The Social Individual and Her Property: A Feminist Critique of Libertarianism Tom Malleson King’s University College at Western University “Every man has a property in his own person: this nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his” (Locke, [1689] 1980, II. 27). “A person, perhaps, is best seen as one who was long enough dependent upon other persons to acquire the essential arts of personhood. Persons essentially are second persons, who grow up with other persons” (Baier, 1981, p. 180). “Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights)” (Nozick, 1974, p. ix). So reads the first line of Robert Nozick’s classic text Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Since its publication in 1974, libertarianism has become a powerful intellectual force, particularly in North America. On the right, libertarianism constitutes the intellectual core of much of the reigning anti-tax sentiment (as well as animating large social movements like the Tea Party). And since the heart of progressive politics requires taxation to achieve its aims – less inequality, more opportunity, better public services, etc. – libertarian politics have troubling implications. If taxes cannot be levied due to a strong belief in libertarian self-ownership, then
individual’s natural rights, which limit the actions of others” (1974, p. 57). This moral space, this sphere of rights, encompasses both an individual’s body and her property, which is why taxation is seen as such an evil – it represents a piercing of the sphere of rights, which is just as reprehensible as if it were an infringement on the body itself. This explains why libertarians endow such strong rights to the ownership of private property: any threat to property threatens the deepest rights of the individual. In order to critique these views I want to make the case that the libertarian conception of the self is deeply problematic. It is empirically unrealistic and normatively suspect. To begin to see why, consider three examples as intuition pumps. (i) Recall Otsuka’s example of “two strangers” in the wilderness, one bald and one hirsute, “each of whom will freeze to death unless clothed” (2003, p. 18). Notice that the example only works in favour of libertarianism if we allow Otsuka’s premise that the two are strangers. It is this presumption of atomism that obliterates any sense of obligation. As soon as we relax this presumption our intuitions change. Imagine that the bald person is actually the father of the hirsute person (and his genes are entirely responsible for her long, thick hair). Imagine that the father was also her teacher, so that she would be physically incapable of weaving hair were it not for him. In this scenario we see that the weaver’s ability to weave hair is a direct result of past social facts and social relations, and therefore it seems obvious that she has some (at least minimal) reciprocal obligations to her father/teacher. What exactly does justice demand in this case? Is the weaver obliged to provide just the minimal amount of clothing to prevent her father from freezing? Is she obliged to provide more than that? It is not clear, because the weaver has rights too, which must somehow be balanced against her obligations.