nah, this guy is a right-wing libertarian. he's making the exact opposite argument that i'm making (and that all left-wing libertarians, aka anarchists, make). he even equates anarchy to chaos here, showing that he is a typical right-wing libertarian and not an "anarcho"-capitalist. what he does here is makes a baseless argument on bold assumptions that rights are indeed naturally allocated. if he delved for one second into philosophy, specifically epistemology, he would see that his beginning assumption -- that we have rights that are not granted, but instead exist prior to anyone telling us we have them -- is fallacious and impossible philosophically. to help you understand why i say this, i will quote my article from FaceBook (which i still plan to edit a bit): "The rights of human beings as theorized originally by John Locke, while vital to our peaceful coexistence, are not in and of themselves naturally allocated; life, a liberty most treasured by all cognitive beings, without regard to it's being understood -- while such right is essential to society -- is but a right ensured, in theory, solely by the human cognition as our natural right is only to have existed at once and later perished; liberty in itself is compromised by an ultimate causal chain of antecedent events that make it ultimately unattainable, though it is imperative that this determined process be allowed to run it's due course without intervention; and the pursuit of happiness is but a causal subsequent of liberty."
to help you understand my point on the right to life a bit better, in case it wasn't clear above, and since it is what he begins his argument with, i will rephrase what i wrote above. if we delve into this issue philosophically, we realize that in nature, any of us, possibly even all of us at once, could potentially die right this second and there is no natural right protecting this from occurring. additionally -- and i probably need to add this point to my article -- there was no guarantee that any of us would have come into existence in the first place. let's think about the process of birth to start. every person that exists today is extremely lucky to be here. the chances that we had to be born were less than the chances for us to win the lottery. with several trillions of sperm (not counting the sperm created that do not make it into the female reproductive system ie during times of dormancy, those expended during masturbation, those that are prevented by birth control, those aborted, miscarried fetuses, etc.) not making it to the ova to begin the reproductive process in the first place, it is apparent that animal existence is not a right guaranteed naturally, but rather a naturally selected lottery. and we can go further back as well. what of those sperm that never got created in the first place? how many particles that may have otherwise formed sperm have never actually combined to do so? when this is realized, it then becomes apparent that life is not a right at all; it is just as much a lottery as everything else in this world. with all that said, i do agree, however, with his previous argument that "constitutional right" is a contradiction in terms but i take it a step further and say that, in essence, rights do not exist (which is something that i will probably need to amend in my article). this is a point Proudhon made in his book "What Is Property?" (he spoke of justice as opposed to right) that i will speak of later and also link at the end of this comment.
and from here the man in these videos jumps from natural rights to what he, as well as many right-wing libertarians, almost always consider the backbone of property rights -- self-ownership. i will quote him briefly to show you exactly what i am addressing:
"you have a right to life. where does that right to life come from? well, property. who owns your body? i hope it's you. what are you if someone else owns your body? you're a slave. so basically, if you are not a slave, then you own your own body."
i will start by reiterating that he opens this portion up with a false premise that i have already debunked; life is not a right. he follows with equally fallacious logic with the next few sentences and i will discuss here why they are fallacious. here he is basically stating that self-ownership is a precursor to the supposedly essential right of property. in order to show you why, while it is true that it is a precursor to property, the idea of self-ownership itself is fallacious, instead of explaining it to you in my own words, here is a video that describes it best:
it should be obvious to anyone of rational logic that we do not own ourselves -- we ARE ourselves. when a person owns his or herself, this logic implies that he or she can also sell and/or rent his or herself out as well. think also about this: do we really "own" ourselves, even if there is a mind-body dualism? to the best of our knowledge, the material our bodies are composed of have existed for eternity prior to our biological existence and will continue to exist eternally long after we are gone, and additionally, over a period of about 20 years, we shed material until there is not one molecule in our body left from what we were composed of at birth, so really, can we "own" our body if the title to it will be involuntarily taken away at some given point? and the same then extends to the property argument. this is a point i also made in my FaceBook article. you should read it if you get a chance.
ok, so back to the topic at hand. then basically this section of the video ends with a false dichotomy: either you own your body or someone else owns your body. really? is this true? how is title in any way a natural right? ownership is a human concept. without human beings, ownership wouldn't exist. therefore, what about our third option -- no one owns you body; you are your body? if anything, what leads to slavery is the very idea of self-ownership: if one can own self he or she may also sell or rent self to another.
next we get into the reasons why property is not a good thing. i will first off make sure it is understood that libertarian socialists, such as myself, when speaking of private land ownership, draw a distinction between property and what Proudhon and others called possession. i do not personally draw the distinction in the same way, but rather i draw a distinction between ownership and usership (a term i coined myself), usership being what most know as ownership with occupation (ie the house that you currently live in) and ownership being what you would know as ownership without occupation (ie a vacation house, a house that the owner is renting out, etc.). in Proudhon's view, (private land title) property is land we possess through the concept of ownership that i laid out above and possession is land that we possess through the concept of usership that i laid out above (though, obviously, Proudhon never called it usership). i will again quote the above video to argue against it:
"now, most of you do not own half the things that you think that you own. there is a concept know as "alodial title". alodial title means that you own it; the way that we think of when we say that you own something. alodial title is generally referred to when we talk about land. if you own the land in alodial title, then you genuinely own the land. how many people went to a real estate agent when they bought their house? okay, when you go to real estate agent, are you buying property or real estate? there is a difference. when you buy real estate, you purchase everything from the ground up. you own the house, you own the trees, but you do not own the earth that it sits on. can you go out in your back yard and drill for oil? no? why, because there's an ordinance against it? if it's your property, can you do whatever you want with your property? and if i can't drill for oil in my back yard then apparently i don't own the property."
first off, i will state that while i am opposed to government title to that oil in our back yard, i am even more opposed to alodial title than i am to real estate and here's why:
let me start by defining economics. economics, at least to me, should be the science of the allocation of scarce resources. there should be nothing more to economics than this. a person should not be able to add personal profit to a natural resource. additionally, if the resource is not one that is scarce (in other words, if the people demand less of the resource than what is supplied for free), it should not be sold, but rather people should be allowed to have it for free. this shouldn't be hard to understand and if you get what i'm saying, you will probably agree.
now, let's assume that there is an entrepreneur who is looking to buy property and he finds an empty portion of land that contains a lake and he has enough money to afford it so he purchases it. in the case of alodial title, the owner of that property has the right to that lake and all profits he receives from it without having to labor it. now let's add another factor in. let's say that this lake is the main source of water that a local village depends on and the water within the lake is not scarce so the people have been gathering water from this lake for free. now that this lake is owned by this entrepreneur, he can do whatever he wants with this water. he could continue to give it away for free if he likes to the villagers, or, what he'll likely do instead, is sell the water to the villagers for whatever price he chooses. the entrepreneur now has a monopoly of force over a given territory (which is, btw, the very definition of the term "state" but we won't get into that here) which, in this case, is his lake and the rest of the land which he or she owns that surrounds it. now let's say parts of this lake are bought by other entrepreneurs. now the original entrepreneur has competition so naturally, to keep the money flowing to him, prices will have to drop. still, however, there is a necessity for all of the entrepreneurs to continue selling the water rather than giving it away, and if one entrepreneur does give their water away, there is now motive for another entrepreneur to do something harmful, like threaten violence, section off his or her portion of the lake and contaminate the section contained by the competitor that is giving away his or her water, etc. this is the essence of capitalism and this is only one issue i have. there are many more complaints where this came from but i will abstain from posting them here and urge you to read the works of Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Tucker, Goldman, Chomsky, etc. to understand this more. also, check the anarchist FAQ at infoshop.org. to state what has often been stated, and should be obvious, capital is private property, and so capitalism in it's bare essence, is the ensuring of private property rights. if you oppose capitalism, in essence, you oppose private property, but you also must understand what private property is to oppose capitalism.
now, as i stated, in Proudhon's view it isn't rights that are necessary for liberty, but rather justice. here is an excerpt from one of the most important anarchist documents in existence, "What Is Property?":
"Now, of what do the lawyers and the publicists treat? Of JUSTICE, EQUITY, LIBERTY, NATURAL LAW, CIVIL LAWS, &c. But what is justice? What is its principle, its character, its formula? To this question our doctors evidently have no reply; for otherwise their science, starting with a principle clear and well defined, would quit the region of probabilities, and all disputes would end.
What is justice? The theologians answer: "All justice comes from God." That is true; but we know no more than before.
The philosophers ought to be better informed: they have argued so much about justice and injustice! Unhappily, an examination proves that their knowledge amounts to nothing, and that with them—as with the savages whose every prayer to the sun is simply O! O!—it is a cry of admiration, love, and enthusiasm; but who does not know that the sun attaches little meaning to the interjection O! That is exactly our position toward the philosophers in regard to justice. Justice, they say, is a DAUGHTER OF HEAVEN; A LIGHT WHICH ILLUMINES EVERY MAN THAT COMES INTO THE WORLD; THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PREROGATIVE OF OUR NATURE; THAT WHICH DISTINGUISHES US FROM THE BEASTS AND LIKENS US TO GOD—and a thousand other similar things. What, I ask, does this pious litany amount to? To the prayer of the savages: O!
All the most reasonable teachings of human wisdom concerning justice are summed up in that famous adage: DO UNTO OTHERS THAT WHICH YOU WOULD THAT OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU; DO NOT UNTO OTHERS THAT WHICH YOU WOULD NOT THAT OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU. But this rule of moral practice is unscientific: what have I a right to wish that others should do or not do to me? It is of no use to tell me that my duty is equal to my right, unless I am told at the same time what my right is.
Let us try to arrive at something more precise and positive.
Justice is the central star which governs societies, the pole around which the political world revolves, the principle and the regulator of all transactions. Nothing takes place between men save in the name of RIGHT; nothing without the invocation of justice. Justice is not the work of the law: on the contrary, the law is only a declaration and application of JUSTICE in all circumstances where men are liable to come in contact. If, then, the idea that we form of justice and right were ill-defined, if it were imperfect or even false, it is clear that all our legislative applications would be wrong, our institutions vicious, our politics erroneous: consequently there would be disorder and social chaos.
This hypothesis of the perversion of justice in our minds, and, as a necessary result, in our acts, becomes a demonstrated fact when it is shown that the opinions of men have not borne a constant relation to the notion of justice and its applications; that at different periods they have undergone modifications: in a word, that there has been progress in ideas. Now, that is what history proves by the most overwhelming testimony."
Proudhon also famously states in this work that "property is theft" and this is the the axiom around which the entire work revolves. it is an amazing read (though, admittedly, i have barely delved into it myself) and i suggest you read it, which you can do for free here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/360/360-h/360-h.htm
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