Children’s “rights”* is a topic of confusion and uncertainty among libertarians. I’d like to solve this once and for all, but not right now. Perhaps someday. Today, I only ask libertarians to consider the logical conclusions of either 1) children owning themselves and therefore possessing all the “rights” associated with ownership or 2) children are…
Tag: slavery
Natural Law and Authority
Written by Michael Bakunin, circa 1871, as published in The Voluntaryist, June 1992. What is authority? Is it the inevitable power of the natural laws which manifest themselves in the necessary concatenation and succession of phenomena in the physical and social worlds? Indeed, against these laws revolt is not only forbidden, it is impossible. We…
For Reasons of State
Written by Michael Bakunin, circa 1867, as published in The Voluntaryist, April 1992. We shall now examine what the State, thus constituted, should be in relation to other states, its peers, as well as in relation to its own subject populations. This examination appears to us all the more interesting and useful because the State,…
The Creed of a Slave
Voluntary Slavery and Lawful Consent
Written by Clayton for The Voluntaryist Reader. If you were to bring a contract to an arbitration hearing that had been signed under duress, the contract would be viewed as null and void because it had been signed under duress. It is not evidence of an agreement because no agreement was ever made or reached…
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…
Intellectual Property as a Form of Slavery
Written by fifth_imp for /r/Anarcho_Capitalism. I say that the notion of claiming an idea as property is absurd, and in fact constitutes a form of slavery. So, let’s break this down. What is an idea? Is an idea a tangible object? No, of course not. An idea is a pulse of electricity in your brain.…
A Short History of Liberty
Written by Dean Russell for The Freeman in 1955. From biblical times onward, the history of liberty and progress among various peoples seems to have followed a remarkably similar pattern. There are exceptions, of course—and the time element varies widely—but the pattern may be generally described by ten key ideas in sequence:1. Bondage. At some…
Freedom Works Both Ways
Written by Dean Russell for The Voluntaryist, June 1989. Everybody says he’s in favor of freedom. Even the Soviet leaders claim to be fighting for freedom. So did Hitler. Our own leaders are also for freedom. So was my slave-owning grandfather. But my grandfather failed to understand the fact that freedom is a mutual relationship;…
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…