The core of Liberalism
Many people take individual freedom or liberty as the central tenet of liberalism, as I did until recently.
The more I’ve thought about it however the more I’ve come to believe that there is one more fundamental concept in liberalism from which a liberal definition of liberty arises. That is self ownership.
Freedom and liberty are often very ill defined, socialists have redefined freedom to mean something entirely different from the liberal meaning, even fascists talk of freedom and liberty, but they mean something completely incompatible with liberal freedom. Self ownership cannot be blurred in such a way, it can only mean that each individual owns themselves.
That automatically rules out slavery, either to an individual or an organisation. Slavery entails not owning the fruits of your labour, things created by yourself, self ownership implies you own them.
Self ownership rules out coercion to act in ways you do not wish to, leading to the liberal conception of freedom - being able to act as you wish so long as this does not conflict with another person or cause harm.
Self ownership also brings in the concept of responsibility for your actions, something which too many conceptions of freedom leave out. If you own yourself then you own your actions, therefore you can be held responsible for them.
So much of liberalism falls out of the concept of self ownership - free trade for example. If you own yourself and the fruits of your labours who can tell you how to dispose of your produce?
Most of the principles of a liberal market capitalist economy and society descend directly from self ownership. Society rests upon consent and cooperation.
The liberal is someone who supports the self ownership of each individual and sees that as inviolate.
The authoritarian believes that at least some part of yourself does not belong to you, be it all of you in a slave state, your religious beliefs in a religious state or your work in a socialist state.
Self ownership seems to me to be a good solid starting point for liberalism, perhaps we should think in terms of it more often.
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March 9th, 2007 at 10:28 am
I’ve long thought of it as “being in control”, but self-ownership is more eloquent. A Rennardism I offered at Meeting The Challenge for our ‘big idea’ was “you’re in charge”.
March 9th, 2007 at 10:30 am
I should probably explain that “Rennardism” was the term introduced at the meeting for an election slogan summing up Lib Dem values. Chris himself was on the platform, so I hope it’s clear it’s an affectionate term!
March 9th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Self-ownership. Very Lockean. From which some of us draw the early justification for land taxes.
Income, the argument goes, is the product of your labour. Keeping all of your income (and the capital and wealth you build with it) therefore is part and parcel of self-ownership. However, nobody can attain “self-ownership” who is also indentured to another for the very basics of life, as a tenant is to a landlord for shelter. Therefore, it is morally right that the community has to see that peoples ownership and exclusive occupancy of land does not impinge on another’s right to have access to some as well, and of the same quality. Thence comes the justification for the “community collection of rent”. Rent being that portion of the cost of land that expresses a market value put on it because it breaches Locke’s proviso.
Sorry! :)
March 9th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
I like the idea of a land tax, but this dressing it up discredits it for me. Are you seriously arguing that a tenant is in some way indentured to a landlord? Are you seriously saying that someone needs to own land to earn a living or get shelter? I worked away and for years before I owned any land.
There are perfectly good utilitarian arguments for land tax. I think you’d do better to stick to those.
March 11th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
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