[NEW VIDEO] Self-ownership is critical to freedom and prosperity. Without self-ownership and the right to say no, you could be controlled by someone else. WATCH AND SHARE: ruclips.net/video/l1-_7bNLWkI/видео.html #philosophy #libertarian
***** When did anyone mention anything about utopia? 1. This channel, if anything, is more libertarian than liberal 2. Of course you can't have a society without corruption, this video is here to explain that you have the right to make decisions for yourself, and choose to work for those who give you compensation for your service to them, or hell, work for free if you want. But it's your decision, not anyone else's. That is a very capitalist concept.
dropkickproductiontx There is no universal corruption constant, it mostly depends on the norm of the society you live in. Allso how they paint up their so called self ownershit is like if it was flawless, but they do ignore lots of aspects of a society.
To explain in different words: ownership requires right, some kind of claim making item complately yours to command.Item itself has no rights to speak of and nobody else can decide its fate.If we wuld apply that to person, this person could sell its ownership to somebody and therefore become practically an item. With posession its no more problem. Posession is much more sound, becuase with ownership you would have to proove that somehow you got rights to yourself from somebody.
"CEOs have concentrated power..." You keep thinking that CEOs are giving power to themselves. If I (the CEO) have 1,000 employees, and they all listen to me and do what I say, I have power. But, if the next morning I come to work and NONE of my 1,000 workers listen to me, or pay attention to me, or do what I say, and they just ignore me; how much power do I have? You keep forgetting that you CAN'T make power out of thin air. You have to get it from other people. My employees GIVE me power.
The simplest way to break this down is as follows: "You are responsible for your creations." You nourished yourself? You're responsible for yourself. You homesteaded that land? You're responsible for that land. You abused your children? You're responsible for the abuse and resulting dysfunction. If it didn't exist until you created it, be it an event or service or material or manipulation or whatever, you are responsible for it. This can vary in degrees and there is room for discussion there, but fundamentally everything you create you are responsible for. Ownership isn't the best term to use. Also this mindset is effective when facing and recovering from victimization. To denounce absolutely all responsibility is to live in an illusion where your actions had no effect on your victimization and therefore YOU CAN DO NOTHING TO STOP IT FROM HAPPENING AGAIN. This is to live in fear because if no steps can be taken to mitigate risk then no assurance can be had that you are avoiding future victimization. Any recognition of this truth is usually labelled as victim blaming when really it's a reaffirmation of one's agency and ability to effect change in their own life. To take that away is another victimization in itself. It is to remove one's responsibility for themselves and thus dehumanize them. Most people wish to deny this in order to use their victimization (or others') as a means to garner support and power in a statist (government) society. Thus the farce that is the Slutwalk.
Thanks for being reasonable and not snarky in your response. The reason why they're allowed to make you pay sales tax though, is because it's essentially a fee for their services. The state protects the property rights of the store and the buyers, and in exchange you pay a tax. Without a state, you aren't secure in your personal effects and lack important services, which is why you pay them. If you don't want to pay sales tax, you have to remove your transaction from the state's jurisdiction.
As simple as the idea of self ownership is, sadly, most people just don't grok the concept. It seems that we're born understanding this concept but indoctrinated to reject the idea at almost every level before we're out of grade school, and it then seems completely natural for others, mostly via government, to lay claim to the product of our labor. The trend seems to be increasing, as we no longer have a right to privacy, a jury trial or even a right to our own life.
Agreed. Ownership is associated with responsibility. You own yourself means you have responsibility to it. Same thing to business, money, government, etc.
2. Going back to the old, sick, and young, I mentioned that other people can take care of them. Family members are not required to take care of them.* Actually, no one is really required to take care of them. (If I'm wrong, tell me who.) If someone were dying from kidney failure, and you were the only match found, you would not be forced to donate your kidney. * The exception would be with children, but, in those cases, the parents/legal guardians had previously made that commitment.
No I don't believe in self ownership, because I don't believe that anybody can or should be owned. People are not commodities. People are living walking thinking beings. What I believe in is the right of self-determination and free will. I believe we have a right to determine our own lives and no one has the right to impose their will on us as long as we respect that for others.
@@immanuelt613 Determining our own lives is not the same as ownership. No one should own us, not even ourselves. We should not see ourselves as property or commodities at all, even to ourselves.
Because we each hold responsibilities: We are responsible for our contract with our employer, we are responsible for the promises we've made to our friends and family and we are responsible for other choices we have made such as contracts with education providers, mortgage lenders etc. These are all responsibilities because we have ALREADY said yes to honour them in exchange for the education, or the funding from the bank etc etc.
there are alternatives, but we are talking about implications of concept of ownership. if you allow people to own things and if you allow to own your own body that automatically implies existence of slavery. only if we disregard any concept of ownership slavery ceases to exist. there is no way to have concept of ownership and do not have slavery
The first thing we are managers of is ourselves as Kant writes: “...someone can be his own master but cannot be the owner of himself (cannot dispose of himself as he pleases)--still less can he dispose of others as he pleases--since he is accountable to the humanity in his own person.” And I might add, he is accountable to God as well.
It's an implied contract, if you use the services that they provide they have the right to charge you for it. Involving yourself in the economy that they, for better or for worse, maintain and regulate means that you have used one of their services, and because of that they charge you. Not paying taxes is essentially not paying your bills for these services
=D i almost want to hug you. you have no idea how many people can't understand this simple concept. and yes "wealth" increases when the idea of "property" is propagated throughout a community. the basic family unit used to be the nuclear family, which is why it is traditional that the wife claims her husband's property as her own once married. property belonged to the family, not the man alone. this is one example of group ownership, continued...
If institutions are allowed to own property based on the idea that they can be productive with it, then I think that this applies to the state. Although the state doesn't directly use the land, they help those who do by creating an infrastructure with which landowners can feel secure in their property and interactions with other landowners. Since the states indirectly assist all of its licensed institutions, if you participate in one you are allowed to be taxed.
Verizon also doesn't use violence to prevent you from using another firm's services. The taxes-as-fees idea might work if people were allowed to get out of the deal, but the government won't let them. It's more like if a kid mowed your lawn whether you wanted him to or not, then complained that you breached contract when you didn't pay him.
It's important to look at history when making assumptions. For example, in the 1940s, poverty rates were falling 1% every year, and were continuing to fall. However, when Lyndon B Johnson's "Great society" became law, welfare rates skyrocketed, and we haven't seen poverty rate fall by 1/10 of 1% ever since.
I agree with the conclusion of the argument put forward. People have a right to self determination. However the argument itself is exceptionally bad. Ownership is a relationship between a person and a thing. And the core idea of the abolition of slavery is that these are mutually exclusive categories. So a person cannot be owned not even by themselves.
The problem with that though, is that not paying your taxes constitutes a breach in contract, which under any sort of Capitalist system is justifiably met with force. As I have said before, if you get into a situation where you have to pay taxes, you have implicitly made a contract with the government that you will pay taxes in exchange for their services. If you don't pay your phone bill to Verizon, you would expect them to respond negatively.
Just because the government would rather you to not own yourself doesn't mean that you do not own yourself, rather more so that you have allowed them, along with many other people to convince you that you can not own yourself because you are not responsible enough.
The difference isn't in how they react if you break contract, it's how they form the contract. The IRS will only use force if you break the contract, a contract that was formed voluntarily. However, the mafia will build and enforce the contract using force. That's the major difference.
But it essentially doesn't, as there are multiple states. Obviously, it may be costly to move, but that's a problem within private institutions as well. With this in mind, this means that any state that doesn't allow free movement of people is illegitimate.
As much as I love to hear about 'freedom', there's this problem we have, called 'gravity' Freedom implies the ability to do anything you want, while gravity regularly keeps you down on a regular basis. We end up stuck in the same place, occupying a limited amount of space. To overcome this gravity would require a great effort on our part, of which would also require unity. Give a person a choice, they become split in their decisions. Give a person information, they'll know where to go.
The problem though is that the state isn't protecting you from itself, it's protecting you from others. Before there was government, and in times like the Feudal Era, you had to spend vast resources to protect your property from criminals. Now that we have a state, the cost of protecting property has gone down. The only time the state will actually really force you to do anything is if you make a breach in contract.
I might have mentioned this before, but you (personally) do NOT owe me (personally) anything. Instead, we, as a whole, as a society, need to take care of each other. Some costs need to be shared. That is what society is for. If we all lived on our own, we would be MUCH poorer. So each one of us owes our fair share to society. Each one of us has a social contract to do so.
Indeed, this video is very minimalistic in its presentation of this basic material. Some might even call it patronising. But you have to understand that America is in a financial crisis exacerbated by huge expansions in government taxation and spending. Sometimes, you need a very simple message that left-wing politicians can understand.
If you have a basic human right to internet service who is obligated to provide you with that service and why are they obligated to provide you with that service?
Actually, most CEOs have to answer to shareholders & their bonuses are usually tied to stock options. Ergo, if the stock tanks, their pay tanks too. If you don't make the shareholders happy you probably won't be around for long because they're the ones invested in that enterprise.
But you don't have to go to another town is the thing, you could move your lawn into the woods, or you could make your own community of lawns where you're not allowed to force yourself on other people's lawns. It's not very pragmatic, but you also have situations like this in the market, where in order to get proper resources to survive you usually have to submit yourself to an employer, who's essentially a lawnmower of a different kind.
A legitimate state also doesn't force you to purchase their product. If you don't purchase items or services under the jurisdiction of the state, you do not pay taxes. If you don't buy products, you don't have to pay sales tax, if you don't have an income, you don't pay income tax. If you live in a cottage in the wilderness of Alaska, you can live without ever having to pay taxes, because you're not under the jurisdiction of a state.
But if we see the government as a faux-business of sorts, ownership of land is essentially a privilege that we give them in exchange for their services. The other land is taxes, which are also privileges exchanged for services.
Ethical principles are logically derived from self-ownership. Check out this short video that proposes a secular ethical theory based on the fact that we own ourselves: Ethics and self-ownership
the idea of property is a human invention. That's correct. Just like numbers, science, and language. Look at you exercising ownership of your body in order to make an argument.
Part of signing a contract with someone is that you agree to allow them to use the money for whatever purposes they wish, as long as they fulfill their end. Verizon can use their money to buy a nice gift for their wife, etc. Also, why do you think that you're forced to use their services? If you don't buy from a licensed dealer, you don't have to pay taxes, and if you go outside of its jurisdiction you do not have to pay taxes. It's just impractical to do so.
Well, in order to have sellers then you have to have somebody who had the original right to the land, which historically has been governments. But I think that the government is in fact productive with the land simply by providing structure. Not all advantages are direct.
I agree that a state that disallows free movement (like the US) is illegitimate. That isn't the only threshold it has to cross to be called legitimate, though. I think there are others as well. For example, it must not compel compliance to arbitrary rules, issue disproportionate judgements for crimes, prevent or infringe on people's liberty, etc.
As soon as the cow tells me it doesn't want to be my dinner I will stop eating it. I will even go one step farther and offer it full room and board while paying for it's collegiate level education, as a talking cow is sure to have a bright future.
I agree to a point. Although claiming that taxation isn't theft because of something good done with the money is a bad way to go about the argument. I could steal money from a crack addict and spend the money to buy him a meal, but it would still be theft. I don't count it as theft because taxes are voted on, but I do count unequal taxation as one group stealing from another; subsidies included. As Calvin Coolidge said beyond what is absolutely necessary is legalized larceny.
A very wise man once said, "don't hate the player, hate the game." Instead of hating on the corporations and CEOs for "hijacking" our political system, why not direct that energy to the GOVERNMENT? Our political system IS the problem! With that out of the way, Corporations won't have a gov't to hijack. Infact, corporations won't exist (at least not in the form we know them today) as corporations are NOT a product of the free market; they're a Frankenmonster created by OUR government!!
It's taken from Adam Smith, where he talked about how you had to spend a lot of resources hiding and protecting your wealth. That may be wrong though, I guess that that was a fact I kind of took for granted.
It is amazing how simple this is and how it is obvious what is the right thing to do. But then you remember socialism and communism.... And how many million were convinced simple everyday actions were wrong.
The fetus is taking nutrients from the parent via the umbilical cord without the parent's permission. The umbilical cord is connecting two humans therefore both should have to mutually agree to share resources.
If you do not use its services, it does not force you to pay. Homeless people do not pay taxes, because they do not use the services of the government. Their kneecaps are not broken. It's just that all of the services you want or need happen to be under the jurisdiction of the state.
Yes humans are social animals. but groups of people freely engaging is different than groups of people being forced to engage. For at least 100,000 years all people lived very poor. It wasn't until the advent of private property rights did we see a stark increase in wealth. Michael Shermer details this fact in his book "The Believing Brain".
Violent use of resources, including other people, will happen whenever a decision taker disposing of relative force discovers that by menacing and deploying raw violence he can achieve his goals most effectively.
Free trade is a good elixir against monopolies, if that's what you're worried about. I think if you took a gander at IRS data you'd see the bottom two quintiles are largely revenue-receivers, instead of payers. All Washington does is redistribute income, it's out-of-control.
Possesion is a law term. It describes situation when somebody uses item, but is not its owner despite the fact that it consistenly does anything that owner could do. Ownership means legal title to something. Both terms are separate, because you can be owner but not posess something. If we assume that we own ourselves that means that we can get rid of our right to decide about ourselves, that is sell our right to say "no". This guy here never mentions that and all of you complately missed that.
"Does a system which allows competition for arbitration produce a higher likelihood of corruption or a lower likelihood?" Obviously is creates a higher degree of corruption. Because there is no entity that can attempt to keep these corrupt things in check. Which then creates chaos because nobody can bring peace/order. No, anarchists propose Utopias, one that goes against human nature and how reality actually works.
If you body is a sort of property in the same way one owns a laptop, and if one were to leave it in the their house thereby it is still their property, then does that mean that one's mind can leave the body in their house and still be their property? Does that entail that the body is the property of one's mind? Is the body really a disposable item of the mind?
You assume that there is a social contract involved, but it is one I've personally never signed such an agreement. I was born into my citizenship, and placed into a community where I was brought up with the idea that I had to be apart of it. In fact, my skills are so specialized that I cannot reasonably survive on my own. In fact, my only other reasonable option would be to go to some place else that inflicts mandatory taxation. There was never a choice for me on the matter, I pay taxes or I die
Why not? It bought most of it. Ownership is somewhat of an arbitrary distinction anyway, and it generally wouldn't be recognized if it weren't for the state enforcing it.
I think here is more important aspect of this theory: who owns children? Currently children are like property of their parents. and since they have no rights, parents can set any arbitrary age or conditions for their children to obtain freedom or theoretically parents can give no freedom at all. in result all these ideas about self ownership become void, because you are property of your parents who set the rules of the game and your life will whatever your parents decide, unless you rebel.
"however the government has been hijacked by private interests." Both are culpable. It take two to tango. You get the point. Ayn Rand said the greatest threat to capitalism is capitalist. This is what she was referring to. So there's the rub. How do you solve it? With regulators to watch the regulators so they don't make back room deals? And who will watch those regulators? More regulators to watch the regulators?.
I know what you're saying but there really are people out there who need to have the basics explained to them. As proof of this, look at some of the people who worm their way into government... They might say one thing but always judge on their actions. -
I guess the question then is - who owns what land, and why? Is there any reason that anybody owns any land that isn't arbitrary, or do you propose that nobody has right to land?
In reality, working for someone is not slavery. Its just how things work. Slavery, is when you have no option legally, but to work for a specific person. If we are to label all work as slavery, then we really diminish the meaning of slavery and I think that's pretty disrespectful to people who really were slaves and had no choice. Having to get a job and being a slave are two entirely different things.
We are talking about slavery when you make one time decision to transfer ownership of yourself to someone else. if i just work for someone I am just leasing myself for limited time under specific conditions. what is not slavery because i retain freedom to break the deal anytime. Hawing a job is not same as being slave unless you make contract which you cant terminate. in that case you do become slave.
I think of it in a different way. It's more like "Hey, do you like the roads, bridges, military, police force, and easy access to education (maybe poor education) ext?Well, the majority of Americans are paying something to help sustain these things you benefit from everyday, and have voted in Congressmen that believe taxes are important. And, you know, the whole no central tax thing failed under the Articles so, in our opinion, it is only reasonable that you pay something. If you don't, leave."
a group of people rising up to defend themselves from a common enemy is a form of state power. the people make up the government, and the collusion to work against someone else's self interest is tantamount to state creation.
The actual problem with it is that it makes it difficult to show people who disagree with you these videos and have them take you seriously. The content of the video might open them to new ideas, but a quick scroll down will encourage them instead to call you a racist homophobic etc etc.
And even if we ignore problems of concept of ownership if you own yourself, that means you can sell yourself and transfer that ownership to someone else. what means slavery is completely legal thing. all that slave owner needs to do is to make slave transfer ownership rights. what is relatively easy if you find someone is dire situation: either you sell yourself and i take care of you or you die.
Well, that's the idea of saving for retirement. You set aside a certain fraction of your resources now to sustain yourself when you can no longer generate income.
That didn't answer my pts. concerning CEO pay, not even close. CEOs are responsible for keeping the doors open, not the guy cleaning the CEOs office. You can be thrown out of work during a recession? We should probably massively-increase spending on food stamps, unemployment & another economic stimuli to bring the economy back. Oh, wait....
My comment wasnt referring to this specific video, I meant the whole "learn liberty"-page is repeating all the old stuff we know since the 19th-century. Just have a look to the latest videos like "specialization and trade" or "should the gouvernment subsidize silly walks" etc. Come on guys, that is old stuff. Why dont you address todays problems and show us solutions in the tradition of liberty-thinking? Or are you not able to adequate answer? I feel like in kindergarten.
I've seen a more advanced lecture about this: Talking about how we need to pay interests on loans and also the banks pay us interests , or else we are slaves and not prospering ourselves.
that is the point...if you take property rights and self ownership seriously, then the only conclusion is that taxation = theft. the state claims to protect your property, but only does it by first taking most of what you own. Orwellian speak in its trust form.
But why do humans own themselves? Can someone give me a reason you have a right to your own life and labor? This video just accepted that fact as truth and said that it was wrong without delving into the reasons why.
In order to argue against the existence of self-ownership, you will have to exercise self-ownership of your body to do the argument. Self-ownership is a self-evident fact of reality, and that's why no explanation is needed.
If you don't want to live in a hotel, who has to leave, you or the hotel manager. That metaphor has a few inadequacies in it, but in a private system it's perfectly fine to own land, so why can't that also be true in a public system?
They don't give up their right to say no. They just decide not to use it. And don't bother to call me ignorant. Google this thing. Seriously! difference between ownership and possession. People are subjects of laws, not objects of laws, so ownership does not apply.
I guess it's less like he's mowing your lawn by force, and more like he owns the land, and if you plant any grass he'll mow it automatically and give you a fee. I think that a lot of the things you talk about with government are how you're essentially born into it and it's difficult to leave, but this also happens in private institutions, like mining towns where you would have to buy things from the company store and live and give birth in company houses.
Being physically attached to the parent makes the fetus part of the parent's body. The moment the umbilical cord is cut, then the baby is in control of their own body.
It's not the money that's the problem, it's the 'regulations" that favor big business over smaller businesses and it's all done under the guise of "consumer protection". Watch whats going to happen with e cigarettes. The more popular they get the tobacco industry will push for them to be "regulated" to "protect people" even though the are a thousand times safer to smoke than regular cigarettes.
Does the government prevent mobility or usage of services of other countries though? You are allowed to get out of the deal, by either abstaining, moving to another country or even trying to make your own country. It's essentially an anarcho-capitalist market, it's just on a much broader scale.
Wasn't saying it did. The question of abortion is definitely one of the tougher ones. If you take the life of an unborn child, even if you don't consider a fetus a thinking human being you're still removing a person from the future. Is it wrong to prevent a person from existing in the first place? Have you ever read the book Freedomnomics? It had an interesting chapter showing that legalization of abortion correlated with an increase in crime, and theorized about possible links between the two
Ownership in and of itself is nothing more than use rights. If we had no concept of ownership, then murder and rape would be legal as there would be no restrictions on using someone else's body. Unless you meant to have no use rights instead of unlimited use rights, in which you'd then have no right to use your own body.
Think about it this way: let's pretend that the state is a company. By living in the state and using its amenities, you make a contract with that company. In exchange for the use of the state, the state is allowed to charge you money for that use. This is like a phone company, as long as you use the phone you have to pay a bill. As long as you use the state, you have to pay taxes.
I already made argument. Locke argument is ridicolous because it uses language inapropiate for concept he wished to convey. Its nothing worng in his part or his thought, really. What he describes is posession, not onwership. Posession does not require 3rd party. To put it simply precisely becuase there is not 3rd party you cannot form ownership, merely posession, because you are unable to show from whom you got the ownership.
Why shouldn't we be allowed to sell ourselves into slavery if we really wanted to? Practicality aside, arguing purely on the principle of the matter, why not become an indentured servant (for example), if one is 100% willing? If one is truly autonomous, there should be no issue.
I can't blame them. Remember that most people do not think even this deeply about stuff like this. We take it for granted. This is catered to your average Joe.
"=D i almost want to hug you. " Ok but fair warning I might get a stiffy since it's been awhile since I've gotten some. But then I kept reading and saw where you compared the freely chosen contract of marriage to the citizen and the state and I totally lost my stiffy. A more fair example would be that of an arranged marriage where the girl has no choice in the matter. Doesn't that comparison work better? I think so! I see nothing admirable in either case.
supply and demand favor those who can purchase in bulk. this is because of reduced transportation prices. but if you look out into the world you will find that a very powerful elite tends to rise in an unregulated market. they become the governments, or the drug cartels and the like. it was a free economy that lead to our current tax system when we were being attacked by france. i have an e-cig, it will be very easy to see how much it gets regulated.
"CEOs are responsible for keeping the doors open" What? That makes no sense. Who does all the work? Who actually builds the products? The CEO? Nope! The employees do. CEOs don't do anything. Yet they are allowed to pay themselves and the employees whatever they want. It's totally unfair! We would not need food stamps and unemployment safety net programs if the workers had more say. CEOs have concentrated power, and that's the SOURCE of the problem.
" ownership requires right, some kind of claim making item complately yours to command" which is why it has always been a metaphor.....locke and hobbs were both materialists....they didnt believe there was some extra-material soul that owned the body. the metaphor of self-ownership accurately describes reality....aka HUMAN ACTION. you dont have to prove ownership just like you dont prove the rules in chess....they are an agreed upon set of rules.....all that arise from HUMAN ACTION.
To most people, this may seem like a "well, all that stuff is obvious" video. The video should have been more clear in pointing out that these "obvious" facts form the foundation of what a free market and free society are all about. If it's so obvious that we, as people, have the right to say no to others, then why do we allow our governments to force us to actively engage in certain types of behavior? Why do we tolerate laws that say "you *have* to do 'X'". Inaction should not be a crime.
Mental illness is the main reason for this, someone who is going to kill themselves "TYPICALLY" aren't mentally capable of understanding what that means. Main thing I can point out is the "directive to physicians" form (known differently in some states). Where if you are unable to say yourself, than the doctor will be able, or a close family member, to remove you from life support and let you die. And some states have adopted assisted suicide already.
yet this is a foreign concept to so many people. most people have this strange notion in their heads that if some never specified number of people vote on whether fred owns sam, and those people vote that he does, than he does.
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[NEW VIDEO] Self-ownership is critical to freedom and prosperity. Without self-ownership and the right to say no, you could be controlled by someone else.
WATCH AND SHARE: ruclips.net/video/l1-_7bNLWkI/видео.html
#philosophy #libertarian
Hi learn liberty, how do you make a society with out any corruption? I mean I guess that is a demand for your dreamy liberalist utopia to work.
***** When did anyone mention anything about utopia?
1. This channel, if anything, is more libertarian than liberal
2. Of course you can't have a society without corruption, this video is here to explain that you have the right to make decisions for yourself, and choose to work for those who give you compensation for your service to them, or hell, work for free if you want. But it's your decision, not anyone else's. That is a very capitalist concept.
dropkickproductiontx I really do want to live in a world where we all get to make our own choices as long as they don't hurt others. Period.
dropkickproductiontx There is no universal corruption constant, it mostly depends on the norm of the society you live in. Allso how they paint up their so called self ownershit is like if it was flawless, but they do ignore lots of aspects of a society.
***** What aspects do you mean, exactly? I'm curious to hear.
To explain in different words: ownership requires right, some kind of claim making item complately yours to command.Item itself has no rights to speak of and nobody else can decide its fate.If we wuld apply that to person, this person could sell its ownership to somebody and therefore become practically an item. With posession its no more problem. Posession is much more sound, becuase with ownership you would have to proove that somehow you got rights to yourself from somebody.
The next question is, "Do you own the fruits of your labor?"
nin6246 You have the symbol that interests me as of latley...........VOLUNTARYISM!
Absolutely Not Because God
"CEOs have concentrated power..."
You keep thinking that CEOs are giving power to themselves.
If I (the CEO) have 1,000 employees, and they all listen to me and do what I say, I have power.
But, if the next morning I come to work and NONE of my 1,000 workers listen to me, or pay attention to me, or do what I say, and they just ignore me; how much power do I have?
You keep forgetting that you CAN'T make power out of thin air. You have to get it from other people. My employees GIVE me power.
The simplest way to break this down is as follows:
"You are responsible for your creations."
You nourished yourself? You're responsible for yourself.
You homesteaded that land? You're responsible for that land.
You abused your children? You're responsible for the abuse and resulting dysfunction.
If it didn't exist until you created it, be it an event or service or material or manipulation or whatever, you are responsible for it. This can vary in degrees and there is room for discussion there, but fundamentally everything you create you are responsible for.
Ownership isn't the best term to use.
Also this mindset is effective when facing and recovering from victimization. To denounce absolutely all responsibility is to live in an illusion where your actions had no effect on your victimization and therefore YOU CAN DO NOTHING TO STOP IT FROM HAPPENING AGAIN. This is to live in fear because if no steps can be taken to mitigate risk then no assurance can be had that you are avoiding future victimization.
Any recognition of this truth is usually labelled as victim blaming when really it's a reaffirmation of one's agency and ability to effect change in their own life. To take that away is another victimization in itself. It is to remove one's responsibility for themselves and thus dehumanize them.
Most people wish to deny this in order to use their victimization (or others') as a means to garner support and power in a statist (government) society. Thus the farce that is the Slutwalk.
Thanks for being reasonable and not snarky in your response. The reason why they're allowed to make you pay sales tax though, is because it's essentially a fee for their services. The state protects the property rights of the store and the buyers, and in exchange you pay a tax. Without a state, you aren't secure in your personal effects and lack important services, which is why you pay them. If you don't want to pay sales tax, you have to remove your transaction from the state's jurisdiction.
As simple as the idea of self ownership is, sadly, most people just don't grok the concept. It seems that we're born understanding this concept but indoctrinated to reject the idea at almost every level before we're out of grade school, and it then seems completely natural for others, mostly via government, to lay claim to the product of our labor. The trend seems to be increasing, as we no longer have a right to privacy, a jury trial or even a right to our own life.
You'd be amazed how many statists don't understand this concept on a fundamental level
Agreed. Ownership is associated with responsibility. You own yourself means you have responsibility to it. Same thing to business, money, government, etc.
this was not only well written, short and to the point, easy to understand and funny- but also clever and very well animated
2. Going back to the old, sick, and young, I mentioned that other people can take care of them. Family members are not required to take care of them.* Actually, no one is really required to take care of them. (If I'm wrong, tell me who.) If someone were dying from kidney failure, and you were the only match found, you would not be forced to donate your kidney.
* The exception would be with children, but, in those cases, the parents/legal guardians had previously made that commitment.
No I don't believe in self ownership, because I don't believe that anybody can or should be owned. People are not commodities. People are living walking thinking beings.
What I believe in is the right of self-determination and free will.
I believe we have a right to determine our own lives and no one has the right to impose their will on us as long as we respect that for others.
How is that different from owning ourselves?
@@immanuelt613 Determining our own lives is not the same as ownership. No one should own us, not even ourselves. We should not see ourselves as property or commodities at all, even to ourselves.
@@immanuelt613 We don't have to be property and open the door to legitimizing slavery?
Because we each hold responsibilities: We are responsible for our contract with our employer, we are responsible for the promises we've made to our friends and family and we are responsible for other choices we have made such as contracts with education providers, mortgage lenders etc. These are all responsibilities because we have ALREADY said yes to honour them in exchange for the education, or the funding from the bank etc etc.
there are alternatives, but we are talking about implications of concept of ownership.
if you allow people to own things and if you allow to own your own body that automatically implies existence of slavery.
only if we disregard any concept of ownership slavery ceases to exist.
there is no way to have concept of ownership and do not have slavery
The first thing we are managers of is ourselves as Kant writes: “...someone can be his own master but cannot be the owner of himself (cannot dispose of himself as he pleases)--still less can he dispose of others as he pleases--since he is accountable to the humanity in his own person.” And I might add, he is accountable to God as well.
It's an implied contract, if you use the services that they provide they have the right to charge you for it. Involving yourself in the economy that they, for better or for worse, maintain and regulate means that you have used one of their services, and because of that they charge you. Not paying taxes is essentially not paying your bills for these services
=D i almost want to hug you. you have no idea how many people can't understand this simple concept. and yes "wealth" increases when the idea of "property" is propagated throughout a community.
the basic family unit used to be the nuclear family, which is why it is traditional that the wife claims her husband's property as her own once married. property belonged to the family, not the man alone.
this is one example of group ownership, continued...
If institutions are allowed to own property based on the idea that they can be productive with it, then I think that this applies to the state. Although the state doesn't directly use the land, they help those who do by creating an infrastructure with which landowners can feel secure in their property and interactions with other landowners. Since the states indirectly assist all of its licensed institutions, if you participate in one you are allowed to be taxed.
Verizon also doesn't use violence to prevent you from using another firm's services. The taxes-as-fees idea might work if people were allowed to get out of the deal, but the government won't let them. It's more like if a kid mowed your lawn whether you wanted him to or not, then complained that you breached contract when you didn't pay him.
It's important to look at history when making assumptions. For example, in the 1940s, poverty rates were falling 1% every year, and were continuing to fall. However, when Lyndon B Johnson's "Great society" became law, welfare rates skyrocketed, and we haven't seen poverty rate fall by 1/10 of 1% ever since.
I agree with the conclusion of the argument put forward. People have a right to self determination. However the argument itself is exceptionally bad. Ownership is a relationship between a person and a thing. And the core idea of the abolition of slavery is that these are mutually exclusive categories. So a person cannot be owned not even by themselves.
The problem with that though, is that not paying your taxes constitutes a breach in contract, which under any sort of Capitalist system is justifiably met with force. As I have said before, if you get into a situation where you have to pay taxes, you have implicitly made a contract with the government that you will pay taxes in exchange for their services. If you don't pay your phone bill to Verizon, you would expect them to respond negatively.
Best Learn Liberty video yet.
Just because the government would rather you to not own yourself doesn't mean that you do not own yourself, rather more so that you have allowed them, along with many other people to convince you that you can not own yourself because you are not responsible enough.
The difference isn't in how they react if you break contract, it's how they form the contract. The IRS will only use force if you break the contract, a contract that was formed voluntarily. However, the mafia will build and enforce the contract using force. That's the major difference.
But it essentially doesn't, as there are multiple states. Obviously, it may be costly to move, but that's a problem within private institutions as well. With this in mind, this means that any state that doesn't allow free movement of people is illegitimate.
As much as I love to hear about 'freedom', there's this problem we have, called 'gravity'
Freedom implies the ability to do anything you want, while gravity regularly keeps you down on a regular basis. We end up stuck in the same place, occupying a limited amount of space. To overcome this gravity would require a great effort on our part, of which would also require unity.
Give a person a choice, they become split in their decisions. Give a person information, they'll know where to go.
The problem though is that the state isn't protecting you from itself, it's protecting you from others. Before there was government, and in times like the Feudal Era, you had to spend vast resources to protect your property from criminals. Now that we have a state, the cost of protecting property has gone down. The only time the state will actually really force you to do anything is if you make a breach in contract.
I might have mentioned this before, but you (personally) do NOT owe me (personally) anything. Instead, we, as a whole, as a society, need to take care of each other. Some costs need to be shared. That is what society is for. If we all lived on our own, we would be MUCH poorer. So each one of us owes our fair share to society. Each one of us has a social contract to do so.
Indeed, this video is very minimalistic in its presentation of this basic material. Some might even call it patronising.
But you have to understand that America is in a financial crisis exacerbated by huge expansions in government taxation and spending.
Sometimes, you need a very simple message that left-wing politicians can understand.
If you have a basic human right to internet service who is obligated to provide you with that service and why are they obligated to provide you with that service?
Actually, most CEOs have to answer to shareholders & their bonuses are usually tied to stock options. Ergo, if the stock tanks, their pay tanks too. If you don't make the shareholders happy you probably won't be around for long because they're the ones invested in that enterprise.
But you don't have to go to another town is the thing, you could move your lawn into the woods, or you could make your own community of lawns where you're not allowed to force yourself on other people's lawns. It's not very pragmatic, but you also have situations like this in the market, where in order to get proper resources to survive you usually have to submit yourself to an employer, who's essentially a lawnmower of a different kind.
A legitimate state also doesn't force you to purchase their product. If you don't purchase items or services under the jurisdiction of the state, you do not pay taxes. If you don't buy products, you don't have to pay sales tax, if you don't have an income, you don't pay income tax. If you live in a cottage in the wilderness of Alaska, you can live without ever having to pay taxes, because you're not under the jurisdiction of a state.
You cant have competition in the use of force. But you can have it when it comes to all other products/services.
But if we see the government as a faux-business of sorts, ownership of land is essentially a privilege that we give them in exchange for their services. The other land is taxes, which are also privileges exchanged for services.
Ethical principles are logically derived from self-ownership. Check out this short video that proposes a secular ethical theory based on the fact that we own ourselves: Ethics and self-ownership
the idea of property is a human invention.
That's correct. Just like numbers, science, and language. Look at you exercising ownership of your body in order to make an argument.
Part of signing a contract with someone is that you agree to allow them to use the money for whatever purposes they wish, as long as they fulfill their end. Verizon can use their money to buy a nice gift for their wife, etc. Also, why do you think that you're forced to use their services? If you don't buy from a licensed dealer, you don't have to pay taxes, and if you go outside of its jurisdiction you do not have to pay taxes. It's just impractical to do so.
Well, in order to have sellers then you have to have somebody who had the original right to the land, which historically has been governments. But I think that the government is in fact productive with the land simply by providing structure. Not all advantages are direct.
I agree that a state that disallows free movement (like the US) is illegitimate. That isn't the only threshold it has to cross to be called legitimate, though. I think there are others as well. For example, it must not compel compliance to arbitrary rules, issue disproportionate judgements for crimes, prevent or infringe on people's liberty, etc.
As soon as the cow tells me it doesn't want to be my dinner I will stop eating it. I will even go one step farther and offer it full room and board while paying for it's collegiate level education, as a talking cow is sure to have a bright future.
I agree to a point. Although claiming that taxation isn't theft because of something good done with the money is a bad way to go about the argument. I could steal money from a crack addict and spend the money to buy him a meal, but it would still be theft.
I don't count it as theft because taxes are voted on, but I do count unequal taxation as one group stealing from another; subsidies included. As Calvin Coolidge said beyond what is absolutely necessary is legalized larceny.
A very wise man once said, "don't hate the player, hate the game."
Instead of hating on the corporations and CEOs for "hijacking" our political system, why not direct that energy to the GOVERNMENT? Our political system IS the problem! With that out of the way, Corporations won't have a gov't to hijack. Infact, corporations won't exist (at least not in the form we know them today) as corporations are NOT a product of the free market; they're a Frankenmonster created by OUR government!!
It's taken from Adam Smith, where he talked about how you had to spend a lot of resources hiding and protecting your wealth. That may be wrong though, I guess that that was a fact I kind of took for granted.
It is amazing how simple this is and how it is obvious what is the right thing to do.
But then you remember socialism and communism....
And how many million were convinced simple everyday actions were wrong.
The fetus is taking nutrients from the parent via the umbilical cord without the parent's permission. The umbilical cord is connecting two humans therefore both should have to mutually agree to share resources.
If you do not use its services, it does not force you to pay. Homeless people do not pay taxes, because they do not use the services of the government. Their kneecaps are not broken. It's just that all of the services you want or need happen to be under the jurisdiction of the state.
Yes humans are social animals. but groups of people freely engaging is different than groups of people being forced to engage. For at least 100,000 years all people lived very poor. It wasn't until the advent of private property rights did we see a stark increase in wealth. Michael Shermer details this fact in his book "The Believing Brain".
Violent use of resources, including other people, will happen whenever a decision taker disposing of relative force discovers that by menacing and deploying raw violence he can achieve his goals most effectively.
Free trade is a good elixir against monopolies, if that's what you're worried about. I think if you took a gander at IRS data you'd see the bottom two quintiles are largely revenue-receivers, instead of payers. All Washington does is redistribute income, it's out-of-control.
Possesion is a law term. It describes situation when somebody uses item, but is not its owner despite the fact that it consistenly does anything that owner could do. Ownership means legal title to something. Both terms are separate, because you can be owner but not posess something. If we assume that we own ourselves that means that we can get rid of our right to decide about ourselves, that is sell our right to say "no". This guy here never mentions that and all of you complately missed that.
I like the subtle, implied defense of homosexuality and gay marriage. Liberty is not bigoted. I completely agree.
"Does a system which allows competition for arbitration produce a higher likelihood of corruption or a lower likelihood?"
Obviously is creates a higher degree of corruption. Because there is no entity that can attempt to keep these corrupt things in check. Which then creates chaos because nobody can bring peace/order.
No, anarchists propose Utopias, one that goes against human nature and how reality actually works.
good point. the video never mentioned that
If G, S, & J work together, they would do well for sign a contract that clarifies what will happen in a case like that.
If you body is a sort of property in the same way one owns a laptop, and if one were to leave it in the their house thereby it is still their property, then does that mean that one's mind can leave the body in their house and still be their property? Does that entail that the body is the property of one's mind? Is the body really a disposable item of the mind?
The mind is a phenomena that happens within the body, inside the brain. So, no, your mind cannot leave its body in the house.
You assume that there is a social contract involved, but it is one I've personally never signed such an agreement. I was born into my citizenship, and placed into a community where I was brought up with the idea that I had to be apart of it. In fact, my skills are so specialized that I cannot reasonably survive on my own. In fact, my only other reasonable option would be to go to some place else that inflicts mandatory taxation. There was never a choice for me on the matter, I pay taxes or I die
Why not? It bought most of it. Ownership is somewhat of an arbitrary distinction anyway, and it generally wouldn't be recognized if it weren't for the state enforcing it.
I think here is more important aspect of this theory: who owns children?
Currently children are like property of their parents. and since they have no rights, parents can set any arbitrary age or conditions for their children to obtain freedom or theoretically parents can give no freedom at all.
in result all these ideas about self ownership become void, because you are property of your parents who set the rules of the game and your life will whatever your parents decide, unless you rebel.
"however the government has been hijacked by private interests."
Both are culpable. It take two to tango. You get the point. Ayn Rand said the greatest threat to capitalism is capitalist. This is what she was referring to. So there's the rub. How do you solve it? With regulators to watch the regulators so they don't make back room deals? And who will watch those regulators? More regulators to watch the regulators?.
Yes, absolutely.
I know what you're saying but there really are people out there who need to have the basics explained to them. As proof of this, look at some of the people who worm their way into government... They might say one thing but always judge on their actions.
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I guess the question then is - who owns what land, and why? Is there any reason that anybody owns any land that isn't arbitrary, or do you propose that nobody has right to land?
In reality, working for someone is not slavery. Its just how things work. Slavery, is when you have no option legally, but to work for a specific person. If we are to label all work as slavery, then we really diminish the meaning of slavery and I think that's pretty disrespectful to people who really were slaves and had no choice. Having to get a job and being a slave are two entirely different things.
We are talking about slavery when you make one time decision to transfer ownership of yourself to someone else.
if i just work for someone I am just leasing myself for limited time under specific conditions. what is not slavery because i retain freedom to break the deal anytime.
Hawing a job is not same as being slave unless you make contract which you cant terminate. in that case you do become slave.
I think of it in a different way. It's more like "Hey, do you like the roads, bridges, military, police force, and easy access to education (maybe poor education) ext?Well, the majority of Americans are paying something to help sustain these things you benefit from everyday, and have voted in Congressmen that believe taxes are important. And, you know, the whole no central tax thing failed under the Articles so, in our opinion, it is only reasonable that you pay something. If you don't, leave."
a group of people rising up to defend themselves from a common enemy is a form of state power. the people make up the government, and the collusion to work against someone else's self interest is tantamount to state creation.
Yup. However even a contract can be renegotiated; just look at private debt consolidation companies.
The actual problem with it is that it makes it difficult to show people who disagree with you these videos and have them take you seriously. The content of the video might open them to new ideas, but a quick scroll down will encourage them instead to call you a racist homophobic etc etc.
And even if we ignore problems of concept of ownership
if you own yourself, that means you can sell yourself and transfer that ownership to someone else.
what means slavery is completely legal thing.
all that slave owner needs to do is to make slave transfer ownership rights. what is relatively easy if you find someone is dire situation: either you sell yourself and i take care of you or you die.
Well, that's the idea of saving for retirement. You set aside a certain fraction of your resources now to sustain yourself when you can no longer generate income.
That didn't answer my pts. concerning CEO pay, not even close. CEOs are responsible for keeping the doors open, not the guy cleaning the CEOs office. You can be thrown out of work during a recession? We should probably massively-increase spending on food stamps, unemployment & another economic stimuli to bring the economy back. Oh, wait....
My comment wasnt referring to this specific video, I meant the whole "learn liberty"-page is repeating all the old stuff we know since the 19th-century.
Just have a look to the latest videos like "specialization and trade" or "should the gouvernment subsidize silly walks" etc.
Come on guys, that is old stuff. Why dont you address todays problems and show us solutions in the tradition of liberty-thinking?
Or are you not able to adequate answer?
I feel like in kindergarten.
I've seen a more advanced lecture about this: Talking about how we need to pay interests on loans and also the banks pay us interests , or else we are slaves and not prospering ourselves.
that is the point...if you take property rights and self ownership seriously, then the only conclusion is that taxation = theft.
the state claims to protect your property, but only does it by first taking most of what you own. Orwellian speak in its trust form.
But why do humans own themselves? Can someone give me a reason you have a right to your own life and labor? This video just accepted that fact as truth and said that it was wrong without delving into the reasons why.
Locke?
Would it be OK if I were to enslave you? If not, there's your answer.
In order to argue against the existence of self-ownership, you will have to exercise self-ownership of your body to do the argument.
Self-ownership is a self-evident fact of reality, and that's why no explanation is needed.
I wish this was true.....But the illusion of freedom is greatest way to own people....and we are all owned I assure you...
If you don't want to live in a hotel, who has to leave, you or the hotel manager. That metaphor has a few inadequacies in it, but in a private system it's perfectly fine to own land, so why can't that also be true in a public system?
They don't give up their right to say no. They just decide not to use it. And don't bother to call me ignorant. Google this thing. Seriously! difference between ownership and possession. People are subjects of laws, not objects of laws, so ownership does not apply.
I guess it's less like he's mowing your lawn by force, and more like he owns the land, and if you plant any grass he'll mow it automatically and give you a fee. I think that a lot of the things you talk about with government are how you're essentially born into it and it's difficult to leave, but this also happens in private institutions, like mining towns where you would have to buy things from the company store and live and give birth in company houses.
Being physically attached to the parent makes the fetus part of the parent's body. The moment the umbilical cord is cut, then the baby is in control of their own body.
It's not the money that's the problem, it's the 'regulations" that favor big business over smaller businesses and it's all done under the guise of "consumer protection". Watch whats going to happen with e cigarettes. The more popular they get the tobacco industry will push for them to be "regulated" to "protect people" even though the are a thousand times safer to smoke than regular cigarettes.
Does the government prevent mobility or usage of services of other countries though? You are allowed to get out of the deal, by either abstaining, moving to another country or even trying to make your own country. It's essentially an anarcho-capitalist market, it's just on a much broader scale.
Wasn't saying it did.
The question of abortion is definitely one of the tougher ones. If you take the life of an unborn child, even if you don't consider a fetus a thinking human being you're still removing a person from the future. Is it wrong to prevent a person from existing in the first place?
Have you ever read the book Freedomnomics? It had an interesting chapter showing that legalization of abortion correlated with an increase in crime, and theorized about possible links between the two
Ownership in and of itself is nothing more than use rights. If we had no concept of ownership, then murder and rape would be legal as there would be no restrictions on using someone else's body. Unless you meant to have no use rights instead of unlimited use rights, in which you'd then have no right to use your own body.
Think about it this way: let's pretend that the state is a company. By living in the state and using its amenities, you make a contract with that company. In exchange for the use of the state, the state is allowed to charge you money for that use. This is like a phone company, as long as you use the phone you have to pay a bill. As long as you use the state, you have to pay taxes.
I already made argument. Locke argument is ridicolous because it uses language inapropiate for concept he wished to convey. Its nothing worng in his part or his thought, really. What he describes is posession, not onwership. Posession does not require 3rd party. To put it simply precisely becuase there is not 3rd party you cannot form ownership, merely posession, because you are unable to show from whom you got the ownership.
Why shouldn't we be allowed to sell ourselves into slavery if we really wanted to? Practicality aside, arguing purely on the principle of the matter, why not become an indentured servant (for example), if one is 100% willing? If one is truly autonomous, there should be no issue.
I can't blame them. Remember that most people do not think even this deeply about stuff like this. We take it for granted. This is catered to your average Joe.
"=D i almost want to hug you. "
Ok but fair warning I might get a stiffy since it's been awhile since I've gotten some. But then I kept reading and saw where you compared the freely chosen contract of marriage to the citizen and the state and I totally lost my stiffy. A more fair example would be that of an arranged marriage where the girl has no choice in the matter. Doesn't that comparison work better? I think so! I see nothing admirable in either case.
When she choses to make someone dependent on it too live, it is only temporary after all.
supply and demand favor those who can purchase in bulk. this is because of reduced transportation prices. but if you look out into the world you will find that a very powerful elite tends to rise in an unregulated market. they become the governments, or the drug cartels and the like. it was a free economy that lead to our current tax system when we were being attacked by france.
i have an e-cig, it will be very easy to see how much it gets regulated.
"CEOs are responsible for keeping the doors open" What? That makes no sense.
Who does all the work? Who actually builds the products? The CEO? Nope! The employees do. CEOs don't do anything. Yet they are allowed to pay themselves and the employees whatever they want. It's totally unfair!
We would not need food stamps and unemployment safety net programs if the workers had more say. CEOs have concentrated power, and that's the SOURCE of the problem.
" ownership requires right, some kind of claim making item complately yours to command"
which is why it has always been a metaphor.....locke and hobbs were both materialists....they didnt believe there was some extra-material soul that owned the body.
the metaphor of self-ownership accurately describes reality....aka HUMAN ACTION.
you dont have to prove ownership just like you dont prove the rules in chess....they are an agreed upon set of rules.....all that arise from HUMAN ACTION.
People have rights because we have the ability to conceptualize rights. We can give cows rights, but they wouldn't know what to do with those rights.
To most people, this may seem like a "well, all that stuff is obvious" video. The video should have been more clear in pointing out that these "obvious" facts form the foundation of what a free market and free society are all about. If it's so obvious that we, as people, have the right to say no to others, then why do we allow our governments to force us to actively engage in certain types of behavior? Why do we tolerate laws that say "you *have* to do 'X'". Inaction should not be a crime.
Mental illness is the main reason for this, someone who is going to kill themselves "TYPICALLY" aren't mentally capable of understanding what that means. Main thing I can point out is the "directive to physicians" form (known differently in some states). Where if you are unable to say yourself, than the doctor will be able, or a close family member, to remove you from life support and let you die. And some states have adopted assisted suicide already.
yet this is a foreign concept to so many people. most people have this strange notion in their heads that if some never specified number of people vote on whether fred owns sam, and those people vote that he does, than he does.
Alright, then the theory goes as such: if the government taxes by a voluntary contract, it is fundamentally different from the mafia.