Citizens have rights. Slaves have duties. If a citizen has duties, he or she has obligations and if he or she has obligations there is someone to whom the slave owes duty to. Slaves have masters. Citizens are equals.
Masters explain to slaves the importance of duties. They expound on the importance of works. One has as a dutiful slave, obligations to the master.
The master may humbly list what his or her obligations to the slave are. Without a mechanism of enforcement, a duty is not a duty it is a gift or benefit. The slave cannot force the master to live up to the terms of the social contract established. The contract enforcement provisions are all one sided. This is why the slave is the slave and the master, the master. Benefits must be earned by the recipient. Duties are owed regardless of the environment in which they are to be provided.
The duties of the slave are absolute under pain of punishment. The duties of the master are conditional upon the masters’ good pleasure (that is voluntary). Benefits at best are issued only after the slave has fulfilled all his or her duties to the master’s satisfaction. The response even then is never in kind or qualitatively similar. The duties of master and slave are never transactional. The benefits offered to slaves are more motivational than substantial.
The master haughtily responds to the slave’s petition for freedom, by explaining all slaves must have duties. Slaves cannot have freedom otherwise the system of slavery will cease to operate. Slaves must pay part of the common expense and permit intrusions into his domicile as determined by his master. Land worked on or lived on by the slave must be open to intrusion by the master and at times sacrificed to the needs of the slave community. These things must be if slavery is to continue. Without duties imposed on the slave and the removal of rights the master will not be able to perform his tasks as overseer with effectiveness. Slavery demands slavery as any fool ought to understand.
Slaves want freedom and the master understands. But freedom is not a right it is an earned privilege. To drive, own a gun, start a business, renovate your home and so on requires permission from the master. Slaves have rights and freedoms but only in an environment in which duty comes first. One may speak freely so long as one remembers one’s duty not to offend the master. How, says master, could slavery persist if benefits were given without conditions?
The slave with a puzzled look, humbly enquires why he and master look the same though clothes, house, and other goods used by master are of much better quality than the same things used by slaves?
Master replies that the master takes responsibility for the slave and has invested his money in gaining power over the slave, on that basis he has the greater right to what the slave produces.
The master then asks the slave to look at his birth papers and other documents. “All of your documents have on them the name I gave you,” says the master. “I own your name and all that is under your name. If you wish freedom, you must give up your name and all that is in your name.”
But says the slave, “Have I no rights to all I have worked for all the days of my life?”
“If you had rights to who you are and what you have you would not be a slave”, replies the master.
What the slave does not know is that if he looked on master’s papers, he would see master is also a slave. But if master and slave are both people with duties who have been deprived of all of their rights, who is the ultimate master? In truth the people own the people and the people deprive the people of their rights through the agency of the state.
Socialism is the state as master. Globalism is a One World Government as master.
Democracy is a process in which the slave pledges fealty to the state. Democracy is the power of the people provided by the people giving up agency to an institution. Our identities as citizen are relinquished and our identity as slave taken up. Our slave name is owned by the state which is why the state capitalizes our name. This is a branded label created by the state to identify its property. Our legal name is our slave name.
The state owns us, so it controls what we retain for our own use. Ultimately, the state controls our movement, associations and speech, though it is more lenient in some areas than in others. However, it retains the monopoly on force and the provision of legislation and so ultimate power is always invested in the state.
The question we pose here is the question asked by slaves: “What is the process of emancipation? How do slaves regain freedom? We are born free. We are enslaved to the state, by the state we citizens create. What process gives slaves back the rights we were born with? How do we regain our citizen rights”?
If we must go hat in hand to the state, we ourselves created, asking for rights, all we can get are benefits. The state has no rights, and no state can give us human beings, human rights. The state provides legal rights as a revocable benefit. Legal rights can be and are rescinded. Look at how quickly and easily our legal rights were taken away because of Covid 19.
The state rarely if ever issues a benefit without imposing a cost. Legal rights are not unconditional, they assume duties have been preformed on the part of the recipient. A citizen either has rights or not. Human rights are not negotiable, revocable or abridgeable.
A lot of ideas have been put forward on how to escape the legal clutches of the state. The writers all think a slave can free themselves or be freed by a master. We have already seen the master is also a slave. Slaves cannot grant freedom to slaves nor grant rights they do not themselves have.
Rejecting one’s duties does not free a slave from these duties. A rebellious slave is a rebellious slave he or she is not free. Depending on the nature and extent of the rebellion he may or may not be punished. Rejecting duties does not give anyone the rights of a citizen.
The only thing a slave can give to another slave is a benefit. A slave can benefit another slave or give him or her privileges, if he or she has them him or herself. Slaves do not have rights and so cannot offer rights.
The problem with receiving privileges from master is that master can as easily take back the privilege as provide it. Only rights are inalienable.
The only source of rights is God because God is the only creature with rights. There is no other to whom rights can be attributed because nothing can assign rights to themselves through their own agency and worth.
Through God’s mercy and a right, he claims to Himself, we become citizens of God’s Kingdom. We are made perfect in Christ. We are redeemed by the blood of Christs sacrifice and we are perfected by being prepared for his kingdom through faith.
As citizens of His kingdom we are made heirs to His kingdom. This right cannot be rescinded or removed because there is no one to remove it, the promise being made by God is a Right given by God. The promise of God cannot be revoked only because there is no power beyond God to cause its revocation.
The promises of God cannot be rescinded because the promises of God rests on the inalienable Right He assigns to Himself to make promises.
We are not just citizens of His Kingdom as understood by the secular state. We are made in the image of God and are heirs to His kingdom meaning we share in His rights. We have a right to what we create as God has a right to His creation.
Man cannot create assets as the physical world was created by God and belongs to God. As his creation we can add value to what exists. This is the creation of equity. The portion belonging to God constitutes a liability in that it is not ours. Man is the author of equity which is value added to the assets formed by God that make up the natural world.
A painter paints a picture. He owns the image but not the paint, canvas or other physical elements. The artist adds value to the elements out of which the painting was made. God has an inalienable right to His creation and the artist has an inalienable right to the value he added.
Man does not have a duty to create but he has a right to create. No one owns the natural world but God. No one can allocate the parts of nature to himself or others and no one can restrain its use by others. The state has no right to assign nature to man nor manage its use because the state did not create nature. All assignments of nature to human agents is invalid and illicit.
The state claims it can give us ownership and possession of our house and clothes and car. The state provides deeds and other ownership documents. That is ok. Lets just pretend this is so. Let’s pretend the documents we are given prove we own property. Let’s not worry for now where the state got the authority to say its authority is sufficient to define ownership. These are personal possessions. God is willing to turn a blind eye to the ownership of personal possessions.
But does this mean a state can assign ownership of a forest or waterfall to a private party? Is it permissible for John to clear cut a forest and destroy a river to log a thousand acres of forest and turn the wood into paper products? Where do governments get the right to give possession to John and John to destroy a natural resource to turn a profit?
If the state cannot legitimately assign rights to John, who is a private agent, they have no right to abrogate these rights to its own agency, that is to the state itself, as socialists’ states do.
Let’s look at the issue of ownership in more detail in the Legend of Og.
The Legend Of Og The Neolithic hunter
Og is a stone age hunter who fashions an arrowhead for his personal use. It is no better or worse than any other hunters’ arrowhead. There is no specialization in the tribe of Og because there are no special gifts evidenced. Special gifts are from God given so our work may benefit others. Special gifts form the basis of specialization.
At some future point in time God grants Og a special skill. Because he is gifted, he now possesses the basis for becoming a specialized artesian. With specialization comes economic exchange and human progress.
Other hunters see Og has a special facility with stone and want his arrow heads. He could give his arrowheads away but that would means his ability to provide arrow heads for other hunters would be limited. So, he agrees to provide a arrow head for a three day portion of meat. This way he is free to provide arrow heads without limiting his ability to feed his family.
At this level of trade, Og can be forgiven for using what belongs to God, (the stone) to benefit himself, because his work also benefits his tribe. The stone belongs to God, but the work belongs to Og. But Og is simply trying to help his tribe by doing for them, what they would need to do for themselves, but less well.
God gives Og a special gift, the ability to work stone. Og uses this gift as God intended. Og helps others. Because of Og’s obedience the use of what belongs to God, the raw material for arrowheads, is of no significance.
But what if there is only one source of good stone and Og claims this because he says it is on his families land? Og in this scenario may not even be a skilled carver of stone? Og has no gift from God yet claims what he is not gifted to use? What if he has claimed this quarry only because he knows its importance to the tribe? Perhaps he manages to convince a couple of the strongest men to back his claim (for a fee). Og does not make arrow heads. He tells any villager who wants stone, they have to share all future kills with him. With the wealth he earns he hires more bodyguards and buys the best woman and the best huts. Eventually his wealth and power is sufficient for him to take over the tribe as its king.
Not only is Og claiming what belongs to God he uses what God created to further his own agenda.
Og demands all men provide military service three months of the year. The army wins its battles and subjugates other tribes. Og requires the men to serve in the military. Though various devices Og builds up the land and people an creates an empire. But through all of this Og has done no work other than exploit what belongs to God and others.
Does it make Og more godly if he obtains his power from an election? What if 20% or 50% or 75% tell Og he is their king? Does being a king give Og the authority to assign Nulug a thousand acres of land for his own use along with all the people and resources, in return for his fealty?
The Tragedy Of The Commons Revisited
Governments assign resources to private parties all the time. The state creates nothing and owns nothing; so how does the state create ownership?
Ownership is based on authorship, that is the act of creation. Authorship is the only foundation on which ownership can exist.
All costs are to be paid by the person originating costs. No costs are to be transferred onto society and future generations.
Ownership is often assumed to have arisen out of early communism; a time when everything was held in common. One story created to explain the problem of common land was titled The Tragedy Of The Commons. It was a fanciful tale as land has been held in common in England for centuries, without incidents of exploitation destroying it. People are well able to protect their self-interest even when it comes to common land if the state is not protecting the wrong doer.
The Tragedy Of The Commons illustrates the problem of owning things in common. It is meant to be a critique of communism. In the story a village is described that holds a large piece of land in common as a meadow on which the villager’s feed their cows.
In the story the villagers graze one cow per household. One villager purchases an additional cow. He wants to sell more milk. This makes him seem like a greedy, selfish capitalist ought to benefit himself even at the expense of everyone else.
The rogue villager now has two cows on the meadow land to the one of every other villager. The meadow is capable of supporting only 12 cows in prime condition. The addition of the extra beast causes the land to be over-grazed. Because all the animals now have insufficient feed milk production declines. Average yield per cow is reduced though absolute output remains the same, milk production is divided between a larger number of animals.
All the villagers experience a similar decline per cow but the villager grazing two animals reaps production from two animals instead of one.
The solution given is to privatize the Commons. In the story the commons is put under one persons control. In a political context this would be called autocracy, but economists like to use the word privatization.
This is an odd remedy considering the villager who externalized the cost of the additional cow onto his neighbour’s herd, may become the owner of the common land. The village would have no place to graze their animals unless they rent forage land from the new owner. Privatization of the commons leaves the village dependent on the greedy villager for their milk and meat supplies. If the new owner exploited the land before he owned it would he not try and exploit his position now he is the sole owner. Do people become nicer when they become a capitalist?
The addition of a cow to the common land steals value from the co-owners or villagers. This is free riding or socialism. In a real-world situation, the errant villager would have been disciplined by the other villagers. Citizens do not let one person deprive them of what belongs to all.
In the story when the land is sold or centralized under one owner the villagers are expected to find other forms of work. While this has happened historically, as people leave farming to take up work in factories, the process has not been without hardship.
A better solution would have been for the villagers to tar and feather the wrong doer and seize his cattle selling one and keeping the other as part of the village common goods. In real life this is probably what would have happened.
Privatizing the land denies the rights of the citizens to their land, even as the exploitative behaviour of one denied the right of the many.
What was not asked in the story is who has the right to remove what belongs to all and consolidate ownership in a single person’s hands? The state does this all the time, but no one explains where it gets its authority from. The answer is that under liberalism, might makes right. The power to do legitimizes what is done.
The town held rights to the common land as a public trust. It was meant to be used for personal needs. Each cow was owned by each family and used to provide milk for the family. The problem was not the land or its ownership model, it was the townsman that moved from personal to commercial use. The issue with the additional animal and commercial use was that it created costs for the rest of the village.
The commercialization of assets is an infraction of The Golden Rule. The errant villager did not do unto his neighbors as he would have had them do unto him. Christians refer to the application of The Golden Rule as coming alongside of the other. We help others in their time of need, in the ways they need. We do not dictate the help we will give but conform to the needs of the one in need. This is indeed what we would wish others would likewise do unto us.
Commercialization takes what belongs to all and turns it into a dictated form of help. Liberals take a waterfall and turn it into electricity. This is a good work on the surface but from another perspective it exploits a natural resource and turns it into a tool for private gain.
Now when we look at the history of man, we note that tribes are horrendously inefficient. Indeed, many tribesmen each have their own cow and their own tools, and each does what he or she needs to do to be reasonably self-sufficient. Not to say they do not help one another and hold somethings in common but the trend is towards self-sufficiency. This is not biblical. We are called to be dependent on one another.
If we wish to do unto others, we must enable others to do unto us. What do we want others to do for us the most? We want them to help us do what we are best at. We want them to help us to be in a position where we can be the most valuable. This is the body of Christ. We are all members of the same body, but we are not all the same member of the same body. We are specialized and no part of the body is greater or lesser than the other. We conform to the body of Christ to become part of the body of Christ.
As Christians and as citizens we are not master and slave but brothers and sisters.
Indeed, the one villager ought to have had care of the land. If you wish to call it personal, private or public ownership is not the issue. The land and all of the natural world belongs to God. We have Dominion but as stewards.
One man ought to have had care of the herd. The milking and preparation of butter and cheese ought to have been the responsibility of one or two specialized persons. But no man created the cows, no man creates milk. One man sows, another waters, but it is God who provides the increase. We are not the authors of the natural order of things. However, we work, and the worker is worthy of his wages.
Ownership is both immaterial and a false flag. Nature belongs to God no matter what you want to call our stewardship of it. At most we are personal owners because we own what we use for personal use and we own the equity we create. We cannot own assets that were formed by God.
The village ought to have created a church. The church represents God’s claim on earth and His authority over all that is Created by Him.
The Christian Church
We are the body of Christ. We live by The Golden Rule. We are the slaves of Christ not of man. We own the equity we create we cannot own anything created by God.
All commercial property held by Christians is sold to the church. For clarity we call the holding company a Citizens Exchange. This is a business or charity that represents the public trust. It holds all things in common in the name and authority of our Creator, Lord Jesus Christ.
The owner is recompensed for his or her work of care. When donations of goods and services are provided the Exchange the Exchange reciprocates by issuing the citizen preferred shares up to the value of the goods and services donated.
Exchanges prohibit slavery in the form of unpaid production of value. All workers are worthy of their wage and all workers are those who produce things with value.
Citizens are paid in equity units or preferred shares. Preferred shares represent value drawn on the assets of the Exchange. Preferred shares (prefers) function as a citizen’s currency and are issued in multiples of itself in the same way units of domestic fiat currency is.
Land and cattle and other assets are recorded as assets of the Exchange. Each villager owns one share (Common Share) of the enterprise as well as his or her earned equity.
The Exchange ensures all use of the land is paid for. Citizens are customers as well as employees. A villager who buys eggs, cheese or bread or other goods or services pays the Exchange for the value he of she receives using prefers as a currency or unit of account. The manager of the land is paid to manage the asset belonging to the village and ensures land use represents the best interest of all shareholders. The income the Exchange makes is divided among the shareholders after expenses.
What this means is that it benefits the village if the citizens specialize. This is the true meaning and purpose of The Golden Rule.
Citizens are people who help one another in specialized ways. A citizen is a person with the right of specialization. As a citizen and member of Christs body you have a right to a mission. A mission is a specialized way of contributing to the body.
Slaves have duties, citizens have rights. Christians have a duty to Christ to serve the body and a right to serve in a way that gives the glory to God, in the context of the church.