Written by Mark Stovel for On the Mark. The State asserts a “coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area” which is said to give the State the “right” to have the monopoly on all legitimate use of force in the given territorial area. This leads to…
Tag: society
Moving Beyond Charity and Activism
Send him mail. “Insight for the Young and Unrestrained” is an original weekly column appearing every Thursday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Gregory V. Diehl. Gregory is a writer, musician, educator, and coach for young people at EnabledYouth.com. Archived columns can be found here. IYU-only RSS feed available here. The Problem with Activism Activism is an act…
Social Stability, Rule of Law, and the Free Society
Written by Wheylous for The Voluntaryist Reader. Democracy has been hailed as the great system of governance that keeps a nation balanced on the thin line between authoritarianism and lawless anarchy. The voluntaryist’s suggestion that the core responsibilities of the state – provision of courts, police, and national defense – be demonopolized (that is, allowed…
Try This On Your Friends
Written by F. A. Harper, as published in The Voluntaryist, February 1991. The elections are over and the campaign dirt has settled a bit. Do you enjoy riddles? This one challenges many students of liberty. Once we see the problem, lack of a solution will bedevil us until we can solve it logically to the…
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…
Which Shall We Treat, the Problem, or Symptoms?
Send him mail. “One Voluntaryist’s Perspective” is an original bi-weekly column appearing every other Monday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by the founder and editor Skyler J. Collins. Archived columns can be found here. OVP-only RSS feed available here. Voluntaryists are not pacifists, though they do encourage strategic pacifism on many fronts. In regards to the private ownership…
Why I Had to Become My Own Father
Send him mail. “Insight for the Young and Unrestrained” is an original weekly column appearing every Thursday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Gregory V. Diehl. Gregory is a writer, musician, educator, and coach for young people at EnabledYouth.com. Archived columns can be found here. IYU-only RSS feed available here. My journey toward the voluntarist philosophy of a…
Individualist Collectivism
Is the free market an individualist or collectivist social arrangement? Don’t answer too quickly. It’s a trick question.
Freer Is Safer
Written by John Semmens for The Voluntaryist, February 1990. One of the most common delusions of our age is that government is enforcing regulations that will actually help improve safety. In the wave of deregulation that hit the economy in the last decade, many observers have found comfort in the knowledge that safety was not…