----- Original Message ----- From: "dlawbailey" <dlawbailey at netzero.net>
>
> To get back to the questions arising from the "right to food" debate, it
> seems clear to me that under any socialist legal ideology the one thing a
> worker could be guaranteed rights to would be the product of his own work.
> That right is one that "positive rights" inevitably violate, except in the
> case we've agreed on.
=====================
Nay, even under any form of socialism, the kind of self-ownership of the fruits of one's labor you speak of would be an impossibility. A keen understanding of the intra-generational and intergenerational dynamics of knowledge diffusion and the meeting of the needs of those who cannot work pre-empt the dreams of those who follow the enticing rhetoric of Thomas Hodgskin and his fans. Nonetheless, a strong notion of self-ownership is needed to handle the organizational and technological complexities of this century that pay critical attention to the body, communication in pursuit of non-authoritarian relations of production, and the manner in which actually existing authoritarian persons and prerogatives facilitate the perpetuation of exploitation.
Ian