Written by Clayton for The Voluntaryist Reader. Imagine you are a young adult, say, sixteen or seventeen years old. Driving down the highway, you and your friends are laughing and joking. Without warning, you see a police cruiser, circus lights blazing, in your rearview mirror, and quickly pull to the side of the road. You…
Category: Editor’s Picks
7 Criteria For Good Parenting
Written by Darci Walker for Core Parenting. I was recently asked to name my favorite parenting philosophy or strategy. My response: “For what child? In what situation? In what family?” I don’t believe in any one perfect parenting strategy. Rather, I believe in good parents who utilize lots of different tools to make good parenting…
An Opinion on Gun Control
Written by Larry Correia for Monster Hunter Nation. I didn’t want to post about this, because frankly, it is exhausting. I’ve been having this exact same argument for my entire adult life. It is not an exaggeration when I say that I know pretty much exactly every single thing an anti-gun person can say. I’ve…
The Educative Value of Teasing
Written by Peter Gray for Psychology Today. Teasing gets a bad rap, especially in educational circles, because of its association with bullying. But not all teasing is bullying. In fact, in most settings (maybe not in our typical schools), teasing serves positive ends far more often than negative ones. This essay is mostly about the…
It’s About Love
Written by Skyler J. Collins. Modified from the original written in August 2011. I am wont to harp on non-voluntaryist political philosophies because of their foundations in violence. I’d like to take just a moment to explain something that I haven’t done a good enough job explaining.Voluntaryism to me is about one thing: Love. I’ve…
Children are Born Innocent
Written by Jan Hunt for The Natural Child Project. What do you see when you look into the eyes of a newborn? When I first looked into the eyes of my son, I saw trustfulness, curiosity and joyfulness. I saw no deviousness, meanness or selfishness. In that instant it became clear to me that if…
Panarchy, Not Anarchy, Is the Answer
Written by Paul Bonneau for Strike The Root. One other characteristic that is usually included with panarchism is that of extraterritoriality. In other words, people of different polities live all mixed up together, again similar to people of modern religions. I don’t find this entirely prescriptive of panarchy, though, since people can live where they…
The Rationally Misinformed Voter
Written by Thomas J. DiLorenzo for LewRockwell.com. In the sub-discipline of economics known as public choice, an important concept is the theory of “rational ignorance.” First articulated by political scientist Anthony Downs in the 1950s, and expanded upon by economist Gordon Tullock and others, the theory of rational ignorance holds that it is perfectly rational…
The Threat of Voluntary Associations
Written by David Glasner, as published in The Voluntaryist, October 1991. The notion that a regime — even a totalitarian regime — could survive the universal disapproval of it subjects is difficult to comprehend. Ordinarily one would assume that a nearly unanimous desire by the subjects of a regime to oust it eventually would make…
But What About Voluntary Slaves?
Written by Clayton for The Voluntaryist Reader. One of the objections that is raised against voluntaryism is that, since “anything goes” in a voluntary society so long as it is voluntary, wouldn’t there be voluntary slavery? If Smith sells himself into slavery to Jones, we as voluntaryists must respect this voluntary choice, no?Read the full…