Voluntary slavery, in theory, is the given of slavery entered into at a member of voluntary consent. this is the distinguished from involuntary slavery where an individual is forced to a period of servitude commonly as punishment for a crime.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau contends that in a contract of self-enslavement, there is no mutuality. The slave loses all. The contract negates his interests and his rights. it is entirely to his disadvantage. Since the slave loses his status as a moral agent one time the slave contract is enforced, the slave cannot act to enforce anything owed to him by his master. Rousseau contrasted this to the social contract, in that the subjects of the government have rule over their masters. John Stuart Mill wrote a critique of voluntary slavery as a criticism of paternalism.
The term voluntary slavery is often used in polemical writings and rhetoric on a range of subjects. For instance, it has been asserted that the capitalist wage system amounts to voluntary slavery and is contrary to human dignity and inalienable human rights. Libertarian Murray Rothbard criticized the term as being self-contradictory. His protege Walter Block, on the other hand, has defended the belief from Rothbard's and others' libertarian criticisms and claims this is a consistent feature of their philosophy, but admits his is a minority view, along with Robert Nozick.