Expressive Non-voting

 Posted by at 10:41 am  1 Response »
Oct 022011
 

In Bryan Caplan’s book, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, he explains how voters are “rationally irrational”. Since the probability of any single vote influencing the outcome of an election is vanishingly small, there is no incentive for voters to spend time informing themselves in order to vote wisely. So rather than vote for the best policies, voters indulge (rationally) in expressive voting (“irrational”), e.g., showing support for an ideal/party, or being part of the democratic process for its own sake.

Libertarians often don’t vote because there are no candidates that represent their principles. Furthermore, many libertarians dislike voting and would prefer not to participate in a coercive political process even if it is democratic. So libertarians are often expressive non-voters. Since our individual votes won’t make any difference, we may as well not vote—to express our objections to the coercive nature of democracy (as well as its non-trivial practical failings.) This way, when people bring up the topic in conversation, we can explain why we don’t vote (and why they shouldn’t either.) If other voters are going to vote expressively and ruin policy, then libertarians might be most effective by expressively non-voting.

 Economics, Non-voting, Strategy  Tagged with: ,

Against Democracy

 Posted by at 5:13 pm  37 Responses »
Dec 142008
 

Introduction

Democracy is universally held up as the sacred political ideal. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that democracy is a secular religion. Observe: We fight wars for it (“Making the world safe for democracy”). We are implored to blindly participate in it (“It doesn’t matter who you vote for, just vote”). And most tellingly, it is taboo to question it. Anyone who claims that democracy is bad is likely to be labeled a Nazi. (Even though Hitler was democratically elected and much of Nazism was promoted with democratic rhetoric.)

Nevertheless, I will attempt to prove that democracy is one of the worst political ideologies, on par with dictatorship and communism. My argument is three pronged. First, democracy is founded on initiatory violence. It is thus no more acceptable than murder or rape. Second, it can be refuted by a reductio ad absurdum; namely, that while we accept democracy for government, we would never accept it applied consistently in our lives. Third, democracy is unnecessary. What is there to vote on? All essential functions of society can be provided voluntarily and competitively on the market. Programs like the minimum wage and rent control are actually counter-productive, and can be eliminated altogether. There are many other problems with democracy: its ineffectiveness, its corruption, its total war, and its decivilization effect; but I will not address these here (see Hoppe). Last, I will address two strategies to undermine and weaken democracy: not voting and secession. Keep reading...

 Economics, Market Anarchy, Non-voting, Secession, Strategy, The State  Tagged with: , , , ,

Immigration II: Electric Boogaloo

 Posted by at 6:20 pm  1 Response »
Dec 032008
 

This article is a sequel to my previous post “Root Causes and the Libertarian Immigration Debate”. Continuing the discussion on what strategy libertarians should follow with regards to immigration, I will argue that even if we accept the Hoppean argument for closed borders, the conclusion still violates libertarian principles.

Toward a Theory of Strategy for Liberty

In chapter thirty of his book “The Ethics of Liberty”, Rothbard laid down the groundwork of anarchist strategy. Basically, there are two principles libertarians must keep in mind when pursuing strategy. First, we must not violate the nonaggression principle. Second, we must be abolitionists, for advocating anything less than the immediate abolition of aggressive violence would mean the sanctioning of injustice. Keep reading...

 Agorism, Books, Libertarian Theory, Market Anarchy, Non-voting, Secession, Strategy  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Root Causes and the Libertarian Immigration Debate

 Posted by at 4:34 pm  2 Responses »
Nov 272008
 

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
- Henry David Thoreau

The libertarian immigration debate is alive and well.1 Although there is no debate over the immigration policy of a free society, there is considerable controversy over the proper immigration policy in our currently existing statist society. However, this debate has neglected to address the root causes of forced integration and forced exclusion, and its solutions fail accordingly. This article will attempt to resolve the debate by addressing the root causes of forced integration and forced exclusion, and by proposing solutions that address these root causes.

Before we can address the problem of immigration under statism, we must establish several premises. Keep reading...

 Agorism, Economics, Education, Libertarian Theory, Market Anarchy, Non-voting, Secession, Strategy  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Don’t vote, Secede!

 Posted by at 12:00 am  No Responses »
Nov 042008
 

Today is election day. Many people will be heading to the polls to select the next tyrant to rule over their lives. Even liberty-oriented people feel that “participating in democracy” is a good strategy for reducing the size of government. They believe that if we can just get the right people in government, then everything will be all right.

This view is all wrong. Voting is not an effective strategy for liberty. To the contrary, the cause of liberty can be even better promoted by not voting. There are three strong reasons that warrant staying home on election day: First, the probability of your vote actually affecting the outcome is negligible. Second, renouncing democracy and its hallowed trappings is a big step toward developing a fully anarchist mindset. Third, and most important, not voting sends a stronger message than voting pro-liberty, or lesser-of-two-evils: low voter turnout delegitimizes the entire statist system. Finally, if we all become non-voters, what strategy should we pursue? The answer is secession – exercising our right to free association. Keep reading...

 Market Anarchy, Non-voting, Secession, Strategy  Tagged with: , ,