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Voluntary slavery, in theory, is the condition of slavery entered into at a point of voluntary consent. It is distinguished from involuntary slavery where an individual is forced to a period of servitude usually as punishment for a crime. [1]
Some believe[ weasel words ] that in ancient times, this was a common way for impoverished people to provide subsistence for themselves or their family and provision was made for this in law. [2] For example, the code of Hammurabi stated that "besides being able to borrow on personal security, an individual might sell himself or a family member into slavery". [3] However, according to a different translation, "If any one fail to meet a claim for debt, and sell himself, his wife, his son, and daughter for money or give them away to forced labor: they shall work for three years in the house of the man who bought them, or the proprietor, and in the fourth year they shall be set free." [4] This may be interpreted to mean that rather than people voluntary selling themselves into slavery in return for a loan, slavery was simply the standard penalty for failure to pay off a debt. [5] Other parts of the Code of Hammurabi show both debt and slavery as being part of the criminal justice system of the time, such as, "If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded, then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be ruined." [6]
According to some sources, in ancient times, one of the most direct ways to become a Roman or Greek citizen was by means of a self-sale contract. The laws surrounding Roman and Greek manumission made it quite possible for such erstwhile slaves to then become citizens or near-citizens themselves. [7] However, according to Walter Scheidel, while it is possible that some genuine self-sales may have occurred in ancient Rome, the quantitative weight of such events would have been minimal. [8] In ancient Greece, a form of voluntary slavery was associated with pederasty. Here, it was viewed as a component of reciprocal relationship wherein lovers consider voluntary servitude as legitimate, particularly in the effort to honorably satisfy the beloved in the pursuit of virtue. [9] Voluntary servitude in this case was integral in the practice of education.
In medieval Russia, self-sale was the main source of slaves. [10] However, as two of the reasons for self-sale in Russian history were avoidance of the military draft and avoidance of poll taxes, also known as soul taxes, it is questionable how voluntary this sort of slavery really was. [11]
The presence of a contract does not mean that a person entered into the condition of forced labor voluntarily. For example, a report by Dr. Raingeard, speaking of the Belgian Congo, states that, "When a native, remarkably enough, managed to resist the threats and blows of the merchants, I have seen government officers offering him the choice between signing a contract and prison." [12] According to Kevin Bales, "It may be that local custom and culture support slavery and that most of the population knows of its existence, but admitting it is something else again. Here false contracts conceal slavery. Slaveholders can easily force their slaves to sign anything: mortgages, loan agreements, indentures, or labor contracts. If questions are raised, signed contracts are produced and corrupt law enforcement looks the other way. Even in countries with mostly honest and conscientious police, the contracts hide slavery." [13]
Even where a worker did voluntarily agree to something, the conditions at the place of work may be different from that which he agreed to. Additionally, even if only one worker agrees to something, members of his family and his descendants may be forced to comply as well. For example, some workers in Pakistan agree to make bricks in return for an advance on their paycheck under a system known as peshgi. However, once there, the kiln owner may begin to molest and even rape women of their family. Many workers feel that an assault on the women of their family voids any work agreement they might have. Accounting of the debt is often dishonest. Children may be kidnapped and held captive if the slaveholder believes the family likely to flee. The debt is frequently passed on from one generation to the next. [14]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau contends that in a contract of self-enslavement, there is no mutuality. The slave loses all. The contract negates his interests and his rights. It is entirely to his disadvantage. Since the slave loses his status as a moral agent once the slave contract is enforced, the slave cannot act to enforce anything owed to him by his master. Rousseau contrasted this to the social contract, in that the subjects of the government have control over their masters. [15] John Stuart Mill wrote a critique of voluntary slavery as a criticism of paternalism. [16]
Libertarian Murray Rothbard criticized the term as being self-contradictory. [17] His protege Walter Block, on the other hand, has defended the idea from Rothbard's and others' libertarian criticisms and claims this is a consistent feature of their philosophy, but admits his is a minority view, along with Robert Nozick. [18] The term voluntary slavery is often used in polemical writings and rhetoric on a range of subjects. For instance, critics of capitalism have argued that the capitalist wage system amounts to wage slavery disguised as voluntary, and is contrary to human dignity. [19] [20]
Murray Rothbard allows for the possibility of a system of debt bondage, arguing that lifetime labor contracts could be broken as long as slaves paid appropriate damages.
[I]f A has agreed to work for life for B in exchange for 10,000 grams of gold, he will have to return the proportionate amount of property if he terminates the arrangement and ceases to work. [21]
Gerard Casey argues that voluntary slavery is possible if the concept of self-ownership is interpreted positively. [22]
Anarcho-capitalism is a political philosophy and economic theory according to which all government institutions are unnecessary or harmful and can be abolished or replaced by private ones. Anarcho-capitalists hold that society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through the voluntary exchange of goods and services. This would ideally result in a voluntary society based on concepts such as the non-aggression principle, free markets and self-ownership. In such a society, private property rights would be enforced by private agencies. In the absence of statute private defence agencies and/or insurance companies would operate competitively in a market and fulfill the roles of courts and the police.
Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system, such as socialism or communism.
Wage slavery is a term used to criticize exploitation of labour by business, by keeping wages low or stagnant in order to maximize profits. The situation of wage slavery can be loosely defined as a person's dependence on wages for their livelihood, especially when wages are low, treatment and conditions are poor, and there are few chances of upward mobility.
A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include compensatory payments such as minimum wage, prevailing wage, and yearly bonuses, and remunerative payments such as prizes and tip payouts. Wages are part of the expenses that are involved in running a business. It is an obligation to the employee regardless of the profitability of the company.
Étienne or Estienne de La Boétie was a French magistrate, classicist, writer, poet and political theorist, best remembered for his friendship with essayist Michel de Montaigne. His early political treatise Discourse on Voluntary Servitude was posthumously adopted by the Huguenot movement and is sometimes seen as an early influence on modern anti-statist, utopian and civil disobedience thought.
Involuntary servitude or involuntary slavery is a legal and constitutional term for a person labouring against that person's will to benefit another, under some form of coercion, to which it may constitute slavery. While labouring to benefit another occurs also in the condition of slavery, involuntary servitude does not necessarily connote the complete lack of freedom experienced in chattel slavery; involuntary servitude may also refer to other forms of unfree labour. Involuntary servitude is not dependent upon compensation or its amount. Prison labour is often referred to as involuntary servitude. Prisoners are forced to work for free or for very little money while they carry out their time in the system.
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of extreme hardship to either themselves or members of their families.
Self-ownership, also known as sovereignty of the individual or individual sovereignty, is the concept of property in one's own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to have bodily integrity and be the exclusive controller of one's own body and life. Self-ownership is a central idea in several political philosophies that emphasize individualism, such as libertarianism, liberalism, and anarchism.
An employment contract or contract of employment is a kind of contract used in labour law to attribute rights and responsibilities between parties to a bargain. The contract is between an "employee" and an "employer". It has arisen out of the old master-servant law, used before the 20th century. Employment contracts relies on the concept of authority, in which the employee agrees to accept the authority of the employer and in exchange, the employer agrees to pay the employee a stated wage.
The nature of capitalism is criticized by left-wing anarchists, who reject hierarchy and advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. Anarchism is generally defined as the libertarian philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authoritarianism, illegitimate authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Capitalism is generally considered by scholars to be an economic system that includes private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, voluntary exchange and wage labor, which have generally been opposed by most anarchists historically. Since capitalism is variously defined by sources and there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category, the designation is applied to a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.
Wage labour, usually referred to as paid work, paid employment, or paid labour, refers to the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labour power under a formal or informal employment contract. These transactions usually occur in a labour market where wages or salaries are market-determined.
Slavery in the ancient world, from the earliest known recorded evidence in Sumer to the pre-medieval Antiquity Mediterranean cultures, comprised a mixture of debt-slavery, slavery as a punishment for crime, and the enslavement of prisoners of war.
The Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) is a concept in which "aggression" – defined as initiating or threatening any forceful interference with an individual, their property or their agreements (contracts) – is illegitimate and should be prohibited. Interpretations of the NAP vary, particularly concerning issues like intellectual property, force, and abortion.
Criticism of capitalism typically ranges from expressing disagreement with particular aspects or outcomes of capitalism to rejecting the principles of the capitalist system in its entirety. Criticism comes from various political and philosophical approaches, including anarchist, socialist, Marxist, religious, and nationalist viewpoints. Some believe that capitalism can only be overcome through revolution while others believe that structural change can come slowly through political reforms. Some critics believe there are merits in capitalism and wish to balance it with some form of social control, typically through government regulation.
Right-libertarianism, also known as libertarian capitalism, or right-wing libertarianism, is a libertarian political philosophy that supports capitalist property rights and defends market distribution of natural resources and private property. The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital from left-libertarianism, a variant of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to property and income. In contrast to socialist libertarianism, right-libertarianism supports free-market capitalism. Like most forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties, especially natural law, negative rights, the non-aggression principle, and a significant transformation of the modern welfare state.
Libertarianism is variously defined by sources as there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how one should use the term as a historical category. Scholars generally agree that libertarianism refers to the group of political philosophies which emphasize freedom, individual liberty and voluntary association. Libertarians generally advocate a society with little or no government power.
Walter Edward Block is an American Austrian School economist and anarcho-capitalist theorist. He was the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at the School of Business at Loyola University New Orleans and a former senior fellow of the non-profit think-tank Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.
Slavery in international law is governed by a number of treaties, conventions and declarations. Foremost among these is the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) that states in Article 4: “no one should be held in slavery or servitude, slavery in all of its forms should be eliminated.”
Indentured servitude in British America was the prominent system of labor in the British American colonies until it was eventually supplanted by slavery. During its time, the system was so prominent that more than half of all immigrants to British colonies south of New England were white servants, and that nearly half of total white immigration to the Thirteen Colonies came under indenture. By the beginning of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, only 2 to 3 percent of the colonial labor force was composed of indentured servants.
Slavery in ancient Egypt existed at least since the Old Kingdom period. Discussions of slavery in Pharaonic Egypt are complicated by terminology used by the Egyptians to refer to different classes of servitude over the course of dynastic history. Interpretation of the textual evidence of classes of slaves in ancient Egypt has been difficult to differentiate by word usage alone. There were three types of enslavement in Ancient Egypt: chattel slavery, bonded labor, and forced labor. Even these seemingly well-differentiated types of slavery are susceptible to individual interpretation. Egypt's labor culture encompassed many people of various social ranks.