The typical reasoning goes like this. Ownership is defined as exclusive control and since “I control my body” proven by the fact I’m writing this I own myself. Therefore by extension I own the products of my actions or labor. Yet at the same time it seems that some libertarians, voluntaryists or anarcho-capitalists consider property to be a mere concept, something not derived from reality, but rather just a nice idea that is successful at creating harmony between people, so long as property is actually respected (unlike with the state).

So there are four problems I see here:

1. If ownership is solely defined as “exclusive control” and property as “that which is exclusively controlled” then if someone steals something he becomes the owner since at that point he’s the only one who controls it (exclusive control). This completely removes the possibility of theft occurring.

2. “I control my body” and subsequent “I own my body” and even “I own me” doesn’t satisfy anarcho-socialists because in a statement “I own me”, “I” and “me” refer to the same thing yet they tend to insist that property must be external to its owner. I think we have to do better than what we typically do (from my experience) to resolve this.

3. Why exactly does self ownership extend to ownership of things other than self? What is the logic behind that? Also, what happens if we stop being human-centric about this and look for evidence of property outside of the human sphere? This is important if such evidence exists because it provides a significant additional proof for property beyond the disputed “I own me” reasoning.

4. How can you at the same time say that self-ownership arises from a physical objective fact that you control your body and then go about speaking of property as if it doesn’t have roots in the physical and objective world and is rather just an abstract, but useful concept that we can dismiss once we have abundance and infinite resources?? Do infinite resources suddenly change the fact you control your body?

My responses to these issues, albeit they are to some extent a work in progress, follow.

PROBLEM 1. If ownership is solely defined as “exclusive control” and property as “that which is exclusively controlled” then if someone steals something he becomes the owner since at that point he’s the only one who controls it (exclusive control). This completely removes the possibility of theft occurring.

Apparently defining ownership as “exclusive control” makes violation of property, that is theft, impossible. Regardless whether you take by trade or just steal something, ownership is just transfered, as physical control over an object is transfered. I don’t think any supporter of property ownership actually means it like this so this definition fails to communicate the actual meaning properly.

The most simple alternative definition would be “the right to exclusive control”. However, I’m becoming quite vary of references to rights, something I’ve realized in a discussion I had yesterday with another anarchist (socialist type). To illustrate consider the moral of non-coercion which basically says that “to coerce is wrong”. On this basis we typically describe “not coercing” as right, yet it isn’t right, but rather just the absence of “wrong”, an unmodified natural state. In that sense “right” doesn’t even exist. Whenever it is thus invoked it actually involves a positive entitlement or a positive obligation. If we’re speaking of negative moral statements (“you should not coerce” or “coercion is wrong”), rights don’t exist.

Thus defining ownership as “right to exclusive control” seems faulty because it implies a positive obligation where none exists. All we’re then left with is a negative moral statement, but we don’t quite know what it is yet because we haven’t yet defined ownership. We have a scaffolding of a statement, which is basically “do not act as if you own what you do not own”, but we haven’t yet defined what “own” is.

So I would take another approach. Let’s define ownership by including every condition necessary for it to be in effect. We will then know exactly which conditions need to be met before we can proclaim someone an owner and before we can classify any particular action as a violation of someone’s ownership, or theft.

The definition I thus propose is the following:

“Ownership is exclusive control of object B by object A where object A caused the object B’s current form and position or existence in time and space”.

This definition of ownership rests not only on exclusive control, but on causality and a principle of priority which I will explain below. Therefore exclusive control is no longer the only thing necessary for something to be owned, but rather we also need there to be the closest causal relationship between an owner and the object’s current form and position or existence in time and space. In other words, you only own what you caused into existence as such by your own actions (or labor).

Problems with this definition?

There is one thing about this definition which may seem problematic at first. It’s the fact that action and reaction is a continuous process to which we know of no beginning (except the big bang perhaps) and no end. It could thus be said that a thief who moves a thing from your garage to his own garage now owns this thing by virtue of causing it to exist at a different point in time and space and if he modified it, in a different form as well.

Principle of Priority

The antidote to this problem however is implicit in the very definition of ownership put forward above and it is what I might call a “principle of priority”. In simplistic terms it is about asking the question: who owned it first? If someone already owns something then it is only that someone who can cease that ownership before another can take over. Overriding that would be theft as I explain below.

This isn’t any more silly than the fact that action causes a reaction. The fact that a thief moved a thing from my garage to his own and modified it doesn’t change the fact that for him to be able to do that I had to be the one to acquire it and put it in my own garage first. Thus his subsequent possession is completely dependent upon and predicated by my prior actions which is precisely what makes me into an owner.

What makes him into a thief, however, isn’t just the fact that his possession depended on my prior actions, but the fact that my action wasn’t the one that caused him to come to possession of it, such as the act of trade or giveaway. My exclusive control of an object ends where my stream of actions is terminated by the final act of disposal yet he terminated that control before me, taking advantage of the fruits of my actions or my control without acknowledging those actions and this control.

To take an example from fundamental process of the universe, the process of causality or action-reaction, it is as if a reaction happens without absorbing the energy of an effect of a prior action that caused it. It is like removing an “effect” from a domino effect while still observing the dominoes falling. Obviously, this is impossible as causality cannot function without both cause and effect.  Every action essentially “pays” for the effects of prior actions the costs imposed by a prior actor in the same sense as a force that pushes in one direction pushes equally in another.

Thieves try to override that on a macro scale of human interaction by absorbing the effect without absorbing the energy costs of it. When this happens a natural imbalance occurs. The non-paid actor is diminished (which humans express as a sense of loss and injustice and frustration that comes with it) whereas the thief is enriched. But just like everything else in the universe seeks a state of equilibrium, so will the violated person seek reparations or even revenge, causing violence in a society.

Another issue that might be raised against this way of defining ownership is that it seemingly makes parents into owners of their kids because parents caused their kids into existence at some point in time and space. However to stop at that conclusion would be to fail to acknowledge the nature of an “object” that is a human being. Namely, it cannot be externally controlled exclusively and if you somehow created beings who could by some technological means (The Borg drones bred in an incubator?) they wouldn’t really be humans anymore. The nature that makes them into humans would not be developed.

Since this is obviously not the case with pretty much all babies born it is safe to assume that to the extent to which a child exercises self control it cannot be owned by its parent. Instead it is self-owned. It directs itself to its own form and position in time and space. This ties to the established ideas about sentience, sapience and self awareness as differentiators necessary to discern between external ownership of animals and external ownership of humans whereas former becomes acceptable and latter not.

More could be said about the innards of animal ownership however which would reveal more about these extents or degrees of ownership which is oppositely proportional to the objects capacity to exclusively self-control. I will just say that every object does possess some extent of self-control which factors into its nature as itself. A rock for instance exhibits enough self-control to merely sit in place and keep itself together until outside forces break it down or move it. Given the huge gap between control that humans can exercise over a rock and control that rock can exercise over itself it is clear why humans have no qualms about owning rocks and other inanimate matter yet have huge qualms about owning other humans and some qualms about owning animals.

PROBLEM 2. Statments like “I control my body” and subsequent “I own my body” and even “I own me” don’t satisfy anarcho-socialists because in a statement “I own me”, “I” and “me” refer to the same thing yet they tend to insist that property must be external to its owner. I think a defender of property ownership has to do better than what we typically do (from my experience) to resolve this.

The basic issue here is the assumption that if I AM me then I cannot own me that comes from the assumption that what is owned must be separate or external from the owner itself. From my experience defenders of property ownership don’t do a very good job at tackling this issue because most of the time they don’t even try. They generally take self-ownership as an axiom and then call everyone who denies it as crazy because they evidently use ownership of their bodies to deny it.

I do largely agree with this, however, but I don’t think stating this is enough if you really want to have an anti-property person understand property. Sometimes even seemingly self-evident “axioms” need explaining. What use is an axiom if a person fails to see it due to his pre-conceived notions. If many religions prove anything it’s that preconceived notions can make people utterly blind even to the most obvious self-evident realities.

That said, there are two questions to be asked here.

1. Does the definition of ownership require the owner to be separate from what is owned?

Let’s take a look at the definition stated previously.

“Ownership is exclusive control of object B by object A where object A caused the object B’s current form and position or existence in time and space”.

Identifiers A and B imply a separation between objects, but it is not explicitly stated. So if we would favor the explicit over implicit we could say that the requirement for separation doesn’t exist in this definition. Otherwise it would.

But there is another thing that is more explicit in this definition and that is the statement of a causal relationship. It could be worth asking if causality itself requires two objects in a causal relationship to be separate? Can an object have a causal relationship with itself? Can an action of an object cause a reaction of that same object? To answer that question we have to define the object itself. In other words, we have to answer the second question, since the object in reference here is the “self”:

2. What is “self” or what is “me”?

There can be varying ways to define the “self”. In psychological terms the focus may be solely on the brain and its chemistry, the headquarters of who you are as a person, mentally speaking. Physically however we may need to refer to an entire body as this is the vessel which you travel in and by which you are to a large extent identified and discerned from other selves. We cannot however refer to anything that is outside of a body, that is, which refers neither to the brain nor any other part of the body nor the entire body since we simply do not have any evidence that this is where “self” resides. Indeed, such claims are in the realm of the mystical and religious.

The typical argument by property ownership advocates does however involve “control over my body” so I think it would be reasonable to take that as the definition of the “self” here. We can now return to questions asked above:

“Can an object have a causal relationship with itself? Can an action of an object cause a reaction of that same object?”

The object referred to here is the “self” and it is above defined as “the body” and a body is actually consisted of a multitude of organs which are further consisted of a multitude of cells and then finally molecules and atoms. For this body to be alive and animated many processes must be ongoing within it which essentially represent action and reaction between organs, between cells and between molecules. In other words if we define the object as a consistence of many other objects then that object can have a causal relationship with itself by means of one part of an object having a causal relationship with another to in turn make the entire object be what it naturally is.

In other words, self consistence (the state of being formed by structure of smaller parts which harmoniously interact with each other) allows self-ownership. It’s of course worth pointing out that the same is true of all objects in the macro universe we are living in. Rocks are self consistent as well and thus self-owned. Trees are self-consistent and thus self-owned.  We sometimes describe certain object by what we say to be its “properties”. This is quite interesting because as we’ve established here, it indeed has properties within the very context of ownership. It owns its properties.

We may for instance describe the properties of a flower to be its shape, composition, color, smell etc. Incidentally, the causal processes within a flower allow it to have these properties. These processes and smaller parts that it’s consisted of define the flower’s “self”. The flower thus owns itself and these properties as what it caused into being, consistent with the definition of ownership expressed above.

The objection that might be put forward at this point is that if flowers own themselves, how come we can own flowers. To respond I would refer to what I’ve said when I addressed the issue of parents owning their children which is the reference to the nature of the object itself. It changes everything. A flower may be self owned, but its ownership cannot include the capacity to consciously say no to a man cutting it down. So it has exclusive self-control only to the extent to which it by its nature CAN have exclusive self-control. This is also precisely why cutting it down is not a violation of its property. Its ownership extends only as far as its capacity to control does.

As an interesting side not, if there were beings so superior to humans that they would look at us the way we look at flowers, according to this they would be right in considering us their property because our capacity to own doesn’t extend as far as theirs. However the existence of such beings is currently limited only to the realm of pure fantasy. In any case, we are evolving and just like flowers we can strive to the maximum capacity that we can muster, but no further.

PROBLEM 3. Why exactly does self ownership extend to ownership of things other than self? What is the logic behind that? Also, what happens if we stop being human-centric about this and look for evidence of property outside of the human sphere? This is important if such evidence exists because it provides a significant additional proof for property beyond the disputed “I own me” reasoning.

I think that my answer to the resolution of this problem is dispersed in my answers to the above two problems. My definition of ownership is completely agnostic to humans and simply applies to “objects”, whatever they may be. The definition rests solely on exclusive control, causality and an implied principle of priority. When either of these conditions isn’t met ownership ceases. Control itself has a built-in limitation to ownership in that it only extends as far as the object in question is capable of controlling another object or itself. Human beings are capable of controlling more than just themselves and to the extent to which this is so they can thus own objects external to themselves.

There is also no fundamental distinction between the self and other objects in terms relevant to this definition of ownership. Both involve exclusive control of objects whose existence in time/space and form is caused such as they currently are. This fits a libertarian explanation of homesteading as means of acquiring the most disputed kind of property; ownership of land. The homesteading principle involves “mixing your labor” with the land which is just another way of referring to actions which cause the land in question to change some of its properties. A simple enclosure of the land typically does the trick and the more is done with the land the stronger the ownership case for it.

PROBLEM 4. How can you at the same time say that self-ownership arises from a physical objective fact that you control your body and then go about speaking of property as if it doesn’t have roots in the physical and objective world and is rather just an abstract, but useful concept that we can dismiss once we have abundance and infinite resources?? Do infinite resources suddenly change the fact you control your body?

This problem is expressed in form of the above rhetorical questions which by themselves illustrate the contradiction and my point which is the gist of my answer to such a contradictory practice.

Ownership as defined above relies on processes which are fundamental to everything in reality. Control is a stream of actions and causality is the relationship between an action and a reaction whereas an action is a cause and a reaction is an effect. The principle of priority which I derived from it also directly derives from a chronological nature of causality as we can observe it. Denial of priority would essentially be akin to the denial of time. So all of the components of ownership as defined here are completely fundamental to the functioning of the universe as we know it.

Ownership is essentially about the relationship between the cause and the effect whereas cause owns the effect. While causality refers to cause and effect themselves and the fact that they form an ongoing process, ownership refers to the very relationship between that which causes and that which is caused. To fully understand ownership would be to fully understand how a particular effect relates to any act within the causality chain it is a part of and to which extent can that act be credited for it.

It’s not too difficult to see how this applies to humans. We are after all a part of the same universe, the same ocean of causality chains. We have our specific natures which gives us specific capacities and therefore specific potentials to cause and therefore control and therefore own. To fully understand ownership as it pertains to humans is to understand how exactly does the effect (a particular piece of property) relate to all of the acts in the action-reaction chain that was necessary to put that object in the form it is, at the time it is in and in the place that it is at. Who was the first cause? Did he or she act to dispose of it? Who was the next controller? Did he act to dispose of it or was it stolen against his will? Etc. etc.

Infinite resources or infinite amount of desired objects never changes the fact that ownership exists any more than it changes the fact that the process of cause and effect continues. It merely changes the amount of value assign to the exclusive control of any given object and the likelihood that a dispute over its ownership will arise. Just because prosperity removes the distinction between haves and have nots doesn’t mean that what made them prosperous to begin with ceased to exist – the capacity to act in order to cause what is needed or desired, control the resulting effect and trade it in for effects caused by others – the free market of caused properties.

You also know that any of the conclusions you make, or rather milestones, could be a part of that 1%. In other words while there is at least 1% probability that you’re wrong, 100% of what you think you know is a candidate for what you’re wrong about.

Now consider post modernism. As a post modernist you give up this fight, you throw in the towel and just “admit” to yourself: “Meh, nothing is certain. Frak this constant struggle. Even the theory that objective reality exists is a candidate for this 1% probability of being wrong. Everything is, including the thinking that the probability of being wrong is only so low. What if the probability is 50%? I might as well pretend truth doesn’t exist and live from moment to moment. I know I wont change the world this way because I really don’t have a “one true way”, but at least I’ll live a life of adventure. Believe in nothing and nobody, throw yourself against the momentarily perceived reality and see what you get. Enjoy the exhilarating experience of a free fall to nowhere! Weee!”

Yep you are hearing these hypothetical words uttered by a rationalist, a guy who believes even morality can be determined empirically and logically and who believes that the non-coercion principle passes the test and remains a fundamental moral premise, a guy who despises post modernists and hates contradictions. How in the world is someone like me capable of uttering the above words without acting? Because of all contradictions the ones I hate the most are the ones I don’t yet know about! And it drives me nuts sometimes. Nuts, like all you post modernist frauds.

But there is something so devious and evil about this. I can smell it like the bad breath of a hypothetical devil lurking in the shadow waiting to reap your soul. If I let go, if I throw myself into the abyss of nihilism and post modernist thought. Me, the rationalist, me the despiser of nihilism. What hope is there for anybody else? If everyone gives up like this, if everyone throws themselves off this bridge, if everyone gives up on truth and begins accepting contradictions – we’ll contradict ourselves – we will destroy ourselves. Self contradiction is self destruction. That much would be certain. Because a sentient species which cannot resist the temptation of this nihilist abyss is the species whose days are numbered.

Nihilism is an ideological suicide. Suicide follows.

Wikipedia says that “wisdom is an ideal that has been celebrated since antiquity as the knowledge needed to live a good life”. Who doesn’t want to lead a good life? And indeed who doesn’t want to appear wise, regardless of whether they do lead a good life?

Every now and then I think all of us ask certain questions which go beyond the mere trivialities of life (fashionable clothing, tasty foods, small talk, gossip, partying, you name it). We ask what we perceive as “big” questions like “what’s the whole point of life” or “what happens after we die” or “why is anything true or false”… We see these questions as “big”, I would presume, mostly because they are hard to answer.

Ultimately, I think most of us form some kind of a stance on these questions. Deep down we probably know that we don’t know much about them, but if someone was to ask us what we think chances are we’ll blurt out some sort of a positive answer. Sometimes what we answer will be what we perceive the social circle we’re in wants us to answer (unfortunately, in my opinion, conformism is a terrible thing), but sometimes we’ll answer honestly without paying much attention to the fact that by doing so we are actually taking a philosophical position.

So on some levels we might all be philosophers to a certain extent, to the extent to which we ask big questions, think about them and take positions. This is enough to form a basis for further growth of our understanding and our wisdom. Unfortunately the society we are living in does not tend to foster building upon that much further. Everyone seems to be obsessed with control and regulation of each other where too much independent thought, indeed independent philosophy, is not only criticized, but sometimes violently repressed.

The dangerous result of that is a void being created in individual’s understanding of the world around as (s)he continues to experience it. This void, in absence of actively practiced philosophy and pursuit of truth and wisdom is instead filled by random superstition, mythologies or just utter nihilism (no point to anything, no truth.. we may as well kill ourselves where we stand, but why do it.. at least we can get wasted every weekend or enjoy those pitiful little pleasures.. you get the picture).

But that isn’t quite the best we can do as human beings isn’t it? Can’t anyone feel that there is a potential for so much more? My hope is to help build a new age of enlightenment with those who are already on the job so that one day every human being on Earth is a philosopher whose capacity to reason matches or exceeds the greatest philosophers in history. We can do that.

And just think of the consequences. The sole reason for the existence of ANY problem or any evil that exists in the world is nothing more than a lack of knowledge. Philosophy, combined with science, is the absolute fundamental practice to achieving knowledge.

The think tank persona in the episode talked about expanding one’s abilities by exploring the unknown. Given the context that would more likely be “cracking” the unknown, that is, making it known. Actually, every problem is a problem for no other reason than lack of knowledge anyway.

I identified with this immediately in terms of my self improvement and self government efforts and individualist thinking. I believe an individual not only has the right to, but the ability as well, to become far more than (s)he currently is. The individual in the think tank, however, was willing to use coercion in his quests. People were nothing more than another variables in his equations, something to be manipulated, by coercion if necessary, to achieve the desired result, or “solution” to his particular problem.

And so I thought.. if I were someone who developed his thinking skills to the point at which I actually can often manipulate other people to my ends, even through coercion, wouldn’t it be tempting to try that? After all, being “caught” or retaliated against is just another factor in the equation to deal with, and can theoretically be dealt with. Of course, I have a moral principle of non-coercion, so the answer is that while I would be tempted, I would find more greatness and satisfaction in achieving my ends without the use of coercion.

But the best realization came to me today just a short while ago.. It’s not really just about a moral principle for the sake of a principle. There is something intrinsic about coercion – it is actually always an anti-thesis to your victory, to your solution. If among your manipulative strategies you include coercion (including force and fraud) you are by definition leaving enemies behind, people who WILL eventually feel hurt and naturally have a desire to retaliate against you. Therefore, by using coercion in your strategies you keep on seeding the seeds of your own doom, your own ultimate or immediate failure.

If, on the other hand, you consider coercion itself to be an inevitable problem creating tool rather than an effective solution solving tool and therefore ban it from all your strategies and success formulas, you are gonna leave behind yourself a trail of people whom not only have no grudge against you, but have also genuinely benefited from an encounter with you. They wont tell people you’re a fraudster and conspire to take you down in retaliation (like they did in the mention Voyager episode). They will recommend you. Thus would would keep planting seeds of your ultimate or immediate success.

Coercion is a value destructor. Value cannot exist without a person assigning it to something therefore all value is subjective and individual. Your interaction with a person can either have him or her have more in value (material or immaterial, things, feelings, knowledge etc.), less in value or equal as before. Coercion is always a sure way of leaving someone not only with less in value, but feeling determined to in seeking justice have YOU have less in value as well. Therefore coercion is a tool of poverty and failure generation whereas voluntary interaction void of all coercion is a wealth and success generation tool.

Coerce and you shall be coerced. Violate and you shall be violated. Give and you shall receive. Bottom line is, what you do to others you can expect others to do to you. If you want to be rich, happy and wealthy make others rich, happy and wealthy.

I have to say this reminded me of a very recent comic that was done by Dale Everett on Anarchy In Your Head named Property as Theft. It’s meant to be funny, but as usual on AIYH to also make a point. While it’s somewhat fitting though, the property as coercion argument might not be exactly the same as the “property as theft” argument and can become quite sophisticated in that once someone establishes such a claim (s)he can then pose a few disclaimers like “despite it being coercion, it is sensible to allow some of it or else none of the things you acquire and need to use would be safe from simply disappearing because someone took them”, or similar arguments.

Of course, that’s incredibly flawed in my view, if anything then because it reflects quite imprecise thinking. The reasoning for allowing some “property as coercion” is pretty arbitrary and as such subjective. It’s very hard to pose such a disclaimer and claim it as an universal rule that everyone should follow, even if the rule was decided on by the majority of voters. In other words, if your claim is that property is coercion then the best way to stay logically consistent and avoid arbitrary reasoning is to reject all claims of property and indeed allow people to take your things as they see fit. At least if you actually believe coercion is morally reprehensible.

But let’s move on the the core of the issue, the claim itself: “property is coercion”. Let’s define both “property” and “coercion”.

Property

The claim “property is coercion” as well as one that “property is theft” has and usually is made in defiance to the libertarian and voluntaryist belief in self-ownership and absolute property rights as necessary for one to have liberty. In fact many, including myself, would often claim that property is synonymous to liberty.

As a voluntaryist myself I define property as an object being owned. And for an object to be owned someone must make a valid claim of ownership over it. A valid claim of ownership implies a statement of the claim and actions taken to substantiate that claim such as obtaining a statement of the previous owner agreeing to the change of ownership or a proof that no previous owner was found and clearly marking of new property as owned by the new owner (so as to make it clear what exactly is owned).

The process of making something owned is seen as natural since each of the steps of the process can be substantiated by consistent logical rationale supported by empirical evidence. If a claim is never stated or in any way communicated it cannot be expected of anyone to know of it (empirically checked, one does not know what one does not perceive). A claim alone isn’t enough for the process to be complete, however, because anyone could arbitrarily claim what was already claimed, creating a logical conflict. So a claim must be substantiated.

If nobody owned it before, this has to be demonstrated by proving that nobody went through the same process of making the object in question owned, thus the object must not be marked as owned and there must not be any accessible evidence of it being claimed before (empirically checked, again one does not know what one does not perceive, if no evidence is perceived of someone owning before, no assumption of prior ownership can be made). Disputes may arise in case the evidence existed but was never available (and of course in case someone tries to take over property by falsely claiming to be a prior owner), but such disputes would require arbitration by an agreed upon third party preferably specialized for researching prior ownership or knowing someone who is specialized in it.

If the object was owned by someone before then it must be clearly demonstrated that the prior owner agreed to change ownership to the current claimant. This also empirically checks out assuming prior owner used the same process to become a valid owner and because by definition of ownership only he has the right or ability to give it to someone else, for free or for a fee. Every other observable case of property transfer usually involves either open violence or stealth action both of which circumvent consent.

Ownership is defined as exclusive and therefore absolute control over an object claimed as owned. This notion of ownership, at least from a libertarian and voluntaryist perspective comes from the concept of self-ownership which is in fact the source of all ownership.

It must be noted that the object in question can be anything in existence, if anything then simply because anything in existence CAN conceivably be claimed by someone. Therefore a claimant can claim ownership of other people, but can also claim ownership over his own self (his body).

However, making a valid claim of ownership as defined above, over other people, is impossible because one cannot come to possession of somebody elses body before that exact someone else, for he lives in or as that body, that individual. He already has ownership (exclusive and absolute control) over his self before anybody else and cannot help not to have this control. Every time you use your eyes, speak or think you are taking advantage of exclusive control over your self.

This is also empirical because the proof is your very existence as what you are including every act that you undertake in your living.

So all this considered, is property as defined by libertarians and voluntaryist and presented here by me, coercion?

Coercion

Again, I am speaking from a libertarian and voluntaryist perspective, most of all my own perspective as a voluntaryist. I need not to speak anyhow else since the claim is made against beliefs of people like me.

I define coercion as the use of force or fraud to compel someone to behave or be in a certain way, such as do something or not do something. Force is any act undertaken with the purpose of instilling in someone fear of loss of ones self or any act done against ones self which (s)he did not agree with. Fraud is included in the definition of “coercion” because it is another method of compelling people to do or not do what they otherwise would or wouldn’t, by deliberately making claims that the claimant is fully aware are false in order to make people do something.

The core of coercion is the violation of someone’s self. If there was no self to violate in the first place the concept of coercion would have no bearing in reality. If an individual did not have self to worry about, there would be no coercion to worry about either. There would be nobody to feel fear, nobody to agree or disagree; to provide consent or protest against what is being done to him or her. But neither of that is true. As observed in the previous section, defining property, self is the core example of property and is completely irrefutable because every claim that was supposed to refute self-ownership requires self ownership to utter.

So is property coercion? Clearly, for coercion to exist property must exist, at least as your own self. While this in itself is telling with regards to the relationship between property and coercion, since the other is obviously dependent on the former, one may claim self-ownership as valid property and ownership over other things as invalid, thus saying that claiming other things as property and defending them is coercion.

But self-ownership implies exclusive and absolute control over your self, your body including your brain, eyes, ears, skin, hands, legs etc. All of these allow you to act and every act has a purpose, something you pursue. Obviously, every act is designed to bring about certain results and those specific results being caused by your acts would not exist if you did not undertake your acts in the first place. Therefore there is a direct causality between the existence of results you created (with your acts) and your self, the thing you own.

The purpose for which you did your acts were those results and this purpose is something that is obviously within you, for which you exist in the moments you acted in pursuit of those results. Bottom line is that if you existed without purpose it would be like existing without acts and if you existed without acting you would be as good as “dead in the water”, an inanimate organism – dead. Also, since as a human being you are self aware your purpose is something that you yourself choose, consciously or unconsciously, if you did not choose yet still acted, you would be like an automaton.

So if someone denies you the results of your actions (s)he is denying you the purpose for which you existed in moments at which you acted in pursuit of that purpose. They are therefore treating you as if you were an inanimate organism. If they however take the results of your actions, results which you produced because you chose so, they would deny you your will, your ability to choose for yourself and thus treating you as an automaton meant to merely produce for the sake of another.

The results spoken of can be anything. Something you created or something you obtained. The results ARE property and considering the above interdependency between your self and the results of your existence as your self, it is an extension of you. Every denial of property as can be seen above is a denial of you as a human being and every act which would take or use what you created or obtained against your will is an act of coercion because, according to the specified definition, it is every act done against your self (you and your property) which you didn’t consent to.

Finally there is the issue of not doing to another what you would not have another do to you. One can say that Joe defending his property is denying Steve who would take it against Joe’s will a result of his own acts and therefore denying Steve’s humanity. But when Steve’s act itself was denying Joe’s humanity, Steve initiated aggression and therefore was the one to be defended against. By this act alone Steve denied Joe what Steve himself had and therefore had Joe deny the same back to the extent necessary to protect his own. In other words, when the human selves come into conflict the natural resolution is towards equilibrium. This too is not an arbitrary statement as it is almost universally observable that humans will defend against an attack and protect what they deem legitimately their own.

The fact that even states, which themselves practice coercion and theft on a regular basis, could not be established without some extent of recognition towards property rights (reflecting the human need for property rights) and the fact that ever since we know of human existence on Earth we know of the concept of trade and therefore property, further validates property as a natural part of being human and coercion as in fact violation of that same property.

Why is coercion morally reprehensible?

Without using any arbitrary reasoning to answer this, simply because I don’t want to be coerced. Therefore it is only those who do not wish to be coerced themselves whom can treat non-coercion as a moral principle. And that’s the only way to logically and empirically explain any sort of a moral principle. You hold something immoral because you do not want it to be done to yourself. I could call this reciprocity and claim that this is a natural law, but since even that would carry a risk of being seen as making arbitrary judgments I’ll just again turn to empirical evidence that shows pretty clearly at least that likelihood of something being done to yourself increases significantly if you do that something to others.

It is known in physics that every action has an equal and opposed reaction. If you hit a wall it will “defend” itself, or react, by putting pressure on your arms and depending on the strength of your own strike, harm it.

And that’s in a nutshell why I find coercion wrong. Of course, the issue of coercion is peculiar in that while believing in non-coercion will have me not coerce others it would also have me defend against coercion done by others some of whom may claim that my act of self-defense is in fact coercing them to act according to my own non-coercion moral. However, if they really believed in coercion as moral then they shouldn’t have any grudge against me defending myself even if they see my defense as coercion. This is why s consistently held moral of non-coercion actually cannot be forced on others.

Conclusion:

So to recap, property is not coercion because without property coercion wouldn’t exist either. Coercion IS a violation of property. The reason is the fact that you irrefutably own yourself and therefore your life and your liberty (your actions). Property is merely an inevitable result of the two. Denial of property is a denial of purpose to life and liberty and ultimately the denial of your own self as a human being.

And all of this can be checked for logical consistency and empirical evidence. All it takes is precise thinking (observing things to their most fundamental components rather than taking a merely cursory look and accepting vague and non-exactly defined terms), intellectual honesty (try to keep cognitive biases in check) and an honest look at yourself and reality around you.

That’s how it’s always been apparently in predominantly statist societies. First there’s economic crisis and then comes, almost inevitably, a political crisis. As people believe governments (coercive monopolies) are necessary for the maintenance of stable and ordered societies they also tend to blame that same government when anything goes wrong. Most of them didn’t quite grasp the idea of being responsible for themselves so all this is no surprise. And therefore it’s no surprise that political crisis arises.

And the whole gang warfare thing which we’re perpetually living with (and usually call things like “political campaigning”, “elections” etc.) escalates to a whole new level, where the violence inherent in the whole system finally surfaces in all its bloody glory. You see, there has never been political stability because that is an oxymoron. Politics by definition involves ones coercing others to live by their values, therefore force and violence are always the core of the game. It’s just that these facts are through elaborate conceptual masking, abstractions and doublethink hidden from view.

Until it leads to the economic crisis of these proportions.

Then as they say “shit begins to hit the fan”, or in other words, the violence inherent in the system surfaces. Gang warfare you’re living with all along takes to the streets and gun fires become much more common. Rioting, civil wars, installment of oppressive regimes (in the Great Depression era, which led to WW2) or just outright collapse into unprincipled anarchy where while freedoms suddenly increase across the board, people still don’t believe in non-initiation of force as a matter of principle and so some blood shed continues (modern day Somalia) since gangs (aspiring governments that is) vie for power.

So more rioting, government collapses, civil wars, it can all happen, across americas and across europe. What will happen is just an inevitable consequence of all that has been believed and subsequently done in the past. You believe coercion is fine? Well here are the results. Are you happy? I’ll venture to guess not. Are you gonna learn something from this? I hope so. But things must become worse before they become better.

This crisis is a natural reaction of the markets to their constant harassment with coercive practices. As such it is a good development – a correction, in economists terms. However you cannot jump off a sky scraper, no matter if it reaches to the troposphere, and expect not to hit the ground at some point. Your belief that you can jump off the skyscraper and not hit the ground wont change the facts.

Your belief that justifying some coercion in the way we deal with each other (AKA politics) wont result in poverty, chaos and death. Think again. You’ve believed in it, now you shall reap the benefits.

But should you survive the consequences, you have a chance for a new start.

Ban all politics from your life. Reject all coercion and initiation of violence. Embrace voluntary interaction (free market). Think creatively rather than competitively. Believe in your abilities. Take responsibility for your own self. Don’t ask others to live for your own sake.

Then we’ll rise out of this chaos and into the better world.

But before that, brace yourself (be prepared and informed), for the consequences of past actions and beliefs must materialize. What will be will be. What will be must be.

The effect of such lack of focus or clarity is that we basically don’t know what we’re talking about and end up making judgments that are terribly at odds with reality. Yet this ends up leading our action in false hope for desired positive results. Focusing on singular and thinking in singular rather than plural, is a key to precise thinking.

This came to me when I was trying to explain why I don’t believe in the existence of a “collective” in reality and thus why I don’t believe in “collective rights”. The argument is that the “collective” is in fact solely a mental abstraction describing multitude or plural. Two or more human beings can then be described as a collective. Two or more trees can be described as a collective (and synonymously a “forest”, another similar mental concept) and two or more cells can be described as a collective (or synonymously a multicellular organism).

As such this mental abstraction is similar to numbers. The only difference between saying “collective” and saying a number like “4″ is that in the former you don’t specify exactly how many, merely that there are more than one (plural) whereas in the latter you’re specifying how many. But a number 4 itself doesn’t exist in reality. Looking at 4 people you see “4″ in your head merely because you have the mental capacity to count. If you didn’t then you wouldn’t have the mental concept of “4″ to use in your description of what you see. Same goes with the concept of a “collective”. You see “more than one”.

But does a collective actually exist in reality? This isn’t the same question as the question “do individuals referred to by “4 people” exist or “do cells referred to as an “organism” exist”. It is a question like “do 4 people exist as an individual” or “does a forest exist as a tree” or “does an organism exist as a cell” or “does a molecul exist as an atom” and so on.

The formula is: Does a plural of X exist as a singular X where X is equal? The answer is always inevitably negative because it is:

• A contradiction in terms, an oxymoron.
• Many cannot be without the one. Plural cannot exist without a singular, but a singular can exist without a plural

A plural of trees cannot be a tree, it can be an individual forest. A plural of cells cannot be a cell, but it can be an individual organism. A plural of atoms cannot be an atom, but it can be an individual molecule. A plural of human beings cannot be a human being, but an individual society, for lack of a better term, or something else that we as human beings cannot from our vantage point exactly determine, or perhaps nothing at all; end of line as far as that type of form is concerned.

So when it comes to the concept of a collective it may be an useful abstraction sometimes, but it is clear that a collective of X cannot have the properties of X and itself is not X. It instead becomes something else that is again itself individual; unique. Or nothing else. This is why it makes absolutely no sense to think in terms of there being a human “collective” for the good of which individuals should sacrifice expecting that this good would somehow trickle down to more good for all.

Additionally, the object of focus can never be anything other than individual, singular. Even when trying to somehow point to a “collective” that exists in reality we end up describing “it” as “it”, a singular thing, thus further validating the individualism rather than “collectivism” of its nature or at least showing ourselves unable to, when we actually begin thinking with such precision, actually pin point the “collective” in reality when some voluntaryist challenges: “Show me the collective, where is it?”.

Granted, both “plural” and “singular” are mental abstractions, but it is pretty obvious that we cannot refer to anything in reality without going through the abstraction of a singular, even when we wish to refer to a “collective”. In other words, the only way to directly describe things in reality is through singular, not plural.

So it would appear that both our minds and the reality itself is naturally wired as individualistic rather than collectivist. There are merely multiple levels, one being fundamental to another which is fundamental to a yet another and so on possibly indefinitely, but an individual thing always comes first and it’s “collective”, as we would mentally describe it, only ends up creating another individual thing.

Collectivist is murky thinking. There is no precision in an argument which has collectives as its variables.

I have to praise this one too and without hesitation I can recommend it to everyone looking for constructive insights on how exactly to attain wealth and success, especially since it’s just 66 pages long.

“The Science of Getting Rich” is what also largely influenced The Secret, a popular movie from 2006 that popularized the concept of “The Law of Attraction”, albeit such a term isn’t found in the actual book.

That said, just like “Think and Grow Rich”, this book greatly resonates with me. I can see the logic in them and I can see exactly how applying philosophies expressed in these books can lead one to success. Think and Grow Rich especially has a pretty solid mount of evidence in support of the positively transformational power of its ideas as many successful and wealthy people reportedly cite that book as being a major influence to their success.

I can also say that it certainly made me a lot more likely to succeed as I can with absolute confidence say that in part thanks to these books I am far more confident about myself and far more daring. I have transformed and solidified my view of failure as part of success, of limitations as primarily mental and self-imposed, of wealth creation as a noble rather than morally reprehensible goal, and so on.

Yet I am still somewhat uneasy, or at least, I am eager to express something that I feel could make the philosophies presented in these books more complete, and put them deeper within a rational and scientific context. There are two reasons for this.

Confusion over The Law of Attraction (and The Secret)

As much as I could say that “The Secret” movie brought philosophies of these books to the masses I would say that it perverted them or dumbed them down to the point at which pretty much the only thing an average person could get from it is that “I can get whatever I wish in my mind by the simple act of wishing”. And I can see how can these philosophies be brought down to this incredible oversimplification. The fact that they zeroed in to this term “Law of Attraction” which immediately implies that the core of the idea is attraction, not action, doesn’t help at all.

Yet both Wallace Wattle and Napoleon Hill emphasized the importance of taking action. Even the movie itself, The Secret, glossed over this briefly, but insufficiently.

That said, Wallace did pretty much say that strongly envisioning something you desire in your mind and being grateful for getting it even before you actually get it (in order to affirm your absolute belief in that you will get it) will directly cause a chain of events independent of your physical action that will make the thing you desire to be attracted to you. In a nutshell, this guy believed in the Law of Attraction.

However, this is what leads me to the second reason of my “uneasiness”. He uses terms which CAN be interpreted in a different way where a different light is cast on the whole “attraction” business and where thought itself doesn’t necessarily have to be considered a direct cause of your getting what you desire. In essence, the whole action-reaction chain that ensues once you form the desire filled and confident thought in your mind may be slightly different than what most readers of Wallace and perhaps even Wallace himself, is led to believe.

This would be a result of our limited understanding of that which we are, through these ideas, beginning to discover. The ways in which we are describing it are still inefficient and insufficient to precisely pin point the exact science in question. Due to the amount of people that succeed by applying these ideas it seems plausible that we ARE looking at a glimpse of truth rather than a fallacy, but due to the limited understanding, we may be getting some of the crucial details wrong, which is the case regarding “The Secret” and “Law of Attraction”.

Thoughts, energy and action-reaction chains

First of all, it is currently scientifically understood that all matter in existence comes down to energy. When an object, no matter how big or how small, is inert, it has potential energy, albeit on a more fundamental level it is never inert so inertion is relative to the observer. When the same object becomes active it converts its potential energy to kinetic energy. And due to the conservation of energy law energy is never actually destroyed or “spent away”; it’s simply converted from one form to another.

It is then conceivable that physical forms of shape could also be considered as specific forms of energy, of potential energy if anything. Wallace Wattle talks about “formless substance” and this is where it appears that energy fits right in. But then we enter the realm of thought. Wattle also describes this as “formless substance that thinks“.

If formless substance is energy then the question is can energy think? If everything in existence is fundamentally energy though then human beings and other thinking life forms are energy as well in which case through them energy can and does indeed think. Observing what happens in our brains when we think does reveal that our thoughts are in effect just a complex stream of impulses, of energy!

But the concept of “formless substance that thinks” seems to imply that energy thinks regardless of whether it holds a form of a thinking life form or not, in which case a tree thinks itself into existence as a tree, a rock thinks itself into an existence as a rock and so on. Can this be?

Well, to answer this would require defining “thought” and this again refers me to the observation of thoughts as streams of energy in which case thought is nothing but a patter of energy flows. Thoughts then ARE energy. Thoughts then could be considered a fundamental building block of everything in existence.

In that case by the very virtue of being, a tree thinks. The only difference between a tree that thinks itself into existence and a human that thinks itself into existence is that a human is aware of his thoughts whereas a tree isn’t, giving a human the power to transform his thoughts and therefore himself and direction of his growth whereas the tree just “instinctively” grows according to parameters established by itself and the rest of the thinking reality.

So where does law of attraction or its rebuttal as it were fit in?

Well, it implies a very specific thing. It infers from the above realizations, provided that LOA supporters have these realizations, a particular action-reaction chain without actually seeing any empirical or logical consistency evidence of such an action-reaction chain occurring. It infers that because we are all made of thought-energy that our envisioning a particular image strongly somehow materializes this image into a physical equivalent. But what basis do they have for concluding this? This is NOT a necessary conclusion of everything being consisted of thought-energy and it ignores the many intricate ways in which thought-energy actually flows or interacts with that which it constantly creates.

So even if all of the above is true, that everything is consisted of thought-energy thinking itself to existence, it doesn’t necessarily follow that I can think something else aside of me and my actions into existence, something that on a macro scale never actually interacts with me. I think this is all coming from a gross misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, of the laws which actually govern “thinking”, that is, a process by which thought-energy shapes itself into forms we see around ourselves, and the universe at large.

What we CAN conclude based on actual evidence though is that a thought can cause an act and that therefore one indeed cannot achieve anything before previously envisioning that something in the mind. The efficiency of any given act in its ability to bring us closer to the achievement of our goal is directly dependent on our understanding of the action-reaction chains which are necessary to achieve it. Most of us probably still use crude methods and do things which we might not necessary have to do, that are superfluous to our goals, but we’re still learning.

Theoretically though it is possible that as we begin learning more and more about precise action-reaction chains involved in how everything comes into being (or in other words the process by which thought-energy creates) we MAY be able to by the power of our mind alone replicate things we envision out of thin air, by arranging our thoughts in such a way to create an energy impulse that arranges molecules of air surrounding us into whatever we have envisioned.

But we’re likely a very long way there and still have plenty to learn.

In conclusion, I think that it is worth considering what was written in “Think and Grow Rich” and “The Science of Getting Rich” as it IS evidently changing people’s lives for the better. I think that they are scratching the surface of a new understanding that may soon become a real science. The fact that they sometimes sound almost mystical or add what appear to be superfluous conclusions (like law of attraction) merely reflects the limitedness of their understanding of the actual source of the ideas they have through their thinking and observing discovered, not that these are ideas are completely false.

So let’s keep exploring this and evolving.

I of course blame both the Israeli government and Hamas, for both are in fact terrorist mafias whom see violence as an acceptable way of solving perceived problems. Everything else is just a variation on the theme. Israeli forcefully imposes it’s fantasy of “jurisdiction” on to private palestinian property owners in a continuous campaign of terror. Hamas then imposes itself as the so called protector of these same palestinians, whether they asked for it or not, and then goes to bomb Israeli people and yet again provoke a violent response. And this goes on and on and would go on until either all israeli in the area or all palestinians, or at least members of Hamas, are obliterated. The way these people think about solutions, the only real solution is genocide.

Neither are the average palestinian and israeli people all that innocent, for their belief in violence as a sometimes morally justified way of solving problems is what fuels both Hamas and Israeli. If people stopped believing in violence without compromise, and therefore stopped believing in their governments as coercive entities, there would hardly be anyone left to wage a war. To stop believing in violent solutions is to open your eyes to all of the ways in which the problem can be settled peacefully.

And in fact, since to stop believing in all violence means to stop believing into such bullshit as jurisdiction, public property and collectivism, a big part of the whole problem would disappear by itself. There is then no border or claimed territories to bicker over. There are only individuals and their private property. Some of them may call themselves palestinian and others Israeli, but even that ceases to matter as much as it did.

The belief in violence as an acceptable way of dealing with those with whom you have a dispute with is the fundamental cause of all war, including this one. Complete rejection of this belief is the only solution. Voluntaryism.