Oh! The anarchy!
Imagine getting to keep everything you work for. Not in part, but in full. This is simple and basic human dignity.
Imagine the market providing virtually limitless solutions and mechanisms to help you with your problems in life.
Imagine self-responsibility, where no one is obligated to serve you, and you are obligated to serve no man.
As it stands, there are violence-backed limits placed on what you "may" and "may not" do, but other humans who have arbitrarily assigned themselves the "right" to wield authority over you, the "civilian," are not themselves constrained by these rules, as if they were superhumans, or "gods." I reference, of course, state agents, politicians, police, etc.
I don't know about you, but I am not a "civilian." I am a human being. My body is mine, and so is my money. It is morally illegitimate for any other human being to use violence or a threat of violence against me in the interest of taking ownership of my body or my property.
What's shocking is that billions and billions of "humans being" on this planet have accepted such immoral coercion as the norm. As "the way it has to be."
Foolish Utopianism is a dead end.
- If we just get the right individuals into positions of power, everything will be okay!
Two problems here. One is that anything non-consensual is morally illegitimate. Thus, to have a position of power available which allows for non-consensual rule of another human being is a morally illegitimate position, even if said individual is a "good person," by all estimations.
The second problem is that these positions of arbitrary power inevitably attract abusers of said power, and outright sociopaths/psychopaths.
- Taxation is the price we pay for a civilized society! Everyone must do their part!
First, taking people's money under the threat of violence to pay for things without their consent is not a civilized practice. It is barbaric. Second, me paying for drones to bomb infants in the Middle East is simply me funding murder. I certainly must not do "my part" insofar as possible, to the same extent I should try not to be mugged on the street by a serial rapist.
- People are evil so we need government to keep them in line!
Governments are made of these same people you call evil. Why should we afford such reprobate, evil beings seats of massive power and brutally coercive, legalized violent influence? This is an idiotic position to hold. It is immediately self-detonating, logically speaking.
Non-coercive, private property models (anarchism) are realistic, universalizable, and sensible.
If our goal as humans being is to create the most peaceful place possible here on this planet, a few things are necessary.
There must be a recognition of individual self-ownership. Each individual is his or her own authority and has highest possible claim to his or her body/self.
(If there is no self-ownership, then there is nothing wrong with slavery.)
There must be a recognition of the scarcity of resources on this planet, and our needs as individuals to be able to own these resources as means to flourish and survive.
(If scarcity is not recognized, there is no way to claim one needs something to live or flourish.)
In order to own something, one must have the right to exclude another from using said resource.
(If you cannot exclude others from using your resources or body, stealing, rape, slavery, murder, etc, all have no meaning.)
In order to exclude others from using one's resources, a universalizable property norm must be established, based on the above principles.
(If the property norm is not universalizable--able to be applied to and exercised by each and every individual, the logical fallacy of special pleading comes in to play--i.e. "He's a cop, so he can beat that man and still be in the right!" "He's the king, so it's okay for HIM to have slaves!" "They're the IRS, so it's okay for THEM to take your money by force!")
In order for this norm to be applied practically, it must be enforceable via voluntarily created institutions based on the aforementioned principle of ISO (Individual Self-Ownership).
(If created defense and legal institutions are violent in nature (non-consensual) then ISO is not respected, and slavery is allowed.)
It thus logically follows that in order to have a maximally peaceful society, where the sustenance and flourishing of human life is held as the primary value, it is objectively true that individual self-ownership must be recognized and respected above all other ideologies, dogmas, principles, and philosophical persuasions.
Anything less than this is to deny the nature of reality itself and, indeed, to indulge in dangerous (murderous and brutally violent) delusion.
(Biology itself tells us the story of ISO and "the golden rule," in that each individual human being possesses highest claim and most direct link to his or her self. No other being can move my arms or think my thoughts for me, in a more direct fashion than I can. Engaging in argument with another being is a performative affirmation of the fact that we recognize brute force (the initiation of force/violence) to be an illegitimate practice.)
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)
