Posted on 05/08/2003 9:19:46 AM PDT by Chirodoc
My recent column "From Whence Comes Income" sparked considerable favorable reader response, not to mention thoughtful reader correction of my grammar error in the title: "From Whence" is redundant. Quite a few readers were a bit confused about my assertion that market allocation of goods and services are infinitely more moral than the alternative.
The first principle of a free society is that each person owns himself. You are your private property, and I am mine. Most Americans probably accept that first principle. Those who disagree are obliged to inform the rest of us just who owns us, at least here on earth.
This vision of self-ownership is one of those "self-evident" truths to which the Founders referred to in the Declaration of Independence, that "All Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Like John Locke and other philosophers who influenced them, the Founders saw these rights as preceding government, and they said, "That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted."
The Framers of the Constitution recognized that while government was necessary to secure liberty, it was also liberty's greatest threat. Having this deep suspicion of government, they loaded our Constitution with a host of anti-congressional phrases, such as: "Congress shall make no law," "shall not be infringed" and "shall not be violated."
Once one accepts the principle of self-ownership, what's moral and immoral becomes self-evident. Murder is immoral because it violates private property. Rape and theft are also immoral -- they also violate private property.
Here's an important question: Would rape become morally acceptable if Congress passed a law legalizing it? You say: "What's wrong with you, Williams? Rape is immoral plain and simple, no matter what Congress says or does!"
If you take that position, isn't it just as immoral when Congress legalizes the taking of one person's earnings to give to another? Surely if a private person took money from one person and gave it to another, we'd deem it theft and, as such, immoral. Does the same act become moral when Congress takes people's money to give to farmers, airline companies or an impoverished family? No, it's still theft, but with an important difference: It's legal, and participants aren't jailed.
Market allocation of goods and services depends upon peaceable, voluntary exchange. Under such exchanges, the essence of our proposition to our fellow man is: If you do something I like, I'll do something you like. When such a deal is struck, both parties are better off in their own estimation.
Billions of these propositions are routinely made and carried out each day. For example, take my trip to the grocery store. My proposition to the grocer is, essentially: "If you make me feel good by giving me that gallon of milk you own, I'll make you feel good by giving you three dollars that I own." If my proposition is accepted, the grocer is better off, since he values the $3 more than the milk and I'm better off, since I value the milk more than the $3.
Contrast the morality of market exchange with its alternative. I might go to my grocer with a pistol and propose: give me a gallon of milk or I'll shoot you. Or, I might lobby Congress to take his milk and give it to me. Either way I'm better off but the grocer is worse off.
Lest there's misunderstanding, there are legitimate and moral functions of government, namely that of preventing the initiation of force, fraud and intimidation, and we're all duty-bound to cough up our share of the cost. All other matters in our lives should be left to civil society and its institutions.
If I own myself, where is my clear deed and title? Do I own my children, not only because they are minors, but because they are "products" of my own body?
Those who disagree are obliged to inform the rest of us just who owns us, at least here on earth.
The last phrase is meant as a hedge against those who would claim that God owns us, but it fails miserably: God is omnipresent, even on Earth.
Once one accepts the principle of self-ownership, what's moral and immoral becomes self-evident.
Saints preserve us if we see all morality only as a matter of property rights! If we do, we lose all basis for encouraging the common virtues upon which republican government depends.
Further, Williams uses "self-evident" improperly: if one has to accept certain principles before reasoning to morality, then that morality isn't self-evident.
Murder is immoral because it violates private property. Rape and theft are also immoral -- they also violate private property.
Nothing about the dignity of the human person or the natural law or the Golden Rule, or even the good life. It's all a matter of property rights. Could any moral theory be more barren?
Your God may own you, but my God gave me the ability to decide. For living in the world, I own me.
gcruse:Thanks for the ping....it is so simple, I am always amazed when people don't get it...even after all these years of seeing that they do not.
WW has lost it I fear.
I'm no Calvinist; free-will is not incompatible with acknowledging God's sovereignty. Though it is possible that it is as misleading to believe God "owns" us as it is to believe that we own ourselves.
Please note that I do not deny man's right of usufruct over his own life. It's just that the statement "I own myself" seems to me no more self-evident than the phrase "I see myself," and even more problematic.
In theory the doctrine of Adam Smith made world wide prosperity possible. While it is true that a rising tide raises all the boats, it is also true that you can drown in a stream that has an average depth of six inches. As a result most of the worlds market economies are mixed. Pure capitalism can and has failed to provide where cartels, monopolies, and gobalism (capitalism on steroids) has impoverised large chunks of the population.
Lost what? Has he changed his postition on this?
You think it's moral for a group of people to take one person's earnings by force and give them to another person to whom they do not belong?
Protagoras: Lost what? Has he changed his position on this? [Do] you think it's moral for a group of people to take one person's earnings by force and give them to another person to whom they do not belong?
Good questions. Here, I'll repeat what Dr. Williams wrote:
Monopoly: The 19th century railroads, oil companies, and coal mining industries.
Cartel: OPEC and South American Cocaine business.
Good enough for you ?
Render unto Ceasar the things that are Ceasar's.
Heh-heh. Easy for you to say. ;O) (Exactly as I expected, too.)
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