Self Ownership Theory

[eboyd32]

you begin the video with an incorrect assumption. you draw a false dichotomy between the mind and body. philosophy and science are finding more and more by the day that mind-body dualism is incorrect and therefore you cannot have ownership over your mind, nor can you have ownership over your body. you are your body/mind. it is one fluid substance. this refutes your argument off the bat.

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

@eboyd32 Even if that were accepted, that all both mind and body are one, how does that take away my self ownership? And who do you posit owns me?

[eboyd32]

@iSTOLEyourPOPE i guess it really depends on your definition of ownership. i feel the definition of ownership implies a dichotomy; in other words, an object cannot own itself. what it owns has to be distinguishable from it. for example, let's just say, for the sake of argument, we allow inanimate objects to have ownership claims. can a rock own itself? if we go by this definition, which i would venture is one that most people could agree upon, then no, a rock cannot own itself...

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

@eboyd32 And I don't think there needs to be two parts to something in order to own something. If you chose to split mental and physical, that is fine. But the mental is a byproduct of your physical self. I would say inanimate objects are unclaimed until someone owns it. People have mental capacities to acknowledge themselves and life/death & cause/effect. I still maintain that I can own myself w/out the dichotomy. Hence self-ownership and not partial-self or mind-over-body ownership.

[eboyd32]

@iSTOLEyourPOPE i would think most people would disagree with you here. the majority people, i venture, are either of the opinion that 1. there is some sort of dichotomy (body and soul, body and mind, etc.) and based on that dichotomy, the intangible owns the tangible (the body), or 2. (the school i subscribe to) the existence of the intangible is contingent upon the tangible and so, being one substance, the body cannot own itself. again though, this is simply an issue of syntax. though i...

[eboyd32]

...would strongly disagree, one could make an argument that ownership doesn't imply a dichotomy and there would be no possible logical argument to counteract that because that is simply your definition of ownership. i disagree only because defining it as such complicates your perception of reality a bit (ie: if i own my body and i am my body, then am i moving, or is the body i own being willed to move? how can i say the two are one in the same? etc.), but i see no actually logical issue with...

[eboyd32]

...it. the only issue i see is a moral one. i do not justify slavery by any means, and, as i said in another comment, i am opposed to anyone who uses self-ownership to justify the selling or renting of one's body, "labor power", etc., even voluntarily with the promise of a wage in return, no matter what the wage is.

[ryan84160]

@iSTOLEyourPOPE To own something, a self must be able to possess( or have) it. In the same way it does not make sense to say that you have a brain, it does not make sense to say that you own your brain. But lets but assume for a moment that a brain could be in possession of itself, all you can demonstrate here is possession. Possession is a descriptive term, while ownership is a legal and normative term.

[eboyd32]

@iSTOLEyourPOPE then you ask who i posit owns you. that question comes of as a trick question to me. it presupposes some sort of weird Hobbesian crossed with a Lockean vision that if we do not own ourselves, someone else will exert force over us, probably due to a deep rooted notion that human nature is inherently greedy and/or evil. if i answer that no one owns me -- that i cannot be owned and that cognizant beings can only be in a state of being, and calling it self ownership simply...

[eboyd32]

...commodifies us -- what would be your response to such a notion? i think this is the essence of freedom; the antithesis of slavery, not self-ownership. and i realize now that this argument is one that is very semantic in nature, and so i do not mind when people claim to own themselves as long as they do not use their self-ownership to justify selling the one's self and/or one's "labor power" (which is a mere extension of the self), but the problem is that this is exactly the case far too often

[eboyd32]

...even since John Locke this has been the case. Locke felt that because on had ownership of one's self, through his concept of the Labor Theory of Property, one could also sell his labor into what was basically nothing more than a voluntary slavery, and the new owner of that person's labor would reap the benefits. in his Second Treatise he states, "the Grass my horse has bit; the Turfs my Servant has cut; and the Ore I have digg'd... become my Property". this is what i am oppose to, not...

[eboyd32]

...self-ownership.

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

@eboyd32 Oh, I didn't see all the replies. I'm off to work, but when I get the chance to review everything, I'll post. ^_^

[eboyd32]

@iSTOLEyourPOPE haha, yeah, i have a hard time confining my comments to 500 characters :D i'm looking forward to your commentary :)

[Boxmanboxman]

I think Stefan Molyneux may be your new "pope" check out stefbot on youtube.

[Pommit]

I agree with what you say about taxes and the state but I disagree with the assumptions you make about property ownership and consensual agreements when a person sells their labour. You ignore the fact that wages workers are effectively slaves: they have to rent themselves to survive, are subject to an illegitimate authority, the agreement is consensual yet all workers are placed in highly unbalanced bargaining positions when they go for a job because workers do not hold the tools.

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

Everyone has to rent themselves to survive. That is what having a job is. That includes managers, and even CEO's. They sell their time to their bosses, or the stockholders, or their consumers. To not sell your labor would mean to not work - and frankly, no one deserves a free ride. It would be silly to NOT sell ones labor.

And though it is generally thought that companies have all the power, this could all change if people pay attention and stop letting the gov't do the fighting for them.

[Pommit]

Yes, they do have to, but this is a relatively recent phenomenon. The situation where people cannot survive without submitting themselves to an authority and in renting their labour only came about with the industrial period. It is not desirable. Why I believe anarcho-communism (or possibly anarcho-syndicalism) is a far more fair system which can lead to people being far more than under American-style libertarianism. What do you mean about you second point about governments and fighting?

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

Actually, people have been selling and trading their labor far before the industrial revolution. This is fact.

As for what I meant with the fightin - I mean that people need to take charge of their own lives instead of having the gov't fight for their wages, their time off, their benefits, etc. The gov't has no place there.

[Pommit]

It is fact, though there was a choice as to whether this was necessary or not. People don't have such choices anymore, or at best are heavily constrained in the manner in which they find money to survive. I don't quite understand where you are coming from about people taking control of their lives. I want rid of governments, but also capitalis. You do recognise why government has taken a role in protecting workers? For one workers have little bargaining power compared their employers.

[skeletonmeister]

Great! I agree 100%.

Now... I see that taxes serve as group fundraising for common causes. However, society's common cause is not necessarily MY cause, or even a good cause. Therefore, I think we should have a chance to opt out of certain taxes if we choose, as long as we promise not to use the utilities funded by the taxes we skip. There's no situation where everyone should pay for things only some will use. Just as nobody has the right to own something they didn't pay for (except himself)

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

It would get awfully difficult to say to the government "only tax me for certain services, I'll deny these ones" because the government would be inundated with requests and the slow moving bureaucracy would mess a lot up. The easier solution is to privatize all the services that can be privatized and allow people to purchase said services.

Even if the government could separate the services - they wouldn't know what to charge since they have no price mechanism. Profit is not a gov't concern.

[Boxmanboxman]

I think you are wrong, I completely agree with a "opt out" system of taxation as an alternative to anarchy- AND I LOVE ANARCHY. 

If you truly believe in self-ownership than the government should be able to own itself also. If a group of people completely agree to a republic style government and a "opt out" system of taxation, what gives you the right to force your opinion of privatization on anyone else; even if it grants them more freedom of choice.

If people want slavery, let them.

[Elhan2005]

mises dot org/story/2291

A good proof of self-ownership.

[davidtibble7]

I really liked it and enjoyed your message! I just have one querie though, which you have triggered in myself: Jesus says to give to Caesar what is Caesar's.

A lot of people have taken this as PAY YOUR TAXES. But I now realise that this could mean that Jesus was saying to just give back what Caesar made in the first place - coins/currency - his property/government's property.

But when it comes to bank account credit and cheques etc. that STRICTLY belongs to the individual!!!

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

In my opinion, most of the bible is open to interpretation. It has been translated so many times by so many people that the accuracy found within can be brought to question.

I certainly think that your interpretation is as valid as any, and one I like more than most I've heard.

[swordslanga]

good work

[amoradaus]

YES! Why do I have to pay for someone elses kids to go to school! I don't have kids and aren't going to! I'm not having kids because I can't afford to, So now I'm paying taxes so that jane on welfare down the street can!!!! grrrrrrr

[mandragola4life]

WELL DONE!

[kojirodensetsu]

Video was kind of quiet. Good job though.

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

Yeah, first video, not my cam, bad combo. But I will do better in the future. I expect I'll have another vid in a month or so.

[snipboy]

speak louder next time please. ;)

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

Yeah, it was my first video with someone elses cam. And after I had done it, it was far too late to fix or re-do it. My other video, and future videos, will be louder.

[UnderseaCaveman]

I have one question for the Anarchists (agree you own your body and labor, 100%.... that's the libertarian in me)...but specifically for you American Anarchists, how did you acquire your land property.... is there a statue of limitation on how that acquistion has been passed down the centuries... or am I being too idealistic for Anarchists (LOL)!

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

Well, I'm not an anarchist, I'm a libertarian. As far as land goes, it would be far too difficult to go back through time and figure out what land was justly acquired 200 years ago (almost non of it). However, there is no way to fix this situation - and it isn't unjust for US to have it, we are so disconnected from the initial acquirement.

[UnderseaCaveman]

my point is to be careful playing with overly idealistic fires like Anarchism (I think they are quite the self-righteous bunch).

In terms of Knowledge, we all stand on the shoulders of giants (meaning all the people that contributed before us), so how is property different (again we stand on the shoulders of giants).

[ProprietorOfSelf]

so you do not deny that taxation is theft. you only believe that the practical justifications for a process compensate for the moral discrepencies. are you then an amoralist or a moralist with no regard for morality?

[UnderseaCaveman]

LOL....when did "Label Maker" die, and you were anointed the "Label Maker"....blow it out your ass, kid!

[ProprietorOfSelf]

"Well, I'm not an anarchist, I'm a libertarian." if you are consistently libertarian then you are an anarchist. minarchism is ethically, logically, and practically incosistent with libertarianism and contradictory of itself. it is very naive, especially given the lessons of history, to believe that a minarchist state can possibly maintain itself for a prolonged period of time. as time progresses states get larger. you could probably boil that down to an exact equation.

[Boxmanboxman]

Tell me about it, but I truly believe that the idea of government has become so entrenched in the psyche of humanity that many people view it as impossible to create a society without a government.

Until the next intellectual revolution arises, like the Enlightenment Era, than I think the best alternative to keep cycling through repeating periods of "small government" to "big government" to "collapse" to "repeat".

[ronpaulpeoplepower]

good job.

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

Thanks man! I really appreciate it. ^_^

[eye8one2]

excellent vid!!! great message and filled with fact!

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

Thanks buddy ^_^

[iSTOLEyourPOPE]

drat - I know I spelled Giuliani wrong....