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Dee has hardly mentioned the
concept of self-ownership, but some
libertarians place a lot of emphasis on it.
Nozick seems to think that very strong
property rights in natural resources can be
derived from self-ownership as long as his
version of the Lockean Proviso is adhered to.
Furthermore, he seems to believe that
self-ownership requires those strong
property rights. I'm not so sure.
I have already mentioned
Will Kymlicka and some of his criticisms of
Nozick. Kimlicka believes that even strong
versions of self-ownership are quite
compatible with many different kinds of
property rights. I think he's right on this. I
don't think there is any clear, logical path
from self-ownership to really strong property
rights in natural resources.
People could have full
self-ownership and land could be administered
by some combination of collective and
individual control. In some peasant societies,
for example, the village allocates property to
individual families to grow food. The family
works the land and consumes the product. But
the family does not own the land in a strong
sense. It cannot sell the land or give it to
an outsider. But it seems to me that an
arrangement like this is entirely compatible
with self-ownership.
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