Beyond clearing up the typical knee jerk reaction to the word anarchy of screaming "Chaos and Death". I think anarchists, voluntarists or those in pursuit of freedom/liberty, under whatever label, should understand and be able to explain much of what I want to discuss here.
Anarchy is only achievable through internal monarchy. In other words the only way for a free society to manifest is if we take responsibility for ourselves and take action in accordance with that. If our actions divert our responsibility of self to others those actions are not a positive gain towards anarchy or a free society. A simpler way of saying that might be, we must be aware of our ownership of self and act accordingly.
Self ownership isn't just some opinion on a political party's platform for the upcoming election. It also isn't true just because.... We must be able to explain why this is not only an ideal of anarchists and others. It is objective truth. Self refers to the being and/or consciousness. That's the body, mind, soul whatever you want to call it really. Ownership refers to possession and exclusive control. From birth we can all objectively see and know that our consciousness(self) had full possession and exclusive control(ownership) of our body(self). The self owns the self, if you will.
Yes, people can attempt to own others through coercion, threats and other violence. I say violence because any violation of Natural Law or Right is violence. It is a fact that such things will happen, but that does not change the fact of self ownership being truth. Even when coerced it is still the self that possess the body and commands it to go along with the coercion. That does not make the coercion voluntary in any way, its just a realization that yes the body is still owned by the self.
Self Ownership is the basis for all Natural rights. It can also be said that it is the only natural right. If one owns itself it also owns its actions and the product there of. That doesn't just mean produce or material goods. The product of actions can just be consequences of any sort. Being a dick can lead to people not wanting to be around you is a decent example of such a thing. Yes it does also apply to created things as well. If I build a hammer it is my hammer to do with as I please. It is an extension of myself ownership just the same as having no friends was in the previous example.
After saying all that I'll wrap up by saying this is what the basics of anarchy, voluntarism, freedom or liberty should be explained as. Can we go more in depth. yea certainly, but this is the perfect place to start.
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This idea immediately resonated on a heart level with me, and it seems to hold up to logic, scrutiny and reason. I think you do a pretty decent breakdown of it.
I've had the debates with the socialists that say things like, "property is an illusion and a human construct," which sounds great and everything, but it's really easy to demonstrate the idea of property and Natural Law to anyone: just break in their house and steal all their shit; maybe rape them or something; shoot their dog--and see if they don't object and claim to be violated. ;p
I also think it's really interesting to see all the people who were influenced by Mark's work on Natural Law.
Nice article,
Joel