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.
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GilesStratton: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.
krazy kaju: Walter Block is wrong. One's self ownership is axiomatic, so you cannot actually be owned by others.
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.
krazy kaju: GilesStratton: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.
Okay, now that you reference Kant in a positive way, you are probably not an Objectivist.
RogueMerc: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?
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:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/17_2/17_2_3.pdf
GilesStratton:The "slaveowner" has no leg to stand on.
What about the contract that was signed? Isn't that a leg to stand on?
RogueMerc:I get the impression that you have some Objectivist influences
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...
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
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.
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nirgrahamUK: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...
Wage labor?
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.
pairunoyd: 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.
You bring up a good point.
Admittedly the dictionary is not the source of all knowledge, yet accordingly there are different senses of 'slavery' in the common parlance, it can be involuntary servitude certainly! (although there are other meanings, such as simply, really tough/hard servitude).
if we accept the more damning definition, then we can throw out Blocks arguments on that semantic level. As BrainPolice pointed out. and rightly.
However, Block could simply swap in another word for , the harsh servitude he is trying to describe is mislabeled 'slavery', he might call it total servitude, i will here coin a phrase, 'Tervitude' and then the issue of voluntary/involuntary, would be decided by the manner in which the Tervitude was brought about.
If slavery as a word, could be interpreted as 'total servitude', we wouldnt need that step, the slavery means involuntary argument will have misfired.
Ladies and Gentleman. Tervitude.
wombatron:Wage labor?
further point, from Wikipedia.
wikipedia: In its narrowest sense, the word "slave" refers to people who are treated as the property of another person, household, company, corporation or government.
In its narrowest sense, the word "slave" refers to people who are treated as the property of another person, household, company, corporation or government.
note, this doesnt have an involuntary conceptual element embedded in the definition
so, under that definition we dont need Tervitude, and Slavery. as Block used it, will do
Lame.
I believe I've already comprehensively deconstructed this nonsensical notion:
Brainpolice: 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.
I await a rational refutation that doesn't assume what it must prove.
liberty student: wombatron:Wage labor? Lame.
I seriously wasn't trying to score points. What he was describing, sounded a lot like wage labor.
wombatron:I seriously wasn't trying to score points. What he was describing, sounded a lot like wage labor.
I don't know if that is funny or sad.
Brainpolice:Walter Block's voluntary slavery notion is a contradiction in terms (slavery is involuntary by definition), and is inconsistant with Rothbard.
Brainpolice:I await a rational refutation that doesn't assume what it must prove.
you are begging the question over whether slavery has involuntariness implicit or not. you have not argued for this. just assumed it. certainly you go beyond the definition cited by wikipedia.
Brainpolice: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)
is this true? if we have a contract that you give me money, and i give you a boat. then i have the sellers remorse, can i break the contract? (*after the exchange)
Epic win.
liberty student: wombatron:I seriously wasn't trying to score points. What he was describing, sounded a lot like wage labor. I don't know if that is funny or sad.
nirgrahamUK:"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.
Add in "and you are paid for the time that you are work". What is wage labor, if not trading your time and labor for money? Obviously what he is describing has no monetary component, but for someone to agree to it, they are either being coerced (in which case it wouldn't be voluntary), or they are getting a psychic profit of some sort.
i understand why LS, made that reaction, obviously and for good reason slavery has a bad rep, and it could be seen as trying to slander the capitalist wage earner paradigm as being one of master to slave, marxists love to do this. but here we are all more sophisticated than that ,ne?
nirgrahamUK: Brainpolice:Walter Block's voluntary slavery notion is a contradiction in terms (slavery is involuntary by definition), and is inconsistant with Rothbard. Brainpolice:I await a rational refutation that doesn't assume what it must prove. you are begging the question over whether slavery has involuntariness implicit or not. you have not argued for this. just assumed it. certainly you go beyond the definition cited by wikipedia.
You are ignoring the rest of my argument and singling out the linguistic aspect of it.
nirgrahamUK:i understand why LS, made that reaction, obviously and for good reason slavery has a bad rep, and it could be seen as trying to slander the capitalist wage earner paradigm as being one of master to slave, marxists love to do this. but here we are all more sophisticated than that ,ne?
Yeah, and I understand that, especially given my LL affiliation. However, I really wasn't trying to make a point about "wage slavery" or anything like that; I was merely remarking that what you were describing resembles wage labor.
nirgrahamUK: Brainpolice: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) is this true? if we have a contract that you give me money, and i give you a boat. then i have the sellers remorse, can i break the contract? (*after the exchange)
Yes, but I am liable for the terms of opting out. Obviously, if I agree to the contract, and then don't pay you, but maintain possession of the boat, that's theft. And if you agree to the contract, and I pay you, and you don't give me the boat, that's fraud. But if we agree to the contract, and I then turn around and decide I don't want to be part of the contract anymore, so long as I let you keep the boat or give you back the boat, I can opt out of the contract. But if you proceed to try to enforce the contract on me to perpetually extract money from me into the future, despite the fact that I've given up the boat, that is simply extortion. So here we have clearly identified the nature of theft, fraud, extortion as it relates to contracts. None of this justifies the notion of a perpetual contract that you cannot opt out of. In this case, the terms of opting out is not maintaining possession of the boat.
Brainpolice:You are ignoring the rest of my argument and singling out the linguistic aspect of it.
well, you also mention, 3rd parties, and what does that have to do with it..............
Brainpolice:But if we agree to the contract, and I then turn around and decide I don't want to be part of the contract anymore, so long as I let you keep the boat or give you back the boat, I can opt out of the contract. But if you proceed to try to enforce the contract on me to perpetually extract money from me into the future, despite the fact that I've given up the boat, that is simply extortion.
i think you are close to agreeing on me as horrible as that sounds.
surely you agree, that if both bparties agree to the exchange, the exchange is conducted, the goods are transferred. there is no sense in which the contract can be 'broken' ??
if someone volunteers to transfer their body ownership to another, once an exchange is conducted, perhaps there then also is no sense in which the contract can legitamatly be broken. (unless you imply that the body property transfer is a continuus process and not a single act of title transfer)
nirgrahamUK: Brainpolice:But if we agree to the contract, and I then turn around and decide I don't want to be part of the contract anymore, so long as I let you keep the boat or give you back the boat, I can opt out of the contract. But if you proceed to try to enforce the contract on me to perpetually extract money from me into the future, despite the fact that I've given up the boat, that is simply extortion. i think you are close to agreeing on me as horrible as that sounds. surely you agree, that if both bparties agree to the exchange, the exchange is conducted, the goods are transferred. there is no sense in which the contract can be 'broken' ?? if someone volunteers to transfer their body ownership to another, once an exchange is conducted, perhaps there then also is no sense in which the contract can legitamatly be broken. (unless you imply that the body property transfer is a continuus process and not a single act of title transfer)
After the exchange has taken place, for all intents and purposes the contract has ended because its terms have been mutually fulfilled by all parties privy to it. The contract is only temporary for the purposes of the exchange. If after the exchange has taken place, I try claim I can get more boats from you, that's theft. If after the exchange has taken place, you try to claim you can get more money from me, that's extortion.
Body ownership is not something that can be exchanged. Your will is part of your body. This nonsensical voluntary slavery notion depends on a false mind/body dichotomy. Hence, monism is also an argument against voluntary slavery. Technically, we do not own ourselves, we are ourselves. What self-ownership is meant to imply as an ethical concept is personal sovereignty - that others cannot own you. Morally speaking, humans are not mere objects to be used as a means.
In your example, as soon as this person decides that they no longer want to work for you, the contract becomes null and void. If you continue to demand labor from them and use violence to get them to keep laboring, this is no different from chattel slavery. Hence, the libertarian context I provide for a wage contract to be legitimate is precisely what distinguishes wage labor from chattel slavery.
i suppose you will qualify that to live body ownership is not something that can be exchanged, as dead body ownership can obviously be exchanged.
is will part of the body, if will is part of the mind, which is merely genereated by the body, as the body generates heat into the air around it then its no big deal. you can own my body, but you dont necessarily own the heat emenating out, or the ideas in the mind etc.