David replied:

So if someone enters into a contract to love, honour and obey another person for the rest of her life, and later decides that she doesn't want to obey any more, a society that believes in freedom of contract will force her to obey nevertheless?

Perhaps we should distinguish between a contract and a promise, as Rothbard suggests. And certainly a marriage promise (or contract) should not be enforcible for the simple reason that it is understood that it will not be enforced. In our culture we all know that marriages are not to be taken as literal enforcible contracts. One of the reasons for this is that we understand love can not be forced. But one might specify in a marriage contract things such as that if one party leaves the other, he agrees to pay a charge. In fact such contracts do exist, and such a charge is called alimony.

Elliot writes:

but I disagree that all contracts ought to be legal. that allows for slavery contracts. i think it needs to be legal to quit a contract and only owe damages.

I agree not all contracts should be legal. So in that sense I agree freedom of contract is not 100%. For example, the contract to commit a crime (e.g. a hit contract) should not be enforcible. Whether slavery contracts should be enforcible, I'm not sure. A point can be made that certain rights are inalienable, so that you can't sell yourself into slavery. But again, people can agree to charges if they, say, quit their job without giving 6 months notice. But there would be exceptions. For example, a doctor should not be permitted to quit an operation in the middle of it so that the patient dies. And a pilot agreeing to fly someone to the North Pole and back should not be able to refuse the return journey.

Also, it seems right that soldiers in a voluntary army are punished for desertion. If soldiers are paid for their services and trained, then we should be able to rely on them. Also, suppose an astronaut's training costs a million euros. Then again it seems unfair that he should be able to quit the moment his trainig is done. Unless perhaps he pays back the million euros, but if he is not rich he won't be able to pay, and so this does imply in such a case a slavery contract of sorts should be enforcible.

Henry Sturman