Maybe I'm Not A Voluntaryist, Part 2

As I would have predicted, the responses I received on my last post varied on whether or not to take Social Security. Reviewing the feedback from a couple of people made me think more about how I was letting my decision revolve around how others might react.

I expressed that concern when I said this: “Carl says accepting such funds is not a step to a better you or a free society. I completely agree and yet I can’t honestly say I wouldn’t do it. It seems to punish others who may feel an obligation or desire to help me out if I suffer consequences by not accepting the money. Carl might say I would be teaching them the best lesson I could and maybe he’s right. But why doesn’t that feel right?”

I had been playing out various scenarios in my head when I wrote that. I already know I could change my current lifestyle to live on much less so I imagined myself doing what I need to do to not accept Social Security.

But even under that scenario of making it work, I still wondered how it would affect others, specifically my kids. Would it look like I was really “poor” or needed help? And if so, how would they feel about that? Would they feel responsible or obligated to help me out in some way?

If I did manage to actually live by my principles and refuse social security, how would my kids feel, knowing that I might live somewhat differently (i.e. “better”) if I took it? Would they want to just say, “Dammit Mom, just take the money.”

Not wanting to even put them in that position is what had me admitting I might take Social Security.

But after thinking about it more, I realized the scenario I played out in my head just wouldn’t happen within my family. They would clearly understand why I could not take it and they would know that I’d be at peace with myself in doing so. Therefore they would not feel any responsibility in regards to the consequences of my individual choices because they know I would understand and accept those consequences.

They already know that I would not expect anything from them. They know they owe me absolutely nothing. They know I am responsible for my decisions.

Duh. Of course they know all of this; it’s how we raised them. Why did I seem to forget that? They can make their own decisions and I will make mine and I know they would respect that and be comfortable in knowing that I would do it because I would need to live my principles. They know I would not feel right accepting it considering I now know the truth about Social Security and can’t go back and pretend I’m ignorant of it all.

There are also other possibilities I did not consider in regards to their reaction that makes me feel bad in a way. I never considered that they may voluntarily (not out of some irrational sense of obligation) take some action purely because they want to show support for my decision. I also didn’t consider that none of this precludes our entering into mutual voluntary trade agreements which would help me do what I needed to do to live by my principles if I did end up struggling in some way.

But regardless of all of that, no matter what I do, the manner in which it will affect them is purely up to them isn’t it? If I am free to make my own choices and accept the consequences of my actions in life then obviously so are they. I can’t control how they may feel or what choices they may make as a result. I can only make the choices that are right for me and explain to them why I make my decisions.

Maybe I’m starting to get this stuff. I don’t know.

One last point on this: it also hasn’t escaped me that I can do these blog posts until I die, telling myself that I am doing something positive to help educate myself and others on the ideas of freedom, but it would really not be nearly equal to just stopping right here, right now, vowing to never take Social Security and go out and do everything I possibly can so that I am not ever in a position where I’m even tempted to cash one of those checks.

So if I don’t come back here, I guess now you’ll know why. : )

Maybe I'm Not A Voluntaryist

This is the hardest blog post I’ve written during this project so far. I think I may not be as principled or as dedicated to my principles as I hoped. This realization has been creeping in as I’ve worked on this project but the article that prompted these current feelings is in Issue 31 titled, “I Don’t Want NOTHING from HIM!” written of course by the amazing and principled Carl Watner.

This article is about accepting benefits from the State and uses Social Security as the example. Let’s get the hard part out of the way first – I can see myself accepting Social Security when the time comes. (Of course, it’s a whole other blog post as to whether or not it will even exist when the time does come.)

Anyway, yes I find it very difficult to say I wouldn’t take it and still be honest and truthful. There are reasons, or perhaps we should call them justifications, that I use when I imagine myself accepting it. Many of them are directly addressed by Carl in this article and you will want to read how he answers them.

Social Security is one of those government programs where people have a more clear idea, or yes perhaps delusion, that they actually paid into it and therefore can justify taking some of it back - the idea that it’s perfectly moral to take back property stolen from you.

To answer this, Carl points out, rightly I’d say, that this is not the reality. If we accept that Social Security is not really an investment program, which any libertarian would have to do upon seeing the evidence, then the funds received are not recovery of your stolen property; the government has merely stolen from someone else to “pay you back.”

I must accept this as true. However, if not accepting SS is the correct moral action, then to be consistent wouldn’t we need to constantly analyze where the money from our voluntary trades come from? For example, if I sold a product or performed a service for someone who I know is living on Social Security, I am accepting stolen funds am I not? How is this different?

Am I justifying this so I can pretend I still hold to the principle of non-aggression? I suppose it’s easier to clearly delinate it when you actually get a check from the government. But still, there are times when we all know we are being paid for something with government funds and still accept it.

I also go back to what I said in this post that once the gun is pointed at you, it changes the morality of a situation.

I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t have what it takes to truly live by the principles I say are important to me. If I define a sacrifice as “too much,” I’m not going to do it. I know for a fact I would never go to jail on the principle that taxation is theft by refusing to pay taxes.

And yet, I think I understand the inner pull from those who do. I literally HAD to write this post. I HAD to be honest and tell the truth. I could not be comfortable in my own skin if I didn’t do that.

So what does it mean to say that on the other hand, I can justify taking SS? After all, I know it won’t feel good because I am not ignorant of the truth. But I can still see myself doing so.

Carl says accepting such funds is not a step to a better you or a free society. I completely agree and yet I can’t honestly say I wouldn’t do it. It seems to punish others who may feel an obligation or desire to help me out if I suffer consequences by not accepting the money. Carl might say I would be teaching them the best lesson I could and maybe he’s right. But why doesn’t that feel right?

And yet even that justification doesn’t quite match with some other areas of my life. For example, I’ve decided that I will not hold back when I see things going on locally through government. I’ve decided to point them out, to lay out the truth and not let people ignore those truths. Just this past weekend, I experienced some backlash from telling the truth and it was hard to get through. But after going through it, I’m almost even more dedicated to continue doing so. Even though it could even affect those I care about I know I will still do it because I have to do it.

Yes, that clearly contradicts with the justification I used about SS.

I guess in the end we all draw our lines in different places and then justify those lines. The question that needs answering then is where do those lines originate and what happens to make us move them, in either direction?


(Icon image courtesy of wikimedia)

A Return to Voluntary Libraries

Issue 31 of "The Voluntaryist" contains an article by Carl Watner, “Libraries in the Voluntaryist Tradition" and as you can probably already imagine, there were many variations of voluntary libraries in the past.

Religious institutions formed private voluntary libraries. Ben Franklin started a subscription library, The Library Company of Philadelphia. There were specialized libraries formed by various tradesmen groups. Hospitals had libraries and private schools had libraries.

And let’s not forget the individual. After all, even if you own only one book, and loan it to a friend, you’ve just performed the same service that any other library does.

So how did we end up with the government-funded entities we see today?

As Carl explains the history, in part it just sounds like another example of that proverbial frog in boiling water because by the time the idea started, cities were already involved in providing many other services.

As a matter of fact, in Boston, which was the first major city to start a tax-funded library, proponents used the already-existing government schools to justify the idea. Here’s an excerpt from an 1852 report by a library Board of Trustees in Boston:

Although the school and even the college and the university are, as all thoughtful persons are well aware, but the first stages in education, the public makes no provision for carrying on the great work. It imparts with a notable equality of privilege, a knowledge of the elements of learning to all its children, but it affords them no aid in going beyond the elements. It awakens a taste for reading, but it furnishes to the public nothing to read. ...The trustees submit, that all the reasons which exist for furnishing the means of elementary education, at the public expense, apply in an equal degree to the reasonable provision to aid and encourage the acquisition of the knowledge required to complete a preparation for active life... . In this point of view we consider that a large public library is of the utmost importance as the means of completing our system of public education.

I find this ironic because I think the government schools do more to kill the enjoyment of reading than anything else out there.

When compared to government schools, libraries are a much better idea. People can come and go at will; no one is compelled to spend a certain amount of time inside a library. People can choose what they want to read. They can read at their own pace. Users can stop reading a book if they decide they don’t like it, or just read certain parts of it, or read it over and over if they wish, with no demands from any government library employee.

If it wasn’t for the government force used to fund them, libraries would be awesome.

Of course technology is changing everything. I’ve always loved libraries and have spent a lot of time in them but I almost never go anymore because so much is available on the internet. I can now access written works without the need to possess a ‘hard’ copy. The voluntaryist.com website is a perfect example.

It’s interesting that this issue of The Voluntaryist contained this article because libraries have really been on my mind the last couple of weeks. Even though I can access so much information online, I still want to read ‘real’ books, as do many others – but in order to get books I don’t think we need to fill huge buildings with them.

I ran into a really cool idea that to me seems like the wave of the future for those who want to sit down with a book in hand. It’s called the Little Free Library. People are building tiny libraries, mounting them on posts and filling them with books freely available for borrowing.

I love this idea - grass-roots, community-oriented and completely voluntary. I’m part a group of people who are working to grow the idea locally.

How about you? Maybe you want to build one of these babies and put one up in your local neighborhood. I’d love to see these Little Libraries popping up everywhere.

Just think, anyone, with a few pieces of wood and a couple of books, can own and operate his or her very own lending library, perhaps full of books like I Must Speak Out, the compilation of some of the best articles from “The Voluntaryist.” Or Carl’s newest book, Render NOT: The Case Against Taxation.

These little libraries are perfect examples of “libraries in the voluntaryist tradition.”

Is Fractional Reserve Banking Fraudulent? Part 2

The first post I published pondering fractional reserve banking resulted in a couple of comments and also further discussion with Carl, so I decided to write a part two.

I want to keep the focus on the question of whether or not fractional reserve banking is fraudulent. One commenter, Less Antman, makes the point that it’s not fraudulent if people knowingly enter into voluntary relationships with banks that practice fractional reserve banking. The bank never claims that the note is a warehouse receipt for property, it is merely a promise to pay.

In the original article from the first post, Carl agreed that “fractional reserves do not constitute a breach of contract when and where that practice is specified.” However, Carl has since reconsidered this view and pointed me to Issue 112 for further explanation.

The article he referred to is “Titles in Search of Property: Should Fractional Reserve Banking Come to an End?” Carl explains how his understanding of the issue was further developed after reading a Hans-Herman Hoppe article, “Fiduciary Media” published in 1998 in THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS.

Hoppe goes deeper into the nature and reality of property itself. Here are two excerpts from Hoppe that set up the relationship of bank notes to actual property:

Since, both B [the bank] as well as A [the depositor], count the same quantity of money simultaneously among their own assets, they have in effect conspired to represent themselves in their financial accounts as owning a larger quantity of money than they actually own: that is, they have become financial impostors, [pp. 26-27]... Fractional reserve banking does not increase the quantity of existing property (money or otherwise), nor does it transfer existing property from one party to another. Rather, it involves the production and sale of an increased quantity of titles to an unchanged stock of property (gold); that is, the supply of and the demand for counterfeit money and illegitimate appropriation. [Hoppe, et. al., p. 33]

AND

[F]iduciary media represent new and additional titles to or claims on an existing and unchanged stock of property. ... They represent an additional supply of property titles, while the supply of property has remained constant. It is precisely in this sense that it can be said of fiduciary media that they are created out of thin air. They are property-less titles in search of property. This, in and of itself, constitutes fraud, .... Each issuer and buyer of a fiduciary note (a title to money uncovered by money), regardless of what he may believe, is in fact - objectively - engaged in misrepresentation for the purpose of personal gain. [Hoppe, et. al., p. 22]

Hoppe has framed the issue clearly in terms of property actually existing in reality. Hoppe says "two individuals cannot be the exclusive owner of one and the same thing at the same time." Therefore fractional reserve banking makes claims that contradict reality.

A person can certainly make a claim that something exists, such as Santa Claus, but that doesn’t mean it exists. Someone who says this is denying reality. This is why Hoppe says even a voluntary contract for fractional reserve banking is not legitimate. It makes the claim that a property title to something exists when it does not.

Now, of course (and Carl goes into this in the article) there is the fact that until people actually agree that this is true, the claim does “exist” as far as how people behave. The practice would only end once people understood fractional reserve banking as a fraudulent claim on property (just like we now understand slavery). But the point I’m focusing on here is the idea of whether or not Hoppe’s point is true, thereby making fractional reserve banking fraudulent.

What do you think?

Yes, Government Does Get in the Way

Issue 30 of The Voluntaryist was published in February, 1988, and in it Carl reports on a new federal immigration law requiring employers to have a new government form on file for each employee. The form is titled “Employment Eligibility Verification Form” and is known as the I-9.

Oh, the I-9. In my family, this form is known as the infamous I-9.

It’s infamous because it’s a symbol of the government regulation that slowly sucked away my husband’s desire to continue growing his computer company. It just wasn’t worth the continued frustration.

You have probably read my story about life experiences that caused me to become a voluntaryist. Well, my husband, John, has his own experiences, which were running parallel to mine.

See, at the time I began homeschooling our kids, he decided to start his own business. So there we were as a family, basically starting a new life, doing our own thing in every way.

My story shows the wall I hit in dealings with the government immediately, but John’s experience was more like the frog in the boiling water - except that he knew the water was getting hotter and he was slowly being cooked.

As he became more successful, he moved from being home-based, found a site to lease and began hiring employees. He took more risks, had more success and hired more employees.

He worked long hours. I would call him sometimes at 9 p.m. and ask him when he was coming home and he would say the last time he looked at the clock was 6 p.m. He enjoyed his work and was having a great time.

But gradually the government regulations started piling on. Forms to fill out, taxes to pay, and oh, here’s another change in the law that will affect payroll, etc. Eventually the company reached a size where many more regulations kicked in and he was advised to send someone to a special class to make sure all the government regulations were being followed.

This is when he learned he was supposed to file the I-9 forms.

What really teed him off was that he could get fined for not having them on file. Not fined for actually hiring an “illegal,” which is bs in itself, but just for not having the proper form on file.

I clearly remember him coming home and talking about this form. He was so frustrated. He could literally see his productivity go down. He had to work even more hours to keep up with the requirements piling up on him.

Yet he kept pushing on. For a time he still felt like it was worth it. But eventually he just wore out and when he had an offer to sell, he took it. He worked for that company for a while and after a couple more stints in corporate world, he took a break and thought about what he wanted to do and is now back to running his own business again.

But this time it’s much different. He plans to keep this company a one-person business. He periodically turns down work. He does not want to get caught up in the government mess again that comes with hiring employees.

Issue 30 also contains “A Vignette from History: Rose Wilder Lane,” which describes how she changed her life in order to avoid supporting the New Deal. I shared that with a friend who said, “Oh, she ‘went 'Galt,’” When I heard that, I started to realize that my husband has essentially done his own version of “going Galt.”

How many other people are out there like him? How many other people are in a position where they could create jobs but simply won’t do so because the government gets in the way far too much?

I’m not sure I really want to know.

Ratifying the Constitution Kicking and Screaming

Do you know people who really revere the Constitution? People who believe most of our current problems are due to not following the Constitution? People who say everything would be fine, if only the country would follow the Constitution?

If so, then you may want to show them Carl’s article In Issue 30 of The Voluntaryist, “To All Patriots and Constitutionalists: Some Critical Considerations on the United States Constitution.”

In this article Carl asks questions and makes several points about the Constitution in an effort to determine whether it actually holds any valid authority.

One of the more interesting tidbits of history I learned is that Carl says Pennsylvania did not have a quorum for a ratifying convention. When I did some searching to find out more about that I discovered that apparently supporters dragged Anti-federalists to the statehouse to get that quorum!

I knew the Constitution was controversial at the time, but I wasn’t aware that it actually came down to such literal knock-down drag-out battles.

It's interesting to hear such reverence about it now, considering how many people must have not been very hot to replace the Articles of Confederation.

Show this to the constitutionalists you know. Perhaps it will start something – I mean in terms of an interesting discussion of course, and not a knock-down drag-out.

Is Voluntaryism Treasonous?

Carl Watner asks this question in Issue 30, in an article titled “If This Be Treason, Make the Most of It!” and this excerpt shows how he answers the question:

“All of this leads me to ask: Is voluntaryism treasonous? Are voluntaryists guilty of treason and/or sedition? Is THE VOLUNTARYIST a seditious publication?

Undoubtedly the answers to these questions are "Yes," particularly if treason and sedition are viewed in their broadest scope. Although treason in the United States requires overt action (levying war or in adhering to the enemy) against the State - actions which voluntaryists and THE VOLUNTARYIST are clearly not guilty of – we are definitely guilty of attempting (through education and other peaceful, non-violent means) to weaken the power of statism in this country and every other country in the world. It is in this sense that we are treasonous and seditious: we oppose not only specific states, (such as the United States) but the very concept of the nation-state itself. Without the State there would be no compulsory institution to betray. One is not accused of treason when one quits Ford Motor Co. and goes to work for General Motors. But it is generally considered treasonous to renounce one's citizenship (as when one attempts to become a naturalized citizen of a country that your country is at war with) because allegiance to the State was historically deemed perpetual and immutable.”

When I think about the forming of our current nation-state, I’ve always wondered what it must have been like for the “founding fathers” and everyone else living at the time who supported the break from England.

There they were, working so hard to break free from King George and of course if they had lost, many would have likely been killed for treasonous acts. But they won. So what did they do? Well, they created their own nation-state and a document that specifically includes treason as a crime against the new nation-state.

This tells us that the battle was not really about liberty as a general concept; it was only about liberty from the King of England. Yet, we are not taught about it that way. We are told it was indeed about liberty in general – right after we are told to stand up and pledge allegiance to the nation-state.

Maybe they really had no choice. Maybe this was simply a necessary step in the evolution of civilization. After all, they did succeed in moving from the idea of a monarchy as legitimate rule.

But all they accomplished was to create a special class of people who still claim the power to rule over others. As a result they needed a treason clause to maintain and legitimize this aggression. Too bad they couldn’t see the truth that if your idea of a free society necessitates a treason clause, then something is not quite right.

This is why I’m drawn to voluntaryist ideas. Voluntaryism is working to develop community where people are free to voluntarily associate with others; where there isn't much need at all to even discuss the idea of treason. Sure, people may still hold personal allegiances and create contractual relationships but the difference is that everyone would be free from the (forced) rule of others.

So if you believe in the legitimacy of nation-states, then yeah, I guess that is a treasonous idea.