Early Presentation Script

This is an early script for the presentation that I've written two weeks ago, to bring all the materials and ideas together. It is now greatly improved and enhanced with additional quotes and references. I promised to post online for further discussion, so here it is.



Introduction by Alex Budaj

Our group will present the idea of paid work being voluntary servitude. We will supply all people present with a brief definition of the master and slave morality, explain the distinctions between a social and a sexual contract and tell the tale of a mighty leviathan ruling the society. We will also discuss liberty from the point of view of Rousseau and Mills, propose ways of escaping servitude and leave room for discussion about the very nature of natural choice and freedom when it comes to social sustenance.
Let us begin by quickly calling to mind the Social Class theory developed by Marx, which states that society even in its simplest, primal form created an almost natural divide for all its members. People are thus always belonging to one of three classes, the ruling, middle and working class. Whether we call it feudalism or Marxist dialectics one thing is obvious, there were always people who had to serve their masters.
Our presentation will introduce aspects of voluntary servitude and paid labor based on the works of creators of social mechanics, people like Rousseau, Mill or Hobbes.
To begin lets travel to the early stage of this module when we were discussing Nietzsche’s philosophy. What he describes as master morality and slave morality can give us our first explanation as to why some people’s destiny is to serve in order to survive.
Nietzsche grouped people by their spirit, strong, noble and powerful are the masters. People with who are week, have not developed a distinctive character and are not ready to fight for what they think is right are slaves. This idea is of course a bit extreme for our purpose, but lets move on to the central part.

Social Contract by Dave Kynaston (once by Rousseau, but who cares)

Jane- Jacques Rousseau 18th century philosopher, politician, historian and sociologist worked hard on defining the principles of society, describing its hidden mechanisms and finding ways to improve it. Rousseau’s Social Contract (Du Contrat Social) deals amongst other things with slavery and servitude. Rousseau points out that from the perspective of natural law ‘no man has natural authority over his fellow’. This would suggest the natural and given equality, which is, later on disrupted by society.[1] The French philosopher argues that it is impossible to give away ones freedom willingly and happily. Such basic liberty can only be sold in need, therefore ruling out the word ‘voluntary’, as it will have nothing to do with free will. The only way around this is to alienate yourself from your own liberty, thus becoming a slave to your master, but fully acknowledging your decision. Such acceptance allows to live in tranquility, but the price Rousseau points out might be too high. He uses the example of Greeks trapped in the Cyclops’s cave, ‘tranquility is found also in dungeons, …the Greeks lived there very tranquilly, while they were awaiting… to be devoured’.[2]
So far we have alienation as a way of escaping the social mechanic, however it still leads to servitude, therefore we assume that in this case paid work is not voluntary servitude on the grounds that it is not voluntary. It is not voluntary because we are not volunteering as human beings, but rather we are acting out of conditioning or custom of society. And in this case, possessing the free will, we should be able to escape society altogether, simply step out of the circle, but leaves us outcasts, vermin living beyond the walls of civilization.
Linking civilization to contemporary society we can come up with these questions:
How many of us discuss the reasons why we work? If you ask someone, the general answer given is to earn money, to buy food, to buy a car, pay the mortgage.
But these are reasons, which have not been critically analyzed by people as individuals, on the contrary, these answers have simply been slapped into us every day by the doctrine of society. As if disciplining a child to be aware of a rule, the child takes it as a given, that the child must not do such or such because it is not allowed.
Because we take the reasons to work as a given we tend not to discuss this, but instead discuss which job we would like to do.
- the point I’m trying to get across is that the hereditary perception of society is passively accepted like principles are accepted as the beginning point.
-when I say passively I don’t mean that everything society shovels us we inevitably accept, but when it is the norm it is difficult to reject.
But now let us move on to another contract of society, one which is dealing with exploitation and servitude of another sort.

Sexual Contract and Devine Servitude by Blair Cumming

Prostitution, often called the world’s oldest profession brings us to Carol Pateman’s The Sexual Contract. Prostitution gives us an excellent example of servitude for money. Sexual Contract will stand in opposition to the Social Contract, because while the Social states that all people are born equal and free the Sexual reminds us of the gender dispute and disrupts the thesis by female exploitation and set frames in which women have to function. If a male becomes a slave or a servant due to material needs, women are born with the statement that their greatest accomplishment in live is to be a good servant to their male partner. With this theory of gender predomination the feminists fought. The Sexual Contract tells us that the order of the world makes men and women unequal to each other. Through established institutions of marriage, wifehood and motherhood Pateman draws a conclusion that in the past ‘women were subordinate to men’. Entangled as it were in the sexual contract, which ties them down and gives no room to develop or even alienate themselves from society.[3]
She makes further claims pointing out that ‘until the late nineteenth century the legal and civil position of a wife resembled that of a slave’.[4]
Thanks to the Sexual Contract we now see that only recently, from a historical perspective, women are allowed the same liberty at birth. And with the word ‘liberty’ we shall move on to the questions of free will and liberty itself.
John Locke a great believer in men’s power of mind and rationality sees the whole of mankind as servants to God. For such servitude redemption of sins and salvation can one day be offered. Locke argues however that such divine servitude does not put a strain on our natural liberty. He says, ‘men have been created capable of freedom and capable of reason. We are born free as we are born rational.’[5] As to our relations with God Locke says, ‘as a work of God, man remains always not only God’s servant, but forever God’s property. However, the sovereignty of that divine Master, in spite of being absolute, does not hamper the liberty of man, since it is God himself who created man capable of freedom and capable of intelligence, so that he might search by his personal efforts for eternal bliss and eventually merit it.’[6] Now as time is short let us move on to the final stage of our presentation, liberty by John Stuart Mill and a quick summary.


Liberty and Summary by Nick Danvers

Every member of society should strive to be useful, utilitarianism from Mills’s point of view is not only usefulness but also praising spiritual and moral pleasure far beyond physical ones.
Liberty of an individual must be great in its value but should not trespass on the liberty of others. As Hobbs wrote in the leviathan, every man should enjoy his natural freedom, but such freedom can never be destructive to other members of society, as it then looses its purpose and needs drastic action. Now to sum up let us recall what we already said, man is born free to loose his liberty, due to natural laws. Servitude for pay or reward is predestined to every human, and the only way to escape it is to fully alienate yourself from civilized society, thus becoming an outcast.
[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, Aldine Press J.M. Dent & Sons LTD, 1975 (trans by G. D. H. Cole) [p.169]
[2] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, Aldine Press J.M. Dent & Sons LTD, 1975 (trans by G. D. H. Cole) [p.169]

[3] Carol Pateman, The Sexual Contract, Polity Press, 1994 [Wives, Slaves and Wage Slaves p.119]
[4] Carol Pateman, The Sexual Contract, Polity Press, 1994 [Wives, Slaves and Wage Slaves p.123]
[5] J.W. Yolton, John Locke: Problems and Perspectives: A collection of new essays. Cambridge University Press: London, 1969 [p.3]


[6] J.W. Yolton, John Locke: Problems and Perspectives: A collection of new essays. Cambridge University Press: London, 1969 [p.6]