That "state" is as natural as it gets. But in such a state, as a matter of fact until only a few short hundreds of years ago, capital was not even a consideration. But once its existence became a fact, became known, and its holders knew its value as intangible assets, its ownership had to be accepted as indigenous and substantive, inherent, and inalienable as the ownership of one's own being. The reason for this is because capital is the creation of the being of individual humans.
Capital as wealth is created, in the same manner that art is created, as a meal is created, as a home is created--by the mind and hands of men.
Ownership of one's own being is designated as 'individual sovereignty," and "was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D.; http://www.friesian.com/ellis.htm Today, people scoff at the notion, presuming what modern education teaches, lacking as it is in its original "liberal" roots: that only nations can have sovereignty. Even the sovereignty of each American State is being whittled away by national sovereignty. "Liberal" education in its original roots led Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau and others to consider and endorse at least the concept of "common sovereignty," derived from the "consent of the governed." It took the Americans to understand that what becomes "common" must have its roots in individualism first. No individual can contribute to what becomes "common" unless he or she first owns it in order to relinquish it up to the "common sovereignty."
Individual sovereignty is still is the common assumption today, among naturalists. Kelly Ross goes on to say, "If 'to secure these Rights, governments are instituted among men,' this can only mean that something, from which people must be protected, threatens the exercise of rights to 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.'" Governments instituted through the consent of the governed get their powers only from those powers the citizens are willing to give to it. They cannot give to it what they, themselves, do not posses.
"The relationships between federalist political structure and the sovereignty of the individual," writes James M. Buchanan, "must be carefully examined, particularly in terms of the implications for current discussions in Europe, Mexico, and the United States." http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj15n2-3-8.html
"The explicit claim is that the individual is the sovereign unit in society; his natural state is from and equality with all other individuals; this is the natural order of things." Joseph J. Ellis; "American Sphinx,The Character of Thomas Jefferson"
An extremely radical but acceptable view for millions, especially for Americans, runs in the Objectivist line of thinking, as with these quotes from "Objectivism and Thomas Jefferson; 6. The Non-Initiation of Force" : http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7842/otj60.htm
"As a corollary to an individualist society, it is necessary that a nation not have the right or power to compel actions [such as conscription], even for its own survival. Were that right allowed, a nation of people would be permitted collectively to identify duties and responsibilities that individuals owed to the common good and then could compel with force if necessary unwilling citizens. To permit that would be inconsistent with the form of individualism in which individual rights actually mean that no human authority can compel an individual to do anything other than to desist from initiating force against another individual. Therefore, the 'non-initiation of force' is a necessary part of the philosophy of individualism." [ibid]
"Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson;" thus:
"The only social system that bars physical force from human relationships is laissez-faire . is a system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which the only function of the government is to protect individual rights, i.e., to protect men from those who initiate the use of physical force." --Ayn Rand
"Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government..." Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on Residence Bill, 1790
"Well meaning people say that we are being tricked into giving up our National sovereignty [e.g., to a "new world order,"] to which I reply that I am a Sovereign Individual..." Dennis Lee Wilson; "The Libertarian Enterprise"
"As the U.S. becomes more unsustainable politically, environmentally, and economically, and as it moves closer to the almost complete destruction of unalienable individual rights, more and more people may come to realize that peaceful secession indeed is a viable option. There is nothing whatsoever unconstitutional, illegal, immoral, or unethical about peaceful secession. In fact, obviously it is a very American concept." Scott Haley; "Individual Sovereignty" http://individualsovereignty.blogspot.com/
"Johnny Liberty’s book 'The Individual Sovereignty Process' is for people who have a sincere desire to assert their legal and lawful sovereignty. 'The Individual Sovereignty Process' collectively explains a host of fact-supported legal theories and in addition to their conceptual application." Law Research Group; http://www.lawresearchgroup.com/cart/product.php?productid=31
"European proposals for reforms of international economic law often aim at 'constitutional reforms' (e.g. of worldwide governance institutions) rather than only 'administrative reforms,' as they are frequently favoured by non-European governments defending state sovereignty and popular sovereignty within a more power-oriented "international law among states." [italics added] Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann Social Science Research Networkhttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=964147
"Natural law" is based on what are posited to be the characteristics of human nature qua human nature, i.e., what is empirically and/or psychologically right or wrong for the species' qua species' proper health and welfare. The taking of what is given to a man by his nature, taken by other men with disregard or with criminal intent toward that man or men, is neither empirically nor psychologically nor ethically nor politically the inherent right of those other men.
Instead, it is empirically, psychologically, ethically and politically the inherent right of individual men to keep what is naturally theirs at birth, and the only proper function of any government is the protection of what each is born with, including the right to produce capital.
is the natural state of man when enough capital exists to implement its use in building economic infrastructure which then creates profit, creating more capital. Until enough capital exists, there is no infrastructure, there is only the barter of subjectively-valued objects. A man with two extra chickens, for example, needs four gallons of milk, and the owners of the respective objects agree to a deal. But tomorrow the milk may cost three chickens. Yet a $ sign on a product does not change. The value of that $ fluctuates with the health of the economy, but if a product calls for $1 today, the $1 sign still means $1 tomorrow.
Spooner nailed the naturalist epistemic roots of individual human , "[F]irst, that each man shall do, towards every other, all that justice requires him to do."
But this "first" was a condition which his concept of the "science of justice" would need in order for the science to be implemented. This first condition was in the fourth paragraph of a bare-bones, conceptually black-and-white treatise, the kind rarely found in today's world of double-speak and obfuscation and verbosity.
It was in the second paragraph that he nailed the requirements for justice itself, whether implemented or not: "It is the science [of justice] which alone can tell any man what he can, and cannot, do; what he can, and cannot, have; what he can, and cannot, say, without infringing the rights of any other person." [italics added]
The axiomatic principle by which one refrains from the infringement upon the rights of any other person is the "non-initiation of force." This is the only means by which "each man shall do, towards every other, all that justice requires him to do."
"The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. [ ] When I say “,” I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire —with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church. [ ] The moral justification of does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve “the common good.” It is true that does—if that catch-phrase has any meaning—but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification of lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man’s rational nature, that it protects man’s survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice." Ayn Rand; http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/.html
The recent socialistic nationalism of the mortgage markets and the banks that control them; the federal funds needed for a mis-managed "war on terror,"--necessary but mis-named and thus mis-managed--and the budget necessary for FEMA, Social Security, medical welfare, food stamps, and other federally funded infringements of individual sovereignty, are the indicators of an un-natural state of affairs in the ethics and the laws of the Citizens of the United States of the nation called America.
"It is widely believed that politics and economics are separate and largely unconnected; that individual is a political problem and material welfare an economic problem; and that any kind of political arrangements can be combined with any kind of economic arrangements," wrote Milton Friedman in his watershed book, " and ," still in print after more than forty years.
"Economic arrangements," Friedman continues, "play a dual role in the promotion of a free society. On the one hand, in economic arrangements is itself a component of broadly understood, so economic is an end in itself. In the second place, economic is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political ."
Curtis Edward Clark
Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC
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