Written by Wheylous for The Voluntaryist Reader. Initially, the [American] Founders formulated the Constitution not to delineate the rights of the individual, but to restrict the powers of government. Soon thereafter, it was decided that the Constitution indeed needed to list some individual rights, so greedy was government for power. Hence, the Bill of Rights…
Tag: rights
Personal Anarchy
Written by Michael Ziesing for The Voluntaryist, August 1991. Tell people you’re an anarchist and you’ll probably get a reaction. Maybe they’ll back away and/or run in sheer terror. (You may have a bomb and know how to use it, after all!) Or maybe they’ll spit in your eye and/or try to lock you up.…
I Do Have a Choice
Written by R.S. Jaggard for The Voluntaryist, June 1991. I want to be productive. I want to produce goods and services of value to my neighbors, and, I want to deal with them in willing exchange for mutual benefits. My life-long ambitions, my training and experience, and my present position all add up to the…
Roderick Long
“Toward Freedom” is an Everything-Voluntary.com series sharing personal stories about the journey toward freedom. Archived stories can be found here. Submit your story to the editor. Originally published in I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians. I’ve been fortunate enough to have spent over half my life in the libertarian movement, and I am very grateful…
The Case Against Democracy: The More Things Change, The More They Remain the Same
Written by Carl Watner for The Voluntaryist, August 1990. Democracy. For many, the word sums up what is desirable in human affairs. Democracy, and agitation for it, occurs all over the world: the Pro-Democracy movement in China during 1989; the democratic reform movements taking place in Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R. resulting in the breakup…
Monopolization of a Water Supply
Written by Wheylous for The Voluntaryist Reader. A charge occasionally levied against libertarianism is that a vital natural resource, such as a water supply, could be monopolized by an astute businessman, who could then hold society hostage with the threat of cutting off its ability of replenishing its bodily fluids. This is a most curious…
Stephan Kinsella
“Toward Freedom” is an Everything-Voluntary.com series sharing personal stories about the journey toward freedom. Archived stories can be found here. Submit your story to the editor. Originally published in I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians. Unlike many libertarians who dally with socialism before seeing the light, I have never been attracted to leftism. Indeed, although…
Liberty vs. War: A Brief History
Written by Jeffrey M. Herbener for Mises.org. We see through the lies and sophisms of pro-state ideology because we have accepted the truth advanced by those who champion liberty. Extrapolating from our experience, we can see that anti-state ideology is a necessary condition to establish and maintain liberty. The advantages it has over pro-state ideology…
John Hasnas
“Toward Freedom” is an Everything-Voluntary.com series sharing personal stories about the journey toward freedom. Archived stories can be found here. Submit your story to the editor. Originally published in I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians. How did I become a libertarian? It happened in the fifth grade at Public School #6 in Woodmere, New York…
The Case Against Intellectual Property Rights
Written by Roderick Long for Formulations in 1995. The status of intellectual property rights (copyrights, patents, and the like) is an issue that has long divided libertarians. Such libertarian luminaries as Herbert Spencer, Lysander Spooner, and Ayn Rand have been strong supporters of intellectual property rights. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, was ambivalent on the…