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Capitalism and Self-Ownership*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

Andrew Kernohan
Andrew Kernohan
Affiliation:
Philosophy, Dalhousie University
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Extract

From the standpoint of libertarian ideology, capitalism is a form of liberation. In contrast to the slave, whose productive powers are wholly owned by his master, and the serf, whose productive powers are partially owned by his lord, the worker under capitalism is presented as possessing the fullest possible self-ownership. That capitalism fosters self-ownership is a false and stultifying myth. Exposing its errors from within capitalism's own conceptual framework requires a careful analysis of the concept of a person's “ownership” bodh of his or her productive powers and of the means of exercising these productive powers. This analysis will show that, in certain plausible circumstances, the capitalist economic system can make full self-ownership impossible. Since capitalism's supposed nurturing of self-ownership provides one of the major justifications for its moral legitimacy, capitalist ideology has a serious internal inconsistency.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , Autumn 1988 , pp. 60 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1998

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References

1 Cohen, G.A. has recently studied the libertarian justification of capitalism from the perspective of self-ownership in “Self-Ownership, World Ownership, and Equality: Part II,” Social Philosophy & Policy, vol. 3, no. 2 (1986), pp. 77–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Nozick on Appropriation,” New Left Review, vol. 150 (1985), pp. 89–105.

2 For example, Nozick presupposes this justification when he writes, “End-state and most patterned principles of distributive justice institute (partial) ownership by others of people and their actions and labor. These principles involve a shift from the classical liberals' notion of self-ownership to a notion of (partial) property rights in other people.” Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 172.Google Scholar There are, of course, other ways of trying to justify capitalism, arguments from maximizing utility or moral desert being the most common.

3 Marx, Karl, Capital, volume I (New York: International Publishers, 1967), p. 168.Google Scholar

4 Locke, John, The Second Treatise of Government, ed. T.P., Peardon (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952), p. 17.Google Scholar

5 Honoré, A.M., “Ownership,” A.G., Guest, ed., Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), pp. 107–147.Google Scholar

6 Shareholders, however, do have a full set of ownership rights with respect to their shares. But this might be described as a second order right with respect to the company's property. Shareholders have full liberal ownership of a right to partial liberal ownership of the productive resources of a company.

7 This latter does not seem strictly entailed by the liberal concept of self-ownership. A strict view of contractual obligation does not seem to rule out forced labor or indentured servitude in satisfaction of a contract.

8 Nozick, Anarchy, pp. 151–153, 160–164, and 174–182.

9 These problems are canvassed by Nozick, Anarchy, pp. 174–175.

10 For example, ibid., pp. 169–172.

11 Marx, Capital, p. 167.

12 See Becker, L.C., Property Rights: Philosophical Foundations (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977), pp. 37–39Google Scholar, for a discussion of this argument.

13 See Nozick's reply to Rawls, Anarchy, p. 214.

14 Like Nozick's medical researcher; Anarchy, p. 181.

15 ibid., pp. 178–182.

16 ibid., pp. 174–182.

17 Macpherson, C.B., Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 8.Google Scholar

18 E.g., Reiman, J., “The Fallacy of Libertarian Capitalism,” Ethics, vol. 91 (1981), pp. 85–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ryan, C.C., “Yours, Mine and Ours: Property Rights and Individual Liberty,” J., Paul, ed., Reading Nozick (Totowa: Rowman & Litdefield, 1981), pp. 323–343.Google Scholar

19 Nozick, Anarchy, p. 151, together with pp. 174–182.

20 ibid., pp. 160–161.

21 ibid., p. 163.

22 ibid., p. 163.

23 The idea of using an analyzed notion of private ownership in the discussion of Nozick's argument is due to Ryan, “Yours, Mine.” Ryan points out that some holdings, e.g., the entitlement to a university teaching job, do not carry with them a right to be transferred at will. So Nozick should not just assume this right of transfer pertains to the fan and his or her 25 cents.

24 Nozick, Anarchy, p. 163.