This is the first chapter of a series I plan to write which will overlap into many of the categories on this site. The Omnique Way, is going to outline my political, social and philisophical views, including topics like The Ablen Society, the Om'ara Programme, Librecratic political theory, and the Omnique Protocol. In this first chapter, we look at the idea of Voluntary Society, and how such a society would work.
Librecratic > Libertarian > *
I have been known to describe my political views as either Libertarian or Librecratic. While the first term is a well known political philosophy, the second is a made up term to describe my own rather radical version of Libertarianism. I still consider myself a Libertarian, and am a card carrying member of the Libertarian Party of Canada. I am also known to support groups and people like The Advocates and Marc Emery. However, my particular version of Libertarian thought may conflict with many of the standard variations therein, and so I have come to classify it as the Librecratic movement, which is a subset in its own right. The rest of this article will be from the point of view of the Librecratic movement.
Transitional Political & Economic Systems
Now, before I continue with this, I must explain a key aspect of my Librecratic movement. There is no way to jump directly from a current existing political system into a pure Libertarian or Librecratic system. Period. Any of the hardcore Libertarians who think that we can do a next-day switchover, are self-deluded. The same goes for implementing any radical political ideology. I know, there have been countries that went and switched to Communism without a trasitionary period, but they didn't exactly do it without a period of chaos and bloodshed, now did they?
No, the best way to bring about change, is to do it in a gradual transition. I would say that such a transition may take many years to fully implement properly, but that by doing it in graduated stages, it will make the trasition a lot smoother and will help avoid the chaos of a sudden change.
So, with that out of the way, what I will be describing below, is an end-point, which would take several years to arrive at after moving to a trasitionary Librcratic political and economic system.
Service Delivery in a Libertarian Society
Two of the Foundational principles of Libertarianism are those of Non-Aggression and Consensual Contract. Basically, in a nutshell, "Do not force me to do something I don't want to, just because I happen to live in a certain location."
What does this mean in practical terms? Well, right now, if you live in a city, it is mandatory that you pay city taxes, and for those taxes, you get certain services delivered. It is not optional, and you cannot choose your own service delivery company. Often the red tape surrounding this is utterly ridiculus. For instance, if your taxes pay for the people who perform snow removal services, you are paying for that service, even if your particular road is not covered by them. Even worse, if you buy the equipment to do it yourself, and get others on your road to chip in, you could be sued by the contracted company or the union covering the employees of said company (even if they don't plow your road, I know, it's bullshit, isn't it?)
In a purely Libertarian society, by most people's ideas, there would be countless service companies to provide any given service, and every single household would have to independantly chose a given provider. Which is all fine and dandy, but is it really practical in every situation?
That is where Librecratic philosophy provides a concept to cover many similar situations: Voluntary Society.
Opt-in Social Services
Say in a certain neighborhood, nobody can afford the prices being charged by any of the snow removal companies in town. How are they do deal with this problem? Well, say out of the 24 houses in this neighborhood, 20 of them were to chip in a specific amount of money, together they buy a snow plow, and take turns operating it. The snow-plow does not belong to any particular person, but instead is a communal piece of property.
Woah! Hold on there you say, isn't that communism? Well, maybe it is. But it's a tiny embedded communist neighborhood, existing inside an overall Libertarian state. Now, the biggest difference between this, and outright communism is this: The 4 households who didn't chip in, aren't going to be forced to. They don't have to pay, nor do they have to take turns plowing. While the other 20 houses may get extra perks, like plowed driveways and cleaned out plow-strips, that courtesy won't be extended to the other 4 houses. Yes, they are still benefiting from the plowed road, but their own driveway will have large plow-strips blocking it after the plow has gone by, and they will have to shovel out their own driveways.
So, what - you say, is the point of this exercise?
That comes when you take this beyond the snow removal example. Every service can be delivered using that same voluntary opt-in model. Some will be done in small neighborhood-sized groups like the snow removal one, while other services may be offered on a city-wide, region-wide, or even nation-wide basis, depending on the scope of the service offering.
But how will it work if it's voluntary? That's the big question isn't it. Isn't the only reason that our current social programs work, that we are all forced to pay for them, whether we use them or not?
I say no. It may seem that way, but it's not founded in reality. The reality is, there is a wider majority of people who will opt-in to services, if for the ease of selection and delivery, than those who will opt-out. I know, the cynics are all claiming that it will all fall apart, and those lazy/greedy/arrogant/ignorant bastards who aren't contributing to the programmes, should be forced to. But that's exactly what we are doing now-a-days. That's exactly what the entire Librecratic movement is trying to get away from. We want to move to a society where people choose to be a participant, and so-in can also choose otherwise.
Voluntary Society: Foundation or End-Point?
So, does the idea of a voluntary society have to be implemented before we can bring in the other elements of a Librecratic society, or is it something that will naturally emerge as society evolves in a Librecratic transition? I honestly think the latter is the way forward. While some may want to jump in head first, I think we should start by getting our feet wet with other, simpler elements of the Librecratic movement, and slowly work towards a voluntary society. It's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take a strong plan to make such a society a reality, and a strong plan needs a strong organization to back it. Until such an organization exists, this is just a pipe dream. Give it time though, as with all good ideas, it will see it's day.
So, I hope you have found this first entry in the The Omnique Way entertaining, if not educational, and whether or not you agree with my ideas, I hope you continue to seek out knowledge and alternative points of view. Remember, I'm not forcing these ideas on you, they are completely voluntary.