Nice how you dodged the questions I posed by saying ‘the difference hasn’t been noticeable’.
Well, if you have no assets to seize, due to your defaulting on the terms of the contract that you engaged in then I suppose there is nothing to be done about it except to try to seize your future earnings in order to pay back the debt you personally guaranteed against your future earnings. Where exactly is the part where someone held a gun to your head and said ‘sign here’?
Or I suppose the debt holder could just write it off because requiring someone to fulful their voluntary contractual obligations is too much like slavery for their tastes.
I haven’t read the rest of the comments to this drivel but owing someone money doesn’t give them the right to use violence against you – unless of course it’s to recover their property in your possession that you refuse to hand over to service your now defaulted debt. Same as if you try to stop the repo man from taking ‘your’ car with a baseball bat…that probably isn’t going to work out too well for legally or personal safety wise.
What’s wrong with accepting a little personal responsibility for one’s own actions anyway?
"Oh, oh because ‘slavery’ is bad and forcing me to pay my debts is just as bad as slavery because someone gets to enjoy the fruits of my labor even though I had no problem enjoying the fruits of theirs while I spent the money I borrowed from them. "
Given the fact that I’m like chum in a sea of sharks here, you should cut me some slack for not responding to every point, just the most relevant ones.
To respond: I disagree. I could dig up some photos of child slaves in India or elsewhere, today. You have absolutely no idea of telling whether they’re slaves-by-contract or not.
I agree that a lot of people that are just plain poor may look like slaves, but that’s not really the point: The key point is that the conditions of slavery are the same, regardless of the means by which slavery is entered into. That’s what makes slavery so barbaric, not because it violates some silly, abstract theory of “self-ownership.”
Here’s the problem, though: Since you agree that there’s subjective utility, how could seizing a person’s assets for defaulting on a contract even be valid? What I mean is, if somebody defaults, how much stuff do you seize and what do you seize, if it’s not in-kind the same thing promised in the contract?
I.E., if I promise to have sex with you, signing a contract, and I don’t deliver, what are you going to take? It’s totally arbitrary, if you believe in subjective value.
Even if I owe you $10, if I don’t pay up, you can’t just seize $10. You should have some right to seize more than that, because your time-preference dictated that when you lent me money, you wanted it back at a certain time for a certain interest rate. If you have to wait even longer, who’s to say your time-preference, at that point, doesn’t dictate a gazillion rate of interest increase?
This is actually an easy question to answer. The only moral trade here is to purchase a slave’s freedom.
The other possibilities; to purchase a slave and keep him in slavery, or purchase a slave and sell him to a third party are not only immoral, but clearly criminal. In the former case, even if the conditions of his slavery are better than before, it’s still a criminal act because a human being is still being denied his natural rights. In the latter case, even if the trader never actually takes posession of the slave, selling the slave presupposes that the slave is in fact owned. And anyone who claims ownership of another human being is committing a criminal act.
So do tell, how does one argue against slavery without some ‘abstract’ theory of rights? On account of its barbarism? Then demonstrate why this alone suffices, on grounds of an ‘abstract’ theory of rights that this is sufficient to render slavery undesirable. The problem of course, is, self-ownership isn’t the only ‘abstract’ theory of rights. They all are, the Rawlsian no less than the Objectivist views. So much for ‘abstract’ theories of rights, then.
Yes, it was a rhetorical question. It seems that either:
He’s done the reading and doesn’t understand it, or
He hasn’t done the reading, and is tossing around wild statements about what he thinks it contains, or
He’s here to troll.
Or possibly a combination of any of these. You can try to help him if you want, but unless he shows a genuine desire to learn the basics, and refrain from trollish activities, it seems like a waste of time.
Yes, on account of its barbarism. That’s also what utterly rips apart the “Taxation is theft!!!” argument, or should say war-cry.
By simply looking at it, and seeing how it shows total disregard for human life and offends the conscience of every rational, civilized person.
Ethics can’t really be firmly established on philosophy, only justified and discussed, assuming we make the same basic assumptions. Abstract theories of rights are important, but only in as much as they improve the individual human condition.
A regard for human life is taken as axiom because it’s only through a mutual regard for eachothers’ well-being that we actually further eachothers’ well-being. This is what it means to say that freedom and justice are reciprocal. All ethics, including the ethics of liberty by classical liberals, are founded upon it. You see this most clearly in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose.
If Rothbard, through his sophistry, happens to come to the conclusion that a holocaust is justified for his own liberty’s sake, his entire argument falls apart because his basic assumptions about the value of humanity contradict that of just about everyone.
If “human life” isn’t important to you, if you’re not a Humanist but look at other human beings as insects to be limitlessly bought, sold, and used for our own freedom’s sake, then we have no grounds to discuss ethics at all.
Rothbard seems to not make any assumption of humanity’s value at all, but takes simply his own life to be valuable and tries to convince the world to capitulate to his idea of freedom, for his own sake. Had you been born a sickly child in Sparta and tossed away or a neglected child in an American ghetto, Rothbard sees nothing wrong with this.
If you see nothing wrong with it either, simply because you and Rothbard, by chance alone, were not born in Sparta or an American ghetto, then we have no way of discussing what’s “right” at all. But you certainly have no claim to be an individualist, unless by “individualist,” you mean psychotically narcissistic, which Rothbard seems to be.
This psychological evaluation seems to fit, based upon Justin Raimondo’s description of the man:
I think you may have opened the proverbial can of worms:
I don’t believe freedom can be purchased, although one could purchase a slave and then go through one’s local society’s recognized procedure to chamge the slave’s status to a freeperson.
Keepng or selling slaves does indeed involve coercion and is therefore immoral, but not necessarily criminal sans government.
Improving the slave’s conditions still involes coercion, but I can’t agree that such a concept as “natural rights” is meaningful.
I’d venture a guess that most parents would claim ownership of their young children.
Non sequitur, my dear troll. You have not proven why barbarism == immoral. Your other claim leaves even more to be desired.
Gay sex offends a lot of ‘right-minded’ individuals. Who gives a shit? I don’t actually disagree that looking at our moral intuitions is a good starting place for ethical theory; but it is hardly what will be the ultimate determinant of what actually is moral/ethical or not.
Are you an emotivist/subjectivist then? Seems not, since you adhere to consequentialism, again itself an ‘abstract’ theory.
Abstract theory, yet again. J. S. Mill did a lot to elaborate upon the idea in Utilitarianism, FYI. Worth a read.
I see. So now popular vote determines what is moral or isn’t? Of course, though, Rothbard’s theory comes strongly against slavery. So much of your argument is whining about its being phrased in the language of property, and missing the forest for the trees.
Indeed. This still isn’t sufficient as a justification for an ethical system, it is merely a reason why one might speak in terms of it.
Spare me the psychologizing. You do not even understand Rothbard. His task was to show that all rights can be re-constructed on the basis of the notion of property, much like JS Mill showed human flourishing is explicative of moral intuitions. Whether Rothbard was correct in divorcing personal morals from social ethics (and whether he was correct that no positive obligations arise to one’s children) is a matter of contention amongst Austrians. But please at least get what he is saying right.
By “purchasing a slave’s freedom”, I mean buying the slave so as to release him immediately. i.e. without claiming ownership.
Wrong; with or without government, coercion is criminal. It is a violation of natural law (or private law) and by definition is criminal. There’s a difference between immorality and criminality, but the difference has nothing to do with the presence of government.
Are you saying that natural rights doesn’t apply in this case, or that you don’t accept the concept of natural rights at all? I think most people here would disagree with you.
Parents don’t own their children. Children are not property. Parents are not free to do whatever they wish their children precisely because they are not property. They have the custodial rights to their children. There’s a difference.
Slavery, from the present-day perspective, may see grossly inefficient, but it must have been sufficiently efficient for the plantation owners of North America. The markets then were so much freer of government regulations than present-day markets that I, perhaps wrongly theoretically, think of trade then as “free trade.” My main point, however, is that the slave trade was immoral.
I think its important to mention that morals are evolved memes. Most people don’t understand why they obey certain ethical codes, they are simply passed down from parents to child. Some things may “feel” right to them, and these feelings are probably based on mellenia of genetic and intellectual evolution. However, its easy to see where this evolution can produce errors: many cultures have absurd and destructive codes of morals.
The “abstract theories” of the philosophy of ethics are very different. They seeks to understand morals and improve upon them by applying intellect. Its easy to see where this process can produce errors: Communism and extreme nationalism were the biggest errors of the 20th century. Others might include pre-industrial Japan’s isolationism and their later imperialism.
Democratic morality is based on the morality of the masses, and so is largely the result of evolution without any much in the way of philosophizing (most people just don’t have the interest or time to engage in true ethical debates). While democratic morals probably have merit (as bad moral codes tend to die out on their own, albeit slowly), they cannot really be used to critique philosophical positions beyond the simple: “we’ve been doing it this way, and it works”. Such arguments are inherently conservative.
In other words, you’ve got to refute logic with logic, Nathyn. Show why your system of ethics is superior, if you can. Think of the results which came from the lack of intellectual challenge to failed idealologies such as communism. Although I think you are in the wrong, bad ideas need to be challenged.
By merely releasing a slave without due process you run the risk of having the sherriff/bounty hunter return the slave and bill you for the bounty.
A criminal act is defined in law. There was such a thing as unwritten common law way back when, but nowadays all laws are written (with the probable exception of the so-called “income tax law”). Coercion is illegitimate in a libertarian markekplace. Coercion is prevalent in the present-day marketplace because government control is ubiquitous.
Rights are high-abstractions not amenable to empirical detection.
Ownership is an interesting concept. Whether claims to ownersip are valid or not is beyond my purview.
Crime is going to exist whether government exists or not. I’m not a utopian, and therefore have no illusion about this fact.
If persons A, B, and C decided to detain person D against her will (assuming person D is not a criminal herself), and call person D “a slave,” then A, B, and C would be criminals. Moreover, A, B, and C would be criminals even if they did not call D “a slave.” Either way, person D would not actually be owned by A, B, or C. Person D would still be the rightful owner of herself. A, B, and C are, in effect, theives, assuming for themselves possession of the body of D, but not the ownership of the body of D. No doubt, therefore, that A, B, and C would be criminals under natural law and should be dealt with as such. This is true whether government exists or not.
If A, B, and C are holding D in a compound, then anyone and everyone has the innate authority to invade said compound to rescure D, so long as E, F, and G are not injured in the process (assuming E, F, and G are innocent bystanders). Under our current system, the state assumes for itself the authority to invade, which wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the fact that i) government is typically funded through theft (although it doesn’t have to be), ii) government typically doesn’t take enough interest in the innocent (consider the children that died in Waco), and iii) government does not always believe that private citizens have the right to help those in need, calling such citizens vigilantes. It seems abundantly clear that the state is not necessary to the prevention of this scario, and that it may indeed make the situation worse, as it typically does when it meddles in any aspect of society of the economy.
Finally, there seems to be a logical impossibility in your question, for if A, B, and C do enslave or kidnap D, then A, B, and C are establishing themselves as “the government” and using this establishment to oppress D. One could reasonable argue that at the moment your scenario takes place, statelessness ceases to be.
It’s only slavery if I prevent you from leaving my employment. Rothbard argues that because the will is inalienable, I have no authority to compell you to stay under my employment, and that you have every right to leave at any time.
You still have your volition, you simply choose, of your own volition, not to use it for any other purpose than that one choice.
True, unless there is an afterlife, which I cannot know.
It’s impossible to sell your volition, or to alienate it from yourself in any way, except possibly through suicide.
No control over any portion of the person’s physical body is transfered–unless you actually cut some portion of your body off and sell that.
One cannot sell herself into perpetual servitude.
You cannot sell a life-time of servitude, at least not in advance. You can trade your labour only in the present. A “promisory contract” is not valid, the only contracts that are valid are those that transfer alienable property, and both one’s own body and one’s own will are inalienable.
Let’s use an analogy. My right to free speech is inalienable. I therefore cannot trade away my right to free speech. I can make a a deal with you that I will not say XYZ about you if you give me $1,000. And, as long as I don’t say XYZ, that $1,000 is mine. But I, at all times, innately reserve my right to free speech, including my right to say XYZ. If 20 years down the line I decide to say XYZ, I am not infringing upon your rights. I do, however, owe you your $1,000 back.
In the same way I can say what I want at any time, I can cease my employment with my employer at any time.
I fail to see how anyone could become a slave through debt.
If you owe me money, you can get out of it in multiple ways. 1. Give me the money you owe me. 2. Kill yourself. 3. Convince me to waive the debt.
At no point in your debt to me do I own you, for if I did, then only I would have a right to end you life. You would have no right to end your own life. The fact that this option is still open to you demonstrates that you are still the owner of your body and your will.
If you do not do one of these three things, then you are in effect enslaving me, and that is unjust. You are enslaving me because you are denying me of my rightful property, the ownership thereof is a property of my personal nature. Only through paying me what you owe me (or convincing me to waive your debt) do I truly regain my Liberty from you.
The protection agency or insurance agency you’ve hired will take a portion of your aggressor’s income to pay off his debts to you over time, thus bringing him back down to a level of equality with you.
By the way, I recommend reading The Market for Liberty by Linda & Morris Tannehill. It’s not perfect, but it’s very good.
No, no, no. At the risk of sounding angry or aggravated, allow me to say that Yan Grenier is not saying that you can “sell the permanent, unhindered use of your body”; rather, he/she is saying you CANNOT “sell the permanent, unhindered use of your body.”