I was at youTube today (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24nVarM20KQ) and got into a debate with someone who brought up the issue of Walter Block’s support of voluntary slavery. He brought up the issue that in an anarcho-capitalist society, that there would be a risk of people signing their lives away into slavery. I thought that I gave some decent points, but not as solid as I would like. Would anyone like to comment on this issue?
Walter Block is wrong. One’s self ownership is axiomatic, so you cannot actually be owned by others.
In the contract in question you are signing away what is required to make it. That being free will. It is contradictory.
Correct, I think it was either Hegel or Kant who wrote how one cannot sign oneself into slavery.
I get the impression that you have some Objectivist influences, based on your choice of language. Which is probably a good thing.
But if your statement is correct, then what should be done about someone who decides to sign their life away? For example, if someone decided to sign a contract in which they garaunteed that they would work for so and so for the rest of their life without compensation?
The contract has to be fulfilled to the best of both parties ability. If there is breach of contract (and there is complaint), the contract should specify what action is to take place.
Okay, now that you reference Kant in a positive way, you are probably not an Objectivist.
Nothing need be done. As long as he wishes to keep to the contract it is of no issue to anybody. The problem arises when the “slave” wishes to breach the (non)contract. In that case, he is able to do so. The “slaveowner” has no leg to stand on.
It’s analogous to the man who decides to buy a four sided triangle, and doesn’t receive the good. The contract is void because it’s absurd.
Which are why there are terms of breach.
But suppose the two parties do not include such terms in the contract?
Then the debate begins. I tend to side with Block on the issue, if you have not read his position here is a good place to start:
What about the contract that was signed? Isn’t that a leg to stand on?
Not really…
That contract is in fact void. A slave is someone who is owned by someone else. Such ownership of one person by another is in fact logically contradictory. Owning someone else is a negation of your own self-ownership. Other people could feasibly throw themselves in great debt and be required to pay it off, which would be similar to slavery, but these debtors would not be owned by their creditors. And if those debtors broke their contracts, they would not lose their lives like slaves would if they attempted to escape.
If you wish, you may act as a slave to someone else, but you cannot become their property. The moment you wish to stop acting like a slave, you stop being a slave.
No, because the contract is absurd. One cannot sign away free will, since to do so requires free will.
The real issue that I am getting at that I am wondering if in an anarcho-capitalist society whether such a harsh contract would be enforcable. I think that this issue takes precedence over all others.
consider;
if slavery meant the transfer of, ones ‘will’ to another, as a property transfer, then slavery is impossible. the will, like ‘ideas’ cant be property. I dont consider my will to be my property, something i own. rather its an attribute of me; as a person.
If Block and I were considering the definition of slavery to be this kind of property transfer, we would both be wrong.
way we could be right…
if slavery is an agreement to perform various behaviours on command, and to refrain from other behaviours (such as complaining). then one can have voluntary slave contracts. each and all keep their wills.but their behaviours are controlled. it sounds like it might be paradoxical, but on reflection its a subtle but important difference. I have kept it short here so criticism is sure to come. im throwing this out there to find out if I am alone on this…
The kind of slavery that I am referring to is the lifetime indentured servitude kind.
Walter Block’s voluntary slavery notion is a contradiction in terms (slavery is involuntary by definition), and is inconsistant with Rothbard. Rothbard, like all natural rights theorists before him, believed in unalienable rights. This means that you cannot alienate the will from the body. All contracts must have some kind of way to opt out of them, even if there are consequences for opting out of a contract (such as debt withstanding). A perpetual contract that you cannot opt out of (and that you are presumed to have consent to for merely living in a certain area and such) IS the basis for the social contract argument. If you accept the idea of perpetual contracts, or contracts that are enforceable onto 3rd parties of people who did not explicitly consent to them, then you are accepting the basis for the social contract, and must accept the implications of your position on a larger scale - which is statism. I find it increibly disillisioning that so many libertarians are confused about this.
For the reasons I give above, all slavery contracts are inherently null and void by libertarian standards of justice.
What if the master contracts with you for entertainment? He pays you to act like the best slave ever. And if you protest and decide you want out of the contract then those protestations are actually part of the entertainment. So no matter what the slave says or does its all part of the slaves act. He’s not really a slave, hes just acting like one.
Wage labor?