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Description of  The Voluntaryist Handbook: A Collection of Essays, Excerpts, and Quotes

There exist two blatant contradictions which roughly ninety-nine percent of intellectuals, journalists, and voters erroneously believe. On the one hand, they say that the free market must be regulated in order to prevent monopolies. It is assumed that these monopolies would have such great power over the market that their customers would be forced to settle for products far more expensive than, and inferior to, those that would be offered under competitive market conditions. On the other hand, these intellectuals, journalists, and voters explicitly advocate that one group (government) monopolize the money supply, policing, courts, taxation, legislation, compulsory education, and a myriad of other things that we may consider to be vitally important. Second, the vast majority of people recognize the moral legitimacy of the biblical commandments Thou Shalt Not Steal and Thou Shalt Not Murder. Yet, when it comes to the practices of taxation and war, these principles are blatantly disregarded by almost everyone. If taxation is not theft, why can only governments do such a thing? Why not simply allow all organizations, companies, clubs, churches, or individuals to issue taxes? It should therefore come as no surprise that governments are infamous for delivering poor quality. Imagine a restaurant where you had to pay regardless of whether they brought food to your table. Likewise, war is simply a euphemism for theft-funded mass murder, a blatant crime that we would never dismiss if non-government actors were to engage in it. What if justice required us not to have double standards? This book seeks to dispel the belief that morality applies differently to government employees. If it is immoral for me to do something say, conscript people to perform labor against their will how can I justifiably vote for a representative to do such a thing on my behalf? Many real criticisms apply to the free market: greed, envy, dog-eat-dog mentalities, short-sightedness, etc. The problem with all of those criticisms is that they apply many times over to the state, since, by definition, the state does not face competition and one cannot opt out of funding it. While voluntarily funded competing organizations may have shortcomings, they are preferable to the coercively funded monopolies of the state. The following collection of essays, excerpts, and quotes has given me the intellectual capacity to stop hating people based on arbitrary differences and to focus on what really matters. Should I achieve my ends in life violently with threats, or voluntarily with persuasion? The corporate press will explicitly seek to divide people of goodwill based on gender, income, race, nationality, and any numerous other interchangeable sources of division to suit their agenda. No longer should we tolerate such an obvious scam. These passages, which can be read in any order, are what convinced me to abandon statism and embrace voluntaryism. Read more