Difference between revisions of "The worthless Lockean Fable of Initial Acquisition"

From Critiques Of Libertarianism
Jump to: navigation, search
 
Line 2: Line 2:
 
[[Category:Mike Huben]]
 
[[Category:Mike Huben]]
 
[[Category:Justice, Gender, And The Family]]
 
[[Category:Justice, Gender, And The Family]]
 +
[[Category:Homesteading]]
 +
[[Category:Framing]]
 
[[Category:The Lockean Fable of Initial Acquisition|100]]
 
[[Category:The Lockean Fable of Initial Acquisition|100]]
 
{{DES | des = The ahistorical labor theory of property fails in many ways.  Including ignoring the evidence in front of our noses.}}
 
{{DES | des = The ahistorical labor theory of property fails in many ways.  Including ignoring the evidence in front of our noses.}}
Line 7: Line 9:
 
{{Under Construction}}
 
{{Under Construction}}
 
=The parts of the fable.=
 
=The parts of the fable.=
I'm going to fisk John Locke.  Not because it is a great way to argue, but because there are so many assumptions and fallacies packed into just a few sentences.
+
I'm going to fisk John Locke.  Not because it is a great way to argue, but because there are so many frames, assumptions and fallacies packed into just a few sentences.
 
== Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, ==
 
== Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, ==
 
This is a religious belief, a particular interpretation of some sacred texts.  It has no more force than a king's declaration that he is appointed by god to rule a land.
 
This is a religious belief, a particular interpretation of some sacred texts.  It has no more force than a king's declaration that he is appointed by god to rule a land.
 
== yet every man has a property in his own person: ==
 
== yet every man has a property in his own person: ==
Yet another unjustifiable natural rights assertion that certainly didn't hold in Locke's era of widespread slavery, monarchy, and patriarchy.  Property is a social construct, and no society of his time or ours treated people's bodies as their own property: there were always major differences.  Locke does not explain or defend this view in any way: he merely expects us to nod our heads in agreement.
+
Yet another unjustifiable natural rights assertion that certainly didn't hold in Locke's era of widespread slavery, monarchy, and patriarchy.  Indeed, Locke himself was active in the slave trade.  Property is a social construct, and no society of his time or ours treated people's bodies as their own property: there were always major differences.  Locke does not explain or defend this view in any way: he merely expects us to nod our heads in agreement.
 
== this no body has any right to but himself.  ==
 
== this no body has any right to but himself.  ==
 
Excepting slaves, women, children, servants, employees, lower classes, prisoners, etc.  But perhaps this was aspirational, what he would like, as opposed to reality.
 
Excepting slaves, women, children, servants, employees, lower classes, prisoners, etc.  But perhaps this was aspirational, what he would like, as opposed to reality.
Line 49: Line 51:
 
==Essentially all modern ownership of land is based on conquest.==
 
==Essentially all modern ownership of land is based on conquest.==
 
Go ahead: identify the original owners of land in any part of the US, and explain how their ownership was not by conquest.  You can't even do it for the Native Americans, because they also fought wars of conquest amongst each other.  There is no part of the world where ownership hasn't changed due to conquest except unowned international waters and perhaps Antarctica.
 
Go ahead: identify the original owners of land in any part of the US, and explain how their ownership was not by conquest.  You can't even do it for the Native Americans, because they also fought wars of conquest amongst each other.  There is no part of the world where ownership hasn't changed due to conquest except unowned international waters and perhaps Antarctica.
 +
{{QuoteOne|Interview With Mike Huben, Creator Of Critiques Of Libertarianism/mixing}}
 
==What about homesteading?==
 
==What about homesteading?==
 
About the only claimed historical example of homesteading in the Lockean sense was Medieval Iceland: but they stole that land by expelling Irish Catholics who probably had stolen it from aboriginal inhabitants.
 
About the only claimed historical example of homesteading in the Lockean sense was Medieval Iceland: but they stole that land by expelling Irish Catholics who probably had stolen it from aboriginal inhabitants.

Latest revision as of 13:15, 5 November 2020