What is Self-Ownership and What are it's Implications

Date Written: 2/3/2023

Questions: 1) What does John Locke mean by self-ownership? How does he think goods in the state of nature come to be owned by individuals?

2) How does Rothbard defend the idea of self-ownership?

The idea of self-ownership is crucial when considering government’s role in a society. It was first developed by the 17th century thinker John Locke. He determines that self-ownership means that you have a range of control over your body, and that no one else has the moral right to exercise control over your body more than you do. This is an obvious fact.

From the idea of self-ownership Locke derives a theory of property rights. He claims that in the beginning of human civilization no one owned anything until they mixed their labor with something. A person’s labor is an extension of their self, therefore according to the idea of self-ownership they own their labor. An example of someone mixing their labor with something is as follows: Imagine Gary planted some fields of crops on some unowned land. Gary has mixed his labor with that land. Since he owns his labor he now owns that land. Additionally, this land is also an extension of Gary’s self because Gary’s labor is an extension of his self, and Gary has mixed his labor with that land. This is where property rights come from. The land in the example above would now be considered Gary’s property. Gary also has the right to that property as it is an extension of his self.

Just like how everyone has the right to control their body, everyone also has the right to exercise control over their property and no one else has that right. We can extend this to say that groups of people also have no right to an individual’s property. Now we must consider government’s role in all of this. Governments are constantly taking people’s property. Taxation is a great example of this. Governments think they have the right to take people’s property. But do governments legitimately possess this right? The answer is an absolute no. If you boil government down it is simply a large group of people that gave themselves the title “government.” This group of people has no more right to take your property than your neighbor. You wouldn’t allow your neighbor to call himself a tax-collector and steal your property, so why should the government be allowed to do just that?

Murray Rothbard’s Contribution to the Idea of Self-Ownership

Murray Rothbard was a 20th century thinker who expanded on the idea of Self-Ownership. Remember, because everyone owns themselves they by extension own their property. Rothbard then concludes that in order to stay true to the idea of self-ownership there can be no civil government. If there is civil government then they must steal from people, by taxation, in order to support themselves. This violates the idea of self-ownership because according to the idea of self-ownership everyone has the right to their property. If government is claiming that it can take other people’s property it is then denying that people own themselves. If we don’t own ourselves then we are slaves and no one (other than the slave-master) wants that. To prevent this situation civil government must be abolished. That was the position of Rothbard.