According to standard AnCap theory, the self is inalienable.
Why?
Next, the reason you can’t have voluntary slavery is because of this inalienability, right?
What voluntary slavery entails is the ability of another party to legally use physical force on you.
If the self ought to be inalienable, then you cannot grant the legal power to someone else to use force on your body.
Yet if this is so I don’t see how we can have heart surgeons or rescue teams.
Am I confused?
It’s the inalienability of the will. You cannot transfer your will to anyone else in the sense that no one else can control your body and your thoughts. Inalienable literally means “non-transferable”.
Voluntary slavery is a messy business because libertarians don’t all seem to agree on what it even means. Some libertarians say that because you cannot transfer your will, then you cannot truly become a slave of someone else. The decision to follow or not follow orders is still your own. Some libertarians say that you can still legally transfer your rights to another. I think the disagreement stems more from definitions and semantics than anything else.
When you agree to heart surgery, you are not alienating your will.
Rothbard goes into it in Chapter 19 of EoL:
Let us pursue more deeply our argument that mere promises or expectations should not be enforceable. The basic reason is that the only valid transfer of title of ownership in the free society is the case where the property is, in fact and in the nature of man, alienable by man. All physical property owned by a person is alienable, i.e., in natural fact it can be given or transferred to the ownership and control of another party. I can give away or sell to another person my shoes, my house, my car, my money, etc. But there are certain vital things which, in natural fact and in the nature of man, are inalienable, i.e., they cannot in fact be alienated, even voluntarily.
Specifically, a person cannot alienate his will, more particularly his control over his own mind and body. Each man has control over his own mind and body. Each man has control over his own will and person, and he is, if you wish, “stuck” with that inherent and inalienable ownership. Since his will and control over his own person are inalienable, then so also are his rights to control that person and will. That is the ground for the famous position of the Declaration of Independence that man’s natural rights are inalienable; that is, they cannot be surrendered, even if the person wishes to do so.
Or, as Williamson Evers points out, the philosophical defenses of human rights:
are founded upon the natural fact that each human is the proprietor of his own will. To take rights like those of property and contractual freedom that are based on a foundation of the absolute self-ownership of the will and then to use those derived rights to destroy their own foundation is philosophically invalid.
Hence, the unenforceability, in libertarian theory, of voluntary slave contracts. Suppose that Smith makes the following agreement with the Jones Corporation: Smith, for the rest of his life, will obey all orders, under whatever conditions, that the Jones Corporation wishes to lay down. Now, in libertarian theory there is nothing to prevent Smith from making this agreement, and from serving the Jones Corporation and from obeying the latter’s orders indefinitely. The problem comes when, at some later date, Smith changes his mind and decides to leave. Shall he be held to his former voluntary promise? […]
What if I sign a contract with someone giving them permission to whip my body any time I don’t do what they want me to? I wouldn’t be alienating my will in such a case. If you’re saying that alienating the will is what is required by slavery, then you’re saying that slavery has never existed…
FotH,
I think you should reread what JJ and I have posted. I’ll requote myself, but JJ’s quote of Rothbard is probably better:
Signing a contract with another does not alienate your will (your control of your body and thoughts). You alone still maintain control over your body and thoughts.
Exactly. It doesn’t exclude what most people mean by slavery. Rothbard’s point is that slavery is impossible, not that it is unethical.
One more time:
“Hence, the unenforceability, in libertarian theory, of voluntary slave contracts.”
I’m sorry, where was it again that Rothbard even implied “slavery is impossible”?
Christ if you’re going to try and argue you people could at least avoid straw men. But then again, I guess that’s all you have when you’re wrong.
Rothbard’s point is that slavery can only be done through aggression and that one’s will cannot be voluntarily be contracted away.
As JJ was saying, Rothbard and other libertarians are talking about why slavery is unenforceable in a libertarian context. Rothbard is not saying that it is impossible, just that it is immoral. Slavery has to do with law. It is either legal or illegal (it can depend on certain contexts, such as private slavery is illegal in America, but public slavery can be legal in certain instances). For libertarians, slavery should be illegal in society except perhaps in the cases of indentured servitude regarding restitution to victims (maybe there is another).
But slavery in general should be considered illegal. Let’s take a specific example: military slavery. Not only are we against consription, but we support the ability to “desert”. Soldiers should be allowed to quit their jobs, but it is currently illegal for them to do so. We are against this. Perhaps there could be clauses in their contract that state that they are liable for whatever should they desert in the field (perhaps), but that soldiers cannot quit even if they are not in action is wrong.
Also, ThatOldGuy put it well: it has to do with the fact that you cannot even voluntarily alienate the will. Enforcing slavery means using aggression, which libertarians are against.
Nope! Rothbard says slavery is impossible! You lose.
Is that directed at me or FotH?
I think I was channeling foth at everyone.
Good, because otherwise them’s fighting words!
I thought the video made it obvious
Sorry if this was said before.
So it seems to me one of these two things are being claimed:
This would seem to be an issue of semantics, though I think the point is absolutely correct.
Or
This would make no sense to me at all unless it was arrived at via the reasoning in (1).
EDIT:
Just read through the thread. Can someone define slavery here? If I consented to 20 years of servitude, in which the terms explicitly stated that I subject myself to coercion at any attempt of mine to break the contract, is that slavery? Is that immoral? Is it antithetical to self ownership? I think answering yes to any of these questions disputes self-ownership itself.
It’s not that it isn’t impossible. Slavery is a legal institution. It’s just that slavery requires not only force, but aggression, and therefore cannot work with the NAP.
So, technically, there could be instances of slavery which are in fact in line with the NAP (i.e. indentured servitude). It would just have to not violate the NAP. So, forced resitution through indentured servitude could be in line with the NAP.
So long as the “slave contract” is in line with the NAP, it is valid. Indentured servitude is a better name for this than slavery, as slavery has far more negative connotations than indentured servitude (not that indentured servitude doesn’t have any).
Well, slavery is involuntary servitude. Indentured servitude is entering into a contract where one works for another and both have certain obligations. If you read the link, I think you will see a key difference between the two and I will quote the first line:
Indentured servants and their masters both have certain contractual obligations, whereas slaves and their masters do not. So, if we take your example of entering into 20 years of servitude, we have to ask ourselves what is the relationship between you and your master. If it is a slave relationship, then as libertarians, we have to reject that as legitimate. The only way for your master to assert his ownership of you would be through aggression, and that would violate the NAP. If you enter into some kind of indentured servitude for 20 years, then it depends on whether or not you can break it. Historically, people entered into indentured servitude as a way to pay off a debt. If the indentured servant were to break the contract, they would actually be guilty of theft. Historically, at least in the American colonies, the debt was typically regarding passage to the colonies. Someone would pay for your travel, and you would pay off this debt as an indentured servant. If you were to quit before your time is up, then you would be stealing some amount of their money.
So the question really depends upon how one enters into servitude and the particulars of the contract. I think it’s really confusing how Walter Block keeps referring to “indentured servitude” as “voluntary slavery”. Perhaps I’m misreading him, but I think it would make a lot more sense if he distinguished between “slavery” and “indentured servitude”. Not doing so just creates needless confusion.
So it is a semantic issue, no?
I used the term “slave contract” because I lacked the sufficient alternative that “indentured servitude” is. As I said, I agree that “slave-contract” is a contradiction in terms in reference to the standard definition of slavery.
However, just to be clear:
If at the time I reached the age of consent, I sold myself to a willing buyer in which the terms stated I was his sole property for the rest of my existence (obviously an actual legal arrangement would be more specific in what such an agreement implies, but I hope that doesn’t take away from the point), is that compatible with NAP?
I’m of the opinion it is.
Gotcha. Makes sense.
Well, I can’t remember if Block would agree with you on this issue, but I know for certain Rothbard does not (not that Rothbard is the end all be all of libertarianism). With the terms that you stated, I do not believe that this is compatible with the NAP. Let’s look at it in two different ways:
You join the military (forget conscription, let’s suppose you volunteered). Typically, you are allowed to quit any job you hold except for the military. In my opinion, this is a violation of the NAP (and Rothbard agrees on this point, but not everyone does). The reason is that the only way to enforce the contract is to aggress against you. It is possible certain stipulations could be made to say that you cannot quit in the middle of a mission, but you are not allowed to quit even if you are on base pushing papers. So long as you have stolen nothing from the other party, holding you to the agreement would require aggression.
You borrow $200,000 to finance your kids education, and you agree to work as an indentured servant for 5 years. If you break the contract at 4 years, then you owe your “master” one more year or the equivalent in money. This would be in line with the NAP in my opinion.
So, in my opinion, if you just sign an agreement stating that you are going to be someone’s slave for life, I would consider such an agreement to be incompatible with the NAP. Essentially, you are making a promise and not a contract (Rothbard differentiates between the two). Let’s suppose that you do make such a promise, and let’s go ahead and say that it is a legally binding agreement. What happens if you break the contract? Well, what happens if you break any other contract? If you contract to build someone’s house and you take a down payment, if you break the contract, at the very least you owe the other party the down payment. So, what if you break a slave contract? What have you taken from the other party? Nothing.
Now, if I remember correctly, Block’s objection is that what if you give someone a gift and then take it back. You have stolen the gift. He (or anyone making this argument) has a valid point. But this brings us back to the inalienability of the will. You cannot alienate your will. You can alienate a gift. And I believe this is the crucial difference. You can never transfer your will to anyone else, so any contract stating that you are transfering your will is nonsense. So this leads us back to the NAP. Since your will was never transferred, it would require aggression in order to enforce the slave contract should you decide to break it.
It’s late, so my response is rambling. I hope it makes sense.
Well, if you assume the conditions in the contract are explicitly stated, or said another way; so long as both parties are aware of the implications of the contract and properly consent, enforcement of the contract could not entail aggression, because, since consent was given, it is by definition not aggressive.
Sure, sounds reasonable. But what if I explicitly consented to endure a wipping if I broke the contract. Sure, I could flee, and it’s not necessary that the “penalty” for breaking such a contract to be any more severe than a demand for restitution. That’s not the qestion. The question is, if the other party member whipped me, would he be aggressing, and thus be subject to punishment? I think the consistent answer would have to be “no”. And if you stretch that same principle, I think two people can enter into a “slave-like” contract where the owner is given the authority to use deadly force, and I think he can act on his authority justly within the bounds of NAP.
I’m not well read on libertarian theory regarding this, so I’m not sure how it handles the “giving up of rights.”
Of course, I too think it is logically invalid to transfer a “will” because a will is not property. It makes decisions regarding property, such as my mind (will) consenting to certain terms concerning treatment and transfer of my body (property).
Late here, too, so I’ll most likely not see this 'till morning.