The original premise is flawed. If a slave wanted to be a slave then they are not a slave by definition. Slavery implies that you ‘own’ someone against their will. If they want to be your servent and do whatever you want then they are not a slave. It’s simple, really.
Did you take a look at the scenario I portrayed before? The one where the guy agrees to sell himself a lifetime of service for no money?
question begging. slavery could simply mean, that person A can fully dictate to person B what actions B can and cant take. this says little about the two possible wills.
It’s still not slavery because it’s voluntary.
The question is if there is breach of contract if the “slave” does not want to be a slave after a certain period of time.
“The underlying point of the libertarian critique is that if I own something, I can sell it (and should be allowed by law to do so). If I can’t sell it, then, and to that extent, I really don’t own it. Take my own liberty as perhaps the paradigm case of the debate over inalienability. The claim is that if I really own my liberty, then I should be free to dispose of it as I please, even if, by so doing, I end up no longer owning it.”
- Walter Block
Yes. I take the viewpoint that self-ownership is a bad metaphor for a good concept (personal/individual sovereignty, I.E. an ethical concept).
Not supporting one side or another on this, but I have a question. If we’re assuming the mind/body (thoughts/actions) are one, then how do I have any right to dontate my organs when I die? Technically, since my mind is dead, I am dead, and I no longer own my body to give away my organs.
I suppose this case would be, say if I die, and my family doesnt want my organs to be donated, yet I wished them to be. What is the correct result?
It depends on the situation. If you signed a contract saying you would be someones servent for 3 years you would be obligated to serve it out.
It makes more sense to me if someone wants out of a contract and doesn’t have the wherewithal to satisfy the contract then the contract should only be broken if the other party allows it or if a 3rd party chooses to purchase the contract. One may enter into enslavement because without it their alternative may be loss of life due to dire circumstances. Life can have a high price and if there are no other parties extending them better life-sustaining alternatives, why should such a contract be unavailable? What good is a naked, starving abolitionist?
and what if someone recontracted into slavery upon each emancipation? How many times will the abolitionist reemancipate them?
What creates this obligation? Them signing a peice of paper?
first lets ask, what creates any obligation?
The voluntary exchanging of promises between the two parties makes it an obligation. Just like when you take out a loan to buy a car - you are obligated to pay it back even if you don’t want the car anymore.
If I cannot alienate from myself my own life or liberty, then what am I doing when I commit suicide?
Under what all here describe, preventing suicide should arguably be a just case of coercion because it would be preventing someone from depriving themselves life.
How is this different from not allowing someone to deprive themselves of liberty?
I argue that they are not. If someone wants to deprive themselves of life through suicide they should be able to because - as the owners of their person - they have the right to determine where it’s uses go. At the same token, the person also has the right to alienate themselves from liberty if they so wish because it is within their own control.
At the point in which someone completes suicide their autonomy is moot - the case is similar for slavery because it may for all intents and purposes be suicide.
good post Andrew
I think the real question here is whether breach of contract stipulants can entail physical aggression. Rothbard makes it pretty clear in TEOL that contractual slavery is a misnomer, but he doesn’t get into whether the penalty, in his examples a sum of money, can include aggression and/or death.
Even if this was the case, voluntary slavery would still be impossible. Granted, once the contracted “slave” breaches the contract he would be physically coerced or murdered, he would cease to be a “voluntary” slave. He would just be an ordinary slave. The lifetime work without compensation contract originally signed would not be a slave contract, as it was voluntarily agreed upon. It would just be an extreme example of an labor contract.
This is just arguing semantics, however. The question is whether such aggressive stipulants are justified in a free society.
on what grounds would they be unjust? they are aggressive in the sense that they involve a certain level of force/violence. but aggress has another meaning, i.e. to first strike, or coerce, attack etc. these are two different meanings, the first compatible with libertarianism the latter not so.
I’m not saying I disagree with you, just that what is largely being argued in this thread seems to be semantics. Volunteer slavery is a contradiction but the attributes you associate with slavery being voluntarily agreed upon is not. I am just recommending that you drop the term altogether and argue the concept, that physical violence can be non-aggressive, in the NAP sense of the term.
'Depends what ethical system you are making an analysis from. If it’s from Natural Rights, which is the common framework (I’ve found) within libertarianism, an obligation is born out of the right of ownership. Contracts are only legally and ethically binding within such a scope: the obligations in reguards to property ownership.