As pointed out by David Gordon in his book The Essential Rothbard, Rothbard objected to the view that a contract could be derived that allowed one to voluntarily enslave themselves to another individual given the fact that the will is inseparable from the body and thus not transferable. For understanding purposes we may say that the body was first homesteaded by the will and cannot, yet, be alienated.
Rothbard states,
“Unfortunately, many libertarians, devoted to the right to make contracts, hold the contract itself to be an absolute, and therefore maintain that any voluntary contract whatever must be legally enforceable in the free society. Their error is a failure to realize that the right to contract is strictly derivable from the right of private property, and therefore that the only enforceable contracts (i.e., those backed by the sanction of legal coercion) should be those where the failure of one party to abide by the contract implies the theft of property from the other party.” Ethics of Liberty page 133
The problem with this theory is that it doesn’t take into consideration that, although the will may be inalienable, it doesn’t mean that a contract can’t be derived in order to enforce servitude. Take for example an individual that voluntarily enters into a contract that states, at some point in time, if they relinquish their servitude, they may be viewed as a trespasser and subject to whatever penalty predetermined. Now, in this contract the will was never transferred, since such a transfer is currently scientifically impossible, but the right to trespass was contracted, conditional upon the fact that servitude is delivered. If, for some reason, such servitude is relinquished than the slave becomes a trespasser subject to whatever penalty advertised. Therefore, although the will cannot be contracted away, it is still within reason that a contract may be devised under such a theme as “trespassers will be shot” in order to maintain voluntary slavery.
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“voluntary slavery” – talk about a contradiction in terms.
Exactly what struck me. If it is voluntary it is not slavery. If it is slavery, it is not voluntary.
if slave means one who acts out of fear of death or severe pain, then that does seem to be a contradiction in terms.
otherwise i guess its just a full-service type of contract.
Well, we all try to avoid walking off a cliff because we fear pain and death. That does not make us slaves.
Rothbard’s arguments against slavery and indentured servitude are silly and ideological. If it wasn’t for indentured servitude hundreds of thousands of people never would have been able to make their way to America.
Thankfully customary law wouldn’t care what some deceased economist thinks, so if some Rothbardian comes up and tells you you can’t enter a slave contract you can tell him to go f*** himself.
Funny, I think so-called “libertarian” arguments against slavery and indentured servitude are silly and ideological. I think it goes without saying that, on the face of it, if a person is capable of trapping himself into lifelong serfdom, that is a bad thing.
Russ the Tom,
“…if a person is capable of trapping himself into lifelong serfdom, that is a bad thing.”
And yet you buy just about every State-aggrandizing scam that comes down the pike if it’s advertised as anti-Muslim.
*sigh* Does every thread here have to be about you ragging on me, Matthew? Can’t you at least leave it alone, when I’m not expressing my heretical opinions on terrorism?
“every thread”
[sigh, you're weak] Exaggeration, one of the many little ways you lie. As always your whining is especially hilarious. When you stop harrassing anarchists, I’ll stop harrassing you with the truth about what a tool you are.
Could BOTH of you take your stupid games to email? None of us care for them. Thank you.
When you see my name, skip the words underneath. Or make a pitch to have me tossed off the site. Thank you.
Oh yeah, and what an arrogant thing to say, speaking for everyone.
“Could BOTH of you take your stupid games to email?”
What?! So he can cyber-stalk me through my email account?! Are you mad?
Cyber stalk. Why do you “cyber stalk” Kinsella? Do you think I would ever speak to you for any reason other than to counter your public garbage?
We have here a lying propagandist for the State who posts on a public site. The fact is that people like Russ and Michael have time and again proved their case against anarchists here. Michael proves that most people can be bought by the State and Russ proves through stunning example that man’s inherent flaws make a free world impossible at this time. Everything said here is a mere academic exercise and I’m sorry if my comments displease any eggheads.
* damnit above: “harassing”
“When you stop harrassing anarchists, I’ll stop harrassing you with the truth about what a tool you are.”
Disagreeing with anarchists, calling them on what I believe to be bad logic, or expressing my own non-anarchist opinions, does not constitute harrassment. The only way I could stop “harrassing” anarchists to your satisfaction would be to shut up altogether. Sorry, not gonna happen.
I don’t care what you do, for the hundredth time, I will always mock the “logic” of anyone who propagandizes for the State. You are an awesome example of corruption, please carry on.
And finally, hopefully (I’m not wild about this thread either), this liar now on his every post is propagandizing with his idiotic new handle based on a complicated lie he told himself which he apparently believes (such is the life of a habitual liar). Every time he posts with it he is subject to very just ridicule.
“Cyber stalk. Why do you “cyber stalk” Kinsella?”
I’ve already admitted that SK rubs me the wrong way sometimes, and perhaps sometimes I go too far with him. But when I call Kinsella on something, at least I try to be somewhat on topic, and have some sort of logical argument or logical refutation. And what’s more, I don’t take pot shots at him when I agree with him, just to take pot shots. Besides, Stephan is a big boy. He can fight his own fights, if he thinks they’re worth his time. Ditto with Surda. They don’t need you as playground monitor.
“Do you think I would ever speak to you for any reason other than to counter your public garbage?”
I wish you wouldn’t speak to me, if you don’t have anything worth saying. But if you do speak to me, I wish you would at least try to be reasonable, civil, and give me the benefit of the doubt. If you would, I would do my best to return the favor. But if you keep acting like the typical lefty, who believes that shouting down double-plus-ungood-speak in the public forum is more important than antiquated notions such as manners, all I can say is, it won’t work.
You’re right, I will strive to only speak of you in the third person. Goodbye.
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Libertarian eggheads: Wake up! You have to fight, and you have to fight as rough as your enemies do. Our enemies are the furthest thing from civil, don’t be drawn into the the drawing room. I don’t advocate any violence in our struggle against these stunted human beings, just the harshest, most painful possible language in speaking the truth.
This sad little amateur propagandist and anonymous chickenhawk, “Russ”. the worst one on this site (IMO), advocates stealing your money to further expand the Kafkaesque “security” bureaucracy which will surely swallow you alive unless you learn to speak and even think double plus correctly. There can’t be anything more important than this subject, please don’t speak to this Uncle Tom on any other. Wake the hell up. Damn.
Libertarians of the anarchist persuasion: If you wish to convince minarchists, or Tea Partyers, or anyone else, that your way is the wiser, the way to do it is by civil discussion and gentle persuasion. Insults may provoke some giggles from the choir and make you feel better. But it will not awaken those of us who are still, in your opinion, sleeping. It will only serve to convince us that so-called “libertarian” anarchists are no better than the kind of anrchists who throw bricks into the windows of Starbucks and prevent people from speaking publicly at universities. It will only convince us that you are afraid of opposing ideas, because deep down you know that your ideas cannot compete. It will only convince us that you are unthinking, kneejerk fanatics. Remember the old adage about flies, honey and vinegar.
Libertarian eggheads: The main vein of his propaganda is that you are wacky or wayward rightists. Who can’t compete are rightists. Examine Michael’s comments, you will find that there is no need to attract rightists as they will forever lose to or be drug around by leftists (well, until the leftists completely destroy the country)
““libertarian” anarchists are no better than the kind of anrchists who throw bricks”
More filthy, dishonest propaganda tactics, he can’t help himself apparently.
“The main vein of his propaganda is that you are wacky or wayward rightists.”
Nope, and nope.
Re “rightists”: I consider libertarians of both branches, anarchist and minarchist (including myself), to be descendants of the classical liberals. I don’t really think the left/right dichotomy is of much use nowadays, but for what it’s worth, classical liberals are usually considered to be on the (non-socialist) left.
Re “whacky”: Of course, I think the anarchist branch of libertarianism is mistaken, or I would subscribe to it myself. And I do think that the extreme positions that libertarian anarchists espouse do tend to turn off some people from libertarianism. But I think that libertarian anarchists, despite their occasional excesses, are on the right track. And you have every right to express your beliefs.
““libertarian” anarchists are no better than the kind of anrchists who throw bricks”
That was taken completely out of context, Matthew. Shame on you. What I actually said was, essentially, that if anarcho-libertarians behave in the same manner as the “property-is-theft” variant of anarchists, they will be tarred with the same brush by those who don’t know better.
“More filthy, dishonest propaganda tactics, he can’t help himself apparently.”
Those who live in glass houses….
Let’s see, there is not really a “left”, but if there were it would be Tea Partiers and those who want to minimize the government’s functions to only those they find useful are on it. Mm hm.
And if anarcho-libertarians start destroying property they’ll be viewed in the same way as those who call themselves anarchists and destroy property. Valuable stuff here.
Blabber away while Russ’s “protectors” ever more dominate us and the Micheal’s win over the masses, just like always.
Anyone who gives a crap and with a real stomach for horror (and I mean real because there is apparently nothing that can be done) should check out how much you can count on Burghers like this braying ass in Eric Voegelin’s “Hitler and the Germans”.
“In [Gustav Meyrink's 'The German Bourgeois' Enchanted Horn'] there is a study entitled ‘Tschitrakarna, the Refined Camel,’ where the refined camel gets involved with ordered legal procedures with the gangster animals in a due process of law. Because of that it is destroyed and then torn apart; then the raven, who is one of these gangster animals, cries, ‘Yoohoo, silly ass!’ You should remember this ‘yoohoo, silly ass!’ each time you think about the upright citizens who agreed with the Enabling Law for Hitler.”
Why would a person voluntarily do so if it wasn’t in his best interest? And if he voluntarily did so, why should he be stopped?
It’s not about voluntary or involuntary for me. If a person is horribly desperate, he will do whatever it takes to live. So you are saying that slavery is OK, because people will choose slavery over death? I don’t want to live in a land where people can take advantage of the desperate by binding them to lifelong servitude in exchange for a bare sustainance existence. If that were the land we lived in, I would be on the side of those who say “Eat the rich”. I don’t care if the non-aggression principle says that voluntary slavery is OK. That just proves to me that the NAP is not enough to derive all the laws of a sane political system.
So, you don’t want to live in a state?
By that, I assume you mean “So, you don’t want to live under a government?” Strangely, I currently do live under a government, and lifelong servitude (slavery) does not exist in it. As a matter of fact, it is the government that enforces laws against it.
Well, since you use to be an anarchist, I assumed you knew that a necessary component of a state is mandatory participation in all kinds of crap and the illegality of offering or choosing alternatives. Doesn’t that sound kind of like slavery?
“Doesn’t that sound kind of like slavery?”
Kind of like? Yes. Same as? No. It’s more like extortion than slavery.
If we’re offering examples of slavery, how about a private housing market that operates like a ponzi scheme, driving up property prices to the point where you’re forced to take out a mortgage at 10x average annual income, which you then have to work off for the rest of your life. For better or worse, I will not buy a house and indenture myself to the Man to perform a job I detest for the next 40 years. But in doing so, I appear to be locking myself out of the few ways to achieve a return of greater than 0.5% pa – at least until the music stops and everyone trys to grab the nearest chair. Thank God for krugerrands.
I should say I’m writing from an Australian point of view, where the housing market is still at the heights of ridiculousness and has not corrected like – I understand – the US market has.
Government intervention in the economy can enslave a man much more subtly – and effecitvely – than a bare piece of legislation or act of violence, because it coopts him in the process.
“Government intervention in the economy can enslave a man much more subtly – and effecitvely – than a bare piece of legislation or act of violence, because it coopts him in the process.”
And all the depredations of the government *are* ultimately accepted voluntarily. That’s the la Boetie again.
I thought you were in England, Jon. Did I get that wrong?
That’s right, but I still call Australia home. They had a pretty interesting experience through the GFC, and when the Labor Rudd government blew the budget on a “stimulus”, it provided one of the great historical examples of state ineptitude and incompetence, and even popular opinion is divided on the whether the stimulus was necessary or did anything at all (my own opinion is clear – Australia would have been fine (and $15b better off) without the stimulus as (1) the Chinese are buying everything we can dig out of the ground, and (2) the economic reforms of the Hawke, Keating (Labor) and – to a lesser extent – the Howard (Conservative) governments since the 1980s). Their housing market is the most overvalued in the world according to the Economist (neo-Keynesian rag, but I still subscribe) and while it’s difficult to see where the correction will come from, at 60% above long term trend, it has to correct, surely. If it doesn’t, I’m going to re-consider this whole free market jazz, because it will defy all common sense for prices to remain so high.
Jon Leckie,
I live in Australia and I’m waiting for housing prices to correct before I even contemplate buying my own home. I agree, a correction must be coming, even if it’s only through the process of high inflation.
So you’re not alone in your beliefs on the Aussie housing market.
I’m actually curious to hear newson’s opinions on this matter but I haven’t seen him around here lately.
Yeah, I couldn’t imagine anything but chaos with sociopaths given the go-ahead to shoot bubble gum thieves, blackmailing their fellow man, and roasting puppies in microwaves because Rothbard said it was okay. It’s men working together as collaborators under the division of labour within such a dystopia .
to jon leckie:
don’t forget that the government put a safety net under the financial institutions. without this, some sort of adjustment of housing prices would have occurred, ie. many financial institutions would have been subject to runs and collapse. the day of reckoning has yet to come.
http://www.guaranteescheme.gov.au/
Jeremiah, I’m not sure how what you’re describing can be considered slavery. If your gardener ends his contract with you, then trespasses on your property, you can hold him responsible for the trespass, but it doesn’t mean he was your slave. Likewise if he trespasses outside the contractual bounds of his service. All you’ve really said is that contracts can provide penalties for failure to abide by the terms.
In your example above the contractee can simply walk off your property to avoid being shot. A true slave however would be your property no matter where he went.
Srubna, The whole point of indentured servitude was that is wasn’t slavery, it was voluntary and contractual for a set period of time. After all, why would you need a contract with a slave? You don’t need a contract with your dog or your refrigerator or any other piece of property. The fact that courts needed to mediate any contractual disputes indicate that the servant was thought to retain property rights to themselves.
Jeremiah,
I have struggled with this issue since reading Ethics, as well. Unfortunately, your argument falls short.
Your argument is either a sophisticated tautology or you have proven the validity of Rothbard’s argument, depending on your definition of “tresspass”.
“although the will may be inalienable, it doesn’t mean that a contract can’t be derived in order to enforce servitude.”
First,by definition, servitude is alienating one’s will. Or, if your prefer your construction of the argument, enforcing the contract of servitude is the alienation or separation of that will from the person. In either case, this statement purports to provide an independent justification, one step removed, of servitude simply by providing a punishment for breach of contract. However, this merely puts form over substance by punishing the contrived breach of contract which must be based on some valid right originally. It also assumes the validity of the contract, which is the very point you are trying to prove. Do I continue to have my will if I am shot dead or recant for fear of such punishment for breach of contract? I think not. This, of course, means that I have alienated my will, contrary to your premise.
More importantly, the introduction of the word “tresspass” is troubling. “… if they relinquish their servitude, they may be viewed as a trespasser…” What exactly does tresspasser mean here? I can only think of two potential uses.
First, “to err or sin”. If that is the case, then this statement becomes a tautology. Restated, your argument is: if they violate the contract (relinquish their servitude), they may be viewed as violating the contract (as someone who erred) and therefore subject to punishment. Again, this assumes the validity of the contract without regards to the unalienability of will and simply restates the truism that violating the contract violates the contract, thereby justifying punishment. Perhaps, this was not your intended use of the word.
If “tresspass” means an uninvited incursion of property, then you have proven Rothbard’s argument. The punishment clause of the contract, logically (circuitously?) funnelled through breach of contract, is ultimately based on property rights (what right is that?) of the counterparty, as the person becomes a “tresspasser”. Isn’t that Rothbard’s point? All valid contracts are based on transferrable property rights. Since will is unalienable (your premise), it is not transferrable, regardless of any attempt to circumvent this issue by punishing the “derived” breach of contract.
Finally, I hope no one will try to liken this to an employment contract with negative consequences based on early termination. Surrendering one’s will to enter servitude is not employment, regardless of the similarities conjured up by temporal obfuscations.
Looking forward to your response,
vin
“trespassers will be shot”
Committing a trespass (being physically located on someone else’s immovable property) does not justify being shot (i.e., use of lethal force) as a remedy.
The only thing that justifies the use of lethal force is an aggression of lethal force, or more accurately, the threat of future or continued lethal force, i.e., something capable of causing death or serious bodily injury.
The only justified remedy for trespass is ejection, not shooting. Ejection consists of (a) demanding of the trespasser that he vacate, (b) warning that he will be removed by force if he fails to leave, and only then (c) forcible removal.
A big problem I have with voluntary servitude (or essentially “slavery contracts”) is not the right to enter one (although there are problems there too), but the appropriate remedy for breaching one. Anyone who suffers a breached contract is legally and ethically required to find some other alternative (to mitigate, to cover his losses), and is only entitled to recover the difference between what he would have gotten under the contract and what he ends up getting in the market as an alternative. If you lose your slave, and you have to hire more expensive labor elsewhere, you only have a relatively small damages claim against the ex-slave, not the right to compel more labor from him forever.
Thank you Magnus, you make a very important point here.
Hi Magnus. It seems to me that a contract of slavery is by nature not capable of being broken by the enslaved party so the duty to mitigate a breach would not arise. The nature of a contract of slavery would require that it is enforceable against the person, personally, until that person’s death or release, or it’s just an employment contract that the “enslaved” party can walk (or run!) away from. If that point’s not convincing (perhaps because damages might be awarded to the counterparty that cripple the party in breach?), if we’re allowing complete freedom of contract, a contract of slavery could easily include a clause waiving damages as a satisfactory remedy and requiring specific performance or injunctive relief. No mitigation necessary there. Thoughts?
Magnus does make a good point. Regarding damages, it would be up to the market to determine the best remedies. Was the contract a contract of adhesion? Does a clause waiving damages convert the contract into a situation of involuntary slavery? If you break your mortgage, you lose the home or you pay penalties. You’re never forced to continue paying off the bank.
Intresting, but it seems that inorder for it to be “voluntary slavery”, it would have to be the case that if the slave runs away, he could be returned and forced to work. It seems here that if someone were to run away, he would be free from any work. So it wouldent realy be slavey.
Good argument though, made me really think.
And if that renegade slave ends up hanging for his dear life on Walter Block’s flag pole, then the slave has an obligation to “voluntarily” die in deference to Rothbard who is always apriori correct.
There are conditions where an individual may ‘willingly’ agree to slavery but not in an ethical society. The comparison is like looking at aberrations in the economy but compared to the ideal of an unhampered free market economy.
In an ever-advancing civilization where the nobility of the human being is universally recognized “the will is inseparable from the body and thus not transferable.”
I like that. I was struggling with Shay’s question above (Why would a person voluntarily do so if it wasn’t in his best interest? And if he voluntarily did so, why should he be stopped?) but I really like this response.
Great feedback everyone, if you want to dialog on the topic email me at jeremiahdyke@gmail.com so that were not limited by space or time constraints (or you can reach me through website link under the name).
The considerations advanced here rest on a misunderstanding of what Rothbard meant when he said that the will cannot be alienated. By “will” he did not mean a private mental occurrence that is incapable of transfer to someone else. Rather, he meant that a person always retains the right to decide whether to labor for someone. In like fashion, one’s right to self-defense cannot be contracted away either; and whether one is a trespasser is a legal fact, not a matter for settlement by contract. I do not think that Mr. Dyke has taken sufficiently seriously Rothbard’s argument for limits to freedom of contract.
“one’s right to self-defense cannot be contracted away either”
So, you would come break up a boxing match?
To all: Both Rothbard and Mr. Gordon are addressed in this paper defending VSCs
http://mises.org/journals/jls/17_2/17_2_3.pdf
I’m not positive I’m understanding you here, but that’s exactly what the referee, the man’s corner and the ring doctor does when any one of them determines a boxer is no longer defending himself.
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I also would like to express again the humor I find in a bunch of slaves discussing these details.
Well, the doctor can stop it between rounds, I should have said.
Now that I think about it he is saying self-defense, so maybe my example is bad. I was thinking of the hypothetical “murder park”.
The proper definition of full-on slavery is “a right to punish in any way”. Typically, bashing me in the face is illegal. When I agree to cede this negative right in the context of an MMA match, things change.
Being against VSCs undermines the whole system of libertarian property rights. Couldn’t I sell away my rights to self defense by agreeing to be strapped down in a chair and whipped by a dominatrix? A VSC is in the same vein, just taken to the extreme.
“Rather, he meant that a person always retains the right to decide whether to labor for someone.”
Block makes a good case for, if it were somehow possible, people being able to transfer their will. A slave could very well choose to not work, and his owner would have a legal right to punish him.
OK. For that matter, if such a thing has borders, I think people can voluntarily go to a “murder park”, just like they can have a government if they want.
MMA matches are romper room.
As I understand it, a “voluntary slavery” (really, indentured servitude) contract would be a contract stating that one party agrees to give his labor to another, in exchange for whatever it is that the contract specifies (for a historical example, having his costs of transportation to America covered). I see nothing wrong with that in principle. Obviously, when you first enter society, you own yourself and what you produce with your own property unless and until you agree to exchange it for something else. Since you own yourself, you own your labor; and unless you’re a Marxist, you probably believe that selling your labor is completely legitimate and altogether a good idea.
An indentured servitude contract, then, involves selling one’s labor for a specified period of future time. And a “voluntary slavery” contract is simply an indentured servitude contract in which that “specified period of future time” is the rest of the seller’s life. Reneging on the contract by running away thus takes from the buyer what you voluntarily sold him. He bought those hours of labor, he owns them, but you have taken them from him; and for as long as you are on the run you are taking more and more his property from him. That is theft, involuntary deprivation of another person’s property, which we all agree deserves to be the target of legal coercion if anything is.
Now such a contract in itself is not wrong. But it is a bad idea–for the seller, most likely, but no less for the buyer. When the servant runs away, say for a week, and he is returned to his master, how can the lost week of work be restored to the master? The contract cannot be extended by a week, for its duration is already the seller’s whole life! The servant could be made to work overtime, either for the master directly or for someone else with an appropriate quantity of the wages garnisheed. But if the servant was on the run for a month or a year or many years, the servant may not be able to make up for the lost time, and the master will simply have to write off his loss. In a free market, then, we would expect that few lifetime indenture contracts would be written, for both parties would be foolish to agree to one.
This prompted me to do a bit of research into modern and historical contract law. Apparently there are traditionally two kinds of remedies for breach of contract: collection of monetary damages and specific performance. Wikipedia states that “[u]nder the common law, specific performance was not a remedy, with the rights of a litigant being limited to the collection of damages” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance). It seems to me that, in a stateless society, this would also be the case, if only pragmatically — it would be much easier to collect monetary damages than to compel a person to perform a specific action. Furthermore, the latter would likely be seen as aggressive itself.
So what does this mean for a lifetime-servitude contract? It seems to mean that breach of such a contract would be unenforcible by specific performance (i.e. returning to the lifetime of servitude). The best that one could hope for there is to collect monetary damages; however, it may be difficult to estimate how much the contract-breacher would owe. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that a rough estimate of this can be made, and that he lacks the amount on hand. His only recourse then would be to work it off, which would put him back into servitude, but not (necessarily) for life!
With this it seems that lifetime-servitude or slavery contracts would be ridiculous propositions in a stateless society, as there seems to be no realistic way to re-enslave those who would breach such contracts.
“I do not think that Mr. Dyke has taken sufficiently seriously Rothbard’s argument for limits to freedom of contract.” – David Gordon
Absolutely right. My question is – why the hell is this even blog worthy?
Go make a post about it in the forums Mr Dyke.
Let’s broaden the narrow scope of this discussion, shall we?
http://polycentricorder.blogspot.com/2009/06/absolutist-propertarianism-dissolves.html#links
http://polycentricorder.blogspot.com/search?q=voluntary+slavery
http://mises.org/Community/forums/p/15571/320488.aspx#320488
The Synergy Between Property Rights And Human Rights.
Since property rights are human rights there is a synergy between the individual and the economy at the locus of the property right/contract. In other words, in an ethical society property rights will continually be refined, and aligned to protect human rights. That is the clearest way to understand human rights and the best safeguard for property rights.
Equally property rights (while a subset of human rights) are the best safeguard of human rights, yes?
The synergy works in both directions. As property rights are refined and strengthened human rights are strengthened, and as human rights are strengthened property rights are refined and strengthened.
Rather than as a subset I see property rights as the mirror image of human rights.
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