Rothbard developed a system of ethics based on the principles of self-ownership and the original appropriation of unowned natural resources through homesteading.
Any other proposal, he demonstrated, either does not qualify as an ethical system applicable to everyone qua human being, or it is not viable, for following it would literally imply death while it requires a surviving proponent, and thus leads to performative contradictions.
The former is the case with all proposals which imply granting A ownership over B and resources homesteaded by B, but not giving B the same right with respect to A.
The latter is the case with all proposals advocating universal (communal) co-ownership of everyone and everything by all, for then no one would be allowed to do anything with anything before he had everyone’s consent to do whatever he wanted to do.
And how could anyone consent to anything if he were not the exclusive (private) owner of his body? (Hoppe 1999, 238)
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