Below you will find the full book Crowd Freedom . The book is free and should be shared with as many people as you know. This book is also available in audiobook on Youtube .

Crowd Freedom How To Create A Free Society Without Government By Quinton Figueroa

Dedicated To Ludwig von Mises

Murray Rothbard

Stefan Molyneux

Chapter 1 Introduction

The need for a free society

The biggest problem in the world is government. It doesn't matter whether it's Democratic, Socialistic, Dictatorial or anything else. All governments throughout the world initiate violence. The initiation of violence is the greatest problem which currently holds humanity back more than anything else.

My name is Quinton and I'm an American... because a few hundred years ago some people used violence to get land and call it the United States of America. If you go back a bit further you will find that the countries in Europe also came about through violence. If you go back further you will see land being conquered through violence in pretty much every society in the past. Pretty much all of the countries we have right now are a result of violence. And it looks this way in the foreseeable future as well.

As children we're taught not to use violence to get our way. As we grow into adults we're still told not to use violence -- we'll go to jail for it. But when we become the highest level political leaders throughout the world we use violence to get our way and are praised for it. This is where humans currently are at. The leaders throughout the world all use violence on other people throughout the world. If it's not okay for children and adults to use violence why is it okay for our leaders to use violence? I thought only criminals used violence. Why are the people who are supposed to be our leaders, the highest quality individuals, allowed to use violence to get their way?

Have you ever wondered why we even have countries? Perhaps it's similar to why we have homes. You need some place to live so we have homes which we put in communities which we put in cities which we put in states which we put in countries on planet Earth. But the way we get our personal homes that we live in is quite different than the way we get our countries that we live in.

We got our country through war, but we got our home through commerce. War and commerce are 2 very different things. One uses violence, the other does not. Large areas of property, countries, come about through violence while small areas of property, homes, come from non-violence and instead from contracts. I find this inconsistent. It's okay to use violence and war to get countries, but it's not okay to use violence and war to get homes. Countries and governments don't follow the same set of rules that we have for pretty much everything else in life. We treat countries differently. In our daily lives nothing comes about through violence. With governments everything does.

Every country has a government. Why do we always have a government within a country? We should be able to have one without the other. Why can't I buy a country like I can buy a home? Why can't I buy a city? Why are cities, states and countries not property that can be bought? Why are countries and governments off limits? I can buy land only from somebody who originally got the land through violence. I can buy land within a country, but I can't buy the country itself. And even if I buy land within a country I never really own it, I'm still just renting it from the country. It's a sobering thought which we never really consider.

The way we handle things in our daily lives is non-violent and always changing for the better, except for one blaring area: countries. Countries are off limits, similar to how questioning religion is off limits to religious people. We create exceptions for countries where they don't fall under the same rules as everything else in life.

We allow for free competition and innovation in all businesses except for one: government. We disfavor monopolies in everything except for one: government. Laws, courts, police, roads, schools and an ever growing list of government agencies are all monopolies. We are worried about the possibility of monopolies in business yet we ignore the largest monopoly looking us right in our faces: government. We don't like to initiate the use of force or violence in anything except for one major thing: government.

We have disassociated government with everything else. We have come to think it is something we have to work around, rather than it working around us. Government is the immovable religion of today that we can't dare question or improve. Government is perfect and we are imperfect. Okay, calling it perfect is taking it a bit far. We know it's not perfect, but we have to have it, right? Government is a necessary evil we tell ourselves. Government is something we have to put up with. It's too big to change. It's too big to do anything about. And after all, without government how would we have law and order? How would we protect people and allow for society to function? These same types of questions used to be asked about religion. How could we live a moral life without the Church? How could we talk to God without religion?

So we just have to become more and more powerless as we watch a relic of the past wreak havoc on a world outgrowing old technology. Because that's all government really is, it's old, outdated technology. Our governments haven't been updated for centuries. C-E-N-T-U-R-I-E-S. We are running a really outdated version of government from hundreds of years ago and rather than creating a completely new version of government we would rather keep trying to patch the existing one. It's like replacing our computer with pen and paper. We have a better way to write and communicate than pen and paper, it's called the computer. And we also have a better way to govern. But that's bad news for the pen and paper.

For decades and even centuries we have tried to rework the system rather than allow for the recreation of it. When a business is doing a poor job at something a competitor will rise up and do a better job than them and put them out of business. This is natural and great for society. This doesn't happen with governments. When a government does a bad job we don't have another government rise up and do a better job. When a government does a bad job another government does an even worse job. Governments don't operate like businesses. They don't continually compete against each other to improve. They don't advance -- they're not allowed to. I can't go start a country like I can a business. I can start a business so long as it falls within the parameters of my government. But what if I want to start a government? What parameters does this fall under? It's not possible right now because it's never been done. At least without violence it's never been done.

But I think the time is here for that to change. I think the time is here for competing governments. I think the time is here for competing cities. I think the time is here for us to start looking at society a bit differently. I think the time is here to do away with governments and the violence that comes with them. Violence is barbaric and unnecessary in a civilized world, just as slavery was in the past. We all know violence is bad. And that's what governments are.

So that's what this book is about. This book is about developing the framework and resources to create a new country. And then another. And then another. Because the more free societies we create the higher quality they will be.

What do I mean by free society?

A free society is a location where an individual can live without having force initiated on them by another individual. It's such a simple request and dream, yet it is met with some of the most vile hatred and elementary excuses you will ever find. We will get more into specifics later, but when I say free society I am talking about a society without taxation, without conscription, without forced education or any of the other violent behaviors we call civilized. I am talking about a society without, dare I say, government -- the mac-daddy of violence.

When we look a bit deeper at government we find that:

Taxation is theft

War is mass murder

Military and Jury conscription are forced labor and enslavement

Imprisonment of victimless crimes is kidnapping

Public schools are forced indoctrination

Police are armed thugs

Licenses are permission slips from your masters

Welfare is theft

National debt is enslavement of unborn

And the list goes on and on. When our current society is looked at with the same measure of morality that we use to view our everyday lives it is simple to see just how immoral it really is. If we were to individually or collectively do any of the things the government does we would go to jail. But when the government does it we think it suddenly becomes okay because, well, we have to have government!

A free society is a society that allows for individual choice without violence. Choice without violence. That is all there is to it. And pulling this off isn't complicated, it's just something we're not used to thinking about. Most people are non-violent 100% of the time. So it's not like it's a hard thing, we just don't think it's possible in government, or at least we've never even considered it. But we need to start considering it because once we do we will upgrade the way we do government to a new technology that makes everyone's lives better, similar to how once we acknowledged that slavery was wrong we were able to upgrade society forward. At first it might be tricky to see how society without government and the initiation of force is possible. But the more we do it the easier it becomes. It's just like when we learned how to ride a bike. The first few times it was a bit tricky and seemed impossible. But after you keep trying and putting time into it you finally get it. By the time you're done with this book I'm sure you'll view it differently than you did before. Most things you do the first time are weird. But once you've seen how something can work it starts to make more sense.

So when I talk about a free society I am talking about a voluntary society without the initiation of force or violence. This is all a free society really is. And this simple premise exposes how absurd and outdated the current systems throughout the entire world really are.

The scope of such a project

In this world we have countries as the largest entities that control a piece of land. Then from there we have states and provinces, then we have counties, then we have cities, then we have districts. It's all the same thing with a different scale. When we think of land we normally think of it in some type of structure like this. But it doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to have a city within a country. It's possible for a city to be a country. That's what Vatican City is. Vatican City is not a city, it's a country. You don't have to be a huge size to be a country, you simply need to be independent.

The kind of free society I am talking about would probably start at a smaller level like the city-level, but it could most certainly scale up larger as necessary. Just because it would be a city doesn't mean it can't operate like a country. Just because I am talking about an independent city doesn't mean it would need to be in a country. It wouldn't. The city itself would be the country.

So what I am looking to accomplish is the creation of a city that would not allow for the use of violence or the initiation of force -- for anyone there. What I am talking about is a city without government. I know that when I say without government your alarm bells immediately go off and you think to yourself, "But how will we have police?" or "How will we have roads?". This will all be addressed.

I understand the scope of this is immense. The scope of anything that's worthwhile is usually pretty immense. But think about it. 99% of our lives are already done without government. Most of the things we do in our everyday lives do not involve government. They really don't. And those little things that do involve government can be done by somebody else besides government, without the initiation of violence. So removing the extra 1% really isn't that much.

Everyone copies each other these days as opposed to innovating. This is essentially what globalization is. The whole world right now is copying America and other Western nations. They're copying outdated software with viruses. They shouldn't be copying, they should be creating new software. We need to innovate in government, not replicate it. We already know our government is bad, it's predicated on violence. We should be improving it, not copying it and selling it throughout the world.

Almost all businesses in the world are focusing on innovating within the framework of a structure that doesn't allow for freedom to innovate. We have car companies following regulations which halt innovation. We have medical companies following regulations which halt innovation. We have education companies following regulations which halt innovation. We see it everywhere right now. The problem isn't a lack of entrepreneurs or smart people in industries. The problem is a system which keeps those entrepreneurs and smart people from truly doing something better that is outside of the box. We are trying to innovate within the box of government. If we want to think outside of the box then we need to stop throwing people in jail for thinking outside of the box. Let me say that again. If we really want people to think outside the box then we need to actually allow people to think outside the box. And government doesn't allow for you to think outside the box. Thinking outside the box within government is usually a crime. The free society that I am talking about is most certainly outside of the box.

I have reached the realization that we can't change the current system of government that we have. And we can't fix the current system. America didn't change England in 1776. They started fresh. And I think that's what we need to do also. We've tried to fix government but it just keeps getting worse and worse. It's a broken system that can't be fixed with a broken system for fixing it. We can't fix the system within the broken box. Einstein had it right when he said:

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Albert Einstein

When we try to change the system from within we are using the same level of thinking we used when we created it. We can't use that kind of thinking to fix it -- and we don't need to anymore. We have a much better level of thinking that is outside of the system. We can create a society outside of government. Government is outdated technology and we have much better solutions for society that don't involve the initiation of force.

We don't need to convince everyone of a free society. A great number of people are happy with their current governments. There's a lot of people who enjoy outdated technology and who take time to adopt new, better things. We see this all the time with phones, the Internet, televisions and cars. If people are happy with their governments then that is great, they should keep them and keep using them. We can create a society without these people. There are plenty of people who are not happy with their governments and who see the inherent flaws and problems and know that there's a better way. These are the people who want a free society. These are the people who are willing to give something new a try.

If something like this sounds crazy to you then you really don't have to do anything. In fact, I would prefer you do nothing. Let all the other entrepreneurs and myself do something while you sit around, point your finger and say it's not possible. And when we do gain momentum please continue to do nothing and let us non-violently create society outside of violence. Because that's all we want. We want you to do nothing. We want you to leave us alone. I can assure you there are thousands, if not millions, of entrepreneurs who do want to do something because they are frustrated that the whole world wants to control, violently by force, how they should build a better future. All we need to do is hand them a blank slate and let the entrepreneurs do the rest. So please, do nothing, and when we build momentum and pick up traction, continue to do nothing so that we can remain free.

The thinking and theories are in. The data and tests are in. The way a free society works has been discussed, theorized and tested for years. Now it's time to put it into action for real. If there's one thing I can't stand it's people complaining over and over again and never actually doing anything about it. Forget complaining. That just puts more energy on what we don't want. We already know what we don't want. Now we need to create what we do want. We need to focus on taking action towards building our reality the way we see fit. This is our world and our reality. It's our planet and we have the ability to change it. It's ours. And we're here to live how we want to live. If people want to practice slavery we don't have to. If people want to practice theft we don't have to. If people want to practice violence we don't have to.

What we're doing now isn't working. Politics doesn't work. I don't need to tell you this. Everyone knows this. Where people differ is on what to do about it. Most people want to fix it. I don't want to fix it. I want to supersede it. I want to completely outdo and rebuild it from the ground up. Society needs to be re-written. The very core of society is built on a flawed premise: the initiation of violence. The core of society should be built on a correct premise: the non-initiation of violence. The core of society should be built on freedom and choice, not violence.

Would you rather donate $100 to a dead-end political campaign that can't possibly change anything, or would you rather donate $100 to a well-defined plan of action that has a chance of bringing more freedom to the entire world? Would you rather take a chance on an egotistical politician or a selfless entrepreneur? Wouldn't you rather put your money in something like this where you know at least this is something different? Wouldn't you rather support people who don't want to change anything about your current life, but instead want to try testing something on the side that they are confident will work? I know where I would put my money. And I know where I would put my life.

This book isn't only about talking about a free society. This book is unique in that it is about creating one. This book is a starting road map for actually ending the talk about how bad governments are, and instead doing something about it -- but doing something about it in a different way.

This is more than just a book. This is an evolving framework to answer questions and provide insight on the steps necessary. This is a starting point to be built upon. This book is the gateway to the website www.crowdfreedom.com which will include the technicals, the software and the world-wide community needed to organize a free society.

This is written from an American perspective, however, it most certainly applies to the whole world. At the end of the day pretty much all governments act the same. And to the degrees that they don't act the same they act closer and closer to the American framework each day. Governments want to copy America. And America was a great framework for its time. But this time requires an even better framework. A framework without violence.

This book should read and feel balanced. A lot of work has been done to make sure all the different parts fit together with one another and reinforce each other. This book is built upon a few foundational principles and then those principles are expanded upon throughout. Before we get into the specifics of a free society, let's first look at a few core principles.

Chapter 2 People

First Principles & Universally Preferable Behavior

The closer you get to the core of something the better you can understand the true nature of it. The closer we can get to core principles that can encompass the human experience the better. In math, the simplest equation is the best. The same goes for human principles.

I could come up with 100 rules that beat around the bush of something or I could just get to the core of it with 1 rule. I could be like don't shoot others. Don't steal from others. Don't hit other people. Don't spit on people. Don't force people to do things physically. Or I could just say: don't initiate violence.

The better the principle, the clearer the results.

The principle of addition and subtraction is a great principle. I don't need to have laws stating what every possible mathematical outcome using addition or subtraction is. I can just use that 1 principle because it is foundational. It always works the same and applies to all addition and subtraction. I don't need to have statutes for every possible arithmetic problem such as 1+1, 1+2, 1+3, 2+2 and on and on. I can just explain how addition works and then no matter what numbers you provide addition will follow the same principle to solve the problem.

When we develop principles dealing with humans we want to do something like addition and subtraction. We want principles that are so foundational in their aim that they can not be reduced any further. You can't simplify addition and subtraction because they are as simple as it gets. This is what we need to do with principles dealing with people.

We want to aim for consistency and universality. Things that can be universalized are generally good. Many of the things we would call bad can not be universalized. Universal things that apply to everyone are favorable.

An obvious example to universality is stealing. You can't universalize stealing. If everyone were to steal from each other then everyone would constantly have things taken from them. It would be hard for people to obtain property and work for things if what they obtained was always stolen from them. So if everybody stole there would be problems. It can't be universalized. But if everyone didn't steal, and if everyone respected other people's property then we would not have issues. People not stealing can be universalized. If everyone didn't steal we don't have issues. Therefore, stealing is probably not a good thing.

If everyone raped each other we would have lots of problems. But if everyone didn't rape each other we wouldn't have problems.

If everyone helped each other we wouldn't have problems. So helping is a good thing. This is a basic, simple, foundational way of looking at people.

This kind of thinking should be borne closely in mind as we move forward. With people we want to do things that deal with first principles and universality.

Property

We are all humans with unique human needs. Plants have unique needs, animals have unique needs and so do humans. To keep humans from needs is anti-human. Just as to keep plants from needs like sunlight or water is anti-plant.

So we want to allow for basic human needs, but when we allow for these basic human needs we don't want to infringe on the needs of others. We want to universalize these basic needs to where it is consistent and can be applied to everyone, not just a few. One person's needs should not interfere with another's needs.

What are humans' basic needs? Well, let's explore this. Some things that will immediately come to mind to most people will be things like food, water, shelter, and so on. Okay, and how do humans get these things? They find them, hunt for them, build them, etc. These basic things are provided by people transforming nature and resources. So even more foundational than food and shelter people need the ability to transform resources. Humans need material objects and land for their use. Without the ability to use land to grow food or hunt there wouldn't be food. So humans need land. And they need the ability to transform what is on this land. Humans need the ability use resources like wood to create shelter. Humans need the ability to transform resources to their needs.

Now here is a very, very important point to understand. Is food a right that people have? Should all humans have food or should they have to create that food themselves? Well, can this be universalized? If food is universalized who provides the food? Somebody is going to be receiving the food and another is going to be providing the food. Why should one person be the provider and another the receiver? Wouldn't everyone want to the be the receiver? Why not have everyone on the receiving end? Because then there would be no food. This goes back to first principles and universality. If you want to universalize food it requires you to force the person producing the food to give it to others. This is no different than trying to universalize stealing. You can't universalize this.

You can universalize people transforming resources to their own use. Everyone is free to use the resources around them. If you use resources around you to create something you are not using force on another person. If you claim an unused piece of land and start farming there nobody is hurt. If you force a doctor to perform healthcare on you because it is a right then you are using force. If you force somebody to build a house for you then you are using force. This is why food, shelter and all these other things are not part of humans' basic needs because they require using force on another human. This is why plants need sun and it's okay because they can all have sun without using force on another plant. This is so foundational and important to understand.

Yes, of course we would all like to have food and shelter and all these things given to us for free. But we're not quite there yet. Things still take labor and time from other humans and they require the transformation of resources to create them. Yes, we are getting better at it, and we are able to transform more resources for cheaper, but they're not quite free yet. Free food isn't the same as free air. Free food requires work from another human, free air does not. We can universalize air for everyone without hurting anyone. We can not do the same with food and lots of other things that people confuse as human rights.

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Who owns us? Who owns yourself? Can a person even be owned? Why even ask such a question? Why even have ownership? Let's just keep it simple. You speak. You do things. You take action on things. You make decisions of what to do and what not to do on a daily basis. Who controls these actions that you do? You're obviously deciding them so who should take credit for them? Who is this you doing these things? Something is making actions happen. Is it you? Is it somebody else? Who is it? I'm glad you asked.

When asking about ownership there are 3 basic options that we have:

You (or you and others) do Another person (or other people besides you) do Everyone does

If you go through all 3 of these only 1 ever makes sense. This is a really important point to understand. Keep in mind all questions of ownership come back to these 3 main options. There really aren't any other options. And of those 3 options there is 1 that clearly makes the most sense.

In the case of yourself there are 3 options who owns you:

You own yourself Another person or many other people own you Everyone owns you

It makes sense that you own yourself. What about other people owning you? Do other people own you and make decisions for you? No, that's slavery. What about everyone owning you? Why doesn't everyone own a part of everyone else? How would that work? How do you make it so you equally divide everyone and manage the ownership of 7 billion people with 7 billion other people? Of course that doesn't make sense either. So clearly you own yourself.

Since humans can think, feel, evaluate and act only as individuals, it becomes necessary that they are free to learn, choose and develop themselves. Since you own yourself you are able to control yourself and choose how you want to act. Other people can't do it for you. Just as we can't tell other people what to do. This is a core, fundamental principle that can be universalized. So this is an extremely powerful realization to build upon.

If you don't own yourself then any man should be able to rape any woman. If a woman doesn't own herself and other people do then other people can do as they wish with her. If everyone owns a woman then everyone can do as they wish with her. It's blatantly obvious that a woman owns herself. And so too does anyone else own themselves.

This leads us to a right to self-ownership -- to control the body free of coercive interference. The right to self-ownership allows people to practice in their human nature. If people don't own themselves then we have slavery where somebody else does.

So our body is property. We own ourselves. Ourselves is property to us. This is fundamental towards the human experience. Somebody else doesn't own us, we own us. We are us.

We hear of human rights. Human rights are property rights. You can't have one without the other. So whatever falls into property rights for individuals are human rights. The only equal right people should have is the right to their property. Food isn't a human right because it can't be universalized. Ownership of yourself is a human right because it can be universalized. Somebody else can't own you because that can't be universalized. I hope this is starting to make some sense.

We also own the effects of our actions. Our actions are an extension of ourselves. In order to argue against humans owning their actions is to claim property to your argument which is an affirmation towards ownership of the effects of actions.

We are individuals, not a collective group. We act as individuals, not as a group. We can have group actions, but the core of us is not a group. The core of us is an individual.

So this is foundational, principle stuff. We own ourselves and the effects of our actions. So much stems from this. And all of this is done universally, where it applies to everyone without interfering with another person. We can all operate this way without disturbing anyone else. You would be hard pressed to find another way to state something that can be universalized for everyone.

I know this stuff is a bit confusing and technical if you've never heard it before. Give it some time and let it sink in. Throw it around in your head for a while and question it hard. Try to tear it apart. Try to dismantle it. It's hard to do because it is foundational.

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Let's move on a bit from people now. Say somebody draws a picture. Who owns it? Once again, there are 3 options:

The person who drew it does Somebody or a group of other people do Everyone owns a part of it

What makes the most sense? It's not even a question and it is obvious. The person who drew it owns it. We actually like for people to own things because it allows for the unique, individual expression and creation of each individual. If people didn't own their drawings they probably wouldn't do them. The last thing a creator of anything wants to do is slap another person's name on it and give the credit to somebody else. When people own things they treat them better and take better care of them. When people own things they pour their heart into it.

"If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization"

Ludwig von Mises

Property is a more advanced stage of civilization. When we use property to own things we are able to create economies which allow for people to specialize in what they are good at and exchange with others their property. Most of the innovations we have today come about because of property. Because people are able to take their ideas and turn them into their own property we advance civilization forward.

All property is just like the drawing. All property is the same. Certain types of property don't follow certain rules and other types of property don't follow other rules. Property is property, just as addition is addition. Crops grown by a farmer belong to the farmer. Cars created by a manufacturer belong to the manufacturer. iPhones created by Apple belong to Apple. If the iPhones created by Apple did not belong to them then Apple wouldn't create them. People do things when they own what they do. It's not the only reason people do things, but without people owning what they did a lot less people would do what they do.

If when Apple made an iPhone and it didn't belong to them so that they could sell it they would stop making iPhones. If Ford didn't own the car they just created and instead other people outside of Ford, or even every person on earth owned that car Ford would no longer create cars. Why would they? Would you want to create something that somebody else owned? Would you want to create a meal for yourself and then give it to somebody else to own so that you could starve? Yes, of course I understand sharing. I'm not talking about sharing. I'm talking about prioritizing. A women shouldn't have to share her body with other people. It's up to her on how to prioritize that. The same can be said for any other piece of property. If somebody wants to share that is one thing, but somebody should never be forced to share. Sharing is a choice. And people have the choice on whether or not to share their own property.

Well why not force everyone to share? Because forcing people to share can't be universalized. If everyone is forced to share then we have somebody receiving something for free and somebody being forced to provide something. You can't force people to do things. That's fundamentally immoral.

But what about land? How do you deal with the ownership of land? Clearly land is a special and unique case. No, it's not. Land is the exact same as anything else. Land used to produce something is owned by that producer.

Let's again go through the possible options with land:

You own it Others own it Everyone owns it

Which makes the most sense?

If everyone owns a piece of land then they can't all possibly use it or even have an equal say with what to do with it. If everyone owns a piece of land then it follows that they must also own all of every piece of land. And if they own all the land we are right back to determining how to best make use of the land. How are we going to organize 7 billion people to all have an equal say in managing and deciding what to best do with the land? Of course we can't do this and it would be a complete disaster. It doesn't make sense.

But what about others owning a piece of land? Why can't other people outside of you own land? Well, why would they be allowed to own land but not you? Why can one group own land but not you? You own yourself. You own what you create. Why can't you own what you produce with land that you find or purchase? Why can't you have your own land? Why is okay for others to own land and not you? It's not and it doesn't make sense either.

So once again the only thing that makes sense with land is you being able to own the land that you use. Are you starting to see a pattern here?

How do you originally own a piece of land? By using it. And if you stop using it you no longer own it. There is tons and tons of land to be used. Many of the people who make money off of land are people who found a way to transform the resources of the land into something that is useful for people. And there are an infinite amount of ways to use land to transform it into useful ways for humans. There is no shortage of land in the world. There is a shortage of people willing to put the work and effort into transforming that land into something of value.

But what if all the land gets owned? What if some greedy corporation buys up all the land and creates a monopoly on all the land on the planet? Well if this happens would you concede that something must be done about it? Surprise! That's what we already have with governments! But worse, they didn't buy the land, they violently stole it. And they don't let us use the land because they own the land. Or they charge us to use the land. Governments throughout the world already own most of the land. This is my exact point. But without government wouldn't some corporation buy up all the land and make even worse use of it than government? No, because if somebody made bad use of land they would go out of business. The government can't go out of business. This is a huge topic that will be discussed in full in the next chapter.

Suffice to say the only thing that makes the most sense with land ownership is individuals owning land. And when I say individuals I'm not just talking about one person. It can be you plus other people. But it can't be other people and not you. Then you don't own it. Land can be owned by multiple people. It is the entity including you that I am referring to when I say you. Land needs to be owned by people who use land. Your body is owned by you because you use it, your car is owned by you because you use it, and everything else you own is your property, not someone else's. Again this stuff becomes more clear the more you think about it. At first it's a bit weird because we're not educated to think like this.

Property is about most effectively and efficiently using finite resource transformation in a world of infinite desires. There is only a finite amount of human energy that can be put into transforming the many resources throughout the world into something of value. There are virtually infinite resources on Earth. But they need to be transformed before they can be used. And the transformation of them into something valuable is not infinite. It is limited by people and their time and energy. We have to find the best ways to transform these resources. Property ownership of resources is by far the best way that has ever been devised to manage the transformation of these resources.

The Non-Aggression Principle

Now there is a 2nd part to property ownership.

In order to own yourself you need to be free from coercion. If you are coerced out of owning yourself this is breaking your self ownership. Somebody is infringing on it. If somebody initiates violence on you then they are infringing on your property, yourself. To use violence to interfere with the human experience is anti-human. It violates man's needs just as keeping sun from a plant violates its need. Violence can't be universalized. If you initiate coercion on another person you are no longer practicing behavior which can be universalized. If everybody initiated force on everyone else we would have problems. If everyone did not initiate force on everyone else we would not have problems, which is why the non-initiation of force is essential to property.

From this we can gather an important principle: the non-aggression principle, or NAP. The non-aggression principle basically states that the non-initiation of force is a moral principle for humans because it can be universalized and allows for the greatest fulfillment of human needs. The NAP is pro-human. When we violate the NAP we are being anti-human.

The non aggression principle and property go hand in hand. You can't have property without non-aggression. If people can freely steal your property then it's not property. If people can freely violate you then you don't own yourself. If we can go around raping anyone we want then we don't have property rights. So there has to be some container or thing that keeps people from messing with your property. There is, the NAP.

This doesn't mean that you can't use force as a defense. It means that you can't use force as an offense. You can't initiate force on another person. Defending property is much different than offensively aggressing against property. If somebody tries to steal from you and you defend your property you are claiming ownership by defending it. If everyone defends their property this can be universalized and we have no problems. If everyone attacks other people's property we do have problems. So it is the initiation of force that is the problem, not defense with force.

The NAP is the most basic of ethical principles. It is about as foundational as you can get and many other principles stem from it. It's what we teach our kids when they are younger. We teach kids not to use use force on other kids when they are growing up. And since the NAP is universal it applies to everyone no matter the age, race, status or number of people. It doesn't matter if you're 5 or 65, initiation of force is wrong. It doesn't matter if you're White, Black, Asian or Hispanic, initiation of force is wrong. It doesn't matter if 1 person initiates force or a group of 1,000,000 democratically elected people initiate force, it's still wrong. The potency of the NAP is in the simplicity of it. Simple things have less room for error. The closer you can get to the core of ethics the better. And the NAP, which goes together with property, is about as simple as you can get.

Say somebody creates a phone. There are 2 ways you can get them to transfer this phone to you:

Voluntarily Involuntarily

You can offer money, trade something you have or be their best friend or something like this. Or you can steal the phone or pull a gun and demand it. The only moral way to get things from people is with their consent, voluntarily. If a group of people all want your phone and we all have a democratic election voting in favor of your phone then we are violating the NAP. As has been stated earlier, even if 1,000,000 people democratically vote to take the phone from somebody it still doesn't make it morally right. You are still initiating force on another person's property without their consent, which is anti-human and a lower level of civilization.

So the NAP is a solid foundation which many other truths can be built upon. When we ask whether or not something is wrong we should first ask whether it violates the NAP. This is a much better indicator than a law. You will find that almost all things we read about as being immoral or wrong violate the NAP. The NAP is the common thread behind most things that are immoral. The thing is, since most people don't recognize the NAP they allow certain institutions and people to violate it.

Is there ever a justified time to initiate violence? Let me ask you, is there ever a justified time to initiate rape or slavery? Rape and slavery are both the initiation of force. Are these okay? Are these any different than any other forms of the initiation of force? Let's continue with this foundation.

Chapter 3 Society

Choice & Freedom

I think most people would agree that freedom is a good goal for society. They may not know the best way to achieve this, and they may create contradictory laws and governments to try to get there, but to most people freedom is a good goal. It certainly is the most moral goal and it is universal. The goal of society should be to allow each individual the maximum amount of choice. Having the ability to exercise choice is what freedom is. Freedom is when a person and their property are not invaded against. That is the mission. Freedom and unrestricted property rights go hand in hand. When you restrict property, you restrict freedom. If you want maximum freedom, then you need maximum property ownership.

A slave who does not own themselves is not free. A slave who does own themselves is no longer a slave. Slavery is a condition where the slave has no right to self ownership. Slavery is a property violation of self. Slavery has to do with property of oneself.

You can't have choice with force. If you rape somebody they aren't choosing to have sex with you. You take away that choice. If you force people to pay taxes they are not choosing to pay these taxes. When you take away force people act differently, they act closer to what they really believe. You don't really know if people want something or not if you use force to get that decision. If you hold a gun to somebody's head and tell them to give you their money they are giving you their money not by choice, but because you are initiating force on them. If people don't have a free choice to a decision then it's not really their choice. And if it's not their choice then they're not free.

Being able to succeed or fail is one of the greatest gifts a human can have. Being able to succeed or fail is what choice is all about. If you could only succeed you wouldn't be choosing. If you could only fail you wouldn't be choosing. We learn through choice. We need to have the ability to choose and learn through the consequences of our choices. This is a big part of life. If you take away the ability for somebody to choose you are taking away the ability for somebody to exercise their ownership of themselves. If people don't choose, they aren't free. Free people have the ability of choice. And being able to choose doesn't always mean choosing the right things.

A human needs freedom to choose. A human needs freedom to make mistakes. A human needs to choose on their own rather than be told what to do. Humans learn through practice and mistakes. When we know what we don't want we better know what we do want. But if we are never allowed to choose then we are never allowed to discover what we don't and do like.

When we choose we are acting as individuals. When we are told we are acting as a group. Since at the core we are indeed individuals and not a group of people, we need to bring out choices to the individual level, rather than the group level. Individuals have more freedom than a group since an individual is a simplification of a group. A group of people is multiple properties (people). A single individual is a single property. We can most closely represent ourselves with our choices than we can a group of people.

We want to bring the greatest amount of power into ourselves, and to do that we need to exercise our individual choice. But what if we choose poorly? We will. That is part of freedom. If we have freedom then we have the ability to make bad decisions and the ability to make good decisions. But if we don't have freedom we don't have any decisions at all. Without freedom we aren't even living.

Of course, not everyone wants the freedom to choose. Many people would rather be told what to do, what to believe, and how to live their lives. These people prefer security over freedom. The most secure place is a prison, and it is also the least free. If you want freedom you need self-responsibility, or rather the courage to live as your own individual. If you want freedom you need to own your actions. If you don't want self-responsibility then you can't have freedom. This is what many people want and if that is what they want that is fine. This project isn't for them at this point. At a later time they may change that view. But this project is for people who do want freedom, the ability to make choices without force. And right now there isn't a place to do that anywhere in the world.

Government & Markets

Now we're getting into a big part of this book. Everything we've been talking about so far has been building towards this section. We now need to break down the contrast between governments and markets.

Let's first define government and markets. The definitions you find in a book for government are pretty worthless because they are too general. A book will define government as something like, a government is:

"the governing body of a nation, state or community"

How do they govern? How do they control? How do they regulate? With force of course, through taxation. Government is force that people choose to use on others to carry out services that they think require the government.

In contrast to government we have the market. What about markets? How do markets govern? How do markets control? How do markets regulate? Markets are voluntary exchange. Markets allow people to exchange products and services between each other freely without force. Participation in a market is voluntary. Participation in government is involuntary. You can opt-out of a market. You can not opt-out of a government, unless you move (and even then you still may not fully be out). Do governments or markets allow for more choice? This is all about allowing the maximum amount of choice. Force doesn't allow for choice. Voluntary exchange is choice.

Markets don't belong in government. Most people view markets as something that governments should manage. It doesn't work this way. Markets are outside of and above governments. Society is markets. Because we haven't put much thought into it we just default to having others rule our lives through government rather than thinking about what society should be and what the best way to accomplish this is.

The government is a monopoly. If you don't like how the government does something you can't compete against it and do something better. You have to work through the government system in order to change it. We have to work through a democratic system rather than a market system. Markets always allow for competition to do something better if another company is doing something wrong. We hear about monopolies in markets. This really can't happen in a market because you always have the freedom to choose which business to support. If a company really is a monopoly in a market system you don't have to buy their services. You can buy from a company that isn't a monopoly. Nobody can force anything on you in a market and because of this it is not possible for a monopoly to exist in a market.

But monopoly through government is possible and a current reality. If the government has a monopoly on the legal system I can't compete against them. If the government has a monopoly on the school system I can't compete against them. I can augment and build something on top of what they are doing, but I can't replace it. That's a monopoly. In the market system, if a company is doing something wrong I can start my own company to do that something right. In the market I always have the ability to do something that I see as better. With government I can't start my own company to fix whatever it is they're doing wrong. If government is exploiting people I can't remedy this problem through my own competing business. If the government is telling me I need to pay money to a government program I can't exercise the choice not to. This is a monopoly. So businesses within markets aren't monopolies, governments are monopolies, and moreover monopolies through coercion.

The government is the biggest initiator of violence in the world. The government has a monopoly on violence. Nobody else throughout the entire world is allowed to initiate violence legally except the government. Really think about that and let it sink in. What company in the market is allowed to initiate violence on people? What makes the government any different? Because we vote for it? We also used to vote for slavery. Voting for it doesn't make it right. Because we need somebody to keep law and order? Then why initiate violence? Why offensively invade the property of others with force? If somebody does something bad then use defense. But why initiate violence on somebody because they don't agree with the democratic majority? Why allow the majority to invade the property of another human when we have already established that property rights should be universal. People should not have force initiated against them. You can't randomly choose which people you can initiate force on and which people you can't.

All governments throughout the world have a monopoly on force, it doesn't matter which type. The following are all violent and violate the NAP:

Socialism

Communism

Fascism

Democracy

Monarchy

Oligarchy

Aristocracy

Theocracy

Dictatorship

Republics

These all violate the NAP. These systems are all failures for society because they inhibit individual choice, the most basic freedom. They all use force to take away choice. Remember the initiation of force is anti-human. Initiating force is a lesser form of civilization. When we initiate force we are devolving, not evolving.

"It's a basic fact of life that anyone who wants to force you to do something means their ideas are shit to begin with. Not a lot of rapists are very good lovers because they don't have to sell quality; they got violence."

Stefan Molyneux

Capitalism is the only economic system compatible with NAP. Capitalism is defined as:

"a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government"

Obviously what we call Capitalism today is not real capitalism. We don't have Capitalism anywhere in the world today. The word Capitalism has changed. Just like the world Liberal has changed. Or the word Gay. It takes more than just a surface level view of society to understand this. This is why you're reading a book like this. It takes more than just a 5 minute news segments to truly grasp the entire brilliance, simplicity and truth behind Capitalism, or simply markets and voluntary exchange. Choice. Freedom. That's all Capitalism is. Capitalism is the only economic system which champions markets, and markets are voluntary exchange, not forceful exchange. Markets allow 100% choice. Nobody can hurt you in Capitalism unless you first allow them to. In any other system people can and will hurt you even if you do not want them to.

All governments depend on taxation. When governments tax they are violating the NAP. This is one of the main reasons why governments are violent. Governments all rely on taxation to run. If governments didn't tax people they wouldn't exist. If taxes were voluntary people would choose not to pay them. So governments force people to pay taxes. But governments don't use force to make people pay taxes you say. What happens if you don't pay taxes? Government will eventually come after you and use force to put in you jail. If people don't pay taxes the government will at some point or another use force to either imprison the person or make them pay taxes. So yes, taxation is violent.

As has already been stated: Taxation is theft, war is mass murder, military and jury conscription are forced labor and enslavement, imprisonment of victimless crimes is kidnapping, public schools are forced indoctrination, police are armed thugs, welfare is theft, national debt is enslavement of unborn and on and on. These are all highly immoral, violent behaviors that would be abhorred if done by anybody but the government. But when the government does them we change our position on the morality of them. We incorrectly believe that it is okay for government to do them because we think we need government.

Government creates 2 class divisions:

The rulers The ruled

The rulers use force and the ruled get force used on them. This is a huge problem because one group of people should not have a monopoly of violence on another group of people. Government isn't a super-class who is above everyone else. Government is just as accountable to its actions as non-government citizens are. Being part of government doesn't make a person exempt from rules which are not allowed outside of government. If you can't force people to give you money in your business you can't do it in government business. This is one of the largest errors of society. When understood at this level the government becomes no different than a gang of criminals doing things that would be illegal to do in everyday life. We have become accustomed to the state. We don't even think twice when they initiate force because we believe that our current system of voting is the right way to do things. It's obviously not, it's outdated technology. If the mafia comes up to you and forces you to give them your money it's criminal. If the government comes up to you and forces you to give them your money because one team voted for it then that's perfectly legal and actually good. Huh?

But we democratically elect and vote for this so it's okay. Is it okay for 10 white guys to vote to hang 1 black man? Is it okay for 10 guys to vote to rape 1 woman? That's democratic too. Just because something is democratic or popular doesn't make it right. There are many dumb things we used to do that were democratic and popular that we no longer do. Slavery used to be democratically okay. There are still democratic things we do that are popular but are wrong. Using force through government is the main one.

Democracy is a terrible way to make decisions. Democracy is a system for letting everyone choose 1 decision to force on everyone. Imagine if you went to a restaurant and everyone had to eat the same food as everyone else. Imagine sitting down at a restaurant with 50 customers and then all 50 customers voted on what to eat. You can't choose your own individual meal. The group chooses the same meal for everyone. Democracy allows Team A to take choice away from Team B. Why do that when you don't need to? You don't need to use democracy. It's outdated technology. Team A can have what they want and Team B can have what they want. And more specifically, we don't even need teams. Each individual in Team A can make their own choices and each individual in Team B can make their choices. If they want to allow the Team to make their choices for them then let them. But don't force everybody to play on a team if they don't want to. You don't need to put 2 sides against each other and then violently coerce people for follow the dictates of a team. That's outdated.

It's possible to go to a restaurant and allow each person to order their own food, just as it's possible to have a society where each person can order their own services. If a person doesn't want to have other people choose how their money should be spent via taxes then they shouldn't have to. Rather than give their money to the team they should be able to spend their money directly for the services they want. If taxes go towards police, courts, roads, health, education and so on then a person should be able to choose which services to use for these things directly. The same way a person can choose an entree at a restaurant they should be able to choose their service in a society. We don't all need to vote for the one true type of education that everyone should use. We don't need to vote for the one true type of healthcare that everyone should use. We don't need to lump everyone's money together via taxes and then all vote on where that should go. That's outdated technology. We don't do it with houses, cars, phones and spouses. Why should government services be any different? It most certainly should not and doesn't need to be.

So the non-initiation of force is the #1 reason why markets are better than government. That itself is enough to make markets by far better than government. The initiation of force is the greatest thing keeping people from freedom. The difference between governments and markets is the difference between rape and sex. To promote force and governments is to promote rape on a societal level. To promote choice and markets is to promote consensual sex on a societal level. We all know that rape is wrong and we will go to great lengths to prevent rape. How could we oppose rape so vehemently but then allow government rape? Is rape wrong or isn't it?

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Now, not only are markets morally better than the government, they are also much more efficient. Markets exist because there is a finite amount of human energy that can transform resources. If resources could instantly be transformed to useful things for humans then we wouldn't need markets to carry out this task. If the transformation of resources was instant without any human work society would be much different than it is today. As mentioned earlier, because transformation of resources is finite we require property to best distribute and prioritize the way this process takes place. Were resources already transformed and ready for any consumption we need of them then there would be no need for property and therefore society would exist much more like the utopias you read about in fiction. But we haven't quite figured out how to do this and so we are stuck with the best system for our materially finite paradigm: property and markets. Nobody is in the business of bringing air because we have an infinite supply of air. But food doesn't just magically appear like air. Nor do our clothes. Nor does transportation. Nor does healthcare. Nor does pretty much anything else. All of these things require actual people to trade their time and labor for these things which we consume. Most things in life are not infinite and that's why we need markets. So it is all about the management of these resources.

Government allocates resources worse than the market. Central planning, the way government operates, is far inferior to the dynamic planning of markets. The government attempts to manage something that needs no management. Central planning takes away choice, which is freedom. The market succeeds for just the opposite reasons. The market allows for individual choice and the market allocates resources better than any other known system. The market is dynamic and always adjusting to changes in resources.

If something becomes scarce the price goes up so more people jump into that market to supply it. When something becomes plentiful the price goes down and more people jump out of that market because it doesn't need as many people to supply it anymore. The markets all adjust themselves based off of the price mechanism, which is really just a unit of measurement used to determine the necessity of certain resources. When I talked earlier about property being a more advanced stage for civilization this is the kind of stuff I was talking about: the pricing mechanism.

Markets have people working in the right industries much more accurately than governments. The market has real-time data telling people what is needed and what isn't. From this data people adjust themselves to where their time and labor is most necessary. The market is really just a calculator on the entire world that knows exactly what is needed and what isn't based off of how much people are willing to spend on various things.

If something like cell phones are invented they will start out at a fairly high price. When cell phones first came out most people couldn't afford them. They were low quality and high priced. But they offered something that no other phone offered and because of that people who could afford them started to buy them. Because of the high price it attracted more entrepreneurs into that field. People that were previously in industries that were on the decline may have decided to get out of a bad industry and move into a new, growing industry like cell phones. And so we have the market guiding people from dying industries to growing industries, all through the pricing system. No government was needed to tell people to get into the cell phone industry, the market did that for them. That's how the market works.

And so rather than have a bunch of people in dying industries like newspapers or sending faxes, we instead have those companies transforming into Internet businesses and mobile phone companies. This is why markets are so efficient and good at allocating resources. People tell the market what they want with their money and the prices for things determine how valuable something is or isn't.

When cell phones first came out they were expensive. Now pretty much everyone can afford a cell phone. At this point in time the cell phone industry has just about reached the top and pretty soon another new industry will come about and it will be time for the whole process to start over again. People will move away from the mobile industry into whatever new industry pays a higher price and demands greater innovation.

Because markets are not a monopoly like government and because they are not centrally planned they allow for open and free competition. This competition creates what Buckminster Fuller coined ephemeralization. Big word, simple meaning. This means you can do more with less. This is what markets do. Ephemeralization. Doing more with less. Things should become less expensive and higher in quality as society advances. This is common sense and how markets work. Things get cheaper and cheaper and better and better until they are eventually free. That is the nature of innovation, competition and markets. There is no system that we have found better for allowing this process to occur than the market process - that is, 100% freedom. Let people be and they will improve things. Let people see what they can do better than another person or business and they will. Let people find what need needs service and it will be serviced. You can't vote ephemeralization into existence. And you can't have a group of people at the top plan ephemeralization into existence. All you can do is allow people complete freedom and it will be a natural byproduct of such freedom. It's pretty simple really.

I really don't need to tell you this. You know this because this is how you operated as a kid. This is how you operated with siblings. This is how you operated with friends. You still probably operate a lot like this with your friends and people you know. If you had tasks to do as a kid you would find better ways to do them with time. The more you did certain tasks the more efficient you became at them. When you learned how to solve problems in school you learned to solve them more efficiently. You learn how to do more with less. If you were in sports when you were younger you would have friends also in sports and you would keep advancing in your skills. If you threw a baseball you would practice and get better. You would compete against other kids and as a result you would both become better. You would find what you enjoyed and then practice it. You would get better at what you enjoyed. You would extend and modify existing rules to have new experiences. You would continue to evolve things because it would bring you joy. People like to get better at things. People like to try new ways of doing things. This is a big part of human nature. And if you give people the freedom to do so they will. People naturally improve things.

People in America live the high quality lives they live today not because of government, but because of markets. Markets created the American standard of living. Markets transformed America from 3rd world to 1st world. And markets have done that in many other societies as well. The problem is it's not done enough. The problem is we only see the tip of the iceberg when it comes to markets. The markets in America today are far less free than the markets they were 100 years ago. Today's markets in America are less free than they were 100 years ago. Today's markets are controlled much more by the government. And because of this we are halting society from advancing and actually reversing society in the wrong direction.

Hospitals and medicine would be better and cheaper if we didn't have the government involved. Cars and transportation would be better and cheaper if we didn't have the government involved. Let me point this out since it is so important. We don't even have a clue to the extent of how much damage government really does towards the cost and quality of products and services because they are so involved and have been so involved in them for so long. Medical services aren't supposed to become more expensive with time. Costs of medicine should not be going up, they should be going down. If they are going up it is because there isn't a free market there. If the cost of anything goes up over time it is because a free market isn't operating there. Free markets bring prices down and quality up over time. An obvious example is showing non-government medical services like plastic surgery or lasik eye surgery to high government involvement medical services like emergency services, broken bones, heart attacks, etc, etc. Plastic surgery and lasik become cheaper and cheaper, other medical services more and more expensive. Can you guess which one is closer to a free market? Things are supposed to get better and cheaper with time. If they're not it's because a market does not exist. If medicine is becoming more expensive it is because it is not a free market, it is a centrally planned market, planned by the government, regulated by the government, and destroyed by the government.

Oh I can hear it already, but what about safety and regulation? Everybody has a certain level of personal risk they will take with anything. And the best decider of that risk is the person themself. With governments we have other people determining for us what level of risk we can take. This is a lack of choice which is a lack of freedom. Markets are self-regulating. Anything that is unregulated allows for businesses to be built up around informing customers about the businesses. The businesses would also need to prove themselves to customers. Reputation would matter much more. The greatest regulator is yourself, your own individual decision to choose what's best for yourself. If you are unable to do so then what makes you think you are able to choose others to do so with you? As Rothbard so eloquently put it:

"...it is self-contradictory to contend that people cannot be trusted to make moral decisions in their daily lives but can be trusted to vote for or accept leaders who are morally wiser than they."

Murray Rothbard

The problem with government regulation is they take away choice and freedom. If you want to go with a less expensive doctor without a license you can't -- even if 1,000 customers have all given him a 99% satisfaction score. Doctors and tons of other businesses can not operate without the government allowing them to operate right now. This is taking away the freedom of choice. The government treats us like little kids and doesn't let us make big boy decisions. We're not big boys in the eyes of government, we're little kids who must obey the decisions of our parents. And kids have less freedom than parents.

Look at the tech industry. That is pretty much the only unregulated industry and that is where we see the most advancement. Tech doesn't advance because it uses computers and information, it advances because there isn't government restrictions using force to hold it back. Tech is allowed to do more for less because there are very few restrictions on that market. If medicine was a free market then many pills would be cheap or free. Yes, that's right free. How you ask? How are web pages essentially free? How is it that you're able to pay like $30 a month and access unlimited websites? How is information on a pill any different than information on a disk? Because one is consumed? How expensive is it to produce a pill? How expensive is it to produce a CD? You don't think having companies competing to create a cheaper Diabetes medication would bring the price down? You don't think allowing for a free market in medicine would make medicine cheaper all the way around? This is just one market. Imagine a free market in all government-run markets. Medicine should be cheaper. Cars should be cheaper. Everything should become cheaper, but we don't see this.

If any industry is becoming more expensive over time then it is because markets are not allowed to operate voluntarily. A voluntary market economy will always make things cheaper and better over time. Always. This is a technical, mathematical reality. This is a foundational core understanding of resources and markets. This is the kind of finding that fundamentally allows the entire world to change for the better if we understand that governments keep ephemeralization from occurring. Markets are ephemeralization. Again ephemeralization means more for less. Markets do more for less. Government does less for more. And if what the government controls does less for more what does this tell you?

There is mutual benefit in trade, win/win. When people trade something in a market they both win. If I give you $500 for your phone then you value my $500 more than your phone and I value your phone more than my $500. This is a mutually beneficial trade. And this is all markets are. If you valued your phone for more than $500 then you wouldn't trade it to me. Government doesn't have a mutual benefit. When you are forced to pay taxes you are not valuing what those taxes provide more than your money. You are paying your taxes because you are forced to. If you weren't forced to pay taxes you wouldn't. When somebody is raped there isn't mutual benefit. When people have sex there is mutual benefit. Government is rape. Markets are sex. Why do you get it at the sex level but not the governmental level? It is the same thing. Why are you still fighting it? Why are you still holding on to the belief that you need government, just like people hold onto the belief that they need religion to live a good life or to believe in God? You don't. Religion is not God or spirituality. Government is not advancement or society. Rape is bad. Rape is initiated force. Government is initiated force. It doesn't matter if we vote for government. If we all voted to have a man rape another woman would that be okay? We need to get past the inaccurate and damaging definitions we have programmed ourselves into believing. Snap out of it.

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The voting part of government is another cardinal flaw. We think voting with democracy is the best way to vote. Haven't you ever heard the saying, "put your money where your mouth is"? We use this saying because we know that what people say (vote for) is less accurate than what people really do or want (buy). What we do with our money truly shows how we really vote. We really vote with our money, not our mouths.

"The capitalist system of production is an economic democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote. The consumers are the sovereign people. The capitalists, the entrepreneurs, and the farmers are the people's mandatories. If they do not obey, if they fail to produce, at the lowest possible cost, what the consumers are asking for, they lose their office. Their task is service to the consumer. Profit and loss are the instruments by means of which the consumers keep a tight rein on all business activities."

Ludwig von Mises

Representatives have no skin in the game. You make better decisions with your own money than you do with somebody else's money. If we are better at knowing what to do with our money then why would we give it to somebody else to decide what to do with it? As Thomas Sowell says:

"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."

Thomas Sowell

We say things like actions speak louder than words, yet when it comes to society we prefer words. We would much rather vote with words than vote with dollars.

Milton Friedman mentions the 4 ways of spending money:

You can spend your money You can spend someone else's money Someone else can spend your money Someone else can spend someone else's money

We are best at spending our own money. We are careful with our own money. If it's somebody else's money we use for ourselves we are less careful. If somebody else is using our money they are even less careful. And least careful is somebody we don't know spending money from somebody that they don't know. This is how government operates. The market operates on #1. Government #4.

We assume government already solves many problems, they don't. We don't allow people to offer services that government offers, and then we assume that because government does these services in a non-competitive way that they are solving them. Examples of these industries are law, courts, police, schools, etc. That's like us saying only 1 type of guy exists for every woman, despite her individual preferences. It doesn't matter what she wants or prefers, she has to be with this one type of guy because we voted that this is the right type of guy for every woman. It doesn't matter if he abuses her, loves her, is compatible with her or anything else. If you don't have choice to all possibilities then you don't know if something really is better or worse. We do the same thing with society. We have always had government handling many of our services so we really don't know if they are doing a good job or not. And even if they were, which they most certainly are not, not everyone wants the same thing. People have preferences. People want to choose. I don't know about you but I'm tired of dating the same government over and over again. They're all the same. I'm sick of it.

Government Taxes VS The Market

Let's now take a look at how government spending would compare with spending in a free society.

United States Federal Spending 2015[1] Total Spent: $3.8 Trillion Service % Per Year Tax

(2015) Per Person Tax

(Tax / 300 million people) Per Person Market

(estimated on high side) Comments Social Security 33% $1.276 Trillion $4,253 ~$4,200 If you put away $4,200 every year after 30 years at 2% interest you will have $173,793.00 Medicare & Health 27% $1.052 Trillion $3,507 ~$3,500 Very good health insurance policy Military 16% $609.3 Billion $2,030 ~$2,000 DRO insurance policy (discussed more later in book) Interest on Debt 6% $229.2 Billion $763 $0 No bank loaned debt to pay back Veterans' Benefits 4% $160.6 Billion $537 $0 No costs here Food & Agriculture 4% $135.7 Billion $452 $0 No costs here Education 3% $102.3 Billion $341 $0 No Federal education costs Transportation 2% $85 Billion $283 $0 No Federal transportation costs Housing & Community 2% $61.5 Billion $205 $0 No costs here International Affairs 1% $50.2 Billion $167 $0 No costs here Energy & Environment 1% $44.8 Billion $149 $0 No costs here Science 1% $29.8 Billion $99 $0 No costs here Total Federal Spending $3.8 Trillion $12,786 ~$9,700 -- California State + Local Spending 2015[2] Total Spent: $486.8 Billion Service % Per Year Tax

(2015) Per Person Tax

(Tax / 39.1 million people) Per Person Market

(estimated on high side) Comments Education 22% $107.5 Billion $2,749 $0 - ~$2,500 (Optional) Only people who use this will pay for it. Health Care 21% $100.7 Billion $2,575 $0 Covered in Federal table Other Spending 13% $65.1 Billion $1,665 $0 No costs here Pensions 10% $49.3 Billion $1,261 $0 No costs here Protection 9% $45.1 Billion $1,153 $0 Covered in Federal table Transportation 9% $44 Billion $1,125 ~$1,000 Roads may or may not have fees. Probably similar to how Internet is paid for. Welfare 8% $37.5 Billion $959 $0 No costs here General Government 4% $20.5 Billion $524 $0 No costs here Interest on Debt 4% $17.1 Billion $437 $0 No costs here Total California State + Local Spending $486.8 Billion $12,448 ~$1,000 - ~$3,500 Wait a minute... so you're telling me the average person in California is paying ~$12,000 a year to a state when it could all be handled by the market with better service for ~3,500? Yes! United States Federal + California State + Local Spending 2015 Total Spent: $4.2868 Trillion Service Per Year Tax

(2015) Per Person Tax

(average person living in California) Per Person Market

(estimated on high side) Comments Total Federal + California State + Local Spending $4.2868 Trillion $25,234 $~13,200 So if we combine Federal, State and Local we get something close to $25,000 paid in taxes each year by the average person living in California. If this was all replaced with the market we would pay around $13,200 for better service. That's about 1/2 the price for much better service!

Keep in mind that these charts divide the total spending equally by each person in the population. Since out of 300 million people not everyone is paying taxes, the total amount spent per person in taxes would actually be much higher. This is estimated on the low end by dividing by 300 million people as opposed to something closer to 150 million people.

Now I know what you might be thinking: California is a bad example because taxes are way higher there. Well let's look at a few other states to see [3]:

State 2015 Spending Population Per Person Tax California $486.8 Billion 39.1 million people $12,448 Alaska $16.9 Billion 700,000 people $24,143 Arizona $53.1 Billion 6.8 million people $7,809 Florida $157.5 Billion 20.3 million people $7,759 Ohio $114.8 Billion 11.6 million people $9,897 Montana $9.6 Billion 1 million people $9,600 Nebraska $21.8 Billion 1.9 million people $11,474 Nevada $19.2 Billion 2.9 million people $6,621 New Hampshire $11.6 Billion 1.3 million people $8,923 New York $327.1 Billion 19.8 million people $15,520 North Dakota $9.6 Billion 800,000 people $12,000 Texas $235.6 Billion 27.5 million people $8,567 Virginia $78 Billion 8.4 million people $9,286 Wyoming $9.4 Billion 600,000 people $15,667

So it really doesn't change that much per state. It's all relative to the population. Per person you're spending a lot of money wherever you are.

How does the Federal government generate revenue you ask?

Federal Tax Revenue 2015[4]

Total Revenue: $3.18 Trillion

Tax Percent Revenue Individual Income Taxes 47% $1.48 Trillion Payroll Taxes 33% $1.07 Trillion Corporate Income Taxes 11% $341.7 Billion Misc. 5% $158.6 Billion Excise Taxes 3% $95.9 Billion Customs Duties 1% $36.8 Billion

If we subtract the Federal spending from the Federal revenue we get:

$3.18 Trillion - $3.8 Trillion = -$620 Billion

So the Federal government is operating at a deficit. And this isn't some outlier:

Year Revenue Spending Difference 2014 $3.0215 Trillion $3.5061 Trillion -$484.6 Billion 2013 $2.7751 Trillion $3.4547 Trillion -$679.6 Billion 2012 $2.45 Trillion $3.537 Trillion -$1.087 Trillion 2011 $2.3035 $3.6031 Trillion -$1.2996 Trillion 2010 $2.1627 Trillion $3.4571 Trillion -$1.2944 Trillion 2009 $2.105 Trillion $3.5177 Trillion -$1.4127 Trillion 2008 $2.524 Trillion $2.9825 Trillion -$458.5 Billion 2007 $2.568 Trillion $2.7287 -$160.7 Billion 2006 $2.4069 $2.6551 -$248.2 Billion

And don't think the States look any different. It's all the same thing. All governments operate the same way. They all spend more than they bring in. And they all carry a debt which has to be paid at some point. But how do they pay this debt?

The Federal government generates revenue outside of just taxes of course. There is the hidden tax called inflation. Do you wonder how those banks got bailed out in 2008? The government paid it somehow, and it wasn't through taxes. It was through inflation. Inflation is an increase in the money supply. And who controls the money supply? The Federal Reserve. So the government, through the Federal Reserve, is able to bring money into existence through inflation if they deem necessary. That's what Quantitative Easing is. That's just another name for inflation. The government is loaning currency into existence to pay for things. So the government uses much more than taxes these days to fund their operations. They bring new currency into existence for free, which lowers the value of our currency. That's government ingenuity!

The Federal government also spends more than is reported on the balance sheet. That's why the national debt is now over $19 trillion. That's also why we have over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities like Social Security and Medicare. So we have over $19 trillion in national debt and then we can throw another $100 trillion on top of that in unfunded liabilities. This is all the result of a government which we don't need.

Let me break this down for you.

The average US Citizen earns about $50,000 per year.

The average US Citizen pays around $18,000 - $35,000 in taxes per year depending on the state they live in.

This means the average US Citizen pays 36 - 70% of their income in taxes to the Federal and State governments. This is just taxes. This isn't taking into account the amount of money they lose to inflation. Don't forget about ~$120 Trillion in unfunded liabilities and national debt. This means the average US Citizen owes ~$400,000 to the government as well. So there is a lot to all this. It isn't just taxes and spending. We also have inflation, debt, and unfunded liabilities. And for what? What do the Federal and State governments have to show for all this spending? We can do better. We can do much better.

We don't have to enslave future generations with trillions of dollars of debt. This is morally unjustified. If we're upset about slavery why do we still have financial slavery? Why is it okay for us to enslave unborn children with all this debt? Who's going to pay it? Older people aren't. They'll be gone soon. But somebody is going to have to pay it, or the system is going to have to collapse. Let's just hope we have other options for society before it happens. The United States balance sheet is an immoral, violent mess. And it's not just the United States. This is how the whole world operates.

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Let's take a reverse government example. We normally take something like police and ask how the market could do that instead of government. Instead, let's take an already successful and useful market like shoes and see what would happen if we were to turn it over to the government. Right now we have many different options for shoes. We have shoes for guys and girls, we have dress shoes, work shoes, casual shoes, athletic shoes, sandals, different materials and room for new types of shoes to come about if necessary. Whatever the task at hand we have a shoe for it. If you're in hot weather we have shoes. If you're in cold weather we have shoes. If you're in snow we have shoes, if you're in sand we have shoes. It doesn't matter what type of shoe you need, the market provides it. I don't see anyone complaining about how the shoe industry needs to be reworked. There is no shortage or problem of quality shoes at a fair price. This is how markets work.

Now what if the government took over the shoe business? What if government no longer allowed businesses to create shoes and instead we got our shoes from the government? Well our choices would drastically drop. We can't all have the types of shoes we want, we would have to decide which are the best shoes for everyone. Rather than letting different people choose different types of shoes depending on their preferences, we would instead have much less shoe options. Government takes away choice.

Just as we have one type of police through government, we would only have one shoe manufacturer. We wouldn't have different shoe companies competing and creating shoes. If you didn't like the shoe company it wouldn't matter. If you wanted to get sandals and this shoe company didn't make sandals you would be out of luck. If you wanted to create your own sandals and sell them to people who wanted sandals it would be illegal. You would not be allowed to compete against the government shoe monopoly.

The shoe industry would now start to be problematic because we would have government controlling that industry through a monopoly, and we would pour more and more money into government in the hopes of fixing this industry. There would be legislation and laws passed on what types of shoes should be legal and which ones should be illegal. There would be black markets where people would try to create shoes outside of government in order to simply provide a product that people wanted for less money than the government.

People would quickly see just how bad and unnecessary the government is at providing products and services. But within a generation or two that would fade. If people never knew what the shoe industry was before the government took it over, they wouldn't know how good it used to be before government replaced it. People would forget about the days when they could just walk into a store and grab a pair of shoes without a headache. People would think to themselves, well, if government has always provided shoes then that's the way it is. People would get upset when you told them that it's possible to have shoes provided outside of the government. People would call you a bad person or a Utopian when you proposed letting the market provide the shoes. People wouldn't understand how it was possible to have the market provide shoes instead of government. People would be so used to government providing shoes that they wouldn't see any possible other way. You might see a better way, but that wouldn't matter to most people. You would have to convince them that shoes could be provided without government, and you would face an uphill challenge.

This is how it currently is with every government service. Yes, every government service, even military, even police, even courts. We will explore this more in depth in later chapters.

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It's obvious, the government is by far worse than the free market. It's like comparing rape to sex. But it's actually worse than rape. With government, everyone is raped the same way by the same person, over and over again. You're not just raped once, you're raped over and over again for the rest of your life and you have no hope of ever finding true love. The rape will only get worse and worse. Government is morally wrong because it uses force. Markets do not use force. Again, remember, we established these core principles as basic foundational systems to build upon and that is exactly what we are doing. Government can't be built upon universal foundational principles because government is not universal. Rape is not universal. Government is for less civilized beings. Markets are for the rational, moral and civilized.

Government doesn't allow for freedom by acting as a referee. The government isn't some referee operating outside of the system. The government is an active team player with a team uniform on. The government is involved in choosing winners and losers in almost every industry. The government forces you to use their money, forces you to use certain industries like wind and solar, forces you from using certain drugs and so on. The government keeps you from having choice from the services you want to use and it financially incentivizes services that it chooses will get the funds. This is not the behavior of a referee.

So here is a quick recap:

Government initiates violence Government takes away choice and freedom Government is more expensive and lower quality than markets

This is why there is no reason for government in a civilized society. I'm not saying we shouldn't have government. I'm saying the people who don't want government because they understand it as being outdated technology should work on creating a society without it. A lot of people like government and are happy with their governments, and that's fine, let them be. Some women are happy being beaten by their husbands. Some people learn the hard way. But some people get it and understand that markets are more civilized than government.

Intelligence and Self-Responsibility

We have to be somewhat intelligent and responsible for a free society to work. We don't have to be perfect, but we can't be stupid either. Monkeys in a free society wouldn't work as well as humans in a free society. A free society requires that people are individuals who are responsible for their actions. If people would rather not be responsible for their actions and would rather act as a group as opposed to an individual then we will continue to have governments which use force. Honest, intelligent people are going to form a better society than dishonest, stupid people. But the good news is that it's usually honest, intelligent people who want a free society.

If you look at the various civilizations throughout the world you will immediately notice certain patterns relating to IQ. The people in places we generally call more civilized like the 1st world have higher IQs than places we call less civilized, like the 3rd world. America and European countries have higher IQs than South American countries and Africa. Yes, of course IQ isn't the only measure of what makes a society civilized and of course there is much more to it. But this is still hinting at a foundational realization. People that are smarter create better societies. People that are smarter are less violent, we know this factually [5]. The violent sweet spot in IQ is 85. People with an IQ of 85 are the most likely to be violent. The average IQ is 100, so 85 is a below average IQ and it is the IQ of people who are more likely to be violent.

If you were to set up the framework for a free society and populate it with people of lower IQ it would not work. A free society requires certain levels of responsibility and understanding which less intelligent people are less likely to possess. I'm by no means saying that intelligent people are better than less intelligent people. I'm saying that they have different preferences. Most people who are interested in a free society are generally people with higher IQs than the average IQ. This makes perfect sense. Smart people want more freedom. Freedom is what allows smart people to grow and express themselves. So we have to at least acknowledge this to be able to somewhat wrap our head around what it takes for a free society. Even within a democracy, intelligent people will create a better democracy than less intelligent people.

So obviously the people in a society are important, but the system is also important. Certain systems allow people to either grow or not grow. It's like a family. Some children can survive under extreme family circumstances with violence and fear, but most will struggle. We are better off in a family with a more conducive framework for children to grow. The same can be said about society. Societies that allow for more choice and less violence will allow for higher quality individuals than societies which restrict choice and enforce violence.

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For a long time we have thought we had to convince everyone to be on the same page in order to create a new society. I don't think we do. I think the people who want a free society can come together to create it for themselves. The people who don't want a free society can stay with what they have. We don't need to convince everyone. All we need to do is find those that want it and work together to bring it about.

Not everyone may want a free society. Some favor security, others freedom. Let people have their choice. You have your government, we have ours. Not everyone is for a free society, that's okay, the people that are can work towards it. People who want governments can keep governments. It shouldn't matter to them if people who no longer desire government want to create their own society. Yeah, some people might get mad if a woman leaves her husband who beats her. So? They might try to hold her back and tell her that that's true love. They might tell her that all women get beat and it's okay. This is sometimes how people react when you choose to leave a less favorable situation for a more favorable situation.

If somebody moves to another country people don't care. So they also shouldn't care if they move to start their own society. The fact that some people will care if you want to move and live somewhere else should show just how controlling the system already is. Why should you care where I non-violently want to live? Why should you want to control how I live? Why should you want to violently keep me from living non-violently?

Most people think government is a necessary evil. But if we learn that government isn't necessary then all we're left with is evil. People don't think there is a better way the same way anybody who is less wise in any category doesn't have the same vision as someone who is more wise.

This is all my suggestion. I can't possibly have it all right. But we should at least be thinking in this direction. Now that we know the reasoning behind a free society, let's look at a plan of action.

"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else"

Frederic Bastiat

Chapter 3 Sources:

Chapter 4 Challenges

Now that we have discussed the important foundational parts of a free society we can now get into the more technical how-to aspect. There are obvious challenges towards creating a free society. Here are the 3 big ones:

Location - where do we do it? Financing - how do we pay for it? Defense - how do we keep somebody from taking it over, destroying it or preventing it?

Location

There are a few different options for location:

We can change existing governments We can get land somehow We can seastead We can go underground We can go off-planet

I'm sure there are some other options as well. Let's explore some of these options. Some of these sound crazy. Some of these are more realistic than others.

Off-planet is super expensive and just too hardcore for right now. I don't think we would ever get anywhere with that without first doing a free society on this planet first. If we don't know how to make a free society work on this planet what makes us think we can make it work on another planet? So I would rule off-planet out immediately.

Going underground isn't much different than using above ground land and since there is still tons of above ground land that isn't used that sounds way better to me. So I would also cross underground off the list right now.

Seasteading seems difficult because it makes resources trickier and makes you much more dependent on importing resources and isolating yourself. The main advantage to seasteading is that there may be some ways to get around restricting laws of nations and it may be a bit easier to act outside of existing government restrictions. But overall seasteading just seems too costly and unrealistic. It's way too hard to scale seasteading. Seasteading relies on you coming up with loads of money just to stay "afloat" as opposed to coming up with a smarter way to work with existing land and governments. While more realistic than off-planet or underground, I still think there are more favorable ways for a free society than seasteading. Again, I like the idea of finding the right way to use what we have rather than running away from what we have and ignoring it. Why do a costly solution from the start if we don't need to?

Land makes the most sense to me. I don't think the focus should be about trying to get around the existing framework. I think the focus should be finding how to convince certain countries or groups of power within the existing framework to shift their focus towards a free society approach. That seems more realistic and sustainable to me. Doing some quick little seasteading operation or some little isolated experiment in some remote island, while better than nothing, seems like a short term fix rather than a long term fix. I think we need to focus on a bigger picture than these small little one time things. I think we need to work on a system that re-works the way we use land within countries who are interesting in doing so.

The thing about this concept is all options are open and if people want to try them they should. It's hard to know with complete accuracy the right way to do any business ahead of time. But my take is the land approach so my energy will be spent exploring that.

All land is