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This paper assesses the normative significance of self-ownership in political philosophy. Libertarianism's argument for the entitlement theory and Marxism's critique of worker exploitation in capitalism are both based on the notion of selfownership. Yet, the question arises as to whether self-ownership is an acceptable idea upon which to base central arguments of political philosophy. This paper contends that while self-ownership appears to have some value, a commitment to the idea of self-ownership can weaken the claims of both libertarians and Marxists, and an appeal to self-ownership alone does not provide a compelling reason to accept either libertarianism or Marxism.
I will begin by outlining two basic arguments of libertarianism and Marxism, the entitlement theory, and worker exploitation. By doing this, I will show how these two philosophies both appeal to a similar notion of self-ownership. I will then assess the disadvantages of appealing to the idea of self-ownership for both libertarianism and Marxism, and show that by causing difficulties for both philosophies, the idea of self-ownership does not offer a compelling argument by which to accept one philosophy over the other. I will do this by showing that appeal to self-ownership in the libertarian entitlement theory can lead to inequalities which seem intuitively unjust. I will then suggest that libertarians accept such inequalities by appealing to the false assumption that people have absolute rights to the fruits of their talents. Then, I will show that Marxism's appeal to self-ownership in the exploitation argument might logically force Marxists to accept a capitalist relationship which Marxists may actually wish to condemn. Finally, I will discuss a possible objection that libertarians may raise which asserts that self-ownership provides rights which are intuitively valuable, such as freedom from slavery. I will answer this objection by showing that while libertarians provide for formal self-ownership, they do not provide for substantive self-ownership. Moreover, those things which are considered to be of value in formal and substantive self-ownership can be provided for by liberalism, even though liberalism does not base its philosophy on a concept of self-ownership.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy which views the free-market economy as inherently just and claims that redistributive taxation is a violation of people's rights. Libertarianism asserts this because it posits that people have a...