I often hear people attack the concept of a voluntary society on the basis of morality. Their idea is that a voluntary society would never work because there would be no basis for morality. This might make sense in a vaccuum, but when you turn the question back toward the minarchist or statist, the absurdity of it becomes clear.
Where Does Morality Come From In A Statist/Minarchist Society?
If you ask 1000 people if murder is wrong because government says it is, they will most likely all say, "Certainly not!" We all know that murder is wrong because it is wrong. This is a moral understanding which both predates the state, and which supersedes the state.
All reasonable, regular people can agree that murder is wrong and do not need the state to say so. If that is true now, while the state is in place, why would it be any less true in a stateless society?
Natural Law
We can agree that morality is higher than the state. For the basics of natural law, you can read Frédéric Bastiat's The Law or John Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government. For a much more in-depth look at the topic, you could check out Murray Rothbard's Ethics of Liberty.
But natural law is that law which can be found by reason, by conscience, and by simply observing human history. When people leave each other alone, there is peace and happiness. When people hurt each other and take their stuff, there is pain and suffering!
It really is extremely easy to grasp. Natural law can be whittled down to this: You own your body, therefore nobody else has the right to physically harm you or take your stuff (the fruits of your labor).
Natural Law In A Voluntaryist Society
So what about a voluntaryist society? What if everyone can not agree on what is natural law? While many people will make a big deal out of this question, it is actually a non-issue. It really does not matter if you disagree on anything as long as you do not physically hurt someone or take their stuff.
But what if someone does want to hurt you or take your suff? That's easy. In a voluntary society, if you are worried about that, you pay someone to protect you and your stuff. It does not matter if someone disagrees with you, because help is only a phone call or house alarm away.
When you really look at society, you realize that the vast majority of people are decent human beings. They do not spend their days hurting and stealing, and in a free society they would not all-of-a-sudden revert to being animals. Would you start murdering people if the government removed laws against murder? Would you steal your neighbor's stuff if the government removed laws against theft? You would not. And if you would not, then chances are that your friends, family, and neighbors would not either.
What About The Edge Cases?
Now, I often hear minarchists respond to this argument with questions like, "What about intellectual property?" or "What about hate speech?" These questions only make sense in the context of a state. Intellectual property, for example, would not exist if it was not for the state.
Property rights exist because property is a limited resource. You cannot have property in an unlimited resource because you cannot be deprived of it. If someone has deprived you of your property, then you can retaliate against them. But if someone, for example, copied a text file of yours, or a song of yours, or a picture of you, they would not actually be depriving you of any property.
In a voluntary society, if someone found something out about you, then you would have no recourse against them. You can't prosecute or retaliate against someone for something they know. In a state where laws are made to protect so-called intellectual property, then thought-crimes become actual crimes. But, once again, in a free, voluntary society this would not be the case. A musician might use other means of controlling how his/her music is distributed in order to reduce or eliminate the sharing of it. Or, the industry might change to where music is free by default and money is made by performing (this isn't a crazy idea, musicians already make the majority of their money in performing). But, we won't know for sure until we get there.
Also, what about hate speech? It is the same as intellectual property. You can not be retaliated against for saying something hateful, so you would be free to do so in a voluntary society. There would be no government to protect some speech while classifying other speech as "hate speech." Speech would just be speech. But there would be market consequences if you were a hateful person.
Chances are that good people would not want to patronize a hateful business. But, maybe there would be some hateful people around who would want to patronize that business. And, really, there would be nothing wrong with that. The good people will go to a non-hateful business while the bigoted, hateful people will go to their hateful business. And as long as nobody hurts another or takes their stuff, life will just go on.
The Free Market
The free market does a lot more than provide great products at great prices. The free market holds in check our worst instincts while allowing our best instincts to thrive. Morality would not disappear in a voluntary society. Instead, it would be more clear than ever.
There would be no government-chosen winners or losers in the market of life. Everyone would have to prove themselves in the free market. It would encourage creativity and voluntary interactions while discouraging aggression. It would mold generations of people who see voluntary interaction as the basis of morality, rather than the coercive force of the state.
Soon, if someone brought up the idea of a coercive state, people would laugh at it as an absurd means of bringing the best out of people. They would realize that using the power of the state to legislate morality and guide the market would cause dramatically more problems while solving next to nothing.
Conclusion
Voluntaryism is not a scary thing. It is not a Mad Max scenario where the whole world is in a crazy, disordered, violent state. Voluntaryism is the best solution to the problems of today, and it is the only system of societal interaction which protects the basic rights of all individuals (their right to their own life and property).
A voluntary society is not a society without morality. It is actually the most moral society one can imagine.
Resources:
- For a brief overview of natural law: The Law, by Frédéric Bastiat.
- For more on self-ownership, check out my blog post: The Currency of You.
- For an in-depth look at the ethics and morality of a stateless society: The Ethics of Liberty, by Murray Rothbard
- For a very practical and accessible illustration of what a voluntary society might look like in practice, check out: Anarchy In New England, by Joe Jarvis