Free, competitive markets have been the engine for both freedom and prosperity. In addition, free market capitalism is morally based on the principle of individual rights to life, liberty and honestly acquired property, in which all social relationships require the voluntary and mutual consent of the participants.
Private property rights are central to the free society. The most fundamental private property right is the right of each person to own himself – his mind, his body, his peaceful actions, and the fruits of his efforts either on his own or in interaction with others.
The opposite of owning yourself is slavery. Under a slave system some individuals assert the right to own and control the actions of others under the threat or use of force. The slave lives and works for and obeys the commands of another human being with violence the ultimate instrument of control.
Slavery in All Forms is the Opposite of Freedom
For the friend of freedom, it does not matter whether the slave-master is one private individual on his own, or a private group or gang imposing their coercive rule on a number of others in society. Nor does it matter if the group is a political collective that imposes its will on another segment of the society based upon a “democratic” decision-making process.
Regardless of the institutional circumstance and situation under which one person is made to live and work (completely or partly) for another, it remains a total or partial restraint on the individual’s right to live his own life as he sees fit for the purposes that he considers of value and of importance so he may give meaning and possible happiness to his existence.
Critics of this “individualistic” understanding of freedom and its opposite often brand such a perspective as “selfish” or “egotistical.” If to say that an individual should be treated and respected as an end in himself and not the compelled pawn or a tool to serve the ends of another is selfish or egotistical, then the very definition of liberty – if liberty is to mean anything – cannot be separated from the person’s right to be self-oriented.
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