Personal Boundaries

We must take action in order to survive and thrive, but we must also use our individual freedom in a responsible way by not aggressing upon others.

In order to survive and thrive, we are required to interact with others and often encounter areas which separate us.
Healthy personal boundaries help us to do this in a respectful way by asserting our actions without crossing over into another’s boundary through aggression.

Property Rights

The basic truth of self-ownership states that we are the owners of our bodies as well as our efforts and labors.
We can also not make a claim on another’s body, effort, or labor.

But, even when we assert our ownership in a non-aggressive way, we still run the risk of conflict as we interact in the world outside of our boundaries through necessity. These conflicts are a necessary part of life, and offer the opportunity to collectively solve problems in peaceful manner.

This is where Property Rights come into play.
Property Rights are the rules which help us determine each of our individual claims of ownership when it comes to our efforts, labors, productive output, and the access to raw materials.

These rules allow us to negotiate peacefully when interacting with others in a fair and balanced way.

Property Rights do not necessarily require that we be in physical control of certain items, but there is still an agreement and understanding of the labor and effort that went into the production.

Production often times requires a collaborative human effort. Giving credit to each person's individual labor ensures fairness and peace.

Negotiating

There's more to this for later, but a big part of interacting with our fellow human is how we contract with them. There's value to our efforts and how we share that value and trade for it is critical. Of utmost importance is consent. The great folk singer Utah Phillips shared "If I cannot dictate the conditions of my labor I will henceforth cease to work." Through our interactions and contracting consent to agreements serves a critical role.