Is Britney Spears Enslaved?

One would think that in this Woke World more people would be asking if Britney Spears is a slave.
Although her income and net worth are enviable, it is no secret that the 39-year-old-American has been
under the thumb of a court-appointed guardian for 13 years. Recently, her plight regained media

attention after she gave an impassioned plea in court asking for her Constitutional rights to be restored.In light of the Paternalist Authoritarian Turn of 2020, I herein approach the question of her enslavement

as rigorously as I can, which means my response is nuanced, detailed, and based on my study of

10,000 years of human slavery across the globe.

    In 2017, Palgrave published my book The Poverty of Slavery, one key aspect of which was not to “define” slavery but rather to measure it. In Chapter 2, “Various Degrees of Liberty,” I developed a twenty point “Freedom Scale” based on official definitions and historical characteristics of enslavement. For context, most modern CEOs score a 20 on the scale, chattel field hands worked in the gang system in the antebellum cotton belt of the U.S. South score a 0, and an everyday working American today scores about a 15. So far as I can ascertain, Ms. Spears scores a 4 on my scale, which is just 1 above the score of chattel slaves workinged on the task system in the rice plantations of antebellum South Carolina.

    Here is my Freedom Scale as published and, in bold typeface, my estimation of how it relates to the situation of Ms. Spears based on media reports. Her score, a 0 or 1, is provided at the end of each criterion, in bold and italic typeface. Note that because this is a Freedom Scale rather than a Slavery Scale, some of the wording may be confusing. Just remember, freedom = good = 1 and unfreedom = bad = 0.

Direct Methods of Control:

1.  Is the laborer paid primarily in cash or other liquid assets (e.g., company stock)? (Payment

entirely in kind or in company scrip can be used to limit worker mobility or otherwise ensure his/her

dependence on the employer.) 1 She is paid a weekly cash allowance of $2,000.00.

2.  Can the laborer own property on the same terms as his or her employer? (Preventing laborers from

owning property serves the same purpose as paying him or her entirely in kind as it prevents the worker

from selling assets when s/he wishes to move to a new employer.) 0 The assets accumulated by virtue of her work, estimated at $60 million, are controlled by her guardian.

3.  Is the laborer free from physical restraints? (Punishment should be termination of employment,

not being beaten.) 1 The restraints, so far as I have ascertained, are entirely paper ones.

4.  Is the laborer free from psychological constraints? (‘Invisible’ or psychological chains can be as

potent as iron ones.) 0 She is clearly emotionally manipulated by her guardian, who is also her father.

5.  Is the laborer not legally required to work? (Vagrancy or compulsory labor laws contain, as a

newspaper put it in 1922, “the essence of slavery” because they reduce each worker’s option to remove

him or herself from the labor force, thereby reducing the attractiveness of strikes, subsistence lifestyles,

or self-employment.) 0 She claims she has been forced to work and of course we have to believe her, not due to some Woke baloney but because we know

that people respond to incentives, and her incentive under conservatorship is not to work.

6.  Is the laborer inalienable (unsalable or otherwise nontransferable to another employer without his

or her consent)? (Sale of labor services is also another characteristic of slavery, though of course not the

only one.) 0 This is a trickier one but my take, given that I am not a lawyer but can still see a clear legal path

for the sale, is that her guardian has complete control over her and if desired could sell her/the

right to benefit from her labor, to another guardian. 

7.  Is the laborer incapable of owing his/her employer significant sums or of being listed as collateral

security for an advance or other loan payable to his/her employer? (When an employer is also a major

creditor to his/her/its workers, the employer possesses too much economic power over them, which

can lead to debt bondage.) 0 She could borrow from her father or anyone whom he might sell her guardianship to.

8.  Has the worker not been subjected to ‘seasoning’ designed to break his/her will to find other

employment? (This is another standard sign of enslavement.) 0 I cannot find anyone who has used that term of art, but her recent court statement strongly

suggests that she was seasoned, though ineffectively.

9.  Does the laborer have freedom of movement in order to search for other employment? (Employers

that prevent laborer movement can effectively stop laborers from moving to employers willing to

offer better terms of employment.) 0 Clearly not.

10.  Can the laborer quit without monetary or other loss? (This question appears key to many.) 0 clearly not. She could presumably buy her freedom from her guardian, per the response to number 6 above,

but likely at the loss of most or all of the assets her labor since age 17 has accumulated.

Working Conditions:

11.  Can the laborer control his/her work schedule? (If not, s/he can be prevented from having a

personal cultural, economic, political, or social life outside of the workplace.) 0 The guardian controls such decisions.

12.  Can the laborer control the total hours s/he works? (Ditto.) 0 The guardian controls such decisions.

13.  Can the laborer control the tempo of his or her work? (If not, s/he can be driven to work at a pace

that injures his/her well-being, as well as his or her ability to have a personal life outside of work.) 0 The guardian controls such decisions.

Personal Life:

14.  Is the laborer not legally dead, socially dead, or otherwise alienated from the formal or dominant

social order? (If dead to society, the laborer has no basis for a personal life outside of work.) 0 Her social life has been curtailed, ostensibly to keep her away from illicit drugs.

15.  Does the laborer not belong to a group that has been dishonored? (Ditto.) 1 Pop music stars are more idolized than dishonored.

16.  Can the laborer determine his/her own name? (If not, his or her identity is controlled by another.) 0 Britney Spears was born Britney Jean Spears but unlike other adult Americans she could not change her name without her guardian’s approval.

17.  Can the laborer determine what to consume and where to buy consumption goods? (Employers

can lower wages into negative territory by selling laborers goods at monopoly rates and can prevent

laborers from purchasing goods that might aid in their resistance.) 1 She shops around with her allowance.

18.  Can the laborer choose his/her place of residence? (If not, a major component of the laborer’s

personal life is outside of his/her control.) 0 She was forced into a long residency in Las Vegas.

19.  Is the laborer able to marry on the same terms as his or her employer? (Ditto.) 0 No, she needs

permission from her guardian.

20. Does the laborer control his or her own children on the same terms as his or her employer? (Ditto.) 0 No, her guardian insists on an IUD and the conservatorship has apparently negatively affected her custody rights negotiations with their father, a fella named Kevin Federline.

    It is important to note that slavery is NOT illegal in the United States, it is simply highly regulated. Specifically, the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (rat. 1865) commands “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” Millions of Americans have been enslaved since 1865. (For details, see the resources provided by the nonprofit Historians Against Slavery, of which I am currently treasurer.)

    A court that presumably followed due process placed Ms. Spears under conservatorship but did NOT convict her of a crime. That means that any among us could be treated similarly, whether called a slave or not. In fact, many elderly persons have already fallen victim to the guardianship system, as detailed by HBO funnyman John Oliver in 2018 and as portrayed in the 2021 comedy thriller I Care a Lot. Both show that the current system creates incentives to bilk the wealthy elderly on paternalistic grounds ultimately rooted in greed. The movie, in fact, should be entitled I Care a Lot (Not!).

    The best solution I can think of would be to turn the guardianship of duly ascertained incompetents over to nonprofit charities that receive no direct remuneration from their wards, or some other private ordering solution a la Ed Stringham’s Private Governance.