Marxism Exploitation and Positive Rights Refuted

by | Jul 17, 2020

Every man can enjoy the right of self-ownership, without special coercion upon anyone. But in the case of a “right” to schooling, this can only be provided if other people are coerced into fulfilling it. The “right” to schooling, to a job, three meals, etc., is then not embedded in the nature of man, but requires for its fulfillment the existence of a group of exploited people who are coerced into providing such a “right.”

Murray Rothbard

For a New Liberty, pp. 164–65

 

A simple analogy makes all “liberal” political theory collapse. If a hundred people were shipwrecked on an island, what would it even mean to say that everyone there has a “right” to food, or that everyone has a “right” to health care, or the “right” to a job, or the “right” to a “living wage”? If, for example, someone has a “right” to housing, and housing comes only from the knowledge, skills and efforts of other people, it means that one person has the right to force another person to build him a house. This is exactly what happens in a larger context, when “liberals” advocate that some people be forcibly robbed via “taxation” in order to provide “benefits” for others. The notion that people, by virtue of their mere existence, are entitled to all sorts of things – things which come into being only as the result of human knowledge and effort – is delusional. The logical result of this supposedly loving and compassionate viewpoint is violence and slavery, because if one’s “need” entitles him to something, that means that it must be forcibly taken from anyone else who has it or can produce it, if he will not supply it willingly.

Larken Rose

The Most Dangerous Superstition, pp. 117

LBRY: https://lbry.tv/@KeithKnightDontTreadOnAnyone:b/Communism—Positive-Rights-Refuted-Once-and-for-All—JF-v.-Vaush:2

BitChute: https://www.bitchute.com/video/NzfTsGQBfWqB/

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Archive: https://archive.org/details/jf-and-vaush

Keith Knight

Keith Knight

Keith Knight is Managing Editor at the Libertarian Institute, host of the Don't Tread on Anyone podcast and editor of The Voluntaryist Handbook: A Collection of Essays, Excerpts, and Quotes.

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