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THE FAMILY HOMESTEADING PRINCIPLE

I reserve the right to be wrong.



If you mix your time and labour with something that nobody owns you gain ownership of it. This process starts in the womb and in the first couple of years after birth as you homestead your body while learning to move, speak, think and so act*1.

Later on in life, one can homestead anything that isn't owned. Sadly this does not usually include squatting, as whatever edifice is being squatted usually has an owner. If it is owned, you are trespassing.

Your right to property is the exclusive right to use whatever the thing is that is your property; whether your house, clothes, furniture, computer. This right can be argued to exist because we have free will, desires, and a world that we act in, both alone and in concert with others. You smash all that together and people need clear lines to tell who gets to use what and where, and what land they can claim.

Humans don't like conflict and violence because it introduces them to the risk of harm. They'd much rather agree on a way to get along, even if many individual desires will be frustrated by this, at least the frustrated individuals will still be alive.

So homesteading is how property justifiably comes into being. But Matt, that's not what actually happened! Well, no. That's because these brigands called Kings took the land for themselves and then parcelled it out to their lieutenants. The more useful the lieutenant, the more land he got.

Does this sound like an indictment of the private sector / civil society? Surely people in a free society would just contract with each other for more things than is currently the case. And that way the scourge of socialisation would be held at bay forever.

So today we've established that homesteading starts in the womb and so is a first principle of moral living. We've also established that moral living is more expedient than everybody immediately trying to steal from everybody else, as nobody wants to be the one that gets killed in the act.

People who fear Libertarianism because - according to them - it could cause chaos should remember that we all fear chaos, which is exactly why it won't happen when government is no more.



*1 - Remember that action here means to do things in the external world to satisfy needs in the immediate or distant future, like getting an education, or going to the bathroom. Both of those qualify since you could in theory just soil yourself in front of everyone. ANYWAY!



On the next Ecomony Blogtime; Matt proves conclusively that he is not a salmon.

EDIT; Correction to opening sentence; "time and labour" replaces "time, labour or money" since you can't pay an owner for something that is unowned. Poor absurd Matthew.

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