Self-ownership

[Arkolon]

Seeing as I own all components, and by arranging the components to make a construction where the components of the construction belong to the construction, the construction would very much belong to me, yes.

And if I use myself, which I own,

see this right here is the problem you take your argument as an assumption you start with an assumption of self ownership to prove self ownership, it is completely circular.

Again, I was NOT justifying self-ownership with self-ownership. I was justifying the PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE (in transfer and in acquisition of holdings) with self-ownership. Again, the PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE do NOT prove self-ownership, but vice versa.

[Arkolon]

The desert-island scenario is an example of how the entitlement theory's principles of justice work, and how going against them (theft, violence, aggression) would be unjust as a result. It is true that it is backed by the notion that all individuals have rights, which is itself backed by self-ownership, but in no way do the principles of justice justify self-ownership. That would be circular.

so it is unfounded, got it.
As it stands it is completely unfounded because intrinsic value/justice is the closest ting to a justification for self ownership you have provided.

It is "we own ourselves, just because I say so."

circular was giving you the benefit of the doubt.

That was within the desert-island scenario, which, again, was to explain the use of the principles of justice that are proven by the pivotal axiom of self-ownership. The tangent we went off of has hardly anything to do with self-ownership, but rather the accumulation of property outside of the body. Self-ownership is the relationship between the self and its constituent parts. The thing that makes me belongs to me-- which doesn't necessarily imply a mind-body distinction.

And why do you not counter Aug's argumentative ethics approach, by the way?

[Arkolon]

Conscentia called the concept of propertarian ownership artificial, and as such deduced that it doesn't exist, or at least in the way that I supposed. I reminded them that we live in a world that is built in the same way: as we live in a society, we have social constructs and artificial concepts, but no part of this qualitative coefficient, so to speak, makes them nonexistent, and they exist very veritably in our artificial world.

but only to the extent that our artificial world accepts them, as soon as it doesn't they stop existing. If other societies have different beliefs and constructs then our constructs are not true in them, they do not exist there. Thats what makes them subjective and not intrinsic.

These are very vague and general constructs, such as property, ownership, interpersonal relationships, tradition, and so on. Every society and culture has these things, just in different ways: private property - common property; private ownership - public ownership; familial hierarchies - perfect equality. . .

It follows trivially, then, of course, that, assuming a concept can only exist in a world and that a concept is artificial in an artificial world, an artificial concept in an artificial world is very much the same as a concept existing in the world

No, its not. A hypothetical or artificial world is not equal to the all worlds or the world we live in.
You basically just said "because all red boxes have six sides, all six sided boxes are red."

I ... don't see how I implied the last thing, actually.

"you are a duck, and by "duck" I mean upright bipedal primate, and because you are a "duck" you must be a bird."
(Image)

W-What?

[Conscentia]

A blue ball does not equal blue multiplied by a ball. You can't claim a quantity is an element of another quality. That doesn't make sense. You also can't multiply a quantity by a non-quantity.

A blue ball is a ball that has been assigned the quality blue, the same way that a 2x is an x that has been assigned the quantity 2. I'm assigning qualities and quantities: you're the one mentioning multiplication.

"2x" is a multiplication.

[Arkolon]

A blue ball is a ball that has been assigned the quality blue, the same way that a 2x is an x that has been assigned the quantity 2. I'm assigning qualities and quantities: you're the one mentioning multiplication.

"2x" is a multiplication.

You can't multiply qualities. You even said so yourself. You can, however, assign certain things qualitative and/or quantitative "coefficients".

[Conscentia]

"2x" is a multiplication.

You can't multiply qualities. You even said so yourself. You can, however, assign certain things qualitative and/or quantitative "coefficients".

Quantities are not qualities.
A quality cannot be a coefficient. A coefficient is numerical or constant quantity placed before and multiplying the variable in an algebraic expression.
As you cannot multiple by qualities, you cannot divide by them either. Ergo, you cannot "cancel" them.

[Libertarian Somaliland]

of course I own myself! because all other arguments against it are made by statists and therefor invalid

[Salandriagado]

The former would, however, still pass your stated test (or rather: somewhat more complex, but definitely not sentient, computer programs that already exist would pass it).

What? How?

Cleverbot can convince people it's human 59% of the time. Actual humans only manage 63%.

Literally no part of this paragraph of drivel makes any sense, or has any relevance to what I said.

"I don't understand" isn't an argument. Try re-reading the post again, it isn't all that difficult.

I'm not saying "I don't understand". I'm saying "your spouting meaningless drivel without actually making any kind of point of note".

Is it really necessary for you to so comprehensively demonstrate your complete and utter lack of what you claim to be talking about on any level at all at every single opportunity?

Not a coherent sentence.

Yes, it is. It's a perfectly coherent sentence.

Could you not, just once, think

Seeing as I'm a person because I can reflect upon my own existence (feel, perceive, etc), I've been thinking for a long time. And hey, it was all actually relevant to the thread, too, so the tally's in my favour there.

The evidence disagrees.

use google

Nice try, because I did use google. Not completely sure, I googled it and only reviewed one source which did in fact say that in conventional mathematical notation set names have to be capitalised-- a task Conscentia did not do and something which is apparently comedy to you. I did say I was "fairly confident", to show that I did not waste extensive periods of time looking over something so trivial, but I do not see how the comment warranted your Internet tough guy approach.

It's not standard. In any way. Whoever wrote that source was bullshitting, or you misunderstood it, and anyone who thought about the question for even a tiny fraction of a second would have realised how utterly absurd a statement that was. I'd also like to note that you've used lower case letters for sets at least three times in this thread - two of which were before Conscentia did so.

or take into account that old maxim about it being better to stay silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove any doubt?

If you don't like it here, why do you stay?

I do like it here. That doesn't change the fact that you're spouting utter and complete incoherent bullshit and refusing to listen to people who actually know what the fuck they're talking about.

of course I own myself! because all other arguments against it are made by statists and therefor invalid

On the contrary, my original argument in this thread had nothing to do with statism whatsoever.

[Arkolon]

What? How?

Cleverbot can convince people it's human 59% of the time. Actual humans only manage 63%.

That just makes Cleverbot a smart computer, not a person. If it talks like a duck, that doesn't necessarily make it a duck, so to speak. I fail to see how this is supposed to defeat my argument or test.

"I don't understand" isn't an argument. Try re-reading the post again, it isn't all that difficult.

I'm not saying "I don't understand". I'm saying "your spouting meaningless drivel without actually making any kind of point of note".

I actually made a very valid point of note: a concept can only be artificial in an artificial world, so that, in effect, a concept existing in the world is the same as an artificial concept existing in the artificial world.

Not a coherent sentence.

Yes, it is. It's a perfectly coherent sentence.

No, actually, you missed a key word in between "a lack of" and "what you claim to be talking about", unless you're suggesting that I am demonstrating a lack of things that I am demonstrating, which doesn't make any sense. I'm going to assume you meant "knowledge", but who knows; I'll wait until you give me the answer.

Seeing as I'm a person because I can reflect upon my own existence (feel, perceive, etc), I've been thinking for a long time. And hey, it was all actually relevant to the thread, too, so the tally's in my favour there.

The evidence disagrees.

Hmm?

Nice try, because I did use google. Not completely sure, I googled it and only reviewed one source which did in fact say that in conventional mathematical notation set names have to be capitalised-- a task Conscentia did not do and something which is apparently comedy to you. I did say I was "fairly confident", to show that I did not waste extensive periods of time looking over something so trivial, but I do not see how the comment warranted your Internet tough guy approach.

It's not standard. In any way. Whoever wrote that source was bullshitting, or you misunderstood it, and anyone who thought about the question for even a tiny fraction of a second would have realised how utterly absurd a statement that was.

"The following conventions are used with sets:

Capital letters are used to denote sets. ", Mathsgoodies.com

"Sets are conventionally denoted with capital letters." Set (mathematics) - Wikipedia

"Sets are usually named using capital letters." Purplemath.com

I'd also like to note that you've used lower case letters for sets at least three times in this thread - two of which were before Conscentia did so.

Considering I did not use the correct notation, the element symbol ϵ, they weren't actual sets, and a ϵ b ϵ C makes b a set within a set, which doesn't mean it should be necessarily capitalised.

If you don't like it here, why do you stay?

I do like it here. That doesn't change the fact that you're spouting utter and complete incoherent bullshit and refusing to listen to people who actually know what the fuck they're talking about.

No, I listened to Aug. He made good points.

[Renewed Dissonance]

Before being turned into a popularity contest riddled with dubious, shadowy-yet-ever-smiling and dodgy characters and negative connotations with the advent of democracy...

As opposed to the peaceful, ethical, and utopian delights which characterized the distant before-times? Niccolo has something to say here.

Withdrawn because I read your comments again.

Put bluntly, the bricks that constitute a house belong to the house

Not quite, as the bricks and the house belong to the house's owner.

Or "is-a" is NOT identical to "owns-a."

If, instead, the above identity held, if I donate my blood or a kidney to you, I own you because my bricks belong to me. One could argue that, in the donation/transfer, the tissues become yours, but then ownership of the "bricks" must be based in something independent of the structure (house/body) in which they happen to reside at a particular point in time. After all, the transfer of ownership appears to occur in a location other than one of our bodies/houses.

PS: Or, in other words, your solution appears to simply transfer the question of ownership from the house to the brick (or from the body, to the cell). Now, demonstrate why I own my cells....

Do you own yourself, NSG?

No, I do not, because I prefer to not be a slave.

Ownership implies a property, and ownership over property can be transferred. Therefore, if I own myself, I am my own property, but, since I am property, ownership of me can be transferred to another [either voluntarily, or by exercise of eminent domain, or in a collection of debt, etc]. Since history demonstrates empirically the evil of this situation, I must prevent any person from being owned. Therefore, I must prevent any person from being property. Since non-property cannot be owned, a person cannot even own herself. Therefore: self-ownership.

This is OK, since self-ownership is not necessary for individual liberty, anyway, even if the above weren't true.

[Arkolon]

You can't multiply qualities. You even said so yourself. You can, however, assign certain things qualitative and/or quantitative "coefficients".

Quantities are not qualities.
A quality cannot be a coefficient. A coefficient is numerical or constant quantity placed before and multiplying the variable in an algebraic expression.
As you cannot multiple by qualities, you cannot divide by them either. Ergo, you cannot "cancel" them.

"Coefficient", by the way, because, as you should remember, I began the topic with the idea that

2x = 2y, ergo
x = y

which means that x and y have equal coefficients, and I used the word "coefficients" to assign (artificial)(concept) the "coefficient" (artificial). The word must have fallen through the cracks of the posts that followed it.

[Arkolon]

Before being turned into a popularity contest riddled with dubious, shadowy-yet-ever-smiling and dodgy characters and negative connotations with the advent of democracy...

As opposed to the peaceful, ethical, and utopian delights which characterized the distant before-times? Niccolo has something to say here.

Well, it wasn't a popularity contest, at least.

Put bluntly, the bricks that constitute a house belong to the house

Not quite, as the bricks and the house belong to the house's owner.

Yes, of course: a house cannot own. If I own a large pile of bricks, the house that I make with it belongs to me. If I sell this house, too, the individual bricks will also belong to the new owner. This is obvious.

If, instead, the above identity held, if I donate my blood or a kidney to you, I own you because my bricks belong to me.

Nope, because ownership would have been transferred from you to me.

One could argue that, in the donation/transfer, the tissues become yours, but then ownership of the "bricks" must be based in something independent of the structure (house/body) in which they happen to reside at a particular point in time.

Not really: in donation, you donated ownership over these "bricks" to me; they didn't become mine just because they are in me. They became mine because you gave me the exclusive rights to them.

Do you own yourself, NSG?

No, I do not, because I prefer to not be a slave.

Ownership implies a property, and ownership over property can be transferred. Therefore, if I own myself, I am my own property, but, since I am property, ownership of me can be transferred to another [either voluntarily or by exercise of eminent domain, etc]. Since history demonstrates empirically the evil of this situation, I must prevent any person from being owned. Therefore, I must prevent any person from being property. Since non-property cannot be owned, a person cannot even own herself. Therefore: self-ownership.

This is OK, since self-ownership is not necessary for individual liberty, anyway, even if the above weren't true.

Actually, slavery would be a direct contradiction of self-ownership. Self-ownership actually renders slavery the theft of labour, or the theft of life-- but theft in any case, because, so long as the slave is alive, they own themselves.

[Renewed Dissonance]

Well, it wasn't a popularity contest, at least.

Right, but only because my compliance would have been forced upon me without any choice at all, justified by some "natural right" of Kings.

I'll happily grant that people put exceedingly little thought into their political choices. But it is also plainly obvious that the "popularity contest" is by far the better of the two scenarios (for precisely the same reason that market exchange is generally preferable to arbitrary government fiat, btw).

If I own a large pile of bricks, the house that I make with it belongs to me. If I sell this house, too, the individual bricks will also belong to the new owner. This is obvious.

What is not obvious, however, is how or why you own the pile of bricks to begin with. Your proposition -- that bricks being necessary to the construction of the house, giving the house substantial existence and meaning, naturally belong to the house -- merely transfers the question of ownership from the house to the bricks.

Now, demonstrate that the bricks are things that can be owned. Then, demonstrate that I actually do own them.

Abstracting the question to a different entity/level does not obviate it.

PS: Or, in other words, going back to your first post:

i. The person is made from the functional body.
ii. Without the functional body, there is no person.
iii. The functional body belongs to the person.
1. The person owns their body.

Please show why items iii. and 1. are not merely restatements of each other, as well as how item iii. doesn't beg the question (or presume the conclusion you're trying to demonstrate).

[organ donation and self-ownership, and...]

Actually, slavery would be a direct contradiction of self-ownership. Self-ownership actually renders slavery the theft of labour, or the theft of life-- but theft in any case, because, so long as the slave is alive, they own themselves.

If, and only if, people actually own themselves. Which we have yet to conclude re: the issue above of whether your proposition actually demonstrates its claim.

[Zottistan]

A blue ball does not equal blue multiplied by a ball. You can't claim a quantity is an element of another quality. That doesn't make sense. You also can't multiply a quantity by a non-quantity.

A blue ball is a ball that has been assigned the quality blue, the same way that a 2x is an x that has been assigned the quantity 2. I'm assigning qualities and quantities: you're the one mentioning multiplication.

Imagine a Venn diagram with two sets: objects (O) and balls (B), to stick with your example.

All blue balls ∈ of O∩B. Thus all blue balls are necessarily objects, and all blue balls are blue objects (since they're objects and blue). This does not necessarily imply, though, that all balls ∈ objects. All we've actually guaranteed here is that blue balls are objects. I know all balls are objects, but I can't think of any real-world examples that illustrate this. My notation is probably also fairly sloppy, I haven't had much contact with set theory.

[Renewed Dissonance]

Meh. Withdrawn.

[Conscentia]

Quantities are not qualities.
A quality cannot be a coefficient. A coefficient is numerical or constant quantity placed before and multiplying the variable in an algebraic expression.
As you cannot multiple by qualities, you cannot divide by them either. Ergo, you cannot "cancel" them.

"Coefficient", by the way, because, as you should remember, I began the topic with the idea that

2x = 2y, ergo
x = y

which means that x and y have equal coefficients, and I used the word "coefficients" to assign (artificial)(concept) the "coefficient" (artificial). The word must have fallen through the cracks of the posts that followed it.

Again, a quality cannot be a coefficient. Coefficients multiply a variable. That's what they do. That's all they do. It is only possible to multiple by a quantity - it is mathematically impossible to have a quality as a coefficient.
"Artificial concept" does not mean "concept multiplied by artificial".

[Caninope]

I'm still having issues with using economic theory to describe the value of life. It's not like I can go out and buy more of it.

Economic theory is needed to describe an economic phenomenon: value. How else do you want to assign something value?

Wrong.

Economics describes prices. Only in super-limited cases can the "value" of something be described, as prices are reflections of the aggregate feelings of subjective value.

In other words, the fact that "December, 1963" is available on iTunes for $1.29 or whatever doesn't mean that this song has a "value" of $1.29, it means that society as a whole has decided that among all people, people are willing to give up $1.29 for this single. Even this is a pretty limited concept of value, at that, for there also comes into play other theories of value found in other disciplines, such as "value" as defined in philosophy.

It's for exactly that reason that when economists talk about the "statistical value of life", they are speaking in very limited terms and never are speaking of individually identified lives. So, to answer your question, economists don't do very well with value. They do much better with prices.

[Renewed Dissonance]

I propose an alternative system of thought about individuals. Rather than the self-ownership line, which says that the person is separate from himself and can own himself, we shall treat persons based on a simple identity property. A person is their self, and the body is an isomorph of the person. No need for a separate, alienated self.

To further demonstrate the superiority of this line of thought, I will extend your (Arkolon's) logic to its inevitable conclusion. I begin with the premise that ownership is an alienable property; which is to say that it can transferred voluntarily, or it can be separated by compulsion, as when a person loses assets, whether as a security or through repossession by a chancery court, to settle outstanding debts.

If we accept self-ownership as the logical basis for our social compact, then by necessary implication we must also accept the existence of slavery. For a person cannot be said to own themselves if they cannot sell themselves to another, and transfer the right to control their life and wellbeing to another. It is, after all, their property to be disposed of as they will. Libertarians offer the same defense of the right to commit suicide, and so by the same logic we must be compelled to treat the self like any other property, to be bought or sold.

This would not be voluntary, because the self would be an asset like any other, and it would be an act of aggression on the part of the state to prohibit the disposition of this property like any other. So, a person unable to pay his debts would be forced into contractual slavery.

This creates further problems. The standard self-ownership line with regards to children is that parents own their children until they reach majority or that title is transferred to another. (Rothbard, for example, envisioned a thriving free market in children. See Ethics of LIberty, Ch. 14). Like in all classical regimes of contract slavery, such regimes very quickly become chattel slavery. In the example of ancient Rome, the class of the impoverished became compelled to sell themselves into slavery, as payment for outstanding debt. But their masters would also contrive ways to ensure that the debt was never paid, as was their right under the agreed upon contracts. A child of a slave would be born a slave as part of the payment of his or her father's debt, and in time the charade of contract slavery persisted for so many generations that it lost the pretense.

Basing your ethics on self-ownership means that you have to bring the evil of slavery back as a legal institution, and you give it all the means it needs to continue in perpetuity.

Simply put, this isn't an ethic of liberty. It's pure and simple despotism, masquerading as freedom.

Pretty much this, only far more eloquently put than I could have ever managed.

[The Liberated Territories]

of course I own myself! because all other arguments against it are made by statists and therefor invalid

*sibirsky*

you are not helping

[Renewed Dissonance]

A slave has no right to report abuse or sue in courts.

Did i not just say that it would not be old school slavery? The slave would have the right to report abuse, would have to be properly fed and have a roof over their head.

I've always suspected that when "libertarians" defend voluntary slavery, they aren't really defending slavery. Rather, they intend to defend the capitalist wage system -- that which they end up actually describing.

Still, they fail to account for whether people of insufficient economic means are actually able to make effective or meaningful choices under that system. They must ignore this question, however, otherwise their "voluntary" system is revealed for what it really is.

[The Liberated Territories]

Did i not just say that it would not be old school slavery? The slave would have the right to report abuse, would have to be properly fed and have a roof over their head.

I've always suspected that when "liberals" defend democracy, they are really defending slavery. They intend to defend the monopoly of violence -- that which they end up actually describing.

Still, they fail to account for whether people of insufficient political means are actually able to make effective or meaningful choices under that system. They must ignore this question, however, otherwise their "democratic" system is revealed for what it really is.

Better. Yes.

Otherwise, there is no "slavery" in libertarianism, despite what the Rothbardians say. Slavery is incompatible with libertarianism and the non-aggression principle.

[Zottistan]

I've always suspected that when "liberals" defend democracy, they are really defending slavery. They intend to defend the monopoly of violence -- that which they end up actually describing.

Still, they fail to account for whether people of insufficient political means are actually able to make effective or meaningful choices under that system. They must ignore this question, however, otherwise their "democratic" system is revealed for what it really is.

Better. Yes.

Otherwise, there is no "slavery" in libertarianism, despite what the Rothbardians say. Slavery is incompatible with libertarianism and the non-aggression principle.

A democratic system requires a monopoly on violence to function. Of course proponents of democracy defend it.

[Arkolon]

Well, it wasn't a popularity contest, at least.

Right, but only because my compliance would have been forced upon me without any choice at all, justified by some "natural right" of Kings.

Err, not a natural right, no, but OK.

I'll happily grant that people put exceedingly little thought into their political choices. But it is also plainly obvious that the "popularity contest" is by far the better of the two scenarios (for precisely the same reason that market exchange is generally preferable to arbitrary government fiat, btw).

OK, but how does this not make the popularity contest a popularity contest-- and if you weren't trying to prove so, why are you arguing over this?

If I own a large pile of bricks, the house that I make with it belongs to me. If I sell this house, too, the individual bricks will also belong to the new owner. This is obvious.

What is not obvious, however, is how or why you own the pile of bricks to begin with. Your proposition -- that bricks being necessary to the construction of the house, giving the house substantial existence and meaning, naturally belong to the house -- merely transfers the question of ownership from the house to the bricks.[/quote]
There are many ways that you can accumulate property. I can't give you just one. You'll have to tell me how you got them, and I'll tell you if your claim to them is therefore legitimate or not, testing whether or not it would fall into accordance with the appropriate principle of justice.

Now, demonstrate that the bricks are things that can be owned.

Bricks lack the quality that allow them to own in the first place: personhood. There is always a master-slave, owner-owned relationship in ownership, as such that if you own something, nothing can own you, and if you are owned by one thing, you cannot own anything. This is also what renders slavery illegitimate as it transgresses self-ownership and the rights that follow through from it.

Then, demonstrate that I actually do own them.

How can I demonstrate a quality I'm not actually sure you have?

PS: Or, in other words, going back to your first post:

i. The person is made from the functional body.
ii. Without the functional body, there is no person.
iii. The functional body belongs to the person.
1. The person owns their body.

Please show why items iii. and 1. are not merely restatements of each other

They are restatements of each other, and they are supposed to be restatements of each other. I've said this before, but I guess I'll have to say it again: this thread spawned from the Anarchism thread, and there I began most, if not all, of my arguments with the pivotal 1. You own yourself, or 1. The person owns their body. I was asked why this was, and it became this thread. I followed the style from the Anarchism thread, where I gave the self-ownership-justifying axioms lower-case Roman numerals and have them culminate to form the self-ownership I was assuming: 1. The person owns their body. The fact that iii. and 1. are restatements of each other means that I did what I was supposed to do, and that, as a result, self-ownership must be true.

[Renewed Dissonance]

I've always suspected that when "liberals" defend democracy, they are really defending slavery. They intend to defend the monopoly of violence -- that which they end up actually describing.

Still, they fail to account for whether people of insufficient political means are actually able to make effective or meaningful choices under that system. They must ignore this question, however, otherwise their "democratic" system is revealed for what it really is.

Better. Yes.

This would be a clever retort, were I a Liberal, maybe.

To the extent that Liberalism actually supports and defends the capitalist wage system, my actual comments above apply to them as much as it does to "libertarians."

In fact, one might be surprised to learn that I generally agree with critiques of the welfare state, to the extent that such a state exists simply as a band-aid to keep the capitalist wage system nominally functional. This is why so many capitalist market systems are perfectly happy (regardless of election time bellyaching) to fund them.

I would also be happy to give you my full treatise on "insufficient political means" if you like.

Otherwise, there is no "slavery" in libertarianism...

To the extent that some market players enjoy more economic means (crudely "wealth") than others, and to the extent that the first can consequently command (via the threat of withdrawing access to economic resources -- wages, etc) the latter, this is debatable.

Slavery is incompatible with libertarianism...

This is true. "Libertarianism" on the other hand, might be a different story. Rothbard has already been mentioned.

...and the non-aggression principle.

The "non-aggression" principal introduces a whole new slew of problems:

The NAP is no help deciding the questions you’re attempting to answer at this level, because as Zwolinski notes, it’s parasitic on theories of property and coercion that reside at this same level of abstraction. You can’t resolve a philosophical debate between a classical liberal and a socialist by appealing to the NAP, because each can claim their view is consistent with that principle given their theories of property: The state is not “aggressing” on an individual “property owner” if in fact The People ultimately own (or have some kind of share right in) all property, given the normatively loaded way “aggression” is used here. The appeal of the NAP lies in its apparent simplicity and intuitive plausibility (tautologies tend to be intuitively plausible), but it’s typically deployed in a way that amounts to a kind of shell game: I argue that socialism must be rejected on the grounds that it violates this one simple moral principle, and hope my interlocutor doesn’t notice that I’ve essentially begged the question by baking a theory of strong property rights incompatible with socialism into my conception of “aggression,” when of course libertarian property rights are ultimately backed by the threat of (individual or state) violence as well.
...
This gets us to the deeper problem with the Non-Aggression Principle: It is not really a principle at all, but a tautology gesturing in the direction of a theory.

http://www.libertarianism.org/blog/non- ... -principle

[The Liberated Territories]

I've always suspected that when "liberals" defend democracy, they are really defending slavery. They intend to defend the monopoly of violence -- that which they end up actually describing.

Still, they fail to account for whether people of insufficient political means are actually able to make effective or meaningful choices under that system. They must ignore this question, however, otherwise their "democratic" system is revealed for what it really is.

Better. Yes.

This would be a clever retort, were I a Liberal, maybe.

To the extent that Liberalism actually supports and defends the capitalist wage system, my actual comments above apply to them as much as it does to "libertarians."

In fact, one might be surprised to learn that I generally agree with critiques of the welfare state, to the extent that such a state exists simply as a band-aid to keep the capitalist wage system nominally functional. This is why so many capitalist market systems are perfectly happy (regardless of election time bellyaching) to fund them.

I would also be happy to give you my full treatise on "insufficient political means" if you like.

Otherwise, there is no "slavery" in libertarianism...

To the extent that some market players enjoy more economic means (crudely "wealth") than others, and to the extent that the first can consequently command (via the threat of withdrawing access to economic resources -- wages, etc) the latter, this is debatable.

Slavery is incompatible with libertarianism...

This is true. "Libertarianism" on the other hand, might be a different story. Rothbard has already been mentioned.

...and the non-aggression principle.

The "non-aggression" principal introduces a whole new slew of problems:

The NAP is no help deciding the questions you’re attempting to answer at this level, because as Zwolinski notes, it’s parasitic on theories of property and coercion that reside at this same level of abstraction. You can’t resolve a philosophical debate between a classical liberal and a socialist by appealing to the NAP, because each can claim their view is consistent with that principle given their theories of property: The state is not “aggressing” on an individual “property owner” if in fact The People ultimately own (or have some kind of share right in) all property, given the normatively loaded way “aggression” is used here. The appeal of the NAP lies in its apparent simplicity and intuitive plausibility (tautologies tend to be intuitively plausible), but it’s typically deployed in a way that amounts to a kind of shell game: I argue that socialism must be rejected on the grounds that it violates this one simple moral principle, and hope my interlocutor doesn’t notice that I’ve essentially begged the question by baking a theory of strong property rights incompatible with socialism into my conception of “aggression,” when of course libertarian property rights are ultimately backed by the threat of (individual or state) violence as well.
...
This gets us to the deeper problem with the Non-Aggression Principle: It is not really a principle at all, but a tautology gesturing in the direction of a theory.

http://www.libertarianism.org/blog/non- ... -principle

Haha, yes. I'd like to see a sample of it.

That is not slavery though. The definition of slavery is the "Condition in which one human being is owned by another." (Concise encyclopedia). Even if you are a wage "slave" and have your resources restricted, you are still not a slave as you "own yourself," or in other words, you are your own person and can affect your own choices/have free will (if you believe in it.) Using the most liberal definition of slavery and applying it the most...liberally (sorry), we could assume that everyone is a slave to nature and this planet since we cannot control the actions of the weather or easily survive outside of Earth. It is that sort of "coercion" and "aggression" which is dismissed by Libertarians.

A both Aug and I have proven above, the concept of "slavery" is an impossibility given the contractual nature of pure propertarianism. Despite being the founder of anarcho-capitalism and lending it to many of his ideas, Rothbard wasn't that great of a philosopher. He applied the NAP like an axiom, and not a principle, in which it pervaded everything else and damn the consequences. The idea was that good consequences would arise through 100% adherence to it, which is silly, and is incredibly simplistic. Although I admire his consistency, using the non-aggression principle as an axiom is unheard of outside the old school Rothbardian camp.

The NAP is just that - a principle. Nothing more, nothing less. It is generally believed among libertarians to give good consequences, but isn't a simplistic replacement for law. One does not (or should not) treat the constitution as the end of the means, but it should be a guide. It's arbitrary, but so is the idea of property, aggression, even law when it comes down to it, and it stands upon but mere observances of universals - you shall not kill, you shall not steal, etc. For the NAP, it's mostly a guide for social and economic universals that are thought to bring out the best consequences. It doesn't proclaim to be invulnerable - like any other code of law, thought, or philosophy - but argues instead such vulnerabilities will be reduced and/or eliminated through principled adherence. Ergo the inconsistencies that seem to crop up are not axiomatically upheld, (and will probably not be) but is meant to offer more of a choice.

I hope that clears it up a bit. I have another source from another thread that is even better, but I can't find it atm.