If people will voluntarily sign contracts which say you can’t sue the corporation for rape, then does that make the rape just?
In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers while working in Iraq and locked in a shipping container for over a day to prevent her from reporting her attack. The rape occurred outside of U.S. criminal jurisdiction, but to add serious insult to serious injury she was not allowed to sue KBR because her employment contract said that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration–a process that overwhelmingly favors corporations.
Voluntaryists, it’s time for you to wake up. You’ve been indoctrinated and sold a false bill of goods. Stop being subjectivists and come back to reality, where good and evil do not depend on whether people sign on it or not.
Rape is unethical, regardless of what any piece of paper says. That is a fact. Stop believing pieces of paper trump facts.
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In other words, “she asked for it.”
And all the men in gorilla suits pat each other on the back.
By: alleee on November 9 2009
at 7:24
I’m not sure about this. For me, it seems that the fed gov’t is responsible for that crap, not some pseudo-ancap mechanism.
The main problem is that some “vulgar voluntaryists” are agree with that kind of criminal stuff, but I don’t think that will occur very often in a voluntaryist system.
However, an absolutist pro-property position could open the door on a lesser-scale criminal stuff like this, and voluntaryists should take act on that.
By: David Gendron on November 9 2009
at 13:45
Spooner’s Sixth rule for interpreting law as he put forth in “The unconstitutionality of slavery is as follows”
“A sixth rule of interpretation, and a very important, inflexible, and universal one, applicable to contracts, is, that a contract must never, if it be possible to avoid it, be so construed, as that any one of the parties to it, assuming him to understand his rights, and to be of competent mental capacity to make obligatory* contracts, may not reasonably be presumed to have consented to it”
His last principle is “We are never unnecessarily to impute to an instrument any intention whatever which it would be unnatural for either reasonable or honest men to entertain.”
The arbitration clause should then only be applied to disputes arising out of that contract. To apply universally to all disputes or torts between the parties would be as such to make to employee a slave.
A tort by definition is not a contract dispute, and cannot by any mean be justly interpreted to imply protection toward inherently right-violating actions for the two reasons I have mentioned above.
To do so would turn anybody signing a contract with and arbitration clause into a slave, and for a person to create a contract with the intent of shielding himself from punishment of inherently criminal actions is something no honest man would need or want.
Voluntaryist and more specifically proprietarian and customary law anarchists do not propose that contracts could possible be binding if they are in violation of justice. To imply that they do is to drop the entire context and theory of voluntarism. And the context of current law courts. Current law courts are heavily dominated and biased towards corporations, especially those in the military-industrial complex with friends and bribes in high places. Voluntaryist thoery also suggests courts issuing unjust decisions would be liable for the costs of appeal, and a court which took four years to finally recognize something which was immediately obvious under almost any conception of justice would itself be guilty of an injustice and subject to reparation payments.
By: WorBlux on November 9 2009
at 15:50
“Voluntaryist and more specifically proprietarian and customary law anarchists do not propose that contracts could possible be binding if they are in violation of justice.”
Well, we both agree on that point! But if applied consistently, this principle neatly destroys capitalism.
By: Francois Tremblay on November 9 2009
at 16:02
“Voluntaryists, it’s time for you to wake up. You’ve been indoctrinated and sold a false bill of goods. Stop being subjectivists and come back to reality, where good and evil do not depend on whether people sign on it or not.”
If this is the biggest complaint you’ve got against voluntarism, then I’m feeling pretty good.
I, for one, would never patronize an organization that upheld a clause like that in a contract.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a choice as to whether or not to patronize the organization currently upholding such a clause (the government that you love so well.)
By: Vince on November 9 2009
at 18:00
Hypocrite. Why is one rights violation wrong, but all the other ones that exist are not?
By: Francois Tremblay on November 9 2009
at 18:10
I agree with Worblux, slave contracts are invalid and cannot get rid of inalienable rights that all humans possess. However, I don’t feel the KBR example is a strong challenge to anarcho-capitalism/voluntarism for two reasons:
A) The current court system is dominated by corporate interests, which is not competitive in any meaningful sense and is not what (sane) voluntarists envision. And as the previous poster said, KBR has one big customer (the gov’t) and so it doesn’t matter if people band together to boycott it because it will continue on whether ordinary people want it to or not.
B) The contract was not a literal slave contract, it only said she agrees to not sue them for certain torts. But a sane legal system would never recognize the right to contract away your right to initiate legal action (for torts or anything else). I believe most voluntarists would agree with this, otherwise there’s no “voluntariness” to the voluntarism!
By: Anon73 on November 9 2009
at 23:27
“But a sane legal system would never recognize the right to contract away your right to initiate legal action (for torts or anything else). I believe most voluntarists would agree with this, otherwise there’s no “voluntariness” to the voluntarism!”
So in essence, voluntaryism does not recognize some voluntary contracts because they break your (exterior) standard of morality?
That’s a strange position you’re taking. If that’s the case, then we’re all voluntaryists. But that is clearly nonsense.
By: Francois Tremblay on November 10 2009
at 4:05
It’s more like it’s not even a valid legal system at all if it recognizes as legitimate an agreement to “not sue someone”. Fundamentally, a legal system arbitrates disputes; if the dispute is over whether a person can give up their right to use the legal system, then a just system would say that’s impossible. The right to justice is inalienable.
By: Anon73 on November 10 2009
at 15:08
Franc, contracts are title transfers; the whole promises/expectations view is bullshit by libertarian standards, and if you had pulled your head out of your ass long enough to do your homework on the subject, you’d know that. Here, I’ll make it easy for you…
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/nineteen.asp
By: Anonymous on November 10 2009
at 16:40
Franc, contracts are title transfers; the whole promises/expectations view is bullshit by libertarian standards, and if you had pulled your head out of your ass long enough to do your homework on the subject, you’d know that. Here, I’ll make it easy for you…
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/nineteen.asp
By: Cthulhu on November 10 2009
at 16:41
I got news for you buddy: we’ve been using the word “libertarian” for more than a century. Your American concept has got nothing to do with it. “Libertarian standards” have nothing to do with property titles.
By: Francois Tremblay on November 10 2009
at 16:48
So in a anarcho-socialist world, she would have been tried by whom? Her coworkers at her company? Or a private arbitration firm that somehow would favor individuals, and not worker co-ops?
By: Aaron Kinney on November 10 2009
at 21:42
… she’s not on trial.
By: Francois Tremblay on November 11 2009
at 4:06