Anarchy without anarchy.

One of the biggest fears for people when I bring up a completely free society that is not shackled down by government is the fear of an ensuing chaotic world. I truly believe that it is a legitimate concern but a concern not based off any logical reasoning.

The idea is based off that since the State has ultimate authority over any certain territory the majority of people would be afraid to infringe on the rights of the others since the State would come and make you pay for said actions. If you rob/murder/rape someone the police come and try to find the perpetrator and arrest him. This incentive to not infringe on the rights of others is not profound in a free society so there must be chaos and no mutual agreements among the populace.

What a lot of people miss out on is there are forces much stronger than the State imposed prisons. When people are arrested most are usually let out later regardless of being in a state of mind that is productive for society because of some subjective prison sentencing.

I can easily bring up two forces that could be a possibility in a free society that have happened historically and happen today in stateless societies. One of these forces is a market force based off a type of insurance and the other is based of ostracizing which labels people as outcasts.

The market forces that can be enforced have different beliefs. For example Murray Rothbard believes that it would be in the best interest of the individual to purchase insurance just in case he was cheated i.e. stolen from, raped, etc... Robert P. Murphy a current Anarcho Capitalist believes there would be an incentive for individuals to purchase a so called "voucher system" of insurance where this agency would "vouch" for an individual and if he was to infringe on the rights of others or break contract it would be that agency to give retribution to the victim/victims instead of the insurance agency of a victim to give retribution. Although no one can possibly say which system would emerge I believe that Murphy has the most plausible solution to a free market response with the voucher system.

This has very important implications in a society with no government. If you have an agency that basically vouches for you it is in their best interest to make sure you are someone worth vouching for. If not it would cost them money to pay retribution if said person violated someone else. The more risky you were as an individual the more costly your premiums would cost so it would be in the individual's best interest to be as risk-free as possible. If you were thought to be a risk-free person and you violated this trust that the agency had in you they could revoke their vouch for you and you would have a hard time finding an agency to continue to vouch for you. When this happens a market force would void you from being able to belong in a society where a coherent voucher system existed.

Now perhaps let's say the voucher system didn't quite work out for a certain case. This case is one though where society realized that the ruling, the ruling based off this blog post of mine, didn't make any sense. The agency could say that a judge ruled in favor of their client and therefor did not owe the would be victim any retribution. If the society realized that the judge made a faulty decision the society itself could ostracize the perpetrator and not allow this person on their property. So society could easily account for bad rulings or even rulings that might have influenced by money.

What we must realize is that comparing apples to apples, the state vs a free society, the free society would be able to provide a more moral system of justice. There would be no anarchy within this anarchic system. There would only be free people freely deciding how to best live their own lives.

Forced Education

I know some people have been asking me to start commenting on news and especially local news. Here's a good story about how EPISD goes around trying to get dropouts back into school, no doubt nothing short of a noble cause. Below is a link to the official story.

EPISD combats high drop out rate.

What is the problem with forced education in the first place and is the EPISD doing a good job to society by trying to bring the students back to school?

I'll first bring up trying to get the dropouts back into school. Why are these kids dropping out in the first place? What are the socio-economic reasons the kids are generally dropping out of school? It seems as if these issues aren't first addressed EPISD will be a dog chasing its own tail. I can have a blog SERIES on issues like this that are caused by government intervention. We as a society might address what causes problems not the end result of the problems or else the problems never go away.

Now what about forced education instituted by government? I can quickly lay out many problems on a moral and economic foundation that hurt society more than we think it might help it.

Moral Foundations -

1)Using force to make people do anything, even if it's "for their own good", is nothing short of slavery.

2) It should be up to the parents what the children to do. For those skeptics I'm sure most parents would rather have their children be in school than not be. Besides, no amount of government could change the minds of those whose opinions would differ.

3) If the student so chooses to not go to school and disobey the parents then it their choice to do so. If the parents want him to go to school but he doesn't want to they have the choice to make him leave the household. It would then be the in that students best interest to take full responsibilities for himself and live his life.



Economic Foundations -

1)By forcing students into school when they would rather be working artificially lowers the supply of workers which distorts the market.

2)People who would gladly provide competition for work are not allowed to and would therefore be forced to be out of work instead of being a productive member of society. In need of money but not being able to earn legitimately.. hmmm... I wonder what that would lead to.

3)Poverty would NOT increase as many people would think. Not many people want to live in poverty but are forced to go to school instead of work. Forcing people to waste time when they could be working and providing for themselves and family is morally and economically wrong.

Let's get government out of our lives. We will become more educated people, more prosperous people, and more free people.

Living free with a cage around you.

Although I'm a hopeful man I'm also not blinded by my hopes. I realize the State most likely will not dissolve overnight nor will it dissolve anytime soon. It will take very extreme measures for people to realize the evils of the State and even farther for people to want to abolish it and live completely free.

So how do those of us that are Voluntarists/Anarcho-Capitalists live the philosophy that we have? I definitely try to follow the adage of "Live your Philosophy".

Our philosophy stems from the premise of non-aggression and the non-initiation of force.

What can this really mean in a society where aggression and the initiation of force is at every corner? Taxes are levied for whatever reason at the expense of the people, property is not true property, and people's money is at the hand of big banksters.

My first message is to always spread the message. This is the biggest anti-state thing we can do to the State.

People would probably also expect for me to state that you should never enjoy a job that pays through the use of taxes. I don't really align with this premise and believe in what Murray Rothbard had to say about the topic. To sum it up he said you can have these jobs and be morally okay to do the job as long as your position is in reduction of the State. Ron Paul doesn't defy voluntarist ideology because he's a politician, he's perfectly in line with our ideas because overall his goal is to reduce the State. A policeman could be in line with these ideas as well as long as his goal is to only keep peace and not arrest people for victimless crimes which is there personal choice.

I believe the next idea is to be more self-sufficient. I would NOT argue that you should be 100% self-sufficient unless you completely wanted to. Remember that the division of labor is what got us out of the cavemen days to how we are now. Buy from those who do NOT use the State to give them an edge in the market. This companies could be local or even large companies.

One of the most important things I'd like to say is that we should all strive to trade our dollars for goods that hold value long term. Gold and silver are typically the best commodities for this and have been for centuries. Realize that this is not an investment or a way to make quick buck. Having your reserves in gold and silver is the only true way to save as inflation is killing the value of dollars over time.

START READING!! The only way to be a truly free individual is to be knowledgeable.

The last thing I can think of is civil disobedience. This is something that I don't personally do but make it my goal to support those that do as much as I can. Ultimately this is your choice but you risk your very livelihood in the process. I believe we do a lot more good by teaching than jail time. I like to do things that won't get me arrested but aren't seen very much. Like open carry my revolver as often as I can. Not to cause a disturbance or get people scared but to show that I am a free man and I should be free to do what I want as long as I don't hurt anyone.

Drugs and the prohibition that destroys society.

As liberty advocates we should all be in favor of completely free markets. A free market is exactly that, freedom to buy and sell without government getting involved in any way. With the idea of freedom comes the possibility of trade of what we today call "drugs" but are just goods like everything else. If there is a market for it these goods will be produced not because the producers are evil doers but because there is a demand for it by consumers.

What happens when government intervenes in the market and outlaws certain goods? A number of things happen. A "new" market is created the "black" market, the good becomes artificially scarce, and there's a new risk involved when conducting market transactions for the good.

What does this mean for society? The black market that erupts is usually overtaken by mafias and gangs who are willing to break the laws to provide for the demand. As we can see in Mexico drug lords make a would be peaceful market into one of complete chaos and destruction to retain a monopoly of control that the government has given them. There's no peaceful means of competition when the market is obstructed by government intervention. If you think there would be violence with a market of drugs I need only point you to the states that have allowed dispensaries and you don't see them going and shooting each other over territory.

The scarcity that is created artificially now leads to a "street" price that is much more than a free market would allow for. People who would be peacefully entering voluntary transactions in the market are now forced to pay more for a good then they would be otherwise.

The risk that is created also leads prices to rise because of the possibility of incarceration.

A free society would allow for free men and women to decide upon themselves what goods they would like to buy. A free market would make these goods more readily available at lower costs and higher quality.

The State hampers any economy and on top of its already monopoly of violence that it commands over the people it creates even more violence when intervening in the marketplace when restricting goods that people demand.

Illegal immigration in a free society?

It's definitely a fact that immigration policy is of enormous concern to the citizens in America. The right wants to stop illegal immigration and the left wants to not criminalize it. It seems that we can't seem to understand that these immigrants are human beings. We must look at what causes immigration to our country in the first place in the positive respect and in the negative. At the positive side people will come from a bad economy to a better economy in order to obtain a better life. This isn't so much true anymore at least for America because we have net emigration, more people leaving the country than coming into it. So although there ARE people coming here to benefit their lives or of the lives of their family there are people coming here for negative reasons. Many come here for the ability to be a leech on the welfare state, just like OTHER Americans who are doing the same thing. If we have a problem with people coming over here to leech off the system we should have a problem with those who are born here and doing the same thing. Eliminate the welfare state and there won't be an incentive to leech off of a system but an incentive to work like everyone else and earn your living. The other problem people have with immigrants is that some of them are criminals. Some of them are thiefs, drug dealers, and other things that are involved with crime. But there are the same kind of criminals already here and no amount of government can prevent criminals from being criminals. Sure those that go through the "legal" process are at a disadvantage because they have to spend a lot of time and money to the State for the privilege to enter. I blame the horrible process that people must go through that keeps out the poor and only helps the privileged.

But what exactly is immigration in a free society? Can there be illegal immigration in a free society?

In a free society people would be travelling on private property at all times. Immigration would simply be people travelling from a non-free nation to the free society and wanting to settle there. I'd like to believe that the economy of our free society would be so much better than all other nation-states that people would be constantly flocking to our free society for a better life. There would be no such thing as illegal immigration because there would be no state stopping people from freely entering other peoples private property. But what if people with private property didn't want to let people come in? Sure that's a reasonable assumption but not one that would be based on any reasonable logic. It would be in our best interest to allow people in and out freely as the market dictates so that we could further make our economy more efficient, prices lower, and the quality of our products higher. Restricting travel doesn't make any economic sense so there's no reason to believe that would be the norm. A free society allows all human beings to travel where they please to do whatever they please. Only a free society can morally adapt to people migrating from one area to another.

Money money money!

Government, sooooooooo good.

A meme I created on why government is so good.

Rothbard on Government intervention

A meme I created on Rothbard and government intervention.

Money? What is that?

One of the major ideas in the liberty movement has been for sound money. Many in the movement understand the basic premise that inflationary methods employed by the federal reserve is bad for the value of our dollar. Most, though, still have trouble with understanding why we advocate a gold backed dollar instead of a nothing backed dollar or even an apples backed dollar. When trying to discuss this idea with others it becomes even more troubling, I know because I did as well. The conversation always goes to why gold or why hard money? What are the benefits of hard money over a fiat money system? First I'd like to discuss what money is and how it came to be then I'll discuss why it is better than fiat currency. Money came about when direct exchange of one good for another good was realized to not be efficient. Someone in history made note that a certain good was more easily trade able, let's say wheat, than other goods were and so it was in their best interest to trade for the wheat. This is because in the future it would be easier to trade that wheat for something else. As this became the norm for individuals acting in an economy certain goods beat out other goods as a good medium of exchange for indirect transactions. History shows that hard metals were typically used as the medium of exchange be it copper, silver, and gold. It should be noted that all the mediums of exchange that emerged are themselves commodities in the market that require labor to produce them. This is the inherent scarcity that is intricately within anything that is truly money, which in a human mind gives it value. Other characteristics of a "good" money is it should be easily divisible as well as not lose value when being divided, it should be recognizable, stable value, and it doesn't decay over time. Each of these play an important role in what people choose to be the dominant medium of exchange in any market and is why gold has been considered a medium of exchange for so long. The liberty movement notes that gold has been money for a long time and this is why we choose the "gold standard" but it must be said that gold doesn't necessarily need to be the medium of exchange, we must allow the market to decide that. Now why is fiat money so bad? I have no problem with paper money but I have a problem with paper money based on nothing, i.e. fiat, forced on individuals at the hands of the State. In a free market people would choose what types of mediums of exchange are to be used and the most efficient medium of exchange would emerge as the norm. If you chose to use hard money, paper money based on hard money, or fiat money it would be your decision and the market would play its role. Having the State force fiat money onto the populace has always led to inflationary policies that lessen the value of the money in your pocket, this is what we call the inflation tax and all taxes are theft. When the State gives a monopoly of the money supply to a private banking company it is illogical and naive to believe that this company has our best interests as they can print and continue to lend money to the government which puts more money in their pockets. At the very least let's legalize competition between money so that we can choose our own paths. In a free society, without the backing of the State, inflationary policies would not work and our money would have a stable value over long periods of time. Don't allow the American people to be slaves to those in control of our money but let's fight and demand control of the value of our money by individuals acting in the market, it's the only moral option we have.

When will you take the next step?

Although I had had liberty minded ideas for a long time before I took the next step into voluntarism it wasn't until I came upon a couple of different readings that I made the transition. I didn't come upon these things by happenstance but through my quest of learning what exactly freedom is. What the logical foundation for such a thing is as well as its ethical and moral implications. This is how I've gotten here. My question is when are you going to take the next step? When are you going to reject the state in its every form for the evil that it is? As a libertarian I eventually went to the belief in minarchism, which essentially states that the only role for government in society is to protect private property and contract. There's a joke that's told about minarchists that goes like so "What's the difference between a minarchist and an anarchist? 6 months." It's true because I left minarchism and that's because it'll take you about that much time to learn about the beauty that is the Non-Aggression Principle. It is wrong to breach the Non-Aggression Principle and the State can only exist by breaching it, so its very existence is based on a foundation of immorality.

But what about the poor?

In a society where government intervention is rampant, like in America today, we see that the government is constantly "trying" to "help" the poor. Although I will whole heartedly say that the government has good intentions to protect the poor and help them I will note that their attempts have been futile at the very best. What we have in America today is a welfare state that has essentially kept the poor exactly that poor. We have minimum wages, rent control, and even worse forced unions. In a free society exactly how are the poor helped so they can have a better life? I will note that it is my goal to help everyone live a better life especially those who are poor. That is something I learned through my parents who constantly helped, voluntarily I'll note, those less fortunate than us that were in our family. I learned that I have a moral obligation to help people less fortunate than I am and this is without the use of the force that the State must enforce to "help" the poor. I will also state that the use of government control of the market in the forms of inflation, minimum wage laws, and rent controls in fact hurts the poor more than could ever make them better as well as the welfare state. As usual this is beyond the scope of this post but if you'd like me to expand on this please comment and I have no problem doing so. The scope of this post is to show how a true voluntary society could better help the poor than the State could ever wish to do so. In a voluntary society most believe that the poor would be completely helpless because they simply could not afford things. How will the poor afford protection, health care, emergency care, etc...? These are all straw man arguments that are based off the CURRENT situation. Basically since it is now hard for the poor to afford such things in our current system of statism where the government attempts to help it would be impossible for them to afford them without government. We must first understand why it is hard for the poor to afford such things in our current system and if it would be in the poor's best interest to live in a free society. Remember that us Voluntarist's idea of society is NOT a utopia by any means we just believe it to be a better society than what we have now. The poor would have much better access to those things we see as essential today for a few reasons. The first reason would be the abolishment of a central bank that has caused the value of all hard earned dollars to diminish at exponential rates. It would be a simple fact that what the poor earned would be far more worth in value what they are in the society we have today. Without government regulation of a completely free market we would see a much cheaper product with higher quality in all services that would be provided. This means that protection, health care, and emergency care plus more would be much more affordable to those with a lower income. The poor were adequately taken care of before the intervention of medicare and medicaid through the use of the voluntary choices of individuals who had a belief that is was a moral obligation to support charities. BUT TIMES ARE DIFFERENT they say people are more greedy than they ever were before. What must be realized is that the bulk of charity is NOT given by the wealthiest but by an accumulation of the middle class who far out give than the rich. We do not need the State to force charity, what we need is moral people voluntarily giving to help those less fortunate. Anything more than that is theft through taxation and can never morally be justified.

A free society and the laws that bind it

As we've been raised and educated about the American "justice" system it is the only form of "justice" we've come to know. So it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine a world that could live without something that's been indoctrinated in our minds for more than 200 years. There exists though two justifications for the removal of the State and the so called justice system we have that live intrinsically in the State. The first is a moral justification, which is the strongest of the two, which notes that the State uses the monopoly of force and violence to implement such laws that individuals have no choice but to follow. I believe in a voluntary society where one can live without the use of force when such laws may be in place that still violate natural rights and are therefor not natural laws, I will get into natural laws in a little. The second justification is an economic one which goes hand and hand with the moral justification. I would argue, although not in this post, that all goods can be better served to consumers in a completely free market at a lower price and higher quality than government could ever imagine to accomplish with the use of compulsion and coercion. These justifications lay the foundations for a society that would be free from the State and flourish while individuals are safe from tyranny. Before I get into how private law can work we must first realize that just because there are current laws that forbid stealing, murder, etc it doesn't mean that without these laws people will en mass go on a spree of stealing and murdering. I know I would do no such things and I'm pretty sure you would do no such things. But I am a practical man and realize that there are bad people in this world that will do bad things but no amount of government can stop these people. In a free society where property rights exist as noted in my Property post there would exist a market for private law that could protect property which includes land and of course your body. At first it seems strange to expect to live in a world with no police, but of course even today where we have police they can only do so much and most of the time it is of course after the fact. In a free society there would exist a market for protection services to be had. These would be voluntary services that consumers would pay for and the protection services would be held accountable to these very consumers. Competition between protection firms would create firms that would produce great quality protection at a low cost. The wealthiest would pay higher costs to have higher quality services akin to bodyguards. Those that are not as wealthy could pool money together to pay to protect the community. There would also exist an incentive for certain firms to produce protection at very low costs that the poor could afford. This is how all goods exist in the somewhat free market that we have today and protective services are goods as well. Now to address the ideas of private law and how they would exist to protect individuals in a free market is one in the same as protective services. Arbitration exists outside of courts to settle disputes today so as to avoid going through the long process of public court. The idea is already set in place as people voluntarily choose to settle disputes with arbiters that both sides agree to go to and accept their decisions. This is an easy solution that exists where there are disputes that both parties would like to solve. The harder problem lies in the fact that sometimes people won't want to settle disputes with you and will avoid arbitration. The instances something like this might come to be is perhaps in the crimes of theft and murder and such. If for example someone steals your tv and for whichever reason you know who it is (you caught him leaving your house or caught it on video) and you would like to retrieve your property you might choose to confront him peacefully to get it back. He of course would say that he did not steal the tv and that he got it in some honest way. As the peaceful person you are, even though you could morally walk in and take it with force, you decide to settle the dispute in a civil matter. Your next course of action would be to see if this person would like to settle the dispute with an arbiter. He of course would claim he stole no property and has no reason to settle a dispute. Your next course of action would be to offer this man a choice of arbiters that you would agree to go to, let's say 10 different arbiters, and he could choose whichever he wanted to go to. You would also say that if he didn't choose one you would choose one to go to where he didn't have to represent himself but it would be in his best interest to do so. Once again he would refuse to go and you would seek an arbiter that has proven to give just decisions. This arbiter, seeing that you had proof that your tv was stolen by this man, would rule in your favor and would seek to get your tv back with a private service. This is how certain disputes could be solved in a voluntary society free of the State. The best arbiters would be chosen by consumers who would be able to choose the arbiters that best fit their ideas. Just like most of the laws we have that protect property are based on natural rights arose natural rights would MOST LIKLEY arise in a free market since most people would believe in such things as pointed out by St. Thomas Aquinas here http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/natlaw.html