The Variability in the Terms of Enslavement (a statist fallacy)
To All | To None
If a person claims to own a truck, and this person can choose – at his own whim – who is permitted to use that truck and when another is permitted to use it, then this person does indeed own that truck. On the other hand, if there exists another who cannot be excluded from the use of that truck, then that is the person who owns it. The man who cannot be excluded from a thing is the man who either owns it or is a criminal imposing his will onto the legitimate property owner. The ability to exclude others from a thing is the only meaningful definition of property ownership. This is a practical understanding of ownership. Of course, there are also ethical considerations for legitimate ownership as well; but the identification as just described is referred to as The Exclusion Principle.
When the publicly-owned state – The Democracy or The Republic or The Constitutional x – expropriates property from the slaves within its [illegitimate] jurisdiction, it refers to it in special collective language meant to placate the slaves. Currently, the language for expropriated property is “public goods”. This term is meant to imply that it belongs to all men. The argument is that since property in the form of taxation is taken from people, then people have some ownership of the result of that expropriation in a twisted version of the economic exchange. In other words, people own the imposed government apparatus, in theory. In reality, subjects under the thumb of a state own nothing, since their property can be expropriated and controlled legally by The State. The State can choose for its subjects who they are permitted to contract with via licensing and certifications (so the subjects do not own themselves). The State can decide how those subjects use their own property via regulations (so the subjects do not own objects). The State determines what percent of their property is taken outright via taxations and surcharges (the variability in the slave’s conditions of servitude). The State is the man who cannot be excluded. Thus, The State owns everything within its jurisdiction, and any semblance of control the subjects have of the property left to them is merely an illusion or better slavery conditions, at the moment.
If a reader is not convinced, consider the chattel slave example. Whether the slave is owned by a beneficent master who permits him to enjoy 99.9% of the fruits of his labor, or whether he is owned by the frugal master who does not permit him to enjoy any fruits of his labor; there is no conceptual difference. The master has the power to decide for the slave how much of the slave’s labor belongs to him. It is that power over another that defines slavery, not the variable differences in the slave’s conditions. We are either free to voluntarily make our own decisions or have others’ decisions imposed on us. We are either engaging in consensual transactions to improve our own lives, or we are hegemonic pieces in someone else’s game. In other words:
Public Goods = enslaved public
Ironically, many statists decry the evils of another state, say the Chinese Communist Party, while defending the evils of another state. They argue that the terms of enslavement under another state are worse. Note that this is not an argument! It does not necessarily follow that some theft is acceptable because more theft exists elsewhere.
The variability in the Terms of Enslavement is not an argument for enslavement.
The subject that willingly submits to the imposed decision or the hegemonic game can only do so out of conformity, servility, or ignorance. Thus, we have our first psychological claim of the political subject (He-who-supports-The-State).
I. The political subject is necessarily a servile being, a conforming being, or ignorant of The State’s power.
submitted by /u/KellyCOffield
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