Libertarian Self-Ownership: Touchstone of Justice

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the importance of self-ownership in theory, and its importance to libertarian and Marxist philosophy. It also examines the implications of self-ownership with respect to property, and inequality and the welfare of the poor. The author looks at libertarian and Marxist conceptions, self ownership and the poor, as well as, initial appropriations in order to support the conclusion that self-ownership is fundamental in a just society.

From the Paper:

"Marxists rely on the principle of self-ownership to draw a starkly opposite conclusion, which is that we ought to abolish private property. Private property gives rise to the wage-labor system, which is inherently unjust and exploitative, which refers to a technical Marxist sense of exploitation. Capitalists obviously only hire additional workers when doing so is profitable, and doing so is only profitable when the capitalist can extract more value from the worker s labor than he returns to the worker. Or stated in terms of widely accepted microeconomic principles, firms hire additional workers provided that the marginal revenue product of each additional worker is greater than the wage."

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