WHAT IS VOLUNTARYISM?

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The key concept in Voluntaryism is that all of our interactions in society should be voluntary, by our own consent.

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Carl Watner, editor of The Voluntaryist, explains Voluntaryism this way:

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"Voluntaryism is the doctrine that relations among people should be by mutual consent, or not at all. It represents a means, an end, and an insight. Voluntaryism does not argue for the specific form that voluntary arrangements will take; only that force be abandoned so that individuals in society may flourish. As it is the means which determine the end, the goal of an all voluntary society must be sought voluntarily. People cannot be coerced into freedom. Hence, the use of the free market, education, persuasion, and non-violent resistance as the primary ways to change people’s ideas about the State. The voluntaryist insight, that all tyranny and government are grounded upon popular acceptance, explains why voluntary means are sufficient to attain that end"

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In a voluntaryist society, neither the preservation of the government nor the maintenance of its power are purposes for which people should be kidnapped, beaten, caged, or killed. For the voluntaryist a government is not as or more important than the individual. Voluntaryists believe that the reason people should share a government system and agree to live by its laws should do so because they voluntarily agree to be a part of that system because it benefits them and their families. Governments are meant to serve the individual, the individual is not meant to serve the government.

 

Voluntaryists expect governments to function in the same way that restaurants and stores do- by meeting your needs in the best way possible for the lowest costs or you’ll choose another service and there is nothing your previous one can do about it. The voluntaryist believes that this is the only way you can have a just government as just governments can only exist by the consent of the governed. It also prevents overweening governments from being able to compel you to obey unjust rules because if it did so it would lose support and funding as people quit it for better systems.

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Voluntaryism it all its forms -libertarianism, anarchism, agorism,etc.- rejects violence as a means to assert power or a foundation upon which to establish order. The political philosopher William Godwin explained why succinctly:

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"Let us consider the effect that coercion produces upon the mind of him against whom it is employed. It cannot begin with convincing; it is no argument. It begins with producing the sensation of pain, and the sentiment of distaste. It begins with violently alienating the mind from the truth with which we wish it to be impressed. It includes in it a tacit confession of imbecility. If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is important, but he really punishes me because his argument is weak."

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The State does not exist because it makes the most sense nor because it functions the best of all possible choices. It exists because those who depend on it for their positions and power will beat, cage, or kill all others who offer it any significant challenge. Because the argument for it -the position that peace, justice, liberty, and prosperity cannot be achieved except by this political monopoly that uses brutal violence against all those who question it and which exists solely through extorting and stealing funds from the public through violently enforced taxation- is weak and obviously nonsense when it is stated plainly in the most obvious way the only way for the State to exist is through forced compliance.

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This is what Voluntaryism rejects for the better way of interactions and society based upon mutual benefit, voluntarily chosen exactly because those involved see the way that being involved helps them and promotes their success. All of the reasons people depend on the State -legal systems, social roles, societal order, justice, security, etc.- can and do exist without need of statist systems.

 

Organizations that function within the State as governments but which aren’t part of the formal political system - social clubs, volunteer organizations, neighborhood watches, private schools etc. They all are voluntary systems which people take part in because they provide for the basic needs of those involved in ways that the State has not and can not do. They all replace the State by providing the wants and needs of their members, getting them access to that which the State has promised to provide but which cannot.

 

And to the degree that violence is an element in any of them -such as in gangs- it is in response to the violence that the State uses to try and dominate people and control what they do or do not do to their own bodies through brute force. While some may be more preferable than others, they all testify to the ability of society to voluntarily organize itself and for individuals and groups to voluntarily provide for their own wants and needs without the centralized control of a political elite dominating every aspect of life through violence.

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