Posted on 07/19/2003 2:33:16 PM PDT by Noumenon
The axiom of what is often called “individualism” is that every person has certain inalienable rights. For example, individualism holds that property as such obviously has no rights; there is only the inherent right of a person to his honestly acquired property…
The axiom of socialism is that the individual has no inherent rights. The privileges and the prerogatives that the individual enjoys are grants from society, acting through its management committee, the government. That is the condition the individual must accept for the benefit of becoming a member of society. Hence, the socialists (including many who do not so name themselves) reject the statement of rights in the Declaration of Independence, calling it a fiction of the 18th century.
In support of his denial of natural rights, the socialist points out that there is no positive proof in favor of that doctrine. Where is the documentary evidence? Did God hand man a signed statement endowing him with the rights he claims for himself, but denies to the birds and beasts who also inhabit the earth? If in answer to these questions you bring in the soul idea, you are right back where you were in the beginning: how can you prove that man has a soul?
Those who accept the axiom of natural rights are backed against the wall by that kind of reasoning, until they examine the opposite axiom, that all rights are grants or loans from government. Where did government get the rights which it dispenses? If it is said that its fund of rights is collected from individuals, as the condition for their membership in society, the question arises, where did the individual get the rights which he gave up? He cannot give up what he never had in the first place, which is the argument of the socialists.
What is this thing called government, which can grant and take away rights? There are all sorts of answers to that question, but all the answers will agree on one point, that government is a social instrument enjoying a monopoly on coercion. The socialist says that the monopoly on coercion is vested in the government in order that it may bring about an ideal social and economic order; other say that the government must have a monopoly on coercion in order to prevent individuals from using coercion on each other. In short, the essential characteristic of government is power. If, then we say that our rights stem from government, on a loan basis, we admit that whoever gets control of the power vested in government is the author of rights. And simply because he has the power to enforce his will. Thus, the basic axiom of socialism, in all its forms, is that might is right.
And that means that power is all there is to morality. If I am bigger and stronger than you and you have no way of defending yourself, then it is right if I thrash you; the fact that I did thrash you is proof that I had the right to do so. On the other hand, if you can intimidate me wit ha gun, then right returns to your side. All of which comes to mere nonsense. And a social order based upon the socialistic axiom – which makes government the final judge of all morality – is a nonsensical society. It is a society in which the highest value is the acquisition of power – as exemplified in a Hitler or a Stalin – and the fate of those who cannot acquire it is subservience as a condition of existence.
The senselessness of the socialistic axiom is shown by the fact hat there would be no society, and therefore no government, if there were no individuals. The human being is the unit of all social institutions; without a man there cannot be a crowd. Hence, we are compelled to look to the individual to find an axiom upon which to build a non-socialistic moral code. What does he tell us about himself?
In the first place, he tells us that he wants to live. He tells us this even when he first comes into the world and lets out a yell. Because of that primordial desire, he maintains, he has a right to live. Certainly, nobody else can establish a valid claim to his life, and for that reason he traces his own title to an authority that transcends all men, to God. That title makes sense.
When the individual says that he has a valid title to life, he means that all that is he, is his own: his body, his mind, his faculties. Maybe there is something else in life, such as a soul, but without going into that realm, he is willing to settle on what he knows about himself – his consciousness. All that is ‘I’ is ‘mine’. That implies of course, that all that is ‘you’ is ‘yours’ – for every ‘you’ is an ‘I’. Rights work both ways.
But, while just wanting to live gives the individual a title to life, it is an empty title unless he can acquire the things that make life liveable, beginning with food, raiment, and shelter. These things do not come because you want them; they come as the result of putting labor to raw materials. You have to give something of your self – your brawn or your brain – to make the necessary things available. Even wild berries have to be picked before they can be eaten. But the energy you put out to make the necessary things is part of you – it is you. Therefore, when you cause these things to exist, your title to your self, your labor, is extended to these things. You have a right to them simply because you have a right to life.
That is the moral basis of property. ‘I own it because I made it’ is a title that proves itself. The recognition of that title is implied in the statement that ‘ I make so many dollars a week’. That is literally true.
But what do you mean when you say that you own the thing you produced? Say it is a bushel of wheat. You produced it to satisfy your desire for bread. You can grind the wheat into flour, bake the loaf of bread, eat it, or share it with your family or a friend. Or you can give part of the wheat to the miller in payment for his labor; the part you give him, in the form of wages, is his because he gave you labor in exchange. Or you sell half the bushel of wheat for money, which you exchange for butter to go with the bread. Or you can put the money in the bank so that you can have something later on, when you want it.
In other words, your ownership entitles you to use your judgment as to what you will do with the product of your labor - consume it, give it away, sell it, save it. Freedom of disposition is the substance of property rights.
Interference with this freedom of disposition is, in the final analysis, interference with your right to life. At least, that is your reaction to such interference, for you describe such interference with a word that expresses a deep emotion: you cal lit ‘robbery’. What’s more, if you find that this robbery persists, you lose interest in laboring. The only reason you work is to satisfy your desires; and if experience shows that despite your efforts your desires go unsatisfied, you become stingy about laboring. You become a ‘poor’ producer.
Suppose the freedom of disposition is taken away from you entirely. That is, you become a slave; you have no right of property. Whatever you produce is taken by somebody else; and though a good part of it is returned to you, in the way of sustenance, medical care, housing, you cannot under the law dispose of your output; if you try to, you become the legal ‘robber’. Your concern in production wanes and you develop an attitude towards laboring that is called a slave psychology. Your interest in yourself also drops because without the right of property you are not much different from the other living things in the barn. The clergyman will tell you that you are a man, with a soul; but you sense that you are somewhat less of a man than the one who can dispose of your production as he wills. If you are a human, how human are you?
It is silly, then to prate of human rights being superior to property rights, because the right of ownership is traceable to the right to life, which is certainly inherent in the human being. Property rights are in fact human rights.
A society built around the denial of this fact is, or must become a slave society – although the socialists describe it differently. It is a society in which some produce and others dispose of their output. The laborer is stimulated not by the prospect of satisfying his desires, but by fear of punishment. When his ownership is not interfered with, when he works for himself, he is inclined to develop his faculties of production because he has unlimited desires. He works for food, he begins to think of fancy dishes, a tablecloth, and music wit his meals. There is no end of desires the human being can conjure up, and will work for, provided he feels reasonably sure that his labor will not be in vain. Contrariwise, when the law deprives him of the incentive of enjoyment, he will work only as necessity compels him. What is the use in putting out more effort?
The economic decline of a society without property rights is followed by the loss of other values. It is only when we have a sufficiency of the necessaries that we give though tot nonmaterial things, to what is called culture. On the other hand, we find we can do without books, or even moving pictures, when existence is at stake. Even more than that, we who have no right to own certainly have no right to give, and charity becomes an empty word; in a socialistic order, no one need give a thought to an unfortunate neighbor because it is the duty of the state, the only property owner, to take care of him; it might even become a crime to give a ‘bum’ a dime. When the denial of the right of the individual is negated though the denial of the right of ownership, the sense of personal pride, which distinguishes man from beast, must decay through disuse…
Whatever else socialism is, or claims to be, its first tenet is the denial of private property. All brands of socialism, and there are many, are agreed that property rights must be vested in the political establishment. None of the schemes identified with this ideology, such as the nationalization of industry, or socialized medicine, or the abolition of free choice, or the planned economy, can become operative if the individual’s claim to property is recognized by the government
Does that about sum it up? In this model, there are no rights "granted" to the government by individuals, the government just takes what it wants (it has the might), and may grant some of those rights to those who suck up to it.
The key to ending the war on drug users lies in this insight.
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