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Libertarianism

Libertarianism may be defined as a political philosophy that has as its core two theories, one pertaining to how property titles justly originate and the other addressing the proper way in which people may deal with one another given those ownership rights. In a nutshell, the libertarian claims that the origin of property rights resides in homesteading, and that a proper legal system would be based on the nonaggression axiom: People may legitimately act in any way they wish, with the sole exception that they cannot initiate force or violence, or the threat thereof, against those who are themselves innocent of such transgressions.

One's Person as Property

Our most important property right, the right to our own persons, begins when children begin to seize control over their bodies. This is the beginning of autonomy. Children in effect “homestead” themselves in this way. With regard to owning our persons, there are only three possible options. The first is that we can own ourselves; slavery is illegal. The second is that some people can own others; slavery is defensible. The third is that all people can each own a quotal share in the total human population; if there are 6 billion people on Earth, then each of us owns one six billionth of all human beings.

The difficulty with the second option is that there is no requisite characteristic (such as size, intelligence, and so forth) that can justify one person or group owning others. The difference between libertarians and most other political philosophers is that the former define “owning others” more expansively; for example, it would include, in addition to outright slavery, controlling others' lives, as by limiting their hours of work, or compelling them to contribute to a social security system for retirement benefits. This alternative also fails on the ground that it is not generalizable; a legal philosophy must apply, equally, to all members of our species, and this one cannot, as it makes invidious distinctions between them. This would be considered an axiom for libertarians. The third option is also unacceptable to libertarians in that it would spell the death knell for all of us, and thus could not function as an ethic for humans. At first glance this appears, merely, ridiculously impractical. However, if we are not selfowners, then we do not have so much as the right to scratch our noses, and if we cannot do even this, then we certainly cannot feed or clothe ourselves, let alone take part in an election that determines how all six billion people may act.

Land and Other Natural Resources as Property

Having established that people are all self-owners, how can it be determined who has a right to do what with land and other natural resources? The libertarian answer is based upon a variation of the homesteading theory of the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704): One mixes one's labor with virgin territory, and thus comes into ownership of it (libertarians do not accept the Lockean proviso that homesteading only applies when there is plenty of high-quality territory left over for others to homestead). The only alternative candidate for establishing ownership in hitherto unowned resources is some version of claim theory: Ownership is based upon claim (for example, when a government auctions land to the highest bidder, the government's own property right that allows it to do so is based on claim).

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