Enjoy Some Educational Anarchy

I want to take a break from talking about The Voluntaryist to let you know about a wonderful opportunity coming up this weekend. It’s a free, online “unconference” perfect for freedom-minded individuals.

From the site:

Agora I/O is a new un-conference where you’ll find the greatest people, ideas and tools for advancing liberty. Agora I/O happens online, so anyone can participate. Plus it’s free! Our first conference, “Étienne,” runs from March 25th to 27th, 2011.

There is so much I could say about this idea, but I won’t because I’m too busy, having gotten myself into trouble. See, I jumped in and offered to do a presentation. It will be broadcast Sunday March 27 at 3:00 and is titled “Unschooling: Educational Anarchy for the Whole Family.” I will talk about the philosophy of unschooling and relate stories and examples from my family’s life.

If you’ve read the page on this blog titled My Journey, where I posted the article I wrote for The Voluntaryist titled “A Self-Educated Chicken,” you know how much of a cheerleader I am for unschooling and lifelong learning. You also know that I think freedom to follow your interests is a vital aspect of learning.

This conference is all that! People deciding they have an interest and information to share and people attending who are interested in the topics offered. Matching up interests and people in this way means everyone is guaranteed to learn a lot.

If you check out the list of speakers, you will see names of people you’ve heard of before and some you haven’t. I have interacted online with some of them, like George Donnelly (presenting on "Open Source Peaceful Evolution for Fun and Profit" and more), who has been working hard to make this project happen.

And two others, Pete Eyre (presenting on “Effective Activism: Foundation to Impact”) and Jason Talley (presenting on “Being the Media in Your Community”), I have met in person through their previous projects, The Motorhome Diaries and Liberty on Tour.

Those two even came to visit me at my home out here in suburbia. Which means they can say they spent the night with The Suburban Voluntaryist. But I’m not sure they would.

This conference itself is Unschooling in Action. Check it out.

(The anarchy symbol in top pic is courtesy of wikimedia)

Ideas and Candles

For me, understanding all the nuances behind the idea of copyright has been somewhat difficult and confusing. So the article in Issue 16 of The Voluntaryist, "Contra Copyright," written by Wendy McElroy (which was originally part of a debate), made me feel better because in the very first sentence she says it’s a complicated issue.

I found this article interesting in a historical context since this was written before the internet really started creating havoc with its ease of sharing information. The debate has not ended though and I suppose some would say it’s just getting started.

To understand the issue of copyright, we have to understand how copyright relates to the idea of property and ownership of property. Wendy tells us that Benjamin Tucker put forth a great analysis:

Tucker addressed this question in fundamental terms. He asked why the concept of property originated in the first place. If ideas are viewed as problem-solving devices, as answers to questions, then what about the nature of reality and the nature of man gave rise to the idea of property. In a brilliant analysis. Tucker concluded that property arose as a means of solving conflicts caused by scarcity. Since all goods are scarce, there is competition for their use. Since the same chair cannot be used in the same manner at the same time by two individuals: it was necessary to determine who should use the chair. Property resolved this problem. The owner of the chair determined its use. "If it were possible," wrote Tucker, "and if it had always been possible, for an unlimited number of individuals to use to an unlimited extent and in an unlimited number of places the same concrete things at the same time, there would never have been any such thing as the institution of property." Since the same idea or pattern can be used by an unlimited number to an unlimited extent in unlimited locations, he concluded that copyright ran counter to the very purpose of property itself — which was to ascertain the correct allocation of a scarce good.

So, ideas and information are different, you can’t completely hand over an idea or information to someone else - you can only share it. I like the example she gave that came from Thomas Jefferson. He compared an idea to lighting a candle. The light is an idea. If I have a lit candle and I light your candle with mine, you now have a lit candle but so do I. I’ve passed it along by sharing it with you but I haven’t given up any property.

Wendy is a proponent of free market copyright and one point she clarifies early on is that the market can and does create standards spontaneously. It appears that this is holding true, at least as far as the online world is concerned. If I understand it all correctly, one solution being developed is Creative Commons, where it looks to me like people freely share ideas and information contingent on a variety of chosen market-based copyright claims.

I have to say the biggest thing this article did for me was make me realize I really don’t have a good handle on this issue. If anyone has any resources they’d like to pass on, please do so in the comments section because my candle is completely melted.

The Bill of Rights Merely Legitimizes Government

From nearly the beginning of this project, Carl has responded to various posts recommending that I read a particular article in a future issue that relates to the topic I’ve discussed.

Up to now I have not taken his advice. I had this idea that I wanted to read the issues in order, not only to learn more about the Voluntaryist viewpoint itself, but to also get a feel as to how this particular project moved forward, in and out of the historical context of recent decades.

Yet, just as Carl has tirelessly continued his work publishing The Voluntaryist, he continues to recommend upcoming articles. He’s been like that guy who knows what’s coming up in a movie, talking in my ear as I’m watching, “Oh Debbie, wait until you see this next part, it’s so cool!” (I’m sure you all visualize Carl as I do, jumping up and down in anticipation, wanting me to read on, right?)

"Thanks Carl," I say, "I’m sure it is, but I’ll see it when I get there."

Well, as anyone can see by the speed at which I am moving forward, it’s entirely possible I may not get there - unless I live to be about 124 according to my calculations.

So this time I decided to take him up on it and see how reading ahead works for me. I can still continue to read in order, but to not take advantage of Carl’s knowledge of what’s in future issues that could help us all get a clearer picture of a particular topic is kind of missing a main benefit to even doing this project. Besides, this project is called Debbie AND Carl.

In addition, Joe offered this comment on the same post (Is the Constitution Preventing Further Progress of Freedom?):

“Debbie, I think that the Constitution is first and foremost a political instrument. It's only the Bill of Rights that may be considered to be based on some philosophical truths, and even then it insists on maintaining statist doctrines such as eminent domain.”

So I went to the article in issue 101, published December 1999, and read “ ‘The Illusion is Liberty – The Reality is Leviathan’: A Voluntaryist Perspective on the Bill of Rights.”

Carl writes at the beginning of this article:

This article was sparked by an essay written by Forrest McDonald entitled "The Bill of Rights: Unnecessary and Pernicious," in which he presents the thesis (which he shares with some other historians) that the first ten amendments to the federal Constitution were essentially a legitimizing device used by those favoring a strong central government. In other words, many Americans who otherwise might not have supported the new central government were won over to it by the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Reading McDonald's article led me to review some of the history of the adoption of the Bill of Rights, of the conflict between the Federalists and their opponents, the Anti-Federalists, of the strategy adopted by the Federalists in urging the ratification of the Constitution, and to consider the ultimate significance of the Bill of Rights. Would we, as late 20th Century Americans, have been better or worse off' had the Bill of Rights never been adopted? What would American constitutional history look like if there had been no Bill of Rights? The purpose of this article is to examine these topics from a Voluntaryist perspective, and to decide what position the committed Voluntaryist would have taken during the struggle for the ratification of the Constitution and the adoption of the first ten amendments.

This article doesn’t give anything away about the publication that I just don't want to know yet and it is full of juicy tidbits for the brain to chew on. Here are just a few:

• The Declaration of Independence was a statist document. (For an example, see page 1 of this article.)
• Americans simply traded one state for another
• The Federalists and Anti-Federalists were not arguing over whether there should be government to rule men, but only what form it should take.
• There are several violations of individual rights contained in the Bill of Rights. (For examples, see page 5.)
• The Bill of Rights has not protected American Citizens during some of the most critical times in our nation’s history. (For examples, see page 6.)

Now I’m going to be like that person who’s taking you to a movie I’ve seen before and encourage you to read ahead. Maybe you’ll reach a similar conclusion as Carl (I know I did.):

Constitutions and bills of rights are legitimizing tools of the ruling elite. Both are badges of slavery not liberty, and should be rejected. It is only when people awaken to these facts that they will become free.

Is the Constitution Preventing Further Progress of Freedom?

Issue 15 of The Voluntaryist is entirely devoted to a single article by George Smith, titled “Property Rights and Free Trade in Ideas.” George sets up his purpose here:

“In this paper I shall examine two arguments for freedom of conscience and religious toleration. There is, first, the moral argument based on property rights, specifically, the argument that every individual has "property in his own conscience." There is, second, the social argument that diversity of religious belief is desirable, and that from the conflict and competition of religious ideologies, truth will spontaneously emerge.”

One point that seems to run throughout this article is that although religion was historically a big impetus for the movement towards freedom in general, the arguments used to defend religious freedom from government control were not always applied consistently to other areas, education for example.

In other words, religious liberty is just one aspect of liberty of conscience, or self-ownership. The article goes into greater historical detail and I invite you to read it if interested.

The part I want to pull out here is George’s explanation of why he chose to focus his article on English writers:

“…The moral and social implications of liberty of conscience and religion are covered more elaborately, and with more attention to fundamentals, in nineteenth-century England than in nineteenth century America. The fact that English dissenters were struggling against an Established Church undoubtedly accounts for some of this.

But I suggest that another factor was operating, which makes England a more interesting field of study from a purely philosophic perspective. After ratification of the U.S. Constitution, church-state controversies in America typically revolved around Constitutional arguments, especially the Bill of Rights and its prohibition of a religious establishment. Consequently, arguments in nineteenth century America are often legalistic and resort to legal precedent and the intentions of the founding fathers.

… English libertarians had no Constitutional amendment to which they could appeal. And, to the extent that appeal could be made to the British Constitution, it clearly favored an established Church. An established Church enjoyed legal precedent of longstanding in England.

This forced English dissenters to develop moral and social arguments in favor of liberty of conscience and religion. Elaborate theoretical systems were required to combat an established church grounded in legal tradition. Legalistic arguments gave way to moral, social, and political arguments. This, I believe, is why we find a greater stress in England on moral principles and spontaneous order, and on theoretical considerations generally.

This is also why English thought is more interesting historically. If we wish to bypass constitutional interpretations peculiar to one country and focus instead on moral and social underpinnings, English thought provides an ideal case study.”

This brings up something I’ve been wondering about for some time now: is the Constitution getting in the way of real freedom?

So many, when asked to make reasoned arguments for their positions, simply say “It’s in the Constitution,” as if that in itself answers the question of any philosophical underpinning for their view and determines the truth.

But does it?

Of course I understand that the Constitution started from what were considered to be basic philosophical truths, but it’s also a political document. And as such, it went through the gauntlet of political compromise, which always waters down basic philosophical principles. This also opened it up to endless interpretation by a variety of biased viewpoints. (Ironically the exact problem humans have experienced with religious texts.)

Consider this in relation to the views of a man George discusses in this article, Henry Robinson:

“From the free competition of ideas, he (Robinson) argued, truth will emerge; suppress ideas, even wrong ideas, and truth will suffer. Competition, whether in commerce or ideas, produces vitality and life; imposed uniformity produces stagnation and death.”

So, looking at this from the perspective of Robinson, is the worship and legalistic reliance on the Constitution for answers keeping us from moving forward with the free competition of ideas which are necessary for the emergence of truth, and ultimately, complete liberty?

Should You Give a Damn About Your Reputation?

The last article in Issue 14 of The Voluntaryist is titled “Business Keeps Business Honest,” written by William Vandersteel, who at the time was an associate of the Institute for Humane Studies.

Mr. Vandersteel makes a very good case that our justice system interferes with one of the best ways we have of evaluating potential trade partners: reputation. He writes:

“Not only does our justice system serve little purpose in trade and commerce but its very presence is often counter productive, as is shown by the many businesses and industries that thrive as though our justice system did not exist.”

He shares examples in his article, one of which is the wholesale diamond industry and says mutual trust is often not really based on any real moral sense but on our own self-interest - people will be honest and desire a good reputation because it increases the chances of success.

Also, our justice system can keep people from being as vigilant as we should be in choosing business partners:

The fact is, business would thrive in the absence of our coercive justice system, but an enormous premium would be attached to the integrity of all participants. Before entering into any contract all parties would take great pains to ascertain the integrity of each participant, knowing full well that the performance of the contract rests solely on their reputation for honesty.

By the same token, individuals would strive always to act properly and with the highest integrity, knowing equally well that any blemish on their reputations would virtually bar them from participating in any future business ventures. All this leads to the inevitable conclusion that the very presence of a government
justice system, along with the coercive enforcement measures, invites fraud and crime and tempts individuals to substitute force for integrity.

So yeah we all want a good reputation. Well except for:



Wasn’t that fun? I was waiting for a post where I could listen to some Joan Jett! I love her attitude and style. Now, don’t think Joan doesn’t care about her reputation, I’m sure she’s really no different than the rest of us.

Heck, in rock and roll a “bad reputation” can actually be a good thing because that’s the way the marketing model is set up. But in the end it’s really all about selling music. If I didn’t like to bang my head and listen to the way she screams “ow,” I wouldn’t buy any of her stuff.

I also like how my husband plays out this reputation idea. He’s a self-employed computer consultant and sometimes businesses ask about contracts. He always tells them he doesn’t need one. “My contract is I’ll do the job and if you pay me, I’ll come back. If you don’t want me to come back, then don’t pay me. I’m willing to take responsibility for our first interaction and save all the hassles that go along with contracts.”

It’s all very informal and it works. (EDIT: I had a comment from Carl on this because he said it came across as if my husband didn't expect to get paid, unless the client wanted him to come back. Carl said he presumes my husband expects to get paid for his work - contract or not - but if there is disagreement or hassle, he simply concedes, doesn't worry about his loss, and moves on to the next client. To which my husband says, "exactly." Hope that clears up any confusion or misinterpretation.)

I really need to go now because I want to bang my head some more with Joan so let's end this post with Mr. Vandersteel's ending paragraph, which was great:

The United States Supreme Court once ruled in a sex-related case that behavior between consenting adults was none of the government's business. This ruling is correct in principle and should apply across the board. Trade is one form of behavior between consenting adults and, therefore, should also be none of the government's business.

Really Stepping Into It Now: Abortion

The subject of this post is abortion so go put on your protective gear. Just kidding. Really, no matter where you stand, I think you will agree that, as usual, Wendy McElroy has written an excellent piece, full of well reasoned arguments.

This article also made me wonder about something that I haven’t really thought much about before which you can read about at the end of this post. But first here’s an overview of her article, published in Issue 14, “What Does It Mean To Be An Individual?”

One of the first points Wendy hopes to make clear is the difference between “morality and rights, between the moral and the legal”:

Peaceful activities may be moral or immoral, but they never violate rights. Taking drugs, gambling, or lying to a friend may or may not be immoral, but they are not a violation of rights. In libertarianism, the purpose of law is to protect rights, not to enforce virtue as such; the law does not concern itself with the morality of an action but asks only if it is invasive.

Many people oppose abortion on moral grounds without considering it to be a violation of rights which should be addressed by law. I have no argument with this particular antiabortion position. My argument is with anti-abortionists who attempt to translate their personal moral convictions into laws restricting what I may do with my body. . . those who advocate mandatory motherhood.

Wendy takes the abortion issue down to the root of all rights issues, the concept of self-ownership. When do we actually become individuals? She points out that there are really only two objective possibilities: conception and birth.

She gives credit to the Libertarians for Life in that they don’t draw on the idea of a “potential” human being, but that an actual human being with individual rights occurs at conception.

However, Wendy draws her line at the other end and bases this on biological factors:

An essential characteristic — indeed, a prerequisite — of considering something to be an individual is that it be a discrete entity, a thing in and of itself. Until the point of birth, however, the fetus is not a separate entity; it is a biological aspect of the pregnant woman which possesses the capacity to become discreet. At birth, the fetus is biologically autonomous and is a self-owner with full individual rights. Although it cannot survive
without assistance, this does not affect its biological independence; it is simply the dependence that any helpless individual experiences.

Let's rephrase this argument; having a DNA encoding, which is all that is provably present at the point of conception when rights are assigned, is not sufficient grounds to claim individual rights.

What is missing? The missing piece is individuality...autonomy . . . a biologically discreet person. As long as the fetus is physically within the woman's body, nourished by the food she eats, sustained by the air she breathes, dependent upon her circulatory system, it cannot claim individual rights because it is not an individual. It is part of the woman's body and subject to her discretion.

Birth is the point at which the fetus becomes an actual human being. There is no point, other than conception, at which such a clear, objective change occurs in the status of the fetus. All other changes are a matter of degree rather than of kind and, thus are, inadequate for legal theory which demands a definable point of enforcement.

The enforcement aspect of any law against abortion, is another point she spends a lot of time on and you can read more about this for yourself. What I’d like to discuss now revolves around a trail my mind took when I read her phrase “mandatory motherhood.”

This made me think about the concept of “mandatory fatherhood” and how that does or does not play into the abortion debate. Nothing about fatherhood is addressed in this article. Should it be?

If the father wants an abortion and the woman refuses to have one, does the father have any responsibility once the baby is born? If so, then doesn’t that mean he is subject to “mandatory fatherhood” in such instances?

What about the reverse? If the father wants the baby but the woman wants an abortion, I guess he has no say at all since pregnancy requires the mother’s body, right? If I base this on the concept of self-ownership, I’d have to concede this because that would conflict with the self-ownership rights of the mother to her own body.

But I still can’t help but wonder whether the concept of parenthood is completely separate from the abortion issue. If Wendy uses “mandatory motherhood” in her piece, doesn’t that mean the concept of “mandatory fatherhood” also has to exist? And if so, doesn’t this affect the self-ownership of the man in instances where he wants the abortion but the woman doesn’t?

This article just made me think more about the distinct differences in the ability to become a father, a man must have the use of another person's body in order to become a father but to become a mother only requires a single sperm, not another individual's body.

I’m trying to figure out whether this is relevant and how it plays into the abortion discussion. What do you think?

An Intellectual Foundation for Liberty

Carl writes an article in Issue 14 about The Freedom School, an educational project started by Robert Lefevre. This article is a nice history of the struggles and successes Lefevre experienced during the 10 years the school was in existence in Colorado. Carl decided to write about the school because he thought it was time for a Freedom School II:

Now why does the author of this article believe that, 15 years after the demise of the Freedom School, it is time for Freedom School II? The answer to that question is largely premised on the view that education is the most moral and effective way to promote libertarian ideas. Politically speaking the last decade has been disastrous for libertarians because people were led to believe that electoral politics could change things around. No intellectual foundation was ever laid. Had the money spent on trying to win elections been spent on a Freedom School, the educational efforts would have resulted in many thousands of people becoming well informed and self-disciplined individualists. The political process will never accomplish this: nor will violent revolutionary attempts to alter the structure of government or society succeed, because attitudes and ideas have to be changed first. When the Freedom School was operating it contributed enormously to the comprehension that thousands of people had for the meaning, significance and implications of human liberty. "More persons were taught personal self-discipline, self-control, personal responsibility, and independence than at any other time in this century."

Well, we’re 10 years into a new century now and guess what? There is a Freedom School II. An online version anyway.

A fellow who goes by the name of Anthony Freeman is continuing Lefevre’s idea and offering a way to study online. (Anthony also has another site where you can learn more about his beliefs.)

In this computer age, there are many sites to visit for those who want to learn about the ideas of liberty, most notably mises.org which has loads of Lefevre-specific resources. But this Freedom School site, established in January, 2010 specifically claims a desire to continue Lefevre’s work with The Freedom School.

This Freedom School offers an organized curriculum, complete with study assignments, which is nice for those who want structure. No specified tuition is required, only donations, which means this learning project accessible to almost anyone who may be interested.

I hope people take advantage of this, because as Carl’s says in the article:

The existence and creation of an all-voluntary society depends on there being sufficient numbers of informed, thinking people who accept personal responsibility for their own existence and who refuse to resort to violence in any form. The person who convinces himself that voluntaryism is humane, moral and practical remains convinced forever. As LeFevre has written, "From this procedure there can be no backlash. More and more persons, self-motivated and self-controlled, simply stop engaging in the existing social devises which impose on others. They break their ties with the existing political structures; not by violence, not by trying to obtain majorities or using force, but by understanding and then thinking differently about the whole area of human relationship."