Freedom, Property, and Self-ownership in Rothbardian Libertarianism
Freedom, Property, and Self-ownership in Rothbardian Libertarianism

Summary/Abstract: Murray Rothbard’s theory of self-ownership is foundational to his libertarianism, serving as the basis from which he derives conclusions about the impermissibility of aggression, the legitimacy of homesteading, and the injustice of taxation. Yet self-ownership is a more complex concept than Rothbard’s arguments acknowledge. This article examines the philosophical adequacy of Rothbard’s two principal arguments for self-ownership – the argument from natural control and the eliminative trilemma – and evaluates Walter Block’s recent defense of those arguments. The research proceeds by means of conceptual analysis and logical evaluation. I argue that Block’s defenses do not succeed. His distinction between de facto and de jure ownership concedes rather than refutes the charge that Rothbard conflates descriptive control with normative ownership. His analogies to basic categories miss the eliminative structure of Rothbard’s argument. And his reductio against partial self-ownership relies on treating all obligations as unlimited. I further argue that Rothbard’s identification of freedom with property undermines the libertarian ideal of a free society, rendering conflicts between freedom and property invisible and making the concept of freedom compatible with conditions indistinguishable from authoritarian rule. The analysis has implications for debates about the foundations of libertarianism and the relationship between freedom and ownership.

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