FAQAnar:F.2.2 - Les capitalistes-"libertariens" supportent-ils l'esclavage ?
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Oui.
Ça peut paraître comme une surprise pour plein de gens, mais le libertarianisme est une des quelques théories politiques qui justifient l'esclavage. Par exemple, Robert Nozick demande ceci "Un système libre permettrait [à l'individu] de se vendre lui-même en esclavage" et il répond "Je pense que oui."[1] Bien que quelques "libertarians" soient en désaccord avec Nozick, il n'y a pas de base logique dans leur idéologie pour un tel désaccord.
Cela peut être vu de par le capitaliste "anarcho" Walter Block, qui, comme Nozick, supporte l'esclavage volontaire. Tel qu'il écrit ça, "si je posséde quelquechose, je peux le vendre (et je devrais être autorisé par la loi à le faire). Si je peux pas vendre, alors, et jusqu'à ce degré, Je ne le posséde pas vraiment."[2] Cet accord pour se vendre pour une durée donnée "est un véritable contrat" qui, si "abrogé, le vol se produit." Il critique ces autres "libertarians" (tel Murray Rothbard) qui s'opposent à l'esclavage volontaire en étant contradictoire à leurs principes. Block, de par ses mots, cherche à faire "un petit ajustement" qui "renforce le libertarianisme en lui donnant une plus grande cohérence interne." Il considère que cette position montre que "le contrat, affirmé sur la propriété privée [peut] s'étendre aux autres domaines de l'interaction humaine, même aux contrats d'esclavage volontaires." [3]
Donc la logique est simple, tu ne peux pas vraiment posséder quelque chose à moins que tu puisses la vendre. La possession de soi-même est une pierre angulaire de l'idéologie capitaliste du laissez-faire. Donc, depuis que tu te possèdes, tu peux te vendre.
Cette défense de l'esclavage ne devrait pas être une surprise pour ceux qui sont familiers avec le libéralisme classique. Une idéologie élitiste, sa principale raison est de défendre la liberté et le pouvoir des possédants et de justifier les relations sociales non libre (tel que le gouvernement et le travail salarié) en termes de "consentement." Nozick et Block amènent juste cela à ces conclusions logiques. C'est pourquoi cette position n'est pas nouvelle mais, comme avec d'autres libertarians, peut être trouvé dans le travail de John Locke. La différence clef est que Locke refusait le terme "esclavage" en faveur de "servitude", car, pour lui, l'esclavage signifie une relation "entre un conquérant légal et un captif" où le premier a le pouvoir de vie et de mort sur le dernier. Une fois qu'un "contrat" est accepté entre eux, "un accord pour un pouvoir limité d'un côté, et l'obéissance de l'autre... l'esclavage cesse." Aussi longtemps que le maitre ne pouvait pas tuer l'esclave, alors c'était de la "servitude". Comme Nozick, il reconnait que "Les hommes se sont vendus ; mais, c'est clair, c'était seulement à la servitude, pas à l'esclavage : il est évident que, la personne vendue n'était pas sous un pouvoir absolu, arbitraire, despotique : le maître ne pourrait pas avoir le pouvoir de le tuer, à tout moment, à qui, à un certain moment, il a été obligé de laisser aller librement hors de son service." [4]. En d'autres mots, l'esclavage volontaire était bien mais il l'appelait autrement.
Pas que Locke fut dérangé par l'esclavage involontaire. Il était lourdement impliqué dans le commerce d'esclave. Il possédait des parts dans la "compagnie royale d'afrique"[5] laquelle portait sur le commerce d'esclave pour l'angleterre, faisant un profit quand ils les vendaient. Il tenait une part significative dans d'autres compagnies d'esclaves, la "Bahama Adventurers". Dans le "Second traité", Locke justifie l'esclavage en terme de "Captifs capturés dans une guerre juste", une guerre payé contre les agresseurs [6]. Cela, bien sur, n'avait rien à faire avec l'esclavage actuel auquel Locke profitait (Les incursions d'esclaves étaient communes, par exemple). Ni que ses principes "liberaux" le stoppait en lui suggerant une constitution qui assurerait que "tous les hommes libres de Caroline devrait avoir le pouvoir absolu et l'autorité au dessus de leurs esclaves noirs". La constitution elle-même était typiquement autocratique et hiérarchique, désignait explicitement d'"éviter l'emergence d'une démocratie du nombre"[7].
Donc, la notion d'esclavage contractuel a une longue histoire au sein du libéralisme de droite, malgré que la plupart refusent d'appeler cela par son nom. C'est bien sur un simple embarras, qui stoppe beaucoup de libertarians d'appeler une bêche une bêche. Ils supposent de maniére inexacte que l'esclavage doit être involontaire. En fait, historiquement, les contrats d'esclavage volontaire ont étés courant ("Property and Contract in Economics" de David Ellerman est une excellente ouverture à ce sujet). Toutes les nouvelles formes d'esclavage volontaire serait une forme "civilisé" d'esclavage et pourrait se produire quand un individu donnerait son "accord" pour vendre son temps de travail à un autre (autant que quand un travailleur affamé donnerait son "accord" pour devenir un esclave en retour de nourriture). En outre, le contrat pourrait être cassé sous certaines conditions (peut-être en retour de la rupture de contrat, le premier esclave aurait à payer des dommages à sa ou son maitre pour le travail que leur maitre perdrait -- une importante quantité sans aucun doute et un tel paiement pourrait avoir comme conséquence l'esclavage de dette, qui est la plus courante forme d'esclavage "civilisé". De tels dommages peuvent être convenus dans le contrat comme une "obligation d'execution" ou d'un "échange conditionnel".
En résumé, les libertarians parlent d'esclavage "civilisé" (ou, en d'autres termes, d'esclavage civil) et non d'esclavage forcé. Pendant que certains peuvent avoir des réserves quant à appeler cela esclavage, ils sont d'accord avec le concept basique que depuis que les gens se possèdent ils peuvent se vendre, par la vente de leur travail pour un moment de leur vie plutôt qu'à la pièce.
Nous devons insister sur le fait que ce n'est aucunement une discussion d'universitaire. L'esclavage "Volontaire" a été un problème dans beaucoup de sociétés et existe encore dans plusieurs pays aujourd'hui (particulièrement au tiers monde où le travail obligatoire -- i.e. où les dettes sont utilisées pour soumettre les gens -- est la forme la plus courante). Avec la montée du travail des enfants et des centres d'exploitations dans beaucoup de pays "développés" tel que les USA, l'esclavage "volontaire" (peut-être via les dettes et le travail obligatoire) peut devenir courant dans toutes les parties du monde -- un résultat ironique (sans surprise) par "libération" du marché et étant indifférent à la liberté réelle de ceux qui y vivent soumis.
Quelques libertarians sont évidemment mal à l'aise avec la conclusion logique de leur propre définition de la liberté. Murray Rothbard, par exemple, insistait sur l'"innaplicabilité, dans la théorie libertarienne, du contrat d'esclavage volontaire". Bien sûr, d'autres théoriciens "libertarians" affirment l'exact opposé, du coup la "théorie libertarienne" ne fait plus de quelconque prétention, mais on s'en fout ! Essentiellement, son objection tourne autour de l'affirmation qu'une personne "ne peut pas, en nature, se vendre en esclavage et imposer cette vente -- ceci signifierait que sa volonté future dépasserait son propre corps qui serait prévu à l'avance[8] et que si un "travailleur reste totalement soumis à la volonté de son maître volontairement, il n'est pas encore un esclave puisque sa soumission est volontaire". Cependant, tel que nous l'avons noté dans la section F.2, Rothbard insiste sur stopper à reconnaitre le démenti actuel de la volonté et du contrôle de ceux possèdant le corps qui est explicite dans le travail salarié[9]. It is this failure that pro-slave contract "libertarians" stress -- they consider the slave contract as an extended wage contract. Moreover, a modern slave contract would likely take the form of a "performance bond," on which Rothbard laments about its "unfortunate suppression" by the state. In such a system, the slave could agree to perform X years labour or pay their master substantial damages if they fail to do so. It is the threat of damages that enforces the contract and such a "contract" Rothbard does agree is enforceable. Another means of creating slave contracts would be "conditional exchange" which Rothbard also supports. As for debt bondage, that too, seems acceptable. He surreally notes that paying damages and debts in such contracts is fine as "money, of course, is alienable" and so forgets that it needs to be earned by labour which, he asserts, is not alienable![10]
It should be noted that the slavery contract cannot be null and void because it is unenforceable, as Rothbard suggests. This is because the doctrine of specific performance applies to all contracts, not just to labour contracts. This is because all contracts specify some future performance. In the case of the lifetime labour contract, then it can be broken as long as the slave pays any appropriate damages. As Rothbard puts it elsewhere, "if A has agreed to work for life for B in exchange for 10,000 grams of gold, he will have to return the proportionate amount of property if he terminates the arrangement and ceases to work." [Man, Economy, and State, vol. I , p. 441] This is understandable, as the law generally allows material damages for breached contracts, as does Rothbard in his support for the "performance bond" and "conditional exchange." Needless to say, having to pay such damages (either as a lump sum or over a period of time) could turn the worker into the most common type of modern slave, the debt-slave.
And it is interesting to note that even Murray Rothbard is not against the selling of humans. He argued that children are the property of their parents who can (bar actually murdering them by violence) do whatever they please with them, even sell them on a "flourishing free child market." [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 102] Combined with a whole hearted support for child labour (after all, the child can leave its parents if it objects to working for them) such a "free child market" could easily become a "child slave market" -- with entrepreneurs making a healthy profit selling infants and children or their labour to capitalists (as did occur in 19th century Britain). Unsurprisingly, Rothbard ignores the possible nasty aspects of such a market in human flesh (such as children being sold to work in factories, homes and brothels). But this is besides the point.
Of course, this theoretical justification for slavery at the heart of an ideology calling itself "libertarianism" is hard for many right-"libertarians" to accept and so they argue that such contracts would be very hard to enforce. This attempt to get out of the contradiction fails simply because it ignores the nature of the capitalist market. If there is a demand for slave contracts to be enforced, then companies will develop to provide that "service" (and it would be interesting to see how two "protection" firms, one defending slave contracts and another not, could compromise and reach a peaceful agreement over whether slave contracts were valid). Thus we could see a so-called "free" society producing companies whose specific purpose was to hunt down escaped slaves (i.e. individuals in slave contracts who have not paid damages to their owners for freedom). Of course, perhaps Rothbard would claim that such slave contracts would be "outlawed" under his "general libertarian law code" but this is a denial of market "freedom". If slave contracts are "banned" then surely this is paternalism, stopping individuals from contracting out their "labour services" to whom and however long they "desire". You cannot have it both ways.
So, ironically, an ideology proclaiming itself to support "liberty" ends up justifying and defending slavery. Indeed, for the right-"libertarian" the slave contract is an exemplification, not the denial, of the individual's liberty! How is this possible? How can slavery be supported as an expression of liberty? Simple, right-"libertarian" support for slavery is a symptom of a deeper authoritarianism, namely their uncritical acceptance of contract theory. The central claim of contract theory is that contract is the means to secure and enhance individual freedom. Slavery is the antithesis to freedom and so, in theory, contract and slavery must be mutually exclusive. However, as indicated above, some contract theorists (past and present) have included slave contracts among legitimate contracts. This suggests that contract theory cannot provide the theoretical support needed to secure and enhance individual freedom.
As Carole Pateman argues, "contract theory is primarily about a way of creating social relations constituted by subordination, not about exchange." Rather than undermining subordination, contract theorists justify modern subjection -- "contract doctrine has proclaimed that subjection to a master -- a boss, a husband -- is freedom." [The Sexual Contract, p. 40 and p. 146] The question central to contract theory (and so right-Libertarianism) is not "are people free" (as one would expect) but "are people free to subordinate themselves in any manner they please." A radically different question and one only fitting to someone who does not know what liberty means.
Anarchists argue that not all contracts are legitimate and no free individual can make a contract that denies his or her own freedom. If an individual is able to express themselves by making free agreements then those free agreements must also be based upon freedom internally as well. Any agreement that creates domination or hierarchy negates the assumptions underlying the agreement and makes itself null and void. In other words, voluntary government is still government and a defining characteristic of an anarchy must be, surely, "no government" and "no rulers."
This is most easily seen in the extreme case of the slave contract. John Stuart Mill stated that such a contract would be "null and void." He argued that an individual may voluntarily choose to enter such a contract but in so doing "he abdicates his liberty; he foregoes any future use of it beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own case, the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to dispose of himself. . .The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom, to be allowed to alienate his freedom." He adds that "these reasons, the force of which is so conspicuous in this particular case, are evidently of far wider application." [quoted by Pateman, Op. Cit., pp. 171-2]
And it is such an application that defenders of capitalism fear (Mill did in fact apply these reasons wider and unsurprisingly became a supporter of a market syndicalist form of socialism). If we reject slave contracts as illegitimate then, logically, we must also reject all contracts that express qualities similar to slavery (i.e. deny freedom) including wage slavery. Given that, as David Ellerman points out, "the voluntary slave . . . and the employee cannot in fact take their will out of their intentional actions so that they could be 'employed' by the master or employer" we are left with "the rather implausible assertion that a person can vacate his or her will for eight or so hours a day for weeks, months, or years on end but cannot do so for a working lifetime." [Property and Contract in Economics, p. 58] This is Rothbard's position.
The implications of supporting voluntary slavery is quite devastating for all forms of right-wing "libertarianism." This was proven by Ellerman when he wrote an extremely robust defence of it under the pseudonym "J. Philmore" called The Libertarian Case for Slavery (first published in The Philosophical Forum, xiv, 1982). This classic rebuttal takes the form of "proof by contradiction" (or reductio ad absurdum) whereby he takes the arguments of right-libertarianism to their logical end and shows how they reach the memorably conclusion that the "time has come for liberal economic and political thinkers to stop dodging this issue and to critically re-examine their shared prejudices about certain voluntary social institutions . . . this critical process will inexorably drive liberalism to its only logical conclusion: libertarianism that finally lays the true moral foundation for economic and political slavery." Ellerman shows how, from a right-"libertarian" perspective there is a "fundamental contradiction" in a modern liberal society for the state to prohibit slave contracts. He notes that there "seems to be a basic shared prejudice of liberalism that slavery is inherently involuntary, so the issue of genuinely voluntary slavery has received little scrutiny. The perfectly valid liberal argument that involuntary slavery is inherently unjust is thus taken to include voluntary slavery (in which case, the argument, by definition, does not apply). This has resulted in an abridgement of the freedom of contract in modern liberal society." Thus it is possible to argue for a "civilised form of contractual slavery." ["J. Philmore,", Op. Cit.]
So accurate and logical was Ellerman's article that many of its readers were convinced it was written by a right-"libertarian" (including, we have to say, us!). One such writer was Carole Pateman, who correctly noted that "[t]here is a nice historical irony here. In the American South, slaves were emancipated and turned into wage labourers, and now American contractarians argue that all workers should have the opportunity to turn themselves into civil slaves." [Op. Cit., p. 63]).
The aim of Ellerman's article was to show the problems that employment (wage labour) presents for the concept of self-government and how contract need not result in social relationships based on freedom. As "Philmore" put it, "[a]ny thorough and decisive critique of voluntary slavery or constitutional non-democratic government would carry over to the employment contract -- which is the voluntary contractual basis for the free-market free-enterprise system. Such a critique would thus be a reductio ad absurdum." As "contractual slavery" is an "extension of the employer-employee contract," he shows that the difference between wage labour and slavery is the time scale rather than the principle or social relationships involved. [Op. Cit.] This explains why the early workers' movement called capitalism "wage slavery" and why anarchists still do. It exposes the unfree nature of capitalism and the poverty of its vision of freedom. While it is possible to present wage labour as "freedom" due to its "consensual" nature, it becomes much harder to do so when talking about slavery or dictatorship (and let us not forget that Nozick also had no problem with autocracy -- see section B.4). Then the contradictions are exposed for all to see and be horrified by.
All this does not mean that we must reject free agreement. Far from it! Free agreement is essential for a society based upon individual dignity and liberty. There are a variety of forms of free agreement and anarchists support those based upon co-operation and self-management (i.e. individuals working together as equals). Anarchists desire to create relationships which reflect (and so express) the liberty that is the basis of free agreement. Capitalism creates relationships that deny liberty. The opposition between autonomy and subjection can only be maintained by modifying or rejecting contract theory, something that capitalism cannot do and so the right-wing "libertarian" rejects autonomy in favour of subjection (and so rejects socialism in favour of capitalism).
So the real contrast between genuine libertarians and right-"libertarians" is best expressed in their respective opinions on slavery. Anarchism is based upon the individual whose individuality depends upon the maintenance of free relationships with other individuals. If individuals deny their capacities for self-government through a contract the individuals bring about a qualitative change in their relationship to others -- freedom is turned into mastery and subordination. For the anarchist, slavery is thus the paradigm of what freedom is not, instead of an exemplification of what it is (as right-"libertarians" state). As Proudhon argued:
"If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him." [What is Property?, p. 37]
In contrast, the right-"libertarian" effectively argues that "I support slavery because I believe in liberty." It is a sad reflection of the ethical and intellectual bankruptcy of our society that such an "argument" is actually proposed by some people under the name of liberty. The concept of "slavery as freedom" is far too Orwellian to warrant a critique -- we will leave it up to right-"libertarians" to corrupt our language and ethical standards with an attempt to prove it.
>From the basic insight that slavery is the opposite of freedom, the anarchist rejection of authoritarian social relations quickly follows:
"Liberty is inviolable. I can neither sell nor alienate my liberty; every contract, every condition of a contract, which has in view the alienation or suspension of liberty, is null: the slave, when he plants his foot upon the soil of liberty, at that moment becomes a free man . . . Liberty is the original condition of man; to renounce liberty is to renounce the nature of man: after that, how could we perform the acts of man?" [P.J. Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 67]
The employment contract (i.e. wage slavery) abrogates liberty. It is based upon inequality of power and "exploitation is a consequence of the fact that the sale of labour power entails the worker's subordination." [Carole Pateman, Op. Cit., p. 149] Hence Proudhon's support for self-management and opposition to capitalism -- any relationship that resembles slavery is illegitimate and no contract that creates a relationship of subordination is valid. Thus in a truly anarchistic society, slave contracts would be unenforceable -- people in a truly free (i.e. non-capitalist) society would never tolerate such a horrible institution or consider it a valid agreement. If someone was silly enough to sign such a contract, they would simply have to say they now rejected it in order to be free -- such contracts are made to be broken and without the force of a law system (and private defence firms) to back it up, such contracts will stay broken.
The right-"libertarian" support for slave contracts (and wage slavery) indicates that their ideology has little to do with liberty and far more to do with justifying property and the oppression and exploitation it produces. Their theoretical support for permanent and temporary voluntary slavery and autocracy indicates a deeper authoritarianism which negates their claims to be libertarians.
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Notes et références
- ↑ Anarchie, État et Utopie, p. 371
- ↑ traduction à revoir
- ↑ "Towards a Libertarian Theory of Inalienability: A Critique of Rothbard, Barnett, Smith, Kinsella, Gordon, and Epstein," pp. 39-85, Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 44, p. 48, p. 82 and p. 46
- ↑ [Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Section 24]
- ↑ "Royal Africa Company"
- ↑ [Section 85]
- ↑ [The Works of John Locke, vol. X, p. 196]
- ↑ traduction à revoir : for this would mean that his future will over his own body was being surrendered in advance"
- ↑ traduction à revoir : emphasis on quitting fails to recognise the actual denial of will and control over ones own body that is explicit in wage labour
- ↑ [The Ethics of Liberty, pp. 134-135, p. 40, pp. 136-9, p. 141 and p. 138]
