Excellent article. I think voluntaryism should be adopted if we hope to introduce anarchist principles to a much wider audience and create a genuine working alternative to the state and, hopefully, tackle statist beliefs. Unfortunately, I think anti-anarchist propaganda has been so effective and is so entrenched that it is now almost impossible to disentangle the word "anarchy" from the public's perception of "chaos." Frankly, defending and explaining the word "anarchism" at this point is an argument that will simply bog us down in counter-productive debate in my view.
Really looking forward to the discussion. I hope you will discuss how justice can be administered in a voluntary society. I am personally trying to wrestle with this at the moment and working and should have some posts on the issue shortly.
Great to hear from you, Iain! One thing that I have always appreciated about you is that you take an interest in the hard questions.
Crime has always been on my mind as Canada is increasingly infested with transnational gangs. I don’t have a good answer to that question yet, but I do think that anthropology is well worth looking into when it comes to crime. I think the clan system is interesting… it treats crime not as a matter of individual criminals, but as a matter between families.
Could a system of justice that involves the families of victims and perpetrators be effective? According to missionary accounts, it worked in the past. But it probably wouldn’t help with gang activity.
One thing that I would argue for is the elimination of a specialized lawyer class. A defendant should be able to speak on their own behalf… maybe using an interpreter if there are linguistic barriers or a family member is they are insane or mentally handicapped. Otherwise I see no way in which defence lawyers aid the process of justice.
You may be interested in an article I wrote about how an anarchist society might deal with domestic violence:
Oh the wonderful missionaries that liberated those primitive souls from NATURE synergy ... & gifted them the wonders of capitalist exploitation & the mind numbing stupidity of Judaic religion(s) ! What a ghetto you are ushering in with this lame ass piece of trickery.
''how justice can be administered in a voluntary society''
Karma, man !
Because non of the above 'new gurus' have a clue about CULTRAL INCOMPATABILITIES they will allow Talmudical mercenary Jews to exploit them, along with Nigerians & their maximised exploitation inclinations. All the while gushing about equal opportunities & over compensations for delusions of racism or intolerance of certain physiognomy.
I've seen the term voluntaryist used quite a bit by the libertarian and anarcho-capitalist crowd in a very Orwellian manner. I like the word, it just seems to me like its been appropriated by a crowd that has a very different definition of liberty and voluntary than I do.
In fact I'd argue the libertarian crowd doesn't want actual freedom. They want money to rule unchecked without a government force to impede the power of currency, which to me sounds more like they want a return to feudal lords.
Sure man. I don't want to beat a concocted straw-man here, so at the forefront my assumption is that libertarians and anarcho-capitalists believe in the use of money and usually what they term limited government.
So the use of money has inevitabilities. And some of these points were stated long ago, like when money accumulates it creates social power, and hence imbalance.
When you can buy other people's time, or excess resources and hoard it, you can control them. Especially if money can buy land, then you can just charge people to live on the earth and control what they can do on it. After money accumulates in fewer hands how do you stop it from controlling others?
Money is an impersonal quid pro quo arrangement and it rarely occurs on equal levels. People tend to maximize the value of their money, and they do that through leverage and that turns predatory fast; opportunistically getting all you can get. That creates conflict. Hatred.
The use of money provably makes people nuts. Why continue it when there's other ways that work without that oppressive force? There's a good reason oligarchs now love it. The control it gives them from far and the way it abstracts reality works out fantastically for modifying human behavior and makes people dumber.
Money serves as ersatz trust in human relationships. You're counting on that person your transacting with money to be desperate or greedy enough to want to do something for you for money. It's an inauthentic exchange.
And what stops one community from financial imperialism into another? What stops the power of money? Who is guarding the money? Who is validating its authenticity?
I don't see a way it doesn't create an under class. And they want private property to boot ...So how is that managed in a participatory democracy, and now we're dealing with defending lines on a map again. Do we continue with jails, judges, some form of cops, but it'll be different because its decentralized hierarchies of power instead of more centralized? We'll be free like the antebellum south?
And what they typically mean by decentralized is usually rule over thousands to a million or so people instead of hundreds of millions. But people start to lose their voice and become a nameless face in a crowd when community hits around 150 people or so.
Also, as many libertarians even say, government creates crime. But money is part of government and lording over others. It was invented by dominators. Peaceful people just work together and develop trust in relationships, have common law between them that requires no large overhead. The use of money invents more crimes and people to be punished by some ruling force.
Money just doesn't make a bit of sense unless you're trying to control how other people are spending their time.
Its a game of 'winners' & 'losers'- one can't exist without the other.
You make a lot of great points. It will all go back to devious power brokers & 'travelling mercantile scum' who can exploit CULTRAL DIFFERENCES.
In this proposed scenario I imagine the above mentioned 'new gurus' would be ideally considered (by themselves & their fans) the PLANNER OVERLOARDS, whereby their day of thinking is equal to a week of hard labour among the uneducated 'normies' & 'sheeple' they so despise secretly, yet rely on just like sociopathic parasites themselves.
I've been in and around the voluntaryist/American libertarian movement since 2011. Dont consider myself a card carrying member but definitely more aligned than with left leaning radicals.
I would say that only the most "vulgar libertarians" - specifically the ancap crowd - might believe voluntaryism means "money to rule unchecked" but even that viewpoint would be the minority.
The view is simply that all human relationships should be voluntary and consensual. That obviously eliminates the state.
What happens after that is up to the free people who organize. This is one of my favorite quotes from radical activist Karl Hess in his essay Anarchism without Hyphens:
"There is only one kind of anarchist. Not two. Just one. An anarchist, the only kind, as defined by the long tradition and literature of the position itself, is a person in opposition to authority imposed through the hierarchical power of the state. The only expansion of this that seems to me to be reasonable is to say that an anarchist stands in opposition to any imposed authority.
An anarchist is a voluntarist.
Now, beyond that, anarchists also are people and, as such, contain the billion-faceted varieties of human reference. Some are anarchists who march, voluntarily, to the Cross of Christ. Some are anarchists who flock, voluntarily, to the communities of beloved, inspirational father figures. Some are anarchists who seek to establish the syndics of voluntary industrial production. Some are anarchists who voluntarily seek to establish the rural production of the kibbutzim. Some are anarchists who, voluntarily, seek to disestablish everything including their own association with other people, the hermits. Some are anarchists who deal, voluntarily, only in gold, will never co-operate, and swirl their capes. Some are anarchists who, voluntarily, worship the sun and its energy, build domes, eat only vegetables, and play the dulcimer. Some are anarchists who worship the power of algorithms, play strange games, and infiltrate strange temples. Some are anarchists who only see the stars. Some are anarchists who only see the mud.
They spring from a single seed, no matter the flowering of their ideas. The seed is liberty. And that is all it is. It is not a socialist seed. It is not a capitalist seed. It is not a mystical seed. It is not a determinist seed. It is simply a statement. We can be free. After that it’s all choice and chance.
Anarchism, liberty, does not tell you a thing about how free people will behave or what arrangements they will make. It simply says that people have the capacity to make arrangements.
Anarchism is not normative. It does not say how to be free. It says only that freedom, liberty, can exist."
I think you're going to really like the convo we just had... I see you as one of the leaders of the push to create a unified field theory of anarchism/libertarianism/voluntaryism.
In the discussion we do get into some of the things we disagree about, although there is definitely a lot more that we do agree about.
I hope that this convo is the first of many in which various people of different political stripes will contribute to fleshing out this emergent political tendency.
Nevermore media is rather mediocre, who would trust it as a leader?
Maybe the idea of leaders is somewhat oxymoronic in this scenario?
Unified field theory? How about Eros & Thanatos as PROCESS ?
I will give your ideas a listen, however already the signs of poor thinking are apparent. Old system entrapments regurgitated with a new gloss.
It seems to be you are devising the perfect ghetto/cul de sac of well meaning folk who can then be glumpded together for quantification & social management experiments.
The fact that will make all this a horrible disaster is the lack of awareness concerning mesmerism, natural magnetism of personalities, leadership qualities & the inclinations of many to be controlled.
Unless the SADO MASOCHISTIC dynamic of modern society can be reconciled with a more basic & natural power interplay this is doomed to be a despicable marriage of infantile desires & moral hubris.
I have often described Anarchy as the "what" and Libertarianism as the "how-to".
An Anarchy is simply any system of sociopolitical organization that is absent a ruling class. At it core is the right to self-determination. But how to actually get along means valuing all unalienable rights, hence Libertarianism. And if you continue to expand the reasoning of natural law and liberty into the finer points like economic structure, you end up with a laissez-faire economic system that allows for capitalism/socialism/communism/etc. where applicable.
All of it is natural law/reality based. That's why it works, because it is real and consistent and moral and perfect throughout. It works with the natural order of the universe instead of by force. Humans are naturally Anarchists by order of god. Whatever it is, it gave us free will and natural individual sovereignty.
Thus one can argue that anarchy is simply reality.
Looking forward to the podcast. Sounds like you guys might be able to achieve something almost unheard of in political discourse: disagreeing without fighting.
Incidentally, when you mentioned that you still use the word "capitalism" to describe the banking system "from force of habit", it occurs to me that a better - that is; less divisive, and more accurate - word would be "usary".
Might be worth mentioning this to your Christian host.
Traditionally, usary refers to any method of obtaining money from money without providing anything in exchange.
This means that not only interest, ALL interest, but speculation, gambling, rent seeking, money changing, hoarding and price gouging were/still should be considered immoral when used to obtain profit.
RE: LOTS OF DIFFERENT DEFINITIONS & PRACTICES TO SORT OUT: Please link to your preferred article on Voluntaryism & its definition. Please describe your definition of 'Anarchist' (typically as 'Without imposed structures', referring to innate natural structures of human organization) without coercion. What do you describe as 'Voluntary'? Do you mean 'of Free Will'? How do your definitions of Voluntaryism & Anarchism coincide, merge, differ, conflict etc?
I asked Etienne to answer this question. I don't think I could do a good job of it! I'm treating voluntaryism and anarchism as synonymous terms! What do you think of the etymology?
Etymologies are interesting because they inevitably relate more to the verb of acting towards a certain result. Mohandas Gandhi was more concerned with what people were doing amonst themselves, hence "Become the change, you want to see in the world". Anarchy is reactive from 'an' = 'without' + 'archy' = (imposed) 'structure' but does not speak-to or give guidance to positive, pro-action.
The French 'Volonte' = 'will' so is positive, but institutional (FAKE: Religion, Education, Politics, Charity, Sport etc.), so misinterpreted in the minds of most people to mean without livelihood accounting for contributions, without recognition of livelihood needs, without a full cycle of giving & receiving. 'Volunteer' has come to mean the rich person who isn't working 3 jobs & can afford the time to contribute, typically to some band-aid 'effect' or solution, which perpetuates the problem's 'cause'. The rich person's employment tends to produce more negative 'cause' than the volunteer activity resolves. 'Indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') focuses on particular acts from the bottom-up, which produce the livelihood results for all which we seek. Volunteer tends to be 'issue' focused rather than addressing a) the full livelihood cycle of giving & receiving, including b) the process of investing in infrastructure development, when immediate compensation for livelihood needs of the family aren't available. Hence 'Capital' (Latin 'cap' = 'head' = 'collective-intelligence') This complexity is why all humanity's worldwide indigenous ancestors include COUNCIL PROCESS or 'Both-sided, Equal-time, Recorded & Published Dialogues as one of the three pillars of the 'Great-good-way-of-kindness' to build understanding, agreement, contract-delineation & Conflict Resolution, part of indigenous COUNCIL-PROCESS worldwide. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/1-both-sides-now-equal-time-recorded-dialogues
Would Nevermore be open to a series of Both-sides-now dialogues to explore different avenues of livelihood economic development?
I definitely disagree with your portrayal of "volunteer" as having connotations of wealth and privilege. Kid's sports teams run on volunteer labour, for instance. I don't see anything wrong with the concept of volunteering. I like it! Where there are volunteers, there is a gift economy. I dislike the economist's idea of "the maximizing individual" who only acts in self-interest. This has been refuted since the earliest days of anthropology. People like to be helpful, especially when assisting with activities they approve of or people they love. And if they receive some kind of inner emotional reward as a result, so much the better. That's human psychology working in furtherance of collective benefit.
If you persist in promoting dubious word/idea connections you will never mature out of a system of pseudo christian mercenary exploitation.
Why can't people describe CHILDREN as such anymore ? Why the need to truncate them into animals , is it a letter saving exercise?
Is this another 'goy' slur being encouraged.... like the 'HEY GUYS' epidemic, which may well be 'HEY GOYS' ? Just say it in a new york accent & it all makes perfect sense.
Nevermore, RE: "I'm open to dialogue" on this or many issues. We'd probably ZOOM, Skype, Google Chat etc. for something like a 90 minute conversation, or 45 minutes of speaking time each. When speaking a person has their stop-watch running & the other person is silent. Typically short <5 minute segments cover most concepts or refutations to be made. Notepads help jot down some details for each participant. The process starts with such as the statement you've made here on Volunteering. In the end we have a 90 minute audio, video or transcription segment on 'Volunteerism' which can be published for readers, listeners or viewers to enjoy.
COUNTER-STATEMENT
While you've responded with the above statement ennobling volunteerism (to which I agree in one sense), I believe you agree with me that there is a large segment of volunteer organizational work, which is the privilege of the rich, housewives etc. When we calculate the cost of typical society & ecology damaging employment in our extractive, addictive & exploitive economy, it far outweighs the small benefits of the volunteer work performed.
I agree Volunteers have good intention & that most of life is enjoyably an open giving & receiving, concern for each other & everyone's livelihood well-being, as individuals & as whole communities. Welcome, inclusion & concern for everyone's livelihood & gainful employment, requires us to account-for, recognize, compensate & empower each person's contribution.
You're actually the person that's convinced to take more of an interest in etymology - thanks for that! - but in this case I don't follow your logic. I speak French, and volonte does not have institutional connotations. It is equivalent to the English will, or volition. I think that voluntaryism draws attention to spiritual force that each individual possesses - free will, the ability to choose.
I find it interesting that "Freedomism" has never come up in these discussions - something about seems to land wrong, but Voluntaryism emphasizes where freedom is located. Groups do no possess the ability to make free choices, that is the prerogative of individuals. Individuals can then combine their wills into collectivities, but collectivities do not possess freedom as such. Of course, there is a point at which individualism veers off into selfishness, self-interest that comes at the expense of whatever group the individual is part of.
I think the balance to be struck is between individualism and collectivism, and probably this balance must forever be renegotiated.
''Annor is a name of Anglo-Saxon origin and came from the personal name Agnes, which itself is derived from the Greek name Hagne. Agnes means 'pure' and 'holy'. The name was also used in the Latin phrase 'Agnus Dei', which means 'lamb of God'.''
Also, I like your phrasing of a unifying vision ("basis of unity," in consensus speak) as the 99%, on "class" lines (tho not in traditional class terms, rather simple recognition of the wealth/power pyramid/logarithm).
Etienne here... In my book "Government" - The Biggest Scam in History... Exposed! I break down how the organized crime system behind "government" changed the definition of Anarchy from "No Rulers" to Chaos and Dystopia by comparing the 1827 definition of Anarchy from the Webster's Disctionary and comparing it with the modern version from the Merriam-Webster's dictionary and then breaking down how the Safra banking family owns the dictionary and have installed a former President of the Council on Foreign Relations on the editorial advisory board. Read it for free here: https://artofliberty.substack.com/p/why-the-organized-crime-media-misrepresents
If other choose to, that's up to them. I, however, will not run from the term no matter how much the definition is twisted or how much it is demonized. Anarchy means what it means, and no amount of social engineering will ever change that. If we let others define our language, we are being controlled by them.
I think anarchists can validly rebrand as voluntaryists if they believe that human interactions should be voluntary. This is not a universal opinion among anarchists, sadly. Tankies need not apply.
Voluntaryism, self-rule, self-determination, individual sovereignty, etc.... doesn't matter. Branding isn't that important other than a means of establishing identity. As long as the principles values morals and benefits of something based in rights are articulated properly, it will appeal to what comes natural to all humans. Which is of key importance.
Who likes to be coerced and robbed, beaten tazed caged or shot? Those are your choices with government. ..as opposed to Anarchy that allows you to do whatever.
Another way of putting it(perhaps the idiot-proof way?) is this;
Would you rather have a person with a blue shirt force you to eat a turd sandwich on wheat with swiss and mayo, or a person in a red shirt force you to eat a turd on rye with mustard and cheddar? ..or eat whatever you want?
Figured I would chime in. I shared this on another comment but its worth sharing again. I love Karl Hess' quote from his essay Anarchism without Hyphens (https://www.panarchy.org/hess/anarchism.html):
"There is only one kind of anarchist. Not two. Just one. An anarchist, the only kind, as defined by the long tradition and literature of the position itself, is a person in opposition to authority imposed through the hierarchical power of the state. The only expansion of this that seems to me to be reasonable is to say that an anarchist stands in opposition to any imposed authority.
An anarchist is a voluntarist.
Now, beyond that, anarchists also are people and, as such, contain the billion-faceted varieties of human reference. Some are anarchists who march, voluntarily, to the Cross of Christ. Some are anarchists who flock, voluntarily, to the communities of beloved, inspirational father figures. Some are anarchists who seek to establish the syndics of voluntary industrial production. Some are anarchists who voluntarily seek to establish the rural production of the kibbutzim. Some are anarchists who, voluntarily, seek to disestablish everything including their own association with other people, the hermits. Some are anarchists who deal, voluntarily, only in gold, will never co-operate, and swirl their capes. Some are anarchists who, voluntarily, worship the sun and its energy, build domes, eat only vegetables, and play the dulcimer. Some are anarchists who worship the power of algorithms, play strange games, and infiltrate strange temples. Some are anarchists who only see the stars. Some are anarchists who only see the mud.
They spring from a single seed, no matter the flowering of their ideas. The seed is liberty. And that is all it is. It is not a socialist seed. It is not a capitalist seed. It is not a mystical seed. It is not a determinist seed. It is simply a statement. We can be free. After that it’s all choice and chance.
Anarchism, liberty, does not tell you a thing about how free people will behave or what arrangements they will make. It simply says that people have the capacity to make arrangements.
Anarchism is not normative. It does not say how to be free. It says only that freedom, liberty, can exist."
Excellent article. I think voluntaryism should be adopted if we hope to introduce anarchist principles to a much wider audience and create a genuine working alternative to the state and, hopefully, tackle statist beliefs. Unfortunately, I think anti-anarchist propaganda has been so effective and is so entrenched that it is now almost impossible to disentangle the word "anarchy" from the public's perception of "chaos." Frankly, defending and explaining the word "anarchism" at this point is an argument that will simply bog us down in counter-productive debate in my view.
Really looking forward to the discussion. I hope you will discuss how justice can be administered in a voluntary society. I am personally trying to wrestle with this at the moment and working and should have some posts on the issue shortly.
Great stuff. Keep up the good work.
Great to hear from you, Iain! One thing that I have always appreciated about you is that you take an interest in the hard questions.
Crime has always been on my mind as Canada is increasingly infested with transnational gangs. I don’t have a good answer to that question yet, but I do think that anthropology is well worth looking into when it comes to crime. I think the clan system is interesting… it treats crime not as a matter of individual criminals, but as a matter between families.
Could a system of justice that involves the families of victims and perpetrators be effective? According to missionary accounts, it worked in the past. But it probably wouldn’t help with gang activity.
One thing that I would argue for is the elimination of a specialized lawyer class. A defendant should be able to speak on their own behalf… maybe using an interpreter if there are linguistic barriers or a family member is they are insane or mentally handicapped. Otherwise I see no way in which defence lawyers aid the process of justice.
You may be interested in an article I wrote about how an anarchist society might deal with domestic violence:
https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/how-would-an-anarchist-society-deal?utm_source=publication-search
Oh the wonderful missionaries that liberated those primitive souls from NATURE synergy ... & gifted them the wonders of capitalist exploitation & the mind numbing stupidity of Judaic religion(s) ! What a ghetto you are ushering in with this lame ass piece of trickery.
''how justice can be administered in a voluntary society''
Karma, man !
Because non of the above 'new gurus' have a clue about CULTRAL INCOMPATABILITIES they will allow Talmudical mercenary Jews to exploit them, along with Nigerians & their maximised exploitation inclinations. All the while gushing about equal opportunities & over compensations for delusions of racism or intolerance of certain physiognomy.
I've seen the term voluntaryist used quite a bit by the libertarian and anarcho-capitalist crowd in a very Orwellian manner. I like the word, it just seems to me like its been appropriated by a crowd that has a very different definition of liberty and voluntary than I do.
In fact I'd argue the libertarian crowd doesn't want actual freedom. They want money to rule unchecked without a government force to impede the power of currency, which to me sounds more like they want a return to feudal lords.
Interesting take... care to flesh out your argument? I'm not sure I follow you. They clearly want freedom for themselves, which is a good start!
Sure man. I don't want to beat a concocted straw-man here, so at the forefront my assumption is that libertarians and anarcho-capitalists believe in the use of money and usually what they term limited government.
So the use of money has inevitabilities. And some of these points were stated long ago, like when money accumulates it creates social power, and hence imbalance.
When you can buy other people's time, or excess resources and hoard it, you can control them. Especially if money can buy land, then you can just charge people to live on the earth and control what they can do on it. After money accumulates in fewer hands how do you stop it from controlling others?
Money is an impersonal quid pro quo arrangement and it rarely occurs on equal levels. People tend to maximize the value of their money, and they do that through leverage and that turns predatory fast; opportunistically getting all you can get. That creates conflict. Hatred.
The use of money provably makes people nuts. Why continue it when there's other ways that work without that oppressive force? There's a good reason oligarchs now love it. The control it gives them from far and the way it abstracts reality works out fantastically for modifying human behavior and makes people dumber.
Money serves as ersatz trust in human relationships. You're counting on that person your transacting with money to be desperate or greedy enough to want to do something for you for money. It's an inauthentic exchange.
And what stops one community from financial imperialism into another? What stops the power of money? Who is guarding the money? Who is validating its authenticity?
I don't see a way it doesn't create an under class. And they want private property to boot ...So how is that managed in a participatory democracy, and now we're dealing with defending lines on a map again. Do we continue with jails, judges, some form of cops, but it'll be different because its decentralized hierarchies of power instead of more centralized? We'll be free like the antebellum south?
And what they typically mean by decentralized is usually rule over thousands to a million or so people instead of hundreds of millions. But people start to lose their voice and become a nameless face in a crowd when community hits around 150 people or so.
Also, as many libertarians even say, government creates crime. But money is part of government and lording over others. It was invented by dominators. Peaceful people just work together and develop trust in relationships, have common law between them that requires no large overhead. The use of money invents more crimes and people to be punished by some ruling force.
Money just doesn't make a bit of sense unless you're trying to control how other people are spending their time.
Its a game of 'winners' & 'losers'- one can't exist without the other.
You make a lot of great points. It will all go back to devious power brokers & 'travelling mercantile scum' who can exploit CULTRAL DIFFERENCES.
In this proposed scenario I imagine the above mentioned 'new gurus' would be ideally considered (by themselves & their fans) the PLANNER OVERLOARDS, whereby their day of thinking is equal to a week of hard labour among the uneducated 'normies' & 'sheeple' they so despise secretly, yet rely on just like sociopathic parasites themselves.
https://freedomfliesblackflag.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/what-is-money/
I've been in and around the voluntaryist/American libertarian movement since 2011. Dont consider myself a card carrying member but definitely more aligned than with left leaning radicals.
I would say that only the most "vulgar libertarians" - specifically the ancap crowd - might believe voluntaryism means "money to rule unchecked" but even that viewpoint would be the minority.
The view is simply that all human relationships should be voluntary and consensual. That obviously eliminates the state.
What happens after that is up to the free people who organize. This is one of my favorite quotes from radical activist Karl Hess in his essay Anarchism without Hyphens:
"There is only one kind of anarchist. Not two. Just one. An anarchist, the only kind, as defined by the long tradition and literature of the position itself, is a person in opposition to authority imposed through the hierarchical power of the state. The only expansion of this that seems to me to be reasonable is to say that an anarchist stands in opposition to any imposed authority.
An anarchist is a voluntarist.
Now, beyond that, anarchists also are people and, as such, contain the billion-faceted varieties of human reference. Some are anarchists who march, voluntarily, to the Cross of Christ. Some are anarchists who flock, voluntarily, to the communities of beloved, inspirational father figures. Some are anarchists who seek to establish the syndics of voluntary industrial production. Some are anarchists who voluntarily seek to establish the rural production of the kibbutzim. Some are anarchists who, voluntarily, seek to disestablish everything including their own association with other people, the hermits. Some are anarchists who deal, voluntarily, only in gold, will never co-operate, and swirl their capes. Some are anarchists who, voluntarily, worship the sun and its energy, build domes, eat only vegetables, and play the dulcimer. Some are anarchists who worship the power of algorithms, play strange games, and infiltrate strange temples. Some are anarchists who only see the stars. Some are anarchists who only see the mud.
They spring from a single seed, no matter the flowering of their ideas. The seed is liberty. And that is all it is. It is not a socialist seed. It is not a capitalist seed. It is not a mystical seed. It is not a determinist seed. It is simply a statement. We can be free. After that it’s all choice and chance.
Anarchism, liberty, does not tell you a thing about how free people will behave or what arrangements they will make. It simply says that people have the capacity to make arrangements.
Anarchism is not normative. It does not say how to be free. It says only that freedom, liberty, can exist."
I think you're going to really like the convo we just had... I see you as one of the leaders of the push to create a unified field theory of anarchism/libertarianism/voluntaryism.
In the discussion we do get into some of the things we disagree about, although there is definitely a lot more that we do agree about.
I hope that this convo is the first of many in which various people of different political stripes will contribute to fleshing out this emergent political tendency.
LEADERS .... are for Losers ?
Nevermore media is rather mediocre, who would trust it as a leader?
Maybe the idea of leaders is somewhat oxymoronic in this scenario?
Unified field theory? How about Eros & Thanatos as PROCESS ?
I will give your ideas a listen, however already the signs of poor thinking are apparent. Old system entrapments regurgitated with a new gloss.
It seems to be you are devising the perfect ghetto/cul de sac of well meaning folk who can then be glumpded together for quantification & social management experiments.
The fact that will make all this a horrible disaster is the lack of awareness concerning mesmerism, natural magnetism of personalities, leadership qualities & the inclinations of many to be controlled.
Unless the SADO MASOCHISTIC dynamic of modern society can be reconciled with a more basic & natural power interplay this is doomed to be a despicable marriage of infantile desires & moral hubris.
I say yes to that , Sado masochism is never possible for polite christian to face in honest way because entire cult is masochist delight !
Well said/typed.
I have often described Anarchy as the "what" and Libertarianism as the "how-to".
An Anarchy is simply any system of sociopolitical organization that is absent a ruling class. At it core is the right to self-determination. But how to actually get along means valuing all unalienable rights, hence Libertarianism. And if you continue to expand the reasoning of natural law and liberty into the finer points like economic structure, you end up with a laissez-faire economic system that allows for capitalism/socialism/communism/etc. where applicable.
All of it is natural law/reality based. That's why it works, because it is real and consistent and moral and perfect throughout. It works with the natural order of the universe instead of by force. Humans are naturally Anarchists by order of god. Whatever it is, it gave us free will and natural individual sovereignty.
Thus one can argue that anarchy is simply reality.
Looking forward to the podcast. Sounds like you guys might be able to achieve something almost unheard of in political discourse: disagreeing without fighting.
Incidentally, when you mentioned that you still use the word "capitalism" to describe the banking system "from force of habit", it occurs to me that a better - that is; less divisive, and more accurate - word would be "usary".
Might be worth mentioning this to your Christian host.
yes, I agree wholeheartedly. I think that anyone that charges more than 5% interest should be beheaded.
Traditionally, usary refers to any method of obtaining money from money without providing anything in exchange.
This means that not only interest, ALL interest, but speculation, gambling, rent seeking, money changing, hoarding and price gouging were/still should be considered immoral when used to obtain profit.
whoops, that wasn't a very Christian thought, was it?
They are essentially the same thing.
RE: LOTS OF DIFFERENT DEFINITIONS & PRACTICES TO SORT OUT: Please link to your preferred article on Voluntaryism & its definition. Please describe your definition of 'Anarchist' (typically as 'Without imposed structures', referring to innate natural structures of human organization) without coercion. What do you describe as 'Voluntary'? Do you mean 'of Free Will'? How do your definitions of Voluntaryism & Anarchism coincide, merge, differ, conflict etc?
I asked Etienne to answer this question. I don't think I could do a good job of it! I'm treating voluntaryism and anarchism as synonymous terms! What do you think of the etymology?
Etymologies are interesting because they inevitably relate more to the verb of acting towards a certain result. Mohandas Gandhi was more concerned with what people were doing amonst themselves, hence "Become the change, you want to see in the world". Anarchy is reactive from 'an' = 'without' + 'archy' = (imposed) 'structure' but does not speak-to or give guidance to positive, pro-action.
The French 'Volonte' = 'will' so is positive, but institutional (FAKE: Religion, Education, Politics, Charity, Sport etc.), so misinterpreted in the minds of most people to mean without livelihood accounting for contributions, without recognition of livelihood needs, without a full cycle of giving & receiving. 'Volunteer' has come to mean the rich person who isn't working 3 jobs & can afford the time to contribute, typically to some band-aid 'effect' or solution, which perpetuates the problem's 'cause'. The rich person's employment tends to produce more negative 'cause' than the volunteer activity resolves. 'Indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') focuses on particular acts from the bottom-up, which produce the livelihood results for all which we seek. Volunteer tends to be 'issue' focused rather than addressing a) the full livelihood cycle of giving & receiving, including b) the process of investing in infrastructure development, when immediate compensation for livelihood needs of the family aren't available. Hence 'Capital' (Latin 'cap' = 'head' = 'collective-intelligence') This complexity is why all humanity's worldwide indigenous ancestors include COUNCIL PROCESS or 'Both-sided, Equal-time, Recorded & Published Dialogues as one of the three pillars of the 'Great-good-way-of-kindness' to build understanding, agreement, contract-delineation & Conflict Resolution, part of indigenous COUNCIL-PROCESS worldwide. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/1-both-sides-now-equal-time-recorded-dialogues
Would Nevermore be open to a series of Both-sides-now dialogues to explore different avenues of livelihood economic development?
I definitely disagree with your portrayal of "volunteer" as having connotations of wealth and privilege. Kid's sports teams run on volunteer labour, for instance. I don't see anything wrong with the concept of volunteering. I like it! Where there are volunteers, there is a gift economy. I dislike the economist's idea of "the maximizing individual" who only acts in self-interest. This has been refuted since the earliest days of anthropology. People like to be helpful, especially when assisting with activities they approve of or people they love. And if they receive some kind of inner emotional reward as a result, so much the better. That's human psychology working in furtherance of collective benefit.
'Kids' are young goats.
If you persist in promoting dubious word/idea connections you will never mature out of a system of pseudo christian mercenary exploitation.
Why can't people describe CHILDREN as such anymore ? Why the need to truncate them into animals , is it a letter saving exercise?
Is this another 'goy' slur being encouraged.... like the 'HEY GUYS' epidemic, which may well be 'HEY GOYS' ? Just say it in a new york accent & it all makes perfect sense.
Nevermore, RE: "I'm open to dialogue" on this or many issues. We'd probably ZOOM, Skype, Google Chat etc. for something like a 90 minute conversation, or 45 minutes of speaking time each. When speaking a person has their stop-watch running & the other person is silent. Typically short <5 minute segments cover most concepts or refutations to be made. Notepads help jot down some details for each participant. The process starts with such as the statement you've made here on Volunteering. In the end we have a 90 minute audio, video or transcription segment on 'Volunteerism' which can be published for readers, listeners or viewers to enjoy.
COUNTER-STATEMENT
While you've responded with the above statement ennobling volunteerism (to which I agree in one sense), I believe you agree with me that there is a large segment of volunteer organizational work, which is the privilege of the rich, housewives etc. When we calculate the cost of typical society & ecology damaging employment in our extractive, addictive & exploitive economy, it far outweighs the small benefits of the volunteer work performed.
I agree Volunteers have good intention & that most of life is enjoyably an open giving & receiving, concern for each other & everyone's livelihood well-being, as individuals & as whole communities. Welcome, inclusion & concern for everyone's livelihood & gainful employment, requires us to account-for, recognize, compensate & empower each person's contribution.
All indigenous people started with Vision-Quest & Apprenticeship to support our youth in Home & community learning, away from false indoctrination. Complementary elder expertise, matched with youthful inquiry & innovation. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/4-apprenticeship-education as well as the Vision-Quest of each person. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-paricipatory-structure/8-vision-quest-education
String shell accounts, records & accords for contracted: Contribution, Experience, Expertise & Decision-making Contribution for many diverse Stakeholders (eg. Founders, Workers, Managers, Suppliers, Townspeople, Consumers etc. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy/2-participatory-accounting
Lets set up a dialogue!
I'm open to dialogue, sure...
You're actually the person that's convinced to take more of an interest in etymology - thanks for that! - but in this case I don't follow your logic. I speak French, and volonte does not have institutional connotations. It is equivalent to the English will, or volition. I think that voluntaryism draws attention to spiritual force that each individual possesses - free will, the ability to choose.
I find it interesting that "Freedomism" has never come up in these discussions - something about seems to land wrong, but Voluntaryism emphasizes where freedom is located. Groups do no possess the ability to make free choices, that is the prerogative of individuals. Individuals can then combine their wills into collectivities, but collectivities do not possess freedom as such. Of course, there is a point at which individualism veers off into selfishness, self-interest that comes at the expense of whatever group the individual is part of.
I think the balance to be struck is between individualism and collectivism, and probably this balance must forever be renegotiated.
You are correct in the above over view of etymology from a academic angle.
However there is a more profound etymology to the academic & that involves the phonetic cabal (ie Green language/ science of diplomats) .
Also there is an intuitive etymology of variable validity dependant on the knowledge & wisdom of the thinker.
ANARCHY may be also considered as-
An ARCH KEY. ANd OUR KEY. ANDOR QUAY . AND OUR QUAY.
Port for the Pirates
Keys for the Arch builders.
Maybe for Anarchist we have
ANNA -KISSED = Baptised in cult of ANNA or ANU ?
or how bouts this thing here?
''Annor is a name of Anglo-Saxon origin and came from the personal name Agnes, which itself is derived from the Greek name Hagne. Agnes means 'pure' and 'holy'. The name was also used in the Latin phrase 'Agnus Dei', which means 'lamb of God'.''
So, maybees Annor Kissed, like sacrificial lamb.
Annor Quay then = sheep fold in docks ?
To answer, in a word, Yes!
Also, I like your phrasing of a unifying vision ("basis of unity," in consensus speak) as the 99%, on "class" lines (tho not in traditional class terms, rather simple recognition of the wealth/power pyramid/logarithm).
For translation DeepL is a good AI tool
Agreed! Blows Google Translate out of the water!
losses are public and profits are private I think u mean!
whoops! thanks for catching that!
Looking forward to the Geopolitics & Empire Discussion. Kudos! Kman, DIGILEAK WORLD
Etienne here... In my book "Government" - The Biggest Scam in History... Exposed! I break down how the organized crime system behind "government" changed the definition of Anarchy from "No Rulers" to Chaos and Dystopia by comparing the 1827 definition of Anarchy from the Webster's Disctionary and comparing it with the modern version from the Merriam-Webster's dictionary and then breaking down how the Safra banking family owns the dictionary and have installed a former President of the Council on Foreign Relations on the editorial advisory board. Read it for free here: https://artofliberty.substack.com/p/why-the-organized-crime-media-misrepresents
If other choose to, that's up to them. I, however, will not run from the term no matter how much the definition is twisted or how much it is demonized. Anarchy means what it means, and no amount of social engineering will ever change that. If we let others define our language, we are being controlled by them.
I think anarchists can validly rebrand as voluntaryists if they believe that human interactions should be voluntary. This is not a universal opinion among anarchists, sadly. Tankies need not apply.
Voluntary association - Just requires participation 👉 https://www.universal-community-trust.org/uct-treaty-full/
Makes sense. Wow - the peasants really ARE revolting! Kudos, sir.
Unalienable rights are universal. Start there. Appeal to everyone.
Further,
Voluntaryism, self-rule, self-determination, individual sovereignty, etc.... doesn't matter. Branding isn't that important other than a means of establishing identity. As long as the principles values morals and benefits of something based in rights are articulated properly, it will appeal to what comes natural to all humans. Which is of key importance.
Who likes to be coerced and robbed, beaten tazed caged or shot? Those are your choices with government. ..as opposed to Anarchy that allows you to do whatever.
Another way of putting it(perhaps the idiot-proof way?) is this;
Would you rather have a person with a blue shirt force you to eat a turd sandwich on wheat with swiss and mayo, or a person in a red shirt force you to eat a turd on rye with mustard and cheddar? ..or eat whatever you want?
Great thoughts brother. Thanks for the mention.
Figured I would chime in. I shared this on another comment but its worth sharing again. I love Karl Hess' quote from his essay Anarchism without Hyphens (https://www.panarchy.org/hess/anarchism.html):
"There is only one kind of anarchist. Not two. Just one. An anarchist, the only kind, as defined by the long tradition and literature of the position itself, is a person in opposition to authority imposed through the hierarchical power of the state. The only expansion of this that seems to me to be reasonable is to say that an anarchist stands in opposition to any imposed authority.
An anarchist is a voluntarist.
Now, beyond that, anarchists also are people and, as such, contain the billion-faceted varieties of human reference. Some are anarchists who march, voluntarily, to the Cross of Christ. Some are anarchists who flock, voluntarily, to the communities of beloved, inspirational father figures. Some are anarchists who seek to establish the syndics of voluntary industrial production. Some are anarchists who voluntarily seek to establish the rural production of the kibbutzim. Some are anarchists who, voluntarily, seek to disestablish everything including their own association with other people, the hermits. Some are anarchists who deal, voluntarily, only in gold, will never co-operate, and swirl their capes. Some are anarchists who, voluntarily, worship the sun and its energy, build domes, eat only vegetables, and play the dulcimer. Some are anarchists who worship the power of algorithms, play strange games, and infiltrate strange temples. Some are anarchists who only see the stars. Some are anarchists who only see the mud.
They spring from a single seed, no matter the flowering of their ideas. The seed is liberty. And that is all it is. It is not a socialist seed. It is not a capitalist seed. It is not a mystical seed. It is not a determinist seed. It is simply a statement. We can be free. After that it’s all choice and chance.
Anarchism, liberty, does not tell you a thing about how free people will behave or what arrangements they will make. It simply says that people have the capacity to make arrangements.
Anarchism is not normative. It does not say how to be free. It says only that freedom, liberty, can exist."
Also, encourage you to learn about Auberon Herbert. He was one of the first to use the world voluntaryism (but with a slightly different meaning). Definitely a good read as well. http://www.davidmhart.com/liberty/EnglishClassicalLiberals/Herbert/1897-PrinciplesVoluntaryism/index.html#what
Also, probably the best source for the modern voluntaryist take is https://voluntaryist.com/ Lots of good essays and insights there.