"Self-ownership (or sovereignty of the individual, individual sovereignty or individual autonomy) is the concept of property in one's own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to be the exclusive controller of his or her own body and life. According to G. Cohen, the concept of self-ownership "says that each person enjoys, over himself and his powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that he has not contracted to supply"
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Some have traced the concept of self-ownership to certain individuals such as John Locke, who said, the individual "has a right to decide what would become of himself and what he would do, and as having a right to reap the benefits of what he did."[2] Or, as stated more succinctly by Locke, "every man has a Property in his own Person."[3]
Sovereign-minded individuals usually assert a right of private property external to the body with the reasoning that if a man owns himself then he owns his actions, including those which create or improve resources; he therefore owns both his own labor and the fruits thereof.[4]
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
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“Sovereign-minded individuals usually assert a right of private property external to the body with the reasoning that if a man owns himself then he owns his actions, including those which create or improve resources; he therefore owns both his own labor and the fruits thereof.[4]”
Are you a Communist now? This is exactly what Karl Marx said in his Labor Theory of Value!
So Karl (who I haven't read) borrowed from Locke? Though I doubt it is Communism, which believes the state owns the fruit of a man's labor.
You should read Karl Marx, an investment banker friend of mine and super profiteer of capitalism, yet a bit of a socialist inside, says he has just re-read Marx and is incredibly surprised just how relevant he is to our times.
Karl Marx, a German in culture, whose writings on economics are the basis of Communism, clearly believes in property rights and that workers had part ownership of everything they produced with their labor contrary to the thoughts of Adam Smith who believed workers should be considered like materials or machines, from an economic standpoint,(since they were paid for their labor and because of that, lost their ownership rights to their production). However Marx like all the other major economic thinkers fails to give a definition of property that one could consider "fair", i.e., that defines what constitutes "fair ownership" of anything. We protect property with our laws once property is "acquired" yet we don't have any laws defining what is fair or moral acquisition of property, except those of Marx and Locke (btw Marx did steal from Locke and Rousseau and many others)i.e., property is uniquely the product of one's labor...which worked fine when resources were considered unlimited yet doesn't work in a World of limited resources which is our reality. However, like my capitalist friend said, Marx's ideas on sharing will eventually, and probably sooner than later, be proved right because the people are starting to understand that the war on terror is, at its roots, a collection of wars to acquire more resources, oil, minerals, water...and that Global warming is at its roots, unfair and stupid utilization and distribution of our natural resources...so in conclusion the evidence or reality shows capitalism (based on greed and individualism) can't work in a world of limited resources and that only with socialist type societies (based on sharing, common sense and working together collectively) can we ever hope to survive as a species.
As Michael Moore says in his latest documentary on Capitalism...there's something immoral about a society where the rich, whom are only about 5% of the population, eating 9 slices of the pie, and the rest of us having to fight over the 1 remaining slice. I mean if you baked an apple pie, Joe, using natural organic apples from a tree nobody owned, a tree that was there for everyone to share freely, and all the other ingredients in your pie were like the apples, the only thing you owned was your labor and the oven you made from clay, even the wood energy source was free to all, ...you bake this pie and cut it up into 10 slices and soon you find you are surrounded by 9 people who would also like some of that pie...would you give them only one slice to share between them and keep the other 9 slices for yourself? Even if you didn't like these people especially?
Another question is , is that pie "morally" all yours since you used apples, clay, wood, etc free to be shared by all, yet no one helped you bake the pie or make the oven, so the labor was 100% yours?
In our capitalistic system there are many ways a worker can claim ownership. They can become partners/owners of a business (common for lawyers and doctors), they can start their own business, or if they work for a public company, they can buy stock in the company.
You missed the whole point, if you have read my comments, please read again, it seems clear, if not ask questions on what you don't understand so I can clarify...and please answer question on how you and/or someone should share the pie.
As for your pie question, it was my labor and time to pick and gather all the ingredients, make and bake the pie. Since I did all the work then the pie is 100% mine.
Yet you used ingredients that belonged to everyone equally shouldn't the others who let you use their share of the ingredients get some of that pie? If we are 100 people sharing one apple tree that equally belongs to everyone and you pick all the apples before anyone else does do you consider those apples yours?
Since the ingredients were "free" by definition they don't belong to anyone until someone claims possession. By gathering the ingredients one claims ownership.
If the tree is owned by everyone, then there must be rules regarding its use, much as a city park is "owned" by everyone in the city. In your example, unless otherwise stated, who ever uses their labor to gather the apples then claims the apples.
Yea but if you don't obey the rules or the other people felt they did not need rules because they assumed everyone would act morally ie not hog all the apples, then what do you do? Maybe after you take all the apples people will make rules afterwards once they realize people like you exist who hog all the resources, but until they do make the rules, as far as you're concerned, no rules means you can do whatever you want no matter how immoral. If there were no rules on killing people would you say it was ok to kill people? Would you kill someone for a million dollars knowing you would not go to jail or be punished in any way for your action.
You establish a rule when you said the apples were free. Anyone with foresight would see the consequences. They could say you are limited to six a day.
You could say: Would you do X for Y given you would not be punished?
By saying would not be punished you are saying the action is not objectionable by society but by you or is objectionable but not enforceable by society. So then it just matter of finding at what level (Y) you would do X.
For example, if I change your question to would you kill:X a mass murder to prevent innocent deaths:Y, then even though I am against killing, you have reached the point (Y) in which I would overcome my moral objection.
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