Abolition: Who Deserved Compensation for What?
If you can't yet find all of Murray Rothbard's writing on Mises.org, the gap is small and closing. For those of us who discovered Rothbard through his books, it is especially fun to see the seeds of certain chapters sewn a decade or two earlier in letters to the Volker Fund, letters to and short articles for The Freeman, or as brief editorials in his own newsletters, Left & Right, and Libertarian Forum.
Take, for example, this beautiful little essay from the October 1969 issue of Libertarian Forum on how badly certain libertarians can go wrong with bad property theory:
Murray Rothbard at his typewriter in the 1960sAbolition: An Acid Test
It has come to our attention increasingly of late that many self-proclaimed libertarians balk at the idea of abolishing slavery. It is almost incredible to contemplate, for one would think that at least the minimal definition of a libertarian is someone who favors the immediate abolition of slavery. Surely, slavery is the polar opposite of liberty?
But it appears that many libertarians argue as follows: the slave-masters bought their slaves on the market in good faith. They have the bill of sale. Therefore, respect for their property rights requires that slavery be left intact, or at the very least that the slave-master be compensated for any loss of his slave at the market value.
I used to believe, and have written articles to that effect, that the idea that right-wingers uphold "property rights over human rights" is only a left-wing smear. But evidently it is not a smear. For these libertarians indeed go to the grotesque length of upholding property rights at the expense of the human right of self-ownership of every person. Not only that: by taking this fetishistic position these pro-slavery libertarians negate the very concept, the very basis, of property right itself. For where does property right come from? It can only come from one basic and ultimate source — and that is not the pronouncement of the State that Mr. A belongs to Mr. B. That source is the property right of every man in his own body, his right of self-ownership. From this right of self-ownership is derived his right to whatever previously unowned and unused resources a man can find and transform by the use of his labor energy. But if every man has a property right in his own person, this immediately negates any grotesquely proclaimed "property right" in other people.
There are five possible positions on the abolition of slavery question. (1) That slavery must be protected as a part of the right of property; and (2) that abolition may only be accompanied by full compensation to the masters, seem to me to fall on the basis of our above discussion. But the third route — simple abolition — the one that was adopted, was also unsatisfactory, since it meant that the means of production, the plantations on which the slaves worked, remained in the hands, in the property, of their masters. On the libertarian homesteading principle, the plantations should have reverted to the ownership of the slaves, those who were forced to work them, and not have remained in the hands of their criminal masters. That is the fourth alternative. But there is a fifth alternative that is even more just: the punishment of the criminal masters for the benefit of their former slaves — in short, the imposition of reparations or damages upon the former criminal class, for the benefit of their victims. All this recalls the excellent statement of the Manchester Liberal, Benjamin Pearson, who, when he heard the argument that the masters should be compensated replied that "he had thought it was the slaves who should have been compensated."
It should be clear that this discussion is of far more than antiquarian interest. For there are a great many analogues to slavery today, an enormous number of cases where property has been acquired not through legitimate effort but through State theft, and where, therefore, similar alternatives will have to be faced once more.
Those who know Rothbard's books should recognize these same points coming up in his 1982 treatise The Ethics of Liberty (MP3), in the chapters on land property and land monopoly, especially the final paragraph of chapter 11:
$21 We have indicated above that there was only one possible moral solution for the slave question: immediate and unconditional abolition, with no compensation to the slavemasters. Indeed, any compensation should have been the other way — to repay the oppressed slaves for their lifetime of slavery. A vital part of such necessary compensation would have been to grant the plantation lands not to the slavemaster, who scarcely had valid title to any property, but to the slaves themselves, whose labor, on our "homesteading" principle, was mixed with the soil to develop the plantations. In short, at the very least, elementary libertarian justice required not only the immediate freeing of the slaves, but also the immediate turning over to the slaves, again without compensation to the masters, of the plantation lands on which they had worked and sweated. As it was, the victorious North made the same mistake — though "mistake" is far too charitable a word for an act that preserved the essence of an unjust and oppressive social system — as had Czar Alexander when he freed the Russian serfs in 1861: the bodies of the oppressed were freed, but the property which they had worked and eminently deserved to own, remained in the hands of their former oppressors. With the economic power thus remaining in their hands, the former lords soon found themselves virtual masters once more of what were now free tenants or farm laborers. The serfs and the slaves had tasted freedom, but had been cruelly deprived of its fruits.
Comments (17)
P.M.Lawrence
I've noticed that Rothbard often got sloppy in the evidence and arguments he brought in to support a sound position, no doubt because he felt that the sound conclusion meant he didn't have to check. For instance, he claimed that Britain once had just one exception to the idea of one man one vote, the university seats (in fact, right up until those were abolished, there was a property qualification that allowed some business owners to have an additional vote as well).
So I'm going to go over this pointing out the sloppiness. Please note, this is meant as constructive criticism, to put things on a sounder basis, and does not mean that I disagree with the overall thrust and conclusion.
'But if every man has a property right in his own person, this immediately negates any grotesquely proclaimed "property right" in other people.' No it doesn't. There's at least one special case that allows it, in which someone freely sells himself into slavery, perhaps by way of putting himself up as collateral for a debt that got foreclosed. Historically, this has actually happened. (What this should tell you is that the idea of "property in oneself" is a poor starting point, at best an analogy for people who are used to thinking in terms of property and put property as the starting point; a better starting point is the self, with the idea of property being an extension of the self - and then, while property can be alienated, it is immediately clear that you can't take yourself out of yourself, by definition.)
"On the libertarian homesteading principle, the plantations should have reverted to the ownership of the slaves, those who were forced to work them, and not have remained in the hands of their criminal masters." This is outright nonsense; the slaves were not homesteading. In fact, on the homesteading principle, they were themselves acting as agents. Note also, using the epithet "criminal" builds in what it is sought to prove - a false argument even when it is in support of a sound conclusion. (Of course, this should similarly flag the homesteading principle as an unsound starting point, although again a familiar analogy for people with ideas that already include it; in fact, it is far better to look at homesteading as signalling taking possession, with a high signal to noise ratio since that kind of signal takes enough effort that any observer can see it was seriously meant; the property aspect is an internal personal connection, but enforcing it takes effort, so signalling that it will be defended reduces the cost of doing so because fewer actual challenges are likely to come up - think how animals handle territoriality.)
"But there is a fifth alternative that is even more just: the punishment of the criminal masters for the benefit of their former slaves — in short, the imposition of reparations or damages upon the former criminal class, for the benefit of their victims." This is a collectivist argument, not only assuming what it seeks to prove but dealing with a "class" of its own invention. It would, for example, have penalised southern slaveholders while exempting former slave traders like the Yankee Simon Legree if he happened to have retired by the time of abolition. It would even have penalised any abolitionists who inherited slaves and were about to free them when the clock stopped. It is a scheme by A to make B benefit at C's expense, the "forgotten man" thing. And, of course, the slavers at the head of the chain would never even be touched.
"We have indicated above that there was only one possible moral solution for the slave question: immediate and unconditional abolition, with no compensation to the slavemasters." This is absolute nonsense, and harmful to the former slaves as well. We can take actual history for our guide here. Many slave codes had provisions against freeing slaves against their will, and in fact when the British Empire freed slaves, there was a rebellion in the West Indies until the slaves found out that this atrocity was not going to be inflicted on them on top of all their previous sufferings. The thing is, that meant "freed to starve"; and we know that this was a well founded fear because when the later indentured labour system ended, precisely this happened (V.S.Naipaul describes the plight of the victims, who were retrenched with neither their final gratuities to set them up nor their alternative option of passage back where they came from). The better approach, as used by the British who unlike Rothbard had investigated the matter, was to have a period of tutelage during which the former slaves had board, lodging and paid work experience to save and otherwise fit themselves for independent living, and enough compensation for their former owners that they could stay in business and keep employing - not a benefit for them, but for their former slaves. (We know the compensation was not enough to amount to a reward, because the example of British Guiana and other places showed the US south that abolition left former slave owners worse off, so reinforcing their antagonism to abolitionism.)
Rothbard's final suggestion of adding a second wrong by expropriating former slave owners' lands would not have helped former slaves with no tutelage and no capital of their own, but would instead have left any that survived easy prey to carpetbaggers and the like. Which is not to say that his idea should not be the final destination, but rather that his simplistic proposal would have been self defeating as well as wrong in itself, through not providing a workable transition
Published: February 4, 2008 10:01 PM
Tommy Knowlton
In my opinion, slavery is completely compatible with libertarianism, but not the slavery that existed in Europe and the Americas from the 16th century onward.
I'm talking about my right to discharge my debts by entering into a contractual agreement with my creditor, to give over all of the products of my labor for a contractually-determined period of time, in exchange for the necessities of life during my period of servitude, and debt cancellation at the end of that period.
If I be not allowed to barter my very self, the ownership over which is acknowledged to be the basis for ownership by me of any other property, then I do not indeed actually own myself.
From the first commentor:
What this should tell you is that the idea of "property in oneself" is a poor starting point, at best an analogy for people who are used to thinking in terms of property and put property as the starting point; a better starting point is the self, with the idea of property being an extension of the self - and then, while property can be alienated, it is immediately clear that you can't take yourself out of yourself, by definition
I disagree: we can be said to 'own' ourselves only to that degree which we may freely choose how to dispose of the only commodity inherent in any 'self', which is time. Saying nothing of morality (on which I do have an opinion, but which I refrain from here expressing), if I choose to shorten the time by suicide, or to waste the time by entering into unproductive activities, or to exchange my time (laboring) for some other material property, it may be said that I have traded my "self". I may indeed take myself out of myself, by giving over all of the products of my labor to another, in exchange for something which is in his power of gift.
Published: February 4, 2008 10:14 PM
Inquisitor
P M Lawrence, I agree with you in that I think Rothbard's terminology is not exactly conducive to a good undertanding of the issues at hand (this reformulation by Kinsella based on Hoppe is better: http://mises.org/daily/2291), but if the slaveowners had no legitimate claim to their plantations (as in did not homestead them), would it not be fair to strip them of this property and hand it over to those who actually worked the land?
Published: February 4, 2008 10:28 PM
John
I don't remember who made the point on this site, but they noted the problems with incentives (and went on to destroy the argument that slavery will occur on the free market). Even if Mr. Knowlton is right, it still might not be the best way for a creditor to get their money back after a debtor violates his agreement with a creditor. Now, if you align the incentives so that the debtor is working for himself and the creditor, it might be a different story, but it isn't slavery anymore. Rothbard argues that your inalienable rights cannot be sold or taken away which is why he views it as incompatible with natural law. I find that argument as another compelling response. Not only is it likely not the most practical way to get money back, but it is not compatible with libertarian principles.
Published: February 4, 2008 10:30 PM
Inquisitor
I was a bit too hasty in reading PM Lawrence's post - instead it'd have been better if I asked if he believes that the slave-owners in question had a just claim to their holdings.
Published: February 4, 2008 10:53 PM
Prashant
According to me, since slavemasters violated the private property rights of the slaves by holding them against their will(and since a man's will is inalienable to him), the Slaveowners should give compensation to the Slaves.
But the govt should be totally out of it, I can't even envision the disastrous consequence of govt paying compensation to slave descendants. All they would do is print huge money and give it to the slave descendants.
Only on individual basis the slave descendants should be suing the slave owner descendants for compensation.
For example since it was genetically proven that Al Shapton's great-grandfather was owned by the ancestors of Storm Thurmond, therefore Al Sharpton has a right to ask for compensation from the descendants of Thurmond on the property Thurmonds got from the slave owning ancestors.
For example if there was a real-estate owned by Storm Thurmond's slave owning great-grandfather then Sharpton can claim a part from the wealth generated by that property and that piece of land as a compensation.
Published: February 5, 2008 12:54 AM
TLWP Sam
I'd say PML is right with regards that slaves shouldn't be given ownership of means of production - elsewhere that's called Socialism.
But I'm still stumped as to when the crossover from crappy employment to slavery occurs? It was said some slaves in Ancient Rome were treated quite well and given a great deal of responsibility. This could be contrasted by other times where workers were technically 'free' yet had little rights (except, of course, to leave) and could find themselves in dangerous environments and could find themselves at the end of whip for minimalist pay.
Published: February 5, 2008 12:57 AM
P.M.Lawrence
Tommy Knowlton writes "I disagree: we can be said to 'own' ourselves only to that degree which we may freely choose how to dispose of the only commodity inherent in any 'self', which is time". But that's not disagreeing with me about owning ourselves, for the simple reason that I don't touch that at all - it's not the starting point I recommend, and there's no particular reason to go that way with the material Rothbard uses here. As for '...it may be said that I have traded my "self"...', no, it's meaningless; like trying to take the wet out of water. You are using "self" to mean something else than the conscious entity who is always going to be where the self is, experiencing and observing what happens to it. You cannot trade yourself away from yourself, because yourself always goes along.
Inquisitor writes "but if the slaveowners had no legitimate claim to their plantations (as in did not homestead them), would it not be fair to strip them of this property and hand it over to those who actually worked the land?" [emphasis added].
First off, that "if" is added. It certainly is not true in general, even under the homesteading principle which is the only one Rothbard uses to recommend giving the land to the slaves. Imagine Fred pioneering land all by himself, then selling it for a fair price to Jim who only after that brings in slaves to work it; clearly the homesteading principle says it does not belong to the slaves by homesteading, since that all happened without them.
But suppose the slave owner was quite separately not the rightful landowner. That does not make the land the slaves' by homesteading, rather it means that as at abolition and land reform it is unowned. That makes it up for grabs - and they can homestead it after that, but so can anyone else. They have some sort of moral right to compensation, but their former master can't compensate them with land that wasn't his. And, they have no more right to compensation from being there than any other slaves of his who happened to get sold elsewhere.
But suppose that these aren't separate questions, that the slave owning itself deprived the master of any right to land he used slaves on? That's a slippery slope; one can take that logic to the point of saying he should rightly be their slave. And it still doesn't entitle them to the land, but makes it unowned as in the earlier cases.
What it comes down to is, there is a conflict between requiring compensation from the master's property, and recognising his property in land; at most he would be required to compensate, but if the land was his, it is wrong to require him to compensate with the land rather than in some other way, and if it was not his, it is equally not theirs - captivity and labour wasn't mixing their labour with it, but his labour bundled up in them (measured by pre-abolition standards). You get very inconsistent very fast, this way.
So, to get to "...it'd have been better if I asked if he believes that the slave-owners in question had a just claim to their holdings"; it depends just what holdings you are talking about. Not to the slaves themselves, but to anything else like the land or the cash in their pockets, yes, of course - unless some other thing made those ill-gotten gains in their turn. The mere fact of working the land with slaves doesn't inherently make it the proceeds of crime, as it were (see the Fred and Jim example above). Nor does equity require direct compensation; if anything, the British Empire experience shows that compensating the slave owners was both moral and wise, in that it allowed them to provide the tutelage the newly freed needed. You should also think mens rea here - the slave owners were doing no wrong by the standards they had available to guide them (the system made them what they were too)
John writes "Rothbard argues that your inalienable rights cannot be sold or taken away..." - but this is a tautology, a matter of definition. It in turn raises the question of just what inalienable rights are.
Prashant writes "since slavemasters violated the private property rights of the slaves by holding them against their will(and since a man's will is inalienable to him), the Slaveowners should give compensation to the Slaves".
Oh? Who says it was against their will, considering that they were protected from being freed against their will and even rebelled against the threat of it? Some clearly wanted freedom with resources, some wanted it regardless, and some didn't want it (mostly the old and ill, who wanted what amounted to retirement). And how does this sheet home to the slave owners and miss the traders and the original captors? In the early period of the transatlantic slave trade, slaves actually benefitted - for they were the male bycatch of domestic slaving to capture women, and would otherwise have been slaughtered (that's no excuse for what happened quite soon after, once the trade profits started driving the slaving).
But stipulating that compensation was morally owed, why land? "For example if there was a real-estate owned by Storm Thurmond's slave owning great-grandfather then Sharpton can claim a part from the wealth generated by that property and that piece of land as a compensation" does not establish a nexus. If anything, precisely because that property changed hands several times - whether sold or inherited - and past ill-gotten gains washed out or were taken out, you can't fix any moral obligation on current owners. Hey, others in the chain of transmission experienced linked losses, what with Reconstruction and all (read "Gone With The Wind" for a typical account, albeit somewhat fictionalised).
For what it's worth, the worst off victims never were freed or left descendants; they were worked to death, or at any rate below replacement rates, while new slaves could still be imported cheaply. This whole attitude seeks to compensate just some of the victims, at the expense of just some people connected with the matter - and of some people unconnected with it.
TLWP Sam writes "I'm still stumped as to when the crossover from crappy employment to slavery occurs?"
Actually, it usually goes the other way, with slave labour making sense earlier on while free individuals can still realistically set up for themselves (US slavery and the European "second serfdom" came in when new lands became accessible, against the usual chronological sequence). Later, when labour isn't the bottleneck because land and/or capital are, you start getting wage slavery rather than the fuss and bother of maintaining slaves. That is, there starts being an incentive for it, and it takes other structures to defeat it coming in through mechanisms that used to allow free contracting but start allowing wage slavery because of lack of bargaining power from people who stop having alternatives. So the test is, are there realistic alterrnatives to "free" wage slavery, i.e. can people set up for themselves and/or have other structures come in to redress the lack of bargaining power? If those don't apply, slavery implies no wage slavery and slavery implies no wage slavery (perhaps after a generational lag).
The high prestige slave thing applied for specialist slaves, and reached its peak in the Islamic world. With this, slavery was a cost centre rather than a profit centre, subsidised specialised value adding or for consumption carried by direct production elsewhere rather than for a main engine of production in itself. Specialties included eunuchs, concubines, malukes/janissaries (soldiers - the janissaries' uniform included headgear with a ladle or soupspoon in it to symbolise they would never starve, like oppressed tax paying "free" peasantry that ultimately supported all this), and artisans (it was the custom of the wealthy to teach their children a trade like carpet making or gardening, so if they ever got caught by enemies they would be worth keeping alive; Fitzroy Maclean records a 19th century Italian clockmaker somehow winding up captive in Central Asia).
Published: February 5, 2008 5:04 AM
P.M.Lawrence
That should have been "slavery implies no wage slavery and no slavery implies wage slavery".
Published: February 5, 2008 6:05 AM
Inquisitor
Thanks for clarifying PM Lawrence.
TWLP: "I'd say PML is right with regards that slaves shouldn't be given ownership of means of production - elsewhere that's called Socialism."
A rather imprecise way of thinking of socialism. it involves collective control over the means of production, and to be sure expropriation as well, but what differentiates it is that it expropriates individuals with legitimate claims to their holdings. On the other hand, expropriating owners who came by their holdings via unjust means is not socialism in any form.
Published: February 5, 2008 10:06 AM
Byzantine
"For example since it was genetically proven that Al Shapton's great-grandfather was owned by the ancestors of Storm Thurmond, therefore Al Sharpton has a right to ask for compensation from the descendants of Thurmond on the property Thurmonds got from the slave owning ancestors.
For example if there was a real-estate owned by Storm Thurmond's slave owning great-grandfather then Sharpton can claim a part from the wealth generated by that property and that piece of land as a compensation."
___________________________________
Well they can certainly "claim" it, but I'd advise them to be ready for a response along the lines of "Come and take it, if you can."
The more I think about it, the more I support Mr. Pranash's proposal. I really can't envision anything more able to shock US society out of its multicultural torpor quicker than when twelve percent of the country tries to seize the wealth of three quarters of the other. And by the time the blowback is over, those twelve percent will be jumping in the ocean swimming to Canada if they can't catch any plane flights.
And maybe the mood could spread overseas, as Europe's dynastic heirs rally their respective tribes to take back the property wrongfully seized in the French and Bolshevik revolutions and World War I.
And finally, finally, we will have taken the first tiny steps toward a free society, reversing a two-century process of centralization.
Thank you, Mr. Pranash, for these inspiring thoughts.
Published: February 6, 2008 9:36 AM
Byzantine
"On the other hand, expropriating owners who came by their holdings via unjust means is not socialism in any form."
Who decides this, and how would it be enforced? I welcome the day this is attempted, because on that day, the cultural Marxists' beloved "diversity" and "multiculturalism" will dry up and blow away like a tumbleweed, never to take root again.
Published: February 6, 2008 9:49 AM
Inquisitor
It follows from libertarian principles on property - of course non-libertarians tend to have no problem with property of some kinds no matter how it was acquired. Regardless, for all practical purposes the state cannot be expected to rectify its own past misdemeanours, so it can't really enforce it - all it can (and should) do is wither away. The point is that it is not socialism.
Published: February 6, 2008 10:43 AM
P.M.Lawrence
Inquisitor, what "follows from libertarian principles on property"? A number of variations have come up. Your earlier suggestion, Pranash's, or Byzantine's? Or even mine, that compensation might be appropriate, but that this didn't sheet home to the land by now often in other, later hands? For instance, should Arlington Cemetery be grubbed up and given to the descendants of the Lee family slaves (if they can be tracked down)?
Published: February 6, 2008 6:40 PM
Inquisitor
But that wasn't what I was referring to - I made my comment in reply to TWLP Sam's point that expropriating individuals with unjust claim to certain land is 'socialism'. It isn't.
Published: February 6, 2008 8:06 PM
P.M.Lawrence
Maybe so, what even if you are against it, I still don't know what the "it" is that you were referring to in "It follows from libertarian principles on property". I just can't see what your post was connecting to, in the plethora of earlier posts.
Published: February 6, 2008 8:41 PM
Inquisitor
The "it" I'm referring to is my response to TWLP Sam (which is what Byzantine quoted.) I largely agree with you on slavery and compensation.
Published: February 6, 2008 8:52 PM