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Hobbes' Take on the State of Nature and Associated Human Rights
In chapter 13 of Leviathan, Hobbes expresses that the state of nature is a state of war. Each individual decides what resources they need, who to respect, and how to behave; without the presence of authority to monitor these actions, conflict will arise. The constant threat of violence places all individuals in a state of skepticism where they may feel the need to defend themselves and their property (§ 4-5, 8-10). The right of nature is the right to protect one’s own life using whatever means possible within reason. People have this right of self-preservation because it is a natural law that everyone is entitled to since birth. Ultimately, humans must seek out peace to fulfill their own desires and right to life (ch. 13, § 14; ch. 14, § 1-6).

Hobbes states that to escape the state of nature, sovereign authority must be established. People may surrender their independence in exchange for protection by the sovereign power as long as authority is obeyed. This minimizes the individual’s fear of scarcity and violence because it is up to the sovereign power to make, enforce, and interpret laws, rather than the people (ch. 17, § 12, 14-15). People should obey the law because if we exist in a state of nature and have surrendered our independence to sovereign power, we have consented to be governed by this higher power. It is our obligation to cooperate with sovereign power, by either acquisition or institution, because this frees us from a state of war (ch. 18, § 1, 3-5).

Hobbes’ idea that nature has made all men equal in mind, body, and ability stems from the following thought process. People are content with their intellectual ability and if there were significant differences in intellectual ability, people would envy others; therefore, people are equal in intellectual abilities. The weakest person can find a way to kill the strongest, meaning that people are equal in strength. Evidently, people are naturally equal in body and mind. Furthermore, people are entitled to things based on their merit and since people are roughly equal, they have equal merit. Therefore, since nature has made people equal in body and mind, people can claim the same benefits as everyone else. This conclusion contributes to the state of war because if everyone is equally entitled to a limited number of benefits, there is no way to determine which man is more deserving of those resources (ch. 13, § 1-2).

Locke’s Take on the State of Nature and Associated Human Rights
In his book “Second Treatise of Government”, John Locke delineates his take on the State of Nature, its details, and the alternative. Starting with Chapter 2, Locke states that the State of Nature is important as it is the precursor of political power and righteousness. In Locke’s take on the State of nature, there is the emphasis on what people are naturally induced to do of their own accord. The state people are naturally in is that of perfect freedom, equality, and predisposed to charity and justice. Locke defines equality as when all power can be reciprocated on the entity and no one entity has more power than the other. The most obvious entity he mentions, is the human race and their equality. His reasoning is that God has given equal disposal to the Earth, its resources and nature, and sovereignty to themselves (§ 4).

Looking upon another philosopher named Richard Hooker, Locke concurs with Hooker’s belief that people are inclined to mutual love. Everyone would benefit as the love that you express to other people will be reciprocated (§ 5). If someone transgresses beyond what people deem mutual love towards one another, that person will no longer have mutual love reciprocated upon them and the other people can punish the offender under the pretensions that that person was compromising the peace and preservation of mankind (§ 7). Punishment can also take the form of self preservation that the afflicted can waive if he sees fit, or seek out punishment to prevent the offender from transgressing again. All people have the right to punish in these two forms; for the good of themselves and for the good of mankind. These punishments should have enough severity that it is not a good trade off for committing crimes. People can break the law to punish another. If the punishment meets the severity of the crime, it can even result in the offenders murder or death (§ 11, 12).

These punishments can extend beyond the person and can apply to one's possessions. Locke explains the rights someone has to their possessions in Chapter 5. Locke defines one’s possessions as a piece of common nature that God bestowed for all that has been appropriated to the right owner from their own labor (§ 29). If the resources someone has labored over for their own benefit contains more than that person’s share, the surplus belongs to others (§ 31).

However, the limits of Locke's initial acquisition is when everyone is free to take whatever they want, it is impossible to have a system of equality in the products that are being used (§ 32, 33). Through trading individual things like food, metals, and clothing, it's hard to judge whether something is a "fair trade." Locke uses the example of trading a basket of plums, that will spoil next week, for a basket of nuts that will last all year. To further this idea, it's hard to grow one's wealth when you are making trades. Money fixed these limits by offering a baseline price for everything that everyone agrees on and understands. By selling something you own for money, you can then take some of that money and buy something else, and then sell a portion of that, and the cycle repeats.

The easiest remedy for the inconvenience and the individualistic responsibility of the state of nature is civil government. According to Locke, civil government will only bring confusion and disorder (Chapter. 1, § 13).

Rothbard: Society Without a State
Rothbard argues that the state is immoral through taxation by coercion. This stems from Rothbard's thinking that defense provided by the state can be done privately and people don't require a state to be defended. Everyone else acquires their income voluntarily through consumerism or donations, whereas the government allows for these sales to happen, and then takes the money from the people selling or buying. He claims that in a state only a government is going to come after him for not giving them money. Rothbard gives an argument stating that if he stopped buying a certain cereal brand, the company making that brand, or the government won’t come after him. On the other hand, if Rothbard stopped paying taxes, the monopoly of government wouldn’t allow for that and would take his property involuntarily through coercion. Rothbard also has his ideal society as one with complete freedom. He doesn’t like the idea that the government can censor certain parts of society. He states that these censorships are just ways for the state to build aggressions on society, making people accept those makes it easier for the population to accept other rules or aggressions as well. (Society without a state, pg 1-2)

Rothbard does not agree with the anarchist belief that everyone is good. Rothbard assumes the anarchist society would be one that maximizes the good for the people, while minimizing the moral legitimacy of the evil and the criminal (Rothbard, pg 2 par 4). This argument stems from Rothbard's argument of the state being immoral, without the state there is no evil to base off of besides what people think is evil. Allowing for the people to make up their minds on what this society would allow. Rothbard agrees that no society would be able to survive if the population was “hell-bent upon assaulting and robbing their neighbors” (Rothbard, pg 2 par 5). This quote of Rothbard’s backs up that a chaotic society can’t be controlled by the state or the people, so in this sense most people would have to be at least a little “morally good” to maintain an anarchist society. (Society Without a State, pg 2-3)

Rothbard believes that an anarchist society would be able to control itself. His ideal for this society would be one that creates their own justice system (courts), their own economy, and their own protection. Rothbard believes that having a government is worse for the people because it's putting one monopoly in power. (Society without a state, paragraph 6-9)

The anarchist system that Rothbard thinks should replace the state is one that puts people in power based on their abilities. Rothbar believes for example, the "the arbitrators with the best reputation for efficiency and probity would be chosen by the various parties on the market. As in other processes of the market, the arbitrators with the best record in settling disputes will come to gain an increasing amount of business, and those with poor records will no longer enjoy clients and will have to shift to another line of endeavor". This displays Rothbard's view of the anarchist society, by showing that the people with the most abilities or the best prices would dominate the market. This makes sense and would cause the people to be getting more for what they worked for than if the government was taking a percent of what they purchase or sell. (Society Without a State, paragraph 12-14)

George: The Injustice of Private Property in Land
George argues that one person cannot own land because one cannot obtain a title to land from the creator. And because nature has no owner, any other title that could be obtained is not valid. To elaborate, because individuals are not capable of receiving a title for property from the original creator of that land, like we can for store bought items, they should not be able to own the land. However, most people do have titles for property, but George says that those titles are not valid because they did not originate from the creator, and you cannot own something that is not yours (Henry George, The Injustice of private property and land, pg 368).

This ties into his view on private ownership. In George’s opinion, individual proprietorship violates a person’s natural rights because everyone has equal rights to land, because it cannot be owned. Therefore by privately ‘owning’ property, you are privatizing land that everyone should have access to (Henry George, The Injustice of private property and land, pg 370). Ownership of land could lead to economic inequality because in less developed and populated areas there would be a lot more nature and natural resources. Because of this, everyone had access to the resources needed to produce things for their lives. Development and ownership of land destroyed that benefit, and once we privatized these things, we had to start relying on others for the things we needed. Thus, those who had more ‘land’ and natural resources, had more of the things people wanted and needed to survive, and with that held more economic power.

George argues that since economic efficiency needed a growing scarcity of land, in order to combat economic inequality, everyone should have to pay a land-value tax. He proposes that instead of having income or trade taxes, that we instead tax the land based on value to increase economic efficiency. This means that if one person had more than sufficient amounts of natural resources, they would pay a sum in tax that would then equalize the rights of everyone else in the community (Henry George, The Injustice of private property and land, pg 371 para 3 - pg 372).