During the period of slavery in North America, the “savages” shipped over from Africa were conveniently considered to be less than human and therefore were sold as comodities in public auctions, rented as laborers, inherited as parts of estates, etc. Government certainly didn’t prevent the onset of slavery in North America, but what does this say about the moral principles of free trade in actual practice?
You’ve asked the wrong question. Slavery violated the natural rights of human beings. “Free trade” does not entail the right to freely trade in human beings who have been enslaved.
That’s rather ex post facto, isn’t it?
What does this say about the moral principals of government in actual practice?
Without the full backing of the government the slaves could just one day declare ‘I’m not gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more’ and there would be nothing that could be done about it. Instead the ‘owners’ received protections against prosecution for violating ‘certain inalienable rights’ to force the slaves to work against their will.
Free trade, or what I think you are really trying to implicate the Free Market, could in no way force a person to do something against their will without protections from the government to keep the victims from seeking compensation for the wrongs done to them.
I too have an opinion on this subject and as soon as the moderators approve my previous post it will be available for public comment.
Thank you for your patience on this matter.
Let me put it this way. Two hundred years ago, a significant number of people of European origin regarded people of African origin as being less than human. Since Africans weren’t viewed as being human, it made perfect sense to Europeans of that era to treat them like animals. This meant that they could be treated in all respects as property. However, the fact that they were freely traded as property says nothing about the “moral principles of free trade”. But it does speak volumes about the moral priciples of a society that could fail to recognize that black Africans were in fact human beings.
The fault lies not with free trade, but in failing to recognize what a human being is.
Free trade does not have moral principles, only people have moral principles.
If free trade is amoral, as you & leonidia contend, then anything goes as long as the buyer and the seller are not coerced?
Yes. Hence, according to a fair amount of Rothbardians, it should be perfectly legal for you to sell yourself into slavery.
Yes. Pretty much anything goes, so long as the buyer, the seller and any third party are not coerced.
Yet another inaccurate and inflammatory statement made by you. Have you actually read anything by Rothbard?
“Free trade, or what I think you are really trying to implicate the Free Market, could in no way force a person to do something against their will without protections from the government to keep the victims from seeking compensation for the wrongs done to them.” - Anonymous Coward
The slave trade with government protection is immoral, but the slave trade without government protection is amoral?
That is not a Rothbardian position. That is in fact a position held by Walter Block.
As a “Rothbardian,” allow me to say how very, very opposed I am to Dr. Block’s perspective. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, Dr. Block is neither a libertarian nor an anarchist (no offense to Dr. Block personally), and will not become one until he changes his stance on “voluntary slave contracts.” It is the one thing I’m aware of truly holding him back.
I started writing notes to myself last week detailing my opposition to “voluntary slave contracts,” and why I do not believe they could possibly be held up in a free society or under natural law. I have not formerly written my thoughts into essay form, but perhaps I will someday.
Anti-slavery is so essential to libertarianism, it boggles my mind how you or anybody could infer–especially from Rothbard’s writings!–that slavery is anything other than inherently unjust. Even war can be just (although it virtually never is), but slavery does not even possess the potential for justice.
How could the slave trade even exist without government protection for the slave traders?
If they were liable for their actions they would soon go bankrupt due to all the legal actions taken against them by the ‘slaves’. They couldn’t force them to stay because coercion would be necessary in order for them to keep them there against their will and if they just flat out decided to stop working what recourse would the slave ‘owners’ have against the rebellious slaves.
I would say that the slave trade without government protection would be impossible.
It’s neither moral nor immoral without an existing government. What it is is impossible.
But let us pretend that it were possible without government to protect the interest of slave holders (which are in reality nothing more than more-localised governments) against the possibility of revolution to engage in slave trading. If it were possible, it would be immoral.
To quote myself:
Under anarchy, for example, you cannot force your neighbour to build a fence by passing a law, even if everyone except your neighbour wants him to build a fence. Under anarchy, you have to use your art of persuasion to encourage him to build a fence. You must explain why you think it will be a good idea, and why everyone wants it. But can you force him? If you force him, you’re creating an establishment of government, and that is not anarchy. It is the opposite: the chaos of coercion.
But, just like it is under minarchy, if your neighbour aggresses (i.e. initiates force) against you—through starting a fight with you without your consent, for example—you have the right to use equal force to defend yourself. This is because you are not the aggressor, and thus not the establisher of government. Government, simply stated, is force. By using force to defend yourself, you’re not establishing government, but rather disestablishing the “government” (i.e. force) he has established. You are, in short, restoring order, restoring anarchy.
Minarchism is very similar to anarchism, except that under minarchism, there is a small government present which has the sole purpose of protecting rights. If government fails to protect rights, or even worse, actively infringes upon rights, as virtually all do, we are justified in altering or abolishing it, according to the classical liberal John Locke. Under anarchism, you are responsible for protecting your own rights from tyrants, whether alone or with the voluntary help of others. In a free society, one can purchase this protection from private protection agencies, rely on the voluntary charity and good nature of your neighbours to donate their time in assisting to protect you, or go it alone.
I was a minarchist at the time I originally wrote this.
That’s a rhetorical question right?
I was thinking about starting a thread “Help Save Nathyn” where we could compile a reading list and generally help him out. Stuff like review his future class schedules and interview his professors to see what kind of future attacks he is likely to come up with so we could preempt his trollish activities by giving him the information he needs to understand the counter-point that we will invairably have to provide.
All this is of course is based on the assumption his trolling is a cry for help and that he’s not just an attention whore…
Are you promulgating the “moral principles of free trade”?
Except Rothbard argued that it is impossible to sell oneself into slavery…
Again, please leave.
You have it almost right. As Leonidia points out, anything goes as long as no human beings are coerced.
For the sake of clarity in discussions such as these I think it bears pointing out that the amorality of free trade is not a contention but a truism. The concept of free trade has no more morals than a rock or the wind. Morality is the purview of mankind alone and cannot be ascribed to his ideas. Ideas have no moral principles. They may have moral implications, particularly regarding how humans go aboout applying those ideas. These moral implications are themselves derived from seperate ideas and values that humans may hold. So suggesting that the idea of free trade has moral principles is like suggesting the theory of relativity or the idea or gravity has moral principles. To any thinking person it is clear they do not, as they are simply beliefs or sets of beliefs. The moral implications only come in as we apply these ideas and act on them. Just as someone can use gravity to commit immoral acts, so can someone use “free trade” to commit immoral acts. A person can make use of any of an infinite number of ideas or natural laws to assist them in their immorality. This does not make gravity immoral any more than it could make free trade immoral. If we expect to get anywhere productive with questions like this we must be clear what we are talking about.
What about if there were no government?