Intro to Voluntaryism – Decentralized, Individualist Order

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What follows is a very brief, and hopefully concise, introduction to voluntaryism. The philosophical view that maintains all legitimate human interactions must be voluntary and consensual. Check the links in each numbered tenet for a video resource supporting the point. 

1. You Own Your Body – No individual has a higher claim to your body or life than you. Not a government. Not police. Not politicians. Not parents or friends. Not a religion. You are the highest authority in your own life. This immutable reality is attested to not only by praxeological observation (watching how humans universally act) but by biology itself.

2. Taxation Is Theft – Or, more precisely, extortion. There is no way around this. Anytime money is taken from an individual under threat of violence – even if it is for something they may have wanted otherwise – it is theft. If I claim the right to someone else's property, which they acquired via their body, that they own, I am making an ownership claim over their body. A mugger giving you a Starbucks gift card after taking your wallet, is still mugging you. 

3. There Is Only Private Property – 'Public property' is an anti-concept, absurd due to the fact that ownership entails exclusive use rights. Because I own my car, I get to say who uses it, how and when it is used. Private property owners may decide to use their property in common, but this is different than government conceptions of 'public property.' A library for example, is said to be owned by everyone paying taxes for it, but only one individual or group of individuals ultimately get to decide the policies that govern the library. 

4. Objective Necessity of Universalized Rights  – The individual is the smallest minority. If minimum potential violent conflict is the goal of any society, that society's rights must apply universally to all members of said society. There can be no kings, police, politicians, or other special people that have 'extra rights' or 'greater rights' than any other individual. To grant these arbitrary privileges is to potentiate conflict, as disagreements will no longer be settled via a universalized property norm extending from body ownership and applying equally to each individual, but via the arbitrary whims and desires of 'special classes'. For individuals not desiring minimum violent conflict, this discussion is pointless in the first place. 

5. Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) – Because you own your body, and by extension, property, it is never justified for someone to initiate aggression or violence against you. Once they have done so, they have forfeited their recognition self-ownership, and it is your right to defend yourself against them. NO MATTER WHO THEY ARE, OR WHAT THEIR PROFESSION OR TITLE.

That's it, in a nutshell. For those who protest that there are still gray areas that would cause problems or create new evil governments, sure, there are some gray areas where policy is concerned. And policy built on these objective axioms of peace would need to address such conflicts. But there are not nearly as many such areas as those limitless, insane and amorphous religious beliefs create that constitute statism's 'divine right to rule' madness and accepted massacre of hundreds of millions (not even counting wars) in the name of peace and order. 

Voluntaryism is decentralized. Policies may differ from community to community, and that's okay. We don't need to kill or cage everyone that disagrees with us, because we can disassociate. Statism is forced association.

Finally, consequentialist arguments do not matter where body ownership is concerned. Chattel slavery was wrong regardless of potential agricultural difficulties resultant from ending it. The 'but who will build the roads without taxes!?' protest is as silly as the historical 'but who will pick the cotton without the slaves!?' protests.

For those sincerely wondering how laws, roads, and general societal order could be managed in a 100% voluntaryist society, please see this excellent resource for one of many ideas. 

-GS