Paul Gessing asks the question: Where is the line where private contracts are no longer legitimately private?

My short answer is: I don't know. Surely there's a line that says a private contract to enslave oneself IS over the line. I'm not making the case, but I could imagine making boxing over the line, for it's behavior that on a street corner IS illegal, and with good reason.

Freedom of contract is like freedom of speech, in some ways. It's an excellent general rule, but sometimes the specifics get dicey. Freedom of speech does not give one the right to shout fire in a theater, in part because the theater owner doesn't allow it. Nor is one able to use "fighting words" to taunt another citizen.

I am merely saying that -- yes, generally, there should be a right to make contracts among consenting adults. When a contract gets "abusive" in some way -- like slavery is -- establishing certain SPECIFIC rules of law to carve out exceptions seems like a sensible thing. The minimum wage doesn't cut it for me as a specific carve out. I am not persuaded that at $5 or $7 an hour that either is abusive. This issue as currently debated, however, is not well crafted, IMO.

I don't, however, advocate a $0 minimum wage. That's poor rhetoric, IMO, because to most people, that sure SOUNDS like slavery. There are times when a "benign neglect" approach is called for, and this seems like one of them.

If it's "principled" to advocate the right to enslave oneself, then I suppose I'm not principled, or at least not consistently so. But that approach over-simplifies, I humbly submit.

-Robert Capozzi