this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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Perhaps some facets of libertarianism are really fucked up?
Slavery and child porn are debated by libertarians because the only way to address both is centralized government. However, since most (though not all) libertarians are opposed to any central government, they end up justifying with "well if you want to sell yourself as a slave, why should anyone stop you?".
But yeah, obviously it's us that are aware of this who are the fucked up ones.
Pretty sure the libertarian stance on slavery is that it is wrong, given the lack of liberty that slaves have. And the fact you can use a government to ensure nobody gets enslaved demonstrates the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist.
The maximum amount of personal liberty does not come from zero government. It comes from having enough government to prevent people from enslaving other people.
Libertarians are VERY individualistic (shocker) which means no 2 libertarians define libertarianism the same way.
HOWEVER, you literally just have to search for "slavery libertarian" in the google box to find all sorts of fairly high profile libertarians arguing about how slavery can actually be a good thing that we should allow.
For example, from Walter Block: http://www.kspjournals.org/index.php/JEST/article/view/346
You didn’t read the article you linked. In it Walter Block states that slavery violates the non-aggression-principle and is not permissible under libertarianism.
The only slavery I can think of without compulsion would be some kind of BDSM relationship, so he’s technically correct it’s no problem in that scenario.
Aside from any kind of roleplay, slavery involves compulsion. Slavery without compulsion is like an apple without fruit.
What do you think he’s saying here?