There is a moral principle that legal responsibility should be assigned to the de facto responsible party. Ellerman shows that the employer-employee contract under capitalism is inherently based on violating this fundamental moral principle. Natural rights are just rights that follow from certain basic principles of justice/moral principles.
The capitalist account is that workers consent to wage labor. Ellerman's argument is necessary to show that capitalism even if it was voluntary is unjust
unfreeradical@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Since workers were born into a world that affirms private property, they obviously never gave it their consent.
It is just a fiction that developed its own life by the whip, blade, and gun, and also by the pen and press.
Most of the work of leftist criticisms has simply been deconstructing entrenched doctrine, to help develop consciousness, and to build capacity for liberation.
Ellerman seems to prefer instead constructing his own layer of obfuscation.
It is worth becoming familiar with leftist criticisms of natural rights.
jlou@mastodon.social 10 months ago
The capitalist account is that wage labor is voluntary by any legally usable standard. Even if elevated standards of voluntariness could be made coherent and legally usable, a UBI would resolve such critiques; therefore, they are not per se critiques of capitalism.
What specific layer of obfuscation are you referring to? What specific criticism of natural rights do you have in mind? I have read many criticisms of natural rights, but none of them seem to apply Ellerman's particular formulation
unfreeradical@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Private property is a construct.
Natural rights is a construct.
Neither represents a transcendent truth.
The best account for natural rights is that it provides elegant packaging for values and norms already shared. The danger emerges because whoever controls the packaging also controls what becomes elegantly packaged.
jlou@mastodon.social 10 months ago
In a sense, all ethics are constructs of our minds. If this were grounds to reject human rights (it isn't), it would be a reason against any reason to do anything (i.e. abolish capitalism) including egoism. The transcendent truth about ethics is unknowable. The best we can do is build moral theories on appealing moral principles. Inalienability is a theory not merely a catalogue of personal views. Hegel's inalienability critique of slavery shows this with nonsense added to not attack wage labor