Nonviolent Action and Non-cooperation
The Voluntaryist, a publication founded in 1982, promotes a libertarian form of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience they call voluntaryism. Its statement of purpose reads: “Voluntaryists are advocates of non-political, non-violent strategies to achieve a free society. We reject electoral politics, in theory and in practice, as incompatible with libertarian principles. Governments must cloak their actions in an aura of moral legitimacy in order to sustain their power, and political methods invariably strengthen that legitimacy. Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends.”
Otto Guevara of Movimiento Libertario told Reason that the "revolutionaries of the 60s and 70s were all socialists. Now the natural impulse of youth to rebel is being channeled against the socialist establishment." He used as examples young people engaging in acts of "self-ownership" like tattooing and piercing, sexual liberty, the freedom to use drugs, as these are all areas where our position is appealing to the young. He described supporting one form of rebellion: "a huge, subterranean informal economy that's opposed by the larger, established companies...'el diputado pirata.' Someone wants to import and sell a used car... we said, 'what's the problem?' Used clothing, used shoes, these are big markets, and we thought it was absurd that there should be legal obstacles to people trading in these things."
John T. Kennedy promoted the libertarian/anarchist technique economic secession, for example, replacing use of fiat money with barter or commodity money, refusing to submit to government regulations and licensing and avoiding taxation. Sam Konkin created the similar term counter-economics. Survivalist-libertarian author Claire Wolfe writes about economic and political freedom and withdrawing from state control in her Backwoods Home Magazine column and her books, starting with 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution: Ideas and Resources for Self-Liberation, Monkey Wrenching and Preparedness.
In the novel The Diamond Age, speculative fiction author Neal Stephenson imagines a sudden fall of nation-states brought about by a rapid rise in popularity of cryptocurrencies similar to Bitcoin. Governments are unable to track transactions and income in this scenario and collapse when faced with severely reduced revenues.
Libertarians support the right of individuals, communities, states and regions to secede from larger entities. Libertarian professor Walter Block writes: "Those who are not free to secede are in effect (partial) slaves to a king, or to a tyrannous majority under democracy. Nor is secession to be confused with the mere right to emigrate, even when one is allowed to take one’s property out of the country. Secession means the right to stay put, on one’s own property, and either to shift alliance to another political entity, or to set up shop as a sovereign on one’s own account."
Many anarcho-capitalists of the Free State Project support non-violent revolution.
Read more about this topic: Libertarian Perspectives On Revolution, Methods
Famous quotes containing the words nonviolent and/or action:
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“Therefore all just persons are satisfied with their own praise. They refuse to explain themselves, and are content that new actions should do them that office. They believe that we communicate without speech, and above speech, and that no right action of ours is quite unaffecting to our friends, at whatever distance; for the influence of action is not to be measured by miles.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)