If it were legal to sell yourself into slavery (as it once was), we know what would happen: A lot of companies would try to push people into the position where people would feel they had no other choice to become slaves, and companies would position themselves to take advantage of this fact. We would then have a permanent class of slaves in the world, which would dehumanize them and gradually freeze the hearts of everybody who was made to interact with this system. We know this would happen because it did happen. And it was a long road for humanity as a whole to get rid of it (and we still haven’t completely).

And you would throw it all away because of some personal libertarian principle? This isn’t only about what you would like to be able to do in any given moment, it’s what this ability does to society as a whole. Your ability to someday be able to sell yourself into slavery has some value (for the principle of the thing, if nothing else), but it is certainly not worth the above-mentioned effects on society.

(Repost of <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26131936>, from two years ago.)