Writes Jacob Hornberger: As Barack Obama prepares to assume the presidency, it would be appropriate today to remember that the original Thanksgiving celebrated the demise of the “spread-the-wealth” economic system that the colonists at Plymouth Rock initially established. The story of socialism at Plymouth Rock is one that few Americans are taught in their public…
Tag: socialism
Mark Crovelli
“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 at Voluntaryist.com. While most of my friends would find it difficult to imagine today, I have not always been a loudmouthed, pain-in-the-ass, libertarian anarchist. In fact, if…
Freedom: A Truly Unknown Ideal
What is truly new is economic freedom. As Molinari pointed out in the 19th century, this can really only be traced back two hundred years. Governments have always existed in one form or another. Let’s get rid of “the political means” once and for all if you want to achieve something new.
Larken Rose
“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 The Voluntaryist, 1st Quarter 2012. I was raised in a conservative home, in a conservative town, with some libertarian leanings. I grew up thinking the good…
Ben Speers
“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. A lot of people go through life without ever questioning things, but I’ve always identified with Socrates’ sentiment that the unexamined life isn’t worth living. In the realm of…
Why Democracy is Irresponsible
Guest post by Strangering. Originally posted at /r/anarcho_capitalism. Let’s define what it means to be responsible. One is considered responsible for his actions if the consequences of the actions are owned by him. For example, if one drives drunk and crashes into a tree, the damage to the car and his body is his to bear.…
Button Pushing or Abdication: Which?
Guest post by Carl Watner. Originally published in The Voluntaryist, August 1985. For an earlier article on this topic, with a different perspective, at Everything-Voluntary.com, see this post. In Detroit on April 29,1946, Leonard Read gave a speech to the Midwestern Conference of the Controllers Institute of America. The address, which was titled “I’d Push…
Voluntaryism Transcends Anarchism
Post by Skyler J. Collins: I wanted to share some thoughts I’ve had, and some ways that my mind has compartmentalized concepts and ideas relating to voluntaryism. Watch a video exploration of these ideas here. In my humble opinion, voluntaryism is more than just a political philosophy, as I explained in the introduction of my…
Individualism, Collectivism, and Other Murky Labels
Imagine the following person. He believes all individuals should be free to do anything that’s peaceful and therefore favors private property, free global markets, freedom of contract, civil liberties, and all the related ideas that come under the label libertarianism (or liberalism). Obviously he is not a statist. But is he an individualist and a capitalist or a socialist and a collectivist?
Is Libertarianism Extreme?
Guest post by Jacob Hornberger. Statists oftentimes accuse libertarians of holding extreme views. One reason for that is that since we have all been born and raised in a society based on welfare and warfare, the libertarian philosophy, which stands in opposition to socialism, interventionism, and imperialism, seems extreme to statists. Consider, for example, the…