Ancaps often declare, "All rights are property rights." I was thinking about this the other day, in the context of running into libertarians online who insisted that libertarianism supports "the freedom of movement," and realized that this principle actually entails that people without property have no rights at all, let alone any right to "freedom of movement." Of course, immediately, any ancap readers still left here are going to say, "Wait a second! Everyone owns his own body! And so everyone at least has the right to not have his body interfered with." Well, that is true... except that in ancapistan, one has no right to any place to put that body, except if one owns property, or has the permission of at least one property owner to place that body on her land. So, if one is landless and penniless, one had sure better hope that there are kindly disposed property owners aligned in a corridor from wherever one happens to be to wherever the...
I'm going to guess Ludwig von Mises. (I didn't Google; promise.)
ReplyDeleteMike gets it in one!
DeleteAlthough I must admit, I vaguely recall Kevin Carson citing this quote (or something like it) to make a point several years ago.
ReplyDeleteAnd didn't the author build on that premise to provide a utilitarian basis for minarchism ?
ReplyDeleteThat dirty socialist!
ReplyDeleteThe thing about this is that there is nothing wrong with admitting it. If libertarians were to admit this, it wouldn't take away from their case at all, only their more idiotic declarations of pacifism.
ReplyDeleteOh Samson, you have really misjudged them here. The whole allure of the homesteading fable is that then they can claim to be pure and demonstrably right, from first principles. Their argument against intervention is also based on the notion the free markets are "justice preserving". But that means little if the initial condition is unjust. If you want a simple minded mantra you can throw at opponents then you cannot allow problems like that in.
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