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	<title>Comments on: Self-ownership and consistency with Independence</title>
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		<title>By: Desires &#124; Reason for Liberty</title>
		<link>http://www.reasonforliberty.com/anarcho-capitalism/self-ownership-consistency-independence.html#comment-2753</link>
		<dc:creator>Desires &#124; Reason for Liberty</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:46:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.reasonforliberty.com/?p=3794#comment-2753</guid>
		<description>[...] [&#8617;]Moral Degradation of Modern Society or Moral Evolution, ReasonForLiberty [&#8617;]Self-ownership and Consistency with Independence, ReasonforLiberty [...]</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>[...] [&#8617;]Moral Degradation of Modern Society or Moral Evolution, ReasonForLiberty [&#8617;]Self-ownership and Consistency with Independence, ReasonforLiberty [...]</p>
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		<title>By: renegade_division</title>
		<link>http://www.reasonforliberty.com/anarcho-capitalism/self-ownership-consistency-independence.html#comment-2601</link>
		<dc:creator>renegade_division</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:14:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.reasonforliberty.com/?p=3794#comment-2601</guid>
		<description>If this argument you have raised is not another bash of a desire of achieving complete or at least more liberty, nor you are just trying to bash Unpretentious diva in a way to &#039;defeat&#039; her in debate, and if you really are convinced that we need complete liberty, but you just don&#039;t think how that can be done, then I might try answering your question. But if this is another attempt to somehow demonstrate that its all impractical and its never going to happen, just save us some trouble.

If that is a genuine question, then the answer is, that even I don&#039;t really know how complete freedom can be achieved. I am honestly working on it.  I have no more or less clue about how to do it than Gandhi had on how to get rid of British rule in 1897. Contrary to what you might believe until 1928 Indian Independence movement wasn&#039;t really an independence movement, it was more like &#039;let us rule ourselves under the crown&#039; movement. It was in 1928(merely 19 years before we actually achieved independence) that we  started a &#039;Poorna Swaraj&#039; movement in India(it was 26 Jan 1929 exactly, the first time Congress party put the idea in public of a complete freedom).

My point is, until 1928 Indians didn&#039;t even think of completely independent India. Or put it this way that since 1857 to 1928, the Indian independence movement was really a Indian commonwealth movement(like Canada and Australia currently are under British Crown). Why? Its not like nobody thought of a completely free India, rather they knew that it would be too far fetching for Indians. People didn&#039;t even think it was possible for India to be completely free from British rule.

Mind you people weren&#039;t really desiring a previous situation, there was no Indian nation or republic to start with when Britishers came to India. People weren&#039;t really dreaming of a republic as we have today they were merely comparing British rule with Mughals and Kings. Yet in 1947 we got what nobody could sold it to Indians until 1928. Complete independence from British Rule.

I cannot really tell you HOW we can achieve complete liberty, but all I can tell you I am observing the &#039;fight&#039; against the govt. And more and more I see how much justified the govt has made itself. I rarely like to quote Ayn Rand(I just read her &#039;Atlas Shrugged&#039;), but she wrote a few things which Gandhi may or may not have written but sounds like he understood it and may or may not have written about it(I haven&#039;t read much Gandhi yet, but his books are making in my &#039;to read&#039; list. What she said was the way govt works, they need our consent for anything. They want justification for their actions, and as soon as they get your consent(you show your consent by using their system), they win. In her novel Rand shows her character&#039;s own way of winning by not giving their consents.
In real life Gandhi did the same by making a whole nation say no to British Rule.

In my rediscovery of Gandhism, something very peculiar which never made sense to me(and that particular action made Gandhi the most hated character among the viewers of the movie &#039;Bhagat Singh&#039; by Ajay Devgan) and that was revoking the whole Non-Cooperation movement based on one incident of violence in Chauri Chaura. I remember hating Gandhi myself when I saw the scene in that movie. Now I realize that by using violence against the Britishers the people handed Britishers a weapon against Gandhi, now Britishers could simply start shooting the non-cooperation participant citing violence, but Gandhi immediately disarmed Britishers by taking back the whole movement. How could Britishers accuse Gandhi of being evil and violent? How could they shoot a man like that and not fear widescale anger in public. If they shoot Bhagat Singh people would rise for him, but not as much as people would if Gandhi was shot dead by Britishers.

Britishers really wanted to hang Bhagat Singh and all his revolutionary friends, but they could not touch a guy who refuses to raise arms against them. It was just against their system, they wanted consent, among their own people. They wanted that their officers when shoot the revolutionaries do not feel remorse(and they would have felt remorse if they were made to shoot Gandhi). After all British officers were human too.

This is exactly what I am trying to understand now. Gandhism makes much more sense to me now. Gandhi may not have been a libertarian, but his method was the most compatible method of libertarianism.
I am sorry but I cannot answer your question on how to be free in 10 steps or less. But I can tell you the answer lies in the sole philosophy of libertarianism, the non-initiation of aggression.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If this argument you have raised is not another bash of a desire of achieving complete or at least more liberty, nor you are just trying to bash Unpretentious diva in a way to &#8216;defeat&#8217; her in debate, and if you really are convinced that we need complete liberty, but you just don&#8217;t think how that can be done, then I might try answering your question. But if this is another attempt to somehow demonstrate that its all impractical and its never going to happen, just save us some trouble.</p>
<p>If that is a genuine question, then the answer is, that even I don&#8217;t really know how complete freedom can be achieved. I am honestly working on it.  I have no more or less clue about how to do it than Gandhi had on how to get rid of British rule in 1897. Contrary to what you might believe until 1928 Indian Independence movement wasn&#8217;t really an independence movement, it was more like &#8216;let us rule ourselves under the crown&#8217; movement. It was in 1928(merely 19 years before we actually achieved independence) that we  started a &#8216;Poorna Swaraj&#8217; movement in India(it was 26 Jan 1929 exactly, the first time Congress party put the idea in public of a complete freedom).</p>
<p>My point is, until 1928 Indians didn&#8217;t even think of completely independent India. Or put it this way that since 1857 to 1928, the Indian independence movement was really a Indian commonwealth movement(like Canada and Australia currently are under British Crown). Why? Its not like nobody thought of a completely free India, rather they knew that it would be too far fetching for Indians. People didn&#8217;t even think it was possible for India to be completely free from British rule.</p>
<p>Mind you people weren&#8217;t really desiring a previous situation, there was no Indian nation or republic to start with when Britishers came to India. People weren&#8217;t really dreaming of a republic as we have today they were merely comparing British rule with Mughals and Kings. Yet in 1947 we got what nobody could sold it to Indians until 1928. Complete independence from British Rule.</p>
<p>I cannot really tell you HOW we can achieve complete liberty, but all I can tell you I am observing the &#8216;fight&#8217; against the govt. And more and more I see how much justified the govt has made itself. I rarely like to quote Ayn Rand(I just read her &#8216;Atlas Shrugged&#8217;), but she wrote a few things which Gandhi may or may not have written but sounds like he understood it and may or may not have written about it(I haven&#8217;t read much Gandhi yet, but his books are making in my &#8216;to read&#8217; list. What she said was the way govt works, they need our consent for anything. They want justification for their actions, and as soon as they get your consent(you show your consent by using their system), they win. In her novel Rand shows her character&#8217;s own way of winning by not giving their consents.<br />
In real life Gandhi did the same by making a whole nation say no to British Rule.</p>
<p>In my rediscovery of Gandhism, something very peculiar which never made sense to me(and that particular action made Gandhi the most hated character among the viewers of the movie &#8216;Bhagat Singh&#8217; by Ajay Devgan) and that was revoking the whole Non-Cooperation movement based on one incident of violence in Chauri Chaura. I remember hating Gandhi myself when I saw the scene in that movie. Now I realize that by using violence against the Britishers the people handed Britishers a weapon against Gandhi, now Britishers could simply start shooting the non-cooperation participant citing violence, but Gandhi immediately disarmed Britishers by taking back the whole movement. How could Britishers accuse Gandhi of being evil and violent? How could they shoot a man like that and not fear widescale anger in public. If they shoot Bhagat Singh people would rise for him, but not as much as people would if Gandhi was shot dead by Britishers.</p>
<p>Britishers really wanted to hang Bhagat Singh and all his revolutionary friends, but they could not touch a guy who refuses to raise arms against them. It was just against their system, they wanted consent, among their own people. They wanted that their officers when shoot the revolutionaries do not feel remorse(and they would have felt remorse if they were made to shoot Gandhi). After all British officers were human too.</p>
<p>This is exactly what I am trying to understand now. Gandhism makes much more sense to me now. Gandhi may not have been a libertarian, but his method was the most compatible method of libertarianism.<br />
I am sorry but I cannot answer your question on how to be free in 10 steps or less. But I can tell you the answer lies in the sole philosophy of libertarianism, the non-initiation of aggression.</p>
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		<title>By: Unpretentious Diva</title>
		<link>http://www.reasonforliberty.com/anarcho-capitalism/self-ownership-consistency-independence.html#comment-2599</link>
		<dc:creator>Unpretentious Diva</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:18:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.reasonforliberty.com/?p=3794#comment-2599</guid>
		<description>&lt;blockquote&gt;what about stocks &amp; bonds which were issued by private companies? do you consider it as wealth or money? why / how would stocks / bonds restrict the production of wealth?&lt;/blockquote&gt;

Bonds irrespective of issued by private sector or government are not wealth.
Rather they are promises of a futuristic increment of the monetary value they represent. Since money itself is not wealth, stocks or bonds cannot be termed as wealth.
In case of bonds issued by private sector, the increment in monetary value may represent an increase in wealth production (it may not be the case too), but in bonds issued by government it is definitely destruction of wealth production.

The stocks of private sector can be termed as wealth, because they are basically documents of agreement representing a share in the existing wealth.

Stocks/Bonds issued by government are definitely destructive to wealth
Why?
Government bonds/stocks represents that there are some definite streams of production exclusively under governmental control disallowing any free-competition and restricting the producers to enter in those productive sectors. Such monopoly obviously is destructive of wealth and prosperity and is restrictive of development.
Yet, there is a security of increase in monetary value of gov. bonds.
An example is Indian agricultural sector. No matters how bad agriculture sector goes down, the value of &quot;Kisan Vikas Patra&quot; will increase, that increase in monetary value is actually engrossed from the citizens itself in form of levies and taxes etc.
If government creates documents forcing value inside it(like fiat currency, or carbon credits) then its not real wealth. Its destructive to wealth.
I am not very clear about it though, I will look for further clarifications.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><p>what about stocks &amp; bonds which were issued by private companies? do you consider it as wealth or money? why / how would stocks / bonds restrict the production of wealth?</p></blockquote>
<p>Bonds irrespective of issued by private sector or government are not wealth.<br />
Rather they are promises of a futuristic increment of the monetary value they represent. Since money itself is not wealth, stocks or bonds cannot be termed as wealth.<br />
In case of bonds issued by private sector, the increment in monetary value may represent an increase in wealth production (it may not be the case too), but in bonds issued by government it is definitely destruction of wealth production.</p>
<p>The stocks of private sector can be termed as wealth, because they are basically documents of agreement representing a share in the existing wealth.</p>
<p>Stocks/Bonds issued by government are definitely destructive to wealth<br />
Why?<br />
Government bonds/stocks represents that there are some definite streams of production exclusively under governmental control disallowing any free-competition and restricting the producers to enter in those productive sectors. Such monopoly obviously is destructive of wealth and prosperity and is restrictive of development.<br />
Yet, there is a security of increase in monetary value of gov. bonds.<br />
An example is Indian agricultural sector. No matters how bad agriculture sector goes down, the value of &#8220;Kisan Vikas Patra&#8221; will increase, that increase in monetary value is actually engrossed from the citizens itself in form of levies and taxes etc.<br />
If government creates documents forcing value inside it(like fiat currency, or carbon credits) then its not real wealth. Its destructive to wealth.<br />
I am not very clear about it though, I will look for further clarifications.</p>
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		<title>By: Unpretentious Diva</title>
		<link>http://www.reasonforliberty.com/anarcho-capitalism/self-ownership-consistency-independence.html#comment-2600</link>
		<dc:creator>Unpretentious Diva</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:14:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.reasonforliberty.com/?p=3794#comment-2600</guid>
		<description>Michael,

I agree with you.
But here for this particular write up, I used principle of Non-Initiation of Aggression to signify self-ownership because initially, I had composed it for describing the importance of division of labour and its dependencve on property rights and overall, Individual Freedom to own, govern and be responsible for himself.

Since the initial write up became heavy and lengthy, we divided in two parts, and may be because of that the whole issue of using principle of non-initiation to describe importance of self-governance/ownership/responsibility lost its essence.

Anyways, the remaining part has been published.
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.reasonforliberty.com/objectivism/division-of-labor-productivity-prosperity.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Division of labour, prosperity and production of labour&lt;/a&gt;.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Michael,</p>
<p>I agree with you.<br />
But here for this particular write up, I used principle of Non-Initiation of Aggression to signify self-ownership because initially, I had composed it for describing the importance of division of labour and its dependencve on property rights and overall, Individual Freedom to own, govern and be responsible for himself.</p>
<p>Since the initial write up became heavy and lengthy, we divided in two parts, and may be because of that the whole issue of using principle of non-initiation to describe importance of self-governance/ownership/responsibility lost its essence.</p>
<p>Anyways, the remaining part has been published.<br />
<a href="http://www.reasonforliberty.com/objectivism/division-of-labor-productivity-prosperity.html" rel="nofollow">Division of labour, prosperity and production of labour</a>.</p>
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		<title>By: MichaelM</title>
		<link>http://www.reasonforliberty.com/anarcho-capitalism/self-ownership-consistency-independence.html#comment-2598</link>
		<dc:creator>MichaelM</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:05:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.reasonforliberty.com/?p=3794#comment-2598</guid>
		<description>Diva,

While I am in general agreement with the content of your post as a whole, I would like to offer you an  understanding of the basis of freedom that differs from this:

&quot;Freedom is based on Non-Initiation of Aggression axiom that no man or group of men may aggress against a person or the property of any person. A human body is the natural border of the individual thus; using the body of another without his or her consent is aggression against him and hence is impermissible. This definitely confirms the idea of property rights in one’s body, that is, each person is the owner of his body;&quot;

While the non-initiation of force principle is an important element of Rand&#039;s politics, it is not an axiom underpinning the concept of freedom, but rather the necessary means to fulfill man&#039;s ethical requirement to achieve a life in accordance with his nature. That ethical requirement derives first of all from the fact that we are living entities facing, like all living entities, the fundamental alternative of existence or non-existence, life or death. By our nature, our specific capacity to deal with that alternative is reason volitionally applied to action. If one chooses to pursue the alternative of death, questions of first principles are moot. If one chooses life, then life becomes one&#039;s goal and the standard of all values.

The complex and spontaneous nature of our lives requires us to identify those values we must seek in the service of our life and order them into a code of values to guide our choices — i.e. an ethics. Those values require certain kinds of action (virtues) in principle to achieve them, and the ability to exercise those actions in pursuit of our values in the service of our life necessitates certain preconditions that are, if properly identified and defined, morally right to demand and defend. The primary precondition is the freedom to exercise autonomy over the application of reason and action in the service of our life. Thus the the right to life and our need for freedom is based on what we are — on the fundamental nature of man.

The moral right to one&#039;s life is not a social/political right. It is that which in principle is right for any individual in the context of his own life. When and if an individual chooses to live among other men and interact with them over the long run, he needs to preserve his ability to live by his moral rights. Nothing can prevent him from doing that except physical force or the threat of force, so, above all, his primary social need is the absence of coercion so he may apply reason and action to production and voluntary trade.

To that end, Rand proposes a neutral third party institution (government) subject to the will of the populace through a system of checks and balances that would monopolize force in order to restrict its use solely for protection against coercion. It would in effect exercise an absolute tyranny against coercion in order to achieve absolute liberty for production and voluntary trade. In my words, its mandate would be to guarantee that:

No person shall initiate the use of physical force to gain, withhold, or destroy any tangible or intangible value owned by any other person who created it or acquired it in a voluntary exchange.

The political rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness are the principles that define what actions the government must protect and what contrary actions other men may not exercise. They are the extension of  moral rights in the context of the life of an individual into the social context of an individual living in a society of men.

So, you can see that both freedom and one&#039;s right to life as well as to property are all based on the more fundamental fact of one&#039;s nature as a human being and not on the non-aggression principle. Consequently, it is not accurate to speak of owning one&#039;s body or self, because the right to one&#039;s own life precedes the concept of ownership. The concept &quot;ownership&quot; refers to the control of external products of the application of one&#039;s mind and actions.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Diva,</p>
<p>While I am in general agreement with the content of your post as a whole, I would like to offer you an  understanding of the basis of freedom that differs from this:</p>
<p>&#8220;Freedom is based on Non-Initiation of Aggression axiom that no man or group of men may aggress against a person or the property of any person. A human body is the natural border of the individual thus; using the body of another without his or her consent is aggression against him and hence is impermissible. This definitely confirms the idea of property rights in one’s body, that is, each person is the owner of his body;&#8221;</p>
<p>While the non-initiation of force principle is an important element of Rand&#8217;s politics, it is not an axiom underpinning the concept of freedom, but rather the necessary means to fulfill man&#8217;s ethical requirement to achieve a life in accordance with his nature. That ethical requirement derives first of all from the fact that we are living entities facing, like all living entities, the fundamental alternative of existence or non-existence, life or death. By our nature, our specific capacity to deal with that alternative is reason volitionally applied to action. If one chooses to pursue the alternative of death, questions of first principles are moot. If one chooses life, then life becomes one&#8217;s goal and the standard of all values.</p>
<p>The complex and spontaneous nature of our lives requires us to identify those values we must seek in the service of our life and order them into a code of values to guide our choices — i.e. an ethics. Those values require certain kinds of action (virtues) in principle to achieve them, and the ability to exercise those actions in pursuit of our values in the service of our life necessitates certain preconditions that are, if properly identified and defined, morally right to demand and defend. The primary precondition is the freedom to exercise autonomy over the application of reason and action in the service of our life. Thus the the right to life and our need for freedom is based on what we are — on the fundamental nature of man.</p>
<p>The moral right to one&#8217;s life is not a social/political right. It is that which in principle is right for any individual in the context of his own life. When and if an individual chooses to live among other men and interact with them over the long run, he needs to preserve his ability to live by his moral rights. Nothing can prevent him from doing that except physical force or the threat of force, so, above all, his primary social need is the absence of coercion so he may apply reason and action to production and voluntary trade.</p>
<p>To that end, Rand proposes a neutral third party institution (government) subject to the will of the populace through a system of checks and balances that would monopolize force in order to restrict its use solely for protection against coercion. It would in effect exercise an absolute tyranny against coercion in order to achieve absolute liberty for production and voluntary trade. In my words, its mandate would be to guarantee that:</p>
<p>No person shall initiate the use of physical force to gain, withhold, or destroy any tangible or intangible value owned by any other person who created it or acquired it in a voluntary exchange.</p>
<p>The political rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness are the principles that define what actions the government must protect and what contrary actions other men may not exercise. They are the extension of  moral rights in the context of the life of an individual into the social context of an individual living in a society of men.</p>
<p>So, you can see that both freedom and one&#8217;s right to life as well as to property are all based on the more fundamental fact of one&#8217;s nature as a human being and not on the non-aggression principle. Consequently, it is not accurate to speak of owning one&#8217;s body or self, because the right to one&#8217;s own life precedes the concept of ownership. The concept &#8220;ownership&#8221; refers to the control of external products of the application of one&#8217;s mind and actions.</p>
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		<title>By: Gopi Krishnan</title>
		<link>http://www.reasonforliberty.com/anarcho-capitalism/self-ownership-consistency-independence.html#comment-2597</link>
		<dc:creator>Gopi Krishnan</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:55:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.reasonforliberty.com/?p=3794#comment-2597</guid>
		<description>&quot;for example, various legal rights and licenses provided by government, like liquor license, patents, stocks, bonds, copyrights etc[5], do possess market value and are property, but they are not wealth, rather they restricts the production of wealth.&quot;

what about stocks &amp; bonds which were issued by private companies? do you consider it as wealth or money? why / how would stocks / bonds restrict the production of wealth?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;for example, various legal rights and licenses provided by government, like liquor license, patents, stocks, bonds, copyrights etc[5], do possess market value and are property, but they are not wealth, rather they restricts the production of wealth.&#8221;</p>
<p>what about stocks &amp; bonds which were issued by private companies? do you consider it as wealth or money? why / how would stocks / bonds restrict the production of wealth?</p>
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