Self-ownership is the property right that a person has over her natural assets, that is, over her mind and body. As is well known (and nicely summarized in Matt’s post,) Lockeans think that this right can, under appropriate circumstances, justify ownership over external assets.  Most libertarians endorse the idea of self-ownership. Some progressives do too, but an important line of progressive thought rejects self-ownership.  According to John Rawls (in A Theory of Justice,) natural assets are collective property. That is, they belong to society, not to the person who possesses them. The reason for this, Rawls thinks, is that just as we do not deserve being born rich or poor, so we don’t deserve our natural talents. For this reason, societal arrangements that reward talented persons are only justified if they benefit the least talented.

Of all the theses in A Theory of Justice, this is, to me, the most objectionable.  First, the very idea that the state owns me, that something as intimately tied with my personal identity belongs to others who have the power to dispose of it at will, is deeply offensive. It reeeks of domination, even slavery. Second, the thesis is based on a fallacy.  Deserving X is not a necessary condition for legitimately owning X.  Suppose I give you a gift that you do not deserve.  I know this, but I still want to give you the gift.  The gift is yours. The fact that I gave it to you is dispositive, desert or not. The criteria of desert are not coextensive with the criteria of legitimate ownership.

Now if this is true, and if (contrary to Locke) we cannot ground ownership of external objects in self-ownership, this means that I have a much stronger right to the income I make as a street musician, which is strictly derived from my musical talent, than to the income I generate from my farm, because the latter is only partially derived from my natural assets.  I think this is a difficulty for libertarians, but I’ll stop here.