Papirius, you believe that the self is inalienable, I agree with this. You further believe that selling oneself into slavery is illegitimate, which I always found odd, allow me to explain why. (The oddity is in describing employment as “selling” oneself.) If I own myself, you own yourself, then we should be able to do whatever we like with ourselves, for if we couldn’t then we wouldn’t truly own ourselves. If you own a car, which you no longer want, and no one wants to buy it, then you should be able to destroy the car if you so desired. Granted a car doesn’t have the same “owned” status as your body. But if a person wishes to commit suicide, seeing as how they own their self, they should be allowed to kill themselves, even if we personally believe they are wrong, we have no right to tell them they can’t, because they own themselves. Claiming a person can’t kill themself, would be akin to saying the person doesn’t own theirself, resulting in a contradiction, since all people own themselves.
Bob wants to “sell” his self into slavery, his brother doesn’t approve, and he stops Bob from doing so. Jeff, Bob’s brother, doesn’t care what Bob wants, he firmly believes that Bob will be making a terrible mistake. Bob may actually be making a mistake, just like a person who commits suicide, but stopping Bob from doing what he wants violates Bob’s self-ownership. Bob, owning himself, has the right to choose to do whatever he likes, whether others approve or not. Slavery, the kind found in Ancient Greece, Rome, and in America’s early years, obfuscates a important point. Bob, having chosen to “sell” himself into slavery, can’t surrender complete control over himself, Bob still has control over his body, even if he’s doing what his master wants. In a way Bob never sold himself, it is more like rent than selling, when it comes to one’s body, because one can never surrender complete control over oneself. Just like a rent contract, it can be terminated, the master can’t force Bob to stay in the arrangement, doing so will be violating the NAP. Thinking about it in terms of rent, you can see how the same applies to employment, you aren’t “selling” yourself, you are renting yourself out, and can terminate the rent arrangement at any time. (Note: If the person has paid you up front and you later chose not to fulfill the agreement, you would need to first pay back any cash you were paid, however.)
You may further consider “renting” yourself out illegitimate, but again, it doesn’t matter what we think, it matters what the person choosing to “rent” himself out thinks. If he chooses to “rent” himself out in the form of employment, he has every right to do so, we can’t stop him, I’d even go so far as to say he can’t pass moral judgement on him, in that his actions are only affecting himself and no one else, seeing as how he owns himself it his his right to do whatever he likes with himself just as he is free to do whatever he likes with his car. It would be absurd to say that Bob can’t destroy or damage his own car after all. (We can say it would be unwise but that’s all that can be said on the matter.)
I hope this has cleared this issue up.