Property rights – Labor/ Property

**This is the second article in the property rights series. Click here to read the first one.

II. If a person owns themselves, they are responsible for their actions. They own their labor. When they mix their labor with unowned or self owned things the product of their labor becomes theirs, until sold or abandoned. I think this is an idea that most people would accept but, let’s go over the alternatives.

1. Someone else owns the product of your labor.
In most cases this would be the exact definition of theft. Something important to note is that we are talking about who initially owns the product of the labor. Once it is sold or traded it is no longer theirs. For example imagine a scenario where someone paints a painting with all their own materials and then some one comes along and tries to claim it as theirs. Obviously theft.

2. Everyone owns the product of your labor
How could an unknown person who had no role in the labor or even know of it’s existence possibly claim ownership of a product? This certainly kicks out a large chunk of people as rightful owners. Of course it’s nice when an act of charity happens but there is no legitimate right to be split between everyone. What about the people left that did participate in the labor? If only one person is involved in the labor of the product then the product is obviously his. In the case of an assembly line where several people are involved in the labor of a final product, things can get complex.
I currently work at a furniture manufacturing company so I can speak from experience on how these things work. An oversimplified explanation of the process should get the point across. We have several people split up in several departments. There are people that order things, people that receive things, people that send stuff to saws, people that work the saws, people that do finer touches, people that pack things, people that transport things etc. Something as simple as a cabinet door has gone through the labor of countless people. If they all maintained their ownership in the door, nothing would be able to be done with the door until everyone agreed to do the same thing or by violating the rights of the people that didn’t want that thing to be done. The price of the product is unknown until after it has been sold. What happens is people sell their labor ahead of time at whatever price they and the employer agree to. Value (worth) is subjective and includes countless parameters depending on the person, time, location price, motivation, desire, etc. The point is you own your labor until it’s sold at whatever price you and the employer agree to. You can always renegotiate or the agreement can end at the will of either party. Use of coercion to do these things violates rights. Multiple people maintaining ownership of something leads to inability to do anything with that thing unless all owners agree to the same thing. People can sell their ownership in a thing . Once this is done the person who sold it has no right to it, unless another voluntary agreement is made to change the ownership.

3. No one owns any body’s labor/ property
This should clearly be absurd. What point is there in anybody doing anything? How could a person legitimize getting paid for their job. This would mean that once a person made something any random person could take it and use it. Then another could take it, on and on into infinity; even in mid use. If a person doesn’t own their labor then how can any one be responsible for any of their actions? What point is there to doing anything? Who repairs or replaces things when they are broken? This is some sort of absurd nihilism.

4. Mixture
Since everyone seems to be obsessed with being inconsistent, we currently live in a time where people pick and choose who gets to own their labor and products of their labor on a whim. Of course if people do own their labor and property they have the right to give it up or abandon it. They would have to own it first to be able to do that. The point is one person doesn’t have the right to say if another owns their labor or property. Unless the one person has already violated the other persons labor or property, then compensations should occur. The state is notorious for violating labor and property rights while in some cases it helps enforce compensation. Countless restrictions on employees, employers, and consumers make this obvious. So we live in a cluster of state guided whims that give us this mixture of property rights and violations.

Part three is on the way. This one no doubt brings up other issues.