On Slavery

preface,
the following may not be the most eloquent or stylish expression of ideas, but the ideas are inspired from the last 2 centuries greatest minds and I believe God himself. saying this puts all the more pressure on me for the following to be smooth and flawless on the technical side. But I have finally caved and conceded to the fact that I am not a good enough writer to do the ideas justice, but the weight of the idea is such that it must be brought fourth no matter how badly the quality of its expression is lacking.

PART I
Writing in 2008, it is easy to find people who are absolutely opposed to slavery, but I have not had such luck finding people who are opposed to 50% slavery, or 35% slavery, or even 10% slavery. The concept of slavery is that man “A” works, and the fruits of his labor are taken against his will by man “B.” Does it matter if only half of his fruits are taken, or maybe only a fifth? Would there be an abolition movement today if slavery only existed on one day of the week, while the remainder of the week slaves were free to leave the farms and plantations and work for themselves?
I know it is coming, so let me put to rest the socialist complaint of our current system right now. The socialist would complain about the capitalist system where a man works for a company producing $2,000 dollars of profit but only getting $700 in his paycheck. The socialist might complain that this is partial (or fractional, if you will) slavery, but I must point out that it is not, because chains are necessary for slavery. Under the capitalist system there is no force compelling man “A” to work for man “B,“ nor is there a law fixing the price for which man “A” must work -- except for the current minimum wage laws. “A” is free to work for “B” and can quit at anytime under most circumstances to work for “C,” unless there is a contract stating otherwise.
A more accurate way of looking at the employer-employee relationship is to see it as a partnership. The employer provides the business plan and the means of production and whatever other details are necessary, and the employee provides the labor. If I were better at math I’m sure I would be able to find some kind of 10/90 or 15/85 split in the business between the employee and employer, where each is able to terminate the partnership at will.

Under a slave system the servant is not at liberty to quit or to negotiate the split of the profit. There is coercion and a threat of violence in slavery. With 100% slavery, the slave must work and produce, and the master will take all the profits. In a 50% slave system there is coercion to force the slave to give 50% of his production to the master. In either case the slave has no choice, but must yield to the demands of the master or else face punishment.
Now we must come to the question as to whether or not a man who is coerced into working for free for the master only on Monday is really a slave or not. If not, where is the line drawn? If he is forced to work for the master Monday and Tuesday, would that count as slavery? And if not, can it be considered freedom in either case? Where shall the line between freedom and slavery be drawn? I am of the school of thought that if a man is not 100% free (allowed to act without coercion), then he is a slave.
But can slavery actually be justified? Would it be acceptable to own a slave and to say to him, “You will give me all you earn from Monday’s work each week and keep the rest when the profits from Tuesday through Friday’s labors are enough to provide you with a mansion, luxuries, and comforts equal to or surpassing mine.”? For a person to nod in agreement is to not oppose slavery at all as an institution, but to only oppose the condition of a slave. Thus it would also be fine to hold a slave in bondage all week long so long as his material condition were at some acceptable level. I would have to disagree. I do not put such high and weighty value on material possessions, but in the spirit and in the freedom to choose. Even if the slave has a mansion and all the latest technologies and greatest comforts of the age, it is not acceptable that his will be negated or that his labor or wages be confiscated. Under a “Monday Only” slave system the slave is unable to keep that profit made on Monday. If he is sick Monday and unable to work, his labor will be confiscated from the following day’s work whether the slave wants to give those profits up or not.
I have been flirting with, and will now discuss, the old defense of the brutish institute of slavery. The defenders of the institution would defend slavery on the grounds that the slave was better off as a slave than as a free man. They would say that the master provides the slave with the necessities of everyday life (food, clothing, shelter, basic medical care, etc.), and if the slave were free he would not be able to provide those things independent of his master. If a reader is only interested in the end condition of the slave he might come to the same conclusion and agree that slavery is justified. He would certainly have to agree that “Monday Only” slavery, where the labor and production of a man is bound and confiscated for the first day of the week, but the production of the slave the other four days is enough to provide him with all those aforementioned luxuries, is justifiable and even preferable to no slavery where the man’s labor is never confiscated, but is only enough to give him a humble means of existence.
As I have said above, I cannot support these ideas and all I can say to those who do is that they have an inflated value of material well being and a deficiency in regards to the value of free choice. As far as I am concerned, it is not the hard work involved in picking cotton, or the deplorable conditions that slaves endured in the 19th century, but the confiscation of their labor and deprivation of the choice to do with that labor what they would like that is the evil of slavery. It would make no difference to me if a slave were put up in the best hotel in Las Vegas and required to count the stitches in the carpet and then given access to the best spa at the end of the day, it would be slavery nonetheless and equally as wrong.
It is for this reason that I oppose the Income Tax System and look forward to the day when a man’s wages are his own to do with as he sees fit. The income tax is the reincarnation of slavery, though it may only be “Monday Slavery” or “All of January and Half of February Slavery,” it is slavery nevertheless. The income tax is the most direct form of slavery in America today, as it directly takes away a person’s labor against his will. This should be abolished.
It is not only morally wrong, but also a form of slavery to take a man’s paycheck by force, never mind taking it before he even has it in his hand. Money is labor. No matter how it is reduced, some sort of physical activity had to be done to produce an income. It is a very direct conversion for most of us; we work and, in exchange for that work, we are paid money. But even for the landlord or the heir, money is still backed by labor -- no one gets rent property for nothing, it must be bought. It is bought with money that was earned through labor, either that or was given as a gift or in the will of a relative. In either case, labor is being confiscated. I can not say for sure because I am not in the position to know, but it would seem that it is less painful when the labor confiscated is removed through the years in the case of the landlord or through the labor of a parent, but it is still confiscation and, though it is not direct, it is enslavement. However, there is another reason to do away with the income tax in the case of wealthy business owners and landlords; people are both smart and inclined to make more rather than less money. In the case of a landlord, for example, the landlord does not pay taxes, but becomes a tax collector; raising the price of rent and adding “taxes” into his expense list to be covered by the renter just as he would “new carpet” or a “new door.” The same principal can be applied to corporate income tax, where the expense of the tax, like all business expenses, is passed on to the consumer.
Indeed, all taxation is the coercive deprivation of labor, whether it is the income tax or more subtle forms of partial slavery like the sales tax, property tax, tariffs, or others. But my superior moral fiber only extends so far, and being human, there is a hint of despotism in me. Government, though it is evil, is necessary, and must be funded. This funding is going to come from taxation. Therefore, while fractional slavery is condemnable on moral grounds, it can be justified at a very limited level, to provide those functions that, it could be said, could not be adequately provided for by the private sector. (Such as roads, emergency services, and defense.)
Due to both the necessity of taxation to fund our government and the nature of taxation itself, we should be very stringent with our government’s fiscal policy. Though we might like the idea of government undertaking an action which we may believe will have a positive impact on society, we should keep in mind that it takes funding and that the funding will not come from only those who support that particular action of government, but also coercively from those who do not support that action.
When we vote for government functions that are not absolutely essential and that private enterprises could, if given half the chance, handle sufficiently, we are subjecting our fellow citizens to unnecessary confiscation of their labor and fractional slavery. It is also imperative to realize that our fellow citizens may, in turn, use this as license to commit the very same atrocity to us somewhere down the line, for the sake of "providing" for society.