Guest post by Carl Watner. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, February 1988. Many of us are probably familiar with the Fables, written by Aesop (620-560 B.C.), the Greek slave. It has been years since I read them, but recently a subscriber to The Voluntaryist suggested that I look at some of them. The following are two…
Tag: order
What is Political “Extremism”?
Guest post by Laird Wilcox. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, August 1987. Roger Scruton, in the Dictionary Of Political Thought (1982) defines “extremism” as: “A vague term, which can mean: 1. Taking a political idea to its limits, regardless of ‘unfortunate’ repercussions, impracticalities, arguments and feelings to the contrary, and with the intention not only to…
The Power of Non-Violent Resistance
Guest post by Jerry M. Tinker. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, August 1987. As many writers have noted, the basic thesis, or strategy, upon which Gandhi’s satyagraha and all non-violent resistance rests is that all structures of power – government and social organizations – always depend upon the voluntary cooperation of great numbers of people…
Preference Change in Social Organization
Could the governments of the world reinstate slavery? Yes, they could. They possess sufficient coercive power at their disposal. But would they dare to do it? No, they would not. The prevalent social attitude toward slavery makes such an action uneconomic from the point of view of the calculus of power. Could warlords and mafias…
Re: 61.2 Percent
Writes Thomas Knapp: That’s my tentative estimate (based on Google election result and population statistics) of the percentage of Americans who voted for nobody for President of the United States on Tuesday. US President Barack Obama knocked down about 60.7 million votes.GOP challenger Mitt Romney polled about 57.8 million.Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, 1.14 million.Green candidate…
The Inflation of Rights
Guest post by Sir Alfred Sherman. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, April 1987. In this essay I wish to argue that the inflation of rights, in the sense of hypertrophy of claims on society that the state is responsible for levying, is inherently self-defeating. It is bound to generate conflicts of rights that will end…
Ten Pillars of Economic Wisdom
Guest post by Carl Watner, Kevin Cullinane, and Patricia Cullinane. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, February, 1987. 1. The art of understanding economics (whole systems of human energy transfer) consists in looking not merely at the immediate, but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing out the consequences of…
Non-Voting as an Act of Secession
Guest post by Hans Sherrer. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, 3rd Quarter, 2002. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence made it plain that in America, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive…, it is the Right of the…
The Fundamentals of Nonvoting
Our rulers know they are illegitimate. Voluntaryists know they are illegitimate for a myriad of other reasons, but what I wanted to examine here is the voluntaryist’s position to abstain from electoral politics. The following arguments are the fundamentals of the nonvoting position.
What Virtues Do People Need in Order to Be Free?
Guest post by Ben Speers. When attempting to form a free society, the absence of the state is only one piece of the puzzle. People must possess certain attributes if they are to take advantage of the potential benefits of voluntaryism. I have outlined six principles below that I believe to be necessary to the…