Whats your take on this. Noznick agrees so does Block but Rothbard says its contradictory as enforcing it will lead to violence.
Here is a left anarchist talking about 'anarcho capitalism' and voluntary slavery.
Here is an dillema on this idea: Lets say a man enters into a contract with a woman who agrees to cohabit with him for money so that she can clear her debt or whatever. He wants three children from her at the end of the contract and both agree to it. She doesn't like it and runs away after delivering one child so he catches her and rapes her and has her held captive untill he gets two more children from her. Did he violate the nap? Or his actions can only be constructed as a willful enforcement of a contract and retaliatary violence and hence not a violation of NAP.
How is it that this kind of crap is only a problem for ancap? Seems like a problem for just about everyone to me.
People here will definitely agree that it is in violation of the NAP, as evidenced by their objection to even gambling.
The argument is whether a contract which doesn't involve property can be enforced. My position is that any contract, if people want to stick to it, can be laced with property.
Then again, I have not read much on contract theory, so I cannot say for sure, but hope to learn from this discussion.
Imo any contract can be considered a service, hence enforceable.
"Slavery, or hegemony, is defined as a system in which one must labor under the orders of another under the threat of violence" (MES 82).
By definition, then, slavery cannot be voluntary.
On a digression, I think it is a good, merciful idea to enslave murderers to private companies, as opposed to the less merciful idea of the death penalty.* (That's just personal preference though; the punishment simply must be proportional to the crime, and this could be anything up to the death penalty).
*Except in cases of multiple murders, in my opinion.
Ha, not really.
I actually think there are two different questions...
If something is a 'violation of the NAP', (i.e wrongful), and it causes harm, it's grounds for claiming damages... So if someone is a voluntary "slave" for a while, and then decides one day they don't like it anymore, can they demand damages from their "master"?
Probably not... Just like a professional boxer can't suddenly decide that their injuries are their manager's fault So maybe it isn't a violation of the NAP, as such, IF it really is voluntary...
But it's different to ask what should happen to someone when they repudiate a contract, or to assume that one can't repudiate a contract. I don't think you can force someone to perform specifically as they promised to in a contract. If you've transferred some actual property to them on the condition that they were to do something, and now they ain't gonna do it, you can use force to get it back, as if they'd stolen it. But I don't think you can use force to compel specific performance...
you can use force to get it back, as if they'd stolen it.
What if it is a consumed resource, and, since value is subjective, in the contract it says that if this resource is consumed, then the "slave" owes the master a specific service - working as a servant for a long time.
under the threat of violence
Alright, what is "threat." While there are general definitions of threat, if you agree with someone that X isn't a threat, then there is no threat of violence. If you tell the master that him beating you is in your best interest and you would indeed want it, then it's perfectly fine for the master to beat you. Of course, the initiation of this must be voluntary.
If you cannot waive your right to not be threatened, then how can you get surgery?
you12:Did he violate the nap?
"Lets say a man enters into a contract with a woman who agrees to cohabit with him for money so that she can clear her debt or whatever. He wants three children from her at the end of the contract and both agree to it. She doesn't like it and runs away after delivering one child so he catches her and rapes her and has her held captive untill he gets two more children from her. Did he violate the nap? Or his actions can only be constructed as a willful enforcement of a contract and retaliatary violence and hence not a violation of NAP."
The act of rape and kindapping are much greater violations of rights than breaking this contract, they are disproportionate responses. The rapist becomes the aggressor. It is similar to Rothbard's bubble gum thief example here: http://mises.org/resources.aspx?Id=ec3c86fe-d84c-4587-9b4f-0ae922383578
This is also does not address whether or not you can enter into voluntary slave contracts in the first place...
"She doesn't like it and runs away after delivering one child so he catches her and rapes her and has her held captive untill he gets two more children from her. Did he violate the nap?"
And some people believe this isn't violation of NAP? WHAT? Doesn't matter what contract says, rape is always violation of NAP or else it would be voluntary sex (like prostitution, for money).
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
Wheylous:People here will definitely agree that it is in violation of the NAP, as evidenced by their objection to even gambling.
I fail to see how everyone who posted in that thread is opposed to gambling.
Wheylous:The argument is whether a contract which doesn't involve property can be enforced. My position is that any contract, if people want to stick to it, can be laced with property.
It depends on what you mean by "enforcement". If you mean "threats and/or exercises of coercion that lead to the other party upholding his/their side of the contract", then any contract can theoretically be enforced. However, that takes the notion of aggression out of the picture. What I'm concerned with is whether given enforcement of a given contract can be considered aggression, given the premise of self-ownership.
Let's say you and I agree to a future exchange of property. Before we actually exchange anything, however, I change my mind and back out. Since I haven't taken anything from you, I haven't harmed* you in any way. If you come to me and literally twist my arm in the hope that I'll again agree to the exchange, you're now harming me. I'd say you're also aggressing against me, since I didn't harm you first. Hence that kind of enforcement of a contract is what I'd call "aggressive enforcement".
So that's an example of a contract that involves property, yet can't be legitimately (i.e. non-aggressively) enforced IMO unless and until property has actually been transferred. I don't consider mere promises to be enforceable in the above sense.
* By "harmed", I mean in a physical sense only.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Wesker1982:The act of rape and kindapping are much greater violations of rights than breaking this contract, they are disproportionate responses.
How much greater? Is there a chart somewhere that gives the proportions of various NAP violations, like how many broken contracts equal 1 rape? Whats the common denominator here? Or if its ordinal, how do you know rape is worse than breaking the contract?
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage
Autokylos:Let's say you and I agree to a future exchange of property. Before we actually exchange anything, however, I change my mind and back out. Since I haven't taken anything from you, I haven't harmed* you in any way.
/end sarcasm]
Autokylos: If you come to me and literally twist my arm in the hope that I'll again agree to the exchange, you're now harming me. I'd say you're also aggressing against me, since I didn't harm you first. Hence that kind of enforcement of a contract is what I'd call "aggressive enforcement".
Also, you seem to be implying that aggression = harm. That is not true. Aggession also includes the threat to do harm.
Maybe it would be worthwhile to examine the question: What makes a threat of coercion equal to an act of coercion?
Charles Anthony:That depends on whether the future exchange is scheduled to occur more than one hundred years away from now or less than one second after you two formalize the agreement by releasing the hand shake. Any time between those ranges is fair game. /end sarcasm]
... And what, pray tell, is your point here? Or are you just trying to troll me?
Charles Anthony:Your question applies to all agreements to exchange property. There will always be a time delay between the completion of the agreement and the fulfillment of the exchange.
... And? I don't see what you're driving at here either.
Charles Anthony:Also, you seem to be implying that aggression = harm. That is not true. Aggession also includes the threat to do harm.
I didn't mean to imply that. I agree with you that aggression includes the threat to do harm.
Charles Anthony:Maybe it would be worthwhile to examine the question: What makes a threat of coercion equal to an act of coercion?
I think we both understand that there isn't an objective answer to that question. There are only varying subjective answers - that is, there are only varying opinions. One rather widespread and long-standing opinion is that a threat of coercion must constitute a "clear and present danger" to be considered equal to an act of coercion. Under that standard, threatening to break someone's arm 100 years from now does not constitute a clear and present danger. But this standard is just an example.
Have you read the chapter I linked? "the criminal loses his rights to the extent that he deprives another of his rights". Fraud or theft (violating a contract) is less of a violation of rights than rape. Rape is more violent and more invasive. Are you asking me to explain why rape is worse than theft, or why murder is worse than stealing bubble gum?
Raping someone for stealing is disproportionate because rape is a violation greater than theft. The rapist has taken away the rights of the thief to a greater extent than the thief did to the rapist.
Let's say you and I agree to a future exchange of property. Before we actually exchange anything, however, I change my mind and back out. Since I haven't taken anything from you, I haven't harmed* you in any way.
As the conclusion of that thread seems to decide, you can turn over titles in the future and have these be legally/ethically enforced. To me, a "promise" and a "transfer of title in the future" are equivalent and the issue boils down to semantics. I concede that I don't mind using the technical jargon of "transfer of title."
Please correct me if I misunderstand that thread.
I disagree with most posters here. I think any contract can be enforceable. So in this case, rape and kidnap are okay since that woman agreed voluntary to the terms of the contract. I don't care whether there was property exchange or not, a contract is a voluntary agreement, and libertarians should support such agreements.
In addition it provides a valuable tool. For example a regulatory company can sign a contract with a hospital, that if a doctor in the hospital fails to perform some procedure according to the rules, the regulatory company can force the doctor to go to jail for a few months, or let's say cut his fingernail. Such agreements are very important, because they guarantee that people who are responsible for the lives of others will perform their job. Besides, if just money is involved, then rich can get they way. Sometimes the body has to go intro contract as well.
Really its ok to heinous commit violence to enforce some contract?
That depends on the contract. If that woman signed a contract that is obligated to bear children, and in case she refuses, it would be okay if she was raped, then I guess this type of contract could be enforced. Walter Blocks gives an example of murder parks, in which people can freely murder others as long as a contract was signed before the entrance to the park. The merchant from venice by Shakespeare is also about a contract which punishes one who breaks it with death. I think that such contracts should be legal, they are valuable, and they are voluntary.
Eugene,
I want you to know that this comes from the very bottom of my heart when I say this: you're a misogynist asshole and you can go fuck yourself with a roadflare. This is the second time I've seen you try to diminish what rape is, and George Takei has something to say to you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xIFMH5MFR0&feature=related
Rape is by definition involuntary, you fucking twat. Any notion that in can be justified in the name of freedom is probably the most fucked up thing I have ever heard someone say in any seriousness.
Wеll, if murder can be justified (i.e. murder parks), surely rape can be too.
I think Walter Block isn't that insane to suggest that it's ok to murder or rape someone if he disagrees (despite the conract that person signed). If he suggest that, well then... I disagree with him just like any other absolutist propertarian or contractarian.
Eugene: Wеll, if murder can be justified (i.e. murder parks), surely rape can be too.
you are confused. Murder by definition is a violation of NAP. Same with rape. If I pay money to be killed by someone, it is not murder, but a voluntary suicide of some kind. Rape too, isn't rape if it is voluntary payed sex. Then it's just a service. No suprise statists look at libertarians as insane fringe group when some of them try to legitimize rape and murder. Forget the fact that state does exactly the same. It's about percieving things.
Today, if a company doesn't follow FDA regulations and a person dies because of that, some employees might actually be put in jail, even for long periods. In a free society, it should be possible for private regulators to sign contracts with doctors that would stipulate physical punishment for lack of compliance. It makes sense to me.
The problem is in your use of the word "rape," I think. Rape implies it is involuntary. Yet if there was a contract signed, according to you, then it is voluntary. Hence, not rape, by definition.
@BP: Why did the woman sign the contract in the first place?
Wesker1982:Are you asking me to explain why rape is worse than theft, or why murder is worse than stealing bubble gum?
Well, yes. I want to know why those things are objectively so, and not subject to individual valuations.
Wesker1982:Raping someone for stealing is disproportionate because rape is a violation greater than theft. The rapist has taken away the rights of the thief to a greater extent than the thief did to the rapist.
Neither can, by definition.
Look, no matter what way you shake it, or how subjective you want to be about definitions, whatever murder and rape may mean (and I think most of us ought to be smart enough to have a general picture) they have been seen as among the most serious of crimes from the dawn to the dusk of human history.
If you are trying to use some hermenutics to tap dance around that very obvious fact (which no matter how much you wish so you can sound "hard nosed", is based neither on reason or science, but custom) you are intellectually masurbating into a vacuum and speaking gibberish outside the scope and language of law.
And once again all this really begs the "who cares" question. Is this really that pressing a line of inquiry? I call BS and dubious intent.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
If murder parks are illegal, is assisted suicide also illegal?
I don't understand the question.
Suicide does not imply much legally. It is like asking if peanut butter is illegal - it depends on place, time, custom...the word is not always a legal word nor does it automatically imply a stigma, but a word of custom, which has had a variety of different ways being looked at in culture (ex: Rome it was seen as honorable, America not so much).
So: "should assisted suicide be illegal" is a vacuous question that can not be answered or asked and mean anything in our case
And : "is suiced illegal" is a question that can be easily answered by looking at the laws of whatever legal system you find relevant to your life.
Once again it is in the very definition of law that if someone is claiming you murdered or rapped someone it is considered a breach of expectations, no matter what type of bat shit crazy tunnnel vision Walter Block may have - you are either a) commiting a grammatical error and hence speaking gibberish b) talking about something I can verify or falsify in relevant extant reality. If it is talk of the NAP, it is the former - a world concieved by the seeds of intellectual masturbators, fertilizing a vacuum, propagating nonsense.
"is suiced illegal" is a question that can be easily answered by looking at the laws of whatever legal system you find relevant to your life.
Is your whole argument "hey guys, check your local rulebooks to see if this is legal or not?"
What we're trying to do is derive a morality and ask "is this policy in accordance with this morality?"
"should assisted suicide be illegal" is a vacuous question that can not be answered or asked and mean anything in our case
Still don't see how you arrive at that conclusion.
Using your logic, rape may be legal according to your customs and culture.
I don't even have an argument. Thus far, all I have been is something like an elementary school teacher correcting bad grammer. I see no propositions made.
I speak tautology. All X are Y's, all Y's are Z's, hence all X's are Z's. Logic is not a science that discovers truth, rather it is a series of tautologies - which are not a picture of reality. This is all I am saying what can be said, hence there can be no argument. I concern myself by what can only be said, not shown.
"It is raining or not raining" is always true - hence tautological, therefore this form can be talked about logically and in a void. You know something of my language, not about the actual weather. This can only be shown or expressed.
As for it being a moral question
1) A proposition is a thought (which in turn is a logical picture of facts) that is an expression of reality which uses sign (something physical and perceptible - words on paper, expressions from mouths, etc). A sign is what can be percieved of a symbol. One and the same sign can bethe same for two different symbols
so Rape is:
a) in my case a legal word - which can only exist as a tautolgical structure (which automatically due to it's grammer = illegal)
b) A word in common grammer which automatically indicates a heavy social/ existential stigma that grammatically demands it being a "hard hitting" word. If I call the Universe "big" while at the same time calling my house humungous due to the nature of the grammer I am either being
-poetic, and hence out of our scope
- subverisive - hence skeptical - hence nonsensical to any form of expected conversation
c) a word of living custom that can only be experienced in actual existence
d) a moral question
In the case of rape as a moral question:
- Logic is tautoloic
- All propositions are of equal value
- A proposition is something that must be expressed, if it can not be expressed - the question does not exist, or else it could be answered
The rest I'll just quote Wittgenstein:
If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental.
What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental.
It must lie outside the world.
Propositions cannot express anything higher.
In brief, the world must thereby become quite another, it must so to speak wax or wane as a whole.
The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy.
And to restate
So long as we are speaking of legal terms: Rape by definition, must be illegal. Suicide, no - it is just a way of saying how someone died - by definition
In the fact that you wish to speak of them grammatically and within the void
By definition rape = bad. Suicide, simply does no automatically do so in a universally grammtical tautological sense that I am aware of - it is a declaration of death. That is all that can be said. I can not state what rape is, but that it is - and that is all
Wheylous: If murder parks are illegal, is assisted suicide also illegal?
let's call it "Voluntary Suicide Parks" shall we?
I'm pretty sure both Nozick and Block would reject the illustration in the OP so I don't see the point in analyzing it. Why don't you start with something that Nozick/Block would conceivable agree is correct but which you find problematic?
Clayton -
In regards o the OP:
It is probably best to look at us liberals (Miseans. subjectivists, Austrians) as not caring so much about these words as left libs seem to. We are liberals after all, they are not.
At the heart of it I think - we view everything as a "process" and not as a thing. All this morality and talks about words like "freedom" and "anarchy" are red herrings which are bound to trip things up. As liberals when we talk, we are mostly concerned about what can and can not be said in a world of asserting facts within a logical structure - we are not concerned with these "things in themselves"
To support "freedom from" or "freedom to" is false nonsense that can not be stated and nothing can support them - as is the word "non - hierarchical", etc. Everything is there to assert it's presence/ will we are just there to talk about the logical structure of such things. It is best to look at your labels as nothing more than a consequence and a by-product of your actions, nothing that you actuall "support", favor, or consider "moral" - that stuff is just jive
It may be best to view liberalism as the inevitable lukewarmnes of the temp of the water in the glass, be it hot or cold, will turn to eventually..
So you think they're legal? I agree.
@vive - either you are not saying much or I do not understand you. Likely the second. Now it seems like you are simply arguing determinism.
"Murder parks" are not a very good example, because they don't present a chance to retreat from the original agreement. But what if you sign an agreement such as in the merchant of venice, that if you fail to pay the debt, you lose your life? Can you retreat from this contract? I believe not. Otherwise what the sense in having contracts at all?
Holy fucking christ.
Unless you think self-ownership (the basis of your entire absolutist take on contracts) is somehow alienable, then your entire scheme falls apart. If this hypothetical woman decides not to have children with this hypothetical man that she signed a contract with, (by your theory) then he can sue for damages. But you've taken it to the point of justifying rape.
This is no more than another petty attempt by Eugene to justify misogyny. Hell, he's gone beyond Rothbard's arguments that I find inherently authoritarian and just gone to a whole new extreme where rape is not a violation of NAP or self-ownership.
I maintain that anyone who holds a position similar to yours or Eugene's is a misogynist docuhe bag who should go fuck an active road flare as a valid and logical point. To hell with being civil. No justification of rape is civil. When you're taking your philosophy this far for the sake of consistency, to hell with your idea of "freedom." You're nothing more than a prick looking for an excuse to rape and pillage a world that (rightfully) hates you.
I'll ignore the insults.
I'll explain my position. I don't care about property, I just believe that contracts (that were not signed in duress) are voluntary by nature and thus should be enforceable, whatever the conditions of the contract are.
How else, can a regulator make sure the doctor performs his duties? If you are responsible for lives of people, it makes sense for you to fear physical retalitation if you are being criminally negligent. Today doctors are criminally liable, and I believe that sometimes its a good thing. But according to you, such arrangement would not be possible in a free society. I think that's wrong.
Another insult, and you'll be given a temp-ban, Birthday Pony.
It's rape when there is no consent. The contract gave consent. The question is whether you may take away consent from a contract like you can without a contract. As in, in life you can say "well, I've changed my mind" right before you start. If the contract says "I agree to do such and such", then it is akin to real life, where you can agree but later retract your agreement. I don't know what an un-retractable consent would look like in a contract...
Wheylous: let's call it "Voluntary Suicide Parks" shall we? So you think they're legal? I agree. @vive - either you are not saying much or I do not understand you. Likely the second. Now it seems like you are simply arguing determinism.
not sure what type you are advocating, but I think it's possible to have legitimate and voluntary suicide parks (whith contracts etc), but I strongly disagree against the particular version (advocated by some libertarians) when entering a park by default makes you a "member". It's the same bullshit that statists try to pull with their social contract. However, it would truly be stupid to enter such park without expectation to be killed once you're in. But mistakes happen (just like with capital punishement) so there gotta be much more safe-guards than anywhere, meaning that, if a person, who entered such park decided to leave, he should be able to leave despite what the contract says.