Guest post by Joseph Dejan. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, February 1987. To the academic question of more or less government, we may find more useful to compare the political structure with the voluntary system. To sustain life and maximize his well-being, organized human efforts are mandatory. Individually, man may survive, but complete independence requires…
Tag: behavior
The Search for Peace
Guest post by Lorne Strider. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, January 1987. If we look about us in the world today, it soon becomes apparent that only governments are capable of the large scale regimentation and taxation necessary to conscript, train, arm, feed and clothe armies. Only governments with powers of coercive taxation can amass…
99 Years, Bomb Plots, and the Middle East
Send him mail. “One Voluntaryist’s Perspective” is an original weekly column appearing every Monday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by the founder and editor Skyler J. Collins. Archived columns can be found here. OVP-only RSS feed available here. As mentioned, I’ve taken over the Voluntaryism subreddit and hope to make it active again. It’s been a ghost town,…
Business Keeps Business Honest
Guest post by William Vandersteel. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, February 1985. We take it for granted that the ordinary business contract — perhaps the most vital element of modern commerce — would be completely ineffectual without the vigilance of our courts and legal system. But as George Gershwin once wrote, “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”…
10 Reasons Not to Hit Your Child
Guest post by Drs. Sears. 1. Hitting Models Hitting There is a classic story about the mother who believed in spanking as a necessary part of discipline until one day she observed her three- year-old daughter hitting her one-year-old son. When confronted, her daughter said, “I’m just playing mommy.” This mother never spanked another child.Children…
Spankings, Surplus Crops, and Infant Schooling
Send him mail. “One Voluntaryist’s Perspective” is an original weekly column appearing every Monday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by the founder and editor Skyler J. Collins. Archived columns can be found here. OVP-only RSS feed available here. As mentioned in the inaugural edition of this column, I will give my voluntaryist perspective on “two or three” popular…
What Kids Really Want Parents to Know
Guest post by Kelly Bartlett. Over the years, I’ve been able to decipher a few important lessons from my kids. Sometimes I’m good at figuring out what they are really trying to say with their behavior, other times, it takes me months or years of frustration before I figure out something they’re communicating. Here are…
Does Peaceful Parenting Mean Letting Kids Do Whatever They Want?
Guest post by Laura Markham. It might seem like just letting your kid do whatever she wants would make you more peaceful. No struggle, right? But that lasts for about three minutes. What makes a peaceful parent is regulating your own emotions so you can stay lovingly connected, to help your child process hers. That’s…
Emotions are Not Bad Behavior
Guest post by Robin Grille. One of the most commonly heard parental laments is about how children try to get attention. So many behaviors that adults don’t like are brushed off as “merely” attention-seeking devices. “Don’t worry about him,” we say, “he is just doing it to get attention.” When children use oblique ways to…
Children Don’t Really Misbehave
Guest post by Thomas Gordon. Most parents and teachers think of children as either “behaving” or “misbehaving”. This labeling of behavior as “good” and “bad” begins when the child is quite young. In our training programs we try to help parents see that children don’t really misbehave. Interestingly enough, the term is almost exclusively applied…