How Libertarians Rationalize Slavery

It goes like this: According to libertarians, the fundamental basis of all rights is property. Not humanity, property. Human beings only have rights because we are each our own property. But...wait a second...if we are our own property, then we have to a right to sell ourselves to someone else, don't we? Uh-oh. This sounds like it's going in a dangerous direction. And if we can sell ourselves to someone else, then that person can in turn sell us to yet another person. In fact, if they own us, don't they also own whatever we produce, whether it be work or children? Oops. It seems we've gone full circle - the libertarian claim to be against slavery actually ends up rationalizing slavery.

The lesson is this: Our rights are based on our humanity, not on the idea of property. You do not steal because stealing hurts people, not because it would violate some abstract absolute of possession. You do not kill because killing destroys people, not merely because rules of property do not permit you that prerogative. You pay taxes that fund government programs because they serve people, and property-based complaints are trivial next to that fact. You do not wield absolute power over your children because they are not your property, they are people whose interests are held in trust by you, not something you own because you created them.

To the extent property helps people, it is to be protected. To the extent it does the opposite, as in the reasoning above - which drove the ideology of the Confederacy, and motivates so much conservative/libertarian politics today - it is subordinate to humanity. Either humanity is the absolute right or property is, and if property is then you support slavery. There is no escaping it.

Are you sure property is the fundamental basis? Why do you argue it is?

The fundamental basis for all rights is power. Whoever holds all the power gets to determine the rights. A large group of people tends to have more power than a small group of people, so the larger group tends to rule over the smaller group. That is democracy. Wealth is the accumulation of resources, and it bestows power. Wealthy individuals are more powerful than poor individuals and thus have more sway in determining what is and is not a right, particularly if they can sway the larger group of people to agree with their views. That is the American democracy. There is also this idea of a social contract where the large group of people agrees to recognize the legitimacy of a government as long as the government can defend a set of explicit rights agreed upon by the large group of people. That is a Constitution and whoever can figure out the broadest or narrowest way to interpret it in their favor has the power.

Troubadour said:

It goes like this: According to libertarians, the fundamental basis of all rights is property. Not humanity, property. Human beings only have rights because we are each our own property. But...wait a second...if we are our own property, then we have to a right to sell ourselves to someone else, don't we? Uh-oh. This sounds like it's going in a dangerous direction. And if we can sell ourselves to someone else, then that person can in turn sell us to yet another person. In fact, if they own us, don't they also own whatever we produce, whether it be work or children? Oops. It seems we've gone full circle - the libertarian claim to be against slavery actually ends up rationalizing slavery.

The lesson is this: Our rights are based on our humanity, not on the idea of property. You do not steal because stealing hurts people, not because it would violate some abstract absolute of possession. You do not kill because killing destroys people, not merely because rules of property do not permit you that prerogative. You pay taxes that fund government programs because they serve people, and property-based complaints are trivial next to that fact. You do not wield absolute power over your children because they are not your property, they are people whose interests are held in trust by you, not something you own because you created them.

To the extent property helps people, it is to be protected. To the extent it does the opposite, as in the reasoning above - which drove the ideology of the Confederacy, and motivates so much conservative/libertarian politics today - it is subordinate to humanity. Either humanity is the absolute right or property is, and if property is then you support slavery. There is no escaping it.

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So now all you need to do is find a libertarian rationalising slavery, and you're good to go.

The basis for Libertarianism is freedom and liberty. It's like Liberalism with fiscal responsibility.

Slavery is involuntary servitude and goes against Libertarian principles.

spud_meister said:

So now all you need to do is find a libertarian rationalising slavery, and you're good to go.

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Yeah - I don't recall ever hearing a single libertarian making such an argument to begin with.

Troubadour said:

According to libertarians, the fundamental basis of all rights is property.

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This is a false premise. Libertarians typically understand the fundamental basis of human rights to be human dignity. The right to property ownership is an extension of human dignity.

The fact that the initial premise is false renders the entirety of your argument unsound.

In reality, libertarians are usually opposed to any form of slavery or coercion.

SheWolf said:

Are you sure property is the fundamental basis? Why do you argue it is?

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Because (a) Libertarians regularly tell me it is, and (b) they spend a lot more of their time ranting about taxes than human rights. Everything other than property is an afterthought to them.

CriticalThought said:

The fundamental basis for all rights is power. Whoever holds all the power gets to determine the rights.

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They get to determine which rights are respected. Rights are fundamental. The idea that power defines rights is totalitarianism.

CriticalThought said:

A large group of people tends to have more power than a small group of people, so the larger group tends to rule over the smaller group. That is democracy.

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Democracy is the nexus of majority rule and minority rights. In the absence of the latter, what you have is merely a numerically large oligarchy.

spud_meister said:

So now all you need to do is find a libertarian rationalising slavery, and you're good to go.

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I run into libertarians who rationalize slavery constantly - they just never admit that's what they're doing. The whole point is that their cherished premise - liberty = property = is logically inextricable from many of the key historical rationalizations of slavery going back to the Roman Empire.

joe six-pack said:

The basis for Libertarianism is freedom and liberty.

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That's the basis of the word Libertarianism, not the political ideology associated with the word. A more etymologically correct term would be "Propertarianism," because they deny any distinction between liberty and property, with the emphasis being on the latter. In other words, any liberty that transcends property is deemed invalid, and any property that transcends liberty (i.e., slavery) is treated as a special case rather than something fundamentally and rationally wrong.

joe six-pack said:

It's like Liberalism with fiscal responsibility.

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Libertarianism is not fiscally responsible - it denies proven facts of economics and relies on quasi-religious doctrines to make fiscal decisions. The most generous thing one could say about its approach to fiscal policy is that it's parsimonious at best, and at worst is actively malicious to all but the wealthy.

joe six-pack said:

Slavery is involuntary servitude and goes against Libertarian principles.

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Property is not against libertarian principles, and they claim people are their own property. Are you saying that people cannot sell their own property to whomever they please? And are you claiming that the people they sell their property to do not then own that property? Could those people not sell their property to a third party? Do they not own the output of their property?

Selfishness is the basis of libertarianism. Its the lipstick on the pig named MEMEME.

Nobody gives libertarians around here more crap(just ask them), and even I think this thread is way over the top.

Where did you get that the fundamental basis of libertarianism is property?
you arn't doing it right

The fundamental basis is Liberty and the protection of one's own liberty so their fundamental right's are not infringed. You couldn't be farther from the truth. And the only thing i can think of libertarian's might be for is indentured servitude, which is not slavery because it is voluntary.

haymarket said:

Selfishness is the basis of libertarianism. Its the lipstick on the pig named MEMEME.

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more idiotic nonsense. You sound like a flea claiming the dog is being selfish because it objects to you biting it

I'd say it's more a cultural consideration that a political one that causes people to justify slavery by any means. But the above may be an interesting exercise... I don't want to get involved in :mrgreen:

Redress said:

Nobody gives libertarians around here more crap(just ask them), and even I think this thread is way over the top.

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that's because your arguments tend to be-not always-but generally-SANE

TurtleDude said:

more idiotic nonsense. You sound like a flea claiming the dog is being selfish because it objects to you biting it

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(He's calling you a social parasite on the producer class)

Redress said:

Nobody gives libertarians around here more crap(just ask them), and even I think this thread is way over the top.

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Then argue against it. Don't just say "Nope, not so!"

Troubadour said:

Then argue against it. Don't just say "Nope, not so!"

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leftwing cravings have killed over 100 million people. how many died due to libertarians?

TurtleDude said:

leftwing cravings have killed over 100 million people. how many died due to libertarians?

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Could that be because no one is insane enough to give libertarians any power?

Zing.......!

TurtleDude said:

leftwing cravings have killed over 100 million people. how many died due to libertarians?

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Is the moral value of a philosophy in how many people it has killed? If that is the case I recommend you become a pascifist.

TurtleDude said:

leftwing cravings have killed over 100 million people. how many died due to libertarians?

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How were blacks, women and American Indians treated when the US was more libertarian than not?

CriticalThought said:

Is the moral value of a philosophy in how many people it has killed? If that is the case I recommend you become a pascifist.

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That's very wise, CT. Well said.

spud_meister said:

How were blacks, women and American Indians treated when the US was more libertarian than not?

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The U.S. was emphatically not libertarian in those days. Libertarianism is about social freedom as much as it is about economic freedom. Don't let Republicans masquerading as libertarians fool you, spud. Real libertarians support equality first and foremost.

This site best defines what I feel my belief system is:

WHAT IS LIBERTARIANISM?

What do libertarians believe in? In a few words, they believe that individual freedom is the fundamental value that must underlie all social relations, economic exchanges and the political system. They believe that voluntary co-operation between individuals in a free market is always preferable to coercion exerted by the state. They believe that the role of the state is not to pursue goals in the name of the community. The state is not there to redistribute wealth, "promote" culture, "support" the agricultural sector, or "help" small firms, but should limit itself to the protection of individual rights and let citizens pursue their own goals in a peaceful way.

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Libertarians believe that the only way to ensure the maintenance of personal freedom is to guarantee the inviolability of private property and to limit as much as possible the size of the government and the scope of its interventions. They do not trust the state – whose managers claim to act in the name of abstract collective interests – when it comes to protecting individual liberty. According to collectivist ideologies, a viable social and economic order can only be imposed and maintained by the state. On the contrary, libertarian scholars have shown that it is the decentralized actions of individuals who pursue their own ends in a free market which makes it possible to create and maintain this spontaneous order, to bring prosperity, and to support the complex civilization in which we live.

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Guy Incognito said:

The U.S. was emphatically not libertarian in those days. Libertarianism is about social freedom as much as it is about economic freedom. Don't let Republicans masquerading as libertarians fool you.

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Well Turtle vehemently claims that the founding fathers were libertarians, so I'm awaiting his response.