Freedom to be a slave?
I know a socialist anarchist who objects to me making the claim of self ownership as a fundamental right by claiming that it would allow you to sell yourself into slavery.
At first glance this looks like a compelling argument, but when I think a bit more deeply about it I wonder whether it matters.
So what if an adult sells himself into slavery? What form would this take in a liberal world? It would be a contract between the person and his ‘owner’ which was willingly entered into saying that the ‘owner’ would provide for the person’s living and the person would work for them. There may be other aspects to the agreement such as setting out any conditions or what the ‘owner’ is responsible for or what standard of living must be kept to.
The essential fact though is that this is a voluntary agreement to give another control over many aspects of your life (a bit like marriage a cynic might say). This is a far cry from the forced slavery which we quite rightly object to.
The other major distinction is that this agreement only binds the one person. It cannot be enforced upon any children, who until adulthood are the responsibility of the parent, but after then have the right to self-determination and own themselves, they cannot be bound into servitude because a parent opted to.
Of course, this is overly simplified, in real life I can’t imagine any such transaction taking place, which is why we are mostly paid with money, that makes for far simpler contracts.
In the past, being paid in non-monetary ways has caused huge problems, largely because of the imbalances of power involved- the classic example is that of a labourer tied to the land of a particular landowner because he’s paid in housing, but the contract there is unlikely to be entirely voluntary.
So self ownership does allow you to enter slavery voluntarily, but it is a very different form of slavery to what we think of as slavery, as it applies only to yourself, it is strictly voluntary and you have knowledge of the terms of you slavery before you enter it. Perhaps it should not be called slavery after all?
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April 11th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
I’m not an absolutist when it comes either to property or to freedom of contract, but I think I would put a ban on selling oneself into slavery under the heading of limits to freedom of contract, rather than limits to property.
This because what I would want the state to say to someone wishing to sell herself into slavery is ‘the state will not be complicit in enforcing this contract’. This does not, it seems to me, deny the person any rights over her actions – she can still pretend to be a slave. But when she changes her mind she will be able to walk away.
April 11th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
But what if the “owner” is a company and not an individual? I could certainly see some of the big corporations wanting to own their employees, and why employees might feel pressured into selling themselves into slavery for the sake of their careers.
Surely we shouldn’t make this kind of exploitation legal and acceptable?
April 21st, 2007 at 10:48 pm
A little historical perspective might be instructive. During the time of the Caesars, it was not unheard of for powerful princes (particularly Orientals) to sell their sons as slaves on Roman senators.
This was not because they had no regard for their children, but because they could trust their senatorial friends to free their sons shortly afterward. Under Roman law, the act of manumission rendered the freed slave a Roman Citizen, thus meaning that the prince’s heirs would forever have the protection of Rome.
So there may be circumstances when it is a rational choice to sell oneself into slavery.
Never second guess the individual!