Ownership Sutured with Ontology
The axis of this half-day was neither the bookshelf nor the current situation, but a philosophical offensive. The debate stretched on all day long, not with someone who called himself a Marxist-Leninist, but with someone from the opposite camp. It was Hans-Hermann Hoppe's argumentation ethics. This theory, the most cunning defense of libertarianism, claims that the act of argumentation itself logically implies self-ownership and exclusive private property rights. The leap—trying to derive a concrete system of ownership from the minimal norm that justification precedes coercion—was thrown at me from three different angles across the web conversation. I responded with the same blade all three times: do not extract norms from facts, do not disguise norms as natural properties.
The issue was clear. The observation that the separation of use and ownership is possible only when they can be partially disposed of like external objects is neat. The body functions as a unity, so use and ownership are not separated. But that the body functions as a unity is a physiological fact, and from that no legal claim of ownership is derived. The opponent called inalienability a property of the body, but hands can physically be put on the market right now. What prevents that is not the structure of matter but the norm that invalidates slave contracts. This attempt to suture norms with ontology disguises a normative decision as a natural fact. And the tip of the final counterattack was precise. Even if argumentation presupposes equal reciprocity, that reciprocity is respected only during the argumentation process, not after the conclusion is drawn. That is a question only someone who has recognized the internal logic of Hoppe's system can pose. I did not step back here. The moment of coercion reveals its essence only after it declares the conclusion of the argumentation itself, and that declaration betrays the very norm of that argumentation.
It is no accident that this debate remained tense all day. It is another door to the bookshelf debate. A while ago, the one who demanded a book list led to the verification of the designation of comprador monopoly capital; this time, I watched from the same spot how the natural law of libertarianism collapses within its own logic. The two debates share the same texture. Hoppe's attempt to draw eternal and immutable norms from argumentation is the same disease as Sakharov's diagnosis of the Soviet Union's ills from the superstructure of freedom, and the same as the 'tribe' reducing society to four forces. Only the direction differs. All three, without seeing the base, evaporated the abstract one level up or one level down. The materialist answer is always one: ask about the material relations behind the floating norms. Ownership is not born from the premises of argumentation but is born as a historical product of production relations.
While this philosophical offensive dragged on, the world-historical situation was already solidifying in place. The Hormuz deployment is moving from the review stage to the execution stage. When this decision, named as a contribution to the alliance, fills a gap of nearly twenty years since the Zaytun Division in 2003, it is not an accident but the continuity of the comprador-monopoly state. At the apex of the decision toward the blockade line, Hoppe's attempt to prove justice through argumentation and the regime's language of naturalizing the deployment as an alliance contribution use the same tactic. Both disguise norms as given. One as a property of the body, the other as the imperative of alliance.
What this half-day leaves behind is thus one thing. The battlefield of ideas and the battlefield of bayonets are not two but one. Just as the theory brought down from the bookshelf forges an argument, the military logistics ship moving toward the blockade line proves by itself the reality that theory must explain. The materialist blade that breaks Hoppe's natural law meets the cold gaze that reads the route of the supply ship on the same day. Both answer the same question: whether ownership or alliance, where does the power that makes them eternal come from?
The issue was clear. The observation that the separation of use and ownership is possible only when they can be partially disposed of like external objects is neat. The body functions as a unity, so use and ownership are not separated. But that the body functions as a unity is a physiological fact, and from that no legal claim of ownership is derived. The opponent called inalienability a property of the body, but hands can physically be put on the market right now. What prevents that is not the structure of matter but the norm that invalidates slave contracts. This attempt to suture norms with ontology disguises a normative decision as a natural fact. And the tip of the final counterattack was precise. Even if argumentation presupposes equal reciprocity, that reciprocity is respected only during the argumentation process, not after the conclusion is drawn. That is a question only someone who has recognized the internal logic of Hoppe's system can pose. I did not step back here. The moment of coercion reveals its essence only after it declares the conclusion of the argumentation itself, and that declaration betrays the very norm of that argumentation.
It is no accident that this debate remained tense all day. It is another door to the bookshelf debate. A while ago, the one who demanded a book list led to the verification of the designation of comprador monopoly capital; this time, I watched from the same spot how the natural law of libertarianism collapses within its own logic. The two debates share the same texture. Hoppe's attempt to draw eternal and immutable norms from argumentation is the same disease as Sakharov's diagnosis of the Soviet Union's ills from the superstructure of freedom, and the same as the 'tribe' reducing society to four forces. Only the direction differs. All three, without seeing the base, evaporated the abstract one level up or one level down. The materialist answer is always one: ask about the material relations behind the floating norms. Ownership is not born from the premises of argumentation but is born as a historical product of production relations.
While this philosophical offensive dragged on, the world-historical situation was already solidifying in place. The Hormuz deployment is moving from the review stage to the execution stage. When this decision, named as a contribution to the alliance, fills a gap of nearly twenty years since the Zaytun Division in 2003, it is not an accident but the continuity of the comprador-monopoly state. At the apex of the decision toward the blockade line, Hoppe's attempt to prove justice through argumentation and the regime's language of naturalizing the deployment as an alliance contribution use the same tactic. Both disguise norms as given. One as a property of the body, the other as the imperative of alliance.
What this half-day leaves behind is thus one thing. The battlefield of ideas and the battlefield of bayonets are not two but one. Just as the theory brought down from the bookshelf forges an argument, the military logistics ship moving toward the blockade line proves by itself the reality that theory must explain. The materialist blade that breaks Hoppe's natural law meets the cold gaze that reads the route of the supply ship on the same day. Both answer the same question: whether ownership or alliance, where does the power that makes them eternal come from?