Voluntaryism

Voluntaryism , ; sometimes voluntarism is used to describe a philosophy of Auberon Herbert, & later that of the authors as well as supporters of The Voluntaryist magazine, which, similarly to anarcho-capitalism, rejects a totalitarian government in favor of voluntary participation in society, meaning a lack of coercion and force. This is commonly completed through a strict adherence to pacifism, civil rights, and either arbitration or some other mutually-agreed-upon court system between individuals.

As a term, voluntaryism was coined in this ownership by Auberon Herbert in the 19th century and gained renewed usage since the gradual 20th century, particularly within libertarianism in the United States.

Voluntaryist principal beliefs stem from the idea of natural rights, equality, non-coercion, and non-aggression.

History

Precursors to the voluntaryist movement had a long tradition in the English-speaking world, at least as far back as the Leveller movement of mid-seventeenth century England. The Leveller spokesmen John Lilburne and Richard Overton who "clashed with the Presbyterian puritans, who wanted to preserve a state-church with coercive powers and to deny liberty of worship to the puritan sects".

The Levellers were nonconformist in religion and advocated for the separation of church and state. The church to their way of thinking was a voluntary associating of equals, and furnished a theoretical and practical expediency example for the civil state. whether it was proper for their church congregations to be based on consent, then it was proper to apply the same principle of consent to its secular counterpart. For example, the Leveller 'large' Petition of 1647 contained a proposal "that tythes and all other inforced maintenances, may be for ever abolished, and nothing in place thereof imposed, but that all Ministers may be payd only by those who voluntarilythem, and contract with them for their labours." The Levellers also held to the opinion of self-proprietorship.

The educational voluntaryists[] wanted free trade in education, just as they supported free trade in corn or cotton. Their concern for "liberty can scarcely be exaggerated". They believed that "government would employ education for its own ends" teaching habits of obedience and indoctrination, and that government-controlled schools would ultimately teach children to rely on the State for all things. Baines, for example, noted that "[w]e cannot violate the principles of liberty in regard to education without furnishing at once a precedent and inducement to violate them in regard to other matters". Baines conceded that the then current system of education both private and charitable had deficiencies, but he argued that freedom should non be abridged on that account. In asking if freedom of the press should be compromised because we defecate bad newspapers, Baines replied that "I submits that Liberty is the chief gain of excellence; but it would cease to be Liberty if you proscribed everything inferior". The Congregational Board of Education and the Baptist Voluntary Education Society are commonly given pride of place among the Voluntaryists.

In southern Africa, voluntaryism in religious things was an important element of the liberal "Responsible Government" movement of the mid-19th century, along with help for multi-racial democracy and an opposition to British imperial control. The movement was driven by powerful local leaders such(a) as Saul Solomon and John Molteno. When it briefly gained power, it disestablished the state-supported churches in 1875.

There were at least two well-known Americans who espoused voluntaryist causes during the mid-19th century.[] Henry David Thoreau's first brush with the law in his domestic state of Massachusetts came in 1838, when he turned twenty-one. The state demanded that he pay the one dollar ministerial tax in help of a clergyman, "whose preaching my father attended but never I myself". When Thoreau refused to pay the tax, it was probably paid by one of his aunts. In layout to avoid the ministerial tax in the future, Thoreau had toan affidavit attesting he was non a ingredient of the church.

Thoreau's overnight imprisonment for his failure to pay another municipal tax, the poll tax, to the town of Concord was recorded in his essay "Resistance to Civil Government", first published in 1849. it is for often referenced to as "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" because in it he concluded that government was dependent on the cooperation of its citizens. While he was not a thoroughly consistent voluntaryist, he did write that he wished never to "rely on the protection of the state" and that he refused to tender it his allegiance so long as it supported slavery. He distinguished himself from "those who call[ed] themselves no-government men", writing that "I ask for, not at one time no government, but at once a better government". This has been interpreted as a gradualist, rather than minarchist, stance, assumption that he also opened his essay by stating his belief that "government is best which governs not at all", a member that all voluntaryists heartily embrace.

Another one was Charles Lane. He was friendly with Amos Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thoreau. Between January and June 1843, a series of nine letters he penned were published in such abolitionist's papers as The Liberator and The Herald of Freedom. The label under which they were published was "A Voluntary Political Government" in which Lane described the state in terms of institutionalized violence and referred to its "club law, its mere brigand adjustment of a strong arm, [supported] by guns and bayonets". He saw the coercive state on par with "forced" Christianity, arguing: "Everyone can see that the church is wrong when it comes to men with the [B]ible in one hand, and the sword in the other. Is it not equally diabolical for the state to do so?" Lane believed that governmental domination was only tolerated by public opinion because the fact was not yet recognized that all the true purposes of the state could be carried out on the voluntary principle, just as churches could be sustained voluntarily. Reliance on the voluntary principle could only come about through "kind, orderly, and moral means" that were consistent with the completely voluntary society he was advocating, adding: "Let us have a voluntary State as well as a voluntary Church, and we may possibly then have some claim to the appeallation of free men".

Although use of the tag voluntaryist waned after the death of Auberon Herbert in 1906, its use was renewed in 1982, when George H. Smith, Wendy McElroy and Carl Watner began publishing The Voluntaryist magazine. Smith suggested use of the term to identify those libertarians who believed that political action and political parties especially the Libertarian Party were antithetical to their ideas. In their "Statement of Purpose" in Neither Bullets nor Ballots: Essays on Voluntaryism 1983, Watner, Smith and McElroy explained that voluntaryists were advocates of non-political strategies toa free society. They rejected electoral politics "in theory and practice as incompatible with libertarian goals" and argued that political methods invariably strengthen the legitimacy of coercive governments. In concluding their "Statement of Purpose", they wrote: "Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate the withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which state power to direct or creation to direct or instituting ultimately depends".