Very thought-provoking and elucidating article - thank you. I had not heard of voluntaryism, however, I suspect it equates more or less with self-responsibility within the context of community (in the true sense of the word 'community').
I have become very interested in self-responsibility as a solution to the predator Nanny State, which has overtaken the collective consciousness, to the point of strangulation in the past few years.
Thank you. Yes voluntaryism is a grown-up way of engaging with one's community. It must, of necessity, entail greater self-responsibility since decisions are not imposed. What attracts me to it is that it is an ethos, or a value that must then be translated into a practice. Our systems today are devoid of values, which is why they are failing. Lip service is paid to values but, when you peel away at the system, all you find is a bureaucracy with rules and punishments for not following them.
I think part of the problem here is that people generally equate values with opinions. Opinions are ever-changing, like moods, whereas values are core beliefs, immutable to a certain extent. They provide an anchor amidst the chaos of a transient and seemingly whimsical external world. I would imagine that relatively few people could articulate their values nowadays but most are able to express the prevailing winds of opinion...
"A non-voluntaryist order-follower finds it easy to obey because they would do exactly what the order-giver is doing if they possessed the same resources and power. This is why the order-follower is really on the same side as the order-giver. Following orders is a soothing drug for the non-voluntaryist because they vibrate to the dictates of power."
This is from Part I and it's so on the mark. Unlike voluntaryists, the rulers and masses of order followers understand each other because they share the same beliefs in the desirability of authoritarianism and hierarchy. Voluntaryists and anti-authoritarians, a minority of the population, speak a different language.
It’s fascinating where some of us are meeting. Now I’ve never been either left or right. My only vote in 38 years of eligibility was Corbyn because I saw how afraid the establishment were of him. However for my entire adult life people would have perceived us as being on opposite sides, me as the serial entrepreneur (I hate that term but it will do as short hand here) and you as far left. Now I read your piece and I agree wholeheartedly. (My wife is absolutely voluntaryist and always has been). Funny enough I now publish on Paul’s excellent Winter Oak site but prior to that one of the few sites publishing dissent during ‘convid’ was The Conservative Woman. This piece published there in ‘22 might give a clue to what unites us. It’s not remotely conservative btw ;) https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/mavericks-unite-against-the-madness/
Convid was revelatory in the sense that, for many of us, whatever we thought we were before convid was not who we really are. The past five years have essentially been an accelerated process of discovery - discovering the world, yourself and everyone around you. The Mavericks piece is excellent.
Yes. I think it also revealed us to other people. Sometimes that hasn’t gone so well.
Also I have a theory that they’ll hate us much more as they realise we were right than they did when they thought we were wrong. This is already playing out.
Gosh, what a long-winded way of saying that you don't like any kind of government much ;-)
Join the crowd: why do you think that the biggest party of all is the 'Didn't bother to vote for any of them' party - at virtually every election, ever held .?
We are facing a tremendously powerful cabal of eugenicist billionaires who want to trans-humanize us. This requires the formation of socialist working class parties, to take power and establish democratic workers states. What you're offering instead looks like navel-gazing. I don't buy it.
The left - I was and in some ways still am, of the left, have a lot of catching up to do. As a group, we've been stupid, naive and slow. Before the left can even think about telling anyone how society should be, it'll have to seriously get its shit together. It isn't even in the conversation at the moment, let alone at the table.
Lessons from the last few years:
1. Any given bit of the world is ruled by oligarchs. Not systems or parties or democracies, or any other nice stories. The question is not, are we ruled by bastards, only are they our bastards?
2. We the people don't deserve and can't handle anything like a democracy. When it comes to it, as a body, we're easily led, easily fooled and won't stand up for ourselves or each other worth a damn.
3. The above notwithstanding, the will of the people is a real thing. The wishes and intentions of the whole of us changes over time and is powerful. That becomes manifest when one group of oligarchs harnesses it to wrest power from another group. We just saw that in the US
4. The problem in the UK (and a lot of europe) is that we don't currently have a sufficient group of said oligarchs available to harness the anger that is undoubtedly building up.
Hi Rod. It’s true that the entire planet is run by oligarchs, or that most, if not all, political systems are plutocracies. However, they do operate within a system that empowers them. I can’t sanction rule by oligarchs on the basis that we just need the right bunch of oligarchs – the ‘good’ ones. That’s because the system selects for psychopaths. The system demands that those who reach the top are loyal only to greed, profit and power, not people. There is no such thing as a good oligarch, because to get to the top they HAVE to be bad, or the system would not allow them to acquire their billions in the first place.
If I’ve understood you correctly, you’re saying that the US has seen a transfer of power from one group of bad oligarchs to a ‘good’ group? If that’s what you are saying, I cannot agree. It’s very literally the same bunch in power now that have always been in power. The oligarchy is not partisan to one group or another. They are merely using gullible voters who think they are. The oligarchy looks after itself. End of. Red voters in the US are going to discover that very quickly. Or, if they don’t, we’ve lost the battle for good.
In short, oligarchy is a manifestation of extreme power concentration for the good of that oligarchy not for the people. We need to break the power concentration, and that can only happen when bottom-up movements set up structures, businesses etc that take power away from oligarchs and transfer it to the people.
Self governance is the only legitimate form of governance.
Very thought-provoking and elucidating article - thank you. I had not heard of voluntaryism, however, I suspect it equates more or less with self-responsibility within the context of community (in the true sense of the word 'community').
I have become very interested in self-responsibility as a solution to the predator Nanny State, which has overtaken the collective consciousness, to the point of strangulation in the past few years.
Thank you. Yes voluntaryism is a grown-up way of engaging with one's community. It must, of necessity, entail greater self-responsibility since decisions are not imposed. What attracts me to it is that it is an ethos, or a value that must then be translated into a practice. Our systems today are devoid of values, which is why they are failing. Lip service is paid to values but, when you peel away at the system, all you find is a bureaucracy with rules and punishments for not following them.
I think part of the problem here is that people generally equate values with opinions. Opinions are ever-changing, like moods, whereas values are core beliefs, immutable to a certain extent. They provide an anchor amidst the chaos of a transient and seemingly whimsical external world. I would imagine that relatively few people could articulate their values nowadays but most are able to express the prevailing winds of opinion...
Totally agreed.
"A non-voluntaryist order-follower finds it easy to obey because they would do exactly what the order-giver is doing if they possessed the same resources and power. This is why the order-follower is really on the same side as the order-giver. Following orders is a soothing drug for the non-voluntaryist because they vibrate to the dictates of power."
This is from Part I and it's so on the mark. Unlike voluntaryists, the rulers and masses of order followers understand each other because they share the same beliefs in the desirability of authoritarianism and hierarchy. Voluntaryists and anti-authoritarians, a minority of the population, speak a different language.
It’s fascinating where some of us are meeting. Now I’ve never been either left or right. My only vote in 38 years of eligibility was Corbyn because I saw how afraid the establishment were of him. However for my entire adult life people would have perceived us as being on opposite sides, me as the serial entrepreneur (I hate that term but it will do as short hand here) and you as far left. Now I read your piece and I agree wholeheartedly. (My wife is absolutely voluntaryist and always has been). Funny enough I now publish on Paul’s excellent Winter Oak site but prior to that one of the few sites publishing dissent during ‘convid’ was The Conservative Woman. This piece published there in ‘22 might give a clue to what unites us. It’s not remotely conservative btw ;) https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/mavericks-unite-against-the-madness/
Convid was revelatory in the sense that, for many of us, whatever we thought we were before convid was not who we really are. The past five years have essentially been an accelerated process of discovery - discovering the world, yourself and everyone around you. The Mavericks piece is excellent.
Yes. I think it also revealed us to other people. Sometimes that hasn’t gone so well.
Also I have a theory that they’ll hate us much more as they realise we were right than they did when they thought we were wrong. This is already playing out.
Mavericks indeed.
Some will search their souls. Many will prefer a comfortable lie to the uncomfortable truth. Subject of my next piece! ...
I look forward to it.
It equally revealed those other people to us, and what I witnessed and experienced from them doesn't sit well with me to say the least.
Gosh, what a long-winded way of saying that you don't like any kind of government much ;-)
Join the crowd: why do you think that the biggest party of all is the 'Didn't bother to vote for any of them' party - at virtually every election, ever held .?
We are facing a tremendously powerful cabal of eugenicist billionaires who want to trans-humanize us. This requires the formation of socialist working class parties, to take power and establish democratic workers states. What you're offering instead looks like navel-gazing. I don't buy it.
"the voluntaryist spiritual revolution that began roughly 2000 years ago" - do you mean the Way of Christ?
Yes
The left - I was and in some ways still am, of the left, have a lot of catching up to do. As a group, we've been stupid, naive and slow. Before the left can even think about telling anyone how society should be, it'll have to seriously get its shit together. It isn't even in the conversation at the moment, let alone at the table.
Lessons from the last few years:
1. Any given bit of the world is ruled by oligarchs. Not systems or parties or democracies, or any other nice stories. The question is not, are we ruled by bastards, only are they our bastards?
2. We the people don't deserve and can't handle anything like a democracy. When it comes to it, as a body, we're easily led, easily fooled and won't stand up for ourselves or each other worth a damn.
3. The above notwithstanding, the will of the people is a real thing. The wishes and intentions of the whole of us changes over time and is powerful. That becomes manifest when one group of oligarchs harnesses it to wrest power from another group. We just saw that in the US
4. The problem in the UK (and a lot of europe) is that we don't currently have a sufficient group of said oligarchs available to harness the anger that is undoubtedly building up.
Hi Rod. It’s true that the entire planet is run by oligarchs, or that most, if not all, political systems are plutocracies. However, they do operate within a system that empowers them. I can’t sanction rule by oligarchs on the basis that we just need the right bunch of oligarchs – the ‘good’ ones. That’s because the system selects for psychopaths. The system demands that those who reach the top are loyal only to greed, profit and power, not people. There is no such thing as a good oligarch, because to get to the top they HAVE to be bad, or the system would not allow them to acquire their billions in the first place.
If I’ve understood you correctly, you’re saying that the US has seen a transfer of power from one group of bad oligarchs to a ‘good’ group? If that’s what you are saying, I cannot agree. It’s very literally the same bunch in power now that have always been in power. The oligarchy is not partisan to one group or another. They are merely using gullible voters who think they are. The oligarchy looks after itself. End of. Red voters in the US are going to discover that very quickly. Or, if they don’t, we’ve lost the battle for good.
In short, oligarchy is a manifestation of extreme power concentration for the good of that oligarchy not for the people. We need to break the power concentration, and that can only happen when bottom-up movements set up structures, businesses etc that take power away from oligarchs and transfer it to the people.
I didn't see Michael Malice on your list.