rights, then? Is this what differentiates libertarianism from other political philosophies -- that we favor property rights, and all others do not? Surely such a claim is untenable. After all, a property right is simply the exclusive right to control a scarce resource -- what I often refer to now as conflictable resources. Property rights specify which persons own -- have the right to control -- various scarce resources in a given region or jurisdiction. Yet everyone and every political theory advances some theory of property. None of the various forms of socialism deny property rights; each socialism will specify an owner for every scarce resource. If the state nationalizes an industry it is asserting ownership of these means of production. If the state taxes you, it is implicitly asserting ownership of the funds taken. If my land is transferred to a private developer by eminent domain statutes, the developer is now the owner. If the law allows a recipient of racial discrimination to sue his employer for a sum of money -- he is the (new) owner of the money. If the state conscripts someone, or imprisons them as the penalty for refusing to serve in the military, or for failure to pay taxes, or for using illegal narcotics, then the state is claiming legal ownership of the person's body.
Protection of and respect for property rights is thus not unique to libertarianism. Every legal system defines and enforces some property rights system. What is distinctive about libertarianism is its particular property assignment rules its view as to who is the owner of each contestable, conflictable resource, and how to determine this.
- Stephan Kinsella