Here.
We at the Voluntaryist Reader have begun a series giving weekly installments of Auberon Herbert’s A Plea for Voluntaryism(part one) to the end of presenting to the world what, exactly, voluntaryism is. But there are those on the blogosphere and elsewhere who attack voluntaryism and I want to give an answer to Francois Tremblay, in particular, who has regularly criticized voluntaryism. His latest post on the subject is here. Tremblay immediately states that not only is voluntaryism a target, it is among “the roots that support the institutionalized evils around us.”
This is puzzling since – as voluntaryists – we not only see voluntaryism as precisely the opposite, we actually define it as such. Voluntaryism is the opposition to aggression in any form, whether institutionalized or not. The only possibilities are that either a) we are terribly confused or b) we are devious liars.
(cont'd)...
Clayton -
The war is purely defensive, right?
LOL - it's a war of words, so no aggression involved.
:-)
lol who downvoted him? Too funny.
I would not be surprised if he downvoted himself :)
LOL, Francois Tremblay :D
Tremblay is an irritant. He came and trolled on here a few years ago. He's incredibly difficult to discuss with- I remember one time him argue that voluntarists were inconsistent because they use government roads and just repeated it ad nauseum
The only interesting point he may have stumbled across (which he brings up as a comment on Clayton's article) is how much force does there need to be to make a contract illegitimate: if I point a gun at you and force you sign a document that would clearly be wrong however if there's only one business in an area due to a government granted monopoly your employment choices are artifically restricted by force. Can we call the latter truly voluntary?
The atoms tell the atoms so, for I never was or will but atoms forevermore be.
Yours sincerely,
Physiocrat
And whatever wrong has been done to you is not "society’s fault", it's the fault of individual actors, each of which have chosen at every point to perpetuate a system of coercion and bondage -- the statist order.
That is a powerful sentence indeed.
People still take Tremblay seriously?
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
still
What do you mean still? :P
That being said, no one takes us seriously either.
One day I should get around to doing a decent critique of left-libertarianism. Tremblay specifically.
There's plenty of critiques of it. Is he bringing anything new to the table?
Frankly, I don't think it's earth-shattering. Then again, I already agree with him, so I'm not really the best gauge.
It doesn't take very long to read, so you could give it a read.
I prefer Neodoxy's critique of left-anarchism.
Well it depends on what you mean by left-libertarianism. I don't think there's really much to say about cultural left-libertarianism. Or do you refer to anarcho-communism, rather than Long's (or Kevin Carson's) brand of market anarchism?
AnCom, AnSyn, mutualism, etc.
Blargg:Pure gold.
Why, thank you, sir!
I don't think I follow. In what sense do you agree with him?
Wait, what?
I guess you meant the OP. I took it that you agreed with Tremblay.
Oh, no.
It might be a rule of the grammar that "Slavery" can not be put into a contract within a "voluntary system" (as it may not be possible in certain leftist systems). It's outside the rule set, as "murder": whatever that may mean is automatically illegal in any system.
Either way, that isn't what is interesting, as those are empty sets:
what is interesting is the imperative to act, and phenomenon of action and it's consequence.
Not too sure I get/ agree with most of the arguments going on other than that.
That said this will hopefully be my last words ever wasted on that man who I refuse to name
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle