Three forms of involuntary servitude, all implemented by force or the threat of force, will be addressed:

  1. Outright seizure of a person's life, known as slavery.
  2. Seizure of a person's labor, known as conscription. The person's actions are diverted from his or her chosen purposes to goals imposed by a ruler or a government. In practice conscription is similar to slavery, except that it usually extends over a limited period of time.
  3. Seizure of the products of a person's labor, known as taxation or theft. Since the purpose of labor is to generate goods for later consumption (p. 4.4:8), the confiscation of those goods is praxeologically similar to the outright confiscation of a person's life or labor, except that here the confiscation is usually on a smaller scale.

Slavery

Slavery is the virtually total control of one human being, called the slave, by another, called the master. As in the other forms of involuntary servitude, the slave's labor is extracted through the threat of force, typically wielded through an overseer, and directed to the master's purposes. Although a "benevolent" master may permit the slave a small degree of control over his or her actions, in principle the master exerts ultimate authority over all of the slave's decisions.      Next page


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