In Favor of Voluntarism

This is a response (or the beginning of a response) to a post titled A Critique of Anarchism by cspice.  You should read his article first to understand my response.

I’ll take anarchy, which could be translated literally as “no rulers”, to mean “no philosophical and legal monopoly on governance (in a given region)”.  The usual form of government declares a kind of absolute authority and monopoly over a region and is often also called a “state”, whereas an anarchic government does not “rule” in the same way since it does not deem as inherently criminal the act of providing the same governing services in competition.  I tend to use the word agency when referring to anarchic providers of law and defense.  Although anarchy implies that there is a market of governments, it does not necessarily mean that those governments are anarchic, so the market is not necessarily very “free” since your only option may be to flee from one tyranny to another.

The key idea within free-market anarchism that attracts me is the “free” part — voluntarism, that is, voluntary non-coerced support of law and defense agencies.  You should be legally free to withdraw support from any service you don’t want or disagree with.  Involuntary coerced support occurs, for example, unjustly in the case of unjustified taxes or justly in the case when an agency protects a victim and takes wealth from the criminal to reimburse the victim and help pay for the service.  So criminals may be involuntarily forced to support a voluntarist agency.  The idea behind voluntarism, for me, is that if you are going to take money from me involuntarily, you need to at least explain to me what I’ve done to obstruct someone else’s rights and then use the money appropriately (in your scheme) to benefit the individuals I’ve wronged.  Otherwise, I will consider your agency to be commiting theft and to be illegitimate and worth fighting against, and I will declare it to be so.  I don’t believe that force is justified for simply solving collective action problems.*  So it is true that voluntarism (and the non-aggression axiom) is a relative concept and depends on the rights or principles deemed fundamental, since an act may be criminal in one system but not criminal in another.**  In addition to fighting against non-voluntarism, i.e., theft, I will also fight against agencies that I conclude have incorrect fundamentals, but I will view them as more legitimate if they can justify themselves with relatively good arguments.***

*(It’s possible that I could be convinced otherwise, though.  By the way, a geolibertarian minarchist state seems to be legitimate, so long as it returns the land/resource tax money to the appropriate people with very little overhead and not diverting funds to causes, such as military, that are unassociated with common land and resource deprivation.)

**(There may be multiple systems of self-consistent fundamentals where no single system is better than the others, even in the eyes of like-minded libertarians.)

***(I reject dubious and fuzzy fundamentals such as “everyone must pay their ‘fair share’ to [the managers of] society” or “most rich people get their wealth through shady means, thus we should take a large chunk of wealth from every rich person to even things out”.  With these fundamentals, I’m deemed a criminal if I don’t “voluntarily” pay my “fair share” as determined by the social managers, and I’m eventually persued by armed agents to be locked up in a box or worse.  I have a higher bar for what counts as a crime, and I see these fundamentals to benefit mostly the social managers and their superiors.  Systems with these fundamentals do not qualify as voluntarist in my conception.)

The “market” part of free-market anarchism can benefit with competition, but as you point out, natural monopolies may occur, and that is okay in some circumstances.  If these natural monopolies are inevitable, then I just hope that in some region on Earth we can form an agency of my own liking that becomes a natural monopoly based upon principles including voluntarism.  A voluntarist government that achieves natural monopoly would not be a legal monopoly and so would not stop anyone from forming a non-criminal agency, whether or not the founding principles are the same its own.  With such a government in existence, people all over the world who share these principles would have an option to move to that region.  So instability towards monopolization is okay so long as some region is monopolized naturally with the right principles.  Of course, I’m not willing to fight for instances of poor governance merely to increase competition (supposedly to enhance “anarchy”).  I just want to see the next model of good governance enter the market somewhere and succeed!

Now, about your proposed scenario: I think it is a good tool to use in thinking about the potential instability of free-market anarchy.  A conclusion one might draw is that if you are seeking dramatic change in governance, you might want to try to achieve that change in a small region first, or country that does not have one of the better forms of government, since you risk devolution.  Also, you should consider creating robust internal checks and balances in any agency you create since the checks and balances of market competition may disappear with monopolization.  But if you actually carry out the scenario, if you act as a dictator for 10 years and force propaganda on everyone during that time, that could very well turn everyone against your cause (or not), whatever the cause is.  In my case it’s particularly hypocritical to be a dictator professing voluntarism.  I find this method to be problematic, contradictory to my principles, and extremely unrealistic.  For these reason I disagree with your proposed method of selecting the proper government; we may have to find other simplifying scenarios to make further analyses.

However, if I was somehow forced into that situation, or if we additionally assume that no one can become embittered by the process (including myself), maybe I would handle it this way.  Depending on what the circumstances are in this scenario, it might simply make sense for me dismantle as much of the abusive parts of government (almost the whole thing) as I can and then retool it for my own voluntarist agency and some other similarly principled agencies.  Instead of totalitarian propaganda, I’ll assume that I just have extremely favorable media coverage for the 10 years, which I can use to my advantage.  Other people could form agencies too, but they wouldn’t get any or much of the reclaimed government property and capital or nearly as much favorable media coverage.  (It would be helpful during the 10-year period to see what competition arises and have some idea of what will be in store after the “dictatorship” ends and the media become more critical.)  Depending on how successful my favored agencies are over the 10 years, people may or may not become loyal to their causes, and some segments of society may eventually swarm to alternate agencies.  To take this possiblility into account, during the 10 years I might urge people who like my pet agency to move to a certain area so that its continued success would be more likely.

Even if people are given an opportunity to choose a philosophically sound agency, unsound agencies may win out in most of the world for frivolous reasons, maybe due to conscious or unconscious psychological defects in humanity or clever trickery by the agencies.  Voluntarism may not work for many people, since they will not be willing to take responsibility for their own actions or they might see it as somehow unfair, but I think a sub-society of voluntarists can grow.  This cause may lead me to move to a particular location in the world to help set up such a society, but perhaps it won’t have to be a geographically contiguous society.

I think to fight for voluntarism requires the use of voluntarism.  A couple related slogans are “be the change you want to see in the world,” and “take care of the means, and the end will take care of itself.”  Furthermore, people may not evolve politically that quickly (10 years).  By that I don’t mean that it takes a “new man” for voluntarism to work.  I think it takes time for a culture that accepts voluntarism to develop.  The growth of a small highly successful and wealthy voluntarist market-anarchistic society would be a powerful example and source of (truthful) propaganda to the world (especially to the nearby populations and tourists).  I think the best propaganda will come from voluntarist efforts around the world fighting for their causes.  (Although not really voluntarist, I think Wikileaks and Julian Assange are a great current example.  Assange is helping to force markets to be free and will potentially help to delegitimize traditional government.)  It may be a long, slow organic growth to achieve voluntarist culture on a relatively large scale, but it may be much quicker if they people the collapse of their sacred states due to their own ineptitude.  However it happens, once you have such a culture, it could also be a matter of time for the culture to devolve back into more barbarous states.  The structure of society may always be determined by the struggles between ambitious people and their interests, be they for good or ill.

I think it will be easier to create and sustain voluntarist societies as parts of society progress, as (certain influential) people become more rational through science and the rise of the arts and methods of rationality, as the libertarian tradition becomes better known and the history of tyrrany is revealed, and as the technological tools of justice are developed.  (Of course, we need to understand human psychology and irrationality to learn how to use or combat it.)  Not that you’ve said this, but I think it’s incorrect to conclude that since humans have found themselves with corrupt governments over and over again through history, and especially today since they nearly control everyone, that humans will necessarily forever find themselves stuck with such governments.

In a world of thieves, enslavers, (including most taxers and politicians) and murderers (including many soldiers), acting morally may be seen as dangerous.  One might think, if you don’t acquire power and subjects before another criminal group does, you may become just another of their subjects.  If you allow people to voluntarily have access to your power, at a price that allows you to sustain and extend your power, people may not choose your services.  If people choose foolishly in a voluntarist society, you may be invaded or worse.  You might become a martyr for the voluntarist cause!  I think this is not so likely, though.

I don’t want to become a martyr, but I’m also not willing to become corrupt.  I’m still learning about potential resolutions to the defense issue and other issues (see links below), but I’m optimistic about finding solutions.  (Maybe next I should respond specifically to the defense issue.)  I’m willing to take the risks of voluntarism and fight for good governance that does not unjustly obtain funding.

More information about free market anarchism:

• Brief explanation of anarcho capitalism
• “Chaos Theory: Two Essays On Market Anarchy” (private law and private defense)
  free pdf or buy book or free audio
  Order of files: 1. Foreword and Acknowledgements; 2. Introduction; 3. Private Law; 4. Private Defense
• Libertarian Anarchism: Responses to Ten Objections

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