The Essential Rothbard - Ludwig von Mises Institute

The Essential Rothbard 91
from the nature of man. The fact that each person has control of his
own will implies that the attempt to coerce the will of another is
unjustifiable—to do so is to attempt to violate human nature. This
prohibition does not apply, Rothbard holds, once violence has been
initiated. Here one may respond with all necessary force, and Rothbard
carefully elaborates a theory of retributive punishment.
Once self-ownership has been established, property rights soon
follow: one acquires property through “mixing one’s labor” with
unowned property, or by acquiring such property in gift or
exchange from someone else. Rothbard displays great dialectical
skill in anticipating objections to his theory. One of the most
important of these is that if one may acquire property through
Lockean labor mixture, does this not unfairly bias matters in favor
of the first possessor? Imagine a group of shipwrecked sailors
swimming toward an uninhabited island. Does the first person to
reach the island acquire it? Can he then refuse entry to his shipmates,
unless they pay exorbitant rents to him? The political
philosopher G.A. Cohen later raised exactly this objection to libertarianism,
without reference to Rothbard’s discussion. 243
Rothbard easily turns aside the objection.
Crusoe, landing upon a large island, may grandiosely trumpet
to the winds his “ownership” of the entire island. But, in
natural fact, he owns only the part that he settles and transforms
into use. . . . Note that we are not saying that, in order
for property in land to be valid, it must be continually in use.
The only requirement is that the land be once put in use, and
thus become the property of the one who has mixed his labor
with, who imprinted the stamp of his personal energy upon,
the land. 244
243 See G.A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
244 Ethics of Liberty, p. 64; emphasis in the original.