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I Must Speak Out: The Best of The Voluntaryist 1982-1999
LARGE PRINT EDITION! More at LargePrintLiberty.comVoluntaryists are advocates of non-political strategies to achieve a free society. We reject electoral politics, in theory and in practice, as incompatible with libertarian principles. Governments must cloak their actions in an aura of moral legitimacy in order to sustain their power, and political methods invariably strengthen that legitimacy. Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends. This volume is a collection of essays from The Voluntaryist newsletter between the years 1982-1999.
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First published January 1, 1999
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April 29, 2009
I finished "I Must Speak Out" a few days ago. I liked it very much. The book is a collection of essays from a variety of sources, but mostly come from the mind and research of Carl Watner.
Watner delves into many areas of history where an absence of government caused no problems at all. In fact, quite the contrary, when government intruded into human actions in the marketplace, it usually caused trouble.
Touching on such historical events as time standardization, the anarchic nature of the English language, and the advent of industrial standards, Watner's writings from a voluntaryist perspective are gripping, hopeful and enduring.
I read this book to my kids (aged 5, 3, and 1) at bedtime. My eldest daughter cried when she learned that I had finished it when I was out of town for a funeral. She remarked to me, "Rothbard is okay, but Carl Watner's the BEST!" Watner's easy going style, and wonderful way of simply explaining the complex is the most endearing quality of this book.
I am very glad this was selected by the participants of the Freedom Book Club as their Book of the Month for February 2009. However, a flaw, which is not to be overlooked as minor, is the typography. There are quite a number of insignificant typos throughout the book, which didn't detract from the content of the material. But the major double "The" on the cover is a gaff not easily overlooked (once you notice it, it haunts you). I have to give credit to my 3 year old, who was reading the title one night, and read the title as it actually appears, "The Best of the... The Voluntaryist 1982 -1999." Hopefully there will be future editions of this book, sans the duplication. It is a volume that I will cherish.
Watner delves into many areas of history where an absence of government caused no problems at all. In fact, quite the contrary, when government intruded into human actions in the marketplace, it usually caused trouble.
Touching on such historical events as time standardization, the anarchic nature of the English language, and the advent of industrial standards, Watner's writings from a voluntaryist perspective are gripping, hopeful and enduring.
I read this book to my kids (aged 5, 3, and 1) at bedtime. My eldest daughter cried when she learned that I had finished it when I was out of town for a funeral. She remarked to me, "Rothbard is okay, but Carl Watner's the BEST!" Watner's easy going style, and wonderful way of simply explaining the complex is the most endearing quality of this book.
I am very glad this was selected by the participants of the Freedom Book Club as their Book of the Month for February 2009. However, a flaw, which is not to be overlooked as minor, is the typography. There are quite a number of insignificant typos throughout the book, which didn't detract from the content of the material. But the major double "The" on the cover is a gaff not easily overlooked (once you notice it, it haunts you). I have to give credit to my 3 year old, who was reading the title one night, and read the title as it actually appears, "The Best of the... The Voluntaryist 1982 -1999." Hopefully there will be future editions of this book, sans the duplication. It is a volume that I will cherish.
November 21, 2019
What distinguishes the State from an organized gang? Carl Watner argues in I Must Speak Out that nothing whatsoever does, except its subjects’ belief. Monarchical or democratic, a State is is nothing more than organized violence. Those of us who vote are not engaging in self-rule or self-determination, he and others write here, but are instead legitimizing and participating in a fraud. I Must Speak Out explores these and other topics, promoting instead voluntaryism – the belief that all associations between humans should be noncoercive (voluntary). The book begins with arguments against the aggression and the state, shifts into a review of history, and ends by probing voluntaryism as applied to commercial standards, marriage, roads, and the like.
There are two axioms undergirding voluntarism: one, that if something is immoral, it is immoral for any one or any group of people. Two, the use of uninitiated force (aggression) is itself immoral. These two paired together are far more subversive than they appear, however; many poeple might agree that if the State murders and steals, it has done wrong. Even those who otherwise support the state would admit to recurrent malfeasance; see the dozens killed at Waco, or the widespread abuses of asset forfeiture related to the drug war. But what about the death penalty and taxes? No one voluntarily pays taxes; even those who claim to be happy to do so would assuredly pay much less were taxation a voluntary donation. But just as the smiling gangster’s charm vanishes the moment payment to him is refused, so to does the State reveal its true nature whenever it counters resistance, and it is willing to break people for anything from tax avoidance to school truancy, for the fundamental evil of the state is that it assumes ownership of us; even the most benevolent democracy is beset by what Augustine called the lust for domination.
Voluntarism as explained by Watner is inherently individualistic, because all other social units or organizations are dependent on individual actors for their sustenance. This means that individual actors who sustain a given injustice by their actions are responsible for the action; the clerk who files paperwork for the SS is just as culpable just as the man filling the Zylon-B cylinders, or tattooing the prisoners of Auschwitz. It doesn’t matter if “someone else would have done it”, because we are each responsible for our actions; if something is wrong we cannot justify engaging in it. A common motto of this book is that if we take care of the means, the ends will take care of themselves. Just as engaging in coercion invariably corrupts the aggressor, turning them into a paranoid bully, so too does commitment to cooperation redeem human institutions.
Do we need the State to survive? As we look into the 21st century, the real question is this: can man survive the State? The State has never been more empowered by technology and the infrastructure of everyday life to wholly monopolize the lives of its subjects. We now live within an inescapable web of observation and manipulation. But in response to charges that the state is essential for all manner of things — education, roads, mail, law, etc – Watner explores how these things were handled before the State assumed them as its prerogative These historical essays are particularly educational, because they not only reveal that alternative means are possible, but they show the State for the bullyboy it really is, as to establish and maintain its monopoly has involved violence time and again. Even peaceable souls like Quakers and the Amish have been continually abused by the state, and the Amish’ present status is hard-won. This section isn’t comprehensive – his chapter on roads only involves 18-19th century turnpikes, for instance, and not more elaborate private transport networks like the railroads – but informative nonetheless.
I Must Speak Out is cynical, subversive, and often brilliant. Although the primary contributor is Watner, he includes pieces from other authors, sometimes as varied as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Noam Chomsky. Varying on contributor and subject, the collection can slide into conspiratorial thinking, as one author accuses the government of manipulating Japan into attacking the base at Pearl Harbor, and knowing beforehand what it would do. Similarly bordering on conspiratorial is the charge that the post office was established to turn mail into a source of intelligence, rather than to serve the public. Far more of the contributions impress, however, like the essay from a conservative anarchist who argued that one could still be opposed to things like abortion and prostitution without blocking them by force. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, sayeth Salvor Hardin, and the same statement is made here in different words. Although those supportive of the state to various degrees will find much to debate with here, Watner also challenges his compatriots early on by arguing that a libertarian political party makes as much sense as a nonviolent tank: the State is inherently a vehicle for aggression,, and those who seek to drive it are suspect even if they claim they only want to use it a little.
Definitely recommended as food for thought and debate, and more comments may be follow. Personally. I don’t know if anarchism is practicable for two reasons: first, that the absence of a “legitimate” gang-state would lead to rule by multiple smaller gang-states, at least in large cities where there already exists gangs who exact considerable influence over their turfs. Humans are innately tribal, and this includes an obsession with turf/territory. Two, modern humans are already so infantalized I wonder if they would be capable of taking ownership and agency of their own lives in the absence of big brother.
Related:
Red Emma Speaks, ed. Alix Kates Shulman. Emma Goldman was an anarchist from the leftist tradition, and I read this in 2010 when college social-democrat me was drifting off the reservation of acceptable political opinion.
The Iron Web, Larken Rose. A novel arguing for decentralization and voluntaryism, set as federal officers start destroying a voluntaryist commune in the mountains.
There are two axioms undergirding voluntarism: one, that if something is immoral, it is immoral for any one or any group of people. Two, the use of uninitiated force (aggression) is itself immoral. These two paired together are far more subversive than they appear, however; many poeple might agree that if the State murders and steals, it has done wrong. Even those who otherwise support the state would admit to recurrent malfeasance; see the dozens killed at Waco, or the widespread abuses of asset forfeiture related to the drug war. But what about the death penalty and taxes? No one voluntarily pays taxes; even those who claim to be happy to do so would assuredly pay much less were taxation a voluntary donation. But just as the smiling gangster’s charm vanishes the moment payment to him is refused, so to does the State reveal its true nature whenever it counters resistance, and it is willing to break people for anything from tax avoidance to school truancy, for the fundamental evil of the state is that it assumes ownership of us; even the most benevolent democracy is beset by what Augustine called the lust for domination.
Voluntarism as explained by Watner is inherently individualistic, because all other social units or organizations are dependent on individual actors for their sustenance. This means that individual actors who sustain a given injustice by their actions are responsible for the action; the clerk who files paperwork for the SS is just as culpable just as the man filling the Zylon-B cylinders, or tattooing the prisoners of Auschwitz. It doesn’t matter if “someone else would have done it”, because we are each responsible for our actions; if something is wrong we cannot justify engaging in it. A common motto of this book is that if we take care of the means, the ends will take care of themselves. Just as engaging in coercion invariably corrupts the aggressor, turning them into a paranoid bully, so too does commitment to cooperation redeem human institutions.
Do we need the State to survive? As we look into the 21st century, the real question is this: can man survive the State? The State has never been more empowered by technology and the infrastructure of everyday life to wholly monopolize the lives of its subjects. We now live within an inescapable web of observation and manipulation. But in response to charges that the state is essential for all manner of things — education, roads, mail, law, etc – Watner explores how these things were handled before the State assumed them as its prerogative These historical essays are particularly educational, because they not only reveal that alternative means are possible, but they show the State for the bullyboy it really is, as to establish and maintain its monopoly has involved violence time and again. Even peaceable souls like Quakers and the Amish have been continually abused by the state, and the Amish’ present status is hard-won. This section isn’t comprehensive – his chapter on roads only involves 18-19th century turnpikes, for instance, and not more elaborate private transport networks like the railroads – but informative nonetheless.
I Must Speak Out is cynical, subversive, and often brilliant. Although the primary contributor is Watner, he includes pieces from other authors, sometimes as varied as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Noam Chomsky. Varying on contributor and subject, the collection can slide into conspiratorial thinking, as one author accuses the government of manipulating Japan into attacking the base at Pearl Harbor, and knowing beforehand what it would do. Similarly bordering on conspiratorial is the charge that the post office was established to turn mail into a source of intelligence, rather than to serve the public. Far more of the contributions impress, however, like the essay from a conservative anarchist who argued that one could still be opposed to things like abortion and prostitution without blocking them by force. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, sayeth Salvor Hardin, and the same statement is made here in different words. Although those supportive of the state to various degrees will find much to debate with here, Watner also challenges his compatriots early on by arguing that a libertarian political party makes as much sense as a nonviolent tank: the State is inherently a vehicle for aggression,, and those who seek to drive it are suspect even if they claim they only want to use it a little.
Definitely recommended as food for thought and debate, and more comments may be follow. Personally. I don’t know if anarchism is practicable for two reasons: first, that the absence of a “legitimate” gang-state would lead to rule by multiple smaller gang-states, at least in large cities where there already exists gangs who exact considerable influence over their turfs. Humans are innately tribal, and this includes an obsession with turf/territory. Two, modern humans are already so infantalized I wonder if they would be capable of taking ownership and agency of their own lives in the absence of big brother.
Related:
Red Emma Speaks, ed. Alix Kates Shulman. Emma Goldman was an anarchist from the leftist tradition, and I read this in 2010 when college social-democrat me was drifting off the reservation of acceptable political opinion.
The Iron Web, Larken Rose. A novel arguing for decentralization and voluntaryism, set as federal officers start destroying a voluntaryist commune in the mountains.
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