Critical Letter to Dr. Walter E. Block on "Voluntary Slave Contracts" and Other Topics

Dear Dr. Block,

     I appreciate your thoughtfulness and candor in all that you do. But I would also really appreciate some explanation and clarification about some of the more controversial ideas for which you've become known and infamous.

     First of all (on utilitarianism):

     Are you really going to defend the idea that it's not wrong to "use people as mere means"?

     Doesn't perceiving a person as a tool, an object, or a means to an end, predispose a person to treating people as if they were such, and doesn't that entail ignoring their real biological needs? And doesn't it predispose a person towards objectifying people, and even treating them as slaves? Furthermore, isn't that utilitarianism; that is, using people based on what you deem to be their best use?

     And isn't utilitarianism intrinsically and diametrically opposed to libertarianism? It's not that utility and liberty can't be optimized; they can. But according to all of the individualist and free-market principles I've ever heard of, a free and liberty-loving person is supposed to choose to perform the set of activities which he believes will provide the most utility (regardless of whether he prioritizes others' needs, or his own, in making that assessment; the point is it's up to him).

     Don't you think that, by saying it's not wrong to use people as mere means, you're saying it's fine to treat a person's wrist as if it were just another inanimate object – indistinguishable from any other inanimate object, say for example a link in a metal chain of a handcuff – and then, to attach it to another inanimate object (say, for simplicity's sake, another metal chain of a handcuff), and put them to whatever you (and/or society) determine to be his best use?

     This is to say, don't you literally support involuntary slavery, in addition to claiming that “voluntary slavery” is possible?

     Secondly, on that matter (“voluntary slavery)”:

     How can you defend "voluntary slavery contracts" as if they were ordinary economic activity?
     Has it occurred to you that the vast disparity between the amount of benefit received by the slave and the master, make it preposterous to claim that some voluntary exchange has occurred; and, at that, a voluntary exchange which confers mutual benefit?

     The complete and total surrender of the freedom from direct physical violence, aggression, and harm - which is involved in the act of “willingly submitting to a voluntary slave contract” - ought to indicate to you, that not only are the slave and master not benefiting equally, but also that the slave is not benefiting at all.

     Nobody submits to slavery willingly. I really hope that you consider intimidation and manipulation as forms of coercion, because if you don't, then I don't see why you would find it unacceptable to intimidate, manipulate, and perhaps even threaten or extort, people into “agreeing” to become a slave. Do you know the difference between consenting and assenting?

     If you doubt whether mutual benefit is necessary, then surely the fact that no exchange is occurring, should suggest to you that there can be no voluntary exchange without exchange itself. Is the slave really “getting something” out of letting the master beat him in exchange for food? That is, in exchange for the bare minimum which he needs to survive – i.e., just barely enough to get up, and work, and get beaten the shit out of - another day?

     Additionally, how can the slave/master relationship be considered remotely mutually beneficial, unless it is considered a standard and necessary part of the relationship that medical damages from enduring torture be 100% compensated (if not more)? Would you be entirely without objection, to what “voluntary slave masters” do, if they see themselves as having no obligation to refrain from beating their slaves, except within an inch of their life? What if a slave is being tortured to death, and knows he's dying, and knows a few more whips or kicks will kill him, and the master doesn't know how much damage he's doing? What if the slave fights back, solely to save his life, and the master decides he's justified in killing his slave?

     Where is the volunteerism in “voluntary slave contracts”? Where is the economic exchange? Where is the mutuality? Where is the benefit, even, when beating people demoralizes us, and conditions us to reject the Non-Aggression Principle? Knowing about the epidemic of sex trafficking, human trafficking, child prostitution (etc.), why would you spend more time defending “voluntary slave contracts” than suggesting viable careers to people which do not involve accepting direct physical corporal torture?

     Third (on homesteading):

     Your rejection of the Lockean proviso seems to imply an endorsement of a first-come-first-serve property rights system, wherein the poor and young can be relegated to barren land.

     Don't you realize that a first-come-first-serve system condemns children to perpetual servitude of those older than them, whom by the mere fact of their age have been exposed to more opportunity to acquire education, skills, money, and resources? Doesn't it coerce and deprive the young into dependence, to continue to register, recognize, protect, and defend property claims, based on who claimed it first?

     Frankly, your position on this smacks of the Divine Right of Kings and religious dominionism.

     Fourth (on “murder parks”):

     To be honest, I kind of liked this idea when I first heard of it. It could relieve stress! If you're a psycho with no respect for the Non-Aggression Principle, that is. But I suppose you think that it is possible to “voluntarily murder” someone without aggressing against them, or something.

     Also, from a purely medical and scientific perspective, the human lifespan has no defined upper limit in terms of age. We die when we are too badly injured, or too many of our organs fail, or we are eaten by animals, etc.. It is said that every person who has ever lived, has died, but that is only true if you leave out the people who are still alive. They have lived, yet they have not died. How odd! And preventable death – the cause of most deaths - is called preventable for a reason. So why can't we prevent most deaths?

     Increased research and development on lifespan-lengthening technologies (in the fields of gerontology and senescence studies), such as research regarding the lengthening of the tips of our chromosomes (called telomeres), could even lead to rapid increases in the human lifespan.

     Many people are afraid of living much much longer. Not to worry, however; medical scientists have recently developed the 3-D printing of organs, automated robot surgeons, virtual-reality surgery, spinach leaves grafted onto the heart, a lamb in a bag... We have no reason not to expect that access to, and development of, medical technologies, will make our golden years healthy and comfortable as well as long-lasting.

     Especially if we abolish the enforcement of intellectual property rights to medical device patents and pharmaceutical patents. And also, if we – as you have suggested – develop technology that will allow fetuses to be transplanted into surrogate mothers' wombs after the embryo fertilizes and begins to grow.
     Suppose that people wanted to relax, recreate, and get their tension out. But suppose that all ways to do that were illegal. Would you suggest exercise, or would you suggest that some of them go and kill each other for fun? If you would suggest both, which would you suggest first and why? I hope that it is obvious to you which choice is superior.

     I just have a hard time understanding why you suggest murder, death, suicide, euthanasia, slavery, selling your baby, and letting strangers fuck you as your go-tos, instead of, I don't know... explaining why the government shouldn't interfere with people's freedoms to pursue careers that they already enthusiastically want to do (whatever those careers are)?

     You guys who consider "voluntary slave contracts", torture contracts, and "baby markets" as if they were ordinary economic activities, is making other libertarians like me look bad.

     I mean seriously, what the living fuck does any of this have to do with morality, economics, sociology, or anything worth studying? You say an interesting thing or two every once in a while, but for the most part, listening to you is humiliating, and reading you makes me want to pluck my eyes out and almost makes me wish I had never learned how to read. I went to college for fuck's sake. I've been in the libertarian movement for 12 years. I've given money to the Libertarian Party. Your support of literal slavery, “voluntary” or involuntary, is driving me into the hands of the socialists. And they have earned it.

     How are we ever going to have either significant numbers of Libertarian partisans in office, or a stateless society, if the most viable third party in the country can't explain why its members will be more effective in the fight against child trafficking and child prostitution, than the top two candidates for the nation's highest office (one an admitted pussy-grabber and accused rapist, and the other a man who gropes children live on C-SPAN)?

     Do you understand what you're doing when you are insufficiently clear in your language, while defending the idea that nothing calling itself a government should ever limit our “freedom” to sell our children for government-manufactured currency, nor our “freedom” to put our children to work for us, nor the freedom to engage in prostitution? Are you hoping that the pro-child-labor libertarians and the pro-normalizing-prostitution libertarians aren't going to find each other and join forces?

     Have you given one second of thought to the fact that there are teenagers all over the world, whose parents expect them to work, and whom are surrounded by a culture that believes prostitution is acceptable on the grounds that “it's one thing that even unskilled people can do, so everybody should work”? The result of this is that children are pressured to sell their bodies to people who want to rape and torture them.

     I suppose that your opposition to the public funding of education would be the only thing stopping you from endorsing the idea that school guidance counselors ought to be free to suggest prostitution as a viable long-term career choice to teenagers.

     As academically as possible, go fuck yourself. I lied about wanting clarification; please don't answer any of these questions, my only intent in writing this letter was to get you to renounce nearly everything you've become famous for proposing.

     I will be sharing this letter with all of my libertarian friends, and urging them to stop paying attention to you. Please retire before you are only able to do so in shame.

     I mean seriously, aren't you essentially saying that if teenagers want to earn some money, they should get out there, show some initiative, and let adults beat the shit out of them for money, rape them for money, impregnate them for money, sell their baby for money, and let adults bribe them into silence about it?

     Money is not the most important thing in the world, fuckface. Where the Hell did you come from? Who the fuck do you think you are?

     Please issue some retractions, and quit humiliating the both of us, as soon as possible.

     Love, Joe Kopsick.