Ownership

The difference between capitalism and statism boils down to the body.  Who owns your body?  Only you can directly control your body.  You own your body and that can’t be alienated.  The body is your property and will always remain that way.  Nearly everyone will admit the own their body, until there’s something they don’t agree with.  The ownership of your body is real.  It is not a social construct nor is there any alternative.

You have natural ownership of your body.  You don’t need society to tell you.  This self-ownership is universal.  You can homestead property with your body—so long as it is unused.  This can be alienated.  You can trade it for money—it can be sold.  This completely excludes ownership by all others.  You can exclude use by others with property.  How many would allow others to use their home against their will?

Well, you’re excluding use.  To use your property against your will is violence.  You can voluntarily exclude people from your home, and they can do the same.  Excluding others from your property is not violence.  You can exclude someone from sleeping in your living room, just like you can exclude a substance from being injected into your body.  Even decide not to let that stranger bake a cake, even if they pay you.

This self-ownership is what separates man from the animals.  It took reason to accomplish this.  The present conditions are the results of violating property.  The common theme is that you don’t own yourself.  They don’t say that, but their actions say more than their words.  Its time people listen with their eyes.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you own yourself.  It doesn’t even take great insight.

Logically, you own your body or someone else does.  Even if its part of your body, that’s still an aggression.  Self-ownership is the only way to peace.  Of course, there will still be disputes.  By and large, it is much more peaceful than denying ownership over your own body.  To demonstrate you don’t own your body is just absurd.  They would have to make sounds with their own body.  This is a performative contradiction as Hoppe explained.