Freedom's Progress? by Gerard Casey

Author:Gerard Casey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: freedom, history of political thought, politics, philosophy, libertarianism, conservatism, tribalism, individualism, liberty, herd instinct, fascism, bolshevism, national socialism, welfare state, democracy, Althusius, Kant, Godwin, Stirner, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Warren, Tucker, Herbert, society, culture, slavery, Christianity, feudalism
ISBN: 9781845409609
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2018
Published: 2018-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

Is it possible to link any political theorists to any of these positions? Original common ownership (A1i) appears to be Locke’s opening position, though it may not be his final one. Original several and equal ownership (A1ii) appears to be the position of the so-called left libertarians - Peter Vallentyne, Michael Otsuka and Hillel Steiner - and possibly the position of Henry George. I can’t think of anyone who defends the position of original several and unequal ownership (A1iii) or any of the variations of A2, original ownership merely by some.

Position B1i appears to be the Rothbardian position. There is no original ownership; ownership is in principle available to all by employing the requisite procedure (in Rothbard’s case, what he calls homesteading, a variation on the Lockean labour-mixing criterion), and the intrinsic condition (which could, in principle, be null) is the deployment of a restriction in initial acquisition emanating from the homesteading procedure, hence, intrinsic. Position B1ii appears to be Locke’s final position (and perhaps also that of Nozick). Nothing is in fact owned by anyone originally. Natural resources are acquired by X using the requisite procedure, in this case, the mixing of labour or, understood more expansively, by improvement; and the extrinsic limiting condition is the proviso that enough and as good be left for others. The proviso is extrinsic because it is more than a simple implication from the acquisition procedure. Position B2 - no original ownership, ownership available in principle only to some (plus various conditions) - does not appear to have any adherents.

Just as Locke believes that all men are God’s creatures, and as such free and equal, so too he thinks that God has given the earth to all men in common. ‘Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself.’ [§27] This appears to commit Locke to the position in my taxonomy that I have called A1i. What does this mean? Does it mean that everybody owns everything? Probably not, as this would be tantamount to no one’s owning anything! Does it mean that all men have a natural right to some particular part of the earth - I’ll take Kansas; you can have Alaska? (This is A1ii) Again, this seems unlikely. If not this, just what does it mean?

The claim by any person to the exclusive use of a portion of the earth has to be justified by a procedure in accordance with which this particular bit of the earth is withdrawn from the common stock and put to someone’s private use. But there is an obvious problem here. In his First Treatise on Government, Locke had countered Filmer’s claim that God gave the earth to Adam by insisting rather that God gave the earth to all mankind in common. But if the earth belongs to all men in common, no individual may use or appropriate any

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