A Beginner’s Guide to Voluntaryism, Part 3: The Non-Aggression Principle and Social Order

(See the video post here)

Part 3: The Non-Aggression Principle and Social Order

Taxation is just one form of violence. Of course, there are virtually endless other forms. In the Voluntaryist philosophy violence is defined as aggressing against the self-ownership of another human being. This could be physically attacking their body, breaking into their home, or stealing their property. Every violation is a form of theft. When someone punches your face in aggression (and not in an instance of self-defense) they are infringing on your private bodily autonomy and your body’s “borders,” as it were, stealing your well-being and health in that moment. The “NAP,” or Non-Aggression Principle, is the foundational guiding principle of Voluntaryism stemming directly from the self-ownership axiom: If everyone owns themselves, then aggressing against anyone’s self-ownership is illogical, wrong, counterproductive, and grounds for self-defensive action. If one disagrees with this, then one must logically be willing to surrender their own self-ownership and become a punching bag and slave for everyone else.

Many will falsely conflate bodily autonomy and property rights with statism and modern government to draw shoddy comparisons between illegal immigration and violent aggression. But this comparison doesn’t hold water. Nature and objective reality attest that my body is mine. Its borders are clearly defined and easy to understand. Nobody can operate my body more directly than me, and nobody can think my thoughts for me. Since I was born, I have been driving this “machine” and home called my body, as per biology’s natural order. Similarly, when I use this body of mine to homestead some land and build a house, I am easily recognized as the owner of said property. In contrast, a state “border” is one or more men making an arbitrary claim that they own a vast stretch of land they have not mixed their body’s labor with, for no reason other than because they say so. This nonfunctional system of property engenders confusion, and always potentiates violence, as once group of people assigns themselves greater property rights than everyone else for no logical reason. And then uses brute violence to enforce said false property rights.

The NAP is very easy to understand, and almost everyone already lives by it in their daily lives. This, even when there is no police or government presence around. Why? Because the non-aggression principle is the logical way to live for individuals that value peace and success in life, and the well-being of humanity in general, over violent conflict, chaos, and strife. The following examples may sound strange at first, just because so few people consider these things as they almost go without saying, but to illustrate this point, let’s run some more thought experiments:

1. When you go to your local barber and ask for a shave, or your local salon and ask for the latest hairstyle, are you typically worried they will go berserk and murder you? Why not? There is no police presence in the room, and this person, often a complete and total stranger, is holding razorblades at your throat and scissors at your head, while you sit stationary, almost completely vulnerable should they decide to attack you. Even in extremely remote locations outside of big cities, people willingly trust these professionals. If government’s myth about people being untrustworthy, and the government being a necessity for our safety holds any water, why would anyone do this? These people could kill you and steal your money! And in some instances, like in the extremely remote settings, they could get away without being caught by the law! 
2. If you’ve never seen time-lapse videos of the masses and masses of ships and boats, large and small, coming into and going out of the Port of Amsterdam, I recommend searching it right now and watching. Similarly, busy intersections with no traffic lights in metropolitan areas like Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. When observing these miracles of human awareness and agency, ask yourself: are these ships not crashing into each other because they fear government repercussions or punishment? Are these motorists and moped riders and truckers not colliding with one another because of fear they will go to jail? Or is it out of self-preservation and a desire to succeed in life and the social realm?
3. Finally, imagine you are a kidnapper. You are a scumbag low-life who preys on children. Of the following two societies, which would you be more likely to choose as a setting in which to commit your crimes: A tight-knit, well-armed community of private property owners who know and respect and watch out for one another, but with no statist police presence, or an atomized, cell-phone-staring community of complete strangers who blindly rely on a massive, slow-moving bureaucratic state to protect them? 

Hopefully the above examples shed some light on how most of us, members of sane human society, already live by the NAP. Why? Because we want to succeed and live our lives peacefully, engaging in conflict only when absolutely necessary. Violence and physical conflict always have a cost. We do not seek out conflict. Further, we recognize that the success of those in our communities often flows back to us, in a beautiful and natural give and take, where free trade and a free economy affords everyone at least a fighting chance to thrive and prosper. Contrast this with the modus operandi of governments. Modern nation states not only engage in aggressive, violent conflict, but their entire existence is objectively predicated on this violence. The very foundation of statism is mass, systematized violence against the non-violent individual. Taxes, war, licensing rackets, kidnapping, punishment for non-violent “crimes” such as smoking a leaf or selling raw milk or starting a business without their approval. To be sure, the reason so many politicians seem crazy and so far-removed from being human is because they are. It is not the masses of relatively sane individuals that make up most of the world’s population who flock to political roles and positions of government power. No, it is only the sickest among humanity, the most sociopathic and psychopathic who do so. Renowned fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien, drives this point home with an illuminating quote from one of his letters to his son, saying: 

“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … The most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”

So, to sum up this chapter, the Non-Agression Principle, or NAP, simply means it is always wrong to aggress against another non-violent individual. This includes euphemisms for murder such as “collateral damage” in war. If such collateral damage is deemed necessary by someone, that someone must logically then be willing to be made into “collateral damage” themselves at any time. Themselves and their families. If they do not assent to this, they are found to be in a logical contradiction: wanting their own lives and property and bodies to be protected, but not those of others. A truly sociopathic position.