Rights are Alienable

For the purposes of this debate both sides will assume that people have inherent rights to life, liberty and property. I will be arguing they are entirely alienable. My opponent will argue they are inalienable. This means, in the context of the debate, that such rights can be given up voluntarily by the person who holds them, or to repay liabilities they have incurred. The burden of proof is shared. I prefer that my opponent be an anarcho-capitalist/market anarchist. I am playing Devil's Advocate on this. Definitions: Alienability . http://dictionary.reference.com... Inalienability . http://dictionary.reference.com... Self-ownership . https://secure.wikimedia.org... Self-sale: The act or process of selling oneself, in whole or in part. The rights to life, liberty and property and interwoven, each part of the other. No one that holds to such rights says that property cannot be alienated. If they did, no one could sell anything or give it away. Yet as I said, they are interwoven. Each is an aspect of property. Really, these human rights are property rights (1). The right to life is the right to property in your own person and existence, the right to liberty is the right to use of the property in your person and external property. How then can a believer in such rights object to selling yourself? As Walter Block wrote "if I own something, I can sell it (and should be allowed by law to do so). If I can't sell, then, and to that extent, I really don't own it" (2). Is our self-ownership, therefore, so limited? If so, how can we really be said to own ourselves? Murray Rothbard maintained that a self-sale contract would be unenforceable. His reasoning was that if someone did so, it would be a contradiction in terms, as their will is being "surrendered in advance" (3). In fact, though, our will is "surrendered" thus with any valid contract. For we are making an exchange that binds us in the future-although we may change our mind, the contract cannot then be ended without permission by the other party(ies). We are, therefore, surrendering our will, present to future-later, present to past. Murray Rothbard expounded on his title-transfer theory of contract (4) in the same chapter, so while a mere promise to sell or give oneself to another is non-binding, with consideration it would bind them. Self-sale contracts could take the form of a performance bond (which Rothbard also supported in this chapter). For instance: A agrees to life-long labor for B, with payment of $1,000,000 (or equivalent), and would have to pay it back if they violated this (which is close to an example Walter Block uses) (2). Or, it may be a gift: A agrees to give their person to B. Compensation might be food, shelter and health care as necessary or money payment. It does not have to be for life, but rather a more limited span. Everyone who is employed in fact rents themselves minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years at a time. Now, while labor may be alienated, one could say, a person's body and will cannot be. Except this is plainly something that could be covered in a performance bond as well. In this case performance could be whatever is commanded by the bond holder, to the best of the bonded person's ability. Self-sale does not have to be total, either. We could easily imagine people selling a kidney, blood or any other part of the body along with those they are allowed to currently. Assuming future technology allows, people could download and sell their memories, thoughts, dreams in whole or part, or even an entire mind. Certainly people do sell their ideas for pay. This also applies to cases in which a person has not signed a self-sale contract but may be unable to make up their debts by payment or forfeiture. A creditor might, then, secure an order for them to repay it by labor, which in some cases would turn out to be for life. Criminals who have violated others' rights could be compelled to labor as punishment. A thief unable to repay the amount stolen would repay it in labor, for instance. Other classes of crimes, e. g. kidnapping, might carry losing liberty as their punishment anyway. Murder, as well, could result in a sentence of life at hard labor instead of death. In either case the labor of such people could be sold or rented by the owner. We have no reason to doubt there will be a market for this, along with self-sales. I hope that Con will prove me wrong and if so I'll be glad to lose. That said, the resolution is affirmed. Footnotes: 1: The Ethics of Liberty, Chapter 15. "Human Rights" as Property Rights, by Murray N. Rothbard, New York University Press, 1998. Originally published: Atlantic Highlands, N. J. : Humanities Press, 1982. ISBN 0-8147-7506-3. . http://mises.org... 2: Toward a Libertarian Theory of Alienability: A Critique of Rothbard, Barnett, Smith, Kinsella, Gordon and Epstein, by Walter Block, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Volume 17 no. 2 (Spring 2003), pp. 39-85 ï¿½2003 Ludwig von Mises Institute www. mises. org . http://mises.org... 3: The Ethics of Liberty, Chapter 19. Property Rights and The Theory of Contracts, ibid. . http://mises.org... 4: . https://secure.wikimedia.org...