'self-ownership'

[Oswy]

I've encountered a few right-libertarians who put this at the centre of their philosophical musings to defend their ideology, and to try and defend private property, somehow. But I've also come across left-libertarians who seem to make reference to self-ownership too. Personally I think it's a bad, capitalist sounding, term and a little nonsensical, but are there any serious (and ideally succinct) critiques to be had, either here or via a link?

[Pogue]

Am I the only one who is both perplexed and disgusted at the recent usage of that vague and watered down term 'left libertarian'? Do you mean anarchists by this or what?

[Nwoye]

Well not all leftists disagree with the concept of self-ownership. G.A. Cohen, a very prominent Marxist philosopher has accepted the theory and incorporated it into Marxist philosophy. One could argue that the belief that workers have a right to their labor is a call for self ownership - in the sense that you own yourself, therefore you own your labor, etc etc.

However, if you're interested in a critique of self-ownership, you could mention that it does not take into account the concept of positive liberty - ie the power and resources to fulfill ones potential. I libertarian would say a homeless man with no limbs has (negative) freedom because he is free from restraint (and that he thus has self-ownership), but no one in their right mind would actually call him free in any meaningful sense of the word. So formal self-ownership is really a useless concept; what's important is self-determination, something which is only possible when someone has positive liberty.

If you want a more in-depth study of self-ownership and Libertarianism as a whole, here's a great site: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/

If you're interested in learning more about the field of political philosophy, where this kind of stuff is frequently discussed, I would suggest you pick up this book as an introduction:http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Political-Philosophy-Will-Kymlicka/dp/0198277237

It goes over all the major theories of political philosophy: Libertarianism, Marxism, Liberalism, Utilitarianism, etc. It's fantastic.

[Nwoye]

Am I the only one who is both perplexed and disgusted at the recent usage of that vague and watered down term 'left libertarian'? Do you mean anarchists by this or what?
left-libertarian usually means mutualists, individualist anarchists, some georgists, and some more individualist libertarian socialists.

[BabylonHoruv]

Am I the only one who is both perplexed and disgusted at the recent usage of that vague and watered down term 'left libertarian'? Do you mean anarchists by this or what?

A left libertarian is a left leaning minarchist, not an Anarchist.

[Durruti's Ghost]

Self-ownership, at least when it is used to defend Lockean private property, is an internally inconsistent concept. Lockean private property holds that everyone owns their own persons and thus are able to gain ownership of other objects by mixing part of their person (their labor) with that object. The only way this ownership ends is if a) the owner sells the object, b) the owner abandons the object, or c) the person who would be the owner agrees to surrender the object in exchange for a wage and use of capital. However, when someone is born, they are essentially created through the mixture of the parents' labor with the natural resources that are ultimately put together into another person. So, it would follow that unless the parents abandon, sell, or agree to give away the person prior to conception, the parents own that person and thus the product of that person's labor. So the self-ownership argument for Lockean private property fails.