The Voluntary Society

I. Intro

The Voluntary society, it’s something that we often think we already live in. However, we do not live
entirely in a voluntary society and it is a farce to think we do. The Voluntary Society from the bottom up is
a society based on voluntary consent in all interactions between any and all people. There is no initiation
of force; all things must be contractual, or agreed upon in some way or form. Statism is not Voluntaryism;
the State is a flawed institution because it initiates violence and threatens the use of force with those who
disagree with its mandates. The timing for speaking out against the idea of the State is ripe, and we find
ourselves uniquely positioned to speak of the benefits of a free and open society. There are two
arguments I will present in this article that should cover two quick ways in which one can potentially
convert people to this thinking.

II. The Failure of Statism

All the failures of the State can be traced back to one particular feature about the State. That cursed
feature being the weakness of instituting one idea and forcing it on all, while simultaneously rejecting any
and all alternatives. How can one say they are free when the gun in the room is modifying their behavior
to act according to the whims of the said political class, the embodiment of status-quo thinking? You
can’t. If the state must exist, it must institute one idea and that being the idea of Natural Rights, or
popularly defined as liberty. Once it does it that, people will be more productive if the political parasitic
class just got out of the way and stopped leeching and interfering in the lives of those they rule. However,
rulership at its very core is involuntary, it bluntly implies one who rules and one who is ruled, one is higher
than the other, it should not matter if that rulership is from “the people” or god-given it is still rulership and
that implies one ruled and one who is ruled, which is at its root slavery and slavery is involuntary. You are
a slave to the political ruling class; you live for it with your time and your energy. This is why socialism
(the true idea of the state) sought to destroy religion wherever its ideas were enforced: The Worldly
Stately god was competing for the time and energy of the transcend God founded in religion.

So long as the State exists you are involuntarily being forced to hand over your labor (time and energy) to
the State which is not so much “the people,” you are not giving your time and energy to old Mrs. Jones
down the street your giving it to your representative ruler who may want to raise taxation levels to plunder
from your labor even more! Maybe he might not want to do that, maybe he may want to spend the portion
of your labor on some program or project you disagree with, can you say “I want my money back” or “If
you go through with this project I am not going to give you a portion of my labor anymore”? If you do that,
they call the cops and arrest you for evading the means to finance what they willed, even if you disagree.
So is that right, is that voluntary, and is that freedom or slavery?

Before I continue, let me just show you a contrast between a statist society and a voluntary society. Let’s
say, people gather together to form a communal community, it’s pretty peaceful, resources are shared
amongst all, but one member from the community says “we have such a great idea let’s take this and
share it with everyone” but that member does not understand government is force and he goes to the
government to institute these ideas, people are angry and violence and corruption ensues, what
happened? One member from a particular train of thinking came and forced his worldview on everyone
else, whether they liked it or not. Therefore, if government must exist the only idea it must institute is
freedom, freedom in this case would be to allow the individual to choose whether they will adopt the
worldview of that one member of that particular community or not. In a voluntary society however, where
there is no centralized place to institute and force ideas and beliefs on people, that communal community
has claim only within itself and the things it owns as a collective, if it seeks to expand people must be
willing to relinquish their property voluntarily (which means you need to give something of higher value to
said property owner that trumps the property itself) or join that communal community, voluntarily without
threat of force of course.
III. The Time is Ripe for A Voluntary Society

The timing for speaking of a voluntary society is upon us. The Ruling Class has shown its true colors, it
did not matter if that ruling class was a tyrannical king and his council of lords or if it was a
representational governance. The ruling class is the exploiter; the ruling class is the leech on the
productivity of the productive class; the ruling class is those who arbitrarily rule over all. Not even the
American system of governance was able to prevent its inevitable growth and arbitrary nature from
forcing itself on all. The Federalist Papers promised the people of this country long ago that, “The
conclusion which I am warranted in drawing from these observations is, that a mere demarcation on
parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those
encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same
hands.” (Federalist No. 48)

You would think that people would see that the whole purpose to the American form of governance was a
jealous guarding of party philosophy, constitutional roles and two branches of governance calling out the
unlawful infringements of the other branch of governance, or vice-versa. Yet we do not do this today, no
today our government has relinquished philosophy for pragmatic approach of “whatever works” as well as
this idea of “cooperation and tolerance” or better known as “bi-partisanship” from the two dominant ruling
parties. Today we see living proof of this in the mainstream media whenever they attack politicians for
NOT being bi-partisan or being too stubborn, prolonging the debate on an issue. This is un-American, the
whole point is to debate, not merely to surrender and “tolerate” what the other wants to do. Yet this is the
farthest extent of government, when the very people who are supposed to jealously guard their power
(States V. Federal – Legislative V. Executive – Law V. Arbitrary Whim… etc) out of some “good feelings”
of emotional sentiment do not jealously guard there power, but work together.

Now you see what I see, the nature of the State is to grow and through all the separations of power
working together now, not even the law itself can stop it, because they were the ones charged to uphold
and protect the law itself. That only covers America, now look at the multicultural movement that has
taken over the world and know that the ruling classes of all the other nations are doing the same thing,
both within their country and with each other. Suddenly the competition of individual sovereign nation
states falls away at the wayside, because now they are all “cooperating” with each other, not merely
through trade but alliances.

Let’s look at the history of the State and the typical cycle that States go. Statism has existed since the
Stone Age, we needed to huddle together to survive, so collectivism was the means to do that, it was
often the Alpha Male (aggressive and domineering) who was the leader of the family. At the time of the
agricultural revolution, when we began settling down, that is when there was the need to protect not only
our lives, but our property that was emphasized and this is when the State (monopoly on protection and
courts) was founded. Today there are many of us, and individualism can be emphasized. Statism has
been around since the Agricultural Revolution and we can all agree that the States that came about
during the Agricultural Revolution do not exist anymore. States rise and fall, they do so because they are
based on the initiation of force. States typically start off small and limited and as time goes on, prosperity
increases and the population does too, and in time the ruling class gets increasingly greedy and lusts for
more from the people they rule over, of course, these intentions are masked behind some moral
argument assuming the government has some tie to the people they rule over. Inevitably the state
crumbles from its own oppressiveness and from its own corruption, bringing the rest of society down with
it into a time of darkness and chaos, only for this whole cycle to start again, but why? Inevitably violence
and centralized power destroys all, because no one respects the voluntary will of the individual anymore.

I believe you see what I see now, those who were supposed to be separated now have come to a new
reason not be separated, those who were supposed to jealously guard what little power they have, now
consolidate. I think you see our fate; the idea to separate power does not work anymore, because now
the rulers can always come up with new arguments to trick and deceive those they rule to allow the
rulership to affiliate with one another. This is a threat to liberty, everywhere, Statism once again proves to
everyone who wants to be free that the State cannot work because it is the centralization of power, and
whether your intentions are good or evil, any moral reason, any concern for your fellow human being is
destroyed the minute you use the force of government to do what you think is right. You have merely
attempted to fix one injustice by instituting a new one and have made yourself and others that less free in
the process. I believe the timing is right, to talk about something new, to talk about creating a society in
which you have the freedom to choose whether or not you want to do something and the same with
everyone else around you. A society of consent not institutionalized violence.

IV. Why Voluntaryism

So why; why a voluntary society? What good could it bring if the force of government is not keeping the
peace anymore? There are three arguments for creating a voluntary society, one has to do with one of
the other arguments and the other while obvious is often overlooked and neglected. The first is the
“Against Me” argument of Stefan Molyneux. The second argument is overlooked observation of Mutual
Benefit. The final argument has is somewhat similar to the first argument and I call it, the “What About…?”
Argument.

The first argument that helped change my perspective on this was Stefan Molyneux, who is a Market
Anarchist, which is someone who says the State should be dissolved and the marketplace should offer
the services the state provides. I digress though, the argument I watched him offer is simply called the
“Against Me” argument and in it he proposes that whatever the person you are debating with in regards to
some socio-political issue you tell that person that you’re not going to stop them from writing a check to
fund that program or initiative but, than you tell them that you disagree and you ask them if you are
allowed to act on this disagreement without having to look forward to violence being used against you
when you act on said disagreement, if they say yes, than they are sane human beings and you can work
incrementally the ideas of voluntaryism and natural rights into their mindset. If they say no, than they are
insane, alpha humans who are willing to initiate violence from that you back away from them and end the
discussion right there or call them out on using violence Against YOU Personally. This argument is the
initial argument that one can use to raise the awareness of what The State inevitably is all about.

The second argument is the overlooked argument and it is really in the form of a question, but the
argument is called The Mutual Benefit Argument. It goes simply like this, “When do you have your best
and most valuable experiences, when you are forced to do something or when you want to do it?” This is
the mutual benefit argument, but this argument more expanded has to do largely with the fact that
Voluntary Agreements lead to prosperity and force leads only to slavery. Let’s say you and your date go
out to the movies, you will both need to agree on which movie to see, otherwise it’s not much of a date if
you’re not in the same theater together, let alone seeing the same film. You want to see Film X for its
Action and your date wants to see Film Y for its Suspense, well you both need to agree on some film so
you and your date agree to see Film Z because it’s a thriller/horror flick, therefore you both voluntary
agreed to see a second option film and you both mutually benefit because, you reached an agreement,
the date is still on, and you both saw the same film that you both wanted to see. Of course, voluntary
consent could be achieved in a number ways, but at the very least you are not bothered by what is
happening and at the very best you have something to gain. Now, change the perspective now, imagine
that your date is abusive to you, you’re threatened with verbal abuse in the public and physical abuse in
private the only thing you can admit now is that you are coerced to see Film Y. Now ask yourself, who
benefits? Certainly not you; you were threatened and abused and least of all you did not see the film you
wanted to see or there was no negotiation to compromise. This is the nature of the state, the abusive
date.

The third argument is similar to the above two arguments and I call it the, “What About…?” Argument. It’s
similar to the first because, people are concerned about people who are at a disadvantage so they ask,
“Well, what about…?” or “who will do…?” This is an expansion of Stefan Molyneux’s own counter
arguments people may give you. It’s similar to the second argument, because it has to do with mutual
benefits as opposed to force. So for example, we have a voluntary society setup no gives any of their
labor or a portion of the fruit of their labor away unless the individual wants to. You may ask, “That’s nice,
but in this society we have the town fulfill the need for sanitation, what is going to fulfill the role of
sanitation in a voluntary society?” Well there are often two most commonly tried and true routes you can
travel, the first is voluntary organizations, grassroots, not for profit organizations that rely on peoples kind
donations to do something about the sanitation issues, the other route is a business firm that is employed
to offer sanitation services to subscribers or customers. The odds are both routes will be traveled, the
sanitation business for the major issues and the voluntary organization for the lighter ones, perhaps it
could be the agency for neighborhood beautification, of course I speak in singular, there can be many
firms and voluntary organizations. Then you may say, “Well that sounds reasonable but what about
people who cannot afford the rate of any of the business firms who do sanitation, what becomes of their
waste?” Again the voluntary organization would be setup to address that issue; perhaps the neighbors
around that person in question will help with waste issues, there are many alternatives that can be
presented to fix such an issue and this goes for any and all things that people have been so acquainted to
government doing.

My mindset at the time of me writing this is, “If You Care So Much, Do Something About It, But Do Not
Force It On The Community Around You To Fix What You Care About.” Now I can understand if you do
not have time or resources to pull it off but in such a society you would talk to people who might be able
to do something, bring everyone together who has the same concern and form something voluntary to act
on that concern. If someone disagrees than fine let them, but you need to respect them enough to let
them act on that disagreement. Remember this is a voluntary society, and as long as no one infringes on
the Natural Rights of others there is freedom.

V. Conclusion

To sum up my ideas now I tell you the truth and speak frankly about this, a truly Free, Open, and
Prosperous Society is built on the foundation of personal responsibility for yourself and those you are
responsible for and voluntary consent for all interactions with the people around you. Without personal
responsibility you become dependent on someone to provide for you, and if that person or entity uses
force against you or anyone else than you are not free but a slave. Without voluntary consent in all that
you do you are not seen as equal, but as an inferior to the ones who force you to do something or not to
do something and because of that you are once again a slave.

So you are probably wondering than, why do I support people like Ron Paul and the movement that he
started, in their own crusade against the state without being people who necessarily call for the end of the
state. According to all that I have written, I make the State look like a slave master, an abusive one at
that. By giving my support to the Limited Statists I seem to be acting hypocritically, but I do not think I am.
The reasoning I give is that, if limited statism means limited number of whippings than, I would prefer to
catch a breather from the number of whippings I am getting now, with the number of even unlawful (by
Constitutional Standards) laws and regulations on human freedom. So I help to both reduce and hopefully
end the whipping that an entity of force seeks to give, by giving back to the community the freedom to
make voluntary choice in as many things as possible, this will prove my case that voluntary consent
means mutual benefit for all parties involved and inevitably the desire to make a fully voluntary society
made manifest. Remember what Washington told us about government as well, “Government is not
reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” So it really
cannot be denied what the nature of the State is, and better yet the ruling class itself. Nonetheless, this is
the Liberty Movement for a reason, I only offer you an alternative nothing more, nothing less because with
freedom comes alternatives and possibilities.

I do not know who is reading this, you could be running for office, you could be an entrepreneur or you
could be a parent, a laborer, a friend it does not matter who. I speak from the perspective as human being
to human being; individual to individual. The minority is not a black person, a Hispanic person, an Asian
person, or anything of that sort. No, the only minority is the person; the individual; you and if I want to be
free than I must have you in mind why? Because the only way one can be free is if one lives in a society
that respects the true minority, the individual. Like I said above, the individual than must be allowed to be
responsible to their selves and gives voluntary consent to all the individuals they interact with. I leave you
with one last thought to contemplate after reading this manifesto of mine:
“Freedom is the mother, not the daughter, of order.”
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon