Updated. Originally written 2025-03.
*”Anarchy” has many flavors. I’m talking about the flavors that respect property rights, such as “Voluntaryism,” “Anarcho-Capitalism,” and “Agorism.”
ONE. We don’t want “chaos”. In fact, we prefer peace more than the average statist because most anarchists base our actions on a preference for consent in *all* situations, with extremely rare exceptions. If the statist says, “I’m in favor of mutual consent, too!” They mean it but with some exceptions, like taxation, which does not involve mutual consent. We pay through taxation for many government “services” we do not want or need. If we don’t pay, we are fined or caged.
Let’s talk about how we can have a system, without government (but with voluntary governance), where there is less opportunity for powerful people to dominate others because no one will have access to that monolithic system of force. [An example of what I’m talking about is big corporations (govt entities) controlling politicians. Look up regulatory capture if you haven’t heard of it. It’s a cornerstone of the corporatism/cronyism/technocracy we see in the USA.]
Note, I said “less” regarding opportunities for domination. While Voluntaryists would love to work toward a better world, we (the smart ones) are not naive enough to believe it is possible to have a completely perfect world, and we are fine with that.
TWO. Just because we prefer the government not -monopolize- provide certain services, we are not advocating *against* health care, learning, research, charity, regulation, and security. *We see these services as important* – even vital – to the efficient, peaceful, healthy, and prosperous functioning of a society.
THREE. We don’t want a quick or violent revolution. Most of us recognize that fast change can be destructive, especially when people are not quite ready. The last thing we want is for a “revolution” that leads to yet another instance of “involuntary government” by those powerful enough to seize “the throne”. Most anarchists I know now call ourselves “Voluntaryists” because we want “leading” to be only valid with the full consent of the led. [Here I will shift fully into 1st person because I’d rather not speak for all Voluntaryists.]
– “Practical Empathy Practice” (derived from cognitive empathy, Buddhism, Stoicism, and “Non-Violent Communication” (NVC)) is spreading. When people are empowered to solve their own conflicts, they are less in need of mediation and protection.
– The Internet and other technologies are making it cheaper and easier to collaborate, learn, share, create, and understand! All of these abilities decrease the “payoff” value in the use of violence, theft, and dishonesty.
– While reputation has always mattered, now with the cheap ability to spread information instantly, reputation is quickly seeing a vast increase in value! As reputation becomes of more practical use for increasing incentive for entities to “do right”, there is a lessening of the need for coercively imposed regulation. Combine this phenomenon with…
– There will be a rise of many competing private regulatory bodies (like Underwriters Laboratories – UL) springing up to fill the vaccuum left by the corrupt government monopoly on regulation. These agencies would live and die by their *reputations*. Is trust the currency of our future?
– Similarly, there will be a growing need for private security and mediation firms. All highly dependent on their reputation to be honest and fair.
Thanks for reading! I welcome questions and dissent. If you are curious, I go into greater depth here: Law & security without government and here: Without government, would warlords take over?
When you hear the idea of zero government, is the first thing that comes to mind, “What about the roads?” Here’s one article of many addressing that.
Here’s another article, this one very specific, about a private road solving a problem: Guess Who Built the Roads?
Here’s an example of one of the many ways government mis-manages roads: Without Government, Who Will Force Drivers off Roads?
If your web search doesn’t turn up more examples, you are using the wrong search engine. Sadly Google (long ago) and Duck Duck Go (more recently) have bowed to the technocracy/corporatism. I now use Brave Search along with Brave Browser.
Recent Comments