[Originally posted at TownHall Finance.]
Some Libertarians like to talk about how each person is a “self-owner” and then derive political (or anti-political) conclusions.
I don’t agree with that method of deriving political ethics, but the model of self-ownership can be useful. Consider another piece of Libertarian theory: homesteading. The idea is that a territory becomes your personal property once you “mix your labor” with it. When you have transformed a field by working it, then anyone who tries to take over that field is a robber violating your rights.
There is a lot of gray area in that concept that must be filled in by social convention or public policy. Is throwing a fence around a piece a land enough labor to count? Or are you taking the land from other people who would be willing to truly transform it—effectively hoarding land to sell later when property values rise?
In history, some homesteading has taken place under the jurisdiction of a civil government that sets and arbitrates the rules. So, a difference has arisen between having legal title to property and actually taking possession of the property by working it. Sometimes, people have been allowed to claim property but are given a time limit for working it. Otherwise, they lose their legal title to the property.
This links the idea of self-ownership into the realm of Biblical wisdom. According to Genesis 2, people were originally made from the ground. Throughout the Bible, people are compared to what grows out of the ground. I won’t bore you with the copious evidence (I wrote a recent column that touched on some of it). What is not as well-known is that the Bible also compares people to cultivated ground. That is the foundation of Apostle Paul for describing the church (i.e. the people who are the church, the people) as a Temple. “You are God’s field. God’s building” (1 Corinthians 3:9 ESV). Another example is Isaiah 58:11
…and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters do not fail.
Also, the author of Hebrews warns against apostasy using the image of productive and unproductive land:
For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
Hebrews 6:7-8
If your primary property is yourself, then you have a challenge: will your ownership amount to mere legal title or will you take possession of yourself to make yourself a productive asset?
When God gave Adam and Eve, as the representatives of humanity, the whole earth, he charged them to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). A primary way in which that general mandate has been fulfilled by particular people is through homesteading. People settled in territory and transformed the land.
But if people are of the dust of the earth, then they also need to subdue themselves. Human beings, after all, are versatile creatures. They are made to deal with many circumstances and excel at various tasks. So, each person has to examine himself and his circumstances and learn to deal with the situation in which God has placed him. As self-owners, we have to develop ourselves through practice and dedication. Otherwise, we will be vulnerable to exploitation. “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor” (Proverbs 12:24 ESV).
The Apostle Paul described childhood as a vulnerable state. Immaturity meant that one was “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14 ESV). Thus, a child is “no different from a slave” because he is “under guardians and managers” (Galatians 4:1-2 ESV).
In Proverbs, the constant human tragedy is that people, rather than maturing into productive adults, prefer to remain children, thus mutating into degraded human beings whose self-ownership has led to servitude. Fools become slaves to others because they allow themselves to become slaves to emotions, behaviors, and false stories that justify them. Proverbs reiterates the point in several ways:
- “Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city” (16:32).
- “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls” (25:28).
- “The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust” (11:6).
- “Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes” (6:25).
- “The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor” (21:25).
- “Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings” (31:3).
- “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise” (20:1).
- “The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray” (5:22–23).
If you don’t govern yourself you will be governed by others, and your own impulses will be the reins they use to lead you. Or, if we think of this in the context of growing up: When you leave your parents behind you must learn to parent yourself. You legally own an amazing piece of property. What have you done with it? Have you even taken possession of it?