Slavery

This is the difference between slavery and freedom. The slave must do what his superior orders him to do, but the free citizen—and this is what freedom means—is in a position to choose his own way of life.

Economic Policy, p. 23

Servile labor disappeared because it could not stand the competition of free labor; its unprofitability sealed its doom in the market economy.

Human Action, p. 625; p. 630

At no time and at no place was it possible for enterprises employing servile labor to compete on the market with enterprises employing free labor. Servile labor could always be utilized only where it did not have to meet the competition of free labor.

Human Action, p. 626; p. 630

When treated as a chattel, man renders a smaller yield per unit of cost expended for current sustenance and guarding than domestic animals.

Human Action, p. 626; pp. 630–31

Slavery did not prepare the way for division of labor. On the contrary it blocked the way. Indeed modern industrial society, with its highly developed division of labor, could not begin to grow until slavery had been abolished.

Socialism, p. 297

Private ownership in the means of production is the only necessary condition for the extensive development of the division of labor. The enslavement of the worker was not necessary to create it.

Socialism, p. 297

Everyone who preaches the right of the stronger considers himself as the stronger. He who espouses the institution of slavery never stops to reflect that he himself could be a slave.

Liberalism, p. 64