Slavery And the Minimal State

A friend asked me whether we should have a government strong enough to ban slavery.
I thought it was a good question and it deserves more treatment than I had the chance to give it at the time.

I believe that for widespread slavery to exist, there must a government powerful enough to enforce that slavery. If one man has ten slaves, simple numbers tells us there must be something more than the will of that one man keeping those slaves there. People can fight or run away, unless there is a government that insists on classifying them as someone else's property, and provides enough force when necessary to keep them under his control.

Now, the question of voluntary slavery is a bit more complicated. There are people who seek slavery, whether they call it by it's name or not. There are a range of people like this- in addition to what we traditionally call slavery, I would include prostitutes in this category. They are choosing, and the question becomes, does our attempt to ban such behavior decrease or increase the damage caused by such behavior?

Clearly, we each have the right to determine what goes on in our own house, and by extention, we can choose to live together in a space where certain things aren't done. Through property rights, and freedom of association it's possible to ban and banish certian things from our immediate area. I don't know, though, if sustained, aggressive policing of red-light areas do any good.

In order for anyone to come out of Egypt, there must be some place that is definitely NOT Egypt to go to, and it's best if the people are not confused as to the source of their oppression.