Freedom to become enslaved
Concept
The freedom to become enslaved is an idea which appears to be at the heart of marketist thinking: the idea that you aren't truly free unless you have the freedom to sell yourself into slavery.
Examples
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When asked "You realize that by defending child labor, you are losing any moral footing you may have.", Arthur Brownlee IV responded "Because I believe people should be allowed to make their own choices?" -- implying that economically coerced child labor is okay because it's still "voluntary", and the ability for a child to choose employment over education is a form of freedom that is denied when child labor is illegal.
Usage
- Misnomers/right to work: "right-to-work" laws don't actually give anyone the right to work, and give employers more power to fire people – but marketists argue that they do confer more "rights" because you're more free if you have the right to accept a lousy job than if you don't.
Related
- Orwell's freedom is slavery makes a slightly different argument (this is more like "slavery is freedom"), but the similarity should still be pointed out.
Reality
If there are no constraints to prevent people from accidentally making bad choices, then people are less free to act because they have to be more careful -- and there are no circumstances under which someone would wish to be truly enslaved if they had any alternatives.
Example
Imagine a meadow at the top of a high cliff. If there is a strong fence at the edge, then people are more free to play in the meadow because the fence will catch them if they miscalculate and fall towards the edge (e.g. while catching a ball). If there is no fence, people will have to stay quite some distance away from the edge in order to be safe -- they will have less freedom to play.
Correspondingly, there is nothing stopping anyone from voluntarily obeying someone else's every command -- but it should not be legal for someone to sell another person this right (requiring third-party enforcement of that servitude)