“The concept of ‘voluntary slavery’ is indeed a contradictory one, for so long as a laborer remains totally subservient to his master’s will voluntarily, he is not yet a slave since his submission is voluntary; whereas, if he later changed his mind and the master enforced his slavery by violence, the slavery would not then be voluntary”. - Rothbard
Ok, here is where I am getting a little stuck.
One the one hand, I get the argument that if the laborer remains totally subservient to his masters, he is not yet a slave. Once, he changes his mind, and the master enforces the slavery through violence, the slavery would then be ‘involuntary’.
But, this does seem contradictory to me in another way.
If I, Jones, do decide to sell myself into “slavery”, signing a contract with Smith claiming that I will forever be subservient to Smith, then I am bound by this contract to do so. If I change my mind later on then tough luck, right?
I mean, lets equate with something a little bit less emotionally charged. Lets say I sign up for a three year subscription for cell phone usage, as we commonly do. I sign a paper that says, “I, Jones, agree to pay for three years of cell phone service.” Well, like the slave, maybe twr years into the contract, I decide that maybe this deal isn’t as great as I thought it would be. The cell phone company is not aggressing against me when they come after the monthly fees just because I decided I don’t like the contract I signed. If you can just repudiate contracts like this then what is the point of the contract. It is largely to lock in the deal, make sure no one cuts and runs before they agreed to. I see no reason why, if one were foolish enough to just sign their rights over to someone else, that they shouldn’t be held liable for damages in repudiating their contract. They shouldn’t have signed it in the first place.
You might say that this person is simply not a slave since he voluntarily signed over his right to someone else. A slave does not do this. But I don’t think you can call it slavery if a master enforces his contract with the “laborer” or “slave” through violence if at some point the laborer signed a contract remitting property rights over his body to the master for an indefinite period of time.
I see how this may violate traditional contract law which necessitates a time frame. I also understand that you cannot truly sign over your will to someone else because you will always actually control it, but singing a contract to slavery involves a selling of your body. Because the will and the body cannot be divorced, this presents a problem. But, I think you could make the argument that in any contract you are selling off a portion of your will to the other party. You agree to control your will according to the conditions of the contract, but you are always physically free to break them. The question is of rights over enforcement. I don’t see why a master cannot enforce these rights if he possesses such a contract from you.
