The Answer to the Slave-Contract Dilemma Is NO.

Why all the people of the human race are, and of right ought to be, independent and free.

Sep 09, 2024

(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.10 | 1.11

Chapter 1: WHY

1.11 — The Slave Contract, Part 4

We have demonstrated that slavery and government have categorical similarities, that both can be applied to varying degrees, and that it is very difficult to escape from either. Just one task remains on this topic: to demonstrate that

A slave-contract—or any involuntary social contract—is a morally impermissible contradiction in terms.

If you were paying attention there, you just heard me make a shocking claim: that I can solve the supposedly insoluble “slave-contract dilemma.”

The slave-contract dilemma has long been a staple of philosophical inquiry—one of those edge-questions that people use to explore the boundaries of our principles: is it possible to voluntarily sell oneself into permanent slavery? Can I sign a contract saying you own me and my labor forever.

The question is understandably vexed. If we have free will, and can thus freely enter into voluntary contracts, why can’t we freely enter into a slave contract?

I struggled with this for a long time. Then, a deceptively simple point made by Murray Rothbard in “The Ethics of Liberty” rendered the answer quite clear.

Rothbard notes that contracts deal in alienable property. You can trade a thing for another thing. You can trade money for land, labor, or any other alienable property. But your self-ownership is not alienable. It is inalienable. Unalienable. However you want to say it, Messrs. Jefferson and Adams…it cannot be alienated.

Your self-ownership is exactly the thing that a slave contract would require you to alienate, and since you cannot do so (even if you wanted to), no such contract can be valid or even exist.

Sure, you can agree to act as a slave, and continue to play the part till the day you die. But you cannot be held to the agreement, because that would require you to give up something that you cannot give up.

In formal terms, then…

1. In order for a contract to be valid and enforceable, it must involve the exchange or surrender of alienable property.

2. A slave contract requires the surrender of self-ownership.

3. Self-ownership is inalienable and cannot be surrendered.

.˙. A slave contract is invalid and unenforceable as a contract.

This gives us a solid answer to the supposedly unanswerable slave-contract dilemma. But how does that pertain to government and the idea of a “social contract”?

The final piece of that puzzle slammed into place while reading a footnote in Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed:

14 The contract theory of the state here criticized originated with Thomas Hobbes and his works De Cive (chaps. 5-7) and Leviathan (chaps. 17-19). Hobbes there claimed that the legal bond between the ruler and the subjects, once it has been tied, is indissoluble. However, notes Cassirer,
most influential writers on politics in the seventeenth century rejected the conclusions drawn by Hobbes. They charged the great logician with a contradiction in terms. If a man could give up his personality [i.e., his right to self-ownership] he would cease being a moral being. He would become a lifeless thing-and how could such a thing obligate itself—how could it make a promise or enter into a social contract? This fundamental right, the right to personality, includes in a sense all the others. To maintain and to develop his personality is a universal right. It is not subject to the freaks and fancies of single individuals and cannot, therefore, be transferred from one individual to another. The contract of rulership which is the legal basis of all civil powers has, therefore, its inherent limits.
There is no pactum subjectionis, no act of submission by which man can give up the state of a free agent and enslave himself. For by such an act of renunciation he would give up that very character which constitutes his nature and essence: he would lose his humanity. (The Myth of the State, p.195) (Emphasis added.)1

It isn’t the most exciting quote in the world, but for me, it was the final step in a journey I had been on for much of my adult life. I was listening to the book in audio format. Sitting in a parking lot, I rewound that section and listened to it again. And again.

If a man could give up his personality [i.e., his right to self-ownership] he would cease being a moral being…

He would become a lifeless thing…

How could such a thing obligate itself—how could it make a promise or enter into a social contract?

There is…no act of submission by which man can give up the state of a free agent and enslave himself.

By such an act of renunciation he would give up that very character which constitutes his nature and essence: he would lose his humanity.

It had finally gotten through my thick skull. Hoppe and Cassirer were pointing out that the ‘social contract’—even one imposed by the most democratic government—suffers from the same fatal flaw as the slave contract: It isn’t actually consensual, and thus violates self-ownership. This is the case even if the government (or intellectuals working in its service) claim that your consent is “tacit” and “implied.” Even if they insist.

When this notion was employed by the most well-meaning of our forebears—Locke, the American Founders, et al—it was still, at best, a philosophical workaround for a dilemma that, deep down, they had to recognize: That even the republican government they sought to create would violate the very principles they were seeking to enshrine. They simply could not think of a better solution at the time.

Fortunately, classical-liberal thought has advanced since then.

All of this too can be stated as a formal argument:

1. An involuntary social contract (involuntary governance) requires the natural (actual) and moral (consensual) alienation of self-ownership.

2. In order for a contract to be valid and enforceable, it must involve the exchange or surrender of alienable property.

3. Self-ownership is naturally and morally inalienable.

.˙. An involuntary social contract is invalid and unenforceable as a contract.

By these lights, then, we know a fundamental and inescapable truth:

All involuntary governance is morally impermissible.

(Note: This is the most logical moment for you to officially become an anarchist. If you have not, then you must first explain where the flaw in the logic lies.)

Just to be sure, let’s drive the point home even more. Using principles we demonstrated earlier in the chapter as premises, we can further argue as follows:

1. Compliance with an involuntary social contract can be achieved by means of the initiation of coercive force.

2. The initiation of coercive force is ontologically and morally impermissible.

.˙. The initiation of coercive force to achieve participation in and compliance with an involuntary social contract is ontologically and morally impermissible.

Not only have we demonstrated that involuntary governance is morally impermissible, we have further demonstrated (just to make sure the horse is dead and well-beaten) that imposition of involuntary governance by force is impermissible.

And imposing involuntary governance by force is what every single government does.

Not just when it has been “corrupted by bad people.” All the time. When it is functioning normally. And yes, this includes the United States government, going all the way back to April 30, 1789.

Involuntary governance and social contracts are impermissible because they are involuntary. Your consent comes from your self ownership and your self-ownership is inalienable. QED.

This line of reasoning has also led us to two other inescapable conclusions:

VOLUNTARY governance is permissible.
Any individual, or group of individuals, has the right to cease compliance and discontinue association with any involuntary government or social contract at any time, for any reason, unilaterally and without permissible recourse by any other party.

These conclusions form the basis of everything that is to come…

Of several essential rights that we will be discussing in Part II: The rights to ESTABLISH, JOIN, EXIT, SECEDE, and REMAIN.

Of why it makes sense for us to begin exercising those rights to the greatest degree possible.

And of why you, me, and all the people of the human race are, and of right ought to be, independent and free.

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