%0 Journal Article
%T Self-Ownership, World-Ownership, and Initial Acquisition
%A Tristan Rogers
%J Libertarian Papers
%D 2010
%I Ludwig von Mises Institute
%X G.A. Cohen was perhaps libertarianism¡¯s most formidable critic. In Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality he levels several strong criticisms against Robert Nozick¡¯s theory put forth in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. In this paper, I counter several of Cohen¡¯s criticisms. The debate operates at three stages: (1) self-ownership, (2) world-ownership, and (3) initial acquisition. At the first stage, Cohen does not attempt to refute self-ownership, but weaken its force in providing moral grounds for capitalism. Here I argue that Cohen¡¯s attempt to overturn Nozick¡¯s slavery argument is unsuccessful because partial-slavery, while normatively different from full-slavery, is still normatively wrong. At the second stage, Cohen argues for a joint-ownership view of the world¡¯s resources. In particular, he claims that self-ownership is rendered merely formal in a jointly-owned world and in a capitalist world. To rebut this challenge I show that even if Cohen is right about this, libertarian self-ownership is only formal in Cohen¡¯s peculiar case where only two people exist and one owns everything. In contrast, self-ownership in a jointly-owned world is formal in all cases. Lastly, at the third stage, Cohen argues against Nozick¡¯s interpretation of the Lockean proviso, claiming that it is impossible to satisfy. Granting Cohen¡¯s argument here, I go on to defend Jan Narveson¡¯s no-proviso view of acquisition from Cohen¡¯s thus far unanswered criticism. I show that significantly, in his critique, Cohen equivocates between positive and negative rights. Taken jointly, my responses at these three stages ground the anti-egalitarian conclusion that, in Cohen¡¯s words, ¡®[e]xtensive inequality of condition is unavoidable, or avoidable only on pain of violating people¡¯s rights to themselves and to things.¡¯ The sequence, then, is from self-ownership, to world-ownership, via initial acquisition.
%K libertarianism
%K libertarian theory
%U http://libertarianpapers.org/2010/36-rogers-self-ownership-world-ownership/