Once a person adopts the label of voluntaryist (or the like) for their political identity, they assume, with good reason, the following premise: human suffering is terrible and should be prevented; aggression and coercion necessarily create human suffering. This premise leads the voluntaryist to hold a number of hypotheses with varying degrees of accuracy in some form or fashion within their minds at all times. Here are several of those hypotheses.
Tag: monopoly
Discrimination Should Be Left Legally Alone
Despite my skepticism about fairness, I’m in favor of everyone doing their best to make others feel as though fairness is real. There’s really only one way to do this. Just stay out of the way and let everyone exercise their right to choose who to do business with. Both as a provider and as a customer. Don’t infringe anyone’s right of association.
The Cost of Dependency
Instead of dropping the taxi business and its precious “medallions” like a rotting gopher, the drivers are killing themselves. Can they not imagine a way of life without their expensive government monopoly? If liberty is killing the taxi monopoly, as they claim, why not adapt and start driving for one of the other options? Why demand a place on the sinking ship?
Thank Your Competitors
There’s plenty to be said for Peter Thiel’s case that establishing a natural monopoly (via innovation, not privilege or coercion) is best for innovation. In many cases, it’s true. You should probably not go into a space that is already competitive. But if you have already done something innovative, competitors are bound to come behind to ride your coattails. Here are a few reasons you shouldn’t be too upset – and why you might actually want to thank your competitors.
Monopoly on Guns
Ok, which government should have a monopoly on guns? And should it also have a monopoly on phones, televisions, travel, relocation, books, newspapers, reproduction, and so forth?
Your Adventure Isn’t The Only One (And That’s Good For Your Adventure)
It can be easy for those of us who self-identify as “creative types” and “adventurous spirits” to get so absorbed in our own concept of what makes life interesting that we make the mistake of assuming we have a monopoly on what it means to live freely and fully.
The Value of the Reformation: Reply to Somin
My friend Ilya Somin has written a detailed critique of my doubts about the Protestant Reformation. Here’s my reply.
The Voluntaryist Constitution, an Oxymoron?
Trey Goff had an interesting article published at Mises.org outlining what he is calling a “voluntaryist constitution.” Can such a thing even exist? I don’t believe it could exist as anything more than an ideological creed. I thought it’d be fun to scrutinize the so-called voluntaryist constitution from my particular voluntaryist perspective.
“Me Too” is a Branch Issue, and a Distraction
My first reaction to this campaign was a bit of umbrage on the part of lumping the many degrees of sexual harassment in with the many degrees of sexual assault. They aren’t the same. I shared that first reaction on Facebook in a couple of places and got some interesting discussion going. But as I thought about it some more, I realized what was going on here.
Cowardice is Not a Virtue
First and foremost, pushing a “legislative” solution always amounts to condoning a violent solution. “Laws” are not polite suggestions; they are threats of force. “Gun control,” while usually framed in vague, euphemistic terms by its proponents, is gun violence. It is politicians threatening to send men with guns after any mere peasant who possesses something that the masters say they are not allowed to possess.