What Is Voluntaryism?

• You own your body. Your body is yours. 

• This is nature’s design. Nobody can operate your body more directly than you: think your thoughts, speak your words, blink your eyes, move your muscles. 

• No other individual has a higher claim to your body than you. Not police, not politicians, not presidents, kings, rulers, friends or family. 

• It is always wrong to use violence to force a non-violent person to do something they do not freely consent to.

• If someone tries to force you in this way, it is 100% okay to defend your body, which is your property.

• In order to avoid unnecessary arguments, all conceptions of property must extend from the body, e.g. "I own my body, so I also own the property I make or acquire with it in non-violence." Nobody can own something just by making an empty claim as governments do.

• The above list is the way of Voluntaryism, and of Natural Law. 

What is Statism?

• Statism is the common belief that it is okay for governments to own the bodies of other people. This is wrong. Governments are just groups of people, themselves.

• Even if someone is non-violent, individuals in government use violence to force them to do things: pay taxes, go to war, ask permission to travel, etc. 

• Instead of a sensible rule of property based on concrete reality (self-ownership), governments make ridiculous claims, e.g. “We own all this land!” “Marijuana is illegal and we will put you in a cage if you have it!” “You must pay taxes or we will take your house!” Individuals in government claim to own your body, just by mere say so.

• Statism always creates problems because there is no universal rule of property. Police, politicians, and government officials live by a privileged set of rules, and the “commoners,” another. This is not in line with reality, and creates chaos. 

• There is a way to have order in societies without government. With groups of private property owners building their communities on policies extending from self-ownership, and not a violent myth. Instead of receiving payment from taxes even if they provide poor or abusive "service" like government institutions such as police often do, the market would hold competing private services accountable, the same way a pizza shop now would go out of business if they served poisoned food. There is a way to have humanity's great technology, useful institutions, arbiters for justice, and private protection agencies, all based on self-ownership, and not the religion of “statism” or government. This way is called “Voluntaryism.”