This depends on how you define liberty, as a state of being or is it the will.
Secondly, a contract need only be enforced - not be realistic. If I contract away my life to an individual, then I have revoked the ability of legal recourse in tresspass of my life.
Please read what I wrote before replying.
I did (I read back four pages), and I believe you are wrong and that I did not misrepresent you. I think you have a poor definition of liberty, a seeming disregard for contracts, and that you mistakenly assert that “inalianation” voids contracts.
This is where we differ, I would argue that natural rights exist becasue of self ownership, and that “natural rights” is only a metaphor and not to be taken literally. Since the employment of those “rights” come from self ownership.
inalianation ???
Semantics. Anyway, please explain how a self-onwer gives up self-ownership ?
He can’t give up his self-ownership in the deterministic sense, but what is being proposed is the voluntary erection of penalties in the form of exit clauses regarding long term all consuming labor contracts.
Now, seriously, why would any sane person enter a ‘slave contract’ and,
Why are people who pretend to be libertarian so bent on having and/or justifying a legal system that enforces slavery ?
Is this another variation of the usual ‘libertarian’ ‘anarcho’ right-wing conservative nonsense or what ?
A sane person certainly wouldn’t, unless he was in such desperate measures where the contract would actually be beneficial, for example if it insured the welfare of a loved one that otherwise would be in jeapordy. It is not mine nor your place to ascertain the likelyhood of such contracts, only to clarify its ethical (not necessarily moral) justification.
We are not bent on justifying slavery, only on having a systematic, non-arbitrary ethical/judicial framework so people like you can’t moralize someones rights away.
On the contrary, it is you who seems to hold a conservative moralist view. I am not advocating such comprehensive contracts (Slave Contract, as I mentioned previously, is a misnomer), but I am arguing their legitimacy.
Newsflash for you zefreak, libertarianism is a moral system. So, if you don’t like moralizing maybe you can join the state and their legal positivism, which magically solves any moral problem…such as slavery in a ‘free’ society.
Really ? So, you’re telling me what my place is or is not ? Too bad I won’t listen. So, can you tell me why slavery in a free society is so important ?
As I said, libertarianism happens to be a moral system. And I fail to see anything conservative about my views. Unless supporting slavery is progressive ?
And those exit clauses can only specify damage, not specific performance, in which case it isn’t a slavery contract, its just a really bad wage labor job.
And that’s the rub. This issue is so ethically charged that the point of the right libertarians gets obfuscated around the issue.
None advocate slavery or any other overtly exploitative entity. However, for anyone else to make the claim that another person cannot do what they wish - even to their ultimate detriment and demise - is anathema to the liberty inclined mind.
This issue is tricky because many advocate that liberty is a state of being rather than a physical will. Some argue the basest idea of liberty as being a physical dimension, which cannot currently be alienated - which I agree with at this point in technology. While others argue that liberty, no matter what your physical will is simply a state of mind or rather a state of being as the slave master in essence controls the slaves movement.
Rothbard argues in MES that a “voluntary” slave contract is something different than slavery entirely because it is made voluntarily - so it ceases to be slavery in any sense. It is hard to mentally grasp the concept of voluntarily creating a situation in which one is not better off even in some minute way - which would be a neccessary condition of a voluntary slave contract. Yet we need to take this mental leap in order to put our idea of liberty to the test. Then the question becomes not wheter it is practical or possible for someone to alienate their body but if it was possible would they have the freedom to do it.
So if one answers no, then it must be asked - well who then would enforce the rule? Is that person not then being coercive to the individual? However if the answer is yes then at the point that the decision is made the liberty is voluntarily lost - and no second party will have coerced the individual.
This is a topic in hot debate over in the transhuman world because if it is the case that we can create synthetic and immortal replicas of our brains and thus conciousness, do we have the right to exterminate our former mortal brain and conciousness at the point in which both are operating. (obviously a different and longer debate - but I am just showing that it is an actual real physical discussion)
Please drop the term slavery, as it isn’t relevant to the discussion. As has been pointed out many times, slavery is by definition involuntary. I am not discussing slavery. You are simply erecting a strawman at this point.
You are correct insofar as liberty is an ethical construct. Your views on arguing for the elimination of contracts you deem “too strict” or “too encompassing” are not consistent with libertarian ethics. Unless you can formulate a non-arbitrary way to determine the limits of breach of contract stipulants which is derived from the NAP and not your subjective judgement regarding the likelyhood, necessity, or benefit of said contracts, then you are “merely moralizing” in the coloquial sense.
Thanks, so please realize that your whining about my ‘moralizing’ is out of place.
A contract that destroys freedom is a contradiction in terms. And I’m fed up of arguing with sophists/legal positivists, so have a nice day.
Before leaving, let me commit a fallacy. Here it’s written that slave contracts, or ‘too strict’ contracts, (if you’re too politically correct or hypocritical to use the word slave) are not enforceable.
Rothbard is an authority in libertarian theory and he says… The Ethics of Liberty - 19
When you enter a “slave contract” you do it voluntary and so to call such contract a slave contract is a misnomer.
If after some time you change your mind and want to terminate the contract (remember, you’re still a human being – a self-directed entity by nature – a self-owner ), but you can’t, now you’re a real slave. And if the legal system enforces a contract that makes you a slave then the legal system is not, by definition, a libertarian legal system.
I’ve read Rothbard and agree with much of what he says, but as Hazlitt says in Foundations of Morality, “A dwarf who stands on a giant’s shoulders sees farther”
Disregarding your appeal to authority, all contracts limit freedom in the sense you use the term. If the terms of the contract are not binding, how will a libertarian society (or any society) function? If they are binding, just not when you feel they shouldn’t be, how can you express that in a non-arbitrary, systemic fashion?
Let’s use Rothbards example (from memory, so I might get aspects wrong). A celebrity or speaker signs a contract to show at a given date or time to perform. If he/she breaks the agreement, what happens? It is not left up to the judge or jury how much should be payed in damages, as it is currently. It relies solely on the breach of contract stipulants. If it was agreed upon to forfeit payment plus assess a payment of $1,000, that is a binding agreement. Do you agree? Or is that destroying the freedom of the celebrity/speaker? When is it binding and when is it not?
Now please explain where the limit on breach of contract stipulants exists in a libertarian judicial system and why.
Fair enough, title transfer theory seems to answer a lot of the issues I was raising about when a contract is enforceable or not. It has been a while since I have read TEOL. One question though, in the case of promise or expectation theory, where for example a grandfather promises to pay for his grandsons college, can there be included breach of contract terms? In the example Rothbard states, it is simply a promise, and not a tranfer of title. What if the agreed upon contract states that failure of the grandfather to pay results in damages or a “gift” transfer of $1,000? Would that be enforceable?
Are you saying that Rothbard endorsed ‘voluntary’ slavery ? … ?
You know what ? It seems he did not…
Rothbard :
182 In a free society, as we have stated, every man is a selfowner. No man is allowed to own the body or mind of another, that being the essence of slavery. This condition completely overthrows the basis for a law of defamation, i.e., libel (written defamation) or slander (oral defamation).
289 Personal services, on the other hand, are never sold as a whole, since, on the free market, slave contracts are not enforceable. Thus, no one can purchase a doctor or a lawyer or a pianist for life, to perform services at will with no further payment. Personal services, then, are always sold in their individual units.
348 The laborer, being a free man, cannot be bought; i.e., he cannot be paid a cash value for his total future anticipated services, after which he is at the permanent command of his buyer. This would be a condition of slavery, and even “voluntary slavery,” as we have seen, cannot be enforced on the free market because of the inalienability of personal will.
493 Basic land can be capitalized for one simple reason: it can be bought and sold “as a whole” on the market. (This cannot be done for labor, except under a system of slavery, which, of course, cannot occur on the purely free market.)
559 A wage is the term describing the payment for the unit services of a labor factor. A wage, therefore, is a special case of rent; it is labor’s “hire.” On a free market this rent cannot, of course, be capitalized, since the whole labor factor—the man—cannot be bought and sold for a price, his income to accrue to his owner. This is precisely what occurs, however, under a regime of slavery. The wage, in fact, is the only source of rent that cannot be capitalized on the free market, since every man is necessarily a self-owner with an inalienable will.
Rothbard argues that once the “slave” decides to no longer be a slave there is no legal premise from which the “slave owner” can force the “slave” to continue serving.
Correct me if i’m wrong, but you’re saying that if it’s possible to seperate an individual from their body, that individual can no longer legally claim ownership of their body in the future.
This is only true to the extent that they can no longer claim anything since they no longer inhabit their body. You’re talking about a situation in which an individual is no longer really the same individual. Since such a concept is not actually being practiced and you haven’t proposed a way that this could actually happen (someone not inhabbiting their body but still existing in a natural state), it’s silly to even discuss it.