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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 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.
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 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.
318 pages, Paperback
Published July 4, 2022
37 people are currently reading
105 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 23, 2022
If you’re curious about the reasons why centralization of power and authority should be despised (specially at the nation’s level), this book has the perfect collection of essays. Although some of the content is flawed and is to be taken with a grain of salt, this book should be read by anyone who uses arguments like “I’ve worked as a Lawyer” or “I have a Masters’ in Finance” when debating Economics, Monetary Policies or Politics.
September 28, 2023
Read the full review on my blog:
https://midnightmouthful.substack.com...
Keith Knight, host of the Don’t Tread on Anyone podcast, clearly took inspiration for The Voluntaryist Handbook from Michael Malice’s The Anarchist Handbook, which I previously reviewed. Though I adore that collection, and would imagine both belong in one’s collection, this one surpasses its predecessor in several ways.
Much like Malice’s book, there is little in the way of direct narrative or argumentation from Knight here. Instead he collects a quite large assortment of libertarian, agorist, and anarchist essays, speeches, and excerpts. The titular voluntaryist terminology can essentially be read as equivalent to anarchist or anarcho-capitalist in this context, especially useful for those reticent to identify with the former term or too tired of the semantic debates often invited by the latter.
For my part, though I appreciate the thinking behind the term, I prefer the familiarity that comes with anarchist—though this can very easily be argued to be a weakness rather than a strength.
The selections here trend toward the shorter side, with a fewer longer pieces scattered throughout. For the most part this approach works quite well, and as its bite-size essays generally skewing more practical than abstract, it nicely complements rather than supplants Malice’s collection.
The selected authors are for the most part predictable, from Rothbard and Spooner to Hoppe, but also include a handful of significantly more obscure authors and thinkers. Several chapters consist of a series of short quotes on several topics, a smart approach which allows Knight to include an even broader array of sources.
Overall, this collection presents a significantly more approachable, concrete and practical primer on its subject matter than The Anarchist Handbook. It’s much easier to imagine handing this book over to an interested but completely unacquainted reader, and for them to come away convinced of at least some of its arguments.
Though many of Malice’s selections are much more meaningful to me personally, there’s no doubt they skew towards the verbose, abstract, and even challenging. Similarly, a reader recently introduced to the ideas of anarchism could easily flip through the contents of this book, thinking “What does this ideology have to say about war/national defense?” or other topics, and going straight to a quite pragmatic essay on that subject.
My primary criticism of the selections here would be that a handful of them are a bit too topical, particularly those written in the height of COVID pandemic hysteria. These already feel slightly dated when read a few short years later. Though no doubt the subject is worthy of inclusion, I’d much prefer to have seen a bit of a broader, sober, and contextualized look at how government abuses public health policy, rather than the somewhat inflamed and in-the-moment selections here.
In any case this is a fairly minor critique. Overall The Voluntaryist Handbook is an incredibly worthwhile collection to read and own, certainly for the new initiate, but even the well-read will find new ideas here.
https://midnightmouthful.substack.com...
Keith Knight, host of the Don’t Tread on Anyone podcast, clearly took inspiration for The Voluntaryist Handbook from Michael Malice’s The Anarchist Handbook, which I previously reviewed. Though I adore that collection, and would imagine both belong in one’s collection, this one surpasses its predecessor in several ways.
Much like Malice’s book, there is little in the way of direct narrative or argumentation from Knight here. Instead he collects a quite large assortment of libertarian, agorist, and anarchist essays, speeches, and excerpts. The titular voluntaryist terminology can essentially be read as equivalent to anarchist or anarcho-capitalist in this context, especially useful for those reticent to identify with the former term or too tired of the semantic debates often invited by the latter.
For my part, though I appreciate the thinking behind the term, I prefer the familiarity that comes with anarchist—though this can very easily be argued to be a weakness rather than a strength.
The selections here trend toward the shorter side, with a fewer longer pieces scattered throughout. For the most part this approach works quite well, and as its bite-size essays generally skewing more practical than abstract, it nicely complements rather than supplants Malice’s collection.
The selected authors are for the most part predictable, from Rothbard and Spooner to Hoppe, but also include a handful of significantly more obscure authors and thinkers. Several chapters consist of a series of short quotes on several topics, a smart approach which allows Knight to include an even broader array of sources.
Overall, this collection presents a significantly more approachable, concrete and practical primer on its subject matter than The Anarchist Handbook. It’s much easier to imagine handing this book over to an interested but completely unacquainted reader, and for them to come away convinced of at least some of its arguments.
Though many of Malice’s selections are much more meaningful to me personally, there’s no doubt they skew towards the verbose, abstract, and even challenging. Similarly, a reader recently introduced to the ideas of anarchism could easily flip through the contents of this book, thinking “What does this ideology have to say about war/national defense?” or other topics, and going straight to a quite pragmatic essay on that subject.
My primary criticism of the selections here would be that a handful of them are a bit too topical, particularly those written in the height of COVID pandemic hysteria. These already feel slightly dated when read a few short years later. Though no doubt the subject is worthy of inclusion, I’d much prefer to have seen a bit of a broader, sober, and contextualized look at how government abuses public health policy, rather than the somewhat inflamed and in-the-moment selections here.
In any case this is a fairly minor critique. Overall The Voluntaryist Handbook is an incredibly worthwhile collection to read and own, certainly for the new initiate, but even the well-read will find new ideas here.
November 21, 2022
It’s difficult to know who the primary audience of this collection of essays is. Maybe it’s me. I feel like anyone that is part of the Voluntaryist movement would already be familiar with many of these chapters and their respective authors, but maybe not. If not, this is a good assortment of articles to help understand the philosophy behind the ideas. My next concern is how to persuade those that are not already of this mindset to read these works. I did find some chapters more difficult to read than others and by difficult I mean boring. But mostly, I believe it was a good mixture of old and new, solemn and humorous. My favourites included Sobran (The Reluctant Anarchist), Oakley (I was a police officer, now I’m a Voluntaryist), Skousen (Persuasion versus Force), Rose (The Most Dangerous Superstition- Excerpts and The ‘Power Vacuum’ Argument), Huemer (Fallacies you need to be told about), Quinones (So, Tell me, ‘Do you hate the State?’), Corbett (Government itself is immoral) and Russell (An Invisible Enemy Turned Inward). Fulton’s ‘Welfare before the Welfare State’ was the chapter that I learned the most. I was unaware of these systems previously. I liked how Knight put together pages of quotes rather than a Recommended Reading list. In these pages, I especially liked the Block quote regarding the non-aggression principle. The Afterword by Knight, regarding self-ownership was a nice way to finish also. Importantly, this collection may spur readers on to read the full original texts and further grow their understanding of this ideology.
January 29, 2023
Just finished reading The Voluntaryist Handbook. Overall a 3.9 out of 5. Had some interesting essays and it was nice seeing something centered around anarcho-capitalism. I felt there was a lot of repetition though and the book would have been more tolerable to someone already "dyed in the wool" if there was a distillation of only the most potent essays.
July 27, 2024
It was a good collection of essays – not to die for or anything, but quite good at times.
February 20, 2025
Phenomenal collection. Well chosen. As succinct of a summation of this set of beliefs as you’ll ever find in one place.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews