excerpted from: Whole Number 17 - August 1985

Living Slavery and All That

Raymond Cyrus (R.C.) Hoiles (1878-1970) was founder of the Freedom Newspaper chain. For more than 35 years, in conversations, columns, and editorials, he stated his belief that human beings can enjoy happier and more prosperous lives where force and threats are absent from human relations. He was an able exponent of voluntaryism, as the following column illustrates. One of his pet themes was the separation of State and education. For many years, he had a standing offer of $500 for any school superintendent in areas where his papers were published. He challenged public school officials to explain to him how State schools accorded with the Golden rule. He was never seriously taken up on his offer. Hoiles also opposed the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. He began as a printer's devil and acquired 20 newspapers by the time he had died. He presented a rare mixture of worldly practicality and principle, which marked him as a philosophical businessman. "A man should be free to make his own decisions," he used to say, "and learn from his mistakes and to profit when his choice is wise and correct." The following article first appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph of February 6th, 1959. it is offered to our readers in the spirit of recognizing one of the unsung seroes of the 20th Century libertarian movement.

by R.C. Hoiles

In a talk before the Exchange Club of Santa Ana on voluntaryism, I used the subject voluntaryism rather than libertarianism because I do not believe there is as much confusion about voluntaryism as there is about libertarianism. Libertarianism has become distorted to mean liberalism of other people's money.

My contention was that I believed in unlimited voluntary exchanges. Some of the points I tried to emphasize were that voluntaryism really meant that one should get what he gets by benefitting those from who he gets it, that in voluntaryism not only both parties were benefited but everyone else in the world was bendfited; that voluntaryism was, in reality, nothing but a free and unhampered market; that to the extent voluntaryism was practiced, every individual got all he produced, and the only fair way of measuring what each and every person produced was to have jobs interchangeable so that any person who thought he was getting too little and someone was getting too much would have not only the right, but it was his duty, to render a better service for the same money or the same service for less money, and thus benefit both parties to an exchange. Not only would both parties be benefited, but everybody else in the world would be benefited because each of the parties would be better able to benefit those with whom they exchanged.

I further tried to emphasize that voluntaryism meant that in creating wealth and exchanging it, both parties were benefited - that it was not like war or gambling or fraud where one man benefited and another man lost.

It was my contention that most people believed in voluntaryism as individuals but few people believed in voluntaryism in groups; that most people seemed to think it was al right to do things collectively, like getting a service on an involuntary basis when they would not think of trying to do it as an individual.

I pointed out that the two things that people seemed to believe were virtuous if done by a group but vicious if done by an individual were labor unions and government; that they seemed to believe that it was all right for government to initiate force to take from one to benefit another, but they could see that it was harmful and vicious and wicked for an individual to initiate force to take from one to give to another; that the government had passed laws that gave labor unions monopolies and the right to do things that would be a crime if done by other people; that this form of involuntaryism caused governments to grow and expand and eventually get so tyrannical that people overthrew them; that I could think of no way of keeping government down other than having it supported on a voluntary basis; that government would cost very little - maybe only 2 per cent or 3 per cent of the national income - if it was limited to only trying to stop people from practicing involuntaryism in getting things.

It was my contention that voluntaryism was in the minds of the framers of the Declaration of Independence when they wrote that the governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; that that meant exactly what it said and that if a man did not believe that everybody's life and property should be protected, he should not be forced to support the government, because if he was forced to pay taxes to support the government, in order to be fair he should have the right to vote. And then he would vote to take from one to give to another and there would be no limit to the growth of government; that governments in the United States used to take about 2 per cent or 3 per cent of total production and now they are taking around 33 per cent of what was produced - all because the majority of people believe that groups have a right to do things that they would hesitate to do as individuals.

Since I do not believe very much in speeches where the speaker is protected from questions, I allowed about one-half the time for questions.

Of course, one of the questions usually asked is how you would raise the money to defend this country from a national standpoint. It was my contention that if the government were operated on a voluntary basis where they had no power to interfere with people freely exchanging goods and services throughout the world - that is, where we had no protective tariffs and immigration quotas - we wouldn't be in these wars and wouldn't need all this wealth for protection. It is the government practicing involuntaryism against the people of other governments that leads to war.

One man asked how the Civil War would have been handled. My answer was that if we had not had protective tariffs it is doubtful whether the South would even have wanted to secede, and if they had wanted to secede, they should have been permitted to secede if we followed the ideologies as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; that the North should have had such a good government that people wanted to belong to the government.

Another party observed that he had a visitor from India and that their wages were so low that if we permitted our workers to exchange with them our wages would become low. He wanted to know how voluntaryism would prevent such a catastrophe coming to the American people. My answer to that was that I spent three hours one day on a train with a student from China who was going to school in New York; that he contended the Chinese could not compete with the people in the United States because the people in the U.S. had such efficient tools that they could undersell the Chinese people. The people in the United States contend that they cannot compete with the people of China and India and other countries because their wages are so low.

Then I tried to explain that the wages there were so low because they did not have the tools and therefore each worker produced very little and could not be paid more than what the worker produced; that each man must produce his own wages. It was my contention, of course, that our standard of living would be a lot higher if we more nearly practiced voluntaryism on a free and unhampered market.

The members of the Exchange Club are performing a service because their ideology is that exchange of ideas is beneficial to everybody. And that is true because ideas come before things are created and exchanged. Anything that enlightens mankind is beneficial to everyone.

Yes, I am for unlimited voluntary exchanges.

by Alan P. Koontz

In various forums, at least since the birth of the LP, Murray Rothbard has invoked what he calls the "slavery analogy," to point up the morality of political voting. The question is: Does the slavery analogy really help in this way?

To begin with, Rothbard's slavery analogy illustrates the nature of the State. The condition of the slaves relative to their master is more or less the same as that of the subjects to the State. The master, by either directly or indirectly (through a foreman) exceeding his natural rights, denies his slaves' natural rights, just as the State denies the natural rights of its subjects by its very existence.

The condition of the slaves is thus a given before the question of "voting rights" arises. Their condition indicates that they have a ruler regardless of whether or not the slaves can vote. The same is true of the subjects of the State. Suppose, then, that the slaves are granted a choice of, say, two foremen by the master. The slaves may cast ballots to decide which foreman will execute rule over the slaves. The foreman who receives the most votes will be the choice of all the slaves. Presumably, the slaves will each choose what he or she thinks is the lesser of the two evils. The situation of the slave thus becomes analogous to that of the subject who has been granted the "right to vote" for his ruler. In light of this slavery analogy, Rothbard asks: What is immoral about choosing the lesser of two evils, if that is the only choice one has under the circumstances?

To answer his question: First of all, the choice is one which affects the lives of others besides the chooser. Using the slave analogy, the vote of each slave isn't just a choice of which foreman will rule that slave, but is a choice of who will rule all of the slaves. Thus each slave that votes is acting in the capacity of the master respecting his slaves. To vote for a foreman is to take part in the process of other people's enslavement. It should be clear, at least to Rothbard, that by voting, the slave in respect to his peers is going as far beyond his or her natural rights as the master (or the foreman) does respecting his or her slaves.

Moreover, the possibility certainly exists in the slavery analogy that not all the slaves may be in agreement as to which of the two foremen is the lesser of the two evils. Most importantly, some or all of the slaves may decide that the lesser of the two evils is still evil and on this basis refuse to vote. In either case, the immorality of voting is quite obvious.

It is also obvious that assuming one only has the choice of the lesser or greater of the two evils in the slavery analogy is begging the question. As Frank Chodorov once asked, in this regard: "Under what compulsion are we to make such a choice? Why not pass up both of them?" Indeed there is nothing in the slavery analogy that says the slaves must choose one or the other of the two foremen. By making such a choice the slaves are merely doing yet another thing that the master wants them to do. Instead of choosing either foremen, one or more of the slaves may choose neither. This third choice, also open to the slaves, is a moral one for it doesn't affect coercion toward others unlike voting.

Furthermore, the refusal to vote is a first step toward restoring individual sovereignty. If the slave does what the master wants him or her to do he or she will surely remain a slave. (The master, for example, wouldn't give his or her slaves the "right to vote" if the slaves could thereby become free.) By refusing to vote the slave is not doing what the master wants him or her to do. If most of the slaves refused to vote the master would have to choose the foreman for them. However, the master (and foreman) would then be up against a group that has refused to barter his or her individual sovereignty for the lesser of the two evils the master had originally offered; let alone give it up for nothing. And so would it be for the State that failed to get barely any of its subjects to participate in the electoral process.

In short, the answer to the opening question is: No, on the contrary.