Fear of Voluntaryism due to Statist Thinking
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When statists hear about voluntaryism, a typical response is "That's stupid. How do you think society can function without a government?" When statists imagine a society without government, what they are imagining is a society of statists living without a state. That is not the intended image.
A possible short response would be: "If we move closer to the principles of voluntaryism, the biggest change would be that people would no longer see any need to force peaceful people to do things against their will. People are resilient and can find ways to form voluntary associations to serve their needs. Many of the problems that you perceive today are things that you (or future people) would not perceive as problems later."
Statists start with the perspective that people "need to" act in a certain way that generally corresponds to the laws proposed by their political party. Those beliefs are often contrary to the nonaggression principle, like putting parents in jail for not sending their kids to a state-approved school. If there is a lack of police with guns to force people to live that way, the statist would feel like there is something wrong. The real change is a change in thinking to respect the autonomy of others and to stop dwelling on what you can achieve by using force against peaceful people--people are not your pawns to create your vision of community. People are not pawns to be manipulated to force everyone to live according to your risk preferences or aesthetic sense.
I see part of the challenge as a perspective-taking problem. In other words, some people or so accustomed to being told what to do that they see nothing wrong with complying. It is difficult for them to understand how loss of liberty feels to other people. They don't see any problem with having to pay licensing fees and complete tax paperwork in every county where you operate your small business. More on this later.
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This blog is mostly about finding ways to communicate so that we can reach a mutual understanding and agree to not harm peaceful people.
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I know nothing about voluntaryism so I've ready your first 3 or 4 posts plus this one. I find it fascinating.
Yep. I suppose I'm what you would call a statist.
As a statist who doesn't understand voluntaryism and, in fact, only just found out that he's a statist (whatever that means), I don't think that response works for me. The statement assumes that I already agree that peaceful people are currently being forced to do things against their will and therefore moving closer to the principles of voluntaryism would be a good thing. But, I might not necessarily see anyone being forced to do anything. You know, statist mindset and everything.
Of course, I realize that I'm not the intended audience of your posts. I'm not a voluntaryist trying to learn how to convince statists to change their minds. On the other hand, what better way to teach other voluntaryists than to actually show how it's done by using me as an example? :)
In any case, I don't want to appear as a troll. I'm just truly curious. So if I'm not welcome, just say so. I'm not a sensitive statist. ;) Or, perhaps you can simply point me to other resources on the internet where I can learn more.
If I may make a suggestion though. When communicating with statists who are unfamiliar with voluntaryism, I recommend not using jargon. Or at least define them before you start using them. For example, I've never heard of the term "peaceful people" before. It sounds very specific and I don't know what it means exactly. So when you say "no longer see any need to force peaceful people" does that mean that it's still okay to force non-peaceful people? And what's the difference?
Well excellent guess if I may say so:)
It's not ok to be an aggressor (the one initiating or starting violence.)
but it's ok to defend yourself against aggressors. It's called the non-aggression principle.
Maybe this sounds like yeah duh everybody knows that, and most people practice this in their daily lives but they make a big exception for this rule when it comes to the people who work for government.
This is a little video that explains it in a clear way...I think.
And I found this book very helpful.
Another video
I leave it here :)
Peace.
Thanks for the reply! The first video is indeed very clear to me. In the second video:
I love it! I agree 100%!
I get it: life, liberty, and property. I suppose I agree with everything in theory. In practice, I'm not so sure. Life, obvious. Property, mostly obvious (How do you know what's truly yours or just given to you temporarily for your use? Is money truly yours?). Liberty, this is where I have a problem. I don't think we have the same definition of liberty. Or, I just don't fully understand yet the voluntaryist definition of it.
So this is where it gets problematic for me. This whole thing started in this post that includes some talk about taxes. I simply don't see how having to pay taxes is "initiating or starting violence" against people.
Yes, the argument is that it's taking away from your liberty. How so? Because you want to do whatever you want with your money? Is that even your money to begin with? How did you get that money? Did you print that money yourself? Did you create the economic system that allows you to earn money?
The thing is, I see all this as a game. A game has rules. You don't like the rules, don't play the game. Go somewhere else where you agree with the rules. Or, make up your own game. Or, play the game but try to change the rules. Of course, you can also try to eliminate all the rules altogether.
For me, I don't like playing games without rules being agreed beforehand. I want games to be fair and if there are no rules I don't trust all the players to play fairly. Everyone has their own idea of "fair". It will always be impossible to get a consensus. So rules are in place as a compromise. It's something that most, if not all, are willing to accept in order to play the game.
Also, I'm not a generalist. I won't look at a bunch of laws I don't agree with and decide that we're better off without any laws at all. I'll simply agree that those specific laws a stupid and should be done away with. It doesn't mean all the other laws are bad too.
Again, take taxes. I like taxes. I live in a country where taxes work. I like free quality schooling for all children. I like roads and highways. I like public transportation. I like all the things that the taxes help pay for. Is it perfect? No. But how would it work if there were no taxes at all? Ethical people will simply contribute enough money? Good luck with that. I have a lot less faith in humans than you do, if that's the case.
Thank you for the reply.
Governments should be afraid of their people is put in by the maker of the video. Not the writer of the rest of the text. And I believe I can say, knowing the writers philosophy that that is not something he would have put there.
If someone can tell you what you may, and may not do, have to hand over 80% of your labor to them, and are seen to have the right to use and escalate violence, to make you obey. Do you think, that thing and the people who work for it, will ever be afraid of THEIR people? ( the people that they own, the people they can force to do labor and that must hand it over, or be punished?)
If I have agreed with someone to do something for him and he has agreed to give me money (a store of value/ medium of exchange) in return for it. And we agreed upon that in a contract or otherwise, in other words, it's consensual, or playing the game with rules being agreed on beforehand. Can you proof that the money (fruits of my labor) has been gotten unfairly/or is not mine?
Let's say I was living in your "country" and I was your neighbor or friend and I asked you:
What would you personally advocate happen to me personally if I don't pay the demanded tribute to the ruling class to pay for the things you want or deem necessary? Please as be literal and specific as you can.
Do I have the right to come to your house with a gun and say give me your money to pay for the things I like, or deem good?
If there is a law (incl. tax law) that a person is morally opposed to, must that person do what he deems wrong, just for the sake of obeying that law?
I'd like to add;
My reply was not to go in debate or discussion with you (for which I don't have the time) but more a reply on this;
The questions you don't have to answer they are more rethorical (I believe it's called) to show where volutaryism is based upon, which you can do research on....... if you like of course.
I hope you don't mind that I don't want to do long discussions that take a lot of my time and energy.
P.S. I scanned the post you linked and the replies, will read it furrow later.
Peace :)
I'm beginning to wonder if my struggle with understanding voluntaryism is cultural or based on a fundamental difference in way of thinking. I don't view taxation as a tribute to the ruling class. I see it as a means to pay for public services and infrastructure.
I also don't understand why everything ends up with guns and violence. Most of the arguments I've heard so far end with this. Like jaywalking can end in shootouts with the cops. I have trouble comprehending this kind of reasoning. All I can think of is, "What kind of country do you currently live in that every single infraction of the law ends in extreme violence?"
As for laws that you deem wrong, that's an interesting one. If most people deem it wrong then I wonder how it became law in the first place. If only a handful of people find it wrong then tough luck. Either comply, don't comply and face the consequences, leave the jurisdiction of that particular law, or stay and fight to scrap it.
In any case, I'll try to do more research.
Let me walk you trough. ( edit If you want...of course)
What do you personally advocate the cop you hired, should do to me personally if I jaywalk (I did not cause harm in any way)?
Edit (by way of answering these questions I like to explore what you personally think)
Some questions might feel like guilt tripping (I believe it's called that, I'm not a native english speaker or writer)
But that is not the purpose of the questions. They are not personal attacks.
If you don't want to answer that is fine also, no problem at all. Just say so. :)
Well, jaywalking is usually a minor offense and a fine. If you're crossing the street away from the cop, it's unlikely he can be bothered to chase after you. Maybe he remembers your face, maybe he takes a photo and if you'e identified, you receive a bill in the mail.
If you're crossing the street towards the cop, then he may signal to you to stop and turn around. If you insist on crossing the street anyway or he didn't see you initially or you didn't see him, then he stops you after you've crossed over to his side. He then gives you a ticket which you need to pay, not on the spot but at some point.
In my experience (as in, observing other people jaywalk with traffic cops around), cops would never physically stop you from crossing the street. I don't even know how that would work. He runs after you into the street? I suppose he could but I've never seen it. Mostly, I've just seen angry cops. In any case, I don't see how it escalates to shooting. I'm not even sure if traffic cops have guns. But, I guess it's different in your experience or in your country.
Edit:
No problem at all. I'm not a sensitive person so I never take things personally. I also have no emotional or sentimental attachments to any of my beliefs. I'm always happy to challenge my beliefs or explore beliefs that are different from my own. I argue in favor of my beliefs in order to prove them right or prove them wrong. If proven wrong, then I have no problem changing my beliefs at that instant.
So regarding voluntaryism, this is something new to me and I find it interesting. I'm still trying to understand it but so far I agree with some aspects while I disagree with others.
I edited the reply before this one you might want to read it.
But I see you have given me an answer already.
You describe what might happen and what your experiences are. But what I wanted to know is what you advocate being done to me.
Can I make up out of you're answer you would advocate for them to fine me, sending a ticket to my house?
My labor is time, and time is life. If you steal part of my life against my will, am I free?
I see what you're getting at but I don't agree with the logic.
Taxes do not steal part of your life because they do not steal any time away from you. They don't even steal any of your labor. If it does "steal" something then I'd say that it steals part of your perceived value of your labor.
Let's say your labor is worth 100$ per hour. Less taxes, you're left with 70$ in your hand. The value of your labor is still 100$ but from your perspective it's only 70$. So you feel that 30$ has been stolen from you.
On the other hand, you could think of it in a different way. What if the value of your labor is really only 70$ but the government "steals" 30$ from the buyer? It's just that you're collecting the 30$ on behalf of the government which you remit to them later.
My point is, some things are facts and some things are merely opinions based on perspective. Having to pay taxes, that's a fact. That taxes are the equivalent of stealing, that's an opinion. We can easily agree on facts but it's much more difficult to agree on opinion because different people have different perspectives.
By the way, let's pretend I agree with the first part of your statement. Are you free? Yes. Free people get things stolen from them all the time. You are free to try and stop me from stealing. Or, you are free to can go and live somewhere else where I can't steal from you. You are free because I have no control over your actions and you have complete freedom of movement. You just need to be aware that your actions have consequences and I'm also free to react to your actions accordingly.
My effective tax rate is at least a third of my income. That's me working for a third of the year to pay those taxes. That's a LOT of time and a third of my life.
When I am forced to pay something against my will like a "property tax" on a vehicle I was already taxed on when I bought it, that is absolutely without question THEFT. That's not an opinion. The government comes up with ways to extract money from people for the costs it has. If the government was as small as it should be, none of the ridiculously long list of taxes I have to pay would exist. They wouldn't be needed.
You can write what you did in the last paragraph, but ask Peter Schiff's father about it. Oh, wait. You can't. He died in prison because the IRS put him there for failure to pay their taxes. I am not free without paying part of my life, the time I spend laboring, to stay out of prison--or worse avoid being shot.
We'll never agree on this issue. Thanks for the conversation!
Go to any crowded place. Do the countless laws keep the people there peaceful and interacting voluntarily, or are those people simply and naturally already peaceful and voluntaryists?
They are naturally peaceful and seek voluntary interactions. The few predators among us who would force their will on others are vastly outnumbered. When a system is put in place that provides special protections and double standards for a few over others too, the predators gravitate towards the positions within said system. We need to remove those systems and the predators who abuse them.
That's anarchism.
That's voluntaryism. :)
It is governance without government and rules without rulers.
I agree. But you need to define "system". I would agree that some laws provide "special protections and double standards for a few over others". But ALL laws? The whole legal system? I'd need a whole lot of convincing before I'd buy into that. We could just start with taxes, for example. How do taxes provide special protections and double standards for a few over others? Taxes are the reason I started down this rabbit hole.
By the way, there's one thing (well, there are lots of things) I don't understand about voluntaryism. So I'm not supposed to take another life. Okay, but what's the consequence if I do? Let's take your example:
What if there's one non-peaceful non-voluntaryist person in the crowd and he takes one person's life? He then stops and goes about his business peacefully. What's the consequence to him?
Using what little I know about voluntaryist thinking, no one can do anything about it. He didn't touch the life, liberty, or property of anyone else in the crowd so why would anyone else in the crowd touch him? The victim's already dead so he can't seek aide from others for his defense.
And besides, what is there to defend if the victim is already dead? Or are voluntaryists justified in taking action against any aggression to life, liberty, or property? If yes, then what's the extent of that action? Who decides how much retaliation is enough?
I have a moral and ethical duty to defend the lives of others. If someone murders in my presence, I'm witness to it, I have every right to take their life in response. Voluntaryism is not pacifism. Using violence in defense of others and yourself as a last resort is entirely justified. It is also your duty. If you sit idly by and ignore the murderer, you should be held accountable for your lack of response.
Voluntaryism is governance without government. The "system" is the one that creates double standards and special protections. No, we do not seek to remove all laws, but law and enforcement of laws would not be done by a system that is protected by double standards. That is how things are today.
Common law courts would still exist, but they would be made up of volunteers from the local community. You want to ignore those courts and their judgments? Fine, you lose their protection and become an outlaw.
The special protections and double standards I'm referencing are how there are different laws for agents of the state compared to people who are not. I'm talking about how cops can get away with murdering, raping, and beating people when people who are not cops could not.
Everyone should be equal under the law in other words. There should be no special rules for some over others. If a cop can carry a gun in a public school, I should be able to carry one. If a cop can have a drink with dinner while carrying a concealed firearm, I should be able to do the same. The list goes on and on.
Do I have a commonwealth attorney to work for my defense for free if I happen to break a law? No, I do not. Cops shouldn't either. They should have insurance just like me. When they continually harm people and do unjustified harm to others, they should lose their insurance too.
Thanks for your reply! It helps me better understand the voluntaryist point of view.
Everyone already should be equal and cops shouldn't get away with crime. If this is not the case, then I feel it's an implementation problem rather than an ideological one. There are non-voluntaryist countries with governments where everyone is equal and cops can't commit crimes. So I don't think this concept is unique to voluntaryism.
Sure, IF you go through the same (or similar equivalent) qualifying things the cop had to go through before he was allow to carry his gun. This would include training, psychological profiling, review of medical history, other background checks, appropriate testing and certification, etc.
Did I mention that I went through six months of academy for my county to be a sworn deputy? I've had that training. It's a complete joke too. Any idiot could get through it, and that's the objective. There were people qualifying on range day next to me who were too dangerous to ever be around a pistol let alone be a badge carrying officer. It was disgraceful.
We had people who had to cycle through more than once because they were failing the test. The test by the way was absurdly easy. The targets were human sized, and the max distance we got from there was about 50 feet. Some people still could not hit the target 60% of the time to pass. Cops do not get better training, they are not better qualified, and they certainly are not any better emotionally to carry guns.
That is a complete lie and always will be.
I was surrounded by people who couldn't wait to use their powers to beat people up as well. Multiple times during classes people would chime in asking when they could do X or Y to other people. X and Y were of course trampling those people's natural rights and taking advantage of double standards. Speaking of double standards, the police always have them.
What country do you know of that has it where the police have equal powers to the rest, no special protections, and no double standards in regards to criminal defense, etc.? I don't know of one. Police are always given exception after exception, and they are almost always above the law in my ways. That is not ideal at all for individual liberty of course.
Either we are all equal under the basic and common laws, or some of us are subjects and some of us are agents to the crown (so to speak).
Edit: I qualified with a 99.6 on range day, and I missed one bullet for no good reason. I must have had a nervous twitch or something for a second. haha I was sworn in, but they never even made me an ID. They knew I was a publicly outspoken person defending liberty, and they didn't like that one bit. I was quickly suspended for a bogus reason to get rid of me. It was for the best for both sides though I believe.
That's a problem for sure.
I said that there are countries where everyone is equal and cops can't commit crimes. It does not mean that everyone has equal powers. I live in Finland. The cops have a specific job to do so they have certain powers that allow them to do their job. But they don't have special protections against criminal activity. So there are no double standards in that regard. Of course, there is the possibility of abuse of power. And from that point of view, I can see your side. But there's a very high level of trust in the police over here. It's not to say that all the cops are perfect. I'm sure there are some bad ones but I'm confident they get weeded out eventually. At the very least, there are enough good ones that there is no negative image of the police among the general population. If anything, I think the police (and Finnish laws, for that matter) are too nice.
I assume the situation is similar in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. You know, these oppressively socialist hell-holes. 😉
Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if the police there are better. Your country probably has much higher standards for them too. My surname is Cornelison, and my mother was at least a third Swede. If those places were not so cold, I would seriously consider moving to one of them. My family wants to go somewhere warm year round instead though.
You are not a troll. I like when people tolerate my pedantic psychobabble.
Yes. It is a problem whenever people from two very different perspectives try to communicate. In in-person conversations, I would focus on getting people to recognize that people respond differently to different stimuli (some people like country music, and some do not), and that I actually experience a sense of loss when I pay taxes (including lots of business tax and fees) and that I legitimately feel constrained by regulation (business regulations, firearm regulations, employment regulations, and thousands of petty regulations that serve no other purpose than to allow police to stop somebody). I have a draft of a post to give examples of the mountain of petty regulations and how it affects people. I'll post that eventually.
Also note, another user posted some resources. Those resources and nearly all others that you will find in philosophy and political forums on the Internet are derived from a particular brand of Libertarian theory that was recently (past couple decades) popularized by the Mises Institute. I reject their entire paradigm of analysis, called praxeology which is explicitly anti-scientific. I criticize their methods, but some of their ideas might get you thinking. Try looking at Walter Block and his book Defending the Undefendable. I disagree with much of what he says, but he raises some interesting questions.
I've started following you so I'll keep a look out. What I will say though, already now, is this:
You can give all the examples you want but, in my opinion, it only takes one good law to argue against the abolishment of all laws. If you present me with a mountain of petty regulations, I'll most likely agree that we should remove those specific regulations. But I won't simply conclude that all laws and regulations should be removed. For that one good law, I'll still say we keep it. To me, that's basic logic. For example, pointing out all the adult human beings in the world is not going to convince me that all human beings are adults. All it takes is one child to render that argument false.
If you want to prove that we should remove all laws, focus on the so called "good laws". If you can present a mountain of seemingly good laws and show how they are actually bad then you'll have a better chance of convincing me. Back to my example, if you explain that all children are actually adults in waiting then maybe I'll start to think of all human beings as adults. I realize that this is not a very good analogy but hopefully you get my point.
Well, I don't so I can't empathize. And in the absence of empathy, how do you then convince me that taxes are bad? How do you convince me that your feelings are more important than the benefits I perceive from taxation. I'm not even saying taxes are definitely a good thing. It's just my perception. But how do you change that perception?
Yes, they've been very informative and helpful. I'll also check out the other resources you've mentioned. Thanks.
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